The Cros at Seventy

If you had told me back in the early eighties that David Crosby would live to see his seventieth birthday, I never would have believed you.

Of all the rock stars of the sixties and seventies who were expected to destroy themselves, Crosby was the most likely to do so. He was driven by an insatiable appetite for just about anything that gave him pleasure, most notably drugs. His legendary cocaine freebasing got more headlines than his music, and he was also known for the kind of sexual selfishness that would make heavy metal stars blush. But through the love of a good woman (his wife Jan, whom he met around 1977) and the long arm of the law (he was wanted for cocaine possession and failing to show up for a court hearing in Texas, and he spent nine months in a Texas prison), he cleaned up his act and realized that his music was suffering. As the Cros himself put it, he knew he couldn't go down that path to self-destruction anymore . . . because there was no path.

Crosby's past personal life has made him the object of ridicule from his detractors in the rock press, but when you hear his music, be it from the Byrds, his solo work, and his many variations on his partnership with Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young, you can understand why I come today to praise, not bury, him - and express my gratitude that we haven't buried him. He's a masterful singer, equally adept at lead and backing vocals - his harmonies are exquisite, and he's always been an adventurous instrumentalist. Crosby is known for his complex tunings and his sharp note enunciation, producing a guitar sound as clear and peerless as his voice.

As a composer, Crosby is admittedly less consistent than his former bandmates in the Byrds and his occasional buddies Stills, Nash and Young. Hey, why fib? The Cros has never been able to come up with enough interesting material to fill out an entire solo album, and he's always functioned better in a larger group. However, when he does function best, he functions very well indeed. His haunting ballad "Guinnevere," from the first Crosby, Stills and Nash album, is a masterpiece in understatement, and "Almost Cut My Hair" from the Crosby, Stills Nash and Young LP Deja Vu has a raw power to it that is countered by its self-winking, self-referencing lyrics. Listen to Wind On the Water, the second Crosby/Nash duo album, from 1975 - not a weak Crosby song on it! You don't want to be without the heavy blues of "Homeward Through the Haze," a Crosby tune many songwriters likely wish they could have written. Later songs, like the enigmatic "Shadow Captain," written with keyboardist Craig Doerge providing the music (from the 1977 CSN album) and "Delta" (from 1982's Crosby, Stills and Nash album Daylight Again) are also standouts.

In spite of his ability to impress musically when you least expect it (even his solo albums have the occasional gems, like "Laughing" from his first solo LP), Crosby will always be more notorious for his drug busts and personal quirks than for his music. When it turned out that he donated sperm to allow Melissa Etheridge and her then-partner Julie Cypher to sire a child, other people were aghast. Me, I was laughing my head off. Nothing Crosby does phases me anymore. The point of his life and career is that he's always been more of an outlaw than anyone else in the Los Angeles pop-rock scene than his peers. He was speaking out about the threat to alternative media at the same time Gil Scott-Heron was, and his penchant for motorcycles sort of contradict the gentle folk harmonies of his records. He's done some nasty things in his life, and he's even proven to be despicable at times, but that's all right.

Because if he weren't like that, he wouldn't be David Crosby. :-D

Happy birthday, Cros - let your freak flag fly!

(I plan to pick a Crosby-related Music Video Of the Week this Friday; my choice of a Billy Preston song for this Friday was to play belated tribute to a Concert For Bangla Desh participant.)

Slow Train Coming

Why are we still enamored with Bob Dylan even today, as he turns seventy years old?

Dylan isn't a traditional rock and roller like Elvis Presley was or Rod Stewart is. He's not someone who struts onstage or plays flamboyant arrangements. His music is menacing, but in a more subtle and sly way. He pretty much lets his voice - commonly compared to the sound of a cow with a limb caught in a barbed-wire fence - deliver the edge to the many poetic stories his songs represent.

And what songs they are! Originally a folk singer in the tradition of Woody Guthrie, Dylan adopted and adapted the ideas of the musical heroes of his teenage years, Elvis Presley and Little Richard, and added a rock and roll sound with electric instruments that sounded spare and basic but could still pull a scab off an uncomfortable wound. Many of Dylan's tunes, whether acoustically or electrically arranged, probe such sore spots. His way with words and rhymes created a world dominated by strong women, Biblical characters, wanderers seeking truth, and a motley crew of jokers and thieves. Only in a Dylan song like "Desolation Row" could Romeo and Cinderella meet through mistaken identity. Only in a Dylan song like "Sweetheart Like You" could we be introduced to "the most beautiful woman who ever crawled across cut glass to make it deal."

Dylan's songs, open to personal interpretation and universal in themes of love and betrayal, are not confined to any particular time and place, making them open to all sorts of musical re-arranging and interpretation by the many recording artists who found their own meaning and their own voice in Dylan's words.

That's why we still care about Dylan today.

Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited with their humorous parables of American culture, are considered the masterpieces in the Dylan catalog, but I recommend John Wesley Harding from 1968 as an example of Dylan's low-key side. Its on that album where, after a devastating motorcycle accident, he quietly delved into the meanings of freedom, relief, and love . . . and found himself renewed. 

Ringo!

