About those famous musicians…

A silly Facebook meme asked what famous musicians we’ve met. There were so many, I couldn’t choose. I liked Allegra Broughton’s (Solid Air) idea of telling the backstories of how we met. Much more interesting than a vanilla list.

After I posted a partial list, someone asked me how come I’d met so many musicians, I said mostly it came down to time and place. Many nearly famous rock musicians played at our high school assemblies and political rallies (Class of 1970—we made the 6 o’clock news when we shut down the Marin County draft board). From the Tubes, Moby Grape, Talking Heads, Country Joe to John Cipollina. So we thought hobnobbing with musicians was normal. 

After the Summer of Love, when utopia began to sour, and society as we knew it had the DTs, the rock musicians and hangers-on began to flee the Haight in San Francisco for Marin County, they invaded our tiny little valley. We all had to learn to live with each other, which was an uneasy compromise. Old redneck school met hippiedom. It was not love at first sight. And I was not at all starstruck. If anything, I was angry that our valley had been invaded. 

The influx of new people stretched and tore the warp and weft of our bucolic valley. And when Tam school district took away our buses (too expensive, they said), we had to hitchhike in order to get to school. We demonstrated, we walked to and from school—but it was 17 miles each way! I was exhausted. I took up hitchhiking. And the only folks that would stop to pick us up were the rock musicians. Never the ranchers who even knew us. No solidarity there.

I grew up in west Marin so I met many of the musicians while I was hitchhiking home to Forest Knolls. I thumbed rides with Van Morrison, Jesse Colin Young, Sons of Champlin (our main lid connection), Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and of course, Janis—many of them lived on my road. Carlos Santana was always good for a ride. Janice never stopped for us, but then she only had a two-seater Porsche. She always braked for young men hitchhiking.

Linda Ronstadt, Grace Slick, most of Jefferson Airplane, Maria Muldaur all lived in nearby hamlets at one time or another. When Jefferson Airplane moved to Woodacre, they hung a model biplane that was featured on one of their albums from an oak tree.

I met many, if not all of the Grateful Dead—both living and dead, Micky Hart was a neighbor both in Forest Knolls, and later in Forestville—we boarded his girlfriend’s horse. Later, poor Jerry Garcia was in rehab at Forest Farm Camp, renamed Serenity Farm, so we saw him dawdling down the hill to the little grocery store in Forest Knolls to get his daily fix of Häagen-Dazs, or Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream, right before he died.

Bobby Darin was a very good friend of my mom’s. I tried to play If I were a Carpenter for him on my Palamino Pony guitar. He was not impressed, I was 12, but he showed me an E minor progression chord I was having trouble with. I met Pete, Mike & Peggy Seeger at several venues. I must’ve been radiant with joy because after one concert in Grass Valley, Mike Seeger came up to me and gave me a huge bear hug, and wept on my shoulder. Ramblin’ Jack Elliott used to hang out in downtown Forest Knolls. He liked watching all the girls on horseback. I was one of them.

Old Tunes, New Licks

Because my partner, Neil O'Neill is a Celtic folksinger, my ad-hoc job is to sleuth out the provenance of traditional Scottish and Irish folksongs, collect variants, and to write the liner notes. What I've learned is that new song lyrics are often set to old tunes or melodies, and updated every generation, and that the song is a compilation of melody or tune, and lyrics (words). 

The ballad our family traditionally sings at every funeral, Danny Boy, is a melody from an old Irish air "discovered" by a sister-in-law in the goldmines of Colorado [what was she doing in the mines?], Londonderry Air (AKA "Air from County Derry" or "Derry Air"), with words written by a London barrister and lyricist in 1910—a prime example of melodic borrowing.

Frederic Weatherly gave the ancient Irish tune, updated with his new lyrics to Elsie Griffin, who made it one of the most popular songs in the new century (first record was made in 1915). So we tend to think of him as the author and composer of Danny Boy. But he didn't compose the melody of the song, just the lyrics. 

