The Northwest Files

How to Make Music

I spent Tuesday through Friday a couple of weeks ago at a retreat called the Americana Song Academy at an isolated retreat called Caldera, up above Sisters, a small town about 15 miles west of us here in Central Oregon. The camp sits aside Blue Lake, way out in the woods in the Cascade Mountains. No cell service, very little Wi-Fi.

This probably was just as well. There was nothing upon which to focus except music. That, after all, is why we all were there.

The schedule kept us busy from breakfast until 11 pm or so. Every morning started off with breakfast, then a group sing. This really set the tone – for not just that day, but for the whole experience. Everyone there was an accomplished musician (well, except for me), and the leaders of the sings were especially talented. All three mornings, the experience was so moving that it was hard to find someone who didn’t have tears of joy and comfort. I wanted to hug everyone I could see. Evenings consisted of open-mic sessions in which students presented their work.

The emphasis was on learning. Song camp offered a plethora of workshops, with time for two each morning, two each afternoon, with the added prospect of mentoring sessions. All of the above were conducted by a selection of the artists scheduled to perform at the Sisters Folk Festival, which took place immediately following song camp.

This was precisely where I ran into trouble.

I had not realized that the whole point of this thing was writing songs, as there isn’t a lot of promotion for this camp, and not a lot of advance information. I’d thought, hoped, it was tuned toward general folk musicianship. It wasn’t.

I didn’t go there to write a song, but that’s what we were expected to do. As a matter of self-defense, I roughed out a silly little talking blues because I was obliged to come up with something. I mean, that counts as a song, doesn’t it?

This was where I ran into trouble. The emphasis, especially from the women instructors, was to dig into your sensitive, vulnerable side. Well, that ain’t me. Maybe you know the stuff I like – hobos, rakes and ramblers, miner- ‘49ers, bad actors like Wild Bill Jones. None of these performers had that territory staked out, but a duo called Pharis and Jason Romeo came closest.

The cool thing was that when you attend song camp, you get to know these artists. They are amazing people, impressive people. You’re in their classes and you’re eating three meals a day with them.

Here are some names: Martyn Joseph, here for song camp and the folk festival from Wales. He is easily the most powerful solo performer I’ve ever seen. Sensitive, interesting, angry as hell, gets huge, monstrous tone out of his Louden guitar. Took a workshop from him. It was by far the best of the bunch. If you can find it, listen to his song, Here Come the Young.

Also: John Smith. He’s a pixie-like gray-haired and -bearded gnome from Wisconsin, fabulous writer with a wonderful voice; if you can find it, listen to his song, Medicine.

Also: Keith Greeninger, from Santa Cruz, Calif., who writes killer protest songs.

Also: Pharis and Jason Romero, from Horsefly, British Columbia. They reminded me of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings but better, and they did wonderful stuff that was exactly the kind of folk music I was dying to see. I took a mentoring session from Jason, one fine banjoist. He showed me some things I should have known. Yes, of course I brought a banjo along. A guitar, too.

This camp was far more political than I ever could have imagined. Everybody – I mean everybody – hated our country’s current political situation. That was the subtext of the experience. If they weren’t talking about the music, they were talking politics. I mean instructors and students (all 160 of us) alike.

Sadly, it had to end. The end came with an emotional closing ceremony. After the morning sing on Friday, we all clustered in a circle in the forest around John Smith, who sang a moving little song. Again, tears everywhere, so great was the affirmation.

It was affirmational for the instructors too, many of them said, and even more-so the folk festival that followed. Gas in their tanks, they said.

At the end of the ceremony, everyone was invited to remove a stone from a pile of river stones that had been built in the center of our circle. Take your stone home, we were told, put it in your guitar case as a memento of the experience. I have mine right here.

This was not cheap to do, but what an incredible experience. Probably I will do it again. I’m determined to have two songs, at least, to take with me next year. That’s important because song camp offers at least three open-mic nights and afternoons, and that’s where you’re supposed to present your work. If you go do this and come away with nothing, what’s the point?

I went there hoping to return with my tank filled with enthusiasm for music. I don’t know if that worked. I think time will tell. But was a hell of an experience. It’s been a long time since I’ve been around that much art and music. The Central Oregon Mastersingers, a choral ensemble with which I sing, seems dry and academic by comparison. It is interesting in its own way and very challenging, but nowhere near as much fun as song camp.

