Category Archives: Concerts

I Fully Aim to Get My Soul Known Again as the Maniac, the Saint, the Sinner, the Drinker, the Thinker, the Queer.

Posted on by

 I don’t know why I didn’t tell them I had a guitar up yonder hanging on that tree. I just reared back and soaked in every note and every word of their singing. It was so clear and honest sounding, no Hollywood put-on, no fake wiggling. It was better to me than the loud squalling and bawling you’ve got to do to make yourself heard in the old mobbed saloons. And instead of getting you all riled up mentally, morally and sexually  - no, it done something a lot better, something that’s harder to do, something you need ten times more. It cleared your head up, that’s what it done, caused you to fall back and let your draggy bones rest and your muscles go limber like a cat’s. – “The Telegram that Never Came” – from “Bound for Glory”

 

My husband knows everything I do, and he doesn’t mind.

He doesn’t mind that I’ve run around the country, chasing Woody Guthrie.

If he traveled for his work, would you tell him what a good, patient, loving, generous wife he had for letting him do his job? Probably not.

I get told that all the time. I do agree that he’s all those things, but it bothers me that men with those traits are still considered “special” when they should be considered “normal.”

He doesn’t mind that I’m fat.

Do I get pitying looks for having a spouse he’s chubbier, grayer, and sleepier than he was in 1998 when we met? No. So why should he?

He doesn’t mind that I’m a social butterfly, gregarious, and tend to fall into flirtation without even realizing it. When he does the, he’s considered charming.

He doesn’t mind that I have parts of my life that have nothing to do with him or our daughter.

How lucky am I to have such an understanding husband?

That’s not luck; that’s the way it should be. From both sides.

He doesn’t mind that I took a Saturday to indulge in the offerings of the West Village.

Continue reading →

Got No Fear in Life. Got No Fear in Death.

Posted on by

I walked along, the day just leaving out over the tops of the tall buildings, and sifting through the old scarred chimneys sticking up. Thank the good Lord, everybody, everything ain’t all afraid. Afraid in the skyscrapers, and afraid in the red tape offices, and afraid in the tick of the little machine that never explodes, stock market tickers, that scare how many to death, ticking off deaths, marriages and divorces, friends and enemies; tickers connected and plugged in like juke boxes, playing the false and corny lies that are sung in the wild canyons of Wall Street; songs wept by the families that lose, songs jingled on the silver spurs of the men that win. Here on the slummy edges, people are crammed down on the curbs, the sidewalks and the fireplugs, and cars and trucks and kids and rubber balls are bouncing through the streets. I was thinking, “This is what I call bein’ burned an’ a-livin’; I don’t know what I call that big high building back yonder that I left.” – “Crossroads” from “Bound for Glory”

 

New York City’s not nearly as intimidating the second time, especially when taking the same flight as before and staying in the same hotel, knowing how to go about getting a cab with a driver who knows how to get to said hotel. It lowers the adventure factor, but after seven months of traveling, I’m nearing my adventure quota.

It’s the last weekend in October, and this trip should be simple. Two concerts in the same location - Pace University on the Lower East Side – on two different nights. Plenty of time to travel, get lost, get found, explore, and sleep, when I’m not immersed in Justin Townes Earle and Joe Pug.

My mother wasn’t quite as convinced that I was going to be murdered to death this time in New York. I’d like to think it’s because I turned 40 a week earlier and in that time have kept myself and the person I made with my body alive and well.

No, that wasn’t it. This time, she was convinced I was going to be decimated by the hurricane slowly climbing the eastern seaboard in a grim race with the blizzard creeping east over Ohio.

“Please tell me you’re going to cancel this trip,” she sighed into the phone the day before I left.

I’m no fool, Mama,

I know the difference

Between tempting

And choosing my fate.

Of course I’m not canceling. Not even an option. I grew up in Tornado Alley. With my mother. Fleeing for cover with a few seconds notice? Second-nature. The hurricane and blizzard are days away and trackable.

Woody Guthrie arrived in New York City during one of the worst blizzards in the city’s history. He did just fine.

Continue reading →

Maybe We’ll Have All the Fascists Out of the Way by Then. Maybe So.

