Apr21

The Art of Protest

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The Art of Protest

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Mead 

Actor/musician/artist Vincenzo Tortorici and pal Trickster support the arts in Georgia by joining fellow protestors on the Capitol steps.

 

 Posted by Therracat  

This week I did something I almost never do:  joined a protest line and marched to city hall (well, in this case, the Georgia Capitol) and demanded  lawmakers make a change. Or rather, change back a change they made.          

Let me explain.          

Late last week the hateful  news spread like wildfire through the arts community of the decision by Georgia lawmakers to dismantle the Georgia Council for the Arts, leaving us alone on the range, the only state without a statewide arts council. Embarrassingly, even with the substantial dollars that the arts and her artists bring to Georgia by way of what I call “commerce culture” and funds from the National Endowment For the Arts through the GCA, the House Appropriations Committee voted late last week to eliminate the Georgia Council for the Arts budget for fiscal year 2011.  This move would directly affect artists, schools, businesses and organizations from the coast to the mountains and everywhere in between.          

I can go into a lot of reasons why that was a bad idea, even in these unsure economic times, but let me skip to the action part of the equation. Georgia’s artists, arts educators, writers, musicians, playwrights, actors, dancers, technicians, designers – you name the discipline – weren’t standing for it. My friend Keif, who was helping Malina  Rodriguez’s Dance Truck support the artists in the fray, called me early on Friday and with some amount of urgency in her voice asked me to get involved.  I immediately sent out a somewhat rushed press release to as many media outlets as I could reach before they left for the day on Friday. My hurried release pointed to a Facebook event page, started by artist  Ismail Ibn Connor, who invited – nay, demanded – that artists march through downtown Atlanta to the Capitol the following Monday to express their full displeasure about the decision. By early evening of the day he put the page up, some 600 artists and supporters had RSVP’d in the affirmative with hundreds more sending “maybe” as their answer, waiting to see if they could get out of work or other commitments. Sign-making parties were organized. For artists who some people  thought might not be good at math, they sure seemed to know the power of numbers.          

I hurriedly contacted several artists I  knew and asked for comments on the situation and happily tossed the following in the press release for good measure:          

“For current working artists in Georgia and for future artists in this state, this is a situation that cannot stand,” said John Jaramillo, an international dancer/performing artist and Arts in Education instructor who is part of the prestigious  Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning through the Arts through Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre at Woodruff Arts Center. John is a full-blooded Native American from New Mexico who makes his home and much of his living working in the arts in Georgia and the SE. “I have traveled and performed all over the world. I could easily choose to live and work somewhere else. I chose Georgia for the opportunities the arts presented, the wonderful cultural artists I have met here, the arts in education in the schools and the superb teachers that support the arts. Atlanta is supposed to be the pride of the South. What sort of ‘jewel of the New South’ is without a state arts council?” He went on to say, “I come from a culture (the ancient Pueblo Indians of the Southwest) where our songs and stories and dances and art have never been allowed to die out no matter how dire the outside circumstances. I have seen for over a decade now how artists support and enrich their communities in Georgia. I hope Georgia will support her artists, too.”          

John Stephens ( Theatre Gael founder and Artistic Director of  Worldsong  and the Academy Theatre for Youth) had this to say:
After these many years, I am convinced that every child is an artist. It then becomes the responsibility of the citizen artist to do everything within their power to nurture that creative spirit for this coming generation. It is in the moment of creation that human beings are most alive, most sane, most connected, and most fulfilled. When we share our own unique artistic vision with others and encourage the emerging artistry of our children, we are, I believe, creating a future where the value of the arts and the inherent worth of the individual will no longer be an issue.”          

I agree with both of them.  Artists are citizens too. We pay taxes, buy a house in your neighbourhood, teach your children, bring visitors in from other parts of the country, create new work, bring fresh voices to old favourites, and yes, we also entertain, enrich and preserve culture. And on Monday, we marched. Georgia’s artists, per usual, did their job well and with usual aplomb. I was proud to be in their numbers. See below how the march shaped up that sunny afternoon:          

Artists in Georgia take to the streets.

 

March organizer Ismail Ibn Connor urges arts supporters to speak out to their elected officials.

