Tag: Gram Parsons

LISTEN: The Wailin’ Jennys, ‘Boulder to Birmingham’

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Artist: The Wailin’ Jennys
Hometown: Winnipeg, MB / Accord, NY / Victoria, BC
Song: “Boulder to Birmingham” 
Album: Fifteen
Release Date: October 27, 2017
Label: Red House Records

In Their Words: “I have loved this song for as long as I’ve loved songs — it’s such a poignant and heartbreaking tribute to a lost love. The fact that Emmylou [Harris] wrote it after Gram Parson’s death makes it all the more meaningful. I’ve always wanted to try it with the Jennys, but the melody really weaves around, which can be challenging for creating harmonies. I love what we ended up with. The high part, in particular, ventures way out of Nicky’s normal range, but she nailed it. This was one that felt magical when it was going down — we performed it a few times, but in the end we chose the first take.” — Ruth Moody

Photo credit: Morten Fog

Linda Ronstadt: Hasten Down the Wind

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In Home Free, his 1977 novel of faded denim hippie dreams, Dan Wakefield described his wandering anti-hero Gene Barrett overhearing a song on a nearby record player as he dozes in a hammock in Maine — Linda Ronstadt singing her folkish country ballad “Long Long Time” in the alto that wafted through many a window in those imperfect, exploratory days. “Gene was glad it was Linda Ronstadt, not someone soppy or sickly sweet,” Wakefield wrote. “Strong. Gutsy. Belting it out. Her voice didn’t seem just to come from the house, but out of the earth, over the water into the rickety little town and the scrubland and forest beyond it.”

Beginning in the 1970s, Linda Ronstadt’s singing has had that kind of geological effect throughout popular music: steadying, seemingly able to erase time and trends within one flow of feeling that goes below the surface and the deeper strata of American consciousness. In a time of fading utopian hopes, she emerged as an emissary able to connect old musical ways with the new consciousness of her own maverick generation. “She is offering us something very valuable for the '70s: not a fantasy figure, but a reality figure,” wrote the rock scribe Tom Nolan in 1974. Raised on country and the ranchera music that echoed through her Tuscon, Arizona, neighborhood, Ronstadt sang with a verve and directness that eradicated the pretentiousness that could sometimes afflict the children of the counterculture. Album titles like Hand Sown…Home Grown, Simple Dreams, and Hasten Down the Wind celebrated a naturalness that was complemented by a meticulous attention to musical detail and one of the greatest ears of the rock era.

Those who underestimate Ronstadt as a pretty face and voice who rose to fame on the power of others’ songwriting and production talents — and there have been far too many in that camp — are ignorant. From her teenage days in the folk trio the Stone Poneys, Ronstadt developed a persona that spoke profoundly to women waking up to the way many men had condescended to them throughout the early years of the supposed sexual revolution. She was an everywoman who, instead of building a world through songwriting, did so by taking on others’ words and melodies and reshaping them with intelligence and boundless energy. She grew up in public through her recordings. In 1971, when she was 25, she told a reporter that she didn’t have the voice to do soul music; by 1974, she’d developed her own style of testifying that made her funky reinterpretation of Dee Dee Warwick’s 1963 shouter “You’re No Good” into a number one hit, one she’d follow up by reinvigorating songs by Martha and the Vandellas, Chuck Berry, Roy Orbison, and the Everly Brothers, among others. At the same time, she continued championing her own peers, who played on her most successful albums. She was that woman who, like so many others, did the real power lifting within a scene dominated by self-styled heroic men.

When the multi-platinum success of her fifth album, Heart Like a Wheel, sent Ronstadt into the arena-rock stratosphere, she became the premium interpreter of an American songbook that she’s continued to redefine throughout her career. It now includes everything from George Gershwin and Cole Porter to early rock 'n' roll, the Nashville sound, Mexican canciones, Laurel Canyon balladry, Cajun two-steps, and the punkish sounds of New Wave. She developed her singular eclecticism, in part, as a way of coping with a music industry that would have kept her in a stadium-sized box — she hated playing those big venues, ripping up her voice in front of anonymous-feeling hordes — and turned to theater music and standards as a way of reclaiming her right to be a subtle interpreter. "Your musical soul is like facets of a jewel, and you stick out one facet at a time," she said in a retrospective interview in 2003.

