Time's Running Out!

Subject: Time's Running Out!
From: Doctor John
Date: 12 Aug 99 - 04:58 PM

It's nearly the next millenium. Many of the folk legends are fading into history: well, not fading completely. Does anyone have any stories, meetings or personal memories of Woody, Cisco, Lead Belly, Pete, Lee Hayes, Carters, Phil Ochs, Paul Clayton, Sis Cunningham, Sonny, Brownie and the other bluesmen to record before they are lost for ever. Sorry if I've omitted anyone. Alternatively people like Moe Asch and the Lomaxes father and son. A good anthology ,maybe even for publication? Come all ye old tyme people! Dr John.

Subject: RE: Time's Running Out!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 12:49 AM

Me and Jimmie Rodgers used to ride the rollin' boxcars in the summertime,
Jimmie, he'd play his guitar, I'd sit back and watch the stars and sip my wine,
Me and Audie Murphy, we would crawl out on our bellies through the German lines
Audie, I won't leave you here; I'll pull ya through 'cause, buddy, you're a pal o' mine.

Didn't me and Phil Rizzuto move around like lightnin' on the double play,
I'd look over in the stands and Marilyn'd see me and she'd start to wave,
Hell, no, Coach Lombardi, this broken back aint' nothing if the game is saved,
Tell the fellows, if I die, to put a little golden football on my grave.

Me and Tony Zale, we used to spar for hours up in Stillman's Gym,
Knowin' that some day it'd be the Garden and the championship for me or him,
And, Coop, if no one in this town is man enough to stand with you when Frank Miller comes,
Come high noon I'll walk with you; I may be young, but I know how to use a gun.

And John Wayne, he once said to me: The Japs have got the island, and we've got to save the old red, white and blue,
And someone's got to swim out to the submarine and warn 'em, Art, I hate like hell to have to ask you to. Say there, Betty Grable, I know that you could be a star but with my drinkin' I'd just hold you back,
Go on and sign the contract, hon, I'll read about you in some old newspaper blowin' through some lonesome hobo shack---
Me and Jimmie Rodgers used to ride the rollin' boxcars in the summertime,
Jimmie, he'd play his guitar and I'd sit back and watch the stars and sip my wine.

(This song is by Shel Silverstein---I learned it from Bob Gibson.)

Subject: RE: Time's Running Out!
From: PJ
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 01:41 AM

For what it's worth I have a sweet memory of the Southern blues and stride piano-picker Ruby Red...

I grew up in Atlanta, in the late 60's/early 70's, when underage whitebread surburban girls weren't supposed to sneak downtown to a place like Ruby's. By day I had a conservatory education with Dr. Herbert, at night I headed for The Underground and graduate studies with Ruby Red hisown self.

Ruby was 250 years old when I was a kid, so I'm sure he's not around anymore, but the memory of that sound stayed with me and affected what I played.

Once he asked me if I was old enough to be there, and though he couldn't see me to be sure I was lying, I think he knew. I never tried to get a drink in the place, I just wanted to listen to him play, and to get him to show me how to make that noise come out of the box.

Ruby never busted me to my folks, and they never knew why their daughter played piano like a blind 80 year old black man from time to time.

Funny, 30 years and 3 lifetimes later I was at Down Home Music in Berkeley and I found a recording of Ruby that had been put onto CD. I was thrilled and rushed to put the headphones on and hear it.

I wasn't prepared. It was sort of like visiting the house you grew up in. You recognize every nook and cranny, but things seem out of proportion. Not just smaller, but LESS somehow. Without the substance or texture that survives in your memory of the time.

Maybe it was a bad day when they recorded him. Maybe it was a different part of his life than when I used to listen to him play and sing.

Or maybe it's just that he was my first taste of that kind of music, and I'll always remember it better than it was. I put the CD back on the shelf. I have a much better recording in my head. On this recording I can smell the smoke and bourbon, and see the long, bent fingers working the keys, and hear people laughing and talking while I listened to the most amazing music a young white kid could imagine.

Here's to ya, Ruby wherever you are. You're still the best in my heart, and I can still hear you when I play the blues.

PJ

Subject: RE: Time's Running Out!
From: Max
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 02:11 AM

Why do you think I created the Mudcat?

Subject: RE: Time's Running Out!
From: Allan C.
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 07:55 AM

Amen, Max.

Besides, it may be even later than we think. According to many soothsayers, Nostradamus among them, the end of the world should have happened within the past few days. Even more ominously prophetic is the fact (so I am told,) that the Aztec calendar expired on the day of the solar eclipse this week. Now, you have to wonder why a civilization which became extinct so long ago would have chosen to end their calendar on a particular date so far in the future.

