Tom Trusky, R.I.P.

Eberle & I received some very sad news on Tuesday evening—Audrey wrote to let us know that our dear friend Tom Trusky has passed away.

Tom’s name has come up from time to time on Robert Frost’s Banjo, & with good reason: he was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of our music & was responsible for us being commissioned by the Idaho Film Colelction (of which Tom was director) to write & record a score for Nell Shipman’s masterpiece, The Grub Stake. Mr Trusky could have had pretty much his pick of silent film composers to write that score, & yet he decided to assign this to two completely unknown musicians from a small Idaho town, based solely on the one score we’d written, for Nell Shipman’s earlier film, Back to God’s Country.

That was the beginning of Tom’s importance in our lives, but he was always wonderful to us. Perhaps the most down-to-earth academic I’ve ever met, Tom had a wonderful sense of humor & a sparkling joie de vivre. He was always accomodating, whether our performances took us to Claremont, California or to the small town of McCall, & he was always a marvelous presence during those performances with his witty & informative talks about Nell Shipman. Of course, his warm & witty presence at dinners & chats before & after the screenings were most welcome, too.

That’s some of what Tom meant to us. But of course, he has a larger importance, because without him, it’s possible that Nell Shipman—a true great of the silent film era as actress/writer/director & more—would be practically unknown. Before Mr Trusky got interested in Nell, after reading an obscure article of hers in an old Atlantic Monthly, only one of her films was thought to have survived—Back to God’s Country. Thru Tom’s efforts, six other films were discovered, & he also was her champion. Although Shipman has yet to garner the recognition her work so richly deserves, the fact that she is recognized today, that a film like Back to God’s Country can be screened on Turner Classic Movies, that there are the Nell Shipman awards for women filmmakers, & that her complete surving works are available on DVD (including our score for The Grub Stake).

But Tom seems to have been generous by nature, one who could champion the overlooked: he not only tirelessly boosted Shipman, but also Idaho artist & bookmaker James Castle & others, including a couple of unknown musicians from a small Idaho town.

The music I’ve selected as a tribute to Tom isn’t mournful; although we didn’t know Tom very well, I suspect he wouldn’t necessarily want that. It’s a piece I posted a few months ago, Eberle’s “Red Piano Stomp” from our score for The Grub Stake—Eberle is playing a Schoenhut toy piano & I’m plunking along on my old Stromberg-Voisinette plectrum banjo. The fact is, Tom loved the toy piano. It also played a small role in our score for Back to God’s Country, & while we were afraid that our use of this & other oddities such as slide whistle or kazoo would shock an academic sort, they in fact delighted him—& none more than the little red piano. Eberle & I have often said, only half-jokingly, that we might not have been commissioned to score The Grub Stake were it not for the red Schoenhut.

Our thoughts go out to all of Tom’s friends & family & to his long-time partner. His death at 65 is sad, because Tom had so much to offer & had such a wonderful spirit; still, I’ll remember him for all his kindness & generosity & wit & his incredible ability to support artists, whether great or completely minor, who needed a hand up.

(The pic at the top of the post was taken by Audrey Bilger, & shows Tom Trusky, Eberle & me at the Mary Pickford Auditorium of Claremont-McKenna College, before our ’05 screening of Back to God’s Country.)

& Then There’s Nell…. (part 2)

If you recall the lead-off picture from last Friday’s &Then There’s Nell (part 1) post, you’ll recall that Nell Shipman is posing with a dog. That’s a Great Dane named Rex, one of the co-stars of her 1919 Back to God’s Country; Rex played Wapi, a vicious mistreated dog that forms a loving bond with Shipman’s character Dolores LeBeau & one that provides valiant help as she & her husband escape from the villain (in a climactic dog-sled chase scene!)

Rex was a very mild-mannered dog; it was necessary, however, to get shots of a dog who wasn’t mild-mannered, one that could be seen as menacing. Because of this, the Wapi character was portrayed by a second dog as well, a trained guard dog known as Tresore. Tresore was used in scenes where Wapi is agitated & threatening, while Rex was used in scenes that show Wapi as a lovable giant, tamed by affection for Dolores.

