Music Feature: Bob and Willie

MAVERICK MUSIC-MAKERS
Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson Bring Ballpark Americana to Grayson Stadium

Yes, it’s true. Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson are coming.

On Saturday.

At Grayson Stadium.

In Savannah.

The show is part of a three-month tour of minor-league ballparks in small towns throughout the South and Midwest — towns such as Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Clearwater, Fla., and Greensboro, N.C., among 24 more.

Why ballparks?

“It’s a great atmosphere to present their music,” says Don Sullivan, promoter for Jam Productions, the company handling the tour. “Ballparks are as Americana as it gets.”

Sullivan said the idea of performing in ballparks came from a desire to play in smaller markets (e.g., Altoona, Pa., Salisbury, Md.) where the only outdoor venue would be a minor-league ballpark.

Sullivan approached Dylan with the idea last year. After accepting the offer, Dylan invited Willie Nelson to come along. The tour averaged about 7,000 attendants per show, Sullivan said. On the final day of the tour, Dylan said he wanted to do it again.

“Ultimately, it’s about the fan’s experience,” Sullivan said. “That’s why we’re doing something like this that’s fun and different.”

The other question on everyone’s mind is why these two? Why not Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. Or Bob Dylan and Robbie Robertson?

Only Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen, some say, would be an odder couple.

“I don’t know,” says Sullivan. “That was Bob’s decision.”

Last year’s tour, which did not include Savannah, saw more than 150,000 people in 20-plus cities buy tickets to see the icons of American music share billing.

On Saturday night, Bob and Willie will perform separate sets, as Willie Nelson & the Family and Bob Dylan & His Band. The Greencards, an Americana band, will open the show. There is no ball game the night of the concert.

“What we aim to do is hit the ball out of the park, touch all the bases and get home safely,” Dylan said, in a press release, of last summer’s tour.

This is Nelson’s second time in Savannah this year. He performed at Johnny Mercer Theatre on Feb. 5 to a nearly sold-out audience.

Thoughts on Bob and Willie’s togetherness
Why did Bob pick Willie?

Only Bob knows.

But you could also ask, why not?

Lyrically, yes they differ a lot. Nelson’s tales of love, rambling and lonesomeness (“Crazy,” “On the Road Again,” “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”) stand in contrast to Dylan’s political parables and poetic everyman musings (“The Times They Are A-Changin’,” “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Blowin’ in the Wind”).

Musically, though, they share a lot in common. Sure, Nelson has written mostly in the vernacular of country, but Dylan has written songs in so many styles that it’s hardly surprising to see that he’s invited Nelson to share billing, especially a tour as down-home as a minor-league ballpark tour.

The parallels run deeper. Both are mavericks whose rebellious streaks fortunately paid off. Nelson broke away from Professional Nashville to become, with Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard, the vanguard of so-called “outlaw” country (that is, country music that staunchly remained, by God, country music).

Dylan, for his part, galvanized the folk movement of the early 1960s — reverent as it was of the “authentic” sounds of acoustic instruments — just to kill it off during that notorious moment in 1965 when he took the stage at the Newport Folk Festival armed with an electric guitar and the electrified Butterfield Blues Band.

These days, that outsider spirit remains strong, but is so celebrated as to be normal. No matter what they do at this point in their lives, people will forever love Bob and Willie. And nothing’s going to change that.

Nelson re-recorded and released earlier this year his greatest hits, simply called “Songs,” while at the same time continued indulging his taste for the silver screen by playing the part of Uncle Jesse in the movie-adaptation of “The Dukes of Hazzard,” to be released this summer. Nelson is, moreover, recording for the film a cover of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made for Walking” with co-star and bottle-blonde sensation Jessica Simpson, who plays Daisy Duke.

Dylan has aged a little more sagely. Along with near-constant touring, an autobiography of Bob Dylan, called “Chronicles, Vol. 1,” was released last year, along with a sixth volume of his bootleg live recordings.

Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson have touched thousands with their music over the years. We talked to five readers about their memories of each performer. Here is what we found out.

‘Willie in Japan’
“I was a stewardess on a German freighter for 27 years. One day in the 1980s, we were approaching Kobe in Japan. All the way along the coast I heard Willie Nelson on the radio. It was so unusual. Then the radio said there would be a concert the same evening we’d be in the port of Osaka, not far from Kobe. As soon as we came ashore, we got the newspaper. There was ad in the paper. I called the entertainment editor of the newspaper and explained my situation. I told him I wanted to see Willie in Japan, but that I can’t buy a ticket. He said to give him my name, go to Osaka and pick up tickets there. And he got them for me. Can you believe that? I saw Willie Nelson in Japan. The show was sold out. Japanese were dressed in cowboy boots and hats. I saw him again in Savannah on my birthday in 2002. After the show, I gave him the program of the Japan concert to autograph. It read ‘Feb. 25, 1984.’ He hesitated, then grinned. He signed it in Savannah 18 years after the concert in Japan.”
Beatrice Archer, 59, Savannah

‘I touched his jacket’
“When I was 13 years old, we took the train from the Bronx to Greenwich Village where everyone hung out around the fountain in Washington Square Park. Dylan would be there wearing a harmonica in a holder around this neck and a corduroy cap. We’d stand behind him while be played. Once, I touched his jacket. It was very, very exciting. I also went to see the first real concert he did. It was at Carnegie Recital Hall. The place was small and very crowded. He sauntered in an hour late and mumbled some excuse. No one had left and no one was sorry. Not long after that, he played with Joan Baez. She was the star. She brought him along. She was wearing a loose-fitting long skirt, was barefoot and the electricity between them was pretty powerful. That concert made him famous.”
Susan Earl, 58, Savannah

‘His go-to-hell attitude with the I.R.S.’
“I’ve been a fan since I could walk good. Even since I was a child, I’ve been a rebel without a cause. Willie was my idol. I always liked his go-to-hell attitude with the I.R.S. His I.R.S. tapes were my favorite recordings. When I got in trouble with the I.R.S., I modeled my personality on his. I came out the victor in the long run, too. I was disabled for more than 10 years. After that, you don’t owe anything. At a live show, you feel Willie reaching out and touching everyone in the audience. I feel a part of the show. He makes you feel like he’s looking right at you. Willie has something special.”
Jack Hamrick, 49, Savannah

‘I am now relegated to being a roadie for Willie’s biggest groupie’
I have to say Willie Nelson’s biggest fan would unequivocally be my wife. This especially holds true at his concerts. At these shows, I am usually but an escort, though I will receive the occasional glance accompanied by, ‘Isn’t this great?’ When we got married, I had not yet learned that Sandi was a Williehead. But it didn’t take long. When she discovered he was coming to town to play at the Roundhouse a few years back, she was ecstatic. I, however, was perplexed. She told me she had always been a Willie fan, that she had seen him many years ago, but that it had been so long ago that she ‘just had to see him again.’ From there it was all Willie, Willie, Willie. I am now relegated to being a roadie for Willie’s biggest groupie here in Savannah. Whenever Sir Willie is anywhere within a decent driving distance, I know where I will be on that night. And through it all, I must admit, I have come to enjoy the shows.”
Don Newman, 45, Savannah

‘Will you marry me?’
“When my husband and I were dating in the spring of 1980, we went to a Willie Nelson concert. We had second-row seats and the concert was awesome. In the middle of one of the songs my now-husband turned to me and said, ‘Will you marry me?’ This caught me by surprise, because we hadn’t really ever talked about getting married. I immediately said yes to his proposal as Willie sang on. As the concert was ending, we made our way towards the stage and Willie handed my husband his guitar pick. My husband handed it to me and said if we ever divorce he’d get the guitar pick. This June 28 will be our 25-year wedding anniversary. I still have the guitar pick stored in a safe place. We will always remember our night with Willie and we are still his biggest fans.”
Jan Norton, 45, Rincon

Can the Red-headed Stranger and Mr. Tambourine Man beat the Famous Chicken?

