Steve Earle, ‘Goodbye Michelangelo’

These days, everyone has a voice. Famous or not, you can spew anything you like in a matter of seconds — on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, or in the words of a national publication. It’s our detriment as much as it’s our strength: And when you’re an artist, doing an interview to promote an album, it can absolutely help as much as it hurts. Gentle thoughts don’t make headlines, but bombastic ones do, and so, over and over again, musicians make waves when they should be respecting the current.

Thus is the case with Steve Earle, undoubtedly one of our master songwriters, whose new album, So You Wannabe an Outlaw, is just out. It’s a great record, but it’s his curmudgeonly thoughts in a recent Guardian interview that have everyone talking: He rails against Noel Gallagher, insults Hayes Carll, and takes down all of modern country (except Chris Stapleton) in a few breaths. Maybe it goes with the theme of the LP, which spends some time taking to task those aspiring “outlaws,” who praise the lifestyle that is not quite as aspirational as it looks. But it’s easy to get lost in sensational interviews, and miss the music.

Which would be a shame on So You Wannabe an Outlaw, because there is so much beauty, perhaps at its height on the raw “Goodbye Michelangelo,” written for Earle’s late friend Guy Clark. Here, any grit is restricted to Earle’s voice, as ragged as ever, plucking in minor key about the songwriting legend and fellow “outlaw” Clark. “I’m bound to follow you someday. You have always shown the way,” sings Earle, brushing up with his own mortality and juggling thoughts of his legacy, too. Many call Clark a craftsman, but here, Earle equates him with the ultimate Renaissance man. “Taught me everything I know,” he adds, before the album comes to a close on a somber, humble note. It’s a moment to allow the music do the talking, letting it drown out all that other white noise.  

ANNOUNCING: Two New Ways to Hang & Sang

Last summer, Team BGS noticed that Facebook was really pushing their Live videos. We also saw that our friends Ann Powers and Jewly Hight were doing some casual sessions on Ann’s porch here in Nashville for NPR Music using that medium. So we decided we should give it a whirl. Ani DiFranco was coming to town, and we asked if she’d be our first. We didn’t have a name for it or much of a plan at all, but Ani said yes and City Winery said we could use their lounge. On June 30, 2016, what would become Hangin’ & Sangin’ was born.

Since then, we’ve had Sam Bush, Lori McKenna, Uncle Earl, Indigo Girls, Chely Wright, Colin Hay, Natalie Hemby, Ruby Amanfu, Special Consensus, the Revivalists, Marc Broussard, the McCrary Sisters, Whiskey Myers, Glen Phillips, Mary Gauthier, and a slew of other fantastic artists on the show.

And we’re just getting started.

In the weeks ahead, we’ll be hangin’ with Johnnyswim, Angaleena Presley, Drew Holcomb, John Paul White, Rodney Crowell, Sunny Sweeney, Keb’ Mo’, Gaby Moreno, and so many more of your favorite artists at Hillbilly Central, right off Music Row, in the heart of Nashville. Join us every Friday at 2:30 pm CT on Facebook Live, catch us every Sunday at 6:30 am and Tuesday at 9 pm on WMOT Roots Radio, or listen to the podcast via iTunes any time you like. We’d love to have you hang with us.

 

Special thanks to Alison Brown, Garry West, Gordon Hammond, and everyone at Compass Records for lending us their historic studio. Additional thanks to Jessie Scott, Val Hoeppner, John Walker, Craig Havighurst, and the whole team at WMOT Roots Radio for giving us some air time. And an extra shout out to Josephine Wood for helping get this thing off the ground to begin with. We couldn’t be happier to partner with all of you.

MIXTAPE: Patterson Hood’s Americana 101

Americana was a name that used to trouble me when it first came into semi-vogue in the late 1990s. I didn’t really like alt-country, either. So many people tended to love the music and hate the various names for the genre that the original No Depression magazine even poked fun at that on their nameplate. That said, it was probably the most exciting sub-genre of its time and has had a quite impressive afterlife, growing to actually be a somewhat mainstream way for a wide variety of excellent artists to be marketed to an increasingly larger audience.

