Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

The song is about the farmers' market, but the performance was on a radio
show: West Coast Live.

I "finished" the song at around midnight Friday, and the performance on the
radio show went very well.

 "Bounty of the County" only: http://www.dgans.com/audio/bounty.070915.mp3
 The whole West Coast Live segment: http://www.dgans.com/audio/DG-WCL_070915.mp3

It feels very Goodmanish to me - fun, personal and universal at the same
time, warm, sweet.

My wife gets co-writer credit because she's the one who had all the real
knowledge of what produce happens at what time of the year.


The Bounty of the County
by David Gans and Rita Hurault
Copyright 2007 Whispering Hallelujah (BMI)


I can't live the way I did
When I was an immortal kid
The things that I ingested were a crime.
All that sugar, starch, and lard
Were makin' my aorta hard
And I'd prefer to live a long, long time

So on market day in our home town
We rise and shine and head on down
Where the families and the farmers meet and thrive
Because we're taking nature's course
We get it fresh right from the source
Where the bounty of the county comes alive

We'll get yellow finn potatoes
And some fat heirloom tomatoes
I think the ones that look the weirdest taste the best
I'll buy fish while you go
Look for English peas for Hugo
And then we'll shop together for the rest

'Cause on market day in our home town
We rise and shine and head on down
Where the families and the farmers meet and thrive
Because we're taking nature's course
We get it fresh right from the source
Where the bounty of the county comes alive

Nature has her reasons
So we'll eat our foods in season
And I'm gonna be more vocal
'Bout thinking global, eating local

Peaches are all done, by gosh
But soon we'll have Kabocha squash
And the leeks and yams are lookin' mighty good
Now darlin' don't be bummin'
You know those figs are comin'
And honey from the bees in the hood

Cherries won't be back til June
But pomegranates are comin' soon
Winter greens are sweeter when it's cold
We keep our diet balanced
Because modern life's a challenge
But its many pleasures can't be oversold

So on market day in our home town
We rise and shine and head on down
Where the families and the farmers meet and thrive
Because we're taking nature's course
We get it fresh right from the source
Where the bounty of the county comes alive
  

    

Now, on to more serious matters.  We need to talk about Steve Goodman's
leukemia.  He was diagnosed at a very young age and not expected to survive
mroe than a couple of years, but he defied the odds and covered a lot of
ground before it finally got the best of him.
  

    
Nice song, David. The specifics are indeed Goodmanlike, and I like
your assessment: "fun, personal and universal at the same
time, warm, sweet." The rhyme of "balanced" and "challenge" is
inspired, sort of like "ruined" and "lagoon" in "Lincoln Park Pirates."

And yes, to answer a previous question, Jef Jaisun did play his
"Flying with the Angels" Goodman tribute song at my reading/music event
yesterday in West Seattle. It was a gentle version, tailored to the
sparse audience. To lighten things back up afterward, Jef threw in a
verse and chorus of "Men Who Love Women Who Love Men." Jef seems born
to the stage, like Steve.

Leukemia.

The diagnosis came as a thud to 20-year-old Steve in late 1968.
Imagine being told you have an incurable disease at that age. No one
would give him a simplistic, made-for-TV prognosis of how long he had
to live, but it was no mystery that his remaining time was short.
Effective leukemia treatment was in its infancy, and Steve was a mere
guinea pig.

"We were just beginning to crack acute leukemia," one of Steve’s
oncologists at NYC's Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Dr. Monroe Dowling,
told me. "Most of the people with leukemia were going to be dead in
six months. We didn’t have cures, and we were just beginning to really
understand it. We had a lot of drugs that we could do things with, but
we didn’t know necessarily the best way to use them, so we were
learning about that. It was essentially a disease in which you did
experimental work."

No question, the diagnosis shook Steve to his core. Burning with
musical fire, he quit college and, between intense and unsavory
treatment at Sloan-Kettering, plunged headlong into performing and his
first serious songwriting.

Who knows whether we would have "City of New Orleans" and many other
classic Goodman songs today if not for the leukemia diagnosis? There is
no way to answer the what-if questions definitively. There are only
indications. Surely, Steve was a driven persona long before his
diagnosis, and there is ample evidence of his love of music in his
high-school and grade-school years. But if he had not been diagnosed
with leukemia, would music have become -- as his father, Bud, put it --
Steve's vocation instead of his avocation? Who can say?

The fact is that Steve lived life as fully as possible after his
diagnosis. "I figured I was a time bomb," he later told one journalist.
Many believe that music was the life force that enabled Steve to
survive far longer post-diagnosis (15-plus years) than others with the
same diagnosis.