The real question behind Saturday night’s concert is not where Bob and Willie are playing or why they are playing together.

The real question is whether these icons of American music can top the Famous Chicken.

Not too long ago, huge crowds flocked to see that famed baseball mascot from San Diego.

Year after year, they came by the thousands. At his peak, the Famous Chicken, otherwise known as Ted Giannoulas, attracted 4,500 fans to Grayson Stadium. Even people who were not fans of baseball wanted to witness his madcap high jinks.

But can Bob and Willie bring in that many people? And even if they did, can they bring in a margin great enough to reflect their legendary status? If a sports clown can draw 4,500 people, surely Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson can attract twice as many, right?

Perhaps not.

As of last Friday, about 3,500 tickets had sold. That number includes tickets sold by Grayson Stadium and by Ticketmaster. About 10,000 have been printed for the show. If all of them go, the show would be an official sell-out. But officials at Grayson Stadium are skeptical of selling out.

“We won’t sell out,” says Brad Dodson, general manager of the stadium.

Dodson predicts about 6,500 tickets will be sold. Pre-sale numbers already exceed expectation, he says. But much is riding on Savannah’s reputation as a “walk-up” market — that is, waiting until the day before or the day of a concert to buy tickets.

Concerts at Grayson Stadium haven’t proved successful so far this year. Country singer Sammy Kershaw, whose ’90s hits include “She Don’t Know She’s Beautiful” and “Queen of My Double Wide Trailer,” was brought in to beef up opening weekend attendance. But fewer than 2,300 showed up that Saturday, not much more or less than what’s typical for opening weekend. A small concert by a local group also failed to increase attendance.

“We weren’t looking to draw huge numbers of people,” Dodson explains. “Those concerts were intended to add value to the games.”

It doesn’t matter how many people come to the Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson show, Dodson says, because Grayson is only the venue. Jam Productions, the company promoting the tour, is taking all the risk. If attendance fails to meet expectation, it’s no loss for the home team.

But Grayson does have a stake in Saturday night’s turnout. The historic ballpark, under new ownership this year, hopes to draw audiences with events not related to baseball. For five months of the year, the field generates incomes, Dodson says. But for the other seven, Grayson lies dormant.

Therefore, negotiations are currently under way with a national promoter to secure another big-name musical act later this season. No contracts have been signed yet, which means nothing is certain. But Dodson is confidant Grayson, the largest outdoor venue in Savannah, can be a viable concert location.

“We want to see this happen again,” Dodson says. “This is the first of many.”

Size, unfortunately, doesn’t matter as much as consistency and appeal. So far, music hasn’t proved able to produce either.

Perhaps we need to bring back the Chicken.

Savannah Morning News
June 2, 2005

Music Feature: Boomer rock or geezer schlock?

BOOMER ROCK OR GEEZER SCHLOCK?
Two views on the music and times of four decades ago

Why I love Crosby, Stills & Nash
They came from The Buffalo Springfield, the Hollies and the Byrds to form the world’s first vocal supergroup. Woodstock was their free-wheeling debut. Neil Young was their cantankerous fourth wheel.

They sang about teaching children well and about the shooting of innocents at Kent State. In all, they helped bring the anti-war movement into focus and immortalized the spirit of the 1960s, a potent influence still felt by millions of Americans today.

That’s the legend. But what do real people think? We talked to three fans planning to see the legendary trio. Here’s what they had to say.

“As an aging hippie, we’re all excited,” says Terry Buckley, 60, of Hilton Head Island, S.C. “We all know the words to every song. The nostalgia factor takes you back, in my case, to college and to that whole crazy ’60s scene.

“The music was a part of that lifestyle, with Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. Crosby, Stills & Nash were unique in terms of harmony and had pretty wide appeal back then, even now. They draw people in their teens all the way through their 60s.

“I spent a lot of money in my youth on albums, but this is the first time for me to see them in concert. It’s like coming full circle. We geezers will be singing along.”

“I grew up in the folk-rock era and Crosby, Still & Nash fell into that category,” says Henry Burnett, 55, of Bluffton, S.C. “Their music always had some kind of message plus catchy tunes that you can sing along to.

“A test of truly good music is that years later you can still sing the words and they can still mean something to you.

“I’m very much looking forward to the concert. I have never seen them live before. You always wonder if someone is as good live as they are in the studio.”

“They have fantastic chemistry,” says David Gall, 47, of Hilton Head. “They’ve all had separate careers and they never have been together for a long time. They just get together occasionally.

“They harmonize well, they have fantastic instrumentals and they have enduring songs that seem to be relevant no matter what time you’re in, whether the ’60s or today.

“It’s exciting to see them, because I’ve always been a fan of their music. I believe the concert will be fantastic.”

The summer’s hottest ticket
Crosby, Stills & Nash is the fastest-selling concert of the year, according to officials at High Tide Entertainment, the group that promotes the Hargray Summer Concert Series on Hilton Head Island, S.C.

“There seems to be a lot of excitement,” says Gregg Russell, co-owner.

There were 100 tickets remaining as of last week.

Tickets are selling quickly for two reasons.

One is that Hilton Head, unlike Savannah, is not a walk-up market. People tend to buy tickets in advance and not the day of the show.

“A promoter’s nightmare,” Russell says of walk-up crowds.

The other reason is CSN’s name-recognition.

“They have all sold a lot of records, have successful touring careers and are still playing songs we all want to hear,” Russell says.

High Tide has had the most success with that baby-boomer category, whether with the Doobie Brothers, Chicago, the Beach Boys, or Earth, Wind & Fire. Each has sold out since High Tide began promoting concerts five years ago.

The biggest fan of them all
When we talked to David Marshall, 54, we learned more about Crosby, Stills & Nash than we ever thought possible. The Savannah resident has seen CSN more than 25 times individually and has seen them as a group on at least a dozen occasions. He even has the original ticket of his first CSN show. Here’s our chat with Marshall, a man we’re calling “the biggest fan of them all.”

Diversions: Why do you like CSN?

David Marshall: They were one of the first true harmony groups. No one did what they did. They were the cream of the crop from earlier bands, the first supergroup. I’ve never seen a group like them. The fact that they can still do it is amazing. All of them are in the early 60s and they still sound vocally the same as they did then.

Diversions: When did you first see them?

Marshall: I saw them for the first time in 1969, after Woodstock. They came on stage and the audience was mesmerized. The way they sang harmony, it was like they were born to sing together. And they could rock, too.

Diversions: Did you ever meet them?

Marshall: I’ve met them all in one way or another, David especially. It was 1971 on my 21st birthday. I was like a kid at Christmas. Then I saw them in Jacksonville. I told David about the first time I met him and he looked at me as if to say “You expect me to remember that.”

Diversions: What else?

Marshall: Some say they were egomaniacs. But this is the truth: They were good and they knew they were good. But they shared it with everybody. Of all the people who played Woodstock, they were the most memorable. That was their second gig. They were born there. Anyone who appreciates good harmony should see these guys.

Boomer rock or geezer schlock?: Two views on the music and times of four decades ago
Crosby, Stills & Nash is only one of the many aging baby-boomer bands still rocking in the free world. The Rolling Stones will also be on tour come Aug. 21 and, once again, Mick Jagger will swivel his hips and strut the catwalk, telling the world that even now, as a grandfather and senior citizen, he can’t get no satisfaction.

You’d think that the Stones could have found a way, at a combined age that exceeds 240, to satiate their hunger for sex, money and fame. After all, the hoary-headed hipsters have, since 1989, earned an estimated $2 billion. That doesn’t include albums or merchandise. That’s tickets sales alone, more money than any rock band has ever made.

Ever.

Still, why shouldn’t the Stones, and their baby-boomer brethren, continue to tour? They still have great songs and still put on a great show. There’s nothing wrong with people paying $100 dollars to hear songs they love performed by a band they love.