My playlist leans heavy on the turn of the (last) century’s roots of this genre, but I also hope to incorporate a little of the more interesting current songs and maybe a couple that pre-date the movement that are excellent examples of its origin. — Patterson Hood, Drive-By Truckers

Son Volt — “Windfall” (from Trace, 1995)

Probably the one song that best exemplifies and encapsulates everything that is great about this genre in three glorious minutes of musical confection that is so good it set up a blueprint for a genre and transcends most everything that followed that path.

Lucinda Williams — “Drunken Angel” (from Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, 1998)

Lucinda’s long-delayed Car Wheels on a Gravel Road survived its troubled gestation to become one of the genres first breakout hits and turned her into a bonafide star, winning Grammys and a life-long following along the way. Picking one song from this album was hard, but to me, the best of all was this ode to the life and untimely death of Austin Texas singer/songwriter Blaze Foley. Stunning.

Merle Haggard — “If I Could Only Fly” (from If I Could Only Fly, 2000)

Merle predates anything else in the Americana genre, but his music defined the best that it had to offer. By 2000, country music had moved in a much more mainstream direction, and Merle found a new following among the disaffected punks and roots rockers that alt-country drew and that he continued to inspire. ANTI- Records seized this opportunity, and gave Merle the chance to make exactly the kind of album that mainstream country wouldn’t. He rose to the occasion with this masterpiece. Merle was, himself, one of the best songwriters of all time, but for this compilation, I chose his cover of Blaze Foley’s masterful song that Merle loved enough to make the title cut of his “comeback” album.

The Silos — “I’m Over You” (from The Silos, 1990)

Although Americana is most widely associated with the late ’90s through the present, it had roots dating back to The Basement Tapes by Bob Dylan and the Band and the tons of incredible albums that it inspired, followed by the cult status of a wonderful band from St. Louis, Missouri, called Uncle Tupelo. However, in the most unlikely of times — the ’80s, which were way better known for new wave and bad drum sounds — R.E.M. and the Silos made records that took the best elements of those sounds and made them their own. The Silos never had near the amount of fame that they deserved, but their records still hold up as among the best albums of their time and beyond.

R.E.M. — “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville” (from Reckoning, 1984)

Although they are usually better known for their later hit records, this gem from R.E.M.’s second album helped lay out a blueprint for the Americana genre and still holds up as an example of just how wonderful they always were. There’s no overstating what a breath of fresh air this song was to our ears in the mid-80s nor how great it still sounds over 30 years later.

Steve Earle — “Ben McCulloch” (from Train a Comin’, 1995)

Another artist that pre-dated (and probably hated the term) Americana, Steve Earle broke big in the ’80s with his debut album, Guitar Town, before descending into a haze of addiction and even jail time. Upon his release from jail, he laid the groundwork for his comeback with this stripped-down collection of excellent songs, none better than this tale of a scared and disgruntled Civil War soldier.

Townes Van Zandt — “Waiting ‘Round to Die” (from Live at the Old Quarter, 1977)

Although mostly pre-dating the term Americana, no one better represented all that was great about it than Townes. Steve Earle once famously said that Townes was the greatest songwriter in the world and that he would stand on Dylan’s coffee table and shout it out anytime. I imagine that that quote has out lived its intention, but this song shows a little bit of what Mr. Earle so grandly stated. This version — and the live album that it comes from — is a great introduction to the majesty of Townes’s songwriting and the power of song in general.