Now, I could tell you some intimate stories about how Muddy and me had to grab our guitars and sneak out the back door when the feds raided the place where we were trying to perform - Muddy got a hell of a case of poison ivy from hiding in the bushes. Or when Merle and I worked out the tune for the song we later gave to my buddy, Tex a few years before he smoked himself to death. Or even when Phil and I sat around at Washington Square singing, "I Ain't Marching Anymore". But I guess you know, it would all be lies. You Mudcatters are the most famous people I know. And I am proud to know you.

Subject: RE: Time's Running Out!
From: Legal Eagle
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 05:48 PM

Some idiot booked Phil Ochs to sing once at a club when I was DJ. He couldn't get heard. People wanted the disco back on, to dance, to drink, to chase women. We were young then.

Subject: RE: Time's Running Out!
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 07:40 PM

Albert Collins died about 4 years ago, but I got a chance to see him at a club on Broadway in Denver called Straight Johnson's in 1984. I remember that he was proud of the brand new wireless guitar/amp connection he had. He played the dickens out of that Telecaster that night, leaning back and bending the notes with his eyes closed and a huge grin on his face. Albert strolled from table to table and all through the club, testing the range of his remote. Finally he left the club through the front door, most of the crowd following him out into the street as Albert played for surprised passers-by, and people sitting in their cars at the traffic light.

I will always remember him smiling and sweating on that hot summer night, the blistering solo he was playing echoing muted from within the bar.

LEJ

Subject: RE: Time's Running Out!
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 08:46 PM

I was about 21 (68 or 69) and my folkie mentor Alan MacRae (he wrote the song Company Town on "Lifeline") invited me to a party at his incredibly funky coach house home on Poplar Plains rd. here in Toronto. That night I met for the first time Ian Tyson, Gordon Lightfoot, and Phil Ochs. To say I was stunned would be a gross understatement. Three of the classiest lyricists ever in folkie music..and the proof is, that the music they wrote in the sixties is still vital and being recorded by others today. We all took turns singing songs for 5 hours or so, and several things stand out for me to this day: Ian using a matchbook for a pick! Phil's amazing sense of humour, and Gordon's version of Phil's song "Changes". A magic evening.
Rick

Subject: RE: Time's Running Out!
From: Art Thieme
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 09:20 PM

Fred Holstein and I have a very surreal story to tell ya about John R. (Johnny) Cash and a unique adventure we had one early morning (2:00 Am to about 7:00 Am) after a folk club called the Montmartre closed one pretty fantastic Sunday night in Chicago---probably in the early to mid 1970s. But it'll have to wait until nobody would be embarrassed or ticked off by the tellin' o' it. Sorry...

Art

Subject: RE: Time's Running Out!
From: CarlZen
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 09:30 PM

Awwwww, Art. You tease us and then.............. :-(

Subject: RE: Time's Running Out!
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 09:41 PM

Jeezus Art, I'm not gettin' any younger!

Subject: RE: Time's Running Out!
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 09:54 PM

OK Art... yeah... alright, all the easily offended people are gone. Go ahead.

Subject: RE: Time's Running Out!
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 11:14 PM

I think he means the people in the story. But they aren't here, and we won't tell!

Subject: RE: Time's Running Out!
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 11:19 PM

Rick, You mean Cash is going to sue Max over Art's story? Let's see..hmmmm...NAHHHH. Come on Art, give it up.

Subject: RE: Time's Running Out!
From: CarlZen
Date: 14 Aug 99 - 01:39 AM

We're hanging by a thread.....

Subject: RE: Time's Running Out!
From: little john cameron
Date: 23 Jun 00 - 09:36 PM

Rick! Ah don't think ye're tellin' aw' the story.It'll cost ye a guinness tae keep mah mooth shut. LJC.

Subject: RE: Time's Running Out!
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 23 Jun 00 - 11:58 PM

Here's one about Pete Seeger.

Back in 1982 or so Pete was singing a song that we had written which he learned through the folk process. He sang it at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles at a concert which we did not attend due a root canal which would not wait. He credited us with writing the song and then said that he thought we lived in the L.A. area (which we did at that time). He asked if anyone knew how he could get in touch with us and several of our folkie friends sent our phone number back stage during the intermission.

The next morning, one of these friends called Jerry at work and told him what had happened. Jerry immediately called Bev at home and related the story and it's a good thing that he did. When he arrived home from work, Bev was on the phone with Pete and they were singing songs to each other. If Jerry had not called her, when she picked up the phone and someone said, "This is Pete Seeger" she would surely have responded, "Right - who the hell is this really?"

Bev and Jerry