Music for Passing a Pandemic
The Latest 'Tune-age' from the John Lennon Memorial Studio | ISSUE 2, apr4.2020
Being housebound, I don’t know what calls to you. For me, guitars and microphones whisper: “Over here, buddy!” I’ve also dubbed my pink office “The John Lennon Memorial Studio of Appalachia,” owing to the fabulous Lennon masterpiece over my shoulder, painted by Caitlin Marie Bias. Here, then, is some of what an old bandmate called “tune-age,” from my “SONGS of COMFORT, SONGS of HOME” series. These are relative quickies, recorded to smartphone, Hindenburg or Garageband, then run through Final Cut Pro X. Some are rough. Others, I’ve spent more hours than I should on a toss-off music-video for, like, 17 viewers. I’m good with that. A boy and his toys, weathering this pandemic thingie.
“Wild Mountain Thyme”: Via West Virginia, Scotland & the Quakers
“Wild Mountain Thyme,” a gorgeous Scots-Irish tune (faeries are involved), didn’t finally etch itself into my hippocampus until Fall 2019. A Philadelphia Quaker living room played a role. Here’s the backstory. The post also includes a drop-dead gorgeous smartphone excerpt from the night Simon the Man, a Quakerite, taught us the tune.
May John Prine Awake in “Paradise”
John Prine is fighting for his life from Covid-19 complications. Last I checked, his wife, Fiona—who herself has recovered from the virus—said he remained in ICU, with pneumonia in both lungs. Prine is among the greatest of living singer-songwriters, an artist of another magnitude. As this post notes, he is both a comic poet (“Please Don’t Bury Me”) and wise old man of letters, even as a young man (“Sam Stone.”).
The second song portrays the death of a drug-addled veteran with a Purple Heart. There are only ever a handful of tunes whose lines become entwined in the DNA of popular culture. That’s true of Prine’s vivid “Sam Stone” portrait: “There’s a hole in daddy’s arm, where all the money goes.” That’s as literary as songwriting gets and maybe the quickest snapshot of the punch, the grandeur, even, of his ability to paint a scene.
In my decades as a weekend singer-songwriter, I only ever learned one of his tunes well enough to play it live. Prine wrote “Paradise” for his father and it came out in 1971, on his eponymous debut album. Below, I give it a go, ornamented with video. The song remains pertinent, as the Fossil Fuel Industrial Complex resists efforts to fundamentally address climate change, while continuing to mow down “Paradise.”
PS: Peace and wellness to you, John Prine and family. May you awake when ready in your beloved “Paradise.”
When a Trashy Pickup Artist Met a Cognac-swilling Pianist
I love this photo of Ed Moss, outside his Schwartz’s Point jazz club in Cincinnati in 2010. Therein lies a tale. Teaser: They were young idealists picking up trash across America. One could nail a tune from "The Music Man" (not "76 Trombones”). Enter a ponytailed, cigar-chomping Cincinnati jazz pianist, in a Parmesan-wedge of a club in the hazardous part of town.
Even if you don’t click the link to explain all this, enjoy this version of “Till There Was You”:
The National Anthem of West Virginia
Not sure whether spending the best part of a day crafting a music video from an old performance is an absurd waste of effort, while a tsunami of suffering bears down on the human race. But we could do worse, as we hunker together, than to listen to this Clementines version of Hazel Dickens' great "West Virginia, My Home." The song (not that other one everyone and their dog knows) should be the national anthem of longing for West Virginia.
The wonderful Hazel Dickens.
PS: I suppose I should be brought up on misdemeanor West Virginia songwriter charges. Since—little-known law—if you’ve not written a tune about West Virginia after living there 20 years, it’s a misdemeanor. (A felony, after 25.) I STILL have not finished my song, “West Virginia Ground,” quoted at the front end of this duet with my dear sister-singer-songwriter Casie Null. So, I hedge my bets and have superglued it, for the time being, to one of the greatest-ever songs about the Mountain State.
As The Clementines, we styled it “West Virginia Medley.”
Instrumental for Sheltering in Place
Here is a 7-minute instrumental track, featuring two passes on my Guild classical. Calming music for crazy days. If you like it, download it for free at the link. At two points in this improvisation, I quote two familiar tunes: one by a really old guy with white hair; the other starring a really young guy and his big, flying friend. See if you can ID them! Peace. Be well, stay safe. Stay home.
Thanks for reading, listening, sharing. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, subscribe for free at: TheStoryIsTheThing.substack.com. The website is at: TheStoryIsTheThing.com | Peace. | Douglas John Imbrogno