I Was Born An Amblin' Man

Embed Block

Add an embed URL or code. Learn more

Welp, I’m finally releasing a solo record.

I know, what’s the rush? I mean, I’ve only been in like 10 bands who have made dozens of albums. Those hundreds of recording sessions for other folks? Just a warm up.

Sure, I’ve thought about it a bunch over the years. But daydreaming is easy and free; recording, not so much.

Anyways, I actually did it, and am actually quite excited about the results! It’s called Amblin’ Man, because that might make you chuckle (or groan, also good), and it wasn’t exactly a hurried affair. I’m not going to tell you how long it’s been since the red button was first pushed, that would be embarrassing. Let’s just say it came together organically and with plenty of deliberation.

I made a classic sideman band guy solo record: overly eclectic and stylistically noncommittal, leaning heavy on my talented friends. Kind of like a dream jam where you get to call all the songs and bring in players like a coach.

So then, if you know my musical leanings at all, you won’t be surprised to find some swing, both western and old timey, some country and honky tonk, some bluegrass mandolin and flatpicking guitar.

Some of the tunes I’ve been playing for years, or decades, even. I think of them as mission statements; they’re how I developed my musical voice up to this point, and explain better than any description where my music comes from. Panhandle Rag, Buckets of Rain, Pretty Bird and Chinatown are examples on the record.

Others are products of the recording process, where I chose or arranged material for the players and styles I wanted. Hamilton County Breakdown is one I did a dedicated search for: an underplayed fiddle tune that we could really lay into. For It Takes A Lot To Laugh, I wrote a fairly elaborate arrangement to stretch my western swing chops and feature the amazing Gabe Mervine on trumpet.

Stationmaster is the one original, and I love how it came out. I wrote it years ago when I was listening to a lot of Robert Earl Keen and Steve Earle, both story song masters. Pure fiction, so no quibbling about facts. Now that this album of my heroes and influences is done, I’ll say here in public that I resolve to start writing again!

Till then, I hope you enjoy this entry into the very crowded entertainment landscape of today. And if you’ve got a project that’s been languishing for a couple of years, amble on over to it; never too late to finish!

Greg

7/14/21

Not the last thoughts on Bob Dylan

My earliest memory as a human is of James Taylor. It was upstairs at our family's house in Long Island, and I was naked, protesting a bath. My dad began singing "ain't it just like a friend of mine to kick me from behind" while pushing me toward the bathroom with his foot. (I know, it's "hit", but that's how I remember it.)

There was plenty of Sweet Baby James' soothing voice around our house growing up, as well as Cat Stevens, Elton John, the Stones and the Beatles, but Bob Dylan was king. 

My dad was a super fan, but undiscriminating. He wasn't one of those weird Dylanologists who'd rank every song by importance, or collect poorly recorded bootlegs just to have it all, or go through Bob's garbage. We just listened to all of the albums, all of the time.

I still have the Blood on the Tracks cassette from the winter of '74-75 when we lived in Aspen. Aside from the John Denver megahits of the day, and C.W. McCall's Wolf Creek Pass, it was all we listened to. The printing is all worn off, and I can still hear the next song coming as one is fading out. 

I have never not had Bob Dylan's voice, songs and records in my life. It's a deep connection for me; one of a handful of things I own completely and know will never change. 

As a leftist New York Jew, my dad was an admirer of Bob's role in the protest movement, but I don't think his love of Dylan was intellectual. He'd point out a beautiful line of lyrics and "sing" along, but I think he just liked the way it made him feel. 

And I think I've inherited some of that. It's been interesting to me over the years as I've met people who have come to Dylan's music later in their lives. "He is a master of lyrics," they always say. "I never really got into him until I really listened to the words." Indeed. There is a lifetime of deciphering in those thousands of verses, endless little word movies, and not a small amount of history and story. 

But to me, it is music first. I mean, is a 10 or 15 year old kid (or a 45 year old man, for that matter) really going to understand a verse like this:

Of war and peace the truth just twists
Its curfew gull just glides
Upon four-legged forest clouds
The cowboy angel rides
With his candle lit into the sun
Though its glow is waxed in black
All except when ’neath the trees of Eden

I'll confess, there are Dylan songs to which I can sing along with every word having never really pondered their meaning. Don't scoff; there are certainly more that have moved me to tears and wonder and laughter with their acuity, absurdity and deep feeling. But often I am hearing foremost the voice, the guitars, even the harmonica, and the work of a master tunesmith. 

I'd like to think that for all the words Dylan has put to page and stage, he'd appreciate this perspective. Many of the musicians he's cited as idols over the years have not been deep writers, but channelers of something he deems essential through rhythm and blues, jazz, Appalachian old-time, country and bluegrass. Chuck Berry, Bill and Charlie Monroe, Django Reinhardt. Hell, he's even written a few instrumentals! 

So I'll keep on keepin' on listening to Bob's songs as music and words, in whatever order strikes me that day. 