Even as a teenager, when lesser musical adventurers would fall into a rut, Ronstadt would change course. Setting forth on a solo career after early success with the Stone Poneys trio challenged the boundaries of strummable folk music by foregrounding its connections to country and becoming as much an inventor of country rock as was Gram Parsons or the Eagles, who famously formed as her backing band. After finding a niche as the patron of her L.A. neighbors, from Warren Zevon to Randy Newman and Jackson Browne, she teamed up with producer Peter Asher to hone that rocked-up pop sound that made her a superstar. Throughout her career, she would return to that sound which, in turn, became hugely influential, forming part of the bedrock of many future stars’ styles, from Olivia Newton-John to Sheryl Crow to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Carrie Underwood.

Meanwhile, Ronstadt became a producer herself, an extension, in some ways, of her role as a brilliant collaborator. Her work behind the boards with the soul legend Aaron Neville, for example, complements her many beautiful duets with him. Her deep love of harmony singing, along with her dedication to uplifting the women with whom she feels the deepest musical kinship, led her to form one of the most beloved vocal groups in recent pop memory — Trio, her project with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris. “I always mean to be a singer, not a star,” she said when the second Trio album was released in 1999. In fact, Ronstadt’s stardom has been predicated upon her ability to consistently remind listeners that to sing is to cultivate a space where all the trappings of the moment — fashion, fame — fall away, a space of pure joy and sensual release.

Linda Ronstadt can no longer call that space into being in real time, having lost her voice to Parkinson’s disease in 2013. But she remains a bright spirit: the author of a revelatory book, Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir, and a role model for a new generation of musical boundary breakers. And through her immortal recordings, her voice still permeates the soil of our consciousness, a clear liquid presence easing our minds and, by example, urging us to continue challenging ourselves. A natural gift beautifully cultivated, Linda Ronstadt’s legacy still challenges us to be more free, even as it hastens down the wind.

Ann Powers is critic and correspondent for NPR Music and the author of several books, including Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music, forthcoming from Dey Street Books in 2017.

Lede illustration by Cat Ferraz.

Nothing to Hide: A Conversation with Dan Layus

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After more than a decade at the heart of Augustana, Dan Layus recently released an official solo album, Dangerous Things. And anyone who thinks they are going to get another bunch of roots-rock anthems out of Layus has another think coming their way. The sparsely drawn, country-tinged singer/songwriter set summons Gram Parsons, Woody Guthrie, and early Tom Waits as its patron saints, and Layus's Rodney Crowell-esque voice feels right at home in the form. There's a fragility to the whole artistic affair, but one which makes it clear that there's strength in being vulnerable, in asking for or offering help.

I dig this record. A lot. And I'll tell you why: It has a serious lack of pretense. It's not trying to be anything that it's not. You're just putting it out there with nothing to hide behind. How's that feeling?

I appreciate that. Without sounding pretentious, ironically, that's exactly what I was going for — to, essentially, go for nothing. [Laughs] It's like Seinfeld; it's a show about nothing. That's probably my favorite compliment about the record. Thank you. That's very intuitive and a little bit left-of-center approach to describe it. And that's absolutely what I was going for.

Let me put it this way: It felt far too predictable to say, “I think I'm gonna make a country record now. That seems like the thing to do.” It felt like that would've been laughed off the map. Being a self-described narcissist, I know that I care a little too much about what people think sometimes, especially music people. So I needed to challenge myself … I'm joking about the narcissism, by the way. [Laughs]

[Laughs] Yeah, yeah. I gotcha.

I hoped you would. I needed to let go of a lot of the practices — the writing practices, sonic habits I had in the past. It's very easy to fall into a pattern of crutches, when it comes to music. You get used to certain elements around you. Even things as simple as “Where do the drums go on this song? What's the bass gonna do?” — assuming that there needs to be these four cornerstones of a record that make the sound of the record. I think what I was able to do — and it was a greater challenge than I thought — was to just not worry about it at all. Just rely on the characters in the songs, let them be themselves.

