Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

Clay, tell us about the CD that comes with the book.
  

    

I just added two more files to the audio page - "Why Did He Have to Leave?"
by Harry Waller, and the iterview excerpts.  Both are from the CD that comes
with the book.

http://www.dgans.com/goodman
  

    
How many artists can you think of who have inspired more than 25
people to write and record songs in tribute to the artist or that
mention the artist significantly? I can't think of any, but this is
what I encountered in my eight years of research into Steve Goodman.

As I interviewed people for the book, occasionally someone would
mention a demo track or an obscure song on a CD that referenced Goodman
or was devoted to him. When this would happen, I told myself that I
would mention these tracks in the last chapter of the book as evidence
that Goodman continues to have influence. But as I kept discovering
these stellar tracks and the number kept growing, I decided I needed to
do something more with them. At some point was born the idea of a CD
to accompany the book.

My goal with the CD was not just to document Goodman's influence but
also to shed light on songs and artists deserving more attention, much
as Goodman and his work deserved to be heard in his own early days. I
also trusted that the CD artists would be honored by the association
and inclined to spread word about the book.

Because this was already a big book (8x10 format, 800 pages, 547
photos), it was important that the CD not add significantly to the cost
of production. To my lasting gratitude, all of the artists graciously
allowed me to use the tracks gratis, so deep was their regard for Steve
Goodman. This -- along with the Herculean efforts of my volunteer
engineer, Joe Novak, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania -- minimized the CD's
added production cost and made it possible for my publisher to agree to
the plan.

The material that seemed most appropriate for the CD amounted to 18
tracks by 17 artists from all over the United States and from Canada,
England and Australia. Their variety of voices, styles, tempos and
arrangements allowed me to assemble them much the way Goodman paced his
own shows -- opening with a couple of rousers, taking the audience up
and down and up again, closing with a flourish and letting the audience
out the door with a quiet tune.

Anyone can read the CD's full annotation (and listen to sound clips of
each musical track) by going to my Internet site, clayeals.com,
finding the "Inside the Book" tab and clicking on the page titled "The
CD." It's the same detailed annotation found in the back pages of the
book itself.

Suffice to say, however, that this is a collection of quality. Not
every track will be a favorite for every listener, but I do think the
songs hold together, that they are all of a piece. This owes, in part,
to the consistent theme of mortality, sometimes explicit and at other
times metaphorical, sometimes sad and at other times uplifting. The
theme is truly universal, and it matches the theme of the book.

It's nice, David, that you chose to make available on your site Harry
Waller's track, "Why Did He Have to Leave?," because its down-to-earth
story emulates the best of Goodman's songcrafting. Harry's song is the
tale of a friendship, literally from beginning to end, in all its joy,
gratitude and poignancy.

In assembling the CD, I was tempted to include some of Steve's own
tunes, but I decided it was important from the standpoint of
journalistic ethics to leave overt selling of Goodman's music to the
management firm that represents his estate. Still, I wanted to somehow
include Steve directly on the CD. The best avenue that I could come up
with was to append at the end a sample of Steve's spoken voice, which
has been absent from our consciousness for far too long. 

I was heartened when Chicago's WXRT-FM gave me permission to include
excerpts from a wonderful interview of Steve conducted by John Platt in
1975. These clips, totaling more than 6 minutes, reveal the warmth,
self-deprecation and passion of Goodman's persona. I mean, how can you
beat hearing Steve say, "I’m crazy about this stuff. I’m goofy about
music — goofy, y’hear? Nuts, goofy."

That people are enjoying the CD so much and grasping its purpose and
value is deeply satisfying to me. It has become yet another way for
Goodman's unique and affecting legacy to live.
  

    

How much of a presence do you think Steve Goodman has these days?  Does he
get played by folk music DJs?  Is he still heard in Chicago?
  

    
That's quite the open-ended question, David. Presence can be measured
in so many ways, and I addressed many of them in the last chapter of
the book. One of the ways, it has to be said, is the existence of the
book itself.

In death, as when he was alive, Goodman still doesn't swim in the
mainstream, but it is no small feat that several of his songs, such as
"City of New Orleans" and "Go, Cubs, Go," are known by millions, even
if Goodman himself is not known. It's not a stretch to envision a
superstar artist giving Goodman prominence by making a national hit
with one of Steve's stellar songs, although in today's fragmented
melange of niche markets, a "national hit" ain't what it used to be.