For others, however, the issue isn’t about the Stones’ music or their popularity. It’s about the relevance and vitality of rock ‘n’ roll.

Rock ‘n’ roll was born of rebellion. It spoke for an entire generation that hoped to die before it got old.

Jagger’s persona, in particular, was embraced by America’s youth because it was crude, lewd and offensive. He was the Marilyn Manson of his day, spreading illicit carnal knowledge that flew in the face of prudish American sensibilities and challenged the mores of “the establishment.”

But these days, Jagger is part of that establishment. He is a British knight. He is wealthy. His tour is sponsored by Ameriquest.

For many, this turn of events exemplifies the paradox of boomer rock bands: They evoke the spirit of rebellion, but have nothing to rebel against. Except maybe themselves, which make the Stones’ tour particularly postmodern.

To get a better understanding of where people stand on this issue, if you can call it an issue at all, we contacted several people, mostly musicians, to make the call.

Boomer rock or geezer schlock?

Here’s what we found out.

ROCK

“I can understand why youth would feel disenfranchised by the Stones. But you can’t relate the Stones with Crosby, Stills & Nash. They were the ones who stood up and took the protest song to a new level. That kind of thing is lost on youth today, because we don’t have a draft. When I was 16, I was looking at a couple more years before getting drafted. Crosby, Stills & Nash went out and said it and really galvanized the anti-war movement. I wouldn’t pay money to see the Stones, but I would for Crosby, Stills & Nash. Just out of respect.”
- John Banks, 52, leader of the Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love

“The anti-establishment argument is silly. As soon as anybody signs a deal with a record company, they have become a part of the establishment. Some artists say they’re against the establishment. No, they’re not. They’re trying to make a buck. That’s just the reality. To the artists, it’s about the music. I always loved Crosby, Stills & Nash and that whole Neil Young thing. I was listening to more of them than the Rolling Stones.”
- John Tisbert, 46, leader of Eat Mo’ Music

“The real question is, has the music outlived itself? I don’t think so. The music of Crosby, Stills & Nash served a purpose. It gave us clear melodies, rich harmonies and interesting instrumental portions. Who does it serve today? The exact same people, baby boomers like me. Take those four voices. All of them are mediocre at best. Put them together and they are powerful, like a church choir on Sunday morning. I’ve heard them solo. None of them knocked me out. But together, they are breathtaking. Nobody can copy those guys. They were original, they are original, they are an American original.”
- Annie Allman, 58, owner of Annie’s Guitars

SCHLOCK

“Rock is always going to be about screwing the establishment. It’s what art’s about. It has nothing to do with making money. I think, as a musician, that every musician, if he’s smart, will do everything he can to capitalize on his art. If you want to do what the Stones do for as long as they have done it, you have to go with the system. If a corporation wants to get involved in a concert or tour, you want to choose who you associate with carefully. But the Stones don’t care. They want to put on as big a production as they can.”
- Stewart Marshall, 36, of Stewart and Winfield

“I would like to think they are not corporate machines. I think the popularity is part nostalgia. People like my parents want to relive the old days. Crosby, Stills & Nash have been doing it for so long, it’s become second nature. I hope that when I’m 61, I can get up the energy that Mick Jagger does. But tickets are too much. They are charging tickets for a worth-it show, but it’s for the baby boomers who can afford tickets, dinner and hotel rooms. I’ve heard “Bridges to Babylon.” It seemed like a revamping of old Keith Richards licks.”
- Jason Bible, 28, guitarist of the Train Wrecks

“Stop pretending you’re not 1,000 years old. You have to play within your age bracket. When you are a certain age, you have to realize that, especially with a screw-the-system attitude and now becoming a cog in the industry machine. Jagger has the crowd now because of who he is, not what he plays. He should leave the hard rocking to the 20-somethings. Maybe they feel young, but they don’t look young. You’d rather watch some go-go dancers than watch a 60-year-old man. I love the music, but leave the stage show to the young guys. Some things you just need to accept.”
- Stephen Riddle, 27, drummer of Argyle

Savannah Morning News
August 11, 2005

Music Feature: Is Southern Rock Dead?

‘SOUTHERN ROCK ISN’T DEAD; IT JUST SMELLS FUNNY’
Why different people say the genre is ‘indispensable’ ‘country music’ that’s ‘lost its roots.’

When we first heard about the concert by the Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd, we knew we had to write a story that goes beyond the literal hundreds of stories already written about them.

We could have interviewed band members Gregg Allman or Johnny Van Zant. We could have peppered the interviews with bits of rock ‘n’ roll trivia, such as how Duane Allman revolutionized guitar playing, how Ronnie Van Zant was a brilliant and underappreciated songwriter, and how both died too young.

We could have, in short, told you once again how great this great music is.

But we didn’t do that. If we had, we’d ultimately have spilled a lot of ink telling you a lot of what you already know a lot about.

So we decided to ask people in the community their thoughts on one of the South’s greatest exports. And the question we kept coming to was this: Is Southern rock dead?

Sure, it’s the kind of question that can get you shot in some parts of the South. But it’s a valid question, not least because Southern rock, if it’s still alive, isn’t what it used to be.

And we might add that there’s no agreement on what Southern rock actually is. Some defined it in stylistic terms. Others defined it in terms of geography. Even David W. Matthew, professor of music at Georgia Southern University, told us that “your definition of Southern rock is as good as mine.”

So the question remains: Is Southern rock, as we know it, dead?

It’s alive for those who want it to be alive, but for others, its time has passed , says Joseph Johnson, curator of music and popular culture at the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in Macon. “Like grunge, it ran its course. But the most important aspect of the Southern rock bands was that they wanted to play and were willing to play for free. I’m struck by the difference between that and what you find on ‘American Idol,’ where people are manufactured into stars. These guys wanted to make music whether no one listened or millions listened. But socially the ingredients were right for the making of this music as an interaction between whites and blacks. There was a lot of interaction and a lot of copying going on. Only after the Allmans became mainstream did record companies start calling it ‘Southern rock.’”

Southern rock isn’t dead, it just smells funny , says Kevin Rose, guitarist for Superhorse and GAM and owner of Elevated Basement Studios, paraphrasing Frank Zappa’s famous remark about jazz. “Southern rock is definitely not on the forefront. Like anything else, music is fashionable and subject to trends. It’s perhaps less about style and more about attitude, what I refer to as The Life — living a certain way and writing about it. A lot of the songs were about the roots of Southernness and still are about those roots. The triumvirate of music for me is great songs coupled with great music played by great musicians. I would add a fourth leg to the triumvirate, and that would be a soul that’s not hidden beneath high-brow pretension — you get what you see. I miss the musicians that came along with that, because it’s not as evident anymore. The people you see in magazines are about image, not the music.

If it’s not dead, it’s hard to recognize nowadays , says John Merchant, co-music director of SCAD Radio. “Many genres of music that achieved a height of influence are still felt in new bands. ZZ Top took Southern rock and added a Robert Palmer flavor to it. In Blind Melon, you can see the influence of the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Plus there are scores of indie-rock bands who are big fans of Neal Young. I don’t know if it’s apparent that Southern rock is still around. If you ask someone if they like Southern rock bands nowadays, it might be hard for them to name one.”

It’s alive, but Southerners don’t exclusively own it anymore , says Jon Kolko, habitue of Savannah’s music scene and creator of Savannahunderground.com. “I detect a celebration of Southernness, an embracing of it instead of a belittling of it. But it’s being embraced by college kids and people from the North. So it’s more about ideology than it is about geography. But once a kind of music gets big enough to have a niche name, it’s lost of a lot of its roots. And that, to me, is when it starts to become interesting. It loses its dogma and becomes available to a wider array of people, not just its core audience. In my view, music goes from being underground to being more experimental and then to falling into the pop-culture abyss. It’s that middle stage that’s interesting. That’s where Southern rock is now.”