Gillian Welch — “Revelator” (from Time (The Revelator), 2003)

Gillian sprung from the mid-90s Americana scene and was further propelled by the success of the Coen Brother’s 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou? and its breakthrough soundtrack. Then she suffered a backlash from people accusing her of being a retro-novelty act. She fired back with this shape-shifting and time-traveling masterpiece that condenses a history of folk and blues into her personal here and now and, at the same time, takes two acoustic guitars and two singers and somehow, without a hint of shouting, manages to rock like Zeppelin and Crazy Horse. Over a decade later, I’m still in love with every song on this album, but this one seems to be the one that best encapsulates it all.

Wilco — “California Stars” (from the Billy Bragg and Wilco album Mermaid Avenue, 1998)

When Uncle Tupelo broke apart in the early ’90s, the two principles formed Son Volt and Wilco. Although initially considered the lesser of the two, Wilco has gone on to become one of the foremost bands of the last 20 or so years creating an eclectic body of work that still manages to challenge and surprise each time out. In 1998, Wilco joined forces with British folk singer Billy Bragg to put music to and perform previously unheard lyrics from Woody Guthrie. The result was two of the best albums of their time. The standout and breakthrough track off this collaboration was “California Stars” — a sublime piece of work that connects several generations of artists and shows the timelessness of great songs.

Centro-matic — “Flashes and Cables” (from Love You Just the Same, 2003)

One of the greatest and definitely most underrated of bands of the last couple of decades, Centro-matic hailed from Denton, Texas, made over a dozen wonderful albums, and toured relentlessly for nearly 20 years before disbanding in 2014. Prolific to a fault, many of those songs sound like mega-hits that somehow forgot to become such. None more than this track from their 2003 masterpiece. I can’t listen to it without visualizing an arena full of fans singing along with the catchy “bye-dee-ahhs” of the finale, a musical hook so relentless and endearing that it frequently soundtracks my dreams.

Jason Isbell — “Elephant” (from Southeastern, 2013)

I first met Jason in 2000, and it was love at first song. He was barely 20 and about to drop out of college, and I was blown away by his talent as a singer, songwriter, and guitar player. A couple of years later, he began a five-year stint playing in my band. By the time he left to pursue his solo career, he was drinking very heavily and his life was spiraling out of control. In 2011, he quit drinking and pulled his life back together, documenting it all in a masterpiece of an album called Southeastern. The standout track (and that’s saying a lot, in itself) is this song about a friend’s struggle with cancer. It’s literally a perfect song.

The Bottle Rockets — “Kerosene” (from The Bottle Rockets, 1993)

Barreling out of Festus, Missouri, in 1993, Bottle Rockets put the pedal to the metal, blasting dive bars across the country like an unholy amalgamation of Skynyrd and Doug Sahm mixing punk smarts and country fury with great songs and a rocking live show. Their literary smarts were never better represented than on this gem from their self-titled debut. “Kerosene” tells the tale of being down-and-out white trash, giving heart, soul, and life to a story that — on the surface — sounds like a laughable headline of Darwinistic stupidity. A trailer fire, told from the grave with simplicity and grace: “If kerosene works, why not gasoline?” Like the best songwriting, what’s said is only a fraction of the story and the real majesty is in what is left untold. One of my all-time favorite songs.

Kelly Hogan and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts — “Papa Was a Rodeo” (from Beneath the Country Underdog, 2000)

Kelly Hogan hailed out of Atlanta, Georgia, was one of the founders of its ill-fated Redneck Underground scene, and was the lead singer in the Jody Grind, who were poised to great success before a tragic van accident that killed two of its members in 1992. Later, Kelly (who was thankfully not in the van at the time) relocated to Chicago, Illinois, where she has enthralled everyone who has ever heard her magnificent voice. She has made several albums as a solo artist, and served as a much in-demand backup singer (Neko Case, the Decemberists, Jakob Dylan). For her second solo album, she was backed up by Jon Langford’s ensemble, Pine Valley Cosmonauts, and here, along with Atlanta crooner Mike Geier, she covered the Magnetic Fields classic and made it her own. Sublime and timeless.