According to Idaho Film Collection Director Tom Trusky, one day while shooting Back to God’s Country the filming was moving from a scene where Tresore was straining against his chain, barking viciously, to one in which Rex would be cuddled by Nell. Someone neglected to switch the dogs, however, so Nell made her entrance & hugged & petted the guard dog without incident; Tresore reacted affectionately towards her. Director David Hartford apparently was aware of the mix-up, but seeing that the scene was going smoothly, he kept the cameras rolling. But after the scene was shot, Hartford made some remark about “some guard dog that is,” & walked toward Tresore, at which point the Great Dane went for his throat. Hartford was unharmed (tho presumably gained renewed respect for Tresore). Shipman took this as a definitive sign that she was meant to work with animals.

As you can see in the picture at top, this included bears. In the photo, Nell is seen with one of her beloved bears, Brownie. Brownie acted in several Shipman films, including The Grub Stake. But her films were filled with animal actors—besides bears & dogs, you’ll see raccoons, beavers, cougars, skunks, porcupines, deer, owls & more. In fact, her studio at Priest Lake included a veritable zoo.

But while this is noteworthy, it was hardly unheard of to use animals in films during the silent era. What did make Shipman’s use of animal actors so significant was both her uncanny rapport with animals & her insistence on humane treatment. During this era, animals were often mistreated in films; drugged or abused until they were submissive; shooters were kept on the set, prepared to kill large animals that became threatening. Shipman forbade any mistreatment & banned guns from the set. She believed that animals sensed fear & would react to it in dangerous way; she also believed that animals sensed trust & would react to that in kind. The fact that her filming was never disrupted by any incidents involving her many animal actors is a strong practical recommendation for her humane methods (tho the moral underpinning of her ideas is even more compelling).

This isn’t unconnected from Shipman’s overall vision of the natural world as the place of spiritual regeneration, the locus of spiritual selfhood & connection—“God’s Country” indeed. This is illustrated in The Grub Stake when her character Faith Diggs, hounded by her villanous husband & injured, finds peace & a renewed “faith” (herself) amongst a family of bears after becoming lost in a dark & stormy forest. We see this renewal in her peaceful & playful interaction not only with the bears, but also with porcupines, deer & a wolf; in addition we see her addressing God in the midst of Priest Lake’s breathtaking scenery (brilliantly filmed by legendary cinematographer Joseph Walker); these are Faith’s renewed avowls of "faith."

Nell’s love of the natural world ran very deep, & her feeling for it certainly could be termed “religious” or spiritual. As such she was certainly an inheritor of 19th century romanticism, but her deep cinematic study of this is a singular achievement. As a woman of the (old) west, she portrayed a deep sense of conservation (in a time when this was considered much more than “a personal virtue”); in fact her character Dreena the witch in her Little Dramas from Big Places is seen literally hugging a tree.

In a shameless plug for ourselves, I’ll remind readers that Volume 3 (“At Lionhead Lodge”) of the Idaho Film Collection’s 3-DVD Shipman set contains The Grub Stake with score composed & performed by us—Eberle & me & about 20 instruments. This DVD also contains the surviving Little Dramas from Big Places, which are truly wonderful short films also shot around Priest Lake, Idaho in the early to mid 1920s; & in addition, there’s a fantastic award-winning documentary put together by Idaho Film Collection Director Tom Trusky & Paul Brand (who produced the DVD set) about Shipman’s experience at Lionhead Lodge, her Idaho film studio. The DVD is available here from Boise State bookstore or here from Amazon.com.

The slideshow features a selection from our score for The Grub Stake. Eberle plays the melodica on this one, & I’m playing a hollowbody electric guitar. Joshua Housh did the sound, & dear pal Dani Leone kept everything else afloat during a frantic five-day recording session. The selection occurs early in the film & contains a few themes that are developed throughout the score.

The images of Nell are from her time at Priest Lake, with the exception of the painting which is from 1930. Along with the images of Nell, there's a Bijou Orchestrette publicity shot & a picture of us with Idaho Film Collection (& Shipman maven) Tom Trusky.