It's also plausible that Steve's songs were all the more effective and
affecting because he had death on his shoulder. Mortality oozed from
his compositions -- not in a cold or bleak manner but with an endearing
cleverness and charm.

Certainly, "City of New Orleans" is a metaphor for the death of things
both inanimate and living.

The theme is inescapable in his other songs as well:

"The I Don’t Know Where I’m Goin’ but I’m Goin’ Nowhere in a Hurry
Blues" is an obvious hint.

In "Somebody Else’s Troubles", Goodman depicted an eager undertaker.

An extended traveling-salesman joke bore a mordant punch line and
title: "Death of a Salesman."

The sly advice of "Between the Lines" referenced a death certificate.

"The Twentieth Century Is Almost Over" noted the impatient toe tapping
of Old Father Time and presaged the end of an era.

"Video Tape" danced around the Grim Reaper.

"My Old Man" achingly recounted his father’s early demise.

The sport in which "hope springs eternal" was the backdrop for the
most blatant of his musical obituaries, "A Dying Cub Fan's Last
Request."

And the title of "The One That Got Away" said it all.

Though these and many other references may have been clues to his
disease, Steve's intention was anything but overt. He kept his leukemia
a secret as long as he could, wanting to be known for his craft and
not as "the sick guy."

When his leukemia relapsed in mid-1982, he missed a couple of
prominent New York bookings and was outed, so to speak. For the next
couple of years, until his death in September 1984, Steve fielded
questions about his disease with a mix of facts and gallows humor.

"There’s a lot of misplaced hysteria about cancer," he told the
Philadelphia Daily News. "Did you know that one out of four people in
this country have some kind of oncological experience, even if it’s
just getting a small piece of skin removed? If you’re in a room with
three other people and none of them has cancer, maybe it’s time for you
to go see the doctor."

Pressed by the Nashville Tennessean on whether his leukemia had given
him spiritual insight, Steve said:

"I come from a Jewish family, and my wife’s dad is a preacher. We’ve
evolved our own non-secular way of dealing with eternity. Look, we all
face the same odds. You run the same chance I do. You could be run over
crossing the street this afternoon. ... All this is just a reminder
that we only have so long here. It just means be productive while you
can."

Which brings us back to the last song on the last LP that Steve put
together before he died, "You Better Get It While You Can."
  

    

With I read the word "Vincristine" in the book, my blood curdled a bit.  My
wife is one of those who benefited from the research that Steve was part of:
vincristine was one of the chemicals in the CHOP-R treatment she received for
lymphoma a few years back.  Her treatment was successful, in the sense that
more than three years after it ended, she has no sign of the disease.

I interviewed Steve (by phone) after a bone marrow transplant - was it from
his brother?
  

    
David, I think the interview you are referring to was Jan. 16, 1984.
At least, that's the date of the transcript, and that's the latest
transcript I have from you. This was six months before Steve's
transplant in late August, and nothing in the transcript refers to the
impending transplant, although Goodman knew that was his likely fate at
the time.

Yes, the marrow for Steve's transplant came from his brother, David.
Marrow donated by a close relative is more likely to be a good match
for the recipient.

It wasn't the transplant that killed Steve, however. It was
complications that developed in his kidneys and liver. The transplant
was a last-ditch hope, but it was a very slim hope.

You are both right and kind to place Steve's 15-1/2-year cancer
treatment in context. Anybody who undergoes experimental procedures is
not just trying to help himself or herself. It's an aid to future
patients whose survival may turn on what is learned by such research.
It's the ultimate human generosity.
  

    

I wasn't suggesting that the transplant killed him!

Steve's situation was public knowledge as of the 1983 release of "Artistic
Hair."  That was also the first release n Godman's own label, Red Pajamas.
That was a pretty novel move in those days, wasn't it?

What was the source of the name Red Pajamas, and what drove Goodman to strike
out on his own that way?
  

    
I knew you weren't suggesting the transplant killed Steve, but with
today's widespread awareness of bone-marrow and stem-cell
transplantation, people sometimes assume that the transplant itself is
the key to a cure, when the situation is usually a lot more complex. In
Steve's case, the transplant was the last tool left, but the myriad
other methods of treatment that he had undergone over the past 15-plus
years had taken a heavy toll. I just wanted to explain to readers that
wrinkle.

You're right, David, that in 1983 starting a label from scratch was
audacious, but Steve was recovering from his relapse (which presaged a
shorter second remission), he had been dropped by Asylum, and the only
"new" material he had was live recordings that had built up over the
years. As Steve saw it, he had just one choice.