 

Georgians for the arts and against dismantling the GCA gather on the Capitol steps.

 

Young Maggie Housworth makes her case for arts in Georgia.

 

A message for the governor of Georgia.

 

Facts on arts in Georgia.

 

Glass harpist Brien Engel beams his support for the GCA.

 

Nobody kicked her, but lawmakers should have been kicked for such a jello-headed decision to begin with.

 

Artists speak out, loud and proud.

 

And who doesn’t love a happy ending? See below.

MEDIA RELEASE
April 21, 2010

          

          

Contact: Jhai James
Public Information Officer
404.685.2 

          

          
 
 

 ATLANTA – The entire Senate has voted to approve the Appropriation Committee’s recommendation, which includes the $890,735 restored to Georgia Council for the Arts. This enables the agency to match its federal grant and retain regional funding that, combined, equals more than one-million dollars. 
 
     Georgia Council for the Arts Executive Director Susan Weiner communicated the agency’s gratitude : ”The entire arts industry of Georgia – from for-profit filmmakers and galleries, to nonprofit museums and performance groups, to arts education providers, and to our entrepreneurial artists – is deeply grateful.”
 
     One more hurdle remains before a final budget reaches the Governor: the Conference Committee, which is made up of an equal number of Representatives and Senators.  This Committee’s purpose is to reconcile the differences between their different budgets.
 
      Georgia Council for the Arts is the state agency that provides support for nonprofit arts organizations in Georgia. Established in 1965 as the Georgia Commission on the Arts, its mission is to encourage excellence in the arts, support the arts’ many forms of expression and create access to the arts for all Georgians by providing funding, leadership, programming and other services. Funding for Georgia Council for the Arts is provided by appropriations from the Georgia General Assembly, the National Endowment for the Arts and other public and private sources.
 
#   #   #

           
 

Georgia Council for the Arts   260 14th Street, NW   Atlanta, Georgia 30318    404.685.2787

           
 

 

Mar18

Backstage at the Resurrection with James Lee Stanley

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Backstage at the Resurrection with James Lee Stanley

posted by therracat          

If you don’t know James Lee Stanley, I’m not going to raise a “Where have you been?” eyebrow, but I am sending out a clarion call that if you are a fan of the thinking traveling troubadour type you might want to pay him some attention. If you like James Taylor or JD Souther you will enjoy James Lee Stanley. If you like your singers to have a grand voice and a spot-on wicked sense of humour, you will enjoy James Lee Stanley. If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to be kicked off a tour while opening for a major act because you opened too well, you may want to ask James Lee Stanley.          

 I first met James when I was writing for a paper in Georgia and he was performing with an old buddy of his, Peter Tork (yeah, of Monkees fame) at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Va. The occasion was a tribute to the wonderful John Stewart, who not only penned the #1 hit “Daydream Believer” for the aforementioned Monkees but was a member of the Kingston Trio.  He had a hit of his own in 1979 with ”Gold”, from what is surely a record with one of the all-time great album titles, “Bombs Away Dream Babies”.  The tribute to him was a great night in so many ways and one I’ve revisited fondly in my memory banks since Stewart passed on.  He was still alive in 2001 (note: kudos to the Birchmere for holding these things while the tributee is still with us).  A lovely human, John Stewart could not have been any nicer to me, which I appreciated because meeting a legend can be nerve wracking for anyone who has watched and listened to them for years. Meeting famous people can be one of those things you revel in or regret, depending on the celebrity and that’s just a fact. Stewart was genial and kind. He put his arm around me and introduced me to his family, acting as if he’d known me for years and as if he was genuinely happy that I was there. This fan’s grateful heart did a jig.  

 Fabulous femmes  Nanci Griffith, Eliza Gilkyson, and Rosanne Cash were there to pay homage to Stewart. I was walking around talent central it seemed, and about to get a bonus.  James Lee  introduced himself to me in the press room that afternoon as I was talking to a member of  Nanci Griffith’s band about his friend/my longtime crush, Nick Lowe. Not many people could have pulled my interest away from that conversation but I liked James immediately and rather wanted to follow him around. It’s kind of hard not to like him. He’s tall, with an open face and expressive eyes. He could pass as your favourite college professor or, in the right light, like a clean cowboy you would take home to mom (who would soon tell you he was “keeper”).  James was solicitous and amusing this particular evening ( indeed, Peter Tork has oft referred to James as one of the quickest and funniest people he knows). Later that night James kindly introduced me to Noel Paul Stookey (Paul of Peter, Paul and Mary). I remember thinking, who is this guy? He knows everyone.          