Folk Alliance coming up

Two weeks from tonight I will have arrived at the Folk Alliance International Conference in Kansas City for what I believe is my fifth time attending. My first trip was with Jake Schepps and Expedition when the conference was held in Austin. The next two were also with Jake, but in Memphis. Last year I went with Katie Glassman and Snapshot in K.C. 

Having never held a "real" job, I have never been to a "real" industry conference. I believe, though, that FA is as different from the Annual Meeting of Scientific Accountants as my life's work is from scientific accounting. Sure, there are panels and workshops on how to make your career more profitable and efficient, keynote speakers, an exhibit hall and name tags, but there are also three floors of a giant hotel crammed full of musicians playing showcases in rooms gussied up as music venues until three o'clock in the morning, which is when the jamming begins.

Every strata of the independent music business is represented: talent buyers from the country's biggest festivals, heads of influential record labels, high-powered booking agencies, arts presenters, super-famous musicians (Jim Kweskin!), dudes living in a van playing for tips, middle-aged folkies trying on a second career, all manner of merchandise hawkers (free strings!), Canadians, and last year, Al Gore. Pretty much all the musicians below the super-famous level are hoping for the same results: a booking agent and better gigs than they currently have, and maybe the super-famous ones want that, too. 

The organization chooses and presents a large number of official showcases from 7 - 10 p.m. each night. These highly coveted 20 minute slots are held in conference rooms with unflattering lighting and poor sound quality, often with doors that open to a cacophonous hallway. This year will be my first playing an official showcase. I can't wait. 

When those are over, the unofficial showcases begin on the upper floors. As far as I can tell, anyone can host a room. Bands, venues, booking agencies, folk music organizations, orangutans. A few corner suites are big enough to pull off a concert feel, but most are just regular two-queen-bed rooms. Some folks go to town on their rooms, and it can be quite lovely: beds stood vertically against the wall, lamps, xmas lights, snacks, sound system, chairs, tub full of beer. Other folks tape the lineup on the door and call it done.

Unofficial showcases also average around 20 minutes, and most artists will play at least three or four a night. One of the first years I was at the conference, in addition to my showcases with Jake, I played 18 more with my songwriter friend, Sally Shuffield.

But crazy as it sounds, this is where the magic happens. Think about going to see a band at a venue. Even at a local bar, there is a substantial time commitment to see just one act. Now picture hundreds and hundreds of some of the world's most talented, driven and relatively unknown musicians playing for hours on end, four days in a row, in spaces no bigger than your living room, separated by nothing more than a flimsy Hyatt wall.  By the second night, your antennae are quivering as you register a gorgeous three-part harmony, a musical saw, a raucous jug band, high-octane bluegrass, and you grab a seat for a few songs of each.

Those revelrous, chaotic, joyous and completely overwhelming hallways are the heart of Folk Alliance, in my opinion. I find much of the rest of conference to be challenging. For one, it is very expensive, especially for a group with a profession that generally doesn't pay very well.  In Katie's band, we are using money from almost all of our gigs since the summer to pay for this trip. And while there is so much useful information to be gleaned from a remarkable collection of accomplished attendees, I always have to contend with discouragement and pessimism. There is a constant bombardment of what you could and should be doing to further your career, which for me creates the constant cognition that I am doing a fraction of what I ought to be. I'm sure almost all of us feel this in relation to our work in some way, but it becomes acute in the midst of a few thousand self-employed guitar pickers trying desperately to stay in the game. 

So when I'm cruising the unofficial showcases and happen upon a duo toe to toe in a tiny room in front of an audience of three at two in the morning, blending their voices like their lives depended on it, I know that music is real, and that I gotta stay in the game.  

Thoughts on a new website

Is writing about my website on my website what the kids call "meta" these days? I'm going to say so, until somebody tells me otherwise. 

Either way, welcome to my new website. I made it myself on Squarespace. While I generally get creeped out spending too much time thinking, talking or writing about myself, this has been a surprisingly enjoyable project. You see, I love to explain things (hence the long-running teaching gig), and a website for a freelance musician is like a caveman trying to portray his life with a charred stick on stone walls; an imperfect yet essential medium. 

I set out to make a site that is personal first, promotional second. What I knew for sure going in was that I could not stomach writing about myself in the third person. I'd rather pet a bald cat. So here you will find me talking about myself and my musical life as I would to you in person.

Truth be told, I'd love to see more independent bands and artists talking about their work in their own words. I want it explained to me. When you have achieved a certain level of industry stature, say like Los Lobos or Sturgill Simpson, I start to buy that others are actually writing about you and your work. Until then, let's just cut out the imaginary middleman.

Of course there will always be a need for "traditional" promotional material in third person, and until Nicholas Dawidoff comes calling to write about me, I'll write about me as if I'm not me. 

But I am me, and this is what I think about this stuff...thanks for reading and I'd love to hear your thoughts! Or your favorite examples of good (or really bad) band bios, 'cause I still have to write one for myself, unless any of you would like to...