November-December 2020
Pandemics, Music, and The Ties That Bind
It is interesting to watch us music makers trying to wrap our arms around the Covid situation with our songs. Songs of hope, songs of togetherness. Some even humorous. I even wrote a stupid ‘Quarantine Blues’ way at the beginning, as we all tried to grasp the enormity of the coming pandemic. New songs continue to appear in my inbox each day. By and large these are all decent songs that inspire a sense that we’re fighting a dragon, albeit with the imaginary magic wand of music, trying to make something real that is happening into something almost fanciful that we can defeat with a wave of the hand or a guitar and some pretty words.
September-October 2020
The Original Replacements
I was looking through my music collection such as it is, mysteriously distributed over several platforms on two computers as well as in a folder or two in my file drawers. There’s another box of files in the shed out back I’m sure but it’s behind the boxes of tablecloths and napkins that Judy has been saving for when the Pope comes over for lunch someday. We have to keep up appearances you know. Anyway, during these music meanderings through the storage wilderness I often find little threads of history that when pulled, unravel panoramic views of times and places and casts of characters that come to life before the eyes.
July-August 2020
It’s too late baby...
I host a regularly scheduled radio broadcast of “Roots Music and Beyond” on the third Saturday morning of each month from 6am to 8am on Pacifica Radio KPFK90.7FM Los Angeles (streaming live at the same time and also archived at www.kpfk.org). I feature songs written and performed by some of my favorite artists, folks I’ve met along the way, many from the wonderful current southern California pool of musicians and creators - old favorites alongside fresh and new talent.
May-June 2020
A Quarantine Tale
I was scheduled to perform at Kulak’s Woodshed, a small local music venue in North Hollywood, on April 3rd. It was the first Friday in April and Woodshed fans know that the first Friday of every month going back twenty years, give or take, belongs to Severin Browne. Severin is Jackson’s brother and a formidable singer-songwriter in his own right. He’s been responsible for wrangling some of the best singer-songwriters in the Southern California music scene as well as being a Southern California institution in his own right. Look him up. Listen. He’s the real deal. Severin’s career dates back to the seventies and includes time spent at Motown. I had met him briefly in my comings and goings here in Southern California and always enjoyed his open friendship and warm inclusion. He’s also a founding member of the Tall Men Group, a collection of some wonderful singer-songwriters. Again, look them up. It will be worth it.
March-April 2020
The Deadly Kiss of Fame
or How I Learned the Dark Art of Upstaging
I experienced my first moment of fame in 1950 when as an eighth-grader in Brooklyn, I received an award from the Automobile Club of America for pushing Doris Whatshername out of the path of an approaching vehicle as she was crossing the street. I took my job as a junior crossing guard on Avenue J seriously. Mr. Weiss, our principal, heard about the incident and submitted my name as a candidate for the award. Three boys were chosen. Vincent Buckingham (Bronx), Santo Scarcella (also the Bronx), and yours truly.
January-February 2020
Art and Barry's Magnificent Adventure
Dear Reader,
By the time this column reaches you, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years and all the warm fuzzy tales, poems, songs, and feelings that accompany the holiday season will be behind us. We will be facing the treacherous slope of a new year and this columnist will have been deprived of having contributed to your holiday basket of sappy and fuzzy lore since our previous edition was released at the beginning of November, far too early for the holiday buffet mentioned above. Not to be denied my share of seasonal goop, I humbly offer this tale of adventure and reckless youthful charm that is designed to touch music history yet leave the reader with a warm smile. I promise that going forward, I will adhere to seasonal parameters.
November-December 2019
Festivals, Conferences and other Gatherings
By the time this reaches your inbox for this month’s issue, the 2019 Folk Alliance Region – West (FAR-West) Conference will be in the history books. I was invited to participate and was told I’d be receiving an award. In preparation for my acceptance speech, I thought about what I would say or do there, I tried to recall similar events over the years.
September-October 2019
Play On
Sony Music (Columbia Records) recently re-released the original recordings made by myself and my partner at the time, Paul Potash. We were known as Art and Paul and our era was the early popular folk music revival – 1960 / 1961. I’ve written both serious and humorous vignettes about our experiences and escapades in this publication. We were well known in Greenwich Village and later here on the west coast and we were the very first folk music act to play the Troubadour when it was about to close. We broke up late in 1961 but we apparently left a mark on the music world and Sony Music has elected to memorialize us with the digital re-release of our two albums (today’s CD sales are diminishing ever so swiftly).