But let us back up a bit: One of my problems with this experience was the vulnerability stressed by several of the instructors. That’s a hard place for me to go. It’s hard to find the freedom and openness that allows such vulnerability.

I survived boarding school. Vulnerable people do not survive boarding school. Or, really, pretty much anything else. So it’s difficult to shrug off the shell that we form to make it through school and professional adulthood. So how is it that the morning sing always ended with my eyes wet?

The “song” I wrote, a true tale of something going on in our back yard in the form of a talkin’ blues like Woody Guthrie might have performed, is a result of that. Kind of an anti-song, at least in the vulnerability department. It is, I suppose, kind of a rebellion against what we were asked to do. I think now that that was a stupid mistake, but it was all I knew to do.

I’ll perform it at song camp next year, if I go.

No, wait. I’ll perform it next year at song camp.

-JFT

Relighting the Fires

Tomorrow is the beginning of an adventure. It’s the day I sign in for an intensive, three-day residential folk-music retreat called the Americana Song Academy.

I’m doing this because to my great despair, I seem to have fallen out of love with playing music. There was a time when I played every day. These days, rarely do I pick up an instrument. I badly miss it, but somehow, it’s just not calling my name.

But now I’ll have no choice but to play, thanks to this program up in the mountains near Suttle Lake, just outside of Sisters, Oregon. It consists of early-morning to late-night classes, lessons, jams, performances, and more. Laura thinks that this is just what I need, that the experience will help me snap out of these doldrums and find some musical joy. I hope she's right.

And if the ASA isn’t enough, Friday through Sunday, we attend the Sisters Folk Festival, the nonprofit that sponsors and organizes the Americana Song Academy. 

I told my old pal Mike last night of my frustration with this musical silence. It seems like my instruments sit here in their stands, untouched, silently mocking me. I told him that I feel as though I’ve fallen out of love with something wonderful. I badly want to fall back in love with it. 

Mike used to be my musical co-conspirator. We’ve played together, off and on, since college. But since Laura and I fled California three years ago, I haven’t found a like-minded person to pick and sing with. Maybe someone will turn up in this coming week of music, this trial by fire.

I’ve decided to take a couple of meaningful instruments – an open-back custom Bacon-style banjo left to me by my dear old pal Hal Wright, who would be impatient with me if he knew I’ve not been playing, and a Martin guitar that I’ve owned and played for 57 years.

Songs? I’ve picked out about a half-dozen of favorites that I’ve loved for at least 50 years, old folk tunes with legs. Also, these are tunes I know how to play, even if I don’t always remember all the lyrics – my memory seems not to be what it used to be. I’m not sure I’ll need songs, but I suspect that at some point, every participant will be called upon, or at least offered the opportunity, to present a song or two. I’m trying to be ready.

So we shall see. This music has been of huge importance to me. I’ve missed it. I’m hoping that these twinned experiences help to rekindle my musical fires.

-JFT

Ain't No Grave

I found myself close to tears several times during rehearsal with the Central Oregon Mastersingers a couple of days ago. That’s because I was moved and touched by a spiritual we’re doing for our fall concert. It’s called “Ain’t No Grave.”

It’s a song of hope and optimism even though the people responsible for this powerful song had little reason for such hope and optimism. I think that as this month (August, 2019) marks the 400^th anniversary of slavery’s being brought to America, the bright light of that hope and optimism is important. Read the attached piece, please, for context.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/black-history-american-democracy.html

In what seems like bitter irony, those people sang with courage and conviction that they were not going to be held down. Ain’t no Grave gonna hold me down? Right! And they would not be held down by anything else, either, they seem to be saying. They seemed to know, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that America was better than that. And so were they. And the rest of us? Maybe, perhaps; but only with their help and their tireless push for civil rights.

The notes on the sheet music attribute this tune to the early 20th Century, or maybe a little earlier, but who knows how far back it really goes? As the New York Times story referenced above points out, the era of attribution, the beginning of the 20^th Century, was the middle of the post-Reconstruction era called Second Slavery. Black rights often were codified, sure; but they were widely ignored. Beatings, abuse, rape, torture of all kinds, and lynchings were common.

