Merv Griffin and his Doorman

If you've seen the Buena Vista Social Club, you'll know a story of once-famous musicians in Cuba rediscovered by Ry Cooder on his own musical journey. The resulting movie and recordings brought a second fame to such capable musicians as Ibriham Ferrer and Manuel Galbon, Orlando "Cachato" Lopez, "Guajiro Mirabal, Jesus "Aguaje" Ramos and Roberto Fonseca.

Something like that has happened before. In New York City. And the rediscovered music was the traditional Irish form of singing known as sean nos. Here's how that happened (as told on the Irish Rochester.org website):

Merv Griffin is best known as the producer of such popular game shows as Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. In the 1960s he was the host of his own late afternoon talk show, always on the lookout for new and interesting guests. One day when he was vacationing in Ireland, he entered O'Donoghue's Pub in Dublin and was startled to see a familiar face on the wall. That's my doorman! the celebrity exclaimed in surprise. That, said the patient publican to the ignorant Yank, is Ireland's greatest traditional singer! They were both right. Joe Heaney (October 1, 1919-May 1, 1984) was acknowledged then (and is still so regarded) as the greatest exponent of Irish sean nos singing, but unlike Sarah Makem (see below) he had to leave Ireland to receive the popular recognition that was his due. The first prize winner at the Dublin Oireachtas in 1942 and again in 1955, musical partner of Willie Clancy, Seamus Ennis, and Mick Moloney (among many others), and a recording artist for Gael Linn records, he was a regular participant in the traditional music scene of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

...

If, as the Bible says, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house," Joe was more warmly received in America. In 1965 he appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival and the following St. Patrick's Day appeared on Merv Griffin's television show. In 1980 he was appointed an adjunct professor in Irish folklore at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut and was later appointed to a similar position at the University of Washington in Seattle. He was a regular performer at concerts and festivals across the country. Finally, in July 1982 he was presented with the National Heritage Award for Excellence in Folk Arts by the National Endowment for the Arts. Ever a modest man, Joe never took himself or his art too seriously. "Where I come from," he said, "they all sing like that."

I've been to O'Donoghue's myself a time or two and sat under that very photo in 2004 and reeled this same story off to my husband and friends. And I certainly recommend the double CD set The Road from Connemara.

So let's raise a glass to Merv Griffin who was lucky enough to know Joe Heaney and to America who was lucky enough to see Joe at Newport and on TV, thanks to Mr Griffin.

Jeremy Harding on Syd Barrett

Last Thursday, I searched the LRB archives in vain for this article. It is clear that the editors have since made a decision to put it online, and -- even more to the point -- have made it available for free without subscription. Full article at link.

Afternoonishness

...Barrett's afternoonishness was far more supple and engaging. It superimposed the hippie cult of eternal solstice on the pre-teatime daydreams of one's childhood, occasioned by a slick of sunlight on a chest-of-drawers or a snatch of plainsong in the radiator - a daydream that quickly filled with gaudy archetypes and very private, custom-built creations. Barrett's songs are full of both: bog-standard gnomes on the one hand, homeless mice called 'Gerald' on the other. His afternoonishness is lit by an importunate adult intelligence that can't quite get back to the place it longs to be.

Remarkably, Barrett created the same, precocious longing in adolescents who heard his music at the time. I remember 'See Emily Play' drifting across a school corridor in 1967 - I was 15 then - and I remember the powerful wish to stay suspended indefinitely in that music, just as I wanted to hang about for ever in another, much darker song of the same period, 'My Eyes Have Seen You', by the Doors. I also remember the quasi-adult intimation that this wasn't possible. Which may have been why the first strains of 'Emily', even then, marked the onset of sulkiness and regret; the thing you adored was eluding you even as you heard it. Roll on teatime...

"I fell in love with you before the second show"

There's a 1994 album called If I Were a Carpenter which features the leading young bands of the time taking on Richard and Karen's catalogue. A list of the various artists reads like a roster of yesterday's hitmakers: Cracker, 4 Non Blondes, The Cranberries, Shonen Knife...and on track 3 Sonic Youth with Superstar. With an embalmed vocal scraping away at the claustrophobic space of the lyrics and a guitar that slowly breaks down into careening noise by the third verse, it goes:

Don’t you remember you told me you loved me baby
You said you’d be coming back this way again baby
Baby, baby, baby, baby, oh, baby, I love you I really do

Loneliness is a such a sad affair
And I can hardly wait to be with you again

What to say to make you come again
Come back to me again

It ends with a sound effect that sounds like a shot. I've never checked on whether there was an intended subtext, but I can't hear this version of the song without thinking 'Dakota' or 'gun' or 'I'm your biggest fan.'

Twenty five years on, I did not expect I would find myself here in England for this particular anniversary. I didn't think I would have Liverpool in-laws or that I would have lost a close member of my own family to violent crime. Has any of this given me any insight? Not much, but I do think when the train sweeps by a long, depressed area of industrial decay or when I share a pint at the local pub with a life ruined by a lifetime of diminishing opportunities and expectations, I may just have a glimpse at what was going on when John Lennon added -- let's go ahead and say screamed -- the lyrics "I want to be Free" to Barrett Strong's Motown hit Money.

But twenty five years ago, I was watching Sunset Boulevard on a local television station when the news broke. That is, I watched up to the scene where Norma Desmond throws a grand New Years Eve party for her screenwriter turned sulky lover Joe Gillis. After that, I was listening to the radio, along with everyone else awake in America.

Much later I realized that the myth from Hollywood and the news from New York City that night were telling me two sides of the same dark, hungry story. Norma, crazed into murder by the fading glow of stardom leaving her, becomes a metaphor for the thing that is at the heart of the matter at hand. For behind the blinding hot spotlight of Los Angeles or the dark stage doors of the Dakota, there is that thing that wants fame. And when fame does not come, it will accept notoriety.