Our score was composed with generous assistance from the Idaho Commission on the Arts & the Idaho Film Collection.

Enjoy!

& Then There’s Nell…. (part 1)

Had someone told me back last August when Robert Frost’s Banjo started that I wouldn’t have written a feature about actress/writer/director Nell Shipman until the first of May, I wouldn’t have believed it. It’s true that Nell has come up in a few earlier posts, notably one about Lon Chaney (a review of Nomads of the North) & one about renowned cinematographer Joseph Walker, best known for his work with Capra, but who got his start with Shipman in the silent era, but this is the first post that’s really devoted to her.

Nell Shipman has played a huge role in Eberle & my life over the past several years. As the Alice in Wonder Band was breaking up, we were casting around for a new music project. Knowing my love of silent films & her love of independent women artists, Eberle hit on the idea of writing a score for a film made by a woman she’d heard about who’d made films in Idaho in the 1920s. We purchased a VHS copy of two films, Back to God’s Country & Something New—these were issued by the Canadian Film Archive, since Ms Shipman was born in Vancouver, British Columbia (née Helen Barham).

We were enthralled by her work, especially by the melodrama Back to God’s Country. The film is in many ways a deconstruction of melodrama; although the heroine finds herself in peril, she is the agent of her own rescue (with a lot of help from a trusty Great Dane named Wapi). Her husband, meanwhile, languishes for much of the film in a sick bed while Nell’s character, Dolores LeBeau, affects their escape from a truly dastardly villain, Captain Rydal.

The film, which was released in 1919, was adapted from a short story by James Oliver Curwood, an extremely popular adventure writer of the day—in fact, Shipman made major changes to the original story, making her character a much more active heroine. Curwood apparently was infuriated with Shipman about these revisions, & the two had a falling out. This didn’t prevent the film from being very successful—it was made for $67,000 & grossed $1.5 million during its run. As I conjectured in an earlier post, the falling out between Shipman & Curwood may well have kept Shipman from acting with Lon Chaney in Nomads of the North, also based on a Curwood story & also directed by David Hartford. That would have been a dream match-up of two of the silent eras strongest actors—one of whom is justly immortalized, while the other has fallen into an unjustified obscurity.

As I mentioned, Shipman was Canadian by birth, but her family moved to Seattle & that’s where she began her acting career at age 13; as a teenager, Shipman worked in stock theater & vaudeville. When she was 18 she sold the rights to her novel Under the Crescent to Universal Studios, & it was produced as a serial drama in 1915. However, like much of the early work that Shipman wrote or appeared in, this film has been lost. The novel was available online at one point as a free pdf—I downloaded a copy—but as far as I can tell, it’s not available any longer. It was also around this time that Nell married theatrical entrepreneur Ernest Shipman, a man over 20 years older than her.

Around this time, Nell became involved in films as an actress as well as a writer & director (Shipman always wrote—in fact, even after her onscreen career had ended, she remained productive & wrote the screenplay for the 1935 Cary Grant/Myrna Loy film, Wings in the Dark). Sadly, her films prior to Back to God’s Country are all presumed lost; IMDB lists thirteen films prior to 1919 in which she appeared (usually as leading lady), including her first collaboration with Curwood 1916’s God’s Country & the Woman. IMDB also lists another nine pre-1919 films for which Shipman wrote the screenplay or the scenario.

Following the split with Curwood, & also a split from her husband, Nell formed her own production company based in southern California (her family lived in Glendale at this time, where he father was a doctor). Two films shot during that period survive: Something New, a melodrama set in the desert that mainly features long chase scenes with a Maxwell sedan traveling terrain it never was intended to cross—to my mind, this is the least interesting of Shipman’s surviving films—& the delightful A Boy, A Bear, & His Dog. Around this time Shipman also wrote, directed & starred in The Girl From God’s Country, a follow-up on the big success of Back to God’s Country. Unfortunately the film, which is lost, was a rather expensive flop. Although Shipman would go on to make some fantastic films in the next few years, her fortunes in terms of commercial success were about to take a downturn.

