Never Kept A Dollar Past Sunset: A Year of Live Music

So many of the musical footsteps I’ve walked in over this past year have been deeply worn, like the grooves on old LP. Happy birthday Keith Richards.

So if it's all been said and done

I've got to move, I've had my fun

Well let me walk before they make me run

Keith Richards, Before They Make Me Run

So many of the musical footsteps I’ve walked in over this past year have been deeply worn, like the grooves on a beloved old LP, the ruts and lines and scrapes marked by time and age and repetition. Songs well known, riffs played a thousand times, the lyrics dropping into place like pieces of a familiar jigsaw. They’re like the frozen muddy footsteps on the woodsy path during a single digit cold snap. Stuck in the frosty edges, but recognizable.

I’m not really a “new music” guy anyway. Even the songs I write generally look backwards, as do the tunes I play along with in the various musical constellations that define my extracurricular bar band cosmos. That’s okay. The fragility of human memory, which I’m witnessing close up in the family life of beloved elders, can be eased into a more comfortable place with a string bend or a double stop or an old-timey harmony. The existential struggle can be relieved with a familiar groove or a rhythm that’s now second nature after decades of tapping along. Non-pharmaceutical prescriptions. Fender over Pfizer.

This has been a year of close-up collaboration and live music, after three years of sporadic pandemic music playing and concert going. Everybody was back on the road, or planning to be. To me, the most inspirational moments - and who doesn’t need them - were provided by the empathetic relationships of musicians on the stage, the close teamwork and supportive nature of bandmates (even in conflict) in the service of both the songs and audience.

After years of enforced distance, that was moving to see, and to be part of. And frankly, I’d suggest it’s a model for how we should all conduct ourselves in work, in public spaces, in government, and in society.

Three years ago, during the height of the worst Covid year, Lucinda Williams suffered a serious stroke at her home in Nashville. She lost the ability to stand on her own, and to play guitar. There were struggles with balance and memory, and voice control. Yet, she never considered quitting and indeed, forced herself back on the road (and into the studio) as soon as she could; the work itself and her connection to the music and the stories and her audiences were - more clearly than ever - the focus of her identity. This past spring, we saw Lucinda (one of the great American songwriters of the last half century) play a show at the charming Wall Street Theater in Norwalk. She had a bunch of new tunes from the new record, and also ran through a long set of her best known numbers. Now, I’ve seen Lucinda a number of times in the last 20 years or so and she can be a prickly and particular performer - sometimes she’ll stop a song a start it over, sometimes the setlist might be the cause of of some consternation partway through, or she might just not feel a certain section of the show. Doesn’t matter, because all her shows are a bit different, and her personality as a performer is so authentic and vulnerable. She’s lived these songs.

So it wasn’t down to the stroke when I noticed that a couple of the numbers were wandering a bit - like maybe a chorus got dropped, or a key switched in error. But I also caught the movements of her band in these moments. These guys are total pros - they have their own gigging band, Buick 6, and (like so many others) while they’re not “from” Nashville, they are Nashville musicians. Anyway, during the show at the Wall Street, I could see these guys exchanging glances, giving a few subtle signals. I’ve done it myself and I knew exactly what they were doing. They were covering for Lucinda in the most professional manner possible. Moving the songs along. Adjusting to her physical limitations, working hard to help her out. They had her back. And I have to tell you, man, my eyes misted up. 

There was human frailty, incredible talent, evident commitment to the audience and to the art, and the empathetic spirit of collaboration and supportive partnership. I’ll never forget that brief section of what was, on the whole, a really fine 100-minute concert in a Connecticut hall.

Which is a long way to begin what is essentially a birthday post about Keith Richards.

Richards turns 80 today, which is, of course, a wagered mark of longevity that no betting shop in the world would have accepted - even on long odds - half a century ago. In the western musical world of rock and roll, he is second only to Chuck Berry in terms of influence and riff-based songwriting. Richards is a symbol of rock excess, but has led a relatively clean and monogamous family life since the early 80s, doting over grandchildren, tending to his garden, reading Patrick O’Brian tales in his Connecticut library and cutting back on the sauce. And writing music and touring with the Stones, and just being Keith Richards.