Celebrity and fame are bigger than ever these days. It would be too easy for me to blame that, but I can't. Or to castigate the ordinary person who devotes themselves to a jukebox hero. But it is a false argument. Many people survive the intense thrall of fandom and look back in rueful affection on their earlier phases. Others learned early to recognize the borders, where fandom becomes something a little less wholesome. One Take That fan recalled her days of loyalty in yesterday's Guardian:

Hailing from their hometown we enjoyed elevated status, but fans the world over made the pilgrimage to Manchester. They sneaked hallowed pebbles from the dirty pavements into their handbags, they graffitied the walls, they consumed the world's supply of Kodak film, they left lipsticked, scented love letters. The hierarchy was split in two; between "cravens" (ie screamers, the worst of the bunch) and those diehard followers who were actually known to the band and need not, therefore, scream. The latter category included Lisa-from-Burnage, Blonde Streaks, Emma'n'Karen (unbearably cool by virtue of being 17), and Alex-from-Germany who had relocated to Manchester, swapping her life for her love of Mark Owen.

To meet Robbie, though, you had to venture beyond the M62 to Stoke-on-Trent, and brave the risk (much rumoured) of Rob throwing buckets of water on fans, swearing at them and other such unimaginable horrors.

"Do me a favour, babe," grimaced Robbie one fine day as I melted into the pavement. "Get yourself home safely now."

Oh my God, "Rob" called me a babe! Could it have been my sparkley silver eyeshadow from Superdrug, now smudged across my face, or perhaps my favourite £6.99 green leggings, or the two highlights in my hair that were intentionally of a sophisticated deep maroon colour but somehow washed to a frizzed out ginga?

The world of a groupie is indeed a sad one. It takes place in liminal spaces: airport lounges, hotel lobbies, football sidelines, deserted city centre streets at four in the morning long after the concert is over, your head still hurting from all the screaming. It is the life of an outsider standing in the dark, looking into brightly lit chandeliered rooms.

The hardcore fans even ventured as far afield as London for the Brit Awards, the Smash Hits Poll Winners' Party, for (what was supposed to be) their final concert at Earls Court. They were the kids who would wait the longest, wait even though they knew TT wouldn't turn up, they were yearning to be part of a "group", emptying their pockets to fill their hearts.

Anoushka's mum was "a right old bitch who battered her" and her dad "couldn't give a fuck about her" but "Markie" apparently did. Whenever the word came out to "go home now, girls," she would desperately not want to.

At this point, it might be occurring to you that this entry has been written by someone running an unofficial fansite and a blog shamelessly devoted to all sorts of fan musings on a variety of things. I thought I'd be writing mostly about the irony of that. I thought I'd have to write and say "I have no neat conclusion for these observations." I also thought I'd write about my antipathy to ask for autographs, which looks like it dates from about that year. Even that time-honoured exchange between star and fan, which Lennon was willing to perform again after five years of staying far away from fame's glow, feels intrusive for me. Actually I don't know what I thought I'd write about. But twenty five years ago the night I spent grieving next to the radio was a night also spent writing page after page of bewildered rage in my sketchbook journal, and so it seemed only fitting that I write something tonight.

"The Long and Winding Road"

In every pub discussion, in every chat at a Brighton flea-market stall, in the radio, in the newspapers, on the television and under the awning waiting for the rain to stop; this was the story yesterday.

Tears and rain mingle as Belfast's beloved son makes his final journey

Sean O'Hagan joins a nation in mourning at a sombre, respectful and heartfelt tribute
Sunday December 4, 2005
The Observer

It rained. And then, it rained some more. Belfast rain, drizzly and relentless, falling down over the city and its countless steeples, and the hills beyond. And yet they came in their tens of thousands, lining the streets of Cregagh in east Belfast, the Knockbreda dual carriageway, the rainswept roads around Stormont Castle, and the long sweep that is Prince of Wales' Avenue from the ornate gates to the steps of the parliament building.

They came from Belfast, and Northern Ireland, and from over the border, and across the sea. And though they applauded as the cortege passed, and threw flowers, and turned several sites in the city into impromptu shrines, the event that many had thought would teeter into showbiz artifice, and a collective outpouring of grief, somehow not quite real, was, in fact, the opposite: sombre, respectful, heartfelt. Even in death, then, George Best surprised us.

I think the only parallel in American sport would be the funeral of baseball legend Babe Ruth:

At 8:01 P.M., on August 16, 1948, the Babe passed away. He was fifty-three years old. He lay in state in "the House That Ruth Built" for 2 days as more than 200,000 paid last respects. Grieving fathers held up their sons and daughters for one final look.

Three days later the funeral was held at St. Patrick's Cathedral. There were tens of thousands in the streets outside and tens of thousands more lined the funeral cortege route. At the funeral, Ruth's old teammates were pallbearer. Claire Ruth, Babe's widow, lived on at their apartment at 100 Riverside Drive for another 28 years until her death.

In contrast, Joe DiMaggio's funeral had been quiet, but he is well loved at Lefty O'Doul's on Geary and -- in my opinion -- we should rename the local corporate poker chip that is our ballpark after him.

A bit more on George Best:

Eriksson sheds a tear for Best

England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson wept for George Best in Belfast.
As thousands stood in the pouring rain outside Parliament buildings during the football legend's funeral service, the England coach admitted afterwards the heavy emotion of it all had become a little too much.

He said: "I have never been to a funeral like that before. It was beautiful and George and his family got the respect he deserved. It was fantastic... Yes, I shed a few tears myself."

International Football Hall of Fame