Posted on by

“I’m not personally in the money-lending business. It would be against the law for me to lend you money without letting the governor know.”

 

“Th’ gov’ner? Shucks, me ‘n’ th’ gov’ner’s always goin’ aroun’ with our hands in each other’s pockits. Big friends.” – from “A Fast-Running Train Whistles Down” from “Bound for Glory”

 

Among other things you can’t do in the Kennedy Center: you can’t take pictures.

I wasn’t even trying to take a picture during the show. I’d arrived at my seat, after finally meeting Andie, my contact at the Grammy Museum who helped get me into so many events for this project. So many that upon meeting, we hugged like old pals.

But even that connection didn’t spare me from getting a tap on the shoulder as I raised my phone to take a photo of the auditorium as people filed in.

“No photography in the Kennedy Center,” the usher sneered.

I hate arbitrary rules.

Continue reading →

But Believe it or Not, You Won’t Find it so Hot if You Ain’t Got the Do Re Mi.

Posted on by

Poker tables wheeling and dealing. Five or six little oilcloth tables, five or six mulers, hustlers, lead men, standing around winking and making signs in back of every table. And behind them, five or six more hard-working onlookers, laughing and watching five or six of the boys with a new paysack getting the screws and trimmings put to them. – “Boomchasers” from “Bound for Glory”

 

Deals went down at the Kennedy Center the next night.

I arrived early, grabbing a cab when several buses didn’t show up, unaware that the center runs a shuttle from the Metro station a mile away. Again, DC’s assuming I know all their rules and amenities without actually putting the information anywhere I might find it. But I’m figuring it out: show up to everything early and when people start forming a line, assume the person in the front knows what’s happening and fall in.

I hadn’t sold my extra ticket to the show. Until I had two tickets in my hand, I wasn’t going to believe I actually had an extra. But the Grammy Museum has never failed me; they had a ticket for me at the box office. I’d been in communication with Heather, the kind soul from Craigslist who sold me the first ticket, and she was trying to connect me with others who’d contacted her to buy the spare ticket.

With my two tickets, I wandered into the vast lobby, carpeted in lush red against white walls, brass accents, and skinny windows overlooking the Potomac. The look was mimicked in houses of my childhood, quickly looking dated and cheap. I’ve seen the Kennedy Center in photos and on television, and thought it looked dated. In person, it’s not. There’s the intangible line between tackiness and cutting-edge that grows into classic design. The Kennedy Center is a master of the latter.

Continue reading →

I Know You’d Come a Runnin’ If You Blistered Both Your Feet.

Posted on by

Mama got up and starting taking long steps in the direction of the house. I tore out in front of her and tried to hold her back. She was walking with a strength and a power that I had seen her use before in her bad spells, and an ordinary person’s strength wasn’t any sort of match for hers. I held out my hands to try to stop her, and she brushed me over against the fence like I was a paper doll she had played with and was now tossing into the wind. – “A Fast-Running Train Whistles Down” from “Bound for Glory”

 

I have terrible feet. They’re flat. Never developed an arch and, when I was a kid, the solution to that was orthopedic shoes that we now know prevent kids from ever developing an arch. Which is why my kid didn’t wear shoes until she was well over a year old. There are a lot of things I didn’t want to pass down to her, but the feet were right there with panic disorder and cystic ovaries. The constant dull ache where my arches should be grows when I’m on my feet a lot until I feel like I’m balancing on top of jagged rocks.

That, I can tolerate. I’m used to it and long ago accepted that I can’t wear two-dollar shoes. What still bothers me is, because the flatness changes the shape of feet and how they interact with shoes, I get a lot of blisters.

Through all my Guthrie travels, my feet remained spry, with the exception of the night I missed the Chicago sausage party. I walked all over Okemah and Brooklyn. Salinas. Through beach sand, which is the mortal enemy of flat feet. Nothing beyond a mild ache.

With this trip, I had blisters before I caught my connecting flight out of O’Hare. Even my feet had misgivings about going to Washington.