Photo by Andrea Cross

 

  One specific memory I have of that event is of James and me backstage in the late afternoon, not talking, kind of involved in individual thought when the door flies open and Nanci Griffith strides in. She’s moving fast, toting her guitar, beautiful in profile, a lit cigarette in her mouth, smoke floating in a wake behind her like a wispy entourage.  I was stunned but quiet as she disappeared into the dressing room. “Wow!” James said out loud, “Nanci Griffith smokes!” I loved him from that moment on.  James says things out loud.        

 He hasn’t stopped touring, writing or recording in decades, lucky for his fans, and he’s on a creative tear putting together a new CD, “Backstage at the Resurrection”.  I had a chance to ask him some questions recently and he was kind enough to assuage my curiosity.          

 Therra: Your new CD “Backstage at the Resurrection”, to be released later this year, is somewhat different from your previous releases, isn’t it?  Tell us a little about it.          

 James Lee Stanley: Well, it was recorded over the past year and last year I began taking guitar lessons, (after forty years of self-taught stuff, I thought it was time to learn something) so the guitar work is different.           

Secondly, during the reign of terror on the constitution that was the Bush era, I was evidently depressed all the time.   I know that the whole world is turning to caca right now, but when Obama got elected, I got happy.   The cd’s I released during the appointed president’s reign were all informed by my sadness and helplessness in the face of what he was doing to the economy, the environment, our world standing, the surplus, the constitution, etc.  Once we got that bastard out, I just got happy.   This is a happy cd, you will be dancing your buns off to this one.          

Thirdly, I have some great rock guitar playing on this cd in the form of Lenny Ruckle from Santa Cruz.   He did a great job and took the recording someplace else.  I can’t wait for you to hear this puppy.          

 T: Your live performances are a treat, because you not only have a wonderful singing voice, you are exceedingly funny. You appeared to have the “Storytellers” format down pat long before it became a  fixture on VH1. Is there any story you have just not been able to retire because people want to hear it every time they see you?          

 JLS: There are actually a bunch.   People still want to hear the digitalis song and story;  the cookie monster story (with the blue shag bathroom) will never go away evidently, and my Star Trek adventures from when I was on Star Trek Deep Space Nine also seem to be perennial favorites.          

I did some dates with a remarkable raconteur named Gamble Rogers and he is the one who told me that my stories were like my songs in that people would want to hear them again and again and that they would bring their friends to hear them.   He was the inspiration to work on them just like I do my songs or my recordings.          

I try to tell all the stories during the course of a year to keep them fresh in my mind.   And I’ve started documenting what I did where so that when I come back I can do something else…unless they specifically request a story they’ve heard.          

  T:  James, You’ve been in this crazy creative business for a while. I almost fell over when you told me you knew Jennifer Warnes, such a fan of her am I. You have been featured in a famous syndicated cartoon (“Cathy”) because the creator was a big fan of yours, you’ve appeared on “Star Trek- Deep Space Nine”, and you’ve toured with some famous folks, recorded with some well known musicians and hung around with some household names. Tell a little about the best and/or even the worst experience you’ve ever had with these people who we all seem to know. Obviously you don’t have to name names if you’re gonna diss someone, but you have some great tales, James, of the good, the better, the bad and the ugly in show business, it’s a fact. Give us some dish, darling.          

 JLS: Well I must be discreet here and I don’t want to be telling tales out of school.  I quit one tour with a major star because he was simply too much of an a—hole.    Wouldn’t allow me a spotlight or an announcement and frequently demanded I start my portion of the show within minutes of the doors being opened, so I was mainly playing while everyone was looking for their seats.  I finally quit.  Bonnie Raitt, who didn’t have the big hits yet, replaced me.  She quit after two gigs.   I did five.  (I needed the money, but finally decided I’d rather have the self-respect of blowing this bozo off).          