Good jobs for blacks were mostly nonexistent. Prosperity was, for the most part, something to which only white people could aspire. Likewise, voting. Likewise, education. Likewise, of course, healthcare, access to bathrooms, public water fountains, education, and so much more. For more on Second Slavery, go here:

https://sites.google.com/view/colormyhistory/museum/second-slavery

In the course of my choral career, I’ve sung lots of spirituals. I am not a fan. I like the Great Music, the High Church music, if you will, though I have no religious convictions whatsoever, and lack patience with those who do. But “Ain’t No Grave” is special, I think. It seems to have strength and meaning far beyond what’s there on the surface of the text.

Maybe all art is indeed political.

-JFT

 

The Day the Music Died

A very interesting music video crossed my attention today. It’s a masterful performance of a wonderful tune. I'm sure that you know it. And most likely, if you’re anywhere near my age, you long ago decoded the meaning of the lyrics. Here it is. Please turn the sound up, go full screen. You won’t regret it, I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpvXPz9u4Zc

But here’s the deal: As I listen to Don McLean deliver this great performance of his most famous tune, and yes, that’s a very rare Martin D-35S that he’s playing, I can’t help but think that maybe, somehow, he’d found a way not only to mirror the past, but also to glimpse into the future, especially here:

Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in Hell
Could break that Satan's spell

And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died

So please, take a moment to look and listen. You’ll enjoy this performance, I think. And I think that it might just make you think that McLean is a bit of a seer. It makes me think that. Because I’m very afraid that we in the U.S. are on the edge of seeing the music die.

-JFT

The Case for Impeachment

The first debates for Democratic presidential primary candidates have just concluded.

That this slow, formal minuet of electoral procedure is under way, that we’re sticking to a time-honored process, should give me hope. It does not.

That’s because while it’s happening, while potential candidates dance and debate, our house is on fire. Migrants are dying on our southern border. We careen toward environmental disaster while the administration buries references to climate change, weakens the Endangered Species Act, and abdicates responsibilities to provide clean drinking water. No former ally trusts us. Meanwhile, a lying, racist president promises a short, nasty war with Iran that will not involve ground troops. (Which means, I think, that he won’t hesitate to deploy nuclear weapons – he just said that he won’t need an exit strategy.)

Republican voters care not at all that their president is a congenital liar and cheat, they care not that Nazis march in our streets, that environmental and safety protections are weakened, that voter suppression continues, and that the party in power is absolutely uninterested in doing anything at all about proven electoral interference by Russia and other bad actors.

Incredibly, there has been no response from Congress to the objective facts revealed by the Mueller Report – the president, among his other crimes, repeatedly obstructed justice and continues to do so. We do nothing.

The house is on fire, our children are in the damned building! We stand and watch. What the hell is wrong with us?

Why are we not holding Trump accountable for his crimes and misdeeds? Where are House Democrats when we need them?

It’s time for them to begin impeachment.

No, the Senate will not convict. So what? Trump’s crimes must be exposed to the righteous, purifying light of justice. Impeachment will divide the country? So what? It’s already divided.

Let us begin the impeachment hearings, right now. Let us expose to everyone, in ways that are easy to access and understand, the extent of the perfidious, lawless awfulness of this administration.

Let’s do it to drive change. Let’s do it to educate voters. Let’s do it to give Trump something serious to think about. Let’s do it now.

Our house is burning. Our children, our cats and our dogs, are in the building! We cannot wait.

Let us get off our asses and impeach this asshole!

-JFT

Juneteenth

I’ve been thinking lately about how badly we’ve treated people, about how badly we continue to treat people. That’s hard to ignore. Is there any way to make it right?

The topic has been discussed many times, beginning with the end of the Civil War. It involves reparations, expiation for the evils we have perpetrated.

It will be discussed again by Congress on June 19. That’s Juneteenth, or June 19, 1865, the day all slaves were declared free following the end of the Civil War.

https://www.juneteenth.com/history.htm

The coming congressional hearing involves payment of reparations to African Americans who can prove kinship to people who were brought here as slaves.

This concept arose in General William Tecumseh Sherman’s General Field Order #15, issued in 1865, that each former slave would be issued 40 acres and a mule so that he and/or she could have the basics required for a life of subsistence farming.

About 400,000 acres in Georgia and South Carolina was selected. Mules, no longer needed by the Union Army, were to be issued as part of the deal. Then President Lincoln was murdered by John Wilkes Booth.  Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s vice president, ascended to the presidency. He canceled the deal.

This leaves white America, like it or not, with a debt to pay. But that debt may be bigger than advocates of reparations realize. Because there’s another group that deserves recognition.

