Friday the 13th – how exciting! Always a great day for me, but then again I swim the river a bit differently. In its honor, here are 13 albums that filled my time and miles over the break with soundtrack.
1. Bob Seger The Distance.
Is it even a road trip without some ‘70s Bob Seger?
2. Buddy Morrow & His Orchestra Time After Time.
Great thrift store road find!
3. Kula Shaker Peasants Pigs & Astronauts.
Groovy for night drives.
4. John Coltrane Coltrane.
Like, days spent on ‘repeat disc’…
5. A CD of ripped audio from Stobe The Hobo YouTube episodes.
He rides on.
6. Richie Havens Mixed Bag.
Towns rolling by to this was a joy.
7. Journey Greatest Hits.
Personal history with classic Journey music & travel.
8. Grateful Dead Workingman’s Dead.
A staple since I vanned with a worn out cassette.
9. A two-fer CD of Bill Evans – Waltz for Debbie / Moon Beams.
Just leave it on.
10. Brahms (CD 10 of a big classical set)
My get ready in the morning music.
11. Richard Betts Highway Call.
Dickey Betts’ 1st solo album and my #1 road CD for years.
12. Ebony Rhythm Band Soul Heart Transplant: The Lamp Sessions. Groove, baby.
13. George Harrison All Things Must Pass.
Great for times when you go to grow.
So the other night I was up watching videos and saw this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXtwwCqGGxY
I am fascinated with craft – especially when those waters run deep, when what you do is just a layer outward of who you are. Where the line where you end and it begins is blurred. Craft is craft and inspiration is inspiration, whether a well-honed verse or a string that rings sweetly. Truth is truth wherever you find it. I couldn’t pick most of my own culture’s mega stars out of a lineup, haven’t seen most movies of the past 30 years, haven’t had a TV my whole adult life. But documentaries? I can talk documentaries! That won’t get you the Scott glaze-over where I know these are names and titles I should know and I know this conversation is in English but I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about and everyone else around us does. That’s usually where I go looking for the cheese tray. I eat a lot of cheese at gatherings.
I also saw this video from ’92:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWw8GFSXHyw
…and, at the 4:30 minute mark, in the window, what appears to be a Carl Thompson GUITAR. Can’t be too many of those around, and none in the “Under $500” used rack for decades for sure. Carl is the east coast Godfather of things carved and 4-stringed. There are influences that are simply in the DNA of a craft, whether or not it was a direct one. Different doors brought me in but there are only so many places to put the curves and parts of a tool so they work well, and if you connect those dots with the carved and curvy and “Go for baroque” as one might say, you get compared to Carl the way any white blues guitar player will be compared to Eric Clapton, still at it and miles down the road. Now if you do it well enough and long enough, they’ll start mentioning you IN WITH them. That is an amazing thing… but it takes a long time, sustained focus, and putting in your 10,000 hours 2 or 3 times over. And, ideally, the work is comparable because you dug deep and arrived at a similar place from the journey – not because you traced one of the masters’ works and did your own paint-by-numbers of it. No, you came to paint that mountain view from a similar climb.
It all works in. All the colors and notes and shapes that awakened you to some next level of appreciation or taste for it or understanding, these mix into you – so when what you do starts to come out, it’s all in there too, like a soup. And over time you may refine what YOU do, your spot in the lineage, and maybe marinate the carrots and fire roast the peppers before you put them in your soup. Now it’s your own. Even something like a basic pizza – three basic ingredients – everybody’s tastes different. To some folks “A pizza is a pizza,” but I don’t even know what to say to that. I’d just sound like an idiot trying to explain what is so obvious. And from three ingredients! But really it’s more. The cheese, sauce, and dough are assemblies and preparations of their own – recipes of material, intent, and technique – and all of this process factors in. What you eat is a result. What you see is a result. What you play is a result. It didn’t just happen – it was shaped and layered and cooked in a kitchen or a workshop or a studio, by hands taking the intangible – a feeling, a melody, a concept – and manifesting it into your hands.
Eat well, give thanks, and use its powers for good.
Listening to: Thelonious Monk Live at The Five Spot Discovery! (with John Coltrane); Miles Davis Collector’s Items; John Scofield A Go Go; Bill Laswell/Sacred System Nagual Site