The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #107872   Message #2240355
Posted By: GUEST,Scuttlebob
19-Jan-08 - 10:20 PM
Thread Name: Obit: John Stewart (Kingston Trio) 19 Jan 2008
Subject: RE: Obit: John Stewart
I'm sittin home at the computer, Watchin' that Ol' Lonesome Picker, singing 'Mother Country' on YouTube, and Bawlin' while I'm singin along. Here's the link; [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWwayDfJtkE&feature=related]
...and just thinkin about all the Stewart Songs I've sung across the years. What a rare and interesting man. Heard him first in 63, with the trio-right here in Norfolk, Va.   What a presence, very Intense! and a great 'off-the-top-of-his-head-Storyteller. Later, in California (following my short lived writing experience with the Smothers Show), I'd hear him often, and was swept away with So many great songs, Lonesome Picker, "Some Kind of Love", "Little Road & a Stone to Roll", "Cody", "Mother Country', 'Williard", "Armstrong", "Strange Rivers", [learned em all], and, the list just goes on!
What a legacy, and the Songs will go on...being sung
          except, of course,...the ones he'd yet to write!
I just want to sit here all day, and play, & listen to his songs,,,& watch the rain turn to snow,...& wonder...why it's so hard to accept that nothing lasts,... forever
I'll never forget his Concert at Ramblin' Conrads-what a wonderful night! A dream...Wonder if I can find the Tape?
Met him vaguely, when I lived in LA. He even hosted- "And Mostly, They Sing". The CBS Music special i did, right before leaving California (when I sang "Jeremy', with Richard Fukahara's wonderful photographs). What a mind! What an eye & ear! What a bizarre sense of humor! and what a Master of Americana! A 'diamond in the rough', with so many facets!   I never really knew him. But, I knew the world his songs painted.
Goodbye, Lonesome Picker...
and Thanks,...
Bob Zentz [Scuttlebob]