Night Beat (75 page)

Authors: Mikal Gilmore

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BOOK: Night Beat

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Every effort has been made to locate current copyright holders of material either reproduced or quoted in this book. Please send any information regarding copyrighted material to the publisher.

“We Work the Black Seams,” by Sting, © Regatta Music Ltd., administered by Atlantic Music Corp. (BMI).

“Brownsville Girl” by Bob Dylan and Sam Shepard, © Special Rider Music (ASCAP). Used by permission.

“Got My Mind Made Up” by Bob Dylan and Tom Petty, © Special Rider Music (ASCAP). Used by permission.

“Love Will Tear Us Apart,” by Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris. Published by Fractured Music. Administered by Zomba Enterprises Inc. For the U.S. and Canada (ASCAP).

“Twenty-four Hours,” by Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris. Published by Fractured Music. Administered by Zomba Enterprises Inc. For the U.S. and Canada (ASCAP).

“Decades,” by Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris. Published by Fractured Music. Administered by Zomba Enterprises Inc. For the U.S. and Canada (ASCAP).

“Guns on the Roof,” by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones. Rights assigned to EMI Virgin Music Ltd. All rights for the U.S. and Canada controlled and administered by EMI Virgin Music Inc. All rights reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission.

“Everybody Wants Some!!” by Van Halen, © Warner Bros. Publications.

“The Cradle Will Rock” by Van Halen, © Warner Bros. Publications.

“War Ensemble” by Araya & Hanneman, © Slayer (ASCAP) 1990 Pennemunde.

“Anarchy in the UK” by John Lydon, Paul Cook, Steve Jones & Glen Matlock (The Sex Pistols). © 1977 Warner Bros. Music Ltd., Glitterbest Ltd. All rights on behalf of Glitterbest Ltd. Administered by Carrerrs. BMG Music Publishing Inc. BMI All rights reserved. Used by permission.

“Keep It in the Family” by Anthrax.

“Unforgiven” by Tim Hardin, © Radaera Music.

“Ripple.” Words by Robert Hunter, music by Jerry Garcia; copyright Ice Nine Publishing Company.

“Not Fade Away” by Charlie Hadin and Norman Petty, © Hal-Leonard Music.

“Hit ’Em Up” by Duane Hitchings/Dennis Lambert/Franne Gold/Tupac Shakur, © Full Keel Music Company.

“Kaddish,” written by Allen Ginsberg, © Allen Ginsberg. Reprinted with permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

“Howl,” written by Allen Ginsberg, © Allen Ginsberg. Reprinted with permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

“After Lalon,” written by Allen Ginsberg, © Allen Ginsberg. Reprinted with permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

“Death & Fame,” by Allen Ginsberg, © Allen Ginsberg.

About this Title

Through Night Beat, Mikal Gilmore traces the history of rock & roll and its evolution from fad to phenomenon. His cultural criticism, interviews, and reviews focus on stalwarts like Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, and Frank Sinatra, capturing powerful expressions of love, politics, and redemption.

acknowledgments

I have been writing about popular music since 1974—that is, for twenty-four years. Not really that long of a period, but long enough to have racked up a few debts that I would like to acknowledge.

The first folks to thank, of course, are those artists who were willing to spend time with me, enduring yet another interview in their careers of being grilled and analyzed. I’m even grateful for the time spent with Keith Jarrett—in part, because it gave me the opportunity to hear him play solo on several occasions (always a rewarding experience), plus it gave me a good excuse to sound off a bit about an artist’s hubris. I’ve talked to ruder people than Jarrett (well, maybe), but none whose haughtiness and discourtesy were offset with such a contradictory depth and beauty in their music making. Today, his jazz recordings remain worth seeking and hearing (though when I want to hear interpretations of Bach’s
Goldberg Variations,
I’ll take Rosalyn Tureck or Tatiana Nikolaeva any day), and if hubris is what it takes to fuel Jarrett’s genius, then long may he play. Certainly he’s not the first artist to be guilty of that particular sin.

In my youth—my teenage and early adult years in Portland, Oregon—I shared many long nights, experiences, and conversations either rooted in or abetted by music with the following people: Annette Cantrell, Don Whitehead, Shannon Riske, Jon Shoemaker, the late Tim Bowen, Michael Sugg, Linda Eklund, Debby Levin, and Byron Laursen. I also owe a great obligation to Shen Shellenberger (Hey, Grandma!), for recommending me as a music writer for my first critical assignment. Maybe I would have fallen on this path anyway (I suspect so), but Shen gave me the nudge—a nudge that became one of the best realizations of my life. Also during my Portland years, I worked with and learned much from Mark Christiansen, Andrea Wilson, Michael Adelsheim, James Kiehle, Tom Modica, Bennett Stein, and Stephanie Oliver.