The story goes that the original air was collected from a blind fiddler by Jane Ross of Limavady in Northern Ireland, and published by musicologist and antiquarian, George Petrie in 1855, The Ancient Music of Ireland, by the Society for the Preservation and Publication of the Melodies of Ireland.

World famous song Danny Boy is taken from a melody composed by O’Cahan bard Rory Dall O’Cahan. The original version concerns the passing of the Chief Cooey-na-Gall whose death brought an end to a long line of O’Cahan chiefs in Northern Ireland. —Wiki

Folksingers have been swapping tunes and lyrics for eons—sometimes, in their travels, the bits get separated from each other—a muffled line becomes a mondegreen, oftentimes new songs arise from the ashes of the old.

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl O' Moray
And Lady Mondegreen.

So much for laying the poor old dead Earl of Moray down on the green. And what about Lady Mondegreen? She had some melons. A Cuban favorite: José can you see by the dawn's early light? Imagine a rainbow Hendrix: 'S'cuse me while I kiss this guy. Who knew that Kumbaya is really Come by Here—oh Lord.

Our family simply slaughters the lyrics to Háva Nagíla at weddings. Gawd only know what we're boisterously singing while mangling the Grapevine. (Mondegreens in Hebrew are called watermelons.) Malachy McCourt thought The Hail Mary rosary phrase "amongst women" was "a monk swimming", which became the title of his book. Neil, who was an altar boy in Scotland, thought the Latin mea culpea was "Mexican cowboy." OK, so maybe he was stretching it a bit.

Many Irish songs and melodies that traveled to the New World morphed into what we think of as American songs—sometimes with watermelon mondegreens intact.

Famous People I once knew

On Facebook, someone asked me about the famous people I've met, and I replied in no particular order. Small fragments of stories began to appear, some are pasted here, in hopes I'll do something with them at a later date.

Some fragments I've already blogged on about, but I'll want to compare the language, to see if I have any fresh perspectives, or new leads...otherwise, it's merely archival, and maybe it should stay in draft form. Tho I don't think I ever wrote about the musicians or Scatman...

I've met Scatman Crothers, Kate Wolf, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin and Grace Slick. I've met so many of the legends. Where to even begin?

Well, it WAS the 60s...and 70s and 80s...Janis lived on Arroyo Road at Camp Lagunitas, or Barbano’s. She'd be getting up about the time we walked home from high school...

Grace Slick—we wandered into her house in the middle of a drug deal...there were red roses on the piano and a sunken hot tub in the living room with a blue and green shag rug. She stumbled out of the bedroom around 4 PM, in a black ecru-hemmed babydoll negligeé (I kid you not), raccoon makeup caked under her eyes, and she was quite cross with us for being in her living room. But the guys were in the kitchen having a smoke.

Scatman Crothers was at the River Theater in Guerneville, after his concert, we all piled into a booth at a Guerneville coffeeshop (River Inn?) and gossiped the night away. He was a great storyteller. What I remember is Scatman imitating Cab Calloway's famous song, with a Heidi heidi hei. I took notes, it appeared in The Paper with photos. All my tear sheets have melted back into the earth after the biblical rains we had in the 1990s. I have the negatives somewhere. 

I met Kate Wolf there at the Rio Theatre too. Nina Gerber was on guitar. Man, that girl can play. It was a fundraiser for something—was it for Kate's own leukemia? I don't remember. Kate kept quiet about it. I remember she sang so drearily, I was bored to tears. It was only later that I found out about the leukemia and I felt so bad for panning her performance. But it was dreary. I'd seen her around before, at the Forest Knolls Post Office, in her white Ford station wagon. She lived up on Resaca.

Never actually talked to Janis, she was pretty hung over... We were shy high school kids, so we merely said hi as we went up the road home. She never picked us up hitchhiking. But I loved her Porsche with its mural.

Stan Getz,  Etta James, Dr. Maya Angelou, Irving Layton and Donald Sutherland. OK, Stan was the lie. No one caught it, though.