 On another tour, the other main act left his guitar in another state on a brief break and we had to drive across the state to retrieve it.   He couldn’t quite remember where the place was and then no one was home, so I had to second story it and break in.   Came out the front door while he was standing there wondering what to do.  I told him he owed those folks a window.          

 Did another show with a major star as the opening act, of course, and on the first show got four encores and a standing ovation…and got fired off the tour.  But enough about me…what do YOU think…about me.          

  T:  Here’s what I think. You did a wonderful recording with John Batdorf called “All Wood and Stones”. I want to know how that came about.           

 JLS: At a friend’s wedding the band took a break and someone suggested that I go up there and do a tune or two.  Two other songwriters were there as well.   So the three of us went up there…and discovered that we each only knew our own songs.   Then Rod MacDonald asked me if I knew” Ruby Tuesday”.  I said I knew the chorus.  I took the low harmony, George Merrill took the high harmony and we took off.   The wedding party literally came up to the stage while we were doing it.   Ran up actually, like a Disney movie or something. On the way home I said to my wife, you know, no one has really presented the songs of the rolling stones in their most favorable light.   They wrote some great songs.   So I decided to do the project.  I invited my pal, John Batdorf, to do it with me and the rest, as they say…          

 T: You also write a very informative and popular blog for performing artists. You’ve had over half a million hits on the site already. Congrats, by the way, as that’s no small feat. Tell the readers where they can lay eyes on your wit and wisdom for artists on the web and what prompted you to start writing it.          

 JLS: The blog, is a free artist resource site called Datamusicata.   You can find it at:   www.datamusicata.com   and I write a column for it two to three times a week, about everything from how to string a guitar to mic technique to practicing to touring to house guesting.   Everything I can think of that might help folks do this music thing.   Or… any artistic  venture.   It came about because my wife told me that I probably knew more about touring than anyone, having been at it for decades.  She said I knew things I didn’t know I knew and I should start giving back to the community.   So I tried it and we’ve just crested 700,000 hits.   Seems to be helping someone.          

 I also invite any other people who have something to add to post and I put up their websites and pertinent info.     I would like it to be someplace that anyone can go and find out anything about any end of the music business.          

 And I have a search engine on the site.  Type in a topic and every article pertaining to that will show up.   And there is also a comment section at the end of each article.  I read and respond to all the comments.          

Photo by Cindi Byrkit

 

Mar5

Broadway Bits, featuring : The Addams Family, Jeff Buckley…and Your Favourite Flying Elephant

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Broadway Bits, featuring : The Addams Family, Jeff Buckley…and Your Favourite Flying Elephant

posted by therracat   

They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and spooky, they’re all together ooky…and they’re headed to Broadway this week. The Addams family - first a darkly funny comic, then a fun and goofy gothic TV hit, then a movie franchise – is now a musical.  Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth are set to goth it up as  Gomez and Morticia Addams in The Addams Family Musical.  The show spent some time in Chicago, previewing and working out the kinks. From the reviews written while there seems a lot of kinks needed working out before it was NYC-ready. We’ll see. I love the multi-talented Lane but it will take a lot for me to believe he wants to get under Morticia’s elegantly tiered skirt. Addams opens March 8th on the Lunt Fontaine theatre on Broadway.      

  http://www.theaddamsfamilymusical.com     

 

The Addams Family, created by cartoonist Charles Addams (1912-1988)

  

Jeff Buckley (who was raised as Scotty Moorhead and is the son of  timeless troubadour Tim Buckley) is gone but not forgotten.  I’m not the rabid fan that many are, but I’ll give the gentle singer his due.  The attention his only album, Grace, still garners is amazing to me. Jeff was lost to us in Memphis almost 13 years ago,  but could have some of his music headed to Broadway. According to Rolling Stone online:     

Jeff Buckley-Inspired Musical Could Be Headed to Broadway

3/5/10, 12:03 pm EST      

Jeff Buckley’s music may be joining the Who and Green Day on Broadway thanks to a new show that fuses his songs with William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The Last Goodbye was first conceived three years ago by Michael Kimmel, a New York director and theater professor who started up the project when he noticed how uncannily well Buckley’s lyrics accented the Bard’s language. With approval from Buckley’s estate, Kimmel created a musical using “New Year’s Prayer,” “So Real” and “Eternal Life” and other songs from the singer-songwriter’s catalog to further the classic play’s tale of ill-fated love.      