Ringo Starr turns seventy today. And he's still active. Ringo (you can't call him Starr) is bringing his All-Starr Band on tour yet again this year, and he's playing Radio City Music Hall tonight. Sadly, I can't make it.

How do you account for the former Beatle's longevity? It could simply be that Ringo doesn't take himself too seriously, and he's always being underestimated. He's used these qualities to his advantage throughout his career. In the Beatles, he served as the group's Everyman, the average bloke holding together three rock musicians of extraordinary talent with his steady, industrious drumming. Although not a virtuoso, he was a solid drummer for the group, but because he wasn't technically superior, he's usually left out of the lists of great rock drummers, the most thoughtful of which would include Charlie Watts, Keith Moon, John Bonham, Creedence's Doug Clifford, and Neil Peart (and as a Family fan, I would throw in Rob Townsend, who, incidentally celebrates his 63rd birthday today). But Ringo should be there too. His stick work on "Rain" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" should be enough reason.

Ringo also gained notoriety for his plain, deadpan singing, which allowed him to turn slight songs like "I Wanna Be You Man" into masterpieces and add extra charm to the likes of "Yellow Submarine." And only someone with the whimsical wonder of Ringo Starr could have written a wonderful tune like "Octopus's Garden." But during the sixties,it was understood that a little Ringo went a long way. Wen the Beatles broke up in 1970, the question was obvious; how, how, could Ringo possibly make it as a solo artist?

Very well, actually. Ringo himself asked this question, and he made no secret of his desire for the Beatles to reconcile. preferring to be in a band than on his own. But despite a few bumps - and a long dry spell in the 1980s, when he recorded very little and battled alcoholism - he developed a respectable solo career for himself. His first solo album, Sentimental Journey, was a collection of Tin Pan Alley standards his mother used to sign at the local pub in Liverpool with her friends, and wit ha little help from his friends - each track on Sentimental Journey had a different arranger - he came through with a record noted for its honesty and Ringo's own love for the songs. Always a country and western fan, Ringo followed up with Beaucoups of Blues, an album of original songs supplied by producer Pete Drake, who got a little help from his friends, Nashville songwriters such as Sorells Packard and Chuck Howard. Ringo had already found a nice little sideline as an actor, his lack of pretentiousness making him an enjoyable screen presence. All he had to do was act naturally.

Ringo's biggest successes started with two singles he wrote himself, 1971's "It Don't Come Easy" and 1972's infectious "Back Off Boogaloo," both produced by George Harrison. The straightforward lyrics of the former song and the jokey atmosphere of the latter ("Back Off Boogaloo" was inspired by a saying used liberally by T-Rex frontman Mark Bolan) made both songs huge hits, and when Ringo teamed up with producer Richard Perry to record the albums Ringo (1973) and Goodnight Vienna (1974) he had truly found his voice as a singer and as an entertainer. Unlike the lofty ambitions of his former bandmates in their music - John Lennon's activism, Paul McCartney's symphonic pop, George Harrison's spiritual pursuits - Ringo only wanted to please people and make them smile.

By the late seventies, though, newer, younger acts had taken over the charts, and Ringo was affected by this as much as any other veteran rock and roller. Maybe even more so - Atlantic Records dropped him when his 1977 album Ringo the 4th barely made it onto the charts (at number 199), and he was soon exasperated by the whole record business. In the past twenty years, though, Ringo has re-invigorated himself, reveling in his own showmanship, and quietly putting out new albums that have registered with the small but loyal audience that buys them. With producers such as Mark Hudson and Dave Stewart behind them, some say they may be his best work yet. And he's carried that joy and fun in his All-Starr Band concerts, one of which this blogger saw at an outdoor venue in New Jersey in the summer of 1992. (The remnants of Hurricane Andrew got everyone wet with rain, but no one cared. Everyone was too busy having a good time.)

My mother once said that Ringo is the only "normal" Beatle. By that, she meant that Ringo is the only Beatle who's like the rest of us. He doesn't think he's an Important Artist. He doesn't put on airs. He's never had reason to find himself; he knows who he is. He's probably the only Beatle who could blend in at a British pub singalong or at an American barbecue. He's the Beatle you'd rather have a lager with. Heck, he's the only Beatle who's never been in a drug bust. He's the only Beatle to put out a Christmas album. (Which is ironic - before 1999, when his I Wanna Be Santa Claus album, produced by Mark Hudson, was released, he was the only Beatle who hadn't yet put out a Christmas record; the others had put out singles.) He's always been an ordinary average guy, and his bewilderment at his own success is what's made him so popular and resilient. He is, to be blunt, one of us.

So, happy birthday to Mr. Richard Starkey of Liverpool 8. Cheers! :-)

Nancy With the Laughing Face

What do you get for the woman who has everything on her seventieth birthday, which is today?

What do you get indeed get for Nancy Pelosi, a woman who, as the first female speaker of the House of Representatives, gave us a better health care delivery system by pushing through three crucial votes at equally crucial moments in Barack Obama's Presidency? A woman who has more powerful than any other woman in the history of American government?

Well, I think she said something about wanting a pool table. :-D

Happy birthday, Speaker Pelosi. :-)