July-August 2019
Radio – A Casual Primer
Radio. You are a cruel mistress. At least my marriage to you seems like that sometimes. Especially on those Saturday mornings when my cell phone squawks “cock-a-doodle-do!” (I must change that) at 4:30am and I stumble in darkness for clean underwear, fumble to a dim recollection of where I laid my jeans the night before (I could swear it was only five minutes ago.) Coffee, then check the stack of CDs and the Excel playlist neatly placed on the kitchen table. Then, double-check the stack of CDs, some printed, some hastily burned from files culled from everywhere, all the time trying to stifle a wave of panic - have I missed something? I’m on the air in less than an hour and no matter how prepared I think I am, I still picture myself staring at a microphone having just introduced a song by Peter Paul and Mary yet to my horror, thousands of listeners are hearing my son David’s 1993 high school commencement recording that somehow slipped into my pile last night. Alone in a radio studio, miles from home. Nowhere to turn. Lock the door. Is suicide not an option?
May-June 2019
Bobby Mason – Road Warrior and Adventurer
Take more than fifty years of singing in bars and clubs in one of the most famous ski resorts in the world, stuff them into a 22-foot vintage 1965 Airstream Safari Travel Trailer because your lungs and your heart can no longer handle 8,500 feet above sea level. Then throw in two guitars, whatever clothing and stuff you can’t do without, add your wife and your own time-worn body, hook up to a GMC Yukon and drive down from the safety of the mountains you’ve called home for practically your entire adult life.
March-April 2019
The Answer Is Blowin’ In The Cloud
A discussion of the future of media
“…The shiny compact disc, once as essential to every living-room music system as a copy of Michael Jackson's Thriller album, is quickly going the way of the eight-track and cassette tape…The rise of streaming music services such as Apple Music, Spotify and Pandora, as well as the availability of digitally downloadable tracks and albums, are making the CD extinct…” – USA Today February 2018
“…24 percent of new cars sold in 2015 did not have CD players, and by 2021, some 46 percent won't have them at all. Compare that to 2014 when 83 percent had them...” – Autoweek July 30, 2018
January-February 2019
The Thump of Strings on Wood
Dick Rosmini – A Personal Retrospective
Dick Rosmini passed away in 1995. His legacy is firmly embedded in the fabric of the folk music revival of the late fifties and early sixties. Tributes to this innovative and remarkable guitar player can easily be found with the magic of Google, etc. YouTube will also yield samples of Dick’s brilliance on the six-string and twelve-string guitars and on the banjo.
November-December 2018
The Road Not Taken – A Tragic Tale of Missed Opportunity
What follows is the legend of two folk singers, their brush with fame and the avalanche of events that followed them.
At some point in most lives, a genuine opportunity arises and is ignored. No? Well it did in ours. I’m talking about an up-and-coming folk music duo poised at the edge of fame. Yes, indeed.
Read more: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN – A TRAGIC TALE OF MISSED OPPORTUNITY
September-October 2018
Charlie
This is a true accounting of events and people. I continue to write these in the hope that they will add a smile and perhaps a smidgen of background color to the people and events that flirt on the fringes of yesterday.
Now I know that Charlie was known for being the quintessential jazz bass player and I don’t profess to be a jazz critic or even anything close to that. What’s the tally? Three Grammys and fourteen nominations? All I know is that he was one of the sweetest and most decent people I ever met. I knew his name not because I followed contemporary jazz.
July-August 2018
Your Second Album
Inspired by a comment made by a DJ friend after reviewing countless CDs submitted for air play, as well as reflections of my own journey—mea culpa!
Section One - Reflecting:
OK. After years of career and business making a living and raising a family and trying to be true to the dream, it’s time. The horizon is clear, and the future is now a luge chute aimed at golden time. A time to reflect on a life well lived. Kids? Launched. You and your spouse at peace or permanent truce. Time to exhale.
May-June 2018
TERROR AT 3000 FEET
OR, WHY LARRY RAMOS LIVED TO A RIPE OLD AGE
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A GROUP OF TOURING MUSICIANS
November 1, 1958: A Cubana Vickers Viscount en route from Miami to Varadero to Havana is hijacked by Cuban militants.