I have no objective count of how often Goodman is played by folk
deejays nationally. But I have plenty of affirmative anecdotal
evidence, from the playlists I see on the Internet and receive via
e-mail, as well as just listening to the radio in the cities I've
visited in the past eight years. Also, many of the hosts for the 31
radio interviews I've done since May have indicated that they play
Goodman regularly.

In Chicago, as we've already addressed, 40,000 fans at Wrigley hear
"Go, Cubs, Go" whenever the Cubs win there, plus WGN still uses
snippets of the song in "bumpers" during game broadcasts. Rich Warren,
longtime host of WFMT's Saturday-night "Midnight Special," plays
Goodman and Goodman-related material quite faithfully. The same is true
for WNUR, based at Northwestern University, and other Chicago-area
stations.

Many people have told me rather sardonically that it's tough for a guy
to promote himself once he's no longer alive. But even though Goodman
has been dead for 23 years, his reputation remains almost God-like in
many music circles, old and young, which owes to the quality of his
songs and the endearing persona that endures in the memories of so
many. It's important to note that Steve's impact is bolstered by the
fact that if he had lived, he would be 59 today, which is smack in the
middle of the baby boom, the largest generational demographic the
country has ever seen.

If Steve were alive, he likely would try to dismiss any such talk.
With wisdom triggered by a death sentence, he often quipped, "A hundred
years, all new people." Still, I think it's a noble quest to keep
alive and pass along to succeeding generations the stories and work of
uniquely inspiring people such as Goodman. It's part of the ingrained
desire of all of us to somehow live beyond our years, to transcend
mortality. It's interesting to ponder how Steve himself did just that
in only 36 years.
  

    

He sure was a big influence on me.  I saw Goodman many times in the '70s and
early '80s, when I was developing my own skills as a songwriter and per-
former.  From Goodman I learned that it was possible, and desirable, to be
sentimental AND sardonic AND eclectic AND silly all in one performance.  So
many of his songs are perfect gems of topical writing - "Veg-O-Matic" springs
to mind: a song about a guy who falls asleep in front of the TV set and
dreams he bought all the stuff they advertise on late-night shows.

Fact is, I'm trying to channel Steve at this very moment!  I'm scheduled to
play on West Coast Live ( www.wcl.org ) Saturday morning, and because this
week's show is being broadcast from the farmers' market at the San Francisco
Ferry Building, I was asked to sing two songs on food-related themes.  So I'm
going to do "Chicken Cordon Bleus," and I gave myself an assignment to write
a new song about shopping at the farmers' market.  This is not the sort of
song that needs a Robert Hunter or Bob Dylan sort of mystery/hallucination
vibe - this song needs the sort of warmth, wit, and specificity that was a
hallmark of Steve Goodman's writing.  I am quite sure that a good deadl of
the inspiration I'm feeling as I work on it is a direct result of my reading
your book, talking with you here, and rediscovering my deep love of Steve's
music.
  

    
Thanks for the kind words, David. You're probably well down the road
in writing the song, but if you're looking for ideas, perhaps you can
fold in specifics about how the Farmer's Market contrasts with all the
processed, packaged, homogenized, media-ized food that bombards all of
us from all corners every day. That might be in the spirit of Goodman.

An insight to Goodman's approach (from page 185 of the book) is found
in a March 1972 conversation about songwriting that Steve had with Roy
Leonard of WGN-AM in Chicago:

"I’m not good at makin’ up songs. I guess I’m not too good at fiction.
I guess I can surround real events with some fiction every now and
then to dress ’em up, but I don’t come up with fictional situations too
often. I kind of have to see it first."

He continued the self-deprecating theme two months later with the
now-late Los Angeles "Folkscene" radio host Howard Larman:

"It’s just using your eyes, really. My big trouble is that I don’t use
’em well enough, because I usually filter what I see through my own
set of experiences and stuff like that too much. It’s very hard for
anybody around to take an objective view of anything — y’know, just
describe it. Sometimes what you think is the best poetry in the world
is just somebody using their eyes right and just tryin’ to describe
what they saw rather than what they felt about what they saw. Then it
makes the listener or the reader of the poetry do the work. ... The
good poets use the kinds of words that will help you paint the picture
in your own head."
  

    

Self-deprecating, for sure, but not unexpected.  I think a lot of creative
people think of themselves mostly in terms of their limitations, because they
spend a good deal f their time and attention trying to escape them.

A lot of Goodman's songs are journalism, albeit extra colorful.  "City of New
Orleans" and "Lincoln Park Pirates" aren't so far from, say a Mike Royko
column.  But what about "Donald and Lydia"?  I suppose that could have been
based on real events, but I'd put my money on "delicious feat of
imagination."
  

