Eclectic Company: Two Eulogies And An Unqualified Change of Heart

Over the holidays I learned that a vocally abrasive (think Marge Simpson as voiced by Julie Kavner, and you’re halfway there), stuck-cheerfully-to-her-guns (even when wrongheaded) opinionated New York talk radio host had died, and a piece of my youth took flight. Before hers became the liberal AM radio show thrown for sauce piquante into the tasteless meal of Rush Limbaugh and other bombastic conservatives on New York’s WABC, I knew Lynn Samuels as the emcee and soundboard engineer for open mike nights and benefit concerts at Folk City, the Greenwich Village nightclub that showcased Bob Dylan and others in the budding New York folk scene in 1961. I can’t remember if she was hired by his successor, or by the legendary bar-and-sometime-restaurant owner, Mike Porco, who didn’t understand, or like, much of the folk music or the folksingers who crowded the Village in post-beatnik shaggy hairdos and scruffy mismatched clothing. Mike was an Italian gentleman of an old school, and watching him wipe down the bar with a damp rag, gesturing to make his meaning clear, it was obvious that he didn’t know what the world was coming to. But he could, in his gruff way, be very kind, feeding the folk kids — hiring them — and listening to their dreams without scoffing, as any really hardheaded club owner would have done in a New York minute.

Anyway, I introduced Robbie Woliver to the place, and eventually he and his wife Marilyn Lash and their friend Joe Hillesum bought Mike out, and made a pretty good go of Folk City, and Robbie hired or maybe rehired Lynn. Whenever I saw her, she’d rasp her “Howiya?” at me, sympathizing with woes and cheerleading for any upswing in my fortunes. We’d dish NYC politics and folk scene gossip, and naturally talked about boys. After her death, Robbie and I were Facebooking about her, and I remembered Lynn once having been fired asking Robbie to rehire her by croaking “Please Mr. Sellack/can I have my job back,” a quote from a song by The Roches, a trio of sisters from New Jersey who were Greenwich Village folk scene favorites. “It was more than once,” he told me, a sad smile lurking around his texts. “And I always took her back.” Robbie told me that they’d spoken and had some laughs only a few days earlier, and that if he’d known it would be their last conversation, he would have tried harder to remember and store up what she’d said. Lynn offered many bons mots in her time, but I didn’t save them either. I assumed, with the arrogance of youth, that I’d have plenty of time to hear them again. Vaya con dios, Lynn. You had an excellent run.

Then last night while idly youtube-ing around for some interesting slightly-more-than-background music, I ran into the four-part recording of Warren Zevon’s last appearance on the David Letterman show, and held another private wake for the incredible songwriting rocker who’d died aged 56 of lung cancer in 2003. I must not have been watching much Letterman for many years, because I hadn’t known how often Zevon had subbed for Paul Shaffer, the Canadian pianist/bandleader/bon vivant who still leads Letterman’s musical team. During the interview, Zevon said, yes it had been about 20 times he’d subbed, and yes it had been five or so appearances as a musical guest on the show. And then frail, but unbroken, Zevon turned in slightly shaky performances of some of his incredible songs, ending with one of my favorites (and apparently one Letterman had specially requested be performed in the last segment of this show on which Zevon was the only featured guest), “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner.” If you never knew Zevon’s music, you missed something, and I suggest you repair that omission right now, stop reading right this second and youtube him up. One of my favorite novels, a spoof about Country music fame — And My Shoes Keep Walking Back To You by Kathy Kamen Goldmark — has the heroine learning to sing harmony to choruses of Zevon’s “Excitable Boy.” It’s a fictional conceit, but rings really true. Try it if you don’t believe me, and you’ll find yourself harmonizing ever after.

While on the subject of old and new ghosts, I have to admit that after 30 years of writing about music, I’ve changed my mind about a musician I panned in my very first published Village Voice review, and it’s time to let go and let so forth. He and I share a birthday, and we’ve had a few friends and acquaintances in common over the years (including Lake Charles’ own incredible tenor vocalist, Bobby King, who spent years successfully arranging harmonies and backup singers for the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, John Hiatt, et cetera, and is now involved in one of the church choirs at the Refuge Temple in Chennault), all of whom have told me that I was harsh in my assessment back then, and that he deserved another try. Somehow, that well-meant advice always stuck in my craw, and added to my arrogance and my pride. Never, I thought, not until Hades freezes over. Well, I had to get out my ice-skates the other day, because Ry Cooder finally got me with “No Banker Left Behind,” a witty, elegant ditty from his GRAMMY-nominated album, Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down. I cast my ballot for him, and I hope he gets the award for this spare, fine portrait of life in the 21st Century. No matter how much you may have liked his production of traditional Cuban music on the Buena Vista Social Club album, which director Wim Wenders kicked up a notch in his movie of the same name (both of which revived the careers of some incredible musicians), or his soundtracks for Paris, Texas, Crossroads, Last Man Standing, or Primary Colors, Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down is just possibly Ry Cooder’s best work of the last 30 years.