I won't lie: I'm absolutely in love with the few elements, sonically, that are implied and nodded to, as far as pedal steel and fiddle and, of course, the Secret Sisters and the female background vocals. I'm in love with those, but I think the subtleties of them are what make it say, “Yes, this is what you think it is, but I'm not going to stand on top of the building and say, 'I'm a country artist now. Hear me roar!' I'm just going to let it be what it's going to be.”

It seems fitting, too, to leave the band name behind with the big, sweeping melodies and the arena-rock drums fills. Just let that all live in its own world.

Right. Yeah.

Why, for you, was that shift in branding and that shouldering of responsibility important? Because, like I said with the music, there's nothing left to hide behind, brand-wise.

That is true. It was kind of for selfish reasons. Sometimes you forget, at least for me, if I'm a fan of a certain artist or singer that's associated with a band, you forget that they have their own feelings of weight or they're battling with their own self-image in that environment. You forget that. “Oh, I just like the music. I like that band a lot.” You forget there are all these times that, potentially, they don't feel totally comfortable in their own skin underneath that umbrella, that moniker, that brand or band name. It comes with a weight. It comes with an expectation of a certain sound, a certain style, a certain form.

I think what happened was, I put out this last record — the last Augustana record — I made it, essentially, by myself with a few producers. It felt like a desperate plea. I loved the songs, but the album felt completely scattered. I tried my very, very best to be myself in that situation and carry it or be comfortable with it. But it became glaringly obvious, after a few years, that this was done. This was not what it once was. To call it a band and call it what it used to be in 2005 is just silly. I'm lying to myself and to the fans. Times change. Things change. Relationships change. People's careers change. One day you work in a business office and one day you don't want to work there anymore. You need to try something new to feel motivated or excited about something.

So it really is more of a reboot than an evolution, creatively, then?

I think so, yeah. I felt that, creatively and in a career-minded way, Augustana had reached its resting place. I have nothing but wonderful feelings about it. Never felt angry about it. Never felt jealous about other people's standings, maybe people we were coming up with and where they ended up, if they ended up anywhere at all. I was always able to keep that all in perspective.

But I think, for my own benefit and the benefit of my family and our future and definitely my future in music, I felt like, “You know what? Let's live in the current place that we are.” And the current place that I am is that I'm ready to make an album that has my name on it and sounds the way I've always wanted it to sound. And nobody's gonna tell me no, that I can't have pedal steel, that I can't have a fiddle. [Laughs] Nobody's gonna tell me that it sounds too Americana.

[Laughs] And it's a fiddle, damn it. Not a violin.

It's a damn fiddle! [Laughs] Nobody's gonna tell me that this isn't gonna work at alternative radio because it's too alt-country or whatever. I'm just gonna make the damn record sound the way I wanted it to, ever since I heard Gram Parsons or Ryan Adams, when I was 16. That's the record I've always wanted to make, but for whatever reasons, I was never able to fully realize that sound and feel. I feel more at home now, than I ever have.

I think that's going to be reflected in the people who respond to it. I'll be honest, I have a few Augustana songs in my iTunes, but I wasn't that big a fan.

Yeah.

But I seriously love this record. It reminds me of Chely Wright's new one. I was never a commercial country listener, so I knew of her and liked a few of her tunes, but on her new record — it's the same thing — she found her true voice. I feel like that's what you've done.

Awww. Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate that very much.

You're welcome. And I don't say that just to say it.

[Laughs] I can tell! I can tell that you mean it.

[Laughs] Now, you've talked about having to let go of songwriting in order to write these songs. Is that because of the personal nature of the songs — that they were for your album and not for a singer to be named later or for a band?

Yeah, that's part of it, certainly. I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't partially my fault for investing a lot of time in co-writing with other people over the last five or six years. Especially in Nashville over the last two to three years.

That's the way it is here.

That's the way it is here. I learned a lot. I learned a lot of good writing habits and I learned a lot of bad writing habits over the course of a few years. And I already had my own style of writing, which a lot of people do, when they come to town. I was writing with people in L.A., too. It just has its own thing to it. Coming to Nashville and being like, “Alright. I'm going to try to get some cuts. Some BIG country cuts. I need to make some damn money for my family. I need to let go of my whole artistic thing, because it ain't working out.” [Laughs] “If I'm a music guy, if that's what I'm gonna do, then I better find a way to support my family with music because I don't know what the hell else I'd be able to do. I know I can write a song, so let me get in with some writers. Let me try to get some cuts.”