Dave Brubeck wrote a letter to The Paper praising my Russian River Jazz Fest photography. It was a thrill watching him from backstage playing Take Five, one of my mom's favorite theater sayings. And Stan was very approachable between sets, chatted with me about my work teaching lids poetry and art. I gave him some anthologies. (Note to myself: I have to find my famous people letters and scan them).

Steven Gross who also was working for The Paper, took pix also, I secretly think he coveted my job, and he coincidentally stole my negatives of Etta James. He was quite nasty about it too. Not on my list of people to reconnect with.

Maya Angelou and her son Guy Johnson, I read with them in SF for National Poetry Association. This was long before she got famous. Guy and I exchangeds letters for a while. 

I met Irving Layton and Donald Sutherland at his sister Boschka's wake. Never talked to Donnie. so I guess I didn’t meet him.  Irving was quite the charmer. I could see what she saw in him. That Newfie crowd got rather famous: Irving—Canada's Poet Laureate, Donald took some Oscars home—Ordinary People or Six Degrees of Separation? And there was Leonard Cohen. So I'm one degree of separation from Leonard. The wake was at Boschka's new home at Goat Rock so the events are inexorably intertwined.

I met the Bridges all at once at the Sacramento Music Circus: I think it was Guys and Dolls. We were all staying at the same motel. I wanted to know why Lloyd named Beau "Boy" as Jeff clearly was younger (closer to my age). Mr Sea Hunt himself gathered me up on his lap and roared with laughter.

Lloyd bought me a crystal star necklace. A prized possession that I lost down the back seat of a neighbor's car. I cried, and Agnes was too drunk to help—at 9 AM. Lloyd's crystal star slid down my neck, down into the void. Later, I would meet Leeta, my first boyfriend's  mother—who went to high school with Lloyd in Petaluma, so our worlds were all fairly intertwined.

Big bad Beau wouldn't let Jeff play with me in the pool. My feelings were hurt.

My mom was costuming the play. It took me a half a lifetime to figure out why Lloyd was laughing uproariously at my unconscious Beau/Boy "joke." I was pretty sure adults weren't to be trusted. Beau didn't want to have anything to do with me. I was 6, I was a girl, I couldn't swim so Jeff & I eyed each other in the shallow end, with Beau being the bossy older brother....they were so blond, they took my breath away. Even then.

Tommy Smothers used to babysit me at Gate 5 while my mom was at the Gate Playhouse theater. Dick Smothers never babysat me, he left it to Tommy who liked kids. And he was more fun to be around.

Bobby Darin was in Big Sur and my mom met him after midnight at the Esalen baths. She met lots of people: even Frank Sinatra bought her a drink once at the Cal Neva—she showed me where they sat. They drove up to Forest Knolls. Bobby showed me the chords to "If I were a Carpenter." Can you dig it? I payed badly for him on my palomino pony guitar, until my fingers bled, I was but a child. What did I know about fame?

Tom Waits, Joan Baez, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson, Dick and Tommy Smothers and Sterling Hayden. I've met them too.

I met Tom Waits at Ruth Mankin's 50th birthday party in Sebastopol but he was afraid of being bugged by fans, so we ignored him until he began to feel like a ghost of his own choosing. I felt sorry for him so we mostly just stood at the stove and ate sweet potato fries with lime & chili powder, talking of food and inanity itself. He hennaed his hair so his sideburns were sort of an auberge-eggplant color. I taught his daughter art and calligraphy one summer at LBC...she was sufficiently spoiled to be too cool for her own good.

I was an extra a few times on Nash Bridges. Cheech Marin and Don Johnson arrived on the scene, so I guess technically, I've met them as well. I was shouting out to them and taking photos like a good brash reporter. I took fake photos with my camera. On hindsight, I wish I'd had film in my camera. They blew up the VA hospital. It was quite astounding. My blue truck was an extra too, & it got paid more than I did. Tiny little checks from Universal Studios...almost not worth cashing. But I did. In those days, every penny counted. Still does.

