Hi Jack

Just watched your show with Marc Cambell and found it very interesting. Sorry I can’t usually join in in real time but 10 PM here is when I am hanging with Liz and/or getting ready for bed.

Yes I am getting old. I am ahead of you and Marc in the race to finish line. Perhaps that is why rock and roll in not the sacred cow to me that you and he seem to find it. Or maybe I was just never a “rocker.” I started playing the violin in the fourth grade for very rock and roll reasons—a cute girl was taking violin also—and moved on to upright bass and tuba in High School. Though I took up the guitar in Junior High it was to join a Dixieland band, then I moved on to folk and blues in HS. I found the Beatles haircuts silly when they appeared on Sullivan and couldn’t understand the fuss.

I was turned on to the rock of the Sixties by Steven Tyler (then Tolerico). We marched in band together (he on drums, me on tuba) and used to hang out in the band room where he would play the Stones, The Pretty Things and the Yardbirds on an old record player.

Having already steeped myself in the blues (I wrote my HS senior thesis on it) I appreciated the blues roots of these bands and was excited by the direction that they were taking it, much as I was excited by the possibilities of where Brian Setzer might have taken rockabilly the first time I heard the Stray Cats—unfortunately we know how that turned out. I guess this is all to say that I have a different perspective on the whole rock and roll exceptionalism thing.

Essentially I have always felt that Rock and Roll was just another category in the wide wonderful world of music and as such subject to some of the same standards. The wild and dangerous rockabilly bands that started the whole thing did not contain “rock” guitarists, just guitarists like Scotty Moore and Cliff Gallup who could probably play standards if pressed. The singers sang on pitch and the band grooved on some level.

As to the dangerous question, was rock any more dangerous than the blues, be-bop or Stravinsky? That music pushed the envelope and buttons, arousing passions and in the latter case even fistfights—without a hint of eyeliner in sight.  That said seeing Rod Stewart’s rooster haircut when I saw him with Jeff Beck at the Fillmore East and Jimmy Page’s 18th century fop drag when I saw the Yardbirds at the Andersen Theater was definitely as life altering as the music. But that is the social revolution aspect of rock not the musical one.

Though I was unequivocally blown away when I first saw Hendrix in my college gym (he is playing all those parts at once?!!), I was perhaps less so as a result of recognizing his roots in Cornell Dupree and Buddy Guy, two players who had already blown my mind and inspired me to take up the electric guitar.

This is just about adding perspective. When people talk about the “purity” of their rock heroes I reach for my revolver. One of my fondest musical memories is hearing the Yardbirds and the Who shilling for Great Shakes on the radio on the bus as I road to High School. The myth that rock and roll was the embodiment of some anti-capitalist utopian philosophy I have always found laughable. I remember my amusement at the irony and gall of John Lennon singing. “Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can?” Excuse me motherfucker; I am not the one who owns forty apartments in the Dakota and a white grand piano on a white shag rug. My belief that Neil Young is one of the only musicians of his genre to even approach any kind of purity was confirmed when after 9/11 he came on TV and sang, “Imagine no possessions, I wonder if I can?” —a crucial lyric change, no?

I don’t mean to denigrate the power of great rock and roll, just try to offer another viewpoint. For me, seeing Hendrix and the Who in their prime in relatively small venues was no more or less mind-blowing than seeing Howling Wolf perform in my dorm lobby or Chico Hamilton at CBGBs, before Hilly went punk, with a band that consisted of John Abercrombie, Glen Moore and Ralph Towner, or Bill Frisell playing with Percy Jones’ Stone Tiger (Dougie Bowne on drums, who I later saw play with Iggy Pop) at the Bitter End.

As to aging in rock, we like to think that our heroes who died young would have somehow retained their power into middle and old age, but who is to say that Hendrix might not have finally capitulated, putting the Experience back together and trotting out “Foxy Lady” one more time; remember, Clapton started out with experiments like Cream and Blind Faith.

A favorite conversation starter of mine is to ask which musicians in any genre have aged gracefully. My picks are:

Neil Young (though I think he misses way more than he hits these days at least he is still trying)

Dylan (the band with Charlie Sexton and Larry Campbell was one of his best)

Jim Hall (the guy starts using effects in his sixties and just gets better and better)

Robert Plant. I have loved his solo work since Zep, especially his latest band (no, not with Allison Krause, though that ain’t bad), the one with Justin Adams on guitar, who having been born in the mid-east helps keep that great Zep influence alive.

Bowie was doing well until he trotted out his greatest hits tour.

Miles, certainly until he went and died.

I would now, thanks to Mr. Campbell, add Leonard Cohen. I am open to other suggestions.

Back to the danger thing, it is an important element in any great art. But it must come from the art. I saw Ornette Coleman at the Masonic hall in SF about a decade ago. He played first with Geri Allen on piano in a trio format, and for the second half with Prime Time, his electric band. At intermission, he had people on stage piercing themselves and hanging from hooks. Of course a number of people left in a huff. The sad thing was that once upon a time it would have been his music that was disturbing enough to make people leave. Muddy Waters sitting on a stool was more dangerous than Jim Morrison on his best day—without the aid of leather pants.

I am all for show as long as we don’t mistake it for content.

Howling Wolf, from all reports was an educated man who had a health care plan for his musicians, but on stage he was fearsome. If you want to see dangerous, check out the Legendary Shackshackers sometime. The lead singer/harmonica player comes off like some nightmare out of Deliverance, prompting the guy standing next to me in front of the stage to say, “Please don’t kill me.” Interviewing him later I found him to be articulate and, wouldn’t you know, nice.

I guess this is all a long-winded way to indicate—as the young folks post on Face Book—it’s complicated.

Hope this finds you well and happy and maybe we can discuss this in person some time – love to hear your always-intelligent ideas.

Best

M

Recommended reading:

Escaping The Delta: Robert Johnson and the Blues by Elijah Wald

An interesting look at how white blues fans created the myth of the lone guitarist as the genesis of the blues

Where Dead Voices Gather by Nick Tosches (or anything else by him for that matter). An OCD look at Emmet Miller and how black music influenced white music but more interestingly vice versa.