In addition to reparations to descends of slaves, what about reparations for the First Americans, the Indian tribes whose lands, and lives, were stolen in genocide as European culture blanketed the New World? Those that survived the onslaught of the whites and the decimation of the bison herds were confined to reservations which were, as often as not, stolen from them as soon as the whites determined that reservation lands contained something the whites deemed valuable. And some, like the Nez Perce, were given no land at all when their home ground was taken. That tribe continues to fight that battle.

There are precedents for reparations. Here are some of those precedents.  

• Under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, the U.S. government apologized for Japanese American internment during World War II and provided reparations of $20,000 to each survivor to compensate for loss of property and liberty during that period. A scant amount. But something, at least.
• The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act transferred land, federal money, and a portion of oil revenues to native Alaskans.

U.S. state governments also have made reparations. For example:

• Virginia established a compensation fund for victims of involuntary sterilization in 2015.

There are compelling arguments for reparations. Here’s one of them:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

We treat people badly, especially those who are powerless. We always have. We continue to do so. If you doubt that, consider President Trump’s caged border children, especially those who have died while in custody. Consider the would-be migrants sent back to countries torn by war and gang violence that threaten their lives. Are these people owed an apology and some sort of compensation?

We can't buy our way out of the horrible damage we've done. There's not enough money on the planet for that. But perhaps we could make a gesture, an admission that we've done terrible things, a determination that we will try to do better.

What’s to be done? Our culture seems to ignore compassion and kindness, seems to be willing to take whatever it can from whomever it can, right down to freedom and security.

I sure as hell have no solution. But I’m deeply troubled by this, by all of it. And I know that there must be a better way.

-JFT

That's Awl, Folks!

Sew what? Sew anything, that’s what. I can pretty much do that. The stuff you see in this photo is the kit that I use when something around here needs stitching.

All this started with boarding school, four years of academic, prison-like misery.

My mom reasoned that I would need to sew buttons on, fix rips and tears, and so on. She was right, of course. She was an accomplished seamstress and made many of my shirts in those days, and, as time passed, most of my dad’s shirts. So, she taught me a few of her skills. Enough, at least, to insure that my shirts always had buttons on them.

Actually, this business of needle, thread and yarn started for me in grammar school. A teacher there informed us that when young men marched off to war, they received limited sets of socks and other accouterments. She reasoned that we’d better know how to darn the holes in our socks. So, we all learned. Many years later, I still had a wooden darning bobbin. And I used it.

My dad also could stitch. He was a studio grip. Part of the skill set for those guys – well, us guys, because I worked my way through college as a grip – was to deal with the painted scenic backings that were placed behind all kinds of sets. We tacked these things, which were made of thick cotton or canvas, on frames – I still have my tack hammer and my made-at-MGM canvas tack pouch that I used for that kind of work. And, if a backing should be damaged, we had to sew the tear closed.

This was not easy. I was not terribly good at it, but my dad was.

This tack pouch, and these needles, were what he used.

The wood-handled device above the needle and pouch is a sewing awl. This one was his, but I’ve also got one. I’ve carried it many a mile in my backpack. It’s been handy for sewing soles back on boots, for fixing broken straps, for piecing strips of leather together, and much more. The thread is heavy waxed cotton. It lasts forever. The stitches made with it are not pretty. But they work.

I kind of like fixing stuff, rather than replacing it. And of course, that is the point of all this – practical sewing that solves a problem.

-JFT

We're Here, Then We're Not

I read every day. I have a list of favorite authors. When any of them publish something, I read it.

Today I started a novel called Metropolis, by Philip Kerr. Kerr is at the top of my list of favorites. He’s written a wonderful series that begins in prewar Berlin. It traces the life and career of one Bernie Gunther, a police detective and survivor, from those prewar days through the horrors of World War II and on into the 1960s.

I find the writing interesting, amusing, and insightful. But alas, I won’t be reading any more of Kerr’s books. Metropolis is the very last of them. Kerr died, unexpectedly, and at an early age, in March.

I’ve been reading his stuff – the Gunther novels and others – for 20 years or more. So, this week, as I turn the pages of his final work, there’s a bit of a hole in my psyche.

Then there’s Preston Thompson, whose shop in nearby Sisters, Oregon, turns out a small but extremely high-quality stream of acoustic guitars. I’ve visited the place and chatted with Thompson. He was a nice man and a wonderful craftsman.