The bulk of my journalism (or at least the bulk that has been seen outside of the Los Angeles area) has been written for
Rolling Stone.
I have never worked with better editors or collaborators, and among the people who helped me grow as a writer in the last generation at that magazine are: Ben Fong-Torres, Dave Marsh, Jann Wenner, Peter Herbst, Harriet Fier, Barbara Downey, Sarah Lazin, Chris Hodenfield, James Henke, Susan Murcko, Paul Nelson, Bob Wallace, Peggy Bellas, Delores Zeibarth, Cameron Crowe, Fred Schruers, Sid Holt, Bob Love, Tobias Perse, Joe Levy, Barbara O’Dair, and Sheila Rogers (the latter person also helped enormously in many other ways and was of great inspiration during the time I worked on
Shot in the Heart
). I’d also like to thank Sue Sawyer, Holly Vincent, and Elaine Schock. None of them worked at
Rolling Stone,
but they were all fine people to share music and time with during the late 1970s and early 1980s, as I was adjusting to life in Los Angeles.

In the early 1980s, I wrote on a few occasions for the
Los Angeles Times,
under the good guidance of Robert Hilburn and Richard Cromlin, and with the advice and friendship of Kristine McKenna. Around the same time I worked part-time at Rhino Records (the store, not the label) in Westwood. At that wonderful hole-in-the-wall, I enjoyed the smarts and musical tastes of Gary Stewart, Nels Cline, David Crouch, Steve Wynn, and several other good folks. In 1981, I became the music editor at
L.A. Weekly,
and in 1982, I became the pop music critic at the
Los Angeles Herald Examiner.
At the former, my thanks go to Jay Levin, Phil Tracy, the late Craig Lee, Greg Burk, Michael Ventura, Bill Bentley, Steve Erickson, and Ewa Wojciak (who will get thanked many times, for many things, though she can never be thanked enough). At the
Herald,
my first nod goes to Managing Editor Mary Ann Dolan, who gave me the job, and my second goes to Stan Cloud, who encouraged me to broaden my subject matter. I had my best music discussions at the
Herald
with Paul Wilner, Miles Beller, Mitchell Fink, David Chute, Rip Rense, Elvis Mitchell, Robert Lloyd, and (again) Chris Hodenfield, and I enjoyed a special comradeship with Jane Birnbaum. Also, during the mid- and late-1980s, I learned a lot about life and music from Erin Gilmore, Jennifer Lobianco, Steve and Mary Pond, and David Gans, and all those friendships remain of immense value to me.

In the early and mid-1990s, I had some of the best critical (and personal) discussions of my life with six extraordinary writers, Karen Essex, Helen Knode, Virginia Campbell, Emily White, Alice Joanou, and Stacy Horn. And during the time this book was being prepared, I shared afternoons and evenings of discussions with Tobias Perse, Bob Love, Rodd McLeod, Robert Greenwald, Edna Gunderson, Bruce Kalberg, Howard (“Two Eyes Open!”) Rudnick, Suzi Gardner, Cilista Eberle, Heidi Snellman, Stanley and Suzanne Sobolewski, Dalia Chandoha, Nicholes Hill, my editor Betsy Lerner and my agent Richard Pine. Whether they know it or not, they all helped shape various thoughts that appear in this book’s revisions. I’d also like to thank Holly Tooker and Scott Murphy for helping me find and organize some of my earlier writings that I’d thought were lost forever.

In 1997, after finishing the first edition of this book, I became an active member of Echo, New York’s on-line community for discussion, argument, and hard-earned friendships (and hilarious—but genuine—rancor). No other place has provided me, in this last year or so, with a better forum for reading and talking about contemporary culture and news—Echo’s music conference is better than most of today’s music magazines—and I would like to acknowledge my debt to the following folks who (whether they know it or not) helped influence some of this current volume’s revisions: Edward Hutchinson, Sarah Maupin Wenk, Marcelle Clements, Reuben Radding, Peter Dworkin, Douglas Cooper, Steve Berg, Ivan Nahem, Matthew Davis, and John Neilson.

My biggest thanks, though, go to Ewa Wojciak, who helped me assemble and reassemble old articles and who put up with the moods and obsessions of a surly writer and bad boyfriend.