Shipman was unquestionably a true independent; unfortunately, her efforts to distance herself from the burgeoning Hollywood studio system tended to work against her. As the studios began to consolidate power in Hollywood in the early 1920s, Nell was moving her own production company to the rather unlikely location of Priest Lake, Idaho—unlikely, that is, unless like Shipman your passion is location filming. Shipman films routinely included some very intense location shooting. For instance, the arctic scenes in Back to God’s Country were shot at Lesser Slave Lake, Alberta in some truly harrowing conditions—so harrowing in fact, that the original leading man, Ronald Byram, died of pneumonia during the filming & had to be replaced by Wheeler Oakum. Her Idaho films, The Grub Stake & Little Dramas from Big Places also feature scenes with Nell (& co-stars) tramping thru deep snow, climbing mountains & dog sledding across frozen lakes. Shipman was an athletic woman who performed her own stunts, including diving into a rapids during a scene in Back to God’s Country—during which she was almost swept away.

While the location shooting, filmed by master cinematographer Joseph Walker, is both stunning & evocative, it also separated Shipman from the studio system. After a series of financial disasters, including a catastrophic stroke of bad luck when the distribution company that picked up The Grub Stake went bankrupt, Shipman had to dismantle her studio, & left Priest Lake broke. But although Shipman certainly hit hard times, but it appears from her wonderful autobiography, The Silent Screen & My Talking Heart that she remained optimistic & vigorous, even tho her comeback never came.

There’s a lot more to say about Nell Shipman—I haven’t even begun to talk about how she championed the humane treatment of animals in films, not to mention her uncanny ability to act with animals—including bears. Because there’s more to tell, stay tuned: next Monday, part two of this feature on Nell will talk about wild creatures, romanticism, the west, tree-hugging, & will discuss her Idaho period more. In the meantime, the slideshow presents some images of Nell—mostly either early pictures or pictures associated with Back to God’s Country & The Girl From God’s Country. The music is a theme from our score to Back to God’s Country (thanks for support from the Idaho Commission on the Arts & our most redoubtable benefactor, Tom Trusky of the Idaho Film Collection). The score was composed in 2004-2005 & led directly to our commission for scoring The Grub Stake; the latter score was issued by the Idaho Film Collection on their Shipman box set! Our Back to God’s Country score is still waiting for yours truly to get it together to sync it with the film, tho we've performed it live on several occasions. Be sure to check out the beautiful sheet music cover designed by our friend Lori Hohs (the first frame in the slideshow).

& be sure to check back Monday for more Nell Shipman!

Musical Questions – John Hayes

OK, it’s me, wearing my “guest musician” hat. A quick note on the clip at the bottom of the post—it’s a version of the traditional tune “The Cuckoo” that I recorded in 2007 while testing out some new recording equipment. Hope you enjoy it. Also: I’m expecting some more interviews back from other musicians, so there will be more posts in the Musical Questions series; please stay tuned.

My musical career in a nutshell: Played piano from age 8 on; had relatively brief childhood experiences with the sousaphone, the saxophone & the soprano recorder; more or less stopped playing music in any systematic way about age 18, but played piano recreationally from time to time while plying the poetic trade. Took up guitar, which led to banjo & uke; played music with my wife, Eberle Umbach, & Lois Fry for McCall-Donnelly Drama Troupe theatrical productions; was part of forming the Alice in Wonder Band in 02 with several wonderful musicians; played in The Blue Notes, a piano-bass-drum trio with Bill Shore & Eberle— also spent time playing electric bass while wearing a tux in the Tyler Vance Band, playing at McCall area resorts; Eberle & I later performed as a duet: Five & Dime Jazz. We played at weddings, parties, other functions, recorded soundtracks for Alpine Playhouse theatrical productions, & had a weekly restaurant gig for some time. As the Bijou Orchestrette, Eberle & I began composing & playing music for silent films (two Nell Shipman films: Back to God’s Country & The Grub Stake); The Grub Stake score was commissioned by the Idaho Film Collection in 05, & our recording of our score provides the soundtrack for this film on their DVD collection of all Shipman’s extant films (we’re on vol. 3). Also, Eberle & I have also been proud Northwest members of Chris Leone’s loose confederation of like-mind souls, the Spurs of the Moment: I’ve played guitar, uke & banjo at various times with the Spurs. Am now going back to my musical “roots” performing old blues starting this spring, mostly on the senior center/nursing home/assisted living circuit, probably mostly solo, but with Eberle (& others?) joining in as schedules allow—will keep you posted on that right here on Robert Frost’s Banjo.