To my earlier point: Fender over pharmaceuticals.

There will be much written about the 80 unlikely candles on the Keith Richards cake, and not enough about the music - almost all of which has been deep collaboration with Mick Jagger, his bandmates, and a long lineup of partners, sidemen, and other musicians. Richards’ deep respect for both his Black musical forebears and so many of his contemporary players - not so much the stars, as the sessions guys, the players, the outfits. He’s a master of synthesizing the blues and rockabilly of the 50s, along with reggae, soul, and folks and he wrote rock riffs that sounded like horn parts (because that’s how he heard them). He’s also a great singer, and his backing vocals to so many Stones classics gave the band a signature vocal sound that was in marked contrast to other British invasion bands.

But time waits for no one, and the Stones are on the final lap - they’ve lost Charlie Watts, and their latest record, the surprise LP Hackney Diamonds, is clever and catchy (with amazing vocals from 80-year-old Jagger and some nice guitar work), but nowhere near dangerous and vital. I thought Richards’ own 2015 solo album Crosseyed Heart was better. Still, like the old Chicago bluesmen they once worshiped, the Rolling Stones are running through the tape. Musicians don’t retire; they die. As it should be.

Every step of the way we walk the line

Your days are numbered, so are mine

Time is pilin' up, we struggle and we scrape

We're all boxed in, nowhere to escape

Bob Dylan, Mississippi

Last week, I saw the last of the Ramones play a rollicking hard rock show to a crowd that spanned three generations and featured some replica slam-dancing and beer can throwing that young re-enactors ginned up to capture some spirit of the past. It was like a New York punk version of hobbyists running around Gettysburg with smoke bombs and blank cartridges. I dug it, even if the mosh pit didn’t remind me of CB’s or Max’s (or anyplace outside the suburbs). There was black-maned Marky Ramone, nee Marc Steven Bell (71), blasting through about 35 Ramones numbers in a kind of tribute to his dead bandmates, but with younger musicians up front who had much more modernist thrash stage energy than the Ramones themselves ever did (they were really an art band, but you had to be there). It was like seeing Beatlemania but with the actual Ringo on drums.

Yet, I can’t help but think that so many of these “legacy” acts are tributes to their former selves, amazing facsimiles with many more musicians on stage than they ever had before. The Who travel with an orchestra. The Stones have something like a 12-piece ensemble. The mighty E Street Band has grown quite a bit over the years; I saw Bruce (74) and his bandmates on Easter Sunday and they blew the doors off the new arena that’s out past the far turn at Belmont. Peter Frampton (73) is facing a rare neurological disease and plays sitting down now, but he launched his Never Say Never tour again this year, and we saw him run through some wild guitar solos at the Cap. I was never a big fan then, but I am now. A fine and generous musician.

As it happens, we saw Elvis Costello and his Imposters perform three times this past year - once on his own at the lovely Capitol Theater, and then up at Tanglewood and down at the Beacon with Nick Lowe (73, a brilliant songwriter who now tours with the excellent Los Straitjackets surf band). More favorites from the 1970s. Costello (69) doesn’t really do nostalgia; his act isn’t a tribute to his younger, skinnier self. Yeah he’ll play some hits, but they’re never the same twice and the setlist is a raging and impatient instrument of the McManus songbook. He’s completely comfortable with challenging his audience (and his band) while he looks for a unifying thread. I respect that a lot, even if there are some clinkers. The best Costello shows build a kind of musical wave, the surf swelling from Steve Nieve’s keyboards - the wave may crash mightily on the shore or descend as a quieter ripple. But it keeps coming.