And it didn't really work out. I had a hard time letting go of my own … I don't know what it is … my own method. I couldn't just say, “It's for the money. It's worth it.” I was never able to go to the point where I said, “Yeah, this song is worth barely being able to sleep at night.” [Laughs]

[Laughs] Well, it's putting a price tag on your soul, right?

Yeah, it really felt like it. I think, at the end of the day, I found that there were a few songs that really impacted me with some of these writers who I'd met in town. And they made the record. They were close to being cut by other, larger artists in Nashville who passed on them and I was like, “You know what? Then I'm going to do it because this feels like my song.” So there are a few of those cuts on there.

The rest of the record, I wrote myself, which I hadn't done 70 or 80 percent of a record on my own for seven or eight years, so that was part of letting go of the songwriting process that I was referencing. After driving into Nashville from Franklin every day from, essentially, 9 to 5, coming home to dinner after writing a pop-country song or whatever it was, it becomes this occupation, this lackadaisical, mediocre endeavor, if you let it.

At some point in that process, it became that. It became very mediocre, very uninspired, and I realized that I needed to stop and stay at home for a minute and not try to go get cuts and write my own songs. I had to figure out how to write my own songs again, by myself without another writer. It sounds crazy, but I needed to. I became too reliant on the process where the goal is just to finish a song a day. That was a very convoluted perspective to develop and I felt like, “Man, I don't know how I lost my way on this one.” So I took a step back, stayed home, and … I don't know what song it was, but it just broke open the floodgates. I was so proud that I could write a song that I could feel something about, that I wanted to showcase and go play. That's what happened, as far as writing was concerned.

Got it. “You Can Have Mine” … it might be my favorite cut. I'm not sure. There's some competition there.

Ohhhh, wonderful!

It reminds me of that old parable of a friend jumping down in a hole with someone because they know the way out. So I wonder if that is that a role you've played for someone … or had someone play for you? Or if music plays that role for you?

You know what? A little bit of everything. That's one of those songs. Two of these songs are written with a wonderful writer named Emily Wright — “You Can Have Mine” and “Call Me When You Get There.” There was a stretch of a few weeks when we were getting together and writing a bunch. It was a wonderful connection, as far as writing was concerned. We saw things in a similar way. Both of those songs kind of just shot right out and felt really great right away.

“You Can Have Mine” — the title just popped into my head and we just started writing it. So I don't know where it came from, specifically, but it came out of something. It definitely came from experience. At that time, either myself or my wife was battling a pretty heavy bout of stock seasonal depression, I think. Which, living down here, as you know, can be very impactful when January, February come around and money's running low and you're feeling tired and estranged from any feeling of inspiration and kind of a little lost or down. That's something my wife and I, and probably most people, go through — just feeling like you've got someone there to go through it with you, you have somebody to call or go home to or get up for the next day. That's something that I don't think I address as often as I should, these bouts of depression that I feel or that my wife feels.

It is something you explore, though, on this record.

Absolutely.

Like on “Only Gets Darker.” For you, it's not a passive state with a big “Time Heals” light at the end of the tunnel. You have to be an active participant in your own healing, right?

Yes. Yes. That was how I felt about it, and still feel about it. This is a long life. Just because I've been sober for five-plus years doesn't mean that's it. [Laughs] It's a constant struggle for anyone to get out of their own way, essentially. That's the battle every day that I feel I'm fighting. It's not just booze or whatever. It's anything. Just trying to move yourself out of your own way and find a way to appreciate the moment that you have, what's happening around and in front of you, people who love you, people you love. That's a challenge. It's easier to see the things you're not getting or that aren't being given to you.

That song, in particular, I never felt as if … and this is just my perspective, everyone feels differently … but my experience is, seeing yourself out of a dark place or having a hand to help you like in “You Can Have Mine,” that feels like the only way. Not only is it empowering to give you confidence for the next time, but it also just feels like the truth. I mean, I've never just woken up one day and said, “Oh, shit. I feel better.” [Laughs] It's a conscious effort. It's a thought process. It's your actions. It's your choices that help you wind up in a better place, mentally and emotionally. But I don't know. That's just me.