Extras blend into the woodwork or wind up on the proverbial cutting room floor. Neil had a longer scene with Jeff Bridges in Tucker, that was reduced to a 30-second blip. You have to slo-mo it to see him.

Oh, we met Dame Edna too... We ushered at Theater on the Square in SF and met Barry Humphreys after the show...but I've already done far too many of these Famous People quizzes.

Seamus Heaney, Kenny Rogers, Carlos Santana, Robin Williams and Eric Idle.

I went to school with Robin way before fame came along...I ran into Robin later with Eric Idle at the Greek Theater, I was working backstage, Bread & Roses Festival. He remembered me...which shocked me. Nothing like getting a slippery, steamy bear hug from a very sweaty performer after a show... Once I was madly in love with Robin when I was 17, I used to follow him all around College of Marin, as he did his silly walks in green gym shorts and a woman's bathing cap on his head with the chin strap dangling.

Eric Idle looked like a cross-eyed Siamese cat up close, but was very kind. I mean what DO you say to a Python. When Robin and Eric revved it up back stage with Big Mikie, Michael Pritchard, I about died  of laughter.

I was asked to take photos of Kenny Rogers with some friends in the Green Room at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, in Santa Rosa, after a show. He was very nice. Lotta pancake makeup. I got to see the show too. I gained a new appreciation for Kenny Rogers, not formerly on my music radar screen.

Then there was Bo Diddly. It was at the Sonoma County Fair, I was taking photos, and Bo Diddly invited me into his trailer after the show for an interview (I was dancing up front, and taking photos during the show). I expected to do a story on him. What I wasn't expecting was to be chased around the trailer by him. He had his guitar, Lucille, strapped on, and nearly had me cornered, but I ducked under her neck. Made my escape. Needless to say, I was much more cautious around Chuck Berry, who was a perfect gentleman.

Redux list, 2021

People I’ve met or been within five theater.

Sheesh, I’ve met and chatted with so many famous people, it’s impossible to pick just 5. So it’s 5 categories. Actors, musicians, scientists /public figures, political figures, writers.

1. Robin Williams

Eric Idle

Lloyd Bridges, Beau and Jeff

Connie Stevens

George Lucas

Sterling Hayden

Tommy & Dick Smothers

Dame Edna

Cheech Marin

Don Johnson

Faye Dunaway

Ron Perlman

Brian Cox

Peter Coyote

2. Kenny Rogers

Pete Seeger

Joan Baez

Dave Brubeck

Bo Diddly

Eartha Kitt

Jesse Colin Young

Van Morrison 

Bob Dylan

Janis Joplin

Bobby Darin

Tom Waits

Carlos Santana

Grace Slick

Scatman Crothers

Kate Wolf

Mimi Fariña 

Tracy Chapman

3. Commander Chris Hadfield, astronaut

Dr. Al Baez, invented lasers

Bill Moyers

Noam Chomsky

Leonard Matlovich

Maria Shriver

David Brower

Famous Amos

Edwin Drummond, famous rock climber, ex boyfriend

4. Irish president Mary Robinson

Irish president Mary McAleece

Jerry Brown

Willie Brown 

Barbara Boxer 

Gary Giacomini

Robert Reich

5. Rita Dove

Seamus Heaney

Joy Harjo

Robert Bly

Maya Angelou

Lou Welch

Raymond Carver

Irving Layton

Isabel Allende

Joseph  Brodsky

Galway Kinnell

Alice Walker

Allan Ginsberg

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Robert Hass

Juan Felipe Herrera

James Patterson

Tim Severin, explorer, writer

Ken Kesey

I see I need to work on my politicians. George Lucas is the only lie. Chomsky and Clinton I was pretty far away from. Martin Sheen too.

