The Quiet Power of Tracy Grammer and Jim Henry

Tracy Grammer and Jim Henry

Greenfield, MA

March 12, 2011

Some singers knock you off your feet and others gently rock you. A Tracy Grammer concert is like falling into a big old featherbed that warms, envelops, and refreshes. As she and sidekick Jim Henry demonstrated to a hometown crowd, there's a lot of power in the soft approach. Grammer is the greatest living interpreter of songs from her firmer partner, Dave Carter, and to hear her sing “Evangeline” or “Crocodile Man” is alone worth the price of admission. The late Dave Carter may have been the best songwriter of the last two decades of the 20th century and, yes, that list includes a guy named Dylan! Grammer is deft in using her soothing and soft voice in ways that allow Carter's ecumenical views--soaked simultaneously in skepticism and deep spirituality-- find their level. Want the uber-endorsement? Check out Grammer’s cover of “The Mountain,” a song that the Dali Lama loves. Grammer has also become a fine interpreter of other writers as well, as she showed in a drop-dead gorgeous cover of David Francey's “Waking Hour,” and some equally fine stuff from writers such as Tom Russell.

Grammer and Jim Henry harmonize beautifully together, with Henry also showcasing tasteful and dynamic accompaniment and arrangements. Henry is also an exceedingly fine act on his own. How many performers would have the moxie to take on a beloved song such as Richard Thompson's “Vincent Black Lightening?” More to the point, how many could cover it without sounding lame? Henry is no RT, but if you had never heard the original you'd be tempted to use the adjective ‘definitive’ for Mr. Henry's crisp rendition. The Greenfield evening was homespun in the finest sense of that word--two gifted individuals playing for folks who reside in their respective backyards. Most of the material has been in their repertoires for several years. No great revelations, but when you can knock 'em over with a feather, why bring out the big guns?

Gibson Brothers Latest a Throwback--Not for Everyone

The Gibson Brothers

Help My Brother

Compass 4945

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Eric (banjo, vocals) and Leigh Gibson (guitar, vocals) have won a few International Bluegrass Music Awards and there’s little denying their talent, especially when they team with the rest of the band: Mike Barber (upright bass), Clayton Campbell (fiddle), and Joe Walsh (mandolin). Help My Brother lives up to its title in that the album’s dozen tracks are mostly upbeat and wholesome. There are sweet love songs, some mountain gospel, and lots of homage to live below the Mason-Dixon Line. Fans of bluegrass in the high lonesome style pioneered by Bill Monroe will like this album quite a lot. Especially stellar are Campbell’s fiddle breakouts.

I did, however, find some of the songs crossing the line between wholesome and trite. Verse such as “He can be found in a mother’s smile/He can be founding the eyes of a child” are from the June/spoon/moon school of writing and don’t rank very high on the sophistication scale. For the most part, though, how well you enjoy this album will depend upon where you fall on traditional bluegrass versus “newgrass” spectrum. As one who has been spoiled by rising lights such as Railroad Earth and Crooked Still, I found my attention drifting. I begrudge no one who likes this release, but it’s just too wholesome and too yesterday for my taste.

Deadheads Talking to Themselves?

The Grateful Dead in Concert: Essays on Live Improvisation. By Jim Tuedio and Stan Spector, eds. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2010. ISBN 978-0-7864-4357-4

NOTE: This book was originally reviewed for the Northeast Popular Culture Association.

In Long Strange Trip, former Grateful Dead publicist Dennis McNally tells the story of two 1990 concerts in which the band was breaking in its new keyboardist, Vince Welnick. The first concert was filled with brilliant moments and Welnick was jazzed. Yet just several nights later the Dead’s show was “abysmal.” McNally sought to comfort the disconsolate Welnick with these words: “Vince, you don’t understand. It’s not you. This is a band that really sucks sometimes, and tonight’s the night” (585).

I can think of no better metaphor to sum up the twenty essays in The Grateful Dead in Concert. There are moments of crystalline insight, such as Erin McCoy’s essay that plumbs the band’s Americana roots, Jay Williams’s look at the Dead’s bohemian nationalism, and Natalie Dollar’s effort at cracking the communication codes that built the Deadhead movement. Good stuff. But this is also a book that really sucks sometimes. The project has a clever hook in that the essays are assembled like a concert: a tune-up, three sets, and an encore. Had each of the authors stuck to dominant riff of building interpretive frameworks with the consideration topnotch musicians give to assembling a playlist, this might have been a very fine book indeed. Alas, two major problems disempower this book like a severed power cable: fandom and academic pretentiousness.