 

For another folk-country songwriter's perspective, read Kelly's interview with Lori McKenna.

Photo credit: Justin Clough

Traveler: Your Guide to Joshua Tree

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Of all the stories that populate the mythology of American roots music, few weave a tighter thread than the connection of Gram Parsons to Joshua Tree, California. For Parsons, the high desert was an escape from the craziness of Los Angeles and a chance to hang out with his friends. In 1969, he brought Keith Richards here with little more than Pendleton blankets and acoustic Gibsons. It was the year of “Honky Tonk Women,” Parsons’ undeniable country influence on the Rolling Stones during their creative apex. Four years later — on September 19, 1973 — Parsons would be clinically dead of a drug overdose at the Joshua Tree Inn and the bond between musician and place cemented into legend. He was 26 years old.

For decades, far-out eccentrics, war veteran homesteaders, and creative artists have all found inspiration in the widescreen landscapes and cultural freedom that the California desert provides. In its wildness, time becomes abstract — a slower way of life that’s fiercely protected by the locals. The food is decent, the shopping becomes a treasure hunt, and the live music can be transformative. But the spiritual heart of this place — its calm emotional anchor — lies in the vistas of Joshua Tree National Park.

In our age of digital hyper-connectivity, the park is one of the few remaining locations in the United States where, in just a couple of miles, all of your devices go silent as the grid dissolves. This rare, involuntary disconnection might help explain the park’s explosive popularity (a record two million visited in 2015), a salve to the debilitating nature deficit and frenetic pace many urbanites experience daily.

It’s a place where the messages you receive are not about work, gossip, or a change in plans, but something bigger and soul evolving. While under the canopy of a million stars or taking in the beautiful surrealism of ancient Joshua trees, you’re forced to remember how small you really are, how fragile the balance of ecology truly is, and how lucky you are to be here — now, in the moment — as a witness to its magic.

Getting There

There are four airports to choose from, and deciding which to use is a balance of cost versus convenience. Traditionally, the most affordable option is to fly into Las Vegas’s McCarren International (LAS) and drive three-and-a-half hours south on US-95. Fill the tank, bring some water, and take it slow. Cell phone service is spotty for most of the barren drive and there are few places to stop. Los Angeles International (LAX) is another option, with the drive east from the airport to Joshua Tree at approximately two-and-a-half to three hours (depending on traffic). LA/Ontario International (ONT) is located about an hour-and-a-half west and is an easy drive on I-10 to Route 62. Finally, the most convenient airport (and usually the most expensive to fly into) is Palm Springs International (PSP). From there, it's a 50-minute drive on Route 62 “up the hill,” as the locals say.

The long ribbon of California State Route 62 (aka Twentynine Palms Highway) connects five adjacent communities where the action is: Morongo Valley, Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree, Twentynine Palms, and the unincorporated community of Wonder Valley.

Lodging

As of this writing, there are over 300 places to rent on Airbnb in Joshua Tree alone, including small rustic cabins; large, amenity-rich homes; and everything in-between. For the best nighttime stargazing, rent a converted homestead in Wonder Valley, a rural outpost east of Twentynine Palms. If you want to commune with the ghost of Gram, book the room he OD’d in (room #8) at the Joshua Tree Inn. Or you can party with the truckers and the kickers and the cowboy angels at Pioneertown Hotel.

Food, Booze, and Live Music

There is currently no venue in the area specifically devoted to live music, but the restaurants and bars here more than fill the void, attracting both underground up-and-comers and established acts. Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneertown is a must-visit, with regular live music, great food, and a stocked bar. It’s busy, so make reservations for dinner and check the calendar before you head up there. (They are typically closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays.) Their annual Desert Stars Festival always boasts a mindboggling roster of talent.

