great crabby artists

Subject: Folklore: great crabby artists
From: GUEST,seth in Olympia
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 06:02 PM

I'm thinking about a list of great artists, particularly performing musicians, with huge warts on their personalities, that they didn't choose to hide, on or off stage. Got one?
seth

Subject: RE: Folklore: great crabby artists
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 06:14 PM

Do chips on the shoulder count too?

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 06:53 PM

I know a couple, but I'd rather say nice things.

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: SINSULL
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 07:11 PM

Not me. I'm keeping my mouth shut...TIGHT
MRUUMPHHHH

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: GUEST,David E.
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 07:29 PM

Sorry, my bad... I was going to say that in my limited experience I have met more crabby artists who believe they are great than actually great artists who are crabby. I can think of more really talented artists who seem pretty humble (Bert Jansch for example) than jerks...but maybe I have enough sense to keep my space?)

David E.

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: GUEST,stroknvettn
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 09:54 PM

Uhhhhhhh...huh-huh-huh... huh-huh...

That dude from TX, ya know the one with the 10-gal hat that was in the cartoon with Mr.Peabody? Heck, I even think the cartoon character had a more correctly tailored suit, lmao...

Normally I wouldn't touch this one either, but (give him credit for having a phone-call or some other drama I wasn't aware of...) I saw him stalk to his bus and close the door in the faces of a sizeable crowd of fans who seemed really disappointed that he didn't reappear after a "reasonable" passing of time...

Everyone else has been pretty darned good(I have no other musician-nemises types in my life, in fact I remain good friends with a cat who did 30min in a parking lot with me, neither of us won, and we were back on stage in time for the second set. Daubing hints of crimson from our brows and chins while the lil' girl cop wanted to know who was REALLY scrappin'... This did NOT occur at a bluegrass festival!!!), when you consider that there are times when you(or they) just DON'T feel like interacting, but, hey! You love your wife but she doesn't cotton to being slighted... Even when you don't have it in you to address her concerns, you do it anyway, be gracious, ya know- all "that" kinda yak...?

Fans and wives aren't so dissimilar... And this post is solely intended to be amusing...

-Frank-

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 10:19 PM

Not a folkie, or even a musician; but novelist Evelyn Waugh a v notable example: e.g. invited by mutual acqutce to meet admiring American visitors, the female one of whom started telling him how much she admired Brideshead, he replied, 'Yes, I have always thought well of it; but now I know a stupid, ignorant American woman admires it perhaps it is not as good as I thought after all'; & then proceeded nonchalantly to eat his dinner as if unaware of extent to which he must have ruined entire occasion!

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 10:58 PM

So, sorry MtGM...that is why they make anti-acid-tabs....or for a wound to the belly the ol' GI fix - bicarbonate-of-soda.

Obviously, there was a solid recovery.

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: GUEST,Seth from Olympia
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 12:52 AM

I must say that when I met Van Morrison, I was not taken in by his charm, though I've always liked his music.
seth

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: Leadfingers
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 05:37 AM

Very few 'Folk' performers seem to fit the 'Crabby' tag , though a LOT of other genres seem to have more than their share .

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 05:42 AM

Leadfingers: The late Martin Winsor, who was a fine singer [hear his superb track in The Transports] was a big man with a notoriously uncontrollable hairtrigger temper, which led [I don't think speaking ill to record the fact] to more than one conviction for GBH. I should call this even a bit beyond 'crabby' myself.

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: kendall
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 07:30 AM

Jasha Hiefitz

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 07:39 AM

Dick Miles.
http://www.dickmiles.com

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: kendall
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 07:57 AM

Hank Snow

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 08:21 AM

How about Kerry Crabbe?

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: Nick
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 08:26 AM

Does this include artists who are self centred and shellfish?

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 08:30 AM

... crust[acea]y, rather?

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: beeliner
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 09:37 AM

There's a VERY well-known country singer, whose name I won't mention, who is said to be such a kvetch that his friends call him 'picky Ricky', and his non-friends call him something similar, but with another letter added.

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 01:44 PM

It's not the first time I have heard Van Morrison's personality errr... leaves something to be desired.

What is his problem?

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: beeliner
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 02:09 PM

At the other end of the spectrum (maybe this should be a separate thread), Barbara Cook and the late Yehudi Menuhin.