Reading through these writings made me consider the question of influence—that is, who are the people whose writing in some way affected my thoughts or styles the most? I think I can honestly name only four, though I doubt if their influence in my own text would be apparent to anybody other than myself. They are: hardboiled crime novelists James M. Cain and Ross Macdonald, and music critics and historians Greil Marcus and Paul Nelson (none of whom, of course, should be cited as influences for any of my own lapses, twisted logic or prolix). I should probably also throw in my three all-time favorite fiction writers, Edgar Allan Poe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Philip K. Dick, if only because I’ve never read any other writers with a better understanding of the madnesses of mind and heart—an understanding that helped make such madnesses comprehensible, even bearable.

But my greatest debt is to the people whose music I have loved—the people whose music enriched my life and gave me pleasure and sometimes courage. Some of those are the artists I have written about in this volume. But there are many others that I have listened to or written about over the years who didn’t find their way into these pages, and I’d like to acknowledge just a few of them: ABC, Johnny Ace, King Sunny Ade, Afghan Whigs, Peter Allen, Terry Allen, Laurie Anderson, the Animals, Aphex Twin, Archers of Loaf, Louis Armstrong, Artful Dodger, Babes in Toyland, Bad Brains, Mildred Bailey, Chet Baker, Lavern Baker, the Band, Bobby Bare, Dave Bartholomew, Count Basie, Les Baxter, Beck, Tony Bennett, Chuck Berry, Bettie Serveert, Black Uhuru, Blake Babies, Bobby Bland, Carla Bley, Blue Cheer, Connie Boswell, David Bowie, Clifford Brown, James Brown, Paula Jean Brown, Tim Buckley, Buffalo Springfield, T-Bone Burnett, Burning Spear, Gary Burton, the Buzzcocks, the Byrds, Jackie Cain and Roy Kral, John Cale, Maria Callas, Cab Calloway, Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, Betty Carter, Sarah and Maybelle Carter and the Carter Family, Rosanne Cash, Ray Charles, Don Cherry, Neneh Cherry, Alex Chilton, June Christy, Gene Clarke, Jimmy Cliff, Patsy Cline, George Clinton, Rosemary Clooney, the Coasters, Leonard Cohen, Nat King Cole, Ornette Coleman, Steve Coleman, Bootsy Collins, John Coltrane, Chris Connor, Ry Cooder, Crazy Horse, Robert Cray, Bing Crosby, Cream, Julie Cruise, Culture, King Curtis, Darby & Tarlton, Bobby Darin, Jimmie Davis, Doris Day, Jack DeJohnette, Desmond Dekker and the Israelites, Sandy Denny, the Dillards, the Dixie Cups, Fats Domino, Eric Dolphy, Donovan, the Dwarves, Earth Wind & Fire, Dave Edmunds, Duke Ellington, Joe Ely, Booker Ervin, Bill Evans, Gil Evans, the Everly Brothers, Fairport Convention, Tal Farlow, the Fastbacks, Alice Faye, Fine Young Cannibals, the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, John Fogerty, Helen Forrest, David Forman, Kim Fowley, Connie Francis, Aretha Franklin, Jeffrey Fredericks and the Clamtones, the Bobby Fuller Four, Lefty Frizzell, Galaxie 500, Judy Garland, the Germs, the Geto Boys, Dizzy Gillespie, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Goldie, Benny Goodman, Grandmaster Flash, Guided by Voices, Gun Club, Woody Guthrie, Charlie Haden, Merle Haggard, Butch Hancock, Herbie Hancock, P. J. Harvey, Coleman Hawkins, Fletcher Henderson, Jimi Hendrix, Henry Cow, Al Hibbler, Andrew Hill, Z. Z. Hill, Hole, Billie Holiday, Judy Holliday, Buddy Holly, John Lee Hooker, Shirley Horn, Lena Horne, Johnny Horton, the House of Love, Howlin’ Wolf, the Human League, Helen Humes, Alberta Hunter, Ian Hunter, Michael Hurley, Hüsker Dü, Ice Cube, the Isley Bros., Wanda Jackson, the Jacobites, Illinois Jacquet, Inspiral Carpets, the Jam, Tommy James and the Shondells, Jane’s Addiction, Jefferson Airplane, Joan Jett, David Johansen and The New York Dolls, Buddy and Ella Johnson, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Robert Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson, Al