To fuel up for hikes in the park, Crossroads Café in downtown Joshua Tree is a good spot for breakfast or a sandwich. (Their seitan Hell Burger rocks!) Joshua Tree Coffee Company provides wicked strong coffee, served by friendly staff. Pie for the People offers up New York-style pizza by the pie or the slice. Joshua Tree Saloon hosts occasional music, decent pub grub, and craft beer on tap. The Palms Restaurant out in Wonder Valley has a dark, musty bar and hosts trippy indoor/outdoor concerts. If you’re looking for more adventurous menus, La Copine and 29 Palms Inn offer “finer dining” — for lack of a better phrase — beyond typical burgers and Mexican food.

Attractions

Tourist traffic is divided into two distinct seasons here, “high” and “low.” High season is busiest during the most temperate months of March-May and September-November, and low season constitutes the hot summer months and the cold-ish winters. But with the right preparation and smart precautions, any time of the year is good to visit. (Note that some businesses scale back or shut down operations in July and August.)

Plan at least one full day of hiking and sightseeing in Joshua Tree National Park. Camping is allowed in the park — there are nine campgrounds in all — and reservations must be made in advance on a first-come, first-served basis. Seven-day vehicle permits can be purchased at time of visit. Try to catch the Key’s Ranch tour. Running February through mid-May, it's an incredible story of ingenuity, perseverance, and cold-blooded murder.

 

To visit the site of Gram Parsons’ bizarre “cremation” in Joshua Tree National Park, visit Cap Rock Nature Trail. High Desert Test Sites / A-Z West is a unique arts organization that holds tours on its 50-acre site focusing on sustainable living and innovative design. Get a sound bath at George Van Tassel’s space-age invention the Integratron and don’t miss a chance to experience Noah Purifoy’s Outdoor Desert Museum, a major socio-political exhibit created entirely out of repurposed materials.

Shopping

For a taste of California desert weirdness, visit Sky Village Swap Meet, a sprawling outdoor flea market open every weekend. Ranch and Camp Mercantile boasts a quirky mix of vintage goods and local art. The Hoof & the Horn boutique specializes in rootsy Americana clothing, vintage t-shirts, and accessories. (They have a stoner rock selection on vinyl, too.) Dig through Tamma’s Magic Mercantile for lots of cool antiques. You can buy your very own baby Joshua tree at Cactus Mart and meet Butch and Sundance, two of the friendliest kitties in Morongo Valley. For bibliophiles, the Cactus Wren bookstore is a great place to search for old desert homesteader histories.

Photo credit: Melissa Grisi

A Call to Help: Giving Back to Phil Kaufman, Road Mangler Deluxe

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“All I know is, I was going down the road at about 80 on my bike, and then the next thing I knew, I was going down the road at about 80 without my bike.”

So says Phil Kaufman, the fabled music road manager to the stars that Mick Jagger called an “executive nanny” when Kaufman was road manager for the Rolling Stones. It’s been a little over seven weeks since the motorcycle accident that broke his back and ankle, cracked his ribs, and skinned his leg so badly on a stretch of interstate asphalt north of Nashville that an entire tattoo was rubbed off. When you stop to consider the seriousness of the wreck and what could have happened, it’s astonishing that he’s even alive.

If you don’t recognize Kaufman by name, you almost certainly do by reputation. Because of the people he has worked with — including everyone from the aforementioned Stones to Frank Zappa, Emmylou Harris, Etta James and Joe Cocker — he has become an almost mythical figure in rock and pop music folklore, and deservedly so. How many people do you know who would actually steal their friend’s body, take it into the California desert, and set it afire? Phil Kaufman would. He did just that in 1973 when he hijacked the body of singer/songwriter Gram Parsons and drove it out to Joshua Tree National Park to fulfill the obligation of a pact he had made with his friend — that whoever died first would set the other’s spirit free. That, alone, is of the great tales of rock music.

A veteran of the Korean War, Kaufman is 80 years old and living in Nashville. Though he's semi-retired, the motorcycle crash has rendered him currently unable to work. Already a cancer survivor for 20 years, it might seem like Life has been a bit harsh for him, but despite having a broken body and facing financial obligations that might overwhelm many people, Kaufman knows that he is a rich man in ways that don’t involve dollar signs. He is warm, welcoming, unassuming, funny, and perhaps above all, grateful. Friends rushed to his aid from the beginning and have stayed by his side, working in shifts to make sure his every need has been met.