"I noticed that there weren’t seven or eight record companies lined up
outside my house with wheelbarrows full of money asking me to record,"
he told the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. "There were so many people
who cared, and people seemed to be responding more to songs at live
gigs than my recordings, so I sort of felt an obligation to respond.”

To the Los Angeles Times, he added, "I figured I’d just do this myself
and see what happens. I guess a lot of other people would want to wait
and see if they could get another record contract, but I just don’t
have the time."

The title of "Red Pajamas" had come to him back in 1975 when he named
his self-producing role on his "Jessie's Jig" LP "Red Pajamas
Productions." It was a nod to his daughter Jessie's favorite Pete
Seeger song. On Seeger's "American Game & Activity Songs for Children"
LP, released in 1962 on Folkways, Seeger sang the traditional "I Know a
Little Girl," which kicked off with the repeated verse, "I know a
little girl with red pajamas, red pajamas, red pajamas. I know a little
girl with red pajamas, red pajamas on."

In 1981, when issuing a self-produced studio single of his then-new "A
Dying Cub Fan's Last Request," Steve called the label "Red Pajama
Records." With the 1983 release of the all-live "Artistic Hair" LP, the
label name became plural: "Red Pajamas Records."
  

    
One further, more direct explanation: Steve considered the money he
earned from music as a legacy for his children, so "Red Pajamas" seemed
an apt nod to them. As he put it in 1983 during an interview with
Bobby Bare, "All of this is for them anyhow."
  

    
Was his illness a well-kept secret? Seems like it was common knowledge
within the music community, at least to the extent that people would ask
after his health often.
  

    

I believe I have a copy of the original "Dying Cub Fan's Last Request" single
somewhere.

I gotta say, if he had released more plain ol' live recordings he might have
done better in the record business.  What do you think, Clay?  I mean, some
of his studio recordings were wonderful, but some where a little, uh,
overdecorated.
  

    
It depends, John, on the definition of well-kept. His leukemia was
whispered about in music circles and was common knowledge among many
hundreds of people, perhaps more than a thousand. Then again, there was
an informal, unspoken pact for no one to break it to the media. As NYC
friend Paula Ballan put it, "It was like a social contract that if you
were really a friend of his, this is something that you keep among
yourselves."

The pact was broken in July 1982 when he relapsed and returned to
Sloan-Kettering the day before a Harry Chapin memorial concert in
Manhattan. Steve was billed for the show along with Pete Seeger, Tom
Chapin and others. John Prine filled in for Steve at the last minute,
but there was no way for Steve's disease to remain hidden any longer.
  

    
"Over-decorated" is being kind, David. Yes, I agree with you that
Goodman would have done better commercially if he had released live
material much earlier than he did. But Steve was his own worst enemy
about this.

A live LP usually amounts to "nonsense," Steve told L.A.'s "FolkScene"
show in 1976. "You (the listeners) are not there. You’re at home,
looking at these speakers. Live albums are always going to be
unsatisfactory because there’s no visual dimension to them. Sometimes
they capture a certain energy you just never get in the studio ... but
I feel bad about goin’ to a record store and payin’ X number of dollars
to hear 2,000 people clap for eight minutes, say, out of 30. If I
could ever do a live album where all that extraneous stuff before and
after was electronically removed so that you wouldn’t have to put up
with that at home, then OK, I’d do it."

A year later, Emily Friedman of the Chicago-based folk publication
"Come for to Sing" pressed Steve for an answer to why he hadn’t
released a live recording. "I’ve got to be honest with you. Everybody
thinks it’s a problem but me, OK?" While admitting that "I just haven’t
been able to make one (album) that did the same thing that I do live,"
Steve also described what he viewed as the impossibility of the task.
"You can’t see a record," he said. "I think the only reason that what I
do live goes over well live is because I’m not playin’ for blind
people."

Fortunately, in the last year and a half of his life, Steve witnessed
the folly of such reasoning and was able to bask in the joy that people
expressed about the live recordings he released in 1983-84.
  

    
Everyone:

It's the eve of my last day on The WELL. I hope the conversation has
provided some enjoyable insights. The questions and exchanges have been
fun for me. If there's anything you want to ask before the
conversation ends tomorrow, please do so soon!

-- Clay
  

    
Clay, I'm sure you're correct about the lack of publicity. I had an unusual
perspective, because the first I knew of him was the story you tell in the
book about somebody in New York seeing his "Member Haynes Family" pin and
making the connection with Paula and the rest of the New York support group.
This was before I had seen him perform, so the illness was part of the
picture from the beginning.
  