This is just a surface scratcher, but hopefully it will serve as an invitation to delve further into these great artists and so many more. ENJOY!


Photo credit: rkramer62 via Foter.com / CC BY

3×3: Chelle Rose on Bougie Hillbillies, Midnight Rambles, and Snow-Capped Smokies

Artist: Chelle Rose (pronounced like "Shelly")
Hometown: Relocating to my native East Tennessee as we speak, Nashville resident since ‘96
Latest Album: Blue Ridge Blood
Personal Nicknames: Chelle is actually short for Rachelle. Friends call me Chel. The Rose side of the family have always called me Rachelle.

 

A photo posted by Chelle Rose (@chellerose31) on

If you had to live the life of a character in a song, which song would you choose?
"Feel Alright" by Steve Earle. So many barricades on this journey. I've been singing this one pretty loud lately. Nobody gets to dictate my life to me … but they keep trying. I love it … fires me up every time.

Where would you most like to live or visit that you haven't yet? 
Scotland was amazing, but I really wanted to play or at least visit Ireland when we toured the UK. Hopefully we can make that happen next time. I plan to live out the rest of my life in East Tennessee. I wanna be able to see the snow-capped Smokies often and swim in a cold, mountain swimming hole.

What was the last thing that made you really mad?
Showing up for a music video shoot where you’ve paid a pretty penny to secure the room and it’s hotter than dammit on a popsicle stick! Me and my boys look good wet, but getting overheated can put me on the bench pretty fast due to health issues. Then I remembered current world events and rearranged my attitude.   

 

A photo posted by Chelle Rose (@chellerose31) on

What's the best concert you've ever attended?
Hands down, the Black Crowes at the Ryman in 2005. One of my besties since second grade, Amylou, and I still suspect someone must've put "shroom vapors" in the fog machine. When the show came to an end, everyone just sat there stunned. Nobody wanted to move, much less leave. I’ve searched for a bootleg of that show for years. As far as I know, there isn’t one? Someone tell me different.

Who is your favorite Clinton: Hillary, Bill, or George?
With apologies to the humans, Socks, the First Cat because Socks didn’t take any shit!

What are you reading right now? 
I wish! I’ll throw a book in my bag when traveling, but they come right back home with me without so much as a page turned. However, I have had Keith Richards' audiobook
in the car … and Jack Kerouac's On the Road.

 

A photo posted by Chelle Rose (@chellerose31) on

Whiskey, water, or wine?
People assume I’m a whiskey girl because of my voice I suppose. But I love red wines, prosecco, and champagne. I’m a bougie hillbilly I guess.

North or South?
South … but fell in love with Woodstock and the Catskills when we went to the Midnight Ramble at Levon’s.

Steve Carell or Ricky Gervais?
Had to crawl out of my rabbit hole and look up those names. Now I understand the question, but still can’t answer. Can I have “Dylan or Townes”? TVZ all day long.


Photo credit: Scarlett Eli

Standing on the Table: Musing on Townes Van Zandt

“Townes Van Zandt’s the best songwriter in the world, and I’ll stand on Bob Dylan’s coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.” — Steve Earle

Agreed, Mr. Earle.

By now, Steve Earle’s devotion to and admiration for Townes Van Zandt are fairly well-known bits of music history. Earle used to carry Van Zandt’s guitars around for him. What isn’t so known is Van Zandt’s response to the notion that he was a superior songwriter to Dylan, or that such a comical gesture such as standing on Dylan’s furniture could be accomplished: “I’ve met Bob Dylan’s bodyguards, and if Steve Earle thinks he can stand on Bob Dylan’s coffee table, he’s sadly mistaken,” was Townes’s pragmatic reply.