    
Therein lies a rub, no pun intended. "Donald and Lydia" is a Prine
song!
  

    
I thoguht they co-wrote it!  Dang, I shoulda checked.
  

    

Duh.  Of course.  "Souvenirs" was their first cllaboration, right?
  

    

That'll teach me to post when I'm distracted.
  

    

I mentioned this interview on the GD HOur mailing list, and I got permission
to repost this response:


From: Ozoid
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2007 22:44:31 -0500
Subject: [GDH] Fwd: Steve Goodman, the Cubs & the Old Town School

...as I write this the Cubs just regained a share of 1st
in the NL central. When they win at home, the PA blasts out "Go, Cubs,
Go!" and 40K fans sing along with the hook like a great saloon crowd at
midnight on a Saturday, and Steve's getting a lot of airplay this year.
Or at least more than usual.

Continuing the unconventional retail outlets for music thread
(Starbucks, etc.), I'm sure more than a few fans have picked up a
Goodman collection after a game. Just like Nick Drake's career was
rejuvenated -- years after he'd died -- when a track of his was used
for a VW Cabriolet commercial.

The Homer & Jethro stuff is great, and Homer had great chops too, but
my favorite Jethro album, Back to Back, was produced by none other than
David Grisman and featured Burns with Grisman's other favorite
mandolinist, Tiny Moore, who'd been a Texas Playboy for a long time,
then resurfaced years later in Merle Haggard's strangers. Moore played
an electric that looked like a shrunken Strat. For the rhythm section,
Grisman brought in Ray Brown (founding member of the Modern Jazz
Quartet), long-time LA jazz session drummer, Shelley Mann, and another
Wills alumnus, Eldon Shamblin, on rhythm guitar. And of course, Grisman
couldn't resist sitting in on a track or 2. Tunes copped from all over,
including Django, Dizzy, and Bill Monroe.

Fred and others reasonably close to Chicago might be interested to
know that the Old Town School of Folk Music is planning a big
anniversary concert at Louis Sullivan's Auditorium Theatre on Dec. 1.
Here's the lineup:
Jeff Tweedy, Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn, David Bromberg, Roger
McGuinn, Lonnie Brooks with Wayne Baker Brooks and Nick Tremulis,
Frank Hamilton, The Bloodshot Family Band (featuring The Robbie Fulks
Band with Jon Langford, Kelly Hogan, Sally Timms & Nora O'Connor),
Luna Negra Dance Theater, Bonnie Koloc, Corky Siegel, Sones de México
Ensemble, and The Old Town School Players.
  

    

Ozoid also mentions Hank Snow's cover of "City of New Orleans," noting "I've
never heard a voice deliver 'Good morning, America' as well as his."
  

    
Of course.   He's Canadian.
  

    

!!!
  

    

Also from Ozoid:

> Here's a question for Clay: has an ad agency ever approached Steve or his
> estate about licensing City of New Orleans?

> I used to write about TV commercials and that line always seemed perfect
> for a cereal commercial, as if it had been written specifically for one,
> although of course I'm sure that was far from Steve's mind when he wrote
> it.
  

    
"Souvenirs" also is a Prine-only song. It just seems like a
Prine-Goodman collaboration because they memorably dueted on it.

The first songwriting collaboration of Goodman and Prine was "You
Never Even Call Me by My Name," which has a hilarious genesis detailed
in the book. A summary wouldn't do the story justice, but the
composition started out in Goodman's hands as a sad song that with
Prine's prodding became a delicious country parody. Of course, context
is everything, and Prine was quite happy at the time while Goodman was
not. The writing session took place in a New York hotel room in 1971
after the two had guested memorably during a Kristofferson set at the
Bitter End and Prine was immediately offered a record contract whereas
Goodman was being held in contract limbo for what turned out to be five
weeks.

Early written references to "You Never Even Call Me by My Name"
omitted Prine's name as a co-writer because Prine didn't want to be
associated with a song that made fun of country music. But in concert,
Goodman often told the story of his songwriting collaboration with
Prine, and Prine finally received written co-writing credit for the
song on Goodman's live "Artistic Hair" LP in 1983.

Good to see the references by Ozoid to "Go, Cubs, Go" and Jethro
Burns. I hope Ozoid gets to read the previous exchanges on those topics
in this conversation.