“Jeff’s music takes this idea of young emotion and passion to an entirely different level that we haven’t seen with the play before,” Kimmel explains. “What I love about the show is that it’s this great merging of a really strong writer and an amazing musician.” After well-received concert readings in New York last spring, Kimmel and his creative team are finalizing plans for a regional staging later this year. Interest from commercial producers has sparked hope for a Broadway transfer during the 2010-2011 season, but Kimmel isn’t planning too far ahead: “All the attention the piece has gotten has been really exciting, but for us, it’s about getting it right.”      

                                                                                                     

Singer/songwriter Buckley, who drowned in 1997 but continues to gather fans from around the world.

 If Jeff Buckley and The Addams Family aren’t heavy enough entertainment for you, know that a flying elephant could be hitting Broadway in the future and his name is Dumbo. Disney has enough golden material to mine for decades, and this beloved movie from 1941 may get its day(s) on the great white way.  According to The New York Times Disney Theatrical Productions and the well-known (some say notorious) theatrical director Stephen Daldry are developing an adaptation for the stage. The word is that no creative team has yet been assigned.     

Mar2

Shooting Star – The Too Soon Death of Jay Bennett

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Shooting Star – The Too Soon Death of Jay Bennett

Jay Bennett at the Iota Club, 2003. Photo by Therra Cathryn Gwyn.

My phone rang during the week after Memorial Day 2009 and I didn’t get to it in time, but I immediately listened to the voicemail and heard my friend Sherri’s voice break.
“Tee…?” she said softly, “Jay Bennett died.”

I sat the phone down and stared at the wall. Surely this couldn’t be.

The first time I laid eyes on Jay Bennett I was taken slightly aback. He walked in the door of the Iota Club in Arlington, Va, outside Washington DC, and my friend Sherri nudged me. “There he is,” she said. There he was, indeed. He resembled no one so much as Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Affable Rockslob as he rolled into the room but had a presence that extended far beyond his physicality and a talent that did the same. I was intrigued immediately and I don’t think my reaction was unusual. Jay Bennett was most compelling, even before you knew his resume or capabilities. Now he’s gone, dead at 45, and along with a plethora of fans and loving friends and his devoted family, I’m wondering why he had to go so soon.

For those who don’t know the name Jay Bennett, go to Google News and type in his name. In May/June of 2009 you would have gotten some 1300 hits on the news of his untimely death, including Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Times, Rolling Stone,  Spin magazine, MTV and Associated Press. He was an accomplished musician/singer/songwriter/producer from the Chicago area, once upon a time was in a band called Titanic Love Affair and later released one of my favourite CDs ever with his friend and sometimes collaborator, Edward Burch. As Bennett and Burch they released the wonderful and intoxicating (Rolling Stone magazine called it “sunny”) “Palace At 4 a.m ( Part 1)”. However, it’s usually Jay’s well documented and much-argued-about past of fuss and fame with Jeff Tweedy, as part of  Wilco, that you will read about. This union brought forth some good music and on film, some good drama: Jay was fired from Wilco in 2001, and most unluckily for both he and Tweedy, in my opinion, the deed was done as they were being filmed for a documentary about the making of the band’s ”Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”. This resulted in Jay’s departure being featured in the movie, “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart”.  As anyone who has been involved in any kind of break-up knows, be it business, personal or artistic, you’re never going to get the full story in a few frames. Even now, some 9 years or so later, bloggers and fans and friends and die-hards will argue whether Jeff Tweedy is the alt-devil in disguise and the cruel engine of Jay’s fate or whether it was simply time for Jay to leave the band, that his season of Wilco had passed. I notice for many the Wilco with Jay Bennett is their Wilco of choice. They sure did some great work together and it will stand.