However, the job descriptions of “Road Mangler” and “Executive Nanny” don’t exactly come with 401k plans, so a campaign has been set up at GoFundMe.com for anyone wishing to contribute. The response has been thick and fast; since the drive was established on August 19, over $20,000 has been raised. Tributes from unknown donors exhort, “Make yourself better, Mangler!” and “Phil is the only road manager (mangler) I have ever gone to a show to see. Thanks for the decades of great concerts!!!” while high-profile friends like Steve Wozniak (of Apple fame) and Steve Earle tease, “The great ones like you should go on their own terms,” and “I hope no important tattoos were defaced.”

Phil Kaufman with Emmylou Harris in the 1970s

While $20,000 is a lot of money, a $40,000 hospital bill has already arrived in the mail, so there is more to be done. Other medical expenses will follow, including doctors and equipment, plus the everyday expenses we all share — lights, phone, water, food.

For his part, Kaufman is overwhelmed by the generosity streaming in.

“It’s been really heartwarming, you know, pouring out from all these people … most of whom I don’t even know,” he says, almost puzzled. “I’m very touched. I can feel that people seem to want to give back. And [the Recording Academy’s outreach program] MusiCares has helped, too. I mean, no matter where I turn, there’s a helping hand. For the last five weeks, somebody has stayed with me every night, in shifts. I’m still getting calls — ‘You need butter? You need eggs? Can I bring you something? Does the dog need walking?’ It’s just very, very … it’s a … it’s a…"

He trails off, at a loss for words.

One important thing Kaufman has learned is that, after 60 years of riding, it’s time for him to hang up his motorcycle helmet. As he has with the accident in general, he has adopted a “glass half-full” attitude about having taken his last ride.

“I’m 80 years old,” he reasons. “I can ride a bike; I know how to ride a bike. But my body cannot take another one of these [wrecks]. No matter whose fault it is. So, I am wisely — for the first time in my life — giving up motorcycling. But I had a 60-year run. I rode bikes for 60 years! And I’ve got scar tissue I like to show off occasionally.” Kaufman laughs mischievously, as though he’s gotten away with something.

Though it’ll be about a month before he’ll be able to walk, drive, or generally get around on his own, Kaufman is already looking forward to putting the entire episode behind him. He is planning a visit to his family in Hawaii in the Fall, and will pick up the odd road gig from time to time (“I don’t think I want to do a major tour,” he says, “but if the phone rings, I’m there.”). Mainly, though, he’s enjoying time with his friends in Nashville, telling stories, hearing music, and “finally taking time to stop and smell the roses,” as he says. He shares his life with a beautiful white rescue dog named Gladys, who he says seems especially loathe to leave him since he’s returned from the hospital.

Johnny Knoxville as Phil Kaufman in Grand Theft Parsons

He will also supplement his income on his personal website. There, fans can find for sale Kaufman’s book, an autobiography detailing his life working with the greatest names in music called Road Mangler Deluxe; Grand Theft Parsons, the 2003 movie with Johnny Knoxville and Christina Applegate that chronicled the Parsons incident; CDs of The Concert for Manglerdesh, a benefit show starring Harris, Earle, Sam Bush, Vince Gill, John Prine, Guy Clark, and many more that came together in 1996 to help defray Kaufman’s cancer expenses; and Legend of the Road Mangler, an oral history of stories and folktales that, according to its cover, “is a must-listen for music fans who love to know what goes on behind the scenes, on the bus, after the show, and out in the desert.” (Legend of the Road Mangler is also available to rent as a download.)

Whether fans and friends decide to support him through his website, the GoFundMe campaign, or just by sending good vibes, Kaufman wants people to know that it means a lot to him. “Just keep the love pouring in. That’s it,” he says in thanks. “People are saying to me, ‘I don’t know you, but I appreciate what you’ve done for other people.’ That was my job, you know? I was ‘executive nanny.’ Fortunately, [when people help] it’s a good investment. Both of my parents lived to be 92, so I’ve got at least a dozen years to go.”

With everything Phil Kaufman has lived through up till now, nobody doubts it for a moment.

Top photo: Phil Kaufman, “Road Mangler,” drives a car with Gram Parsons, Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg, c. 1972.