You could say that Southern rock is Southern, but it doesn’t cover all Southerners , says Keisha Matadin, owner of Club Oz. “You’re talking about that country music. I really don’t listen to it. I’ve heard of Lynyrd Skynyrd, but don’t listen to their songs. It’s like going to a pastor of a church and asking him about rap music. He wouldn’t know what you’re talking about. That’s what it’s like for you to ask me about Lynyrd Skynyrd.”

Perhaps, but the music of the 1970s was so good, it will live on forever , says Jerry Rogers, general manager of WRHQ 105.3 FM. “Are they making hit records these days? No. Are the Rolling Stones or the Eagles? No. But the music was better then. It was indispensable. These artists had careers with legs. Current artists don’t have that. In another generation, will people remember Britney Spears or Jessica Simpson? No. It was very cool and very trendy to be Southern back then. Music out of the South used to be just regional, then all of a sudden, it went nationwide. But the fact that it became cool to be Southern was a very surface thing. In the end, it has to be in the grooves. You can’t hype this stuff.”

That’s true, but you can’t make comparisons between then and now, because Southern rock will never be here again , says Zach Paige, a record collector and junior at Georgia Southern University. “It’s true there was more passion back in the ’70s. That feeling is lost now, especially with the jam bands. A lot of that music is superficial, empty and all noodlely — that’s all the jam band thing is to me. It’s what the hippie movement has become, to the point where people say they are hippies because they wear hemp necklaces. To me, that was a movement, a mental state of mind that will never be here again. You could say the same for Southern rock. They were Southern and identified with the theme of being poor and living in the country. You can’t compare jam bands to that, because Southern rock will never be here again. There’s no Southern rock bands anymore, just jam bands. It gets sickening.”

The question isn’t between being dead or alive; it’s between being a pretender or contender , says T. Ballard Lesemann, a musician living in Charleston who has recorded with Elf Power, Kevn Kinney, Widespread Panic, Roosevelt, the Daisy Group, Rock*a*teens, Shannon Wright, Vic Chestnut and Hayride. “In the last 1980s, you had a resurgence of Southern rock — that post-Skynyrd redneck vibe brimming behind the Confederate-battle-flag, beer-swilling biker-mama crap. Those are the bands (Molly Hatchet, .38 Special, Atlanta Rhythm Section) that keep touring even though half the band is dead. But then you hear bands like Widespread Panic and Gov’t Mule. There’s some pretty high-tech music going on there. You don’t hear them on the FM dial, yet they are wildly popular. Southern rock does exist. Stylistically, there are hundreds influenced by the sophisticated rock of the Allman Brothers. But there are others simply on the bandwagon.”

Savannah Morning News
May 19, 2005

Concert Review: Pianist Christopher Taylor

Messiaen draws the very best from Christopher Taylor
Demanding 176-page score to “Vingt Regards sur L’enfant Jesus” is presented as an accessible modernist work

Faith, divinity and mathematical mysticism burst forth last night as pianist Christopher Taylor performed a bold, magisterial and reverent rendition of Olivier Messiaen’s “Vingt Regards Sur L’Enfant Jesus (Twenty Ways of Looking at the Infant Jesus)” at the Wesley Monumental United Methodist Church.

It was the first of the Art of Solo Piano Series, part of this year’s Savannah Music Festival and though not as anticipated as Anton Kuerti’s four-hour performance of Beethoven’s last four piano sonatas Tuesday night, a Herculean effort by any measure, Taylor’s Savannah debut (20 movements, two and a quarter hours, a muscular task all its own) had the distinction of being one of symmetry – one man, one work, one extraordinary performance.

A very physical musician of stunning grace and power, Taylor gave Savannah an evening to remember, conveying with seemingly deep faith the devote work of Messiaen. Messiaen was a French composer who fought in World War II and survived a German prison-of-war camp, where he composed his most famous work, “Quartet for the End of Time.” He held close a profound Roman Catholic spirituality that set him apart from the avant-garde of the time, and aided by a resolute eccentricity, this ultimately elevated him to singular status as one of the most influential figures in modern music (his disciples include Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez, among others).

Last night, Savannah seemed to sense the depth of the evening from the onset. The small but intensely focused gathering received “Twenty Ways” with exuberance and appreciation, the fervor of which was fueled perhaps by blustery winds and a threatening vernal rain.

“Twenty Ways” was finished in 1944 and differs greatly from contemporary music of the time. While his compatriots (and devotees of the Western canon) were still wrestling with the impenetrability of atonal serialism, Messiaen followed his own muses, adapting Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve-tone row (the basis for serialism) to his own harmonic system, which he used like a painter’s palette to color his vision of the world.

The result, in Taylor’s capable hands, was an unconventional modernist work that was strangely accessible. Beyond the more than 20 ways of describing Messiaen’s “Twenty Ways” – haunting, ethereal, disturbing, explosive, chaotic, joyous and conflicted – it captures the many colors and textures of Christ’s infantile image and the meaning of God’s sacrifice amid the darkest hours of World War II. But it also sounds like a cry from a man doubting, or wanting a reason not to doubt, his faith. One wonders what Messiaen saw during his imprisonment, what horror inspired music of such profound longing, tension and turmoil.

Taylor, a professor of music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, demonstrated his superb command of the piano and his intimacy with Messiaen’s tortured vision. Often sweating (he’d paused to wipe his brow between movements), Taylor never looked ill at ease, even at the most dramatic, harmonically dense moments when he was obliged to violently hammer the keyboard. This, we learn from the program notes, is the recurring “Theme of God,” an F-sharp major chord struck in a short-short-short-long-long rhythmic pattern. Taylor nearly fell off the bench with the force of these godly blasts. And the audience felt their impact, rising to applaud Taylor before the intermission and with more feeling at concert’s end.

Despite the pall of war seemingly overshadowing Messiaen’s faith, Taylor managed to reveal the quirkiness of the brooding composer. His penchant for numerology, bird-song and mystical symbolism came through, but so did hints of the burlesque and delectable flights of fancy (though swaddled in dissonance). This was a welcomed playfulness that softened the blow of Messiaen’s tortured God theme.

“Twenty Ways” seems to be a 20th-century version of Bach’s B Minor Mass, reduced from majestic choir and orchestra to a single pensive pianist alone at his instrument. It’s like a devotional for victims of Western civilization’s devastation and decay. But in Taylor’s hands, at least for one night, it left room for the Christian tenets of hope and faith in a better, one could say less material, world to come.

Savannah Morning News
March 29, 2004

News Feature: The so-called war on Christmas

The spirit of Christmas past
Holiday history, today’s culture war and the real meaning of Christmas

Christmas means many things to many people. To some, it means family. To others, it means faith. To Fox News anchor John Gibson, it means war.

Christmas means many things to many people. To some, it means family. To others, it means faith. To Fox News anchor John Gibson, it means war.

His new book, “The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Think,” marks a new chapter in America’s ongoing battle between the country’s secular present and its religious past.

“The War on Christmas” is in general a reaction to the so-called left-wing agenda to scour religion from every quarter of public life. In particular, the book lambastes liberals for attempting to purge Christmas of Christian symbolism, sentiment and meaning.

Liberals, Gibson asserts, are forcing everyone via “activist judges” to shun “Merry Christmas.” No schools, courts or government offices can bear any tidings of joy.

The “Christian haters” are allegedly influencing corporate America with their pernicious political correctness. Wal-Mart and Lowe’s advertised “holiday trees” instead of “Christmas trees.” There were even rumors that Target instructed its employees to wish customers “happy holidays.”

It’s one big conspiracy to take Christ out of Christmas, say the holiday’s defenders. And it’s another reason that God’s country is going to hell.

“The atheists are winning,” wrote Bill Roe, a columnist for Bluffton Today.

Goodwill toward the right kind of Christian

Fighting back the forces of darkness are the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the American Family Association and the Catholic League. Together, they’ve mounted a campaign, called “Friend or Foe,” to boycott retailers who snub Christmas.