Was there a childhood musical experience (either listening or playing) that you believe influenced you later or led you in a musical direction?

I listened to music almost obsessively as a kid—folk singers, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Mitch Miller, the whole nine yards. My sister’s older than I am, & I picked up a lot of music from whatever she was into at the time—I followed her trajectory thru show tunes to the New Christy Minstrels to Baez & Dylan & Tim Hardin & Phil Ochs. I also sang a lot, but let’s just say this became very problematic around the time my voice broke; I have a deep voice, & overnight went from the little lad soprano to a bass or at least very low baritone—for years I had major problems orienting my voice to my ear or vice-versa. But there were positive experiences, too: I had a wonderful piano teacher—Mrs Underhill—who really was a friend to me, & was there to help when I finally started to practice & actually improve.

What was the biggest obstacle you had to overcome to play &/or compose music?

Truth be told, I’ve battled a certain defeatist or “fear of failure” streak in myself for many years, & I guess various youthful experiences led me to believe that I‘d never cut it as a “real” musician. I remember telling friends (half jokingly) during my poebiz days in Charlottesville that I’d rather be a musician than a poet; yet for quite some time when opportunities came up, I avoided them. It wasn’t until I got to know Dani Leone & other folks in San Francisco with a sort of “do-it-yourself” musical aesthetic that I was able to start putting that behind me. But the biggest impetus for me really getting into music has been my relationship with my wife, Eberle—always the better musician, but always encouraging & always finding ways for us to play music together, even when I really couldn’t play a lick. The moral of the story is: if you’re afraid to fail, you’re certain never to succeed.

Do you have any superstitions connected with performances (or with the composing process)?

Despite being a rational sort of guy from one standpoint, I also have tons of superstitions—I’m intent on the “no hat on the bed” thing all the time, but especially before shows, & as Eberle said in her kick-off interview, I insist that we have Buffy the Buffalo with us. One time we played a wedding & forgot Buffy; I didn’t realize until after the gig that Buffy wasn’t in one of the bags, but I just couldn’t focus on the music that day—I felt lost thru the whole gig: simply couldn’t concentrate. We’ve never been at a gig without Buffy the Buffalo , before or since.

Do you start thinking about arrangements as soon as you’re learning a song you’re going to cover or only after you’ve learned it at a basic level?

Nowadays, I’m just doing old tunes, so it’s all covers—no composing. But whether it's a cover or a composition, I’m pretty much “hands on”: when writing songs I’m working on fills & riffs & melodic ideas I can add in without straying too far from a given chord shape—same now when I’m working out back-up or breaks for traditional tunes. I used to think this was “wrong,” somehow—perhaps because it came relatively naturally, & I’ve found that a lot of musicians, myself included, tend to feel that whatever we do naturally isn’t what we should be doing—a big mistake, in my opinion these days. Then I learned that John Fahey worked in a similar fashion when he was composing or working out arrangements of old tunes, & that sort of gave me permission to do this without worrying if it was “the right way.” More importantly, it got me to thinking that there are a lot of “right ways” to do things musically, & we shouldn’t under-value “doing what comes naturally.”

As far as arrangements go, I used to do a fair amount of work on instrumentation with the Alice in Wonder Band, & these days if Eberle wants to learn one of the songs in my repertoire, I usually have an idea of what I’d like her to play, but we always settle on whatever actually works—even if I’m thinking flute & she ends up playing kazoo!

What attracts you to a certain song—what makes a good song?