    
Oh, and one minor item you might want to correct in the next printing: You
mention The Young Tradition, an English a capella group, as an influence.
They were a trio, rather than a quartet.
  

    
And another correction: the conversation des not have to end!  Another topic
takes center stage on Wednesday the 19th, but you are encouraged to stick
arund!
  

    
Ok.I'm coming in here way too late. As a long time rabid Gooman fan,
I'm disapointed that I missed most of this. I have, however, run out
and ordered Clay's book. 

David did a great job asking most of the questions that I had, and
I've enjoyed the read. 

Clay, if you are still around there's one subject I'd like to touch
on. Steve's guitar playing! I've owned the Austin City Limits DVD since
it cam out, and I'm always astounded by Steve's playing. He's style of
frentic strumming and picking is incredibly unique. One of a kind. Do
you know who influenced him on guitar?  Was that style developed purely
because he was primarily a solo act and had to carry it off on his
own? 
  

    
Thanks for the catch, John. Strangely, on page 193 I said Young
Tradition had four members, and on page 458 I said it had three. In
some cases, I can trace how errors sneaked into the manuscript, but not
with this one. No worries, however. I will make the fix on the
corrections page of my Internet site and in a second printing if/when
that occurs.

Ray, you've come up with a great word ("frenetic") to describe
Goodman's guitar playing. The short answer to your question about his
influences is "everybody." As the book recounts in detail, he was like
a sponge, soaking up all manner of guitar skills and styles from his
early teens. Exposure to mentors in high school, in college on the
radio, on recordings and in clubs in Chicago, Greenwich Village and
elsewhere made his learning curve steep and high.

The most important of Steve's early mentors was high-school classmate
and band leader Howard Berkman, a prodigy who spent endless hours
playing and performing with Steve. Berkman taught Steve the haunting
chord melody of Errol Garner’s "Misty," the blues progressions of "St.
James Infirmary," the finger-picking styles in George Gershwin’s
"Summertime," the Lonnie Johnson solo in "Goin’ to Chicago Blues" and
the half-tone octave line of "Deep Purple."

"Steve really was knocked out that you could get so much out of a
guitar, because most of the guys who were playing were just strumming,"
Berkman told me. "Steve had such good ears that he very quickly got
very far past me in a lot of respects. That was what was so disgusting
about him. He’d say, 'Show me something,' and I did, and it would be
gone. You would have struggled for years learning these things, but
boom, he would have it. ... He was one of those kids who could just
hear everything. Once he knew a chord, he knew where it belonged, even
if it was in a different musical situation. He had total access to all
the music in his head at all times. He amazed me. He was like a vacuum
cleaner. He sucked up everything anyone could show him as fast as it
could be shown."

It's an astute insight that the intensity of Steve's guitar playing
stemmed in part from his being a solo act. But keep in mind that his
musical persona also embraced jamming with and giving attention to
other musicians. At root, I think Goodman was just an energetic guy,
giving it all he had.
  

    

I just loved it when Steve got all excited.  As I said in post <1> above,
he'd "practically levitate" when he got going.

I am sorry we lost him at such a young age, but I am glad there is so much
great Goodman music on the market - much of it live and solo.

Again, you can find it all at http://www.stevegoodman.net

ANd you can find Clay's wonderful biography, STEVE GOODMAN: FACING THE MUSIC,
at http://www.clayeals.com


Please don't hurry off, Clay.  Tell us more about this great American.
  

    
Thanks for the response, Clay. Much as I expected, Goodman's style was an
amalgamation of many musical genres and influences. Other than 40's pop and
swing, I wasn't quite sure where it all came from. Steve was singular in his
approach. I cant think of another guitarist that plays like he did.

He had that ability to keep a driving beat and play the medlody, in multiple
positions on the neck, simultaneously. Too cool and when you pay close
attention.

His version of "It's a Sin To Tell A Lie" always slays me. A perfect example
of waht I'm talking about.

Then there's some of his studio work. Like his playing on the title cut from
Jessie's jig. Bluegrassy, folky, but still unique and impressive.

The guy really had it all. Songwriter, singer, performer, guitarist,
humorist, and composer.
  

    
Yes, Goodman had it all. He ruined me for any other performer, and his
personal story was so captivating that it deserves to be part of our
cultural literacy -- hence my motivation for doing the book.

David, I don't know the precise time that the door will close on this
conversation, but before it does, I want to thank everyone who helped
me with the book over the past 10 years or so. On the acknowledgments
page of my Internet site at clayeals.com, you can see the names of
2,200 people who fall in that category. I also am grateful to everyone
at The WELL who made this conversation possible. Its reach is
incalculable but no doubt formidable, not unlike tossing a pebble into
a pond and watching the rings ripple and expand.