Several of the writers seem to have forgotten that the book’s purpose is to illumine the band. Few groups have ever approached the Dead in cultivating such an impassioned and loyal following. Fine, but a scholar’s main task should be objective and dispassionate. To place one’s one love of the band above analysis is only appropriate for a volume titled What the Grateful Dead Meant to Me. There are, alas, several entries in this volume that are so idiosyncratic and personal that outside readers will be hard pressed to find broader insight.

But these essays are easy on the reader compared with those in which the writer is simply showing off. Several essayists indulge in postmodernist excess at its absolute worst. Their prose is obtuse, jargon-ridden, and unreadable. Although I applaud the effort to apply intellectual rigor to the study of popular culture, must we do so by extracting all the joy? More to the point, of what good is any analysis when the writer has engaged in the intellectual equivalent of speaking in tongues? Who, exactly, is served by such an approach?

Put together, it’s hard to know what audience Tuedio and Spector hoped to reach. Deadheads? Most of them, rightly, will turn to their tapes, downloads, records, and memories rather than read this book. Undergraduates? No way. Most lack the tools or the patience to wade through this book’s dense prose. Other intellectuals? The collection’s lack of a consistent disciplinary focus renders them an unlikely collective target. The book was inspired by a small group of self-styled Grateful Dead scholars whose path-breaking efforts suggested new ways in which scholars could use music to illumine American society. In this book, however, some of them have lost their way and are speaking only to each other. Call it an off night.

Never Let Me Go Has a Weak Grip

Never Let Me Go (2010)

Directed by Mark Romanek

Fox Searchlight, 103 mins. Rated R.

* * *

Never Let Me Go is based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s dystopian novel. The setting is Hailsham, a seemingly tony and bucolic English country prep school for “special” students. They’re special all right. Thanks to a medical breakthrough in 1952, life spans have been extended dramatically. The problem is that lots of stuff wears out in the course of a hundred plus years, so how does one insure a steady supply of spare parts? Send in the clones. Hailsham and schools like it are literally breeding grounds for the clones who will provide the eyes, lungs, hearts, and other body parts needed by their English originals. Most of the young charges we meet will donate three or four times before they “complete” (expire) in their mid- to late-twenties.

Ishiguro--best known as the writer of The Remains of the Day--was shortlisted for Britain’s Book Prize for Never Let Me Go. He didn’t win, I suspect, because the novel is a bit like the film in that it’s moving but ultimately a tad empty feeling. The film’s central tension is whether clones have humanity. In this case we have a triad of friends, lovers, and donors--Kathy H (Carey Mulligan), Ruth (Keira Knightley), and Tommy (Andrew Garfield). Kathy and Tommy are soul mates--that is, if they have souls, but Tommy and Ruth are lovers despite not connecting on an emotional level--again, if they have emotions. This isn’t exactly path- breaking territory. Think Startrek’s Data, Philip Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and the recent (and superior) film Moon.

This is not to say that Never Let Me Go is a bad film. It’s very hard to play characters whose future is scripted, but Mulligan, Knightley, and Garfield do a nice job with the ambiguity over self awareness and the potential for empowerment. Do they, or do they not have free will? Is there, or is there not a glimmer of hope that Tommy and Kathy will get a short reprieve? Can they be happy even if they do? Romanek also depicts alienation in intriguing ways. Only the Brits can make a seaside resort look bleak and soulless; Romanek’s shots of coastal Fife are so forlorn that they save him from the need to be didactic in raising the question of whether longevity’s cost is the erasure of humanity.

For all of this, however, Never Let Me Go doesn’t completely sink its hook into viewers. Partly it’s because we figure things out way before the characters do. In addition, the very nature of the subject material lends itself better in print than on film. Our characters can only explore the possibility of an inner spark, not actually display one. They are (by nature?) passive and although each actor does a credible job within the role, it’s just hard to pace a film featuring those who are acted upon. Oddly enough, a histrionic speech or two on the nature of life and unfairness might have enhanced the film, even if they were hokey. We keep waiting for a character to answer the question of whether clones have souls, but we come up as empty as a beach on Fife. As a result, our emotional response to film is equally distant and vacant.