I once quoted Swedish accordionist Lars Hollmer’s description of himself as a “romantic son of a bitch,” & I suppose I fall into that category as well. Emotion is a big factor in what draws me to a certain song. There’s a lot of emotion in a good melody, & in vocal pieces there’s emotion in good lyrics—not cheap emotion, but feelings that are complex &/or just plain powerful. & I like music that moves me physically as well—not necessarily with some ponderous backbeat but with actual rhythmic motion. As far as songs I perform, my voice has limitations, tho with work & with help from Eberle, I’ve learned to work within these limitations. So, while I’d love to sing a song like “You Go To My Head,” I’m better suited to sticking to old blues & country. Those styles match my voice much better than a lush old standard.

Any one or two of your performances stick out as more memorable? Any one or two incidents during a performance that stick in your mind?

We (Eberle & I) performed our score to Shipman’s Back to God’s Country at Claremont-McKenna College back a few years ago. Our good Shipman buddy, Idaho Film Collection Director Tom Trusky flew in with a copy of the film, Claremont-McKenna film professor Jim Morrison was graciousness itself, & we were having a blast with our pal Audrey Bilger, who’s also a prof there, & was the one who facilitated the gig. Then the film started. Now as some of you may know, film projectors these days run 24 frames per second. However, in the days of the silents, projection speed wasn’t standardized—it changed from one film to the next, & even changed within a given film. We’d composed our score to Back to God’s Country with the film running at 18 or 19 frames per second (can’t recall which), & both of our scores are timed pretty exactly in many spots. All the sudden the film started rolling & Eberle & I realized that something wasn’t right—we were playing in good tempo, but things were moving really fast. The funny thing is, we adapted well—on the fly & with very little overt communication. Somehow we were really in a groove with each other that evening, which is good because we were changing stuff left & right. That was quite a workout—but it was over faster than usual! & I could sense the audience was digging it, which they were—given what was going on, that made me quite elated as we played.

But there have been lots of great memories—the Alice in Wonder Band’s first show at the Alpine Playhouse in 2002; the Wonder Band playing in San Francisco in 2003; & perhaps my favorite show all time, a Bijou Orchestrette show with a screening of Nell Shipman’s Back to God’s Country at the Grove Hotel in Boise for the Western Literature Association in 2006.

When performing how much are you focusing on communication with the audience, & how much on the other members of your band?

I’ve always felt like I’m sensitive to audiences, ever since my poebiz days doing a lot of readings. This can be a good thing, because sometimes I’m just dead sure the audience is right in it with us even tho there’s no distinct indication—remember, Eberle & I have done a lot of background type music, including playing scores for silent films, so sometimes the link with the audience is kind of triangulated. Having said all that, tho, the absolute best thing is to be in a groove with your fellow musicians—if you are in that groove, the odds are really strong the audience is getting what you’re trying to put across. Music is aural communication, & you have to learn how to listen to the folks you’re playing with, & how to communicate with them.

Any instrument that really intrigues you that you’ve never gotten around to learn? What’s interesting to you about this instrument?

I’ve really tried my hand at more than I probably should have already! I know I’d be a better guitar player if I’d stuck to that single-mindedly rather than dividing my guitar time with ukes & banjos & mandocellos, etc. But the one instrument that has intrigued me is the cello. I love instruments in that low but melodic range, & the bowing is a lot more melodic than anything you can do with a guitar or other fretted instrument. Eberle has an upright bass student who bought a decent cello for a ridiculously low price, & he left it with us for a week or two to look over. I played it a bit—loved it—but realized that, unlike fretted instruments which aren’t too hard to keep picking up once you’ve played a few, this would really be starting at square one all over again, & I decided I just don’t have the time to put into it.

What’s on your playlist these days? What are you listening to?

Lots of old blues & old-time music in general. Very much into the Memphis Jug Band, Dave Van Ronk, Reverend Gary Davis, Rory Block, Mississippi John Hurt. But I haven’t turned my back on the jazz stuff: still love Fats Waller, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Mary Lou Williams & Thelonious Monk—lots of blues there, too. For what it’s worth, I tend to listen to music in a different way than before I played as much—I can’t really take “background music.” If it’s playing, I have to be focused on it. Otherwise, I’d rather have silence or be playing myself.

