Quiet Please!

Like a lot of people preoccupied with books I suppose, I would be described as an introvert - someone who instinctively shuns large crowds, noisy gatherings, ostentatious behaviour of any kind, and would rather be out of the limelight (whatever that is) than in it. As a result it's easy sometimes to feel marginalised from daily public discourse, to feel ignored and overwhelmed by the barrage of noisy people with often little of interest to say. And you're more likely to be treated with suspicion if you're naturally quiet - perhaps you're harbouring a secret or witholding information that everybody else feels they have the right to be party to? The infamous spy Kim Philby was the opposite - an extrovert - and hardly anyone suspected him of anything for decades. One of the world's great bluffers. As social networking becomes more popular and you're made to feel hopelessly adrift if you don't at least have a twitter account and a facebook page, and as vacuous celebrity culture continues to obsess the popular media to distraction, it's not surprising that introverts feel increasingly disengaged from society today. Susan Cain makes this point much more eloquently and at greater length in her wonderful book Quiet : The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking (Penguin paperback). I've just finished reading it and already I feel more re-assured about the value of my natural temperament, more confident about my (quiet) ability to make my point (I have this blog! Blogs are a Godsend to introverts!), and more optimistic that eventually enlightened thinking in business, politics, the media etc will start to listen to quiet people more often and more intently. I would hope that Susan Cain's book becomes required reading on any respectable 'management course' and in all responsible boardrooms in the country. She has drawn on a lot of evidence from trials, tests, surveys as well as anecdotal evidence to construct her basic argument that the world would be a better place if introverts were given more opportunity for their voices to be heard and to have their ideas more readily assimilated in public life. The book is not a tirade against extroverts though. Cain is very clear on the idea that extroverts also often have important things to say and that both ends of the temperament spectrum have a lot to offer each other. One of the most interesting things about this book is in fact the way that Cain decribes the differing relationships between introverted and extrovert behaviour - in marriage, business, etc. Perhaps unusually for an introvert (or maybe not - Cain also revealingly and subtly challenges the rigidity of such definitions) I am a football fan. An Arsenal fan to be precise. And one of the enjoyable benefits of reading Quiet is to be able to look at certain people in the public gaze and re-evaluate their behaviour and personality. Last summer Arsenal signed Mesut Özil, a world-class footballer so unlike any other player, temperamentally, at that level of the game that some vociferous voices in football who should know better have actually vilified him for some perceived character flaw that doesn't compel him to behave like a demented, hysterical, headless chicken when he's playing football. They don't trust him! Absurd and dispiriting. Ian Williams highlights the problem very well here : http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2014/08/arsenal-mesut-ozil-silent-gunner.html? Özil was in the German team that won the World Cup. Anyone who still can't appreciate his qualities after that definitely needs to read this book.

HOLIDAY READING

Another long gap between posts I'm afraid. I'm still working on trying to achieve a balance between reading and writing and have been doing much more of the former rather than the latter these past weeks. And I have taken an early summer holiday as well. A week away was just enough time to consume the five Edward St Aubyn 'Melrose' novels which I've somehow missed until now - Melvyn Bragg alerted me to their existence in one of his 'In Our Time' newsletters. They are all completely compelling books that really have to be read in sequence and preferably with a stiff drink to hand. If your idea of a good novel is one in which you can feel empathy with the characters these books are, unless you're a conceited, arrogant, spineless sadist, probably not for you. If beautifully written prose, witty, quasi-philosophical dialogue and superb characterisation are your criteria however then I recommend them without reservation. All five books - Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother's Milk and At Last are heavily autobiographical which renders the early, odious incident that overshadows almost the entire narrative even more shocking. For an excellent, detailed account of St Aubyn's life to date and a critique of these haunting books read Ian Parker's long piece Inheritance in this week's New Yorker.

JESSE WINCHESTER

No blogs for over a month and then an old piece, not about books but about a songwriter! But a pretty great songwriter, one who wrote literate, poignant songs that mostly describe an America that is disappearing before our eyes. I was particularly saddened to hear of the passing of the great Jesse Winchester last week not only because his songs provided so much enjoyment and enrichment, but because he was a thoroughly charming and kind gentleman who gave of his time and talent so generously. It was my very great honour to meet and interview him when he made an all-too-brief visit to this country in 1976 and I also went to see him perform at a noisy and poser-ridden Dingwalls in London. Unfortunately I don't remember too much about the gig but I have very fond memories of the couple of hours I spent in his company discussing his albums (of which he signed my copy of his classic debut). With additional material from the late Giovanni Dadomo who also interviewed Jesse for Sounds, here is a slightly edited version of the piece I wrote for Zigzag in November of that year.