April 15, 1959: A plane is hijacked from Cuba to Miami. The hijackers were four members of Batista's Army.
May 1, 1961: Antulio Ramirez Ortiz hijacks a National Airlines flight from Miami International Airport to Cuba.
March-April 2018
TIRED OF YOUR HARLEY? GET A GUITAR!
Here they come. The Cocobolo, Carpathian Burled Elm, and Quilted Maple Whatchamacallit guitars. Just when you thought your 1958 Goya G-10 was the cat's meow. Suddenly, your 1972 Martin that sounded like heaven yesterday now seems like the high-school girlfriend you ran into last week at the market in front of the day-old bread bin.
You glance outside at the empty spot on the driveway where the Harley once waited for you. You know... the one you bought seven years ago when you reached 60 and retired from the firm and decided you deserved something special? You walked into the local cycle shop and saw the machine that you only dreamed about back in the day when you were making do with a busted out Sportster. One thing leads to another in those places, and you ended up with more stuff crammed between two wheels than Henry Ford could ever have envisioned in a wet dream. A flamed enamel paint and chrome hot fudge sundae. But the dream machine now lives in the garage under the Chukchansi Indian blanket and seemed to satisfy your inner rebel for only so long. The near miss on the 405 two years ago didn't help. Then your wife 'accidentally' misplaced the keys. Sigh...
January-February 2018
HOW THE TROUBADOUR WAS RESCUED FROM BECOMING AN AUTO PARTS STORE
There seems to be renewed interest in the history of The Troubadour, the once-upon-a-time iconic folk club which still stands at the outer reaches of West Hollywood nuzzled against the green pasture esplanades of Beverly Hills. Reunions, old friends from ‘back in the day’ reconnecting. Reminiscences on Facebook. Yesteryear’s waitresses have become today’s stars. It’s precious.
So why do I wince? Permit me. The reminiscences and stories I read about ‘the good old days at the Troub’ all seem to begin somewhere around 1964 or 1965. Not true by at least ten banjo frets! Why? (You didn’t think I wouldn’t tell you, did you?). Here it is: if it weren’t for the serendipity of events chronicled below, the Troubadour would most likely have become an auto parts store or some such establishment by the time Crosby decided that he enjoyed harmonizing with Stills and Nash, and Joni needed to make a splash in Los Angeles.
So - grab an espresso from the hissy gargling machine below, climb the stairs to the left of the showroom door, take a seat in the balcony and ‘llow me to add a lick to the tune.
Read more: HOW THE TROUBADOUR WAS RESCUED FROM BECOMING AN AUTO PARTS STORE
November-December 2017
ALSO-RANS
I thought that I would take an opportunity to thank those of you were kind enough to read my first two columns. For those of you who did not read them, the first two consisted of recollections of some unique early experiences of mine during the “popular” folk music world of the sixties in Greenwich Village and in Southern California. I’ve received some nice comments about them and they have encouraged me to continue to write more. I look forward to sharing them with you as we go forward.
September-October 2017
THE BLACK PEARL - 1958
The following is another of several episodes that chronicle some of my experiences in the music business during the popular folk music revival period of the fifties and sixties. The stories are true. They happened to me. My hope is that they will add a smile and perhaps some dimension to some of the drama that flirts on the fringe of just about every noteworthy event or person.
July-August 2017
ART AND PAUL AND THE SLIPPERY DRAGON
The story below is true. It is my hope that it will add a smile and perhaps a smidgen of color to the events that flirt on the fringes of just about anything noteworthy.
“...Albert doesn’t want us to record it. He thinks it’s too controversial. I thought you guys might like it.”
It was Peter Yarrow and we were in the apartment on Fifth Street off Second Avenue that Paul Potash and I shared. Today they call it the East Village, but in 1961 it was a multi-cultural mish-mash of a neighborhood that defied formal description. Our first album on Columbia Records Art and Paul - Songs of Earth and Sky had been declared a “cult phenom” (do I have to translate? I think not). Our second album on Columbia Records, Hangin Drinkin and Stuff was in the works; The Brothers Four had suddenly become the darlings of the Columbia execs, which added to our anxiety, winter was upon us, and Paul and I were considering moving to the budding west coast folk scene for salvation and some much desired warmth.
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