This is a musician I stumbled across several years ago when messing around on
the still wonderful
Free Music Archive.
I'll admit, what first drew me to Al Duvall was the fact that he'd actually
teamed up
with one of my other FMA discoveries, the lovely
Singing Sadie.(Whatever happened to her? Someone lemme know!)
Usually accompanying himself on banjo, sometimes doubling on kazoo, Duvall seems
like some medicine-show performer from some past century come to life.
Vaudeville for the criminally insane. His pun-heavy lyrics are dark and wicked,
in a
Tom Lehrer sort of way. Not hard to imagine Lehrer and Duvall sitting on a park bench
together poisoning the pigeons.
Not much is known about Duvall. There are a couple of interesting bios online.
This one appears on his FMA page:
Born June 31, 1877 in Pahrump, West Virginia, Algernon Otmer Duvall began
his musical career on the vaudeville stage as end-man in Lew Dockstader's
Minstrels. He fought in a bicycle squadron in Ypres during World War I,
where he received a crippling dose of the Hun's mustard. Returning home, he
made ends meet working at a sausage factory in Harrington Delaware from 1921
until 1989. He took up the banjo in 1991 as physical therapy for his
pleurisy. He went on to master the alto kazoo at the age of 118. "Al" Duvall
attributes his remarkable longevity to a daily dram of Hamlin's Quinsy
Balsam.
A slightly different version of the Duvall biography can be found at his
Reverb Nation site.
Al Duvall, a grandchild of the Great Depression, was one of many unemployed
musicians in 1932 who was sent via time machine into the future to find
work, as part of the WPA program. His timing couldn't have been better, for
IN TIMES LIKE THESE (SM) we could all use an entertainer whose charm and
musicianship once made the Great Depression so great. Hopefully, Al will
bring a little bit of Depression to you with his cloud-scattering mirth.
I don't know which one to believe.
Actually, I understand he lives in Brooklyn and might not really be over 100.
Here is a tune called "Bareknuckle Ballerina" There's a classic Duvall line in
this one: "I still cherish that night in Paris / When you were in St. Paul
..."
Apparently Duvall found religion. In fact he's been washed in the "Blood of the
Hog." (Warning: This melody might remind you of a Lovin' Spoonful song.)
Below is Duvall's most recent album, Insomnibus available at
Bandcamp. You
can listen to it for free. But if you like it, buy the darn thing. I just
did.
Sunday, June 7, 2015 KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M. 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell Webcasting!101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org
Here's the playlist below
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Love is Like A Blob by Quintron & Miss Pussycat
Fire in the Western World by Dead Moon
Lesson of Crime by YVY
Sugar Buzz by The Ruiners
It's Gravity by T. Tex Edwards
Marijuana Hell by The Rockin' Guys
Spy Boy by Graceland
Blame it on Mom by Johnny Thunders
J'vais m'en j'ter un derrière by Tony Truant & The Fleshtones
Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby by Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Bowlegged Woman, Knock-Kneed Man by Bobby Rush
I'm Not a Sicko, There's a Plate in My Head by The Oblivians
Black Snake by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
Backstreet Girl by Social Distortion
Heroes and Villains/ Melt Away/Surfs Up by Brian Wilson
Cambodian Rock Set
Phnom Penh by The Royal University of the Arts
Under the Sound of the Rain by Sinn Sisamouth
Dondung Goan Gay by Meas Samoun
What Girl is Better Than Me? by Ros Serey Sothea
B.E.K. by Baksey Cham Krong
Dance Soul Soul by Liev Tuk
Taxi Dancer by Dengue Fever
Cyclo by Yol Aularong
Pedestrian Blues by Jody Porter
Please Judge by Roky Erikson
The House Where Nobody Lives by King Ernest
Hang Down Your Head by Petty Booka
I Wish I Was in New Orleans by Tom Waits CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, June 5 , 2015 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist below:
OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens
Long Hauls and Close Calls by Hank 3
Harm's Way by The Waco Brothers
Bad on Fords by Ray Wylie Hubbard
West Nashville Boogie by Steve Earle
Name Game by D.M. Bob & The Deficits
Still Drunk, Still Crazy, Still Blue by Whitey Morgan & The 78s
The Old Man From the Mountain by Bryan & The Haggards with Eugene Chadbourne
Closing Time by The Pleasure Barons
Coffee Grindin' Blues by Asylum Street Spankers
Don't Touch My Horse by Slackeye Slim
Here Lies a Good Old Boy by James Hand
Truck Driver's Queen by Louie Setzer
Honky Tonk Queen by Moe and Joe
Diggy Liggy Lo by Commander Cody & His Last Planet Airmen
I'm a Nut by Leroy Pullens
Hiram Hubbard by Jean Ritchie with Doc Watson
It's All Going to Pot by Willie Nelson & Merle Haggard with Jamey Johnson
Love and Mercy on Wilco
My Blood is Too Red by Ronny Elliott
The Devil, My Conscious and I by Billy Barton
Hell's Angels by Johnny Bond
Banjo Lovin' Hound Dog by Johnny Banjo
Rubber Doll by The Lone X
Shot Four Times and Dyin' by Bill Carter
Back Street Affair by Webb Pierce
Ragged But Right by George Jones
What Made Milwaukee Famous by Johnny Bush
I Can Talk to Crows by Chipper Thompson
Roll on Colorado by Fred Shumate
Whiskey and Cocaine by Stevie Tombstone
Sleep with Open Windows by Chip Taylor with Lucinda Williams
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican June 5, 2015 “A choke of grief heart hardened I/Beyond belief a broken man too tough to cry.”
Those lines, from Brian Wilson’s greatest song, “Surf’s Up,” sum up a good portion of the new biopic Love and Mercy. I don’t know whether Wilson’s lyricist Van Dyke Parks was consciously describing Wilson’s emotional state when he was collaborating with him on the songs for the album Smile in the mid-’60s, but the words fit.
And indeed, it’s a broken man at the center of Love and Mercy. Wilson, portrayed by Paul Dano (’60s Brian) and John Cusack (’80s Brian) is psychologically shattered despite his popularity, wealth, and accomplishments.
In the two main periods covered by this movie, Wilson is seen as the victim of loathsome bullies. First, there his father, Murray, who physically beat and psychologically abused him (“It’s not a love song, it’s a suicide note,” he growls when Brian plays him an early version of “God Only Knows.”).
And then there’s Wilson’s cousin and bandmate Mike Love, one of the most annoying jerks in the history of rock ’n’ roll, who fought, criticized, and humiliated Wilson at every turn during his most creative period, the Pet Sounds and Smile years. “It’s not Beach Boys fun!” he snaps at Wilson during the Pet Sounds sessions. “Even the happy songs are sad.”
But the most intense and fearsome bully in Wilson’s life is Dr. Eugene Landy (played magnificently by Paul Giamatti). He was hired as a psychotherapist to help Wilson overcome his addictions, but turned into a virtual captor who overmedicated him and ripped him off financially. “I have it under control,” he says to Wilson’s girlfriend Melinda. “I am the control.”
A fun family barbecue with Dr. Landy
With all these villains here, there has to be a hero, and that’s Melinda Ledbetter, played by Elizabeth Banks. A former model who meets Wilson when she’s working as a Cadillac saleswoman, Melinda is not a fraction as forceful as Landy. And as hard as she tries, she’s unable to make Wilson stand up for himself.
But her compassion and her determination eventually succeed. (In real life, she and Wilson married in 1995, several years after Landy was vanquished.)
Speaking of real life, I’m not sure how close the movie is to actual events. The film was made with the cooperation of Wilson. (He appears in the closing credits, singing the title song.) So it’s bound to be the version of events that he wants to tell – even though he doesn’t come out looking so gallant. I don’t think anyone would deny that Wilson was as helpless and befuddled as he appears in the film.
But was Landy really as deplorable as Giamatti makes him? Was Ledbetter really as angelic?