I had the privilege of being an audio engineer for both.

What a sweetiepie and what a gentleman!

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: M.Ted
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 02:29 PM

Beeliner--That's not the same noted country singer who tells everyone about what a great Christian he is after each and every song? Someone, perhaps his booking agent, once said that, "If he didn't tell you, you wouldn't know it."

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: olddude
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 06:47 PM

I don't know I heard townes van zandt was pretty nasty at times. But if you want to ask me about certain NFL players ... it would take me a 1000 years !

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 07:55 PM

John Fahey was the most anti-social, non-social musican I ever met... And half drunk most of the time, to boot...

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: Art Thieme
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 08:38 PM

Fahey, at their outside festival at Chelsea House in Brattleboro, VT, walked out on stage after being nicely introduced, fidgeted with the mikes for 10 minutes, stared out at the audience for ten minutes more. The audience never made a peep throughout. Then, he literally screamed into the mike------"Shut the fuck up!!!" --I was simply amazed and haven't listened to him since.

Art

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: GUEST,Elmore
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 03:42 PM

I always thought Fahey was overrated. I've encountered a couple of performers who were pretty fussy about their sound check, but I sort of appreciated their professionalism.

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: Dave Roberts
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 05:55 PM

In an episode of the immortal 'Fawlty Towers', Sybil Fawlty says to her
harrassed husband Basil, 'There is NO excuse for rudeness'.

And there isn't.

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: GUEST,David E.
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 06:35 PM

I would have considered being married to Sybil a fair excuse.

David E.

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: Rafflesbear
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 06:42 PM

On the basis of a single concert - Joan Baez - would never go again

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 07:42 PM

Well, they uised to call Peter Bellamy "the surly Yorkshireman"

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: GUEST,Ballyholme
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 09:07 PM

MGM, Great story about Martin Windsor. I bet nobody talked when he was singing!

Van Morrison's less than cheery demeanor is well chronicled (as several biographies will testify to.

Having worked for a number of years organizing folk events for a major arts festival I have to say that folk musicians, in the main, are a pretty nice bunch - although a certain Irish fiddler came across as a bear with a sore ares.

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Dec 09 - 10:38 PM

Who used to call Peter Bellamy 'the surly Yorkshireman', Dick? & why? He only lived in Yorkshire the last 4 or 5 years of his life; he was Norfolk thru & thru. & he wasn't so much surly as occasionally given to a sort of 'flyting' with audience which some would take amiss. A typical sort of thing he would say: I once told him I had left him my instruments in my will. "Hurry up and die them,' was his response, 'you have got a D-major concertina haven't you?' I knew him & didn't take it amiss - but some might have done. Instead I lent it to him on long loan to take to gigs & make records and it was on his coffin at his funeral. I have it back now BTW.

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: Rowan
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 10:18 PM

In Oz, Peter Bellamy was charm itself.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: Amergin
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 11:04 PM

I've met alot of musicians at various shows....punk, folk, and I have only come across one asshole...and he was some english punk singer who spat on the audience....I remember one guy stormed the stage and proceeded to beat the shit out of him....while the band played on.

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 11:15 PM

The same happened in Ireland to that unfunny little 'alternative' comedian {alternative to what, I often wonder? - if it means being alternative to being in any way comic I'll drink to that}, Jerry Sadowicz, whose shtick is being as crabby as he can with his audience. He tried taking the piss out of the Irish at a gig in Ireland a while back, & a man just mounted the stage & without a word gave him the thrashing he deserved.

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: Art Thieme
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 11:52 PM

Mr. Bellamy's style of singing was, to say the least, intense. Quite high energy I always thought. At a good small festival near Chicago, I finished my set and Peter sought me out. Outright he told me, "That was absolutely the most laid back set I have ever seen." --- Then he spun on his heel -- and walked away.

To this day I do not know if his comment was a positive one or not. But it did stay with me!

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 12:50 AM

My experience with musicians was thunderously awful but these guys are revered by most everybody in the forum so I won't mention their names.
Every one can have a down day.

