Sparkling Lotus-land

letters unwritten

First, the post title.  I don't know many people who don't have a few song lyrics that they chronically mishear - often for years - until somebody corrects them.   So there's that old Moody Blues song that includes mention of letters I've written/never meaning to send.  For more than a decade I thought this song lamented never meaning to send LETTERS UNWRITTEN.   And wtf was up with that?!?  Many times I asked that question (but only of myself) until the  evening a music geek in my writer's group made it clear I was WRONG in my "conveniently moronic lyric distillation chamber".  Thus a core aspect of the chapter I was writing would have to be completely re-worked.  Because it hinged on an internalized protagonist's rant based upon the sheer idiocy of letters unwritten.  Why would you write them, after all, if you had no plans of sending them?  Etc.

I felt a kissing cousin form of cognitive dissonance when I first saw the book pictured above.  It was on the display rack of new non-fiction and I grabbed for it even though I was thinking I thought that quote went the other way around.  Who said it anyway?  Maybe I dreamed it.  Etc.  This book started its life as a doctoral thesis - a fact which is explained (along with a choice to invert a Thomas Dorsey quote.  So I wasn't crazy!  And hadn't been dreaming!) in the book's preface.

I'm not finished yet but I can say this about Buzzy Jackson's writing.  She does something that many cannot:  writes about music (the blues, no less) in a way so it breathes and you hear it with your mind's ear - hear it until you thirst to put the book aside and just go listen for awhile.   I,  for one, never get tired of Etta James.  Even a little bit.

Buzzy covers some ladies I wouldn't necessarily consider blues singers (e.g. Joni Mitchell and Courtney Love) but I haven't gotten that far yet so I'm not going to quibble with her vision and how it's been articulated.  Each chapter looks at a singer or two and some specific social/political time correlations with blues birth and development.  Buzzy was a history major and it shows.  I loved settling deeper into this book as I realized the full nourishing scope of it.   Really loved how well the material 'co-operates' with the writer as well.

My favorite sections so far come from the chapter on Billie Holiday.  There is a critical word-by-bar examination of Lady Day's signature closing song, Strange Fruit, that's absolutely as riveting as the song itself.  I read those pages a few times over so I could "get" the words contextually but also so that I could savor it as a shining example of VERY well written evocative prose.   The thing is, with a song like that and it's inarguable impact level, you don't really have to be evocative.  But it sure don't hurt none. 

Elsewhere in the same chapter, Buzzy considers the differences in personality between Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday - their very different singing styles that are borne from said personalities.  There was just enough psychology and deductive supposition to intrigue rather than baffle or frustrate the historical focus.   I honestly do think that writing about music is one of the hardest forms of writing because you really do need to evoke a sense of auditory participation somehow.  Or else ramble on 'evocatively' enough but to the point where readers are focused on your Way With Words (hello, Greil Marcus...) rather than what, presumably, inspired you to work those words in the first place.

I put this book aside when Tony got home for Thanksgiving - in the middle of a chapter that compares Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin.  Have not yet had an opportunity to get back to it but that will need to change as it's already nearly a week overdue at the library.  Don't like to hog the books this way but it isn't chronic for me.  Am, however, known for renewing everything.

I do, also, like the sytlized cover art for this book.  There is a black and white, generally well known photo of each woman.   I found this book after I'd spent most of a week listening to Robert Cray almost exclusively. My theory was that I should steep myself in blues music as a way of accessing more about the Indigo Guardian Angel. I kept having this really intense and somewhat eerie feeling that fabric for this piece was on its way to me; that is was actually going to be more than one piece.  Wooooooo and then that's what happened.  I received these.  Wooooooo and woo some more!

signed sealed delivered

Needless to say (unless you happen to be somebody without a single cell's worth of motown love in their body), we had a very good time last night.   There was so much joy and common bond in the house and that was quite inspiring in the humanistic sense.  Emotions of many kinds ran free and clear - there weren't many dry eyes during What's Goin' On and What Becomes of the Brokenhearted.

I often wonder about my specific age group - having lived through the horror of vietnam and watergate during our post-formative years, I just cannot understand how so many people 'just like me' have elected to anesthetize conscience and soul with materialism and self-interest to the point of becoming trivial in most (and many times all) pursuits. The horrendous war and this administration's gangsta approach to 'democracy' seems like it ought to be going down on somebody else's watch, not ours.