An indispensable book for any Van Zandtian is To Live’s To Fly, a remarkable, lyrical effort by John Kruth with the subtitle “The Ballad of the Late, Great Townes Van Zandt.” It’s a book in which Kruth’s abilities rise to that of a very good fiction writer, as if [add your favorite Southern novelist] had turned musicologist and journalist writing the tumultuous times of the mythical and legendary Van Zandt. Some of the stories about Townes certainly seem part legend, part myth. Like the time Townes was attending university in Boulder, Colorado, and deliberately fell from a high balcony and plummeted, Icarus-like, to the earth in order to see how it felt. Or the time Townes was (finally) to go on tour with Lightnin’ Hopkins — one of the former’s heroes — but got drunk and flew out of a manic-paced pickup truck and broke his arm, making the tour insurmountable.

Kruth’s book is filled with interviews, stories, and anecdotes that all weave together to make something gorgeous, and his prose sometimes makes one want to give up and write at the same time, to make little efforts in crafting better thoughts and sentences. Good luck.

What little I know about Van Zandt — from his hard living, habits and addictions, and mental disorders — I have learned from Kruth’s masterpiece. What I actually discovered about Van Zandt on my own, which may be the experience of so many other souls, comes from daily attention to his songs which, in the end, are mysteries in themselves. Van Zandt’s tunes call one back and back again.

Take “Waitin’ Around to Die,” the first song he wrote, crafted in a tiny closet shortly after his marriage to his first wife, Fran. It was made just around their honeymoonish salad days, and the song speaks to the darkness that resides in so many of us, though we mask it in a variety of frivolous or sincere or even actively destructive ways. Needless to say, the song frightened Van Zandt’s wife.

At the time of filming, several musicians and friends of the unparalleled troubadour expected him to be living in a reasonable house and better situation. Instead, the scene is one of squalor and drunkenness, yet Townes performs perfectly, in spite of copious amounts of whiskey and generous allotments of poverty. We follow the singer into a tale of wife-beating, robbery, and addiction, difficult subjects to broach with one’s new bride who simply didn’t see those sorts of bleak — albeit beautifully and well-made — sentiments coming from hubby.

“And I am in retirement from love …” — William H. Gass

“’Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel’ relates a tale of bitter disappointment in intricate wordplay and metaphor, with a twist of spite that sounds inspired by Dylan. In a mosaic of images and seemingly disconnected events, Townes lays the guilt of another failed love affair at the feet of a fickle woman.” (Kruth, pg. 110)

Kevin Eggers signed Townes in 1968, and recorded and released the bulk of the musician’s work. To this day, controversy and legal battles still rage around the rights to Van Zandt’s music. It is as if the songwriter — who pushed himself through addictions and hardships to craft some of the greatest songs ever written, who was known for his hatred of money, who was concerned with the next gig, the next inspiration, the next vision and tune — isn’t free even after his release from this world. We second Guy Clark’s response to queries about Van Zandt’s royalties and estate: “That’s none of my damn business,” said the normally loquacious and articulate Clark in an interview with The Austin Chronicle in an interview. Agreed, Mr. Clark.

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” Leo Tolstoy wrote in one of those impossibly thick Russian novels that draw the reader in and, in the end, make him or her wish the book had been even longer. The same wish might apply to Townes’s discography. From recorded live shows to studio albums, one cannot get one’s hands on enough of his music. It’s the feeling — at least when writing an article or piece about the singer/songwriter — that one’s own efforts are false, useless. Each word and eventual sentence is swallowed whole by Van Zandt’s songs, lyrics, life.

When researching his life — from legal battles over music to his nearly cursed inability to have a long-lasting relationship with a woman to falling from that balcony — anything added now rings hollow and pointless. Townes is and was as good or better than Dylan.

I imagine Townes landing after that fall he deliberately took. I imagine him smiling and brushing himself off, and finally standing on some table of his own, singing through a golden room. I imagine him happy, finally, and letting his music also stand on its own. Townes was a body and mind tuned into something inaccessible to most. Call it a god, a form, a preternatural gift that few understand or know of. Call it the songwriter’s knack for falling and, like the mythical Phoenix, rising out of the ashes, rising from the ground, and letting the voice bell and resound against all odds.