Jesse Winchester was born in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1945, and spent most of his childhood in Memphis where his early interest in music was quickly nurtured. By the time he was six years old he'd been given the standard piano lessons, at age twelve he was playing the organ in church, and by fourteen he’d discovered the guitar and rock 'n' roll.

"The sort of music that I liked then was 'Shake Rattle & Roll', Hank Williams stuff, and any funky music that you could find… there wasn't much of it until Elvis came along."

After a short stint as guitarist in a friend's band, Jesse went to Massachusetts…"They sent me north to give me an education — a gentleman's education"… and somehow or other he ended up in Munich on the pretense of studying German and Philosophy, but in actual fact spent most of his time playing in a band…" just a bar band, a little group. They were all German guys, I was the only American. That was about 1965/66. I came back and finished my last year at school and then I went back down to Memphis and played piano in a cocktail lounge for a while, just treading water really".

The above facts, however, pale in comparison to the next event in Jesse's life, one that changed and re-shaped his career completely. He received his draft papers from Mr. Nixon… and that meant a long Cong-hunting holiday in Vietnam — something that Jesse didn't really fancy, to say the least. He decided instead, on moral grounds, to evade bayonetting courses, and fled to Canada.

"It wasn't an immediate decision; I thought about it awhile, but it didn't take me too long to decide. I asked the advice of people I respected and I'd say it took me two weeks to come to a decision. I didn't know anything about Canada, so I looked it up in reference books to find out which were the large cities and how many provinces there were, and so forth, and in this book it said that Montreal was the largest city, so I went there. Anyway, it sounded like the most cosmopolitan, and it is."

Jesse's first musical venture in Montreal was to join a French-Canadian dance group, a short-lived but interesting collaboration. "Well, I tried to find a straight job at first but I couldn't, so I answered an advertisement in the paper saying that a guitar player was needed — simple as that. It was a good job too — steady; I got $100 a week every week, which was a godsend. I was with them about six months, during which time I learnt to speak French — ostensibly because none of the guys could speak a word of English, so it was pretty good in that way too."

"The band played some real peculiar gigs… boy, did I see the wilds! I suppose it was good in a way, but I got awfully depressed. Our name was the Astronauts, by the way, and I left because the manager wanted us to dress up in leotards with silver lame, a bikini thing, and a kind of football helmet with antennae. So, in my newly adopted tongue, I bade them 'au revoir'.

"While I was with that band, however, I met loads of other musicians, which was another fringe benefit, and we got together another kind of R&B band, and this was actually a nice little band called the John Cold Water Group. We played a little too jazzy and a little too loud for the commercial jobs that we got, though, and finally had to break up because we couldn't make any money on it. We played rhythm 'n' blues, y'know, Sam & Dave, Otis Redding and Ray Charles. I was singing and playing guitar, and we had some really good musicians in that band, all of whom are still making good music. Anyway, after that I went on my own, because I was so fed up with the strictures of life in a band."

It had been in Canada that Jesse first started to write his own material, and his decision to go solo game him the chance to play it. An introduction to Robbie Robertson of the Band, and a subsequent record contract followed with smooth inevitability.

"I met Robbie Robertson in about 1969, I think, in Ottawa. At that point I had written some songs and this friend of mine, who was a deserter from the American army, brought this two-track Ampex recorder up from the States, and we were making a demo tape in the basement of this church. Well, a guy named Gordon Shepherd who was a friend of the guy I was living with, brought Robbie down. The Band had just recorded Big Pink so I was really impressed. Well, anyway, he suggested I make a demo tape, which he would take to Albert Grossman… and that's what happened".

The results of all this was Jesse Winchester's debut album, just titled Jesse Winchester, released in 1970 on the Ampex label, produced by Robbie Robertson and engineered by studio wizard Todd Rundgren.

"We did about ten days to two weeks of recording, then we took the tapes home, listened to them, decided what we liked and what we didn't like, and then came back and did about three more days of revisions and additions. Then Robbie and Todd mixed it — I don’t know where they mixed it — I think it was New York. I wasn't in on the mix."

