Music When I Was A Kid

In terms of music, I was one very lucky teenager. If I liked a musician or a band, I would book them to play my college, Stony Brook. I was chair of the Student Activities Board and much of the music we brought to the school was fairly unknown but on the verge-- like Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, the Who, Jefferson Airplane, the Four Tops (they were already famous), Big Brother, Grateful Dead, Otis Redding, the Blue Oyster Cult (the Soft White Underbelly then), Ravi Shankar, Joni Mitchell, Smokey Robinson, The Band... Bands were so inexpensive to book back then and I had what appeared to me to be an unlimited budget. $400 for the Doors, $1,500 to $3,500 for bands from England, $50 for a random folk singer who had nothing better to do that night.

Me then-- 1965 on the left, 1969 on the right, after 4 years of drugs

Besides the ones who became famous there were lots of others that never became really broke through but who I thought were fantastic and worthwhile. Some I booked as opening acts-- like two kids I met at a Velvet Underground performance in Manhattan, Tim Buckley (for the Doors) and Jackson Browne (for Judy Collins)-- and others I booked to play informal pop-up concerts in the dorm lounges, like The Fugs and Tom Rush.




I spent a lot of time listening to bands in New York and asking them to play my school, an hour away. It's how I met Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, neither at all really known at the time, as well as Eric Anderson, Tim Hardin and Richie Havens, dozens more. And I'd get everyone out to Stony Brook. Some of the students loved what I was doing and some hated it and hated me for it. Most of the kids were too busy studying to notice.





I met John Hammond at the Cafe Au Go Go and talked him into coming back to Stony Brook and play (for $50). When I was driving him down the Long Island Expressway, his fingers were so steady that he found stations on my car radio that I never knew existed. I had seen him when Jimi Hendrix's band (Jimmy James and the Blue Flames) was his backup band. This is the album he released while I was a freshman:





The bands that were always playing at the Cafe Au Go Go all played Stony Brook-- Paul Butterfield, the Blues Project-- and any band that came to the East Coast I'd co-book with Howard Solomon, the guy who ran the place, like the Youngbloods and Love. And you know what made me think of spending tonight on music? Sandy Bull. I was just in Thailand last week and Sandy Bull's music popped into my head while I was meditating in a Vietnamese temple. The music that was playing just brought Sandy Bull up. Give him a listen. He never got real famous but he was an inspiration for me:





One more thing. I was on acid one time and someone turned me onto an album, The Classical Music of Pakistan by Salamat and Nazikot Ali (usually called the Ali Brothers). I wanted to book them to play so bad. I would listen to that album whenever I got high (basically everyday). But I could never find a way to get in touch with them. I played the album for the Jefferson Airplane when they stayed at my house before a concert. The next album had a song clearly influenced by the Ali Brothers. In 1969 I bought a VW van in Germany and drove to Pakistan to find them. When I got to their small rural village in the mountains I found out they were playing in India. Bummer! A few years later I was working in the restaurant at the Kosmos, the meditation center in Amsterdam. I had just finished washing up and was dead tired and couldn't wait to get home and go to sleep. A friend came down and said, "There's this great band playing upstairs you have to see." I whined about how tired I was and he said I should go to sleep on the floor while listening to them. I didn't have the strength to resist and he dragged me upstairs. It was the Ali Brothers. It was magic.

SONGPOET: Who Was The One Who Made Me Feel Unkind? Close The Door Lightly When You Go

When I was barely out of my teens, one of my favorite artists on the local New York scene was Eric Andersen, a folk singer who every girl I liked seemed to be in love with. That was one motivation for booking him to play at my college. I was a freshman when I discovered his cover of the Big Joe Williams song, "Baby Please Don't Go" on his debut album, Today Is the Highway, but it wasn't until the following year, when he released 'Bout Changes 'n' Things (which included classics like "Violets of Dawn," "Thirsty Boots," "Hey Babe, Have You Been Cheatin'," "Close the Door Lightly When You Go" and a great cover of Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right Mama" that Eric became one of the forever artists of my life. Forty years later I went to see him at McCabe's in Santa Monica and reconnected. And this week, I heard about Songpoet, a documentary about his life and career that's being produced by Paul Lamont and Scott Sackett. Here's what they have to say about the project:

Our aim is to make a film that deeply explores the influences and experiences that have helped shape one of the most distinctive voices in American music. We are honored that Eric Andersen has put his trust in us to tell his story. We'll take you along as we dig deeper into a world that is uniquely his and has helped to shape him as an artist. We've put all of ourselves into making a film that we’re proud of and have come a long way since first starting this project but now, we need a little extra momentum to complete primary filming and interviews. That’s why we’re reaching out to all Eric Andersen fans to lend a hand... To date, we've filmed in Toronto, Buffalo, New York City, Woodstock, The Netherlands, Germany and France. We've filmed Eric in concert, conducted multiple interviews with him and have interviewed and eclectic group of people that includes musicians, poets, artists, record producers, friends and family.

...Eric Andersen is one of the most poetic singer-songwriters to have emerged on the landscape of American music.  We think it's important that Eric is captured on film; sharing his thoughts, telling his stories and showing us a side of himself that we rarely get the opportunity to see.  But most importantly, because we feel that you would like to see a film about Eric Andersen as much as we would.

   They're offering all kinds of perks to people who contribute towards the project and you can check that out here, There's renewed interest in Eric now because of the he current release of “Thirsty Boots”-- Bob Dylan’s heartfelt tribute to Eric on Another Self Portrait.

For Eric, every big break seemed to be followed by disappointment.  In 1967, legendary Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein recognized Eric’s incredible talent and put him on his roster with the Beatles.  A few months later, Brian died unexpectedly.  Words can’t express how that must have felt to a young artist on the rise, but Eric didn’t let it slow him down. The early 70’s was the time of the singer-songwriter in American music and it was then that he was picked up by Clive Davis at Columbia Records. At the time, Clive was making household names out of people such as Carlos Santana, Billy Joel and Loggins and Messina. Now, he turned his attention to the singer-songwriters and Eric Andersen.  Clive sent Eric to Nashville where he recorded one of the most critically acclaimed albums of 1972, Blue River, produced by Norbert Putnam.  The follow-up album, Stages, again produced by Putnam in Nashville, was predicted to launch Eric’s career up the charts.  But one of the most baffling events in the history of contemporary music occurred that year-- a career-changer that still haunts Eric from the shadows.  All 40 master recording tapes for Stages mysteriously and inexplicably disappeared.  Never before or after has a record company lost a complete album.  Although the tapes resurfaced 17 years later, his career had been forever altered by the event-- no plausible explanation has ever been given.

But despite what’s happened along the way, he’s evolved and remained true to his art. And although we may never find out what happened to the Stages masters or how they disappeared from the Columbia vaults, the mystery deserves to be explored just as Eric’s absorbing story and captivating music need to be heard.