Jolson, George Jones, Janis Joplin, Louis Jordan, Cheb Khaled, B. B. King, Ben E. King, King Pleasure, the Kinks, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Fela Kuti, Cyndi Lauper, Led Zeppelin, Brenda Lee, Julia Lee, Peggy Lee, Smiley Lewis, Little Feat, Little Richard, Lotte Lenya, Abbey Lincoln, Nils Lofgren, Jackie Lomax, Julie London, L7, Los Lobos, the Louvin Brothers, Nick Lowe, Lure, Lush, Frankie Lymon, Loretta Lynn, Delbert McClinton, Reba McEntire, Maria McKee, John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Carmen McRae, Machito, Rose Maddox, Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens, the Mamas and the Papas, Thomas Mapfumo, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Dean Martin, Johnny Mathis, MC5, the Meat Puppets, the Mekons, John Mellencamp, Mabel Mercer, the Meters, Helen Merrill, Charles Mingus, Joni Mitchell, Moby, Moby Grape, the Modern Lovers, Thelonious Monk, Bill Monroe, Van Morrison, Ella Mae Morse, Jelly Roll Morton, Mott the Hoople, Mudhoney, Gerry Mulligan, Elliott Murphy, David Murray, My Bloody Valentine, Nas, Youssou N’Dour, Oliver Nelson, Ricky Nelson, Tracey Nelson, Willie Nelson, Herbie Nichols, Nine Inch Nails, Helen O’Connell, Anita O’Day, Carla Olsen and the Textones, Yoko Ono, Orb, Roy Orbison, Orbital, the Orioles, Buck Owens, Patti Page, Charlie Parker, Graham Parker and the Rumour, Jimmy Rushing, Van Dyke Parks, Gram Parsons, Dolly Parton, Pavement, Art Pepper, Pere Ubu, Carl Perkins, the Persuasions, Oscar Pettiford, Tom Petty, the pH Factor Jug Band, Edith Piaf, Webb Pierce, the Platters, the Pogues, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Bud Powell, the Pretenders, Ray Price, Louis Prima and Keely Smith, Primal Scream, Professor Longhair, Pulp, Ike Quebec, Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Raincoats, Bonnie Raitt, the Ramones, the Raspberries, Red Crayola with Art & Language, Freddie Redd, Jim Reeves, Charlie Rich, Ride, Marty Robbins, Smokey Robinson, the Roches, Jimmie Rodgers, Sonny Rollins, Roxy Music, the Runaways, Todd Rundgren, Jimmy Rushing, George Russell, Carlos Santana, Savage Rose, Boz Scaggs, Schooly D, Jack Scott, Little Jimmy Scott, the Seeds, Ravi Shankar, the Shirelles, Judee Sill, Paul Simon, Slapp Happy, Percy Sledge, Jimmy Smith, Hank Snow, Son House, Sonic Boom, Sonic Youth, Jeri Southern, Spacemen 3, the Spinners, Spirit, Spooky Tooth, Dusty Springfield, Jo Stafford, the Stanley Bros., Kay Starr, Steely Dan, Gary Stewart, Sly Stone, George Strait, the Sundays, Sun Ra, the Supremes, Tad, Talking Heads, James Talley, Art Tatum, Cecil Taylor, Technotronic, the Temptations, Thelonious Monster, Richard and Linda Thompson, the Claude Thornhill Orchestra, Johnny Thunders, Mel Torme, Allen Toussaint, Merle Travis, Lennie Tristano, Ernest Tubb, Joe Turner, Sarah Vaughan, Gene Vincent, Holly Vincent, Loudon Wainwright III, Tom Waits, T-Bone Walker, Fats Waller, Dinah Washington, Was (not Was), Ethel Waters, Muddy Waters, Weather Report, Ben Webster, Wedding Present, Kitty Wells, Margaret Whiting, the Who, Wild Tchoupitoulas, Joe Williams, Lucinda Williams, Tony Williams, Victoria Williams, Jackie Wilson, Teddy Wilson, Wire, Womack and Womack, Link Wray, O. V. Wright, Tammy Wynette, the Yardbirds, XTC, Dwight Yoakam, Faron Young, Lester Young, Neil Young, Young Marble Giants, Frank Zappa, and Warren Zevon.

I could go on and on—I’m sure you get the idea—but two more names merit special mention: my family’s patron saint, Johnny Cash, and Sam Cooke, whose 1963
Night Beat
is one of the best soul and blues albums of all time. It’s a record made for the 3 A.M. of your soul, and it’s the record that gave me the idea and inspiration for this book title.

To anybody I missed or forgot, my apologies.

By the way, I’m not done yet with Bob Dylan and Frank Sinatra. Look for
The Blue Point,
someplace down the night road.

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