Debut albums often number among the best of any month's record releases, but Jesse Winchester's first has got to be among the most beautifully poignant, warm and inspiring debuts I've ever heard. Ed Ward in Rolling Stone wrote ecstatically about it, saying that "every patriotic American should listen to Jesse Winchester, the man who loved it and left it, because his songs transcend all barriers with the exception of one: art." Melody Maker's Richard Williams was about the first journalist over here to discover him, predicting that "if his first album is anything to go by, Winchester will be a giant before long." (It didn't get released over here until very recently, by the way). Our man Dadomo has discussed the album, along with the two subsequent releases, at great length in a previous Zigzag article, and as I agree almost totally with his sentiments I will dwell on this most exquisite of albums no longer, except to say that the opening track on side two, 'Yankee Lady', reduces me to warm jelly and leaves me grinning like an idiot.

Winchester's next album, Third Down, 110 To Go, arrived approximately two years later, apparently having taken most of that time to make. It's produced by Jesse himself except for three tracks which come from an earlier session produced by Todd Rundgren.

"We tried to make an album, Todd and me. And we did make an album, but it just didn't really work apart from the three tracks I used. Todd comes from a sort of Who tradition, if there is a tradition there, and I'm older than that, and it just didn't work that well. But I think the world of Todd — he's gotta be one of the most talented people I know. So it's no kind of bad reflection on him, it’s just the combination."

The critics went suitably potty about the album, which unlike its predecessor did get a fairly immediate release over here. It didn't really move in vast quantities, although in the States it's supposed to have sold more than 100,000 copies. Jesse is, of course, unable to risk returning to the States for fear of being thrown in the draft dodgers’ penitentiary, so he's never had the opportunity to play there on his own and capitalize on his fairly substantial cult figure status.

By way of digression (for all you sports fans), the title Third Down 110 To Go concerns Canadian football. "The title plays on the difference between Canadian and American football. In American football the field is 100 yards long and in Canadian football it's 110. And in American football you get four chances, or four downs, to move the ball ten yards, whereby you earn another four downs to move another ten yards, and so on. In Canadian football you only have three downs to make ten yards, so if it's third down 110 to go, it means you're all the way up the other end of the field and it's your last chance. So it's sort of a desperate situation. If you were in America playing American football you'd be behind your own goal-line". So much for the theories about the title being a reference to the third album having been recorded (the second being the abortive attempt with Rundgren), leaving only 110 to go before the expiry of his contract!

Two other points of interest concerning Third Down. Firstly, it contains the legendary 'Midnight Bus' mentioned at the beginning of this article, and secondly it features the exemplary guitar work of Amos Garrett, for whom Jesse (and every knowledgeable guitar freak I know) holds the highest regard.

"Todd brought him along to some of those sessions we did; that's how I met him. I don't know what to say about Amos' playing, it's just… the best. A musician's musician, as they say."

In between albums, Jesse continued his modest career of gigging around Canada either alone or with small groups, the most notable of which was a trio called Jesse Winchester and the Rhythm Aces — consisting of drummer Butch McDade and bassist Jeff Davis. When they finally parted company with Jesse they became the Amazing Rhythm Aces along with Barry 'Byrd' Burton, Billy Earhart, James Hooker and Russell Smith, and if you remember, they had a rather large hit in America last year with a song written by Russell Smith called 'Third Rate Romance'. Smith is the group's principal songwriter (and a very good one at that), and through his association with McDade and Davis, Jesse became aware of him and recorded two of his songs on his own third album Learn To Love It.

One of the songs was 'Third Rate Romance'… and while another Winchester album rode waves of critical acclaim that seemed to work in inverse proportion to sales figures, Jesse sat back and watched, with a wry smile, as the Amazing Rhythm Aces' version of 'Third Rate Romance' sailed into the charts approximately one year later. One suspects that his total lack of commercial success doesn't worry Winchester that much (although he says it would enable him to live more comfortably and be able to buy some much needed recording equipment); he's not exactly a prolific writer and four albums in over six years, however good, are hardly enough to keep one bubbling in publicity.

"I'm really slow. I'm naturally lazy, plus I haven't been tremendously successful in financial terms, so there's not an awful lot of pressure from the company for me to produce more records… and without that pressure I don't do anything, I just sit around."