Two other impatient and eminent artists with vast and accomplished catalogs to explore - Richard Thompson (74) and Suzanne Vega (64) - performed brilliant and intimate sets for audiences at the excellent Emelin Theater in Mamaroneck. Thompson, who I first saw at the Bottom Line in the mid-80s, always finds a deep connection to his wildly loyal (but not vast) fan base with a blend of dry humor and unmatched guitar virtuosity. He really is a living treasure. Vega, with whom I briefly overlapped in undergraduate years on Morningside Heights, is more of a contemporary and her gigs with accomplished guitar sideman Gerry Leonard bring fresh views of her best-known works while giving nothing away to nostalgia. She also told a great Elvis Costello story.

Cease to resist, giving my goodbye

Drive my car into the ocean

You'll think I'm dead, but I sail away

On a wave of mutilation

Pixies, Wave of Mutilation

You will note the ages in brackets. Normally, I don’t care. But given the national election next year between an 81-year-old and a 78-year-old - one a sane and solid liberal, the other a hateful and vicious fascist - the aura of age will be clinging to next year like fog off the Atlantic fishing grounds. So it’s worthwhile to note the accomplishments of elder musicians. And my bias toward their music, rich and analog and full of space and swing.

Also it’s Keith’s 80th birthday.

On a very warm evening last summer, we sat out on Pier 17 under the Brooklyn Bridge and took in what, to me, was the kind of old school rock and roll show you don’t as much anymore - albeit by the generation after Keith Richards - Gen X or Generation Jones players. Cat Power opened vamping Marianne Faithfull, followed by an explosive Modest Mouse set (really a group of great players surrounding original founder Isaac Brock). Then came Pixies, a band we’ve seen many times now and one that refuses to be its own greatest hits tribute act - even in its fourth decade. Led by Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV, aka Black Francis, Pixies just ploughs forward with little chit-chat and no excuses. Sometimes, it’s an abbreviated show. Sometimes, it hits some mountaintops - as it did in August in the summer breeze. They play very loud indeed. Guitar-based hard rock. 

The value to the audience is take it or leave it, bub. We play for ourselves. Which is, in a way, the studied pose that Keith Richards made so popular. The best rock isn’t of the establishment - it’s despite the establishment. Which is why my choice for record of the year is Songs About Heartbreak And Nazis, the new album by Barbicide, your friendly neighborhood punk ska band. Politically charged and also hilarious, the record has some great hooks, wonderful horns, clever lyrics, and a certain commitment to acceleration. Pick it up on any streaming platform, or catch this outfit live at any number of sudsy venues in and around New York (as we did recently over at the Bayou, Mount Vernon’s venerable blues hub).

So that’s my year in live music. Happy birthday Keith Richards. And here’s one more show-stopper for you. Last month, we trekked out to the Barclay’s Center for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. My expectations amp was not set to eleven. I figured there’d be endless speeches, massive gaps between actual music, and generally the sense of serving as a large studio audience for a TV production. Well, it was pretty great - and incredibly well produced and paced. It worked for the live audience (just as Vegas works for a live audience, or the massive Taylor and Beyonce productions). To drop a few names of live performers: Willie Nelson, Chaka Khan, Elton John, Sheryl Crow, Chris Stapleton, HER, St. Vincent, Queen Latifah, Peter Frampton, Dave Matthews, Common and some folks I’m forgetting. In any case, a really fun ensemble show - but there was a moment that took those of a certain vintage and persuasion (and I speak of old white rock era guitar guys playing in Dad bands) by surprise.

A video induction of the late great Link Wray popped up on the screen. White-maned Jimmy Page speaking so highly of the overdriven rockabilly thunder licks laid down by a player so many consider a godfather of a sound that spanned several generations. Then the lights went down for a moment. And there a few seconds later was Page himself, double-necked Gibson the instant give-away, launching into a flawless and heavy version of Rumble. No lyrics needed. No ensemble. No tribute to days of my youth. Just bass, drums and guitars. Very loud. As God and Keith Richards intended.