Townes had that, whatever that is.

The Producers: Buddy Miller

Even if you weren’t already aware that Cayamo Sessions at Sea was recorded on a cruise ship, even if the title didn’t spell out the circumstances of the album’s creation, you could probably guess as much. Featuring several generations of roots artists covering old country songs, the record sounds sunny and breezy, light but not lightweight. Buddy Miller and Lee Ann Womack make “After the Fire Is Gone” sound more about the make-up than the break-up, and Elizabeth Cook emphasizes the buying rather than the crying on “If Teardrops Were Pennies.” Even Kris Kristofferson’s new take on “Sunday Morning Coming Down” sounds like nothing so serious as having to disembark at the end of a week at sea.

It’s to Miller’s considerable credit that none of that is a bad thing. A producer and central performer, he keeps things light, as though you’re flipping through vacation photos, but that strategy showcases the amiable dynamic between performers and singers more than the ocean-bound environs. It sounds like it would have been a blast to make, even if they held the sessions in an outhouse or a bank vault.

For nearly a decade, Miller has been a prominent figure on the Cayamo Cruise, which sails from Miami to St. Maarten and Tortola and features a who’s who of roots and country artists. In that time, he’s only missed one boat, and that’s only because he was recovering from a heart attack. It struck him onstage but, professional that he is, he finished the song.

Over the last 40 years, Miller has emerged as one of the most imaginative musicians in Nashville, both on the stage and in the studio. A former Deadhead turned sideman turned producer, he has helmed albums for a mind-boggling range of artists: Shawn Colvin, Emmylou Harris, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the Devil Makes Three, the McCrary Sisters, Dr. Ralph Stanley, and Robert Plant. When Patty Griffin wanted to make a gospel record, he had her sing at the pulpit of the Downtown Presbyterian Church in Nashville, with the band on the floor playing up to her.

“Every record has a story to tell,” he says. “Every record is a whole different world. I don’t come into anything with a preconceived nothing. I might hear things before we go in, but I won’t impose that on an artist. I just hire the players I love and see what’s going to happen.”

Why did you want to make an album on the Cayamo Cruise?

I grew up loving music, in general. I loved blues. I loved rock. I loved folk. I was a Deadhead at the age of 14. When their first record came out, I bought it pretty much for the cover. And then I started going to every show I could make it to, until around ’72 when Porter Waggoner, Tammy Wynette, and Ralph Stanley won that war. I stayed in that country music camp and gradually drifted away from the Dead. But I remember, from that very first show, there was a sense of one big family coming to those Dead shows. Now, it’s legendary and they make movies about it, but even at those first shows, you’d see the same people. They were immediate friends — an extended family. Everybody loved each other and everybody was there for the same reason.

I guess that’s a long way of saying that there’s a similar feeling on the boat, although it’s a different … I hate to use the word “demographic.” Is that what the politicians are using these days? It’s a different set of people, but all with the same heart. They’re all there for the music. It’s not a party boat. It’s a lot of people — 2,000 or 2,500 people — and I just want to hang out with them all. They’re all great. And I thought it would be interesting for them to have the veil pulled back on the process of recording. That’s why I did it. I don’t think people have any idea how records are made. I don’t even know how magical records are made. How does that magic happen? So we’re showing them the nuts and bolts — what musicians do, how they play together in a room, pick a track, fix it up, do all that stuff. I thought that would be of interest to these people that I love. That, and I worked on this television show called Nashville. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it …

Definitely.