Back to the Iota Club. Jay and Edward were touring behind “Palace at 4 a.m.” and Sherri and I drove up from Georgia to see them. She’d already met both Edward and Jay, after seeing them open for Kim Richey. She recruited me by connecting Jay to something I loved: the “Mermaid Ave” albums of unpublished Woody Guthrie lyrics that Billy Bragg and Wilco so brilliantly set to music. “California Stars” had become one of my all-time favourite tunes and Jay was credited with writing the music. I hadn’t seen Jay or Ed perform before but introduced myself that night, mentioning that we had a common friend in the Chicago music scene, beautiful songstress Kelly Hogan, who I had known and worked with in Atlanta. I liked the pair. I found Ed Burch to be upbeat, witty, intelligent and, what we call in the South with no irony, “a nice boy”. I was delighted to meet the musician whose high, clear singing so well complimented Jay’s breathy/smokey growl on my new favorite CD. Jay was sweet and immediately familiar. “Can I have hug?” he asked me. “Um. Sure” I said. Why not? He was also upbeat, funny, friendly and, his opening act informed me, cleaner and better smelling than he’d been in weeks. I laughed at the banter between them. Jay and I somehow almost immediately got onto to the subjects of  Leonard Cohen (we were both big fans), the Bee Gees early music (also both big fans, but I didn’t like “Cucumber Castle”, he did) and the fact that both our marriages were in disintegration stage. I used the words “inactively married” to describe my relationship’s spiral at that point and an hour or so later, during their show, Jay turned to the audience and asked me, “What was that phrase you used, again?” I looked around to see if he meant someone else.

“You,” he said to me, “What was that phrase you used to describe your marriage?”

“Oh,” I said, as if people engaged me from the stage of the Iota Club all the time in front of an audience of strangers about my personal life. “INACTIVELY MARRIED!” I repeated, loud enough so everyone in the club could hear, because, God knows, I didn’t want to repeat it. Somehow shouting it out in front of others made it both funnier and more gruesome, and it fit the state of my dying relationship. I had to smile despite it all. You either tiptoe over a dying relationship or you stomp that sucker flat.

“Yeah.” Jay said, and then continued with the performance. Even later in the show he decided to exit the club and venture outside in the cold, snow from an earlier storm still banking the curbs. Edward, on keyboard, stayed onstage – steady, keeping the flow, smoke from his cigarette curling around his head. Jay sang from the street outside. We followed him down the road as far as his mic cord would take him. He tried to get Sherri to sing the last verse of “It Hurts”, offering her the microphone. She demurred. When I talked to her the other day she says now she wishes she would have done it. Let that be a lesson to us all: if you have a chance to sing in the snow with a genius, do it.

At that point I was hooked on Jay and Edward’s dynamic duo-ism and went to Chicago a few times to see them and hang out. The street fair performance I saw in June of 2003 was the last time they performed together for a long while, due to personal factors and other projects. Sher and I waited for yet another chance to see them again. It didn’t seem to be in the cards and a few years passed, too uneventfully, on the Bennett and Burch front. But we didn’t think it was over. We just thought it was fallow, like a field that’s getting ready to spring forth at any moment with the bounty of a lifetime. In the meantime, I got Jay’s solo CDs, kept in touch with the smooth singing Edward and often would put “Palace” (both the studio and later limited edition acoustic version) on my CD player, leaving it there for hours.

Now, with the news of Jay’s death, I think about him and his artistic significance, his musical intelligence, the comparisons in the press to Brian Wilson, to Brian Jones. I think of his loyal friends, the people he rubbed the wrong way, his bond with Edward, the fine work he produced for others, his sweet and complex nature. I think of how some people dubbed him adorable, and some, arrogant. To me he just seemed…well, big. He lived big, he thought big, he played big. He left a wake like an ocean liner crossing a lake. That kind of big. And when that kind of big leaves suddenly, it leaves a hole. A big one.

Bennett and Burch on tour 2003

                    Bennett and Burch, 2003. Photo by Therra C. Gwyn.                            

 This blogpost originally appeared at www.iliveinacaravan.blogspot.com in June 2009.  On May 24th, 2010, Jay’s family launched The Jay Bennett Foundation. Please go to www.jaybennett.org and support the legacy of this talented artist. His latest album, “Kicking At The Perfumed Air” (what a great title, Jay!) will be available for free download (donations encouraged) and CD purchase starting July 10th, with a portion of proceeds going to the foundation and to benefit a partner charity.