Continue reading →

Some Rob You With a Six-Gun, Some With a Fountain Pen

Posted on by

If you think of something new to say, if a cyclone comes, or a flood wrecks the country, or a bus load of school children freeze to death along the road, if a big ship goes down, and an airplane falls in your neighborhood, an outlaw shoots it out with the deputies, or the working people go out and win a war, yes, you’ll find a train load of things you can set down and make up a song about. You’ll hear people singing your words around over the country, and you’ll sing their songs everywhere you travel or everywhere you live; and these are the only kind of songs my head or my memory or my guitar has got room for. – “The Telegram That Never Came” from “Bound for Glory”

 

Robert Santelli has this panel discussion business down-pat: prompt musicians to tell their stories both in words and music. After he made me shrivel in my seat, he moved on to introducing the panel, who all told their stories of how they became familiar with Woody Guthrie’s music. For Noel Stookey, he was a part of the Beat scene at Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village, where he learned about Woody from Ramblin’ Jack and Bob Dylan.

Ramblin’ Jack learned about Woody by calling him repeatedly while Guthrie was hospitalized with appendicitis in 1951, eventually showing up at his house and not leaving for a few years.

LaFave grew up in Oklahoma with the Guthrie lore, which he passed on to accordion player Radoslav Lorković, who joined the musicians on stage, giving extra spring to LaFave’s soft-sung take on “Oklahoma Hills.”

At the beginning of the program the audience was told that, because the discussion was being recorded for the library’s archives, we needed to be quiet. But I love to sing along to “Oklahoma Hills”! Ask Aimee. Folk music isn’t meant to be quietly enjoyed while ensconced in your seat. With everyone conscious of every move and noise they make, the song’s spark gets extinguished.

Continue reading →

Seen a Billion, Jillion Faces That are New York Town to Me

Posted on by

Brooklyn. Saturday, September 22.

“Walk out on ‘em?”

“Goddammit! I jes’ had ta walk out, Will! Couldn’t take that stuff!”

“Goin’ ta keep pullin’ them one-man walkouts till you’ve ruined all of y’r chances here in New York. Better watch y’r step.”

“Will, you know me. You know dam good an’ well I’d play fer my beans an’ cornbread, an’ drink branch water, ‘er anything else ta play an’ sing fer folks that likes it, folks that knows it, an’ lives what I’m a singin’ ’bout. I’m all screwed up in my head. They try ta tell me if I wanta eat an’ stay alive, I gotta sing their dam old phony junk!”

“You’d just naturally explode up in that high society, wouldn’t you, But, money’s what it takes, Woody.”

- “Crossroads” from “Bound for Glory”

Brooklyn College, September 22. Another Woody at 100 tribute concert, formatted much like the first show in Tulsa last March: a pack of artists of all levels of success and ages, playing a couple of Guthrie’s songs, collaborating. Judy Collins opened on acoustic guitar with her classic take on “Pastures of Plenty,” much like we’d heard it that afternoon.

I’d never heard of Mike + Ruthy from Woodstock, New York, before the show. A darling young couple with a newborn at home, they channel Guthrie’s spririt and Carter Family stylings on “Union Maid,” “Vigilante Man,” and “Dust Bowl Blues” before presenting their reworking of his little-known “My New York City.”

It’s Guthrie’s love song to his adopted hometown, the town that has so often been neglected in the glossy version of his biography. We know Woody in Oklahoma. Woody in California. But this was Woody’s life for many years, the place he chose to be. The place he stayed. His train was a subway, not a westbound freighter.

Among the audience and performers, the love for their adopted son bleeds strong. The audience shared Dave Marsch’s sentiment from earlier in the day with a surprising number of tears. Is this New York City? Brooklyn? Toughest city in the country, brought to tears over a death too soon nearly a half-century ago?

If so, I really do want to stay.

Continue reading →

This Dusty Old Dust is Blowing Me Home

Posted on by

Dust didn’t blow me home. It was the threat of tidal waves that did it.

I split on one of the last flights from La Guardia Sunday night, a hurried and frightened end to seven months of chasing Woody Guthrie’s legacy around the country. It ended just as  haphazard and wild as everything else on this trip. More so, even, if that’s possible.