I worked on the pilot for Callie [Khouri, who created the show], and then, when the first season got picked up, I worked with T Bone Burnett producing [the music for] it. Most of the things we produced together, I would say. I continued with it, but I think it drove him crazy. I have a higher tolerance for bullshit, I guess. But now I love it and I love the people — especially these two little girls, the Stella Sisters. John Prine was going to be on the cruise, and what I wanted to hear was those two little girls, the Stella Sisters, singing, “Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County?” And then John would come in singing the verses to “Paradise.” It seemed like a good thing to document. It’ll make the sweetest record. Unfortunately, John got sick and couldn’t make it.

But that was where the idea came from. What I do is, I try to engineer collaborations. That’s just how I think: Let’s pair this with that. I think in collaborative terms. I don’t know if it’s because I’m lazy and don’t want to do all the work by myself. But I think it’s because I just want to hear certain things. Shawn Colvin asked me to do a record of hers a while back, and I thought, "You know what? Brian Blade and Bill Frisell. I would love to hear her voice framed by those two musicians." That’s what I’m talking about. It’s all about coming up with your dream teams.

Tell me about setting up a studio on the boat.

I asked one of the engineers I work with, Gordon Hammond, if he wanted to go on this cruise. We bought a bunch of microphones, a lot of gear, and set up in what was a bowling alley on the ship. We managed to turn it into this vibey … I hate that word, “vibey.” It’s very homey and warm, with all our gear set up and the band set up in a circle. There are about 100 chairs, because we couldn’t fit more than that in there and I didn’t want the sound of more than 100 people breathing on the same time to work its way onto the record.

What are some of the challenges that come with recording on a boat?

I guess I don’t look at it that way. There are certainly challenges, like when somebody turned on the wrong light switch. Boats just have a lot of switches on them. We couldn’t always tell what they were for, so somebody turned on the disco ball accidentally and it started blasting some dance song. That was actually a fun moment. And an easy problem to fix. You just don’t want to stop if there’s a flow going. It’s as much about the lighting in the room, the air in the room, how it feels. All of that affects the music. Outside of that, there aren’t really any challenges that are any different from recording on land.

The one and only cruise ship I’ve been on felt very institutional to me. Aside from the scenery and the sun, it didn’t feel like it would be especially conducive to making music.

That could be anywhere. That could be any recording studio. It’s all about … I don’t want to use the word “staging.” I’ve been working on television too long. But it’s about the feel of the room, how close people are together. I like people to be right on each other. You can bring in nice-looking rugs, even on a cruise ship. You can drape things on the wall, turn the lights down. You can make any room feel nice. That’s what we did in that bowling alley, which actually felt pretty nice to begin with. And it felt great when we had it set up and started recording. I think everyone enjoyed themselves — the artists and the audience. They loved to see that recording process, even though this isn’t really the process. The vocals went down with the track, and the track went down fairly complete. Maybe a couple of tracks have two or three overdubs and a few vocal fixes, so it’s not really like making a record. It’s a little more honest than that, but it still gives people a view into that world.

So there’s an instructive or an educational element to this project.

Exactly. I thought, if people love music enough to get on the boat, then they might love to see that process and see how artists say, "You try singing that part. Let’s flip on the chorus, and you take the harmony while I take lead. Let’s leave that line out. Hold the drum till the chorus. Don’t have the bass come in until the fourth bar." All of that stuff is worked out long before the audience gets involved, so they don’t know what goes into it. This is a very, very simplified version, but it’s still something I think they find fascinating.

There’s a nice range of artists on this album. You have younger artists like Kacey Musgraves alongside older singers like Kris Kristofferson. Was that something you were thinking about, that generational exchange?

Yeah. It’s a funny thing: My name is on the record, so I have to be involved somehow, playing or singing or just having a presence on it. My part is very minimal, but I had to be there. If it was just me doing whatever I wanted to do, I probably wouldn’t even be on half of those tracks. I would have put Kacey singing with Kris or someone else, not me. But it’s my record company and my name goes on the album, so I have to do something. I think it’s a good record. I like it. Maybe because I don’t hear myself is why I like it so much. That’s what makes my records so hard to listen to.