I would love to own one of his instruments. They are built to mimic, in every detail possible, the great Martin guitars of the 1930s. They are highly sought after. 

Comes today news of Thompson’s death, unexpectedly, at an early age. Again, loss; there’s another hole in my psyche.

I did not know either of these men, but each of them, in his own way, added something special to the world I occupy. That world now has been significantly reduced.

We’re here, and then we’re not. Maybe we’re here until we reach a ripe old age. Maybe we catch an early bus. But when the end comes, well, that end always seems premature, and with inescapable consequences.

In Kerr’s case, no more great reads. In Thompson’s case – well, I imagine that production of his instruments probably will continue, but the instruments that are built to carry his name from now on, as wonderful as I’m sure they will continue to be, won’t, can’t, have the mojo of his personal touch; and his shop won’t have the warmth of his presence.

These facts affect not just me. They touch everyone who came into contact with the craft, art, and personalities of these men. Such great loss, such great sadness, for all.

I guess all that we can do is get on with things, make the best of each day, the best of the time we’re allotted. Both Kerr and Thompson, each in his own way, appear to have done that.

That seems a decent enough legacy.

But still, it all makes me very sad. I offer my most profound condolences to the families of both men.

-JFT

Ponder the Poor

What are we going to do with our poor people? What are we going to do with those who need medical care? What are we going to do with those who are working multiple jobs and still can’t buy groceries and/or pay the rent? What are we going to do with those who can’t find even one job, much less two? What are we going to do with those who go bankrupt trying to buy the insulin, and other medications, that they need?

It seems not to matter where you look – the Midwest, Appalachia, the inner cities of Chicago, Los Angeles, farm and ranch country – people are in need, people are in trouble.

What responsibility do we have to come to the aid of these people, our fellow citizens? What are we going to do about them?

Something? Or nothing?

Do we owe them the help they need to escape their current problems, as well as help to grow through and past the situations that put them into those situations?

Any party serious about winning this next election had better take these questions seriously enough to find answers. And not just promises, but working answers.

On many levels, finding a way to solve these problems is the right thing to do.

We’re going to get just one chance at fixing this. We’d better get it right.

-JFT

The Report that Wasn't

I was so certain that the Mueller investigation of Trump’s ties to Russia would result in – well, I wasn’t sure what. But something. There was something there. There is something there. There just is.

But, brothers and sisters, I am so disappointed.

That’s because so far, what we know about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russia’s influence is inconclusive. Or, no; saying that it’s inconclusive doesn’t do it justice. Of course, justice is the point of the exercise here, but the way Attorney General William Barr has spun the report leaves me wanting more, kind of like a nouvelle cuisine dinner at a restaurant I cannot afford leaves me pining for more. Know what I mean?

The overview of the report, of course, says that no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign was found. Astonishingly, it also says that evidence of attempts by Trump to obstruct justice is inconclusive, this in spite of repeated public attempts by Trump himself to obstruct the report.

So, things have broken Trump’s way. As a result, the report is being weaponized by the Trump administration to damage Democrats, the media, and anyone else Trump dislikes.

That has the potential to be devastating. Trump and his enablers are playing the report as not just vindication for this disastrously flawed president, but also as an indictment of the integrity and patriotism of anyone who opposes him.

That has the potential of disastrous consequences in the coming election. I mean, disastrous on a nuclear scale. Believe it or not, in spite of all Trump’s obvious lies, people believe the shit he spouts. As a consequence, friends, the fate of our democracy looms.

Pundits advise us to sit tight. They remind us that the many and varied investigations of the Trump crime family by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York, and by the House Intelligence, Financial Services, Ways and Means, and Judiciary committees, barely have begun.

None other than retired journalist Dan Rather, a respected observer if ever there was one, reminds us that there are many months, weeks, days, yet before the 2020 presidential election happens. He posits that in those days, weeks, months, there is plenty that Trump and his evil minions, his brain-dead cultists, his racist Nazis, can do to screw up Republican electoral chances.

They’re all exactly correct. They advise we democracy loyalists to take heart, to have heart, to keep the faith. And they’re right to do so.

But man, I am feeling low right now.

I will sleep on this. I vow to arise in the morning filled with renewed fighting zeal. Because really, there is no alternative. Any other path means relinquishing our democracy.

That, I will not do. I just will not.

-JFT