Falwell’s campaign vows to help Christians “facing persecution for celebrating Christmas.” Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly said he would not stand aside while “oppressive, totalitarian, anti-Christian forces … diminish and denigrate the holiday”

“I’m going to use all the power that I have on radio and television to bring horror into the world of people who are trying to do that,” O’Reilly said on his “Radio Factor.”

Evidently, O’Reilly’s horror campaign hasn’t chilled President Bush’s holiday spirit. The White House mailed 1.4 million Christmas cards that wished friends a happy “holiday season.”

It was enough for one man to scrap the whole notion of goodwill toward men.

“Bush claims to be a born-again evangelical Christian, but he sure doesn’t act like one,” Joseph Farah, editor of the Web site WorldNetDaily.com, told the Washington Post.

“I threw out my White House card as soon as I got it.”

Christmas before Christ

Goodwill may, indeed, be on the wane, if Farah’s trashing of Bush’s holiday card is any indication. If so, it might be a reflection of Christmas’ earlier days, when the season wasn’t about faith, hope and charity as much as it was about partying.

The Norse whooped it up for the winter solstice by burning Yule logs. The longer they burned, the longer they partied, sometimes deep into January.

For the Romans, the holiday was Saturnalia, a week-long nonstop inebriated carnival. Schools closed, courts lay vacant, businesses shut down and people stopped working. The debauchery ended on Dec. 25.

After Constantine Christianized the empire, early church leaders had two problems.

One, they didn’t really know when Jesus was born. Two, they needed to convince people to give up their pagan beliefs and embrace Christianity.

They solved both by co-opting an already established religious holiday, says Nancy White, professor of history at Armstrong Atlantic State University. Church leaders ordained that Dec. 25 be celebrated as the day of Christ’s birth.

“Early Christians were clever at using existing icons to their advantage,” White says.

The upside was that pagans converted to Christianity. The downside was that they celebrated baby Jesus the way they celebrated Saturnalia and the winter solstice.

That is, by partying.

When the Puritans arrived at Plymouth Rock, Christmas was a day known more for decadence than for reverence. That’s why the intransigent Pilgrims outlawed it in New England for more than two decades.

It was eventually legalized, but not encouraged. Protestant leaders felt Christmas connoted paganism, drunkenness and Catholicism.

Evidently, even Christ was insufficient reason for the season. Christmas wasn’t made a federal holiday until 1870.

Who’s taking Christ out of Christmas?

By then, Christmas had become a respectable holiday made wholesome not by Jesus Christ but by a popular fourth-century legend by the name of St. Nicholas, aka Santa Claus.

Santa’s fame began after the publication of Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” The 1822 poem, also called “The Night Before Christmas,” domesticated Christmas, making it a safe and wholesome family holiday.

“It became incorporated into civil society,” White said.

As it grew more popular, America’s growing middle class looked to the past to learn how to celebrate Christmas properly. Over a century, America would borrow from a variety of customs, brought here by immigrants, to create an entirely new Christmas tradition.

At the same time, Christmas became the most lucrative time of the year. Merchants began touting “the shopping season.” Santa took up residence in local shops.

“Christmas in America was grounded in commercialism,” White said.

President Calvin Coolidge gave voice to the forces behind the new American holiday. He said “the chief business of the American people is business,” which gave rise to a growing worry by religious leaders that Christmas was being hijacked by materialism.

Concerns burgeoned over the decades. By 1965, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” served to assuage viewers’ anxiety about the “big commercial racket” by recounting the story of Christ’s birth as the true meaning of Christmas.

Now major Christian organizations are threatening to boycott retailers if they don’t restore Christ as the reason for the shopping season.

“This year’s Christmas ‘defenders’ are not just tolerating commercialization,” Adam Cohen wrote in the New York Times, “they are insisting on it.”

History sometimes makes for strange bedfellows, White says. In this case, the perceived threat of an increasingly secular and diverse society forces religious conservatives to align themselves with their former godless adversary, Corporate America.

Though ironic, it’s not surprising, White says. American history shows a consistent pattern.

“The culture war pits the right wing of the conservative contingent against what is an increasing pluralistic society,” White says. “That has always been a constant in terms of making democracy a reality. This (new fight) is a recent incarnation of something that started a long time ago.”

Savannah Morning News
December 22, 2005

Feature: “Vampires” in Savannah

Vampires’ Night Out
Even Savannah’s “undead” and their friends like to paint the town red every now and then.

The moon looks like a blood-red orange cut in half as dread passes over me. The sensation is momentary, but justifiable. I am, after all, standing at the threshold of a vampire sanctuary.

And not just any vampire sanctuary. This one is occupied by the director of Black Oaks Savannah, a local organization that serves the city’s vampires, witches, druids and pagans.

When Black Oaks sent a notice to the Savannah Morning News announcing an early August meet-and-greet social to be held at Elysium, a downtown wine bar, I was intrigued.

What do vampires talk about at a wine bar, I wondered.

So I made contact and asked for an interview.

The vampire said to meet him before the gathering at his sanctuary to discuss some of the broader points of vampirism.

I learned the sanctuary is at the corner of Drayton and 39th streets, behind a specialty shop called Familiar Pathways. The business is new to me, but the building it resides in is not. A good friend of mine used to live in the upstairs apartment.

That’s when I realized a mere three degrees separates me from a vampire.

“A TOUCHY SUBJECT”

He calls himself Alistair, but that’s not the name his mama gave him. Nor did she give him his full rank and title: Lord Alistair Dark, Patriarch of House Dark Haven. His “house” is one of a growing number of “families” of vampires in the region.

His mom did give him a good Christian name. But what it is, I have promised not to say.

The reason is that Alistair is old school, which means he drinks blood.

Not just any blood, of course. A sanguine vampire is vulnerable to disease if he or she just goes around town “grazing.” And besides, “grazing” is so Hollywood, Alistair says. What sensible vampire would go about sticking his teeth into any old neck? Who knows where it’s been?

Instead, Alistair calls on his “concubines” to feed his need, and for this reason, he doesn’t want his real name used. He says he is a member of the community in good standing. He sits on the committee of a prominent neighborhood association. He calls the mayor a good friend. The last thing he needs is people brandishing wooden stakes or flinging holy water in his face.

“It’s a touchy subject,” Alistair says.

“A SALTY STEAK”

When I enter the sanctuary, the first thing I notice is red – the walls, rug and curtains. A red light bulb blazes under the ceiling fan. Swords stand in corners, knives and daggers rest on tables. Lit candles cast shadows across a menagerie of bric-a-brac: a gong, incense holders, masks. Above the mantel hang the letters “HDH” in brass: House Dark Haven.

Inside, Alistair’s face is veiled in shadow and I can’t distinguish his features until he shakes my hand. Then I see his blood-red contact lenses and very real-looking fangs, both unnerving.

Later on, we talk about one of the masks.

“It belonged to a concubine of mine,” Alistair says. “She was murdered.”

Alistair sits with another vampire named Cryptic. Outside the sanctuary, about a dozen vampires get ready for the evening’s “dress-to-impress” gathering. I hear a woman giggle when Cryptic uses one of many terms unique to vampire groups.

“Fluffy bunnies,” he says.

He means role-playing vampires. In contrast, Alistair and Cryptic are for real. They are dedicated heads of “families.” Both have undergone an “awakening,” an experience best described as a born-again conversion for vampires. Each lives by a book of vampire code called “The Black Veil.”

Protection of the family is paramount. To demonstrate, they tell me that I have been tested several times during the interview. They don’t say how, leaving me to wonder if not bolting out the door or laughing makes for a passing grade.

Perhaps they thought I’d scram when Cryptic said he could feed off me at will. He’s a new-school vampire, after all, able to suck people’s psychic energy.

Human blood, one would assume then, is an acquired taste.