Be that as it may, this is not an oligarchy sucks post.  It's a memo concerning my tentatively renewed connection to my peers, after nearly five years of wondering who the hell are these people and how did I get stuck in the same frame with them. I didn't have to wonder that last night, at least not superficially. So big sigh of relief, here, to have some little corner of my chronic social and philosophical alienation dissolved.

I don't think I have anything to say about the Funk Brothers that hasn't been said before.  I'm fairly clear on this because yesterday, while I was trying to find reviews of Friday's performances in order to learn if they'd be playing from their jazz roots or the collective motown experience, I ran across everything but what I sought.   So I'm just giving you my internalized impressions of the evening.

To begin with, I'd been worried about going to the late show.  These guys are not exactly college sophomores and I thought maybe their chops would be shot by the second show.  Also?  I thought a 10:30 opening time might be too late for people in my age group.  Thus I imagined sitting in an entire room full of people like the very young woman who sat directly in front of me - quite obviously dragged-along by her throwback boyfriend. 

Remember the commercial of the peevish, intolerant chick who must endure her guy sitting in the car singing along with American Pie for what is clearly the umpti-umpth time?  Last night I sat right behind her soul twin. She spent the whole evening vibing off how too-cool-for-school she was (just picture that one person in the room who quite pointedly doesn't give a standing ovation because, please.  Why should they.) and I had seriously been afraid the whole room would be that way - kinda like Go Fug Yourself but in a jazz club.  And no I won't bother linking into that site.  Everybody who'd care about such things for even ten second's worth of fleeting curiosity already knows how to get there.  Even me. 

The point is, once we were in the hotel killing the hour's wait time, it was clear that the half-century club was there in full force.  I told Jim I don't think I've ever seen so many hawaiian shirts in such a small space.  Then there were the band members who are all old enough to be our parents, or more.   Of course it suprises nobody who has much awareness of how things really work that there was nothing "cute" or "sad" about these elders.  They rocked the joint.  The singers touring with them were exceptional and very skilled at working a room.  And a woman manned the conga drums!  How often do you see that?  I noticed right away and couldn't help smirking as if I, personally, had accomplished something.

I was at first worried about the bass player because he did not look well in the slightest.   He perked up shortly after somebody had the double-edged thrill of having everybody in the room (minus the I'm-just-here-because-HE-dragged-me girl) sing happy birthday to them.   This got the bass player's flirtometer going and the byplay seemed to rally him.  But even when he looked pale and about two seconds away from pitching foward in need of ER attention, he was laying the groove.

The club is very small and intimate.  It's one of Jim's favorite venues but this was my first visit.  I concluded it was the perfect venue to see anybody play - I made a point of telling Jim that this, rather than the Worcester Centrum, would be the ideal place to see Clapton and Cale.  He laughed and told me to dream on.  So I will ... Anybody reading along who enjoys the Funk Brothers may or may not be aware (it was news to me) that they are coming out with a CD.  I think it sounds really cool - apparently they collaborated with some Philly Sound guys.  The FBs covered the Philly material and vice versa. 

I love that the memorabilia was all sold out before we even arrived.  That has to send a very positive message to these previously 'forgotten heroes' - plus there was something perversely funny about watching grown men whine "what do you mean there aren't any more t-shirts?"  You just know, during their day jobs, nobody around them is permitted to whine like that.

Back in the day, what I always liked most about concerts was the tribal feeling I got from them.  Last night was no exception.  There was a lot of love in the room as well as visceral connection.  The only time I've felt it any stronger was the night I saw Ella Fitzgerald at the Philadelphia Academy of Music.   People came anticipating a night to remember and they were not disappointed.

Today is slowly but surely reaching another level of roasty-toasty weather.  I'm not sure how productive I'll be.  Geek that I am, I may opt for some couch time and watching the special features to Standing in the Shadows of Motown.  I [re]watched the actual documentary itself on Friday right after I ordered the tickets.  At that time, Tony asked me (innocently enough) what the Funk Brothers had "done" that he might have heard and I explained the ice berg tip of things to him.  He was all oh-wow and I was all so you wanna watch a movie about them.  Fun times in which the air conditioner's drone didn't drive me quite as batty as it normally does...