Paul Dano as Brian Wilson in the studio
For a 50-plus-year Beach Boys fan like myself, the best scenes are the ones in which Wilson is in the studio recording tracks for Pet Sounds and the ill-fated original Smile with that tight-knit gaggle of studio cats nicknamed the Wrecking Crew. Dano portrays Wilson as wide-eyed and on fire with crazy ideas, much of which worked.
You see the infamous scene in which Wilson makes all the studio musicians wear firemen’s helmets while recording a track about fire. You see Wilson putting bobby pins on piano strings to get a crazy sound. And there are Wilson’s dogs in the studio barking for the final fade-out of “Caroline No.” (“Hey Chuck, do you think we could get a horse in here?” Wilson asks an engineer.)
One of my favorite elements of this movie are the lush, eerie sound collages representing the music, and sometimes the demons, in Brian’s head. Recognizable snippets of Wilson/Beach Boys music rise and fall back into the swirling vortex of sound. I had to check the credits to make sure it wasn’t Animal Collective on the soundtrack, a Wilson-influenced group if ever there was one.
It’s not. The man responsible is Atticus Ross, who has won awards including an Oscar and a Grammy for his soundtracks for The Social Network and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, respectively. These strange sonic montages – sometimes sweet and heavenly, sometimes dark and tormenting – are essential to the story. The nonstop crazy symphony in Wilson’s head seems to be the source of his greatest works, though it often sounds like a direct and terrifying reflection of his inner turmoil.
I’m not sure how much Love and Mercy will appeal to those who don’t know or don’t care about Wilson’s music. (And believe it or not, there are people like that who walk the Earth.) But for those of us who have known and loved the Brian Wilson songbook, it’s a must-see.
The real Brian Wilson and
The real Dr. Landy
New Mexico side trip: They aren’t mentioned in Love and Mercy, but there are a couple of obscure New Mexico connections in the Wilson/Landy saga.
In August 1994, Beach Boy Al Jardine and two companies representing the band — Brother Records and Brother Tours, Inc. — filed a lawsuit in Santa Fe, accusing Wilson, Landy, and HarperCollins publishers of defaming the Beach Boys with the now discredited 1991 Wilson “autobiography” Wouldn’t It Be Nice.
That book painted an ugly portrait of the other band members and made Landy look as heroic as he appears villainous in Love and Mercy. (Wilson has since said he skimmed a draft of that book and did none of the writing.)
The plaintiffs also filed a virtually identical suit in New Hampshire. Wilson’s court-appointed conservator at the time, Jerome S. Billet, told me in 1994 that those were the only states that allowed suits to be filed three years after the alleged defamation.
But no Beach Boy ever had to appear in a Santa Fe courtroom. According to court records, a year later, Wilson was quietly dismissed as a defendant. The case was dismissed in early 1999.
After Landy lost his license to practice psychology in California, he still retained his license in two states: Hawaii and – you guessed it – New Mexico.
I don’t know how active he was here, but state records show he was licensed here between 1981 and his death in 2006. He’d had his license renewed in the state the year before. There are no violations or discipline reports on his record here.
Here is the official trailer:
Here is a frightening profile on ABC's Prime Time Live in 1991 when Wilson was still being "treated" by Landy.
And here is one of the most moving versions of the title song I've ever heard.
Jean Ritchie, an important figure in the New York folk revival -- and one of the sweetest voices ever captured on tape -- died Monday at the age of 92.
She one of 14 children in her family in Viper, Kentucky. Her dad let her play his dulcimer when she was seven years old. Now she's credited with reviving interest in that instrument.
Yes, Ritchie was a Kentucky farm girl. But she was no rustic bumpkin. She graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1946 with a degree in social work. She moved to New York City in the late '40s to work at at the Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side.
There, according to her obituary in the New York Times, "she routinely calmed the urban street children in her care with songs from the Cumberlands, which, with their haunting modal melodies and tales of simple pastimes, were so alien as to stun her young charges."
She became a regular on the Greenwich Village coffee house scene, did radio appearances with Oscar Brown and eventually was recorded by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress.
Here's an appreciation by fellow Kentuckian Walter Tunis, a music writer for the Lexington Herald-Leader.
I've put together a Spotify playlist featuring about 35 minutes of her music.