“It has lots of minerals,” Alistair says.

“Like a salty steak,” Cryptic adds.

“YOU ARE NOT ALONE”

At one point, I ask what being a “real vampire” means. Really.

Real vampires, they say, don’t turn into bats, burst into flames in sunlight or fear crucifixes.

“If you shot me, I’d die,” Cryptic says.

Real vampirism is more subtle. They don’t believe they have supernatural powers, but do believe in allowing themselves to feel desires they naturally have. All people have the ability to experience the light and dark sides of their nature, if only they’d admit it, the group believes.

Since I passed their tests, they think I have potential to be a vampire, too.

“A vampire is a person who knows he needs something more out of the mundane world,” Cryptic says.

Thanks, anyway, I think. But I’m all good.

Vampirism resembles a religion when you strip away its taboos (drinking blood, etc.). Like other faiths, it seems to seek the truth about one’s absolute nature. It provides laws for governing social structure and it upholds a value system guided by an authoritative book.

“Most vampires grew up in a Christian home and believe in God,” Alistair says.

Taboos, however, are what make vampirism an outsider’s religion. It’s appealing to those who already feel, for whatever reason, like pariahs. For this reason, I thought perhaps a vampire’s “awakening” might be more than a celebration of the macabre. Maybe “awakening” is just another name for the feeling of being utterly alone turning into the feeling of being validated and accepted.

Sure, it’s creepy companionship, but at least it’s companionship.

“(We) have created this group,” said the announcement for the get-together at Elysium, “to help with the awakening … and to let all others know you are not alone.”

Alistair’s blood-red eyes seem less unnerving now. They look lonely, even sad.

LIKE TRENT REZNOR?

Here’s what I talked about with vampires and their friends at Elysium.

I chatted with a 300-pound druid about life insurance.

I gabbed with a blonde witch about her fabulous white ball gown.

I bantered with a vampire about the essential differences between sweet tea brewed in Texas and Georgia.

A female vampire winked at me before asking about the beer I was drinking.

Another vampire reminded me of the primacy of sexual intercourse.

An apprentice witch wanted to know what “secular” meant during our brief chat about religion.

When I spoke to Alistair again, he looked far less shadowy than before. He sat at a table beneath a street lamp, where I could see that his black wig was a little too big for his head. It called to mind the image of a small boy trying on his dad’s shoes.

He told me about his custom furniture business and about making a special coffin for Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. Reznor is also a vampire, Alistair said, and used the coffin in one of his videos.

At some point, I told Alistair how my friend used to live in the building that houses his sanctuary. I wanted to know what a vampire thinks about the randomness of human connection. I was hoping he’d say something witty about the three degrees of separation tying us together.

He didn’t. Instead, he said the connection was meant to be.

“We can tell who is awakened and who is not,” Alistair said. “God wants people to realize they are here for a reason.”

Savannah Morning News
August 30, 2005

News Feature: Transplants changing Savannah’s culture

New arrivals to Savannah from around the country are affecting th art marketplace and will continue to do so for years to come

He is called Kokopelli, and long ago, he was worshipped for his virility.

But then Kokopelli caught on in mainstream American culture – his swaying image adorns T-shirts, tattoos and the many baubles of hipster cool – and has more broadly come to represent rejuvenation and man’s need to grow.

When Rory McKinzie was looking for an image to represent his new Broughton Street nightclub, Kokopelli was just the icon he wanted.

But Kokopelli may serve as another symbol in the Savannah region.

When applied to an economic trend, Kokopelli could be a metaphor for the changes likely to take place in Southeast Georgia over the next few decades.

Indeed, the 5,000-year-old deity may end up symbolizing the future, reflecting the shifts in the arts and culture marketplace and the subsequent business growth that may transpire thanks to entrepreneurs like McKinzie.

McKinzie is part of a wave of in-state immigration that is changing and will continue to change the cultural landscape of Savannah, the Georgia coast and the Lowcountry.

Call them transplants. Call them Yankees.

Whatever you call them, they are definitely not from around here.

Some are young; some are old. In any case, they are bringing with them experiences, perspectives and expectations that are going to have a tremendous impact on the laws of cultural supply and demand.

THE INVASION OF THE TRANSPLANTS

By 2030, nearly 1 million people will reside in the state’s six coastal and four inland counties, according to a report by Georgia Tech’s Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development.

Many of those immigrants will be students drawn to Georgia Southern University and the Savannah College of Art and Design. Others will be military personnel stationed at Fort Stewart, Hunter Army Airfield and the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay near St. Marys.

Most, however, will be baby boomers hunting for an ideal place to spend their golden years. In most cases, these people are seeking warm places with low taxes and affordable health care, according to a report by Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute.

But they also want this: for these new locales to have a wealth of culture.

“These are affluent people who want more culture,” said Jeremy Hill, assistant director of the Bureau of Business Resources and Economic Development, who played a part in the Georgia Tech study. “Savannah is perfect. It has SCAD, art galleries, restaurants and performing arts.

“They won’t come unless there’s culture.”

‘CHANGE IS INEVITABLE’

Raised in poverty on Chicago’s South Side, McKinzie spent decades working in Atlanta in broadcasting, eventually grew successful and entered the upper-middle class.

He got accustomed to the pleasures of music, good food and the complexity of vintage liquors – the finer things of life that wisdom, middle age and affluence affords.

McKinzie and his wife, Terrie, moved to Savannah for the weather, the history, the overall pace of life. When they arrived, though, they immediately recognized a hole in the cultural marketplace.

Downtown had plenty of things to do for soldiers and college kids – dance clubs, half-priced drinks and all kinds of rock ‘n’ roll.

But there was no nightlife venue for baby boomers like him to enjoy good meal, sip an expensive cocktail or hear good, live music, particularly modern jazz.

McKinzie is an entrepreneur. He once owned his own broadcast company. So he saw an opportunity to open a restaurant and nightclub. He opened Kokopelli’s this fall.

For him, a personal journey coincided with supply meeting demand.

“Life is about growth,” McKinzie said. “We can embrace it or not.

“Change is inevitable.”

MAKING ART HAPPEN

McKinzie is only one of numerous transplants turning the sparsely painted canvas of Savannah into a multi colored, multi dimensional and multi cultural tableau.

For instance, a majority of the arts organizations getting a portion of the more than $979,000 in funding from Savannah City Council in 2007 are headed by transplants.

To name just three: The Savannah Music Festival? Rob Gibson, originally from Atlanta.

The Savannah Shakespeare Festival? Joshua Stafford, who hails from Cincinnati.

The Friends of Johnny Mercer? Jeremy Davis calls Louisiana home.

The list goes on.

The Savannah Actor’s Theatre, Savannah Children’s Choir, the Children’s Ballet Theatre, Savannah Sinfonietta, the Lucas Theatre for the Arts and the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs all have founders or directors from someplace else and all are making art and culture happen in Savannah.

Not that natives aren’t. To be sure, groups such as the Black Heritage Festival, Coastal Jazz Association and Savannah Folk Music Society are doing just that.

But evidence, documented and anecdotal, suggests that transplants are becoming a growing force in Savannah’s cultural marketplace now and in the years ahead.

One need only look at the Telfair Museum of Art to see how.

BUILDING CULTURE, LITERALLY

In March, the museum opened the $24.5 million Jepson Center for the Arts.

Mayor Otis Johnson said at the opening ceremony that the center’s namesake, Robert S. Jepson, had “a vision of the past, present and future” of Savannah.

Over the past year, Jepson has put his money where his vision is: He has given or pledged $13 million to an endowment whose interest will be used to pay yearly expenses.

Where did Jepson come from?

Not Savannah.

He grew up in Richmond, Va.

As the Telfair expanded, so has its membership, to almost 4,000, nearly three times its total in its 120-plus-year history, a surge fueled in part by transplants.