Don

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: Mick Woods
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 04:46 AM

Van Morrison and Bob Dylan both treat their audience AND backing musicians with contempt,

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: GUEST,bankley
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 09:01 AM

Jerry Lee Lewis , depending on the refreshments
Stephen Stills...    "       " "         "
Ian Tyson at times, "       " "         "


that country singer who had sex with another man, then did a 'I have sinned' confession in his church... and is not related to Boz Scaggs

( not enough refreshments )

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: JedMarum
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 09:40 AM

Big Mick Lane!

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: JedMarum
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 09:44 AM

OK, I was just kidding about Mick.

But in real life I did a festival in Lake Charles LA with Andy M Stewart. Andy had been pissed off all weekend that the festival organizers forgot to pick him up at the airport. So he told every audience the story of being forgotten and did NOT hide his great displeasure.

It was off because he genuinely angry about it, but he got a good laugh out of the audience over it. He was crabby the whole time - but funny!

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: frogprince
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 10:17 AM

I keep waiting, as in "waiting for the other shoe to drop", for Peace to drop in here with an autobiographical anecdote.

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 11:43 AM

why, kenall morse of course!!!

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: GUEST,Seth from Olympia
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 03:55 PM

I met Townes VZ after one his few road shows in Seattle ( a great show with Guy Clark)He had just done his show, he owed me absolutely nothing
he could not have been more gracious.
Clifton Chenier, may he rest in peace, is not a person who I could say that about
seth

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: GUEST,Jed Marum
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 03:59 PM

Here's onne of my favorite Kendall Morse stories, speaking of crabby ...

We were at the FSGW Getaway a few years back, and much whiskey had been consumed very very late into the night, especially liquid, that night was Kendall and Max.

Next day, early, Max was nowhere to be seen but here was Kendall was sitting outdoors on a lovely day, about to start conducting a workshop, at 11AM with a couple dozen fine folks around him. As I walked by with Rick Fielding on our way to our own workshop I shouted out, "Kendall, you look like you're feeling better this morning!"

Without batting an eye Kendall shouted back, "Better?? I'd have to get better just to die!"

... crabby, but funny!

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 06:08 PM

MtheGM -
The reference to Bellamy as Yorkshireman was, apparently a paraphrase of
ERic Knight's book "The Flying Yorkshireman" (good book, btw). The surly was a consequence of his demeanor at several US functions.
No quibbles about his artistry.

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 06:59 PM

Thanks, Dick - I was puzzled. But definitely a misnomer that needs its hash settled — Pete was no Yorkshireman in any sense whatever; even when he lived those last few years in Keighley, it was only as an incomer from outside, never as a real Yorkshireman. I remember during the war when American servicemen were stationed in England & the Southerners among them hated being called Yankees. Pete would have felt the same about being described as a Yorkshireman. Don't forget his first solo LP, while still with Young Tradition, was called MAINLY NORFOLK!!

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: Gweltas
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 03:27 AM

Raffelsbear,
I would counter your opinion of Joan Baez with my own experience of her in concert ! Perhaps she was having an "off-night" when you saw her ? Very few performers can be in top form ALL of the time ! They are human, just like you and me, and who knows what hidden troubles they may be carrying on their shoulders at any given time. I would hesitate to condemn ANYONE on the basis of just ONE unsatisfactory experience.

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 12:44 PM

Ewan MacCoill could be one of the most contentious people on the folk scene, He notoriously came to blows in folk clubs with Dominic Beahan & Hamish Henderson [I actually witnessed the first]. For an account of some gross unfairness and unnecessary & unjustified quarreling on his part with a friend of mine, see my post on the thread 'What did you do in the War, Ewan?' 30 Aug 09 12.37AM. I have refreshed the thread.

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 01:38 PM

The folk scene's paradigms of grumpiness are all fairly small potatoes compared with Charles Mingus pulling a gun on one of his bandmates during a show or Giacinto Scelsi threatening to have anyone who took his photo killed.

Subject: RE: great crabby artists
From: Ref
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 05:48 PM

I'd think it would be hard for a folkie to AFFORD to be genuinely crabby. I've heard that Jeff Muldaur is a surly prick in his old age. Surprised to see the comment about Joan Baez. It's clear she doesn't suffer fools much, but I've always seen her as very kind and supportive of other musicians and her back-ups. She's had a running battle with judy Collins since the sixties, but the root of it was Collins' self-centeredness. I've seen Gordon Bok get a little surly, but he was provoked.