That Was The Year That Were - Players from the Past
One by one the musicians that defined my generation are passing. I focus here on a few of these spirits that I was lucky enough to see. These are Garth Hudson, David Johansen, Barry Goldberg, Eddie Palmieri, Mark Volman, and Steve Cropper. Let's not be somber. Let's make a Joyful Noise ... I remember ... Lucky Paths Crossed ...
GARTH HUDSON - January 21, 2025 - I borrowed a bicycle to go to the ticket window at Dane County Auditorium to see The Band. They were doing the Stage Fright tour. We had gigantic imaginations in those days and cycled around the Auditorium twice, in case Bob Dylan might be found lurking. At the concert when the lights went out we joined the crowd that ran for the front and settled in yoga positions on the floor with about a 40 foot distance to the stage. When Garth Hudson played Bach and segued into Phantom of the Opera Scale Chest Fever lead in, one could see the musical waves floating in the rafters. He was the last of The Band. I am so glad Hudson recorded the Basement Tapes which are a supreme document of American Music.. A brief documentary shows Garth Hudson’s return to Big Pink.
DAVID JOHANSEN – February 28, 2025 - When Sylvain Sylvain died, they asked DavidJohansen what he thought. He said: “I think I’m the next to go.” Now the Last Doll’s truly is gone. We saw him with the Dolls at the Mercer Art Center near lower Broadway numerous times. These times were always special. The crowd had the feeling the moment was historic, mythical like the Rolling Stones at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond. Saw David and the band numerous times in Boston and it was unfun – full of the feel of self-destruction. But he survived – a song and dance man, even -- and was ever a Sovereign Son of Staten Island. Just a little while ago I found a playlist Replication of his Siris Radio Show…Mansion of Fun. It shows he swam in a spectrum of musics.
Walking Through the Park - Hubert Sumlin and David Johansen.
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| He got the Blues. |
On a spree 2006 with my high-school homeboys in SF, we
saw Barry Goldberg, with Nick Gravenites, Harvey Mandel and other North Side All
Stars - a revue and pool tables too .. things keep moving. Wrote it up on my
blog…
MoonTraveller At Night - SF 2006
Cristo Redempto - Charley Musselwhite and Barry Goldberg
Two Jews Blues Mike Bloomfield and Barry Goldberg
Mark Volman - September 5, 2025 - Sherman set the Wayback. Wisconsin Winter. 15 or so high school boys drinking on Friday night. 1967. Springhorn’s basement, trying to be quiet, but everything is funny in youth. Orange Rock and Lime Rock bottles clink. Shhhh. Then we head out to the Nitty Gritty, a few blocks away. Wisconsin Winter means thin coat of ice on shoveled sidewalks. Ice means Ice capades. Outdoors means we can make some noise – And, thus, Happy Together happens. We sing the glorious new Turtles song. Ba-ba-ba-ba, Ba-ba-ba-ba. The Turtles matched a whispering chant of teen love with a blasting Wall of Sound Chorus song of Joy in which a line of high school boys stagger a cha-cha-cha.
Unlikely rockstar Mark Volman and unlikely rockstar Howard Kaylan pursued Teen Opera. Both Mark [Big Goof, black curly hair, glasses]and Howard are inveterate showmen. Later stars of 200 Motels. They applied fun and gusto in an eternal Hollywood Palace. Happy Together was so intrinsic to a moment that -- as the moment was endlessly recreated for the people that first experienced it -- that it had to be the theme of the rocknroll oldies tour my brother and I went to at the South Shore Music Circus sometime later in our 21st Century.
Happy Together Tour meant the Turtles – actually just Mark and Howard with backup band that served a host of acts [Grass Roots, Association, Buckinghams, Mark Lindsay] – were top of the bill, and that we would all gloriously sing Happy Together to end the show. Ba-ba-ba-ba, Ba-ba-ba-ba. Tremendous Good Cheer. The Turtles led many Dick Clark style oldies shows and Happy Together Peace Symbol was the road show emblem. Big Ending Singing along with everyone on Happy Together felt silly, but I had to be a part just as I had to be part of the Nitty Gritty going stumbling on ice laughing and puking gang. Ba-ba-ba-ba, Ba-ba-ba-ba.
Adend - I went with bro because my college mate Bruce from Chicago had joined the Buckinghams – but he wasn’t backing this tour. Mark Lindsay stole the show with Louie Louie, Kicks and Hungry. But the overarch was Happy Together.
STEVE CROPPER - December 3, 2025 - I sat in the University of Wisconsin Music Hall in a class of 300 or so mostly white students the course was Black Music led by Bill Dixon. One day he came out and he says “I challenge any of you to name a white musician with soul.” With fear of being stupid, I raised my hand and asked “Steve Cropper?” I don't know if Bill knew of Steve. Bill sort of grumbled “well maybe” then we moved on. I guess that was a time when I recognized the amazing fact of Steve Cropper’s collaboration with the great soul artists of Stax-Volt Records, especially Otis Redding.
Steve Cropper’s death caused me to get out my Otis Redding records. Cropper took a fundamental approach to backing Otis which placed the singer’s emotion in bas relief. Incredibly, his dedication to precisely arpeggiated and rolling chord triads was always fresh, although the method was so often similar. The songs carried DooWop balladry forward. These songs - of course based on the greatness of Otis Redding - got me through some tough going in the late teen school of hard knocks.
I don’t know if Cropper played guitar on all of them, but he was very much a co-author of the Stax sound right down the list. The types of numbers I am referring to are: These Arms of Mine, Come to Me, That’s What My Heart Needs, Pain in My Heart, For Your Precious Love, Just One More Day, Dreams to Remember … you really could go on and on.
In 1990 the great British rocker Dave Edmunds formed a revue that included Steve Cropper. Also onboard were Kim Wilson, Dion, and Graham Parker. The show started with crystal panache with the rockin’ song of yore known as "Last Night" - a hit for the Mar-Keys of which Cropper was an original member. I guess: We saw the revue, at the vaunted Orpheum Theatre in Boston. The crowd: a true happy maniac Boston Rocker crowd, elated as each of the stars took a turn.
All the memorable players that passed this way were unique. Steve
Cropper for his part was especially hard to peg as a guitar stylist. He was not
in the line of BB King as were so many others. He seemed to know he should
guide historians in this regard, so a few years ago he did a tribute album to The
Five Royales and their stellar guitarist Lowman Pauling. I think for Cropper
Lowman was the LodeStar. [The NYTimes obituary tells this: His earliest musical
influences were stylistically diverse, among them the country guitarist Chet
Atkins, the jazz guitarist Tal Farlow, the bluesman Jimmy Reed, and Lowman
Pauling of the influential R&B quintet the “5” Royales.”]
Obituary - NYTimes
Steve Cropper:How He Developed His Style
Dedicated: Tribute to the Five Royales - Spotify
Dave Edmunds Review 1990 - YouTube [check out Dion doing Runaround Sue backed by Steve C.
to come
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