Nashville is like no other place in the world for songwriting. People come here from all over the world — songwriters, young singers, all these young women. In addition to the cruise and the television series, I do a radio show on Sirius XM. Usually it’s weekly, or just whenever I can get it done. I have a guest come over every week, and lately I’ve had some of these younger writers that I run into. I find it amazing that they’ve been doing this since the age of 13 or 14. That’s when I knew I was going to be making music for the rest of my life, but some of these kids have already started writing songs. A lot of them have their parents’ support, too. That was something that wasn’t really around, when I was a kid. My parents wanted me to do anything but music, maybe because there was this whole other subculture that was tied to the music. I think there’s less money in it now than there was when I got started. I think. I don’t really know much about that end of it, but it does seem like the music business has dried up. You might know more about that than I do.

I hear conflicting reports. Some people say it’s still possible and there’s great music being made, and others are very pessimistic. I guess it all depends on who I’m talking to.

There’s always great music. Sometimes you just have to look a little harder for it. I think with downloads and iTunes and everything, it’s more about singles than it is about albums. That’s the part I miss. You would make a record. The Grateful Dead made Anthem of the Sun in 1968, and you wouldn’t think about chopping it up into 10 little songs. Ralph Stanley made Something Old Something New back in the early ‘70s and, even though I’m sure there was no intention of it being a themed record, it just flowed together so well that you had to listen to it in that sequence. You wouldn’t want to download just one song. Or Porter Wagoner. He was doing concept records before the Beatles. So I’m glad vinyl’s making a comeback.

I think that’s something that’s overlooked in country music, especially. There are so many incredible singles, but there are a lot of amazing albums, too. Making a good record is a very different process than making a great song.

I don’t know a whole lot of big country artists. Well, I know some, I guess, and I think they still look at it as as making a record. And gosh, when I was growing up — and I’m old! — it was about the single. That’s what got played on the radio, in mono. It was all about the mono mix. So, maybe, in a way it’s not so different; but I would make a point to buy the albums and listen to side one all the way through, then side two. There might be a stinker in the middle of side two, but that was all part of the package.

When you start working with an artist, is that what you’re thinking about as a producer? Are you looking at these projects as albums rather than songs?

Completely. It’s funny you ask that, because I’ve never thought about it. I think that’s because I don’t produce anything that is going to end up where people are going to care about singles. In my mind, the audience is buying an album, so we’re making an album. I just finished a record with Steve Earle and Shawn Colvin — a duets record. They’ve made some incredible records, and all they cared about with this one was the vinyl. Steve, in particular, was very concerned with sequencing for vinyl. We cut a lot of songs together, but we just put enough songs on there that would fit and sound great on vinyl. I’m happy to be thinking along those lines.

That’s one thing I actually went to school for as a kid, was to learn to use a Scully lathe. For most of my life, that was a great skill to have. Then it became pretty useless. I don’t actually have a lathe. I have enough useless stuff in my house that weighs 500 pounds. But I like being around all that old equipment with all of its old smells.

I do think the weight of that equipment — the tactile quality of it, the smell, and look of it — does add to the way you experience music.

I’ve got so many old, heavy microphones. I guess the heaviest one I have is an RCA 44-BX, that big … I don’t know what you call that shape. Not the big egg, but the one with the angles on it. You see Frank Sinatra singing into it all the time. It weighs a ton. It’ll take down any mic stand. It’s a warm mic, a beautiful-sounding mic, so it’s difficult to record with. But I’ll put that up or my old Neumann U47 because they take the singer someplace. You look into that thing; you get up close to it and you can smell it. You look into that thing and you start singing and you think about who has sung into it for decades. That’s part of creating the world that you record in, and it affects the music. There are great new microphones, of course. I keep buying new ones that sound really good, but when it comes to the singer trying to tell a story, you have to give them a mic that’s really been down the road.


Photo credit: CJ Hicks

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

“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.