“Bottom line, I’m glad I’m a member,” said Nick Farley, who has lived with wife, Penny, in New Hampshire, Arizona, Pennsylvania New York City, among other places, before moving to Skidaway Island.

“My thinking is unchanged,” he said. “The Jepson is a must.”

Transplants are attracted to cultural centers, but they are also building them where they do not exist.

As they build culture, they attract more people, who in turn, create more culture.

The Skidaway Community Institute, for instance, is a non-profit organization founded on the absence of a gathering place in which residents of the island can attend college courses and experience culture – art exhibits, music concerts and dance.

The group, which includes baby boomers who, like Farley, relocated to the Landings, decided to build that missing gathering place. It announced last month it plans to build a 15,000-square-foot cultural center with a 300-seat concert hall on the island. The budget is $3.5 million and the opening is expected to be some time in 2009.

The institute’s president, Mary Vernick. Where is she from?

Long Island, N.Y.

TASTE-MAKERS, TASTE-MONGERS

The more that transplants enter the marketplace, the more the marketplace changes to accommodate them.

Case in point: recent changes in Savannah’s art gallery scene.

Downtown galleries have historically concentrated on seascapes, portraiture, still lifes and prints. Few have catered to buyers of high-end, high-quality contemporary art.

That is changing, though, as demand has changed.

Transplants accustomed to buying abstract art have driven the need for the Whitney on Whitaker Street, the Rosewood on Oglethorpe Avenue and the 2 Car Garage on Broughton Street.

None of these existed three years ago, a sign of the developing sophistication of the local marketplace.

“A majority of my clients who want to spend a large amount of money on art are originally from somewhere else,” said June Stratton, owner of the Whitney. “Many of them might have a second home here.”

Upscale tourism also substantially affects her bottom line, said Stratton, who grew up in California’s Bay Area. At Rosewood Contemporary Art, though, sales from tourists are minor compared to sales from locals, said director Dolores Owens.

The difference, though, is that these locals haven’t been local for very long.

“A majority of sales are from clients who moved here,” Owens said. “I think they bring with them an idea of what they are looking for, and they bring with them an idea of the kind of thing they shopped for from where they are from.”

Not all contemporary-art-loving locals are transplants, of course.

At the 2 Car Garage, the only shop of its kind on downtown’s Broughton Street, most of Michael Woody’s clients have lived in Savannah for generations, he said.

On the one hand, Woody said, finding native Savannahians with a yen to buy contemporary art is hardly surprising. The milieu is about 30 years old, after all. On the other, it’s likely SCAD’s presence and cutting-edge sensibility has had an influence.

In any event, demand for new art likely will continue to grow as baby boomers and other transplants continue moving to the region.

As they move in, they may, like McKinzie, establish even more venues for the arts and culture to flourish.

And as they flourish, arts and culture will, in turn, entice even more transplants, particularly boomers like McKinzie, who will want to call the Coastal Empire home.

As for Woody, whether contemporary art can thrive in Savannah seems unclear. What’s certain is the person supplying the art is definitely not from around here.

“I grew up in the Gibraltar of the Confederacy,” Woody said.

That is, not Savannah.

“I was raised in Vicksburg, Mississippi.”

Savannah Morning News
December 24, 2006

Feature: Graffiti art is an honest art?

An honest art
Graffiti and hip-hop artists gather at the Desot O Row Gallery in the name of creativity, collaboration and community

Travis Smith is standing in an alley in the Starland District. He’s wearing a baseball cap and black framed glasses; strapped around his face is a filtration mask.

He’s been spray painting for about 10 minutes and takes a break to regard his creation: the word “crone” emoted in stylized letters, vivid colors and set off by thick black outlines.

“It’s part of a global culture,” Adolfo Hernandez, who is observing Smith at work, said of his friend’s graffiti. “You see it all over the world, from Chile to Japan to Canada.”

Smith and Hernandez are two of five graffiti artists expected to perform Friday during a celebration of street culture at the Desot O Row Gallery.

The show is called “In the Mix” and features the men working individually on five large panels for 20 minutes each. After a few minutes’ break, they switch panels and begin creating anew using the previous artist’s work as inspiration.

As the second installment of an ongoing series to coincide with the Starland District’s First Friday, it also features breakdancers, emcees and deejays from Dope Sandwich Productions, the same group that hosts hip-hop night every week at The Jinx.

After a couple of hours, the results are paintings expressing the electric spirit of youth, freedom and imagination. But they are also creations that demonstrate the power of collaboration and elevate an otherwise illicit practice to the level of art.

“People see a lot of graffiti but never see it being made,” said gallery owner Ryan Brennan. “How often do visual artists get to perform like performing artists? It’s live improvisation. You don’t know what’s going to happen.”

The difference between what Smith is doing and what many people would call vandalism is this, Brennan said. Smith has permission to paint on this wall and he, like the “graff artists,” as they are known, considers what he does to be the antithesis of a long-held notion of what art is supposed to be – that is, high art or something that only the elite can enjoy or something beyond the reach of ordinary people.

And because of this, it’s more sincere, authentic and democratic (and certainly less pretentious) than much of the art they encounter as students at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

“There’s a human compulsion to leave an imprint on a place,” said organizer Dan Quinn, a curator at Desot O Row. “It’s like a memory. Even if it doesn’t last, you know it’s there.

“It’s more honest than art in school.”

Brennan said the impulse to “tag” has been around since early man first scrawled his own likeness and the likeness of things around him on cave walls.

While a lot of graffiti is merely an expression of anarchy and anti-authoritarianism, a lot of it, such as large murals on the sides of otherwise ugly buildings, beautifies a neighborhood and expresses universal sentiments that can unite rather than divide.

“Some graffiti is just a weird cry for attention by defacing private property,” Brennan said. “We want to harness that desire and channel it into something more engaging, creative and reaching out to the community.”

Part of that community involvement will be a large cinderblock wall erected near the gallery. Artists will trace outlines on the wall and invite participants to bring their own spray paint and try their hand at graffiti art.

As for Smith, his art is more personal. The “crone” he is painting is a reworking of the name Crohn, as in Crohn’s disease, from which Smith suffers. It’s a disease that causes inflammation and ulceration of the digestive tract.

Though his art usually has little meaning beyond being aesthetically pleasing, the “crone” here resonates on a deeper and more intimate level, Smith said: “I’ve never graffed this before.

“This one has real meaning for me.”

Savannah Morning News
July 2, 2006

Profile: Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop

All in the telling
When Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop was a little girl, she accidentally walked in on her grandmother who was busy filling Easter baskets with candy. That’s when she knew, but didn’t want to know, that the Easter Bunny didn’t exist.

“I will forget, I will forget,” Winthrop, 26, recently recalled thinking.

She didn’t forget. And in the act of trying to expel the memory from her young mind, she discovered the memory became instead all the more indelible.

“Some people have sticky spots of guilt that don’t come off easily,” she said.

Such is the case with Hollis Clayton, the troubled hero of Winthrop’s first novel, “Fireworks.” He also suffers from “sticky spots,” as a blocked writer who returns throughout this funny and bittersweet novel to the things he most wants to forget:

The abandonment of his mother when he was 8; the absence of his wife, Claire, who left for the summer to re-examine their belabored marriage; and the loss of their 4-year-old son, Simon, struck and killed by a car.

Without Claire’s grounding presence, Hollis falls victim to his own eccentric preoccupations: meticulously trimming the hedges with a chainsaw, studying the play habits of the neighbors’ kids, and obsessing over the fate of a missing girl.

As he awaits her return, he drinks way too much Jack Daniel’s, shares nightly burritos with a stray dog and avoids calls from his angry agent who’s expecting any day now the pages from his paid-for but not-yet-written novel.

All of which leads Hollis into a ballooning state of tragicomic alienation.

“He can’t get over those things that are remarkable in and of themselves,” Winthrop said. “Hollis sees these as stories but the rest of the world sees them as nonstories.”