There's a great Hank Snow-Steve Goodman connection that few people
know about. On  Dec. 11, 1972, the Apollo 17 astronauts riding in  the
capsule "America" had reached lunar orbit, and mission control in
Houston opted to wake them from slumber by playing "City of New
Orleans" starting with the phrase "Good morning, America, how are you?"
(The recording that they used was John Denver's cover of the song.)
One of the three astronauts was Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, the first
scientist and non-military-trained pilot in space, who also was a big
Hank Snow fan. After "City of New Orleans" was played for the trio,
Schmitt told mission control, "We're movin' on," a reference to Snow's
#1 hit "I'm Movin' On." Schmitt even drawled the first words of the
Snow song, "That-a big eight-wheeler ..." Schmitt went on to become a
U.S. senator from New Mexico.
  

    
In 1976, the pre-breakup Bell System contracted with Buddah Records,
which administered the usage rights for "City of New Orleans," to make
a centerpiece of its TV ads the musical phrase "Good morning, America."

In 1998, after Goodman's management firm had acquired full rights for
the song, an ad agency inked a six-figure contract to use the same
phrase in TV ads showing a young woman in a nightgown sitting up in
bed, her arms outstretched in elation. The product advertised was
Ex-Lax.
  

    
In 1976, Chicago radio host Studs Terkel poked at Goodman about
advertisers' use of the signature phrase from his best-known song.

"At least I didn’t sign up with the John Birch Society," Goodman told
Terkel. "Y’know, when you sign a deal with a record company, you get
something. I wanted to make a record. Now you have to give something if
you want to get something, and I gave up the administration and the
publishing of those tunes."

"You gave up a good deal, y’see," Terkel replied.

"Yeah, well, but Studs, I got a good deal. I’m actually making a
living playing the guitar and singing, so I’m not gonna sit here and
cry to you and tell you how hard it is to do this, right?"

Terkel then invoked a phrase he said had been coined by Big Bill
Broonzy, "those people with dollar signs for eyes."

"Yeah, but they can’t have my heart, Studs," Steve said. "They can
have my signature ... and 100 years from now, it won’t make any
difference."
  

    
Studs - ever the idealist!
  

    

I have to agree with Steve's response.
  

    

I saw Hank Snow receive an award n TV once.  This was 15+ years ago.  He got
up onstage to receive the award and said something like, "None of this would
have been possible without the love of my wife of [??] years: "Mrs. Hank
Snow!"

It just cracked me up.  "You coulda SAID HER NAME, ferchrissakes!" I shouted
at the screen.
  

    

Well, now that I hav ecompletely embarrassed myself by getting the facts
wrong on "Donald and Lydia" and "Souvenirs," mhow about telling us about some
other Goodman collaborations?
  

    
No cause for embarrassment, David. It's just that Goodman, though he
constantly credited the songwriting of others and promoted them far
more than he did himself (Prine is a sterling example), had a way of
making other people's songs his own.

A case in point is "The Dutchman" by Michael Smith. Not to downgrade
Smith's own version of what has become his signature song (thanks to
Goodman), but it is hard to imagine a more beautiful or affecting
version of the song than Goodman's. In part, the appeal of Goodman's
version is related to Steve's own mortality, but take that away and you
still have a gorgeous rendition by Goodman, studio or live, take your
pick.

Smith makes for a good segue to your next question. The two came to
revere each other. Goodman's version of Smith's "The Wonderful World of
Sex" triggered Steve's first stage performance at the Philadelphia
Folk Festival, in 1970. Goodman valued Smith's songs so much that he
included one on each of three LPs in a row from 1973 through 1976 (the
songs: "The Dutchman," "Spoon River" and "Roving Cowboy"). Smith, after
living in southern California, south Florida and Detroit, moved to
Chicago, where he remains today, largely because Goodman's versions of
his songs let him find steady musical work there. It was only natural
that the two ended up writing songs together.

Back in November 1999, Smith was one of my first book interviewees,
and he talked eloquently about writing songs with Goodman. It also was
an honor to hear Smith explain that process during a panel discussion
last May at the Old Town School of Folk Music, part of the school's
"Steve Goodman Weekend" to launch my just-published book.

Smith said writing with Goodman was like dropping a coin into a pop
machine. It was Smith's role to come up with the topic for a song.
Doing so amounted to slipping the coin into the machine. Goodman, of
course, was the machine. In seemingly only five minutes, Goodman would
complete the whole song and then play it for Smith, complete with
guitar frills and facial expressions as if Smith were a paying
audience.

Their collaborations were among the funniest songs in Goodman's
repertoire: "Elvis Imitators," "Talk Backwards" and "Vegematic."