This one is a classic mixed bag. It’s worth watching, but don’t get your hopes up. Enjoy its stark textures and competent performances, but you will probably derive more intellectual satisfaction from contemplating what’s not here rather than what is. And you’ll need to rent it--it left the theaters at a much faster pace than it unfolds.

Can America Be Saved From the Stupid?

In 2008 Barack Obama’s campaign slogan was “Yes we can!” It’s a nice sound bite, but as the United States approaches its 235^th birthday it’s acting like an arthritic old man who doesn’t even try to get out his chair. Remember when other nations used to comment upon the American can-do spirit and envy its eternal optimism? Probably not; no one has said this for decades. We now live in the land of “No,” where a million excuses are put forth as to why we can’t fill in the blank (rebuild the infrastructure, have national health care, reduce carbon emissions, give women equal rights, allow gay marriage, develop a national energy plan, fund NASA, reduce gun violence, tax the wealthy, eliminate poverty, pay our teachers….) “Yes we can!” threatens to give way to “imperial overstretch,” a phrase coined by Paul Kennedy in his distressingly prescient The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987).

When I opened my April 1 newspaper, the news was no joke. Among the grim storiess--raging U.S. battles in Iran, Afghanistan, and Libya; Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s denunciation of the judge who stayed his bill stripping public employees of collective bargaining rights; Ohio Governor John Kasich signing into law a bill akin to Wisconsin’s; Missouri’s bipartisan decision to end extended benefits for the state’s unemployed--“enough is enough” said the well-paid and employed lawmakers--the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s refusal to reconsider the relicensing of Vermont Yankee, a facility like those that failed in Japan; and House of Representative threats to shut down the government unless deep Social Security cuts are made. Maybe it’s already too late, but Neal Gabler and Joe Bageant gave me some ideas about what progressives need to do now if they hope to right the USS America.

Gabler recently penned “The Arrogance Divide,” which blames liberals for failing to capture the mainstream because they’ve been “condescending” and elitist toward the poorly educated, Tea Party supporters, and Bible-belters. In Deer Hunting with Jesus, Joe Bageant agrees that liberals don’t understand the group he dubs “rednecks” and their gun-totin’, bad-eatin’, Bible-praisin’, Fox news-watchin’, Walmart-shoppin’, government-hatin’ ways. To be fair, Bageant thinks the rednecks are self-deluded, but he too chastised liberals (such as himself).

The first thing progressives need to do is tell Gabler he’s out of his mind. Although I hate to speak ill of the dead--Bageant died on March 27--progressives need to be more arrogant and aggressive in their assault on stupidity, not embrace rednecks as the misguided-but-cuddly creatures Bageant thought them to be. Gabler suggested at the end of his article, “don’t call them stupid. They hate that.” My response? They are stupid. Pathetically stupid, imbecilic, moronic, and dumber than homemade sin. And after years of being insulted by them for having the temerity to rise from redneck roots and get myself educated, I don’t give a sqwanker’s farley if they resent me for saying that. I’m tired of bleeding my heart’s blood for them.

My heart sank when I read Gabler’s imploring ending because I thought to myself, “Yes, this is just what liberals will do. They’ll apologize in their limp-wristed, cojone-less, muddleheaded way.” Stop it! Here’s what has to be done with Walker, Kasich, Fox, Palin, and the Tea Party: Take ‘em down. Stop looking for bipartisanship; you’ve a far better chance of resurrecting Elvis. Crank out the recall campaigns, launch your own propaganda vehicles, and fight fire with fire. Stop being nice; stop being polite; and stop being naïve in the belief that reason always triumphs. Take a page out of how the Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers broke unions: tie up the right-wingers in court. It’s time for progressive groups to switch from advocacy to litigation. Do to anti-choice groups, corporate lobbyists, textbook censors, tax dodgers, financial sector thieves, deregulators, and other enemies of the people what they did to ACORN--litigate them into bankruptcy. More to the point, understand what they Right has known since the days of Lee Atwater: the best defense is a good offense. Sue the bastards!