At the risk of "giving away the store," I also want to share a couple
more segments of the book that seem to get at Goodman's core. I'll do
so in the next two posts.
  

    
One of Goodman's finer songs (and collaborations -- this time with
John Prine) was the 1977 epic, "The Twentieth Century Is Almost Over."
The song captured the entire century even though 23 years remained
after its writing. For instance, the third verse opens with lyrics that
Al Gore would love.

More important, however, "Twentieth Century" had the unmistakable air
of mortality -- of the unmerciful passage of time and the obvious
lesson to not waste it. The message became crystallized in what
Goodman's producer at the time, Joel Dorn, considered the best line of
the song, and of any Steve Goodman song: "Everybody’s waiting for
something to happen / Tell me if it happens to you."

"I say that twice a month,” Dorn told me. "How much more clever could
you get? If you asked me to define what Steve did with words that set
him apart, it would be that line. It’s just so surreal and evocative.
It had nothing to do with the 20th century. That line was just one of
the great lines of 20th-century literature. It’s just so singular."

The key lay in the phrase "waiting for something to happen," Dorn
said. "What he’s talking about is the something that, first of all,
doesn’t happen, and, second of all, doesn’t exist, and third of all,
who gives a shit anyway, and, fourth of all, what are you talking
about? Go out and have a sandwich. Do something. Throw a ball. Buy some
Chicklets. Do anything. But stop fuckin’ waiting around for whatever
it is you’re waiting around for, man. Pretty soon, they’re going to
drop the fuckin’ door, and you’re not going to be able to get out."
  

    
The other segment I want to share from my Steve Goodman bio before
time runs out is the foreword contributed by Arlo Guthrie. To me, it's
the soul of the book. Like Steve, Arlo lived under a death cloud. He
didn't know until he lived out his life whether he would inherit his
famous dad's debilitating Huntington's chorea. This gave Arlo a
visceral link to Goodman that transcended their obvious musical
connection with "City of New Orleans."

Arlo's foreword is all the more powerful when you understand that it
is not a carefully crafted written piece but rather an extemporaneous
soliloquy, taken from words spoken by him during his interview with me.
I'm deeply grateful that it graces my book. It eloquently expresses
the life lesson of Steve Goodman:

"No one wants to believe consciously that they’re going to have a
short life. The most brilliant people in the world are going to deal
with that kind of news or suspicion with some regret. It’s just your
body chemistry, the most basic part of being a human being.

"At some point or other, I think everyone really knows. Whether they
want to know it or have a chance to know it consciously or not, I don’t
know. I’m not an expert in this stuff. But I have a sneaking suspicion
that you really do know how long it’s going to take you to fulfill the
mission of your life, and I felt that in Steve Goodman.

"I felt that he knew at some point, with a typical sadness that was
not debilitating, that actually energized him in such a way that he
could deal with things by writing songs that are deeper — or in some
cases even funnier — than normal people would want to go. That kind of
instinct opens up doors and allows you to be more real because you’ve
got nothing to lose.

"I sense it in people like Goodman, who, when you look into their
eyes, are just taking it all in. They aren’t afraid of anything.
They’re fearless. That kind of living gives you abilities that most
people are in fear of because they recognize that those abilities come
hand in hand with destiny. So most people will not take the abilities,
even if you offered it to them.

"You don’t get that stuff, generally, until you’re very old and you’ve
worked through all the issues of life. I see it in a lot of older
people. They’re fearless. However, that fearlessness at the old-age
home is not the same as having it onstage when you’re 20-something or
30-something years old.

"I met Steve Goodman maybe four or five times in my whole life
face-to-face. But since the first day, I felt like I knew him. I felt
like we were friends on a deeper level than just a passing, chance
meeting. I felt I had a real sort of kinship, and I know he felt the
same way.

"I felt he had a real respect for me, and I had a tremendous respect
for him. It was not a mutual admiration society. It was deeper than
that. I’m sure he had that effect on other people because he just was
that kind of guy.

"He was just a real guy. I like real people. There was nothing phony
about Steve Goodman."
  

    
That's great.

As Clay said, we're turning our official gaze to another conversation
today, but there's no reason at all the conversation has to stop here. 


And what a terrific conversation it's been so far.  Thanks very much
to Clay and David, as well as everyone else who contributed insightful
questions and great anecdotes.
  

    

Wonderful stuff!  Such passion.  I feel like asking what your next project
will be, but that almost feels disloyal to Steve Goodman.  Thanks for being
here.