After telling a nonstory to his drinking buddy, Larry, about his performance anxiety while trying to keep a narcoleptic awake on a ski lift, Hollis concludes: “I couldn’t think of anything to say … he just kind of had to keep himself awake by asking me questions.”

Larry, expecting a whiz-bang ending, is disappointed: “He didn’t fall off? What kind of story is that? … If the guy’s fine, what’s the point?”

“The point is that I was not fine,” Hollis says.

When asked if he gets it, Crosby, his bartender, adds: “I understand the it, and how the it makes sense to you, but I think you’re the only one the it would occur to.”

Getting lucky

“Fireworks” was unexpected. Winthrop, who grew up in New York City and now lives in Savannah, was strictly a short story writer while studying with Brad Watson, author of “The Last Days of Dog-Men,” an acclaimed short story collection, at Harvard University.

After graduating in 2001, Winthrop worked odd jobs and continued writing a series of stories about a guy named Hollis who wonders what animals do in the rain and how sad it must be for a grown man to drop an ice cream cone. Eventually these evolved into what looked like a novel. Winthrop knew then she needed more time and freedom to write.

“I knew I had to go back to school,” she said.

The next year, she brought five chapters of “Fireworks” to the University of California at Irvine’s graduate creative writing program. Two years later, she filed the manuscript as her final thesis, which was evaluated by her teacher, Geoffrey Wolff.

Wolff, author of “The Art of Burning Bridges,” a highly praised biography of writer John O’Hara, loved it. So much so, he recommended Winthrop send the manuscript to his agent, Amanda Urban of International Creative Management Inc., who in turn sold it to publishing house Alfred A. Knopf.

“I was shocked,” Winthrop said. “I got lucky.”

‘Plot kabooms’

With the critics, who have given mixed reviews, Winthrop hasn’t been as lucky.

Booklist praised Winthrop’s privileging of character over plot and for not explaining away Hollis’ drunkenness, blunders and social phobias. But Heidi Julavits, in the New York Times Book Review, disagreed. She faulted Winthrop for adding “plot kabooms.” A dead son as justification for “plain old alienation” panders to those unwilling to accept melancholy without cause.

Winthrop said you can’t take reviews personally. She said with due respect that bad reviews have come from critics who, like Larry and Crosby, are looking for a story in what is essentially a nonstory.

She wrote “Fireworks” organically with no idea how she was going to get from one chapter to the next. She didn’t know Hollis had a dead son until the book’s midpoint and didn’t know it was going to end until the last chapter.

“Simon wasn’t meant to be a plot kaboom any more than Hollis’ mother leaving or his wife leaving,” Winthrop said. “I wanted everything to have an even weight.”

For the Larrys of the world, the point of the story is that Simon died, causing Hollis to break down emotionally. But for Winthrop, the point is in the telling: In the act of storytelling the point is discovered, instead of the point being determined before the act of telling begins.

“Everything’s a nonstory, waiting to be told,” Hollis says.

Winthrop added: “Why is Hollis the way he is? Maybe there is no answer. He can’t let go of those nonstories. The telling of the story is interesting to him, but in the end nothing happens.”

Savannah Morning News
June 6, 2006

Interview: Herbie Hancock

The shape of things to come
Legendary keyboardist Herbie Hancock talks about why he still believes in jazz

After nearly 40 years of composing, performing and recording masterpieces of the American music canon, jazz keyboardist Herbie Hancock is unquestionably a singular icon, a living legend.

Hancock was a pianist for five years in one of the great jazz ensembles, the Miles Davis Quintet of the 1960s. He emerged post-Miles to be a groundbreaking force in ’70s fusion. More than a decade later, Hancock has continued to explore uncharted territory in funk, soul, African and, most recently, electronic music.

But what defines greatness?

Perhaps we can look to musical achievement–the sophistication, cleverness and emotional impact a composer brings to a listener. Maybe widespread acclaim is the sole maker of giants–the fame gained through skill, hard work and sheer grit.

Hard to say, perhaps, but Hancock suggests there’s more to greatness when he talks about Miles Davis. There’s awe in his voice, as if Davis embodies things still left unexplained. Though it’s been 30 years since Hancock worked with the Dark Prince, he remains transfixed by Davis’ genius.

Last summer, Hancock, along with trumpeter Roy Hargrove and saxophonist Michael Brecker, celebrated the 75th birthday of Miles Davis, along with that of John Coltrane, by launching an international tour. The trio’s gift is a truly innovative approach to the Davis/Coltrane catalogue.

Hancock’s main concern was honoring the spirit of Coltrane and Davis.

“My greatest challenge was to have the courage to trust my instincts and not be so concerned about doing something that would gather applause [but rather] concentrate more on the shaping of the music,” Hancock says about last summer’s tour, speaking by phone from his Los Angeles home.

“Miles always said he paid us to come up with new things. He said not to worry about mistakes. ‘If things don’t work out,’ he’d say, ‘don’t worry about that. As long as you’re working on something new, that’s what I want.’ That was his directive. That’s not an easy thing to do. He didn’t kowtow to just entertaining people. He wanted to create a musical environment that would be something we had not experienced before.

“You don’t find that kind of integrity in music these days. It’s very difficult to find.”

Given Hancock’s well-known enthusiasm for current music, it’s interesting to hear him raise this issue. One of his hallmarks has been embracing fresh trends, especially new technologies. Nevertheless, he expresses a longing to witness new, courageous movements toward the kind of depth he and Miles achieved together.

Problem is, Hancock says, most music nowadays is considered merely entertainment, a surface-level enterprise that cannot transform–and cannot better–the listener.

“There’s certainly a place for entertainment,” he adds. “But I know that’s not all music can be. For music to be solely entertainment would be a disservice to humankind. We’d miss part of our own creative expression.

“Very often things that are only entertaining only scratch the surface of our being; they are usually forgotten. You may remember you were entertained, but it wasn’t anything that grabbed you deep inside. I’ve always wanted, like many others, for my performances to awaken something inside the audience, so they feel better about themselves.”

Hancock seeks the spiritual center of music, pinpointing what drives him to continue innovating and creating. Jazz is the vehicle that takes him there.

He notes the parallels between the craft of jazz–the discipline, the hard work of expressing a discrete moment in time–and American Buddhism, the religion Hancock and other musical craftsmen like saxophonist Wayne Shorter (also a veteran of the Miles Davis Quintet) have practiced for the past 30 years.

“A lot of how we feel about music was inspired and supported by Buddhism,” Hancock says.

“I was talking to a guy who writes books and does seminars for SGI [Soka Gakkai International], the Buddhism we practice,” he continues. “I told him about the virtues of jazz. He said all the things I mentioned are at the core of Buddhism. Then he suggested Buddhism is the jazz of religion, which makes a lot of sense. Jazz is very humanitarian. It’s about sharing rather than competing. It requires a lot of trust, a lot of courage. It welcomes and encourages the exploration and expression of being in a moment. And it welcomes and encourages teamwork. There are lots of parallels between the two.”

Hancock suggests that beyond notoriety, artistic acumen and the limitations of the music itself lies the real source of greatness, the making of a legend: a respectful search for the unknown.

And this search gives Hancock hope for the future of jazz.

“This absolutely keeps me going,” he muses. “This drive comes from life itself. The appreciation and respect for life and the qualities of human life. The older I get, the broader my vision becomes. My whole vista is a lot broader than it used to be.

“There are people out here looking into the future of jazz, creatively reexamining all the conventional aspects of jazz to work toward creating a more open approach to expression that can really lead us into the music of the 21st century. In that regard, [jazz] looks very healthy. People are still coming to concerts and hearing things they haven’t heard before. It touches them in a place that hasn’t been touched before. They can’t explain it and they don’t know why they feel this way.

“To them, it’s awesome,” Hancock notes. “To me, that means there’s something really going on.”

Sacramento News & Review
March 27, 2003