Obit: Gerry Armstrong--very sad news (29 Aug 99)

Subject: RE: Obit: Gerry Armstrong--very sad news
From: wysiwyg
Date: 09 Apr 04 - 01:22 AM

Me too, Art. If it's too hard to type, you could tape it and send it to me and I would transcribe it and post it.

~S~

Subject: RE: Obit: Gerry Armstrong--very sad news
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Apr 04 - 01:37 AM

Art, I think I know how you feel. I'm never sure how I should feel- on the one hand I miss so many of them almost every day of my life and on the other I'm not in a great hurry to join them. (But I have told friends that if my body is found dead, just assume I died smiling. Because I plan to.)

I keep thinking of you in connection with a blues singer here in Juneau. He's of the same ilk as Bruce Phillips and as how I picture you - crusty with a sweet center. His name is Patrick Henry (Pat) originally from San Angelo, Texas and he writes wonderful songs. These days a great many are political commentary - 'Get Stuffed' is one of them. It tells about how 'Dubya' tells us to go out and spend money and get more STUFF- and ends up telling the administration what they can do.

I was in Oregon last month and Depoe Bay hasn't changed all that much. Lot longer town than it used to be but it's not much wider. The ocean was wild the day I was there, but the sky was blue.

Elva B

Subject: RE: Obit: Gerry Armstrong--very sad news
From: MAG
Date: 09 Apr 04 - 10:04 PM

It is entirely possible (it is under active discussion) that WFMT radio will release a CD of the Remembering Fred Holstein concert. It went on for 3 hours, so they would probably have to trim it -- although I don't see how. There was hardly a moment of slack time, with one person or persons introducing the next, who walked right out.

I can tell you hearing Art do the Johnny Cash story in his inimitable dry wit voice was a kick.

Barbara Barrow sang a song her husband, Mike Smith, wrote with Fred in mind.

the title said it all. Remembering Fred Holstein.

Subject: RE: Obit: Gerry Armstrong--very sad news (29 Aug 99)
From: GUEST,MAG at work
Date: 10 Apr 04 - 12:23 PM

That was supposed to prime the pump, Art. I would love to have your impressions.

Subject: RE: Obit: Gerry Armstrong--very sad news (29 Aug 99)
From: Art Thieme
Date: 10 Apr 04 - 01:47 PM

MAG,

For me it was a sublime experience. Seeing so many old frinds. Hearing so many old friends do the music so well. Celebrating Fred Holstein's life and music rather than only mourning for him. And all this was tied into my personal baggage with Fred (good and bad) and how hard Steve Goodman had tried to LIVE while Fred chose the slow downslope road of self abuse out of this consciousness like too damn many other incandescent fires of life. And I do miss the folk road scene. Never thought I'd say that. Chicago looked so lovely coming in from I-55 and heading North on LSD past where I grew up, along Lake Michigan, past where I blew out my knee playing football for Lake View High at Waveland Park, then the site where the Plaza Hotel stood once where I first loved and was loved. (Now Latin School is there.) The Plaza Hotel at Clark and North Avenue was Chicago's version of New York's Chelsea Hotel I've always thought---. That's how a venerated old hotel with all so many tales to tell ought to smell---musty and old--pheromones and death and life and heat. It's a wonder it didn't ever burn down.

None of this was sad!! If time is the fire in which we burn, bringing back these moments will stay with me to enlighten my way for a long while I am sure. Photography and singing the old folksongs have always been very similar I have always thought; A few of the ways to hold stuff close.

This be thread creep me thinks. Well, whatever. I doubt Gerry will mind. ;-)

All the best,

Art

Subject: RE: Obit: Gerry Armstrong--very sad news (29 Aug 99)
From: Art Thieme
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 03:51 PM

And here is the old thread---for those in 2009 who want, because of a recent thread on the Shaker song "Simple Gifts," to know a bit about George and Gerry Armstrong and their music.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Obit: Gerry Armstrong--very sad news (29 Aug 9
From: Stringsinger
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 04:02 PM

I talked to Gerry just before she passed. She was upbeat, brave and understanding of her
life and environment. She added so much to the traditional folk music that many of us grew up listening to and has been co-opted today by the ubiquitous and not always edifying "singer/songwriter/groaner/pseudo philosopher-preacher/self-centered and affected lyric writer" and I will qualify this by saying there are wonderful singer/songwriters out there who grew up in folk music and have incorporated their knowledge into great songs.
I cite Jean Ritchie, Steve Earle, Utah Phillips, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger. If I leave others out, it's because I am unfamiliar or ambivalent about their output.

Gerry knew the traditional ballad style and was extremely effective in communicating this to an audience. She knew the style of "Simple Gifts" and did not attempt to embroider it with
inappropriate harmonies or flashy accompaniment.

Frank

Subject: RE: Obit: Gerry Armstrong--very sad news (29 Aug 99)
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 08:23 PM

Art, Old friend- Thank you for bringing this thread out. It was written before I found Mudcat, I think, so that's why I didn't contribute to it.

The Armstrong home in Wilmette, with George and Gerry and the girls, is so very much a part of our lives. This was the time we (us singers) were all traveling the country. Well, their home was kind of mid-country, so you can imagine what a great stopping place it was! There was always music, a comfortable bed and simple, good food. Our place on L.I. is that kind of place too, but it's not as central. We've had so many wonderful gatherings there, made many friends, passed on songs and learnt songs from others- what a Meetin Place that was....

and I'll always be joyful that Gerry came to our Kentucky cabin to visit us, less than a year before she died. Her George had gone before her, and she was lonely. The first thing she did was to pin a lovely Indian Prayer Web onto our doorbell, to protect our house. She spent a lot of time that weekend with my three older sisters who were in their eighties, making cornshuck dolls with them. They told each other tales, hummed and sang, and we all learned from each other. She never talked about her illness, even though I knew about it, and when she left to go home, we smiled and hugged and slapped each other on the back just like two old mountain women who knew a secret. She was one of my best friends.