At the Bob Dylan concert

We are standing in line waiting, hoping to get into the Bob Dylan concert. A last minute decision. We decide to join Vito and Connie but we have no tickets. Freddie, a parole officer, joins in the search. We are so many, we are circling the entire block of the Bill Graham Theater. We stand next to four buses idling, and are overwhelmed by the sooty odor of diesel. We know that Dylan is inside one of those dark buses. The buzz grows. 

The 20-somethings in the crowd may have tickets, but aren’t too sure who Dylan is. Neil works the crowd. Scalpers galore. Prices are through the roof. But he is optimistic. He works his magic, and finds one ticket at price halfway around the block. Final stretch into the auditorium and we still don’t have a second ticket. He scores one ticket at the box office, and a second ticket in the street, and bingo we’re in. It was so stressful. 

We are up in the rafters. The place is jammed. Blue light. Everyone is lighting up. It smells like the 1960s. The 20-somethings are rocking out, what’s the connection? This is their parent’s music. 

It was so strange to see Dylan in his maroon country and western leisure suit, opening with the Patsy Cline-ish cowboy songs. The concert was a musical pistache of R & B rock ‘n’ roll, swing, bluegrass—a progression of styles. He must’ve had a bank of a dozen guitars lined up for each nuance of the set. Shenandoah, nostalgic Civil War song reminds us of where we’ve been. I think of the juxtaposition of song, and war, and flag. No discourse, but the lyrics of the songs build on a political statement, ending with the antiwar songs. 

Dylan is still going strong at 60, a most dedicated performer. The music goes beyond his personality. Beyond his voice. But we don’t care. He sings I’ll be your baby tonight. Everyone knows the words. And they sing along with the times, they are a changing. Blowing in the wind. He brings down the house with Imagine. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too. Weird to think that about the time that Dylan became Christian, Cat Stevens became Muslim.

Someone lights up. You know what the next song is going to be. Everybody let’s get stoned. The audience lights up, right on cue—myriad red dragon eyes, or fireflies surround us. We are all stoned, It can’t be helped, we’re one giant contact high. Women throw bouquets of roses and scream, We love you Bob. I’m not a huge fan, but I get into the groove. They stone you when you’re playing your guitar. He changes the words to lyre. We giggle. It’s practically a karaoke club. His dozen guitars light up the night. 

Blue-eyed sons, all bald, now. No reprieve from the ravages of time. Neil is singing blowing in the wind under his breath. The only way to recognize some of the tunes is by the guitar chord progression. I’m thinking of rainy day women, hard rain, and blue-eyed sons. Today is not an endless highway, but we’re rocking in the balcony in unison. There must be some kind kind of way out of here, because the times they are a changing. 

As we leave the building the exit is a caracol, a human chain-snail oozing down the stairs. The bus screams, four more decoy buses pull out. Suddenly I know which bus Dylan is in. I flagellate Neil, telling him to run. I know where the bus will stop. Don’t ask me how I know, I just now. Call it newshound savvy. It’s all about timing. We run across the street and damned if the the bus doesn’t stop right in front of us. The impossible, possible, the improbable, probable. Bob Dylan opens the window, sticks his hand out and shakes our hands. Neil won’t wash his hands for the next year.

Fartist retort while waiting in line to score tickets to see Dylan

Neil, a prodigious fartist, was thinking he could rip off a quick fart while standing in line while waiting for Dylan, but the guy behind him overheard, and complained loudly to his teenybopper girl girlfriend, What's that smell? Neil turns and says, Hey my asshole maybe prolific, but it knows when to keep its mouth shut. The young guy responds with a punky, Oh yeah? Neil says, No shit! Thinking there might be a brawl in line, I said, And yeah, he can't keep the other gobshite shut either. Neil said, I know when to open my gob. I retorted, He'd talk the legs off a chair, vaccinated with the gramophone needle he was, and now he's just a cheapsnake, meaning cheapskate. The young guy, perhaps defending his oblivious girlfriend's honor, is way in over his head, can't make heads or tails of any of it. We laugh, the line shuffles forward, dissipating the problem.

10 /13/2001