Speaking of the people, while progressives are giving up some old delusions, it’s high time to let Comrade Marx molder in his grave. Stop being romantic about the working class, which is unlikely to be the building block of a new society. Bageant wanted me to love his misguided lot from Winchester, Virginia. Sorry. I grew up near there and I find nothing charming about the people he describes. Blue-collar America is onboard with the Right; they have become Marx’s lumpenproletariat and are as likely to develop class-consciousness as they are to discover cold fusion and end our dependence on foreign oil. Have they been deceived, as Bageant claimed? Yes. But isn’t this the same crowd that preaches self-reliance and personal responsibility? Yes they are. I have great sympathy for their plight, but if you put sandwiches in front of hungry men and they refuse to eat, should we shed tears when they starve? Frankly it pisses me off to hear Gabler and Bageant blame people like me for their woes. I’ve supported labor unions, social welfare programs, job creation, and income redistribution my whole life only to be called a “socialist” and “an arrogant liberal.” (Guilty on the first charge, nolo contendere on the second.) Progressives need to go forth as if the ill-educated (and often non-voting) masses are content to sit on their deep-fried asses and let Glenn Beck think for them. Go ahead and be contemptuous. You have my permission. In like fashion, consider cutting ties to groups that used to be liberal but haven’t been since Bill Ayres was a terrorist--the U.A.W. for instance.

Fellow progressives may disagree with my prescription, but they’d better get on board with the idea that the future of America is a fight, not a discussion. The only other option is to take down the Stars and Stripes and run a white flag up the pole. Admit that the U.S. was a noble experiment that failed. Break it up and reestablish the C.S.A. somewhere along the line runs south of Winchester. (The C.S.A. can’t have Maryland, a very blue state.) Put up the border fences. Frankly, I’d be okay with that.

American League East Preview

Because games are won on the field, not on paper.

Everybody on the planet picks the Boston Red Sox to run away with the AL East. I don’t think it will be that easy. First of all, subtracting Victor Martinez and Adrian Beltre while adding Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez is not a huge upgrade; it’s a wash at best. Sox fans already have Gonzalez in the Hall of Fame because of Fenway’s dimensions. We’ve heard this nonsense before (George Scott, Cecil Copper, Mo Vaughan). AG seems like a nice guy, but he’d better not be an NL fraud or the Boston media will eat him alive. And Josh Beckett needs to return to form or he’s the hors d’oeuvre. The Sox were good enough to win last year, but didn’t. The key won’t be the new guys; it will be health. If Ellsbury, Pedroia, and Youkllis avoid the DL, things should work out, though only if Ellsbury and Pedroia are more than flashes in the pan; they need to be .300 hitters, not .265 guys and I suspect that’s what they are. Will Boston squeeze another year from David Ortiz? Will either catcher break .230? Jon Lester is a Cy Young waiting to happen, but there are question marks. Will Bucholtz repeat his 2010 performance? Is too much being asked of Daniel Bard? Will Pabelbon or Matsuzaka show up? And I said it last year and will say it again: John Lackey is woefully overrated. The pressure is on. This team is either as good as the experts say, or it’s an expensive folly.

Lest we forget, the Tampa Rays are the reigning division champs. Personally I don’t think they’ve lost as much as has been claimed. Other than Soriano, the bullpen guys were spare parts and any day you can subtract Carlos Pena whilst adding Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon must be considered a plus. Matt Garza wasn’t going to last on this staff, so he won’t be missed that much either. Do you like a staff of Price, Davis, Hellickson, Shields, and Niemann? I sure do. The pen is a big concern though. Kyle Farnsworth shouldn’t throw anything more than batting practice and when he’s in the game, opponents get a lot of batting practice! The lineup isn’t fearsome, but it’s solid. Let us not forget the AL’s best third baseman: Evan Longoria. Shortstop might be a problem--word out of Florida is that Brignac is a bust.

What about the New York Yankees? Can you say no joy in Bronxville? I look for the Yankees to tumble hard. This will be the year that the Reaper finally lets us know that the future of Posada, Jeter, Mighty Mo Rivera, and A-Rod is the past. The Yankees might be glad if Sabathia opts out; his surgically repaired knee doesn’t look good so far this spring. There’s plenty of hope for the future--Hughes, Texeira and Cano are studs, catching prospects abound, and there are some dynamic arms just a year or two away--Betances, Banuelos, Nova, Brackman, Warren…. But not this year. If I’m GM Brian Cashman, I’ d look to move some pieces, especially Joba Chamberlain, Damaso Marte, Sergio Mitre, and Boone Logan. And if I can, I dump some bad contracts--A-Rod or A. J. Burnett anyone? I would not be surprised to see the Yankees slip as low as fourth this year.