A request: I don’t know how many people got this URL from scribbled pieces of paper ripped from my notepad through the course of my travels, since I never got around to getting real business cards. I’m thrilled to have forged friendships with some of you already. Others, I miss.

The guy who talked to me before Saturday’s Justin Townes Earle show – I want to hear about the Dylan concert, and find out how a native New Yorker has such a heartland soul. You left so fast after the show, and I chased after you – chased! I never chase people. Maybe you left so fast to get away from the motormouth writer. But I want to hear your stories.

Heather in Washington, DC, who brokered a more-than-fair Craigslist ticket deal: I want to hear your Old Crow Medicine Show stories, and find out what brought a couple my age into the AARP Meeting at the Kennedy Center.

The ladies who sat with me at that night’s hootenanny – I want to sing folk songs with you and conduct covert ticket deals in stairwells any day of the week.

Foofie and Rebecca, I want to know you’re safe from the storm.

My table mates at the Old Town School of Folk Billy Bragg show: my dog is still out of control. Please teach me.

The great-grandparents from Oklahoma City I met at Woodyfest who bought me beers – I want to know if your great-grandbaby made it. You have weighed on my heart since I met you.

People who came here via Kickstarter, I owe you everything.

Everyone. If you met me in my travels and you’re reading this because we crossed paths, please email me. robindawn@gmail.com. Or leave a comment. Not because I want to suck what I can from you for this project, but because I’m starting to grieve.

Starting to realize that maybe not every day will find me stranded in an airport, waiting for the storm of the century, sitting beside a pediatrician who just happens to work at a free clinic for the children of migrant workers in Michigan, willing to talk about what she sees every day, and how it all fits into this picture. Continue reading →

What is a Vigilante Man? Has He Got a Gun and a Club in His Hand?

Posted on by

If Jesus Christ was sitting right here, right now, he’d say this very same dam thing. You just ask Jesus how the hell come a couple of thousand of us living out here in this jungle camp like a bunch of wild animals. You just ask Jesus how many million of other folks are living the same way? Sharecroppers down South, big city people that work in factories and live like rats in slimy slums. You know Jesus’ll say back to you? He’ll tell you we all just mortally got to work together, build things together, fix up old things together, clean out old filth together, put up new buildings, schools and churches, banks and factories together, and own everything together. Sure, they’ll call it a bad ism. Jesus don’t care if you call it socialism or communism, or just me and you. - The Telegram That Never Came” from “Bound for Glory”

A year ago yesterday protestors took to Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District to bring attention to the clutch multinational corporations and financial institutions have on the democratic process. So it seems like a good time to pick up my story of Tom Morello and the Chicago NATO protests that happened four months ago.

Tomorrow my hobo musician friend Peter Diebold will tell his story of the NATO protest.

Back to the Metro and May 19th …

Continue reading →

She’s Streamlined and a Midnight Flyer, This Train

Posted on by

Who’s all of these crazy men down there howling out at each other like hyenas? Are these men? Who am I? How come them here? How the hell come me here? What am I supposed to do here?

 

My ear flat against the tin roof soaked up some music and signing coming from own inside of the car:

 

“This train don’t carry no rustlers,

Whores, pimps, or side-street hustlers;

This train is bound for glory,

This train.” – “Soldiers in the Dust” from “Bound for Glory”

I haven’t resorted to hopping trains, hobo-style, yet. Woody didn’t hop as many trains as people think. That was a part of the image he cultivated. I can’t remember where I read this, or which lecture said it, but Woody only hopped trains as a last resort, because they were unsafe and uncomfortable.

I like the way that man thought.

In Chicago this weekend, I spent more time than I’d planned on trains, thanks to flippy planning on my part and construction on CTA’s part. Instead of following through with my Saturday plans to see friends, I wound up spending so much time on the under-construction Red Line that, by late afternoon, I was done with people and transportation. I holed up in my hotel until the next morning, when I played construction train shuffle to hit some of my favorite Chicago locales before catching the last Amtrak to St. Louis.

Original plan: ride to Chicago with my friend Aimee – remember her from Oklahoma? – and meet our fellow writer friends Annie and Matt to see Springsteen at Wrigley Field.

Continue reading →