So Jesse Winchester cruises along… doing very little except making fabulous records, as his new one (again two years after its predecessor) proves convincingly. Titled Let The Rough Side Drag, it consists of eleven Winchester originals plus a Hill/Schroeder song called 'It Takes More Than A Hammer And Nails To Make A House A Home'. There's the typical mixture of beautifully controlled rock numbers, interspersed with the more characteristic ballads that Jesse is such a craftsman at writing and performing. 'Lay Down The Burden', 'Blow On, Chilly Wind', 'How About You' and 'As Soon As I Get On My Feet' are exceptionally good songs bearing all the Winchester trademarks of unpretentiousness, earthiness, simplicity, warmth and genuine poignancy. It is definitely a superior album and one that will remain a favorite of mine for a long time. A fair number of local Montreal musicians were used on the album, including the three people who are currently in his band and accompanied him over here earlier this year: Marty Harris (bass), Chris Castle (drums) and Bobby Cohen (guitar).

"Marty and I have been together for about a year, and the other two guys came along last November. This is by far the best band that I've had, and they all have their own musical lives, so I imagine that it'll be the longest lasting. I have no intention of changing. They all write music themselves and they play with other people, so they're not gonna get bored."

And that really is basically the Jesse Winchester story to date. Apart from the draft-dodging episode, his career has been fairly unspectacular even though his work has been of the highest calibre. Songs such as 'Yankee Lady', ‘The Brand New Tennessee Waltz’ and 'Biloxi' are surely destined to become standards having already been admired and covered by people like Tim Hardin and Brewer & Shipley ('Yankee Lady'); The Everly Brothers and Joan Baez ('The Brand New Tennessee Waltz'); and Tom Rush and Ian Matthews ('Biloxi'). Also, none other than Wilson Pickett recorded a Jesse Winchester song called 'Isn't That So'.

True, his enforced exile from his own country has given him a perspective on America that few writers possess and even now it still gives him a identity that adds fuel to his cult figure status. As of 1972 he became a Canadian citizen, and he now considers Canada his home.

"You become a character or something, you know, and people hang all these concepts on you. But in reality I'm not weeping over Mississippi or anything like that. I don't have any more nostalgia for my old hometown than you do for yours, it's just the same thing; you can't go back to your childhood, no-one can. Even though I'm legally constrained from going back to the United States, it really doesn't make that much difference to me, thank God. The way the Lord gives us this selective amnesia, it's really a blessing."

© Andy Childs, 1976

The Oxford American

If you haven't discovered the Oxford American magazine yet (its annual music issue is essential reading) here's a link to a recent essay by John Jeremiah Sullivan that will give you an example of the quality of writing that it represents : http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2014/feb/18/chop-upbeat/.

Book of the Week : Tenth of December by George Saunders (Bloomsbury pbk)

Long-time New Yorker readers will be well-familiar with the stories of George Saunders and his black-humoured dystopian take on a near-future America and, by natural extension, the rest of the modern world. If the worlds that Saunders writes about are fairly scary in their creeping idiocy and totalitarianism his characters are nevertheless recognisably human and essentially good people, battling against seemingly impossible odds to maintain their dignity and optimism. His stories are also very, very funny. The Tenth of December is not his first collection of short stories but it may well be his best. There are ten pieces here, the pick of which for me are The Semplica Girl Diaries and My Chivalric Fiasco. They are not always a straightforward read as, without way of introduction to the world you are about to read about, Saunders often jumps straight into a situation and narrative that only becomes comprehensible and often chillingly recognizable after a few pages. I have to admit that I had to read the title story twice before I had a clue as to what was going on. No hardship though. I can imagine reading the whole book again before too long and hope that Mr.Saunders keeps writing stories of this quality for some time to come.

Other George Saunders books :

Civilwarland In Bad Decline

Pastoralia

The Brain-Dead Megaphone

In Persuasion Nation

The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

Slightly Foxed

The new issue of Slightly Foxed (No.41, Spring 2014) arrived this morning and as usual the day threatened to grind to a halt. I am slowly learning to resist the urge to find a quiet corner and consume its 96 pages in one gulp and to ration my reading over the three months before the next issue. And so I've just read the first essay - a review of Lewis Thomas' groundbreaking The Lives Of A Cell : Notes of a Biology Watcher by Richard Mabey - which is as eloquent and persuasive as you would expect, but what intrigued me was the constant references to the brilliant and really badly-missed Vole magazine that Mabey contributed to and that was edited by one of my heroes - the late Richard Boston. I have every issue of Vole and still refer to it regularly for its timeless and often prescient nuggets of ecological wisdom. In the footnote to Mabey's piece it mentions that he "still yearns for the resurrection of a New Vole". What an overwhelmingly welcome event that would be!

Joseph Mitchell's Secret

Good piece in Vanity Fair on the background to the great Joseph Mitchell's masterpiece Joe Gould's Secret - http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2014/02/joe-gould-secret-mystery