I keep picking the Baltimore Orioles to rise and I think this year I’ll be right. Once again it all rides on young arms--Arrieta, Matusz, Guthrie, Bergesen… If Duchscherer is healed that would help, but the Yankees passed on him so that doesn’t bode well. And as much as people talk of the Red Sox and Yankees, a lineup of Roberts, Jones, Markakis, Lee, Hardy, Vlad Guerrero, Scott, Wieters, and Reynolds has a chance to be better 1-9 than either Boston or New York. It all boils down to whether the O’s can pitch well enough to compete.

Not this year, but watch the Toronto Blue Jays, who really are rebuilding. The Jays led the league in homers last year and might again: Bautista, Encarnacion, Lind, Hill…. If these guys ever raise their .OBP the Jays will wear out some pitching staffs. Speaking of which, they’re not ready yet but watch out for this young staff. Ricky Romero and Brett Cecil are already good, Kyle Drabek is an ace in the hole, Brandon Morrow is on the cusp, and you don’t know names such as Rzepczynski, Carlson, and McGowan yet, but you will. If these kids mature like I think they will, next year the Blue Jays will be my dark horse pick.

Predictions:

1. Rays (Pitching trumps hype)

2. Red Sox (Because no one ever wins on paper!)

3. Orioles (They’re either third of fifth)

4. Yankees (Brian Cashman gets cashiered after the mass retirement party)

5. Blue Jays (Have a Labatt’s and be patient, eh?)

American League Central Preview

Because somebody has to win this division!

The more things change the more they remain the same. Once again the American League Central will be a toss up and once again for the same reason--the Central has three decent teams--Twins, Tigers, and White Sox--who could win it, or could finish 10-15 games out of the running. Each has that much promise and that many question marks.

Let’s start with the division rubbish. The Cleveland Indians are in rebuilding mold and I’d not be at all surprised to see them unload their one big gun, Fausto Carmona, to someone like the Yankees for blue-chip prospects. Other than closer Rafael Perez and journeyman Chad Durbin, no one else on the staff has more than four years’ experience and none is a household name. Shin-Soo Choo is fun to watch, as is Grady Seizmore (when healthy), but the Tribe is at least two years away from being competitive.

The Kansas City Royals are a joke--the Pittsburgh Pirates of the AL. We’ve been hearing about how they’re stockpiling prospects for so long that some of those erstwhile franchise-savers have retired. Really, who cares? It’s a rotten team in a horrible city. No one on this team is a starter anywhere else (except Pittsburgh).

Until someone knocks them off, the Minnesota Twins are the team to beat. The strength is what’s been for several years--a blue-collar grind-it-out ethos and a solid lineup: Morneau, Cuddyer, Thome, Span, Kubel, Young. Then there’s the stud: Joe Mauer. The staff is full of number three guys--Baker, Blackburn, Duensing, Slowey, Pavano… One guy could lead: Francisco Liriano. He could also go on the DL by June and disappear. And so could Morneau and Mauer. This is to say that the Twins are talented, but fragile and not very deep. If healthy, they win the AL Central. If not…

The Detroit Tigers might be good enough to slip by them, if their pitching straightens out. Verlander is solid, but Scherzer, Porcello, and Penny need to be consistently good not occasionally so, and number five is anyone’s guess. (Phil Coke?) Victor Martinez was a great addition and should make Cabrera even more dangerous (if he stays sober). If Ordonez returns to form, he’ll help up-and-comers Austin Jackson and Ryan Rayburn. Watch the latter--he may be poised for a breakout. Inge and Peralta are useful pieces.

Anyone beside me sick of the Ozzie Guillen show? Any other manager and I’d pick the Chicago White Sox to win the Central. They certainly have the best pitching--Beuhrle, Danks, Gavin, Peavy, Jackson, Thornton…. Okay, the hitting thins fast after you say Konerko, Quentin, Alexei Ramirez, and maybe (BIG maybe) Rios. But the ChiSox will win close games on those arms. Will they win enough to avoid another Ozzie meltdown? Probably not. The man is a bore and ownership can’t seem to figure out that he’s a de-motivator.

Predictions:

1. Tigers (Call it a hunch)

2. Twins (Injuries save Twins fans their annual postseason disappointment)

3. White Sox

4. Indians

5. International League Champion

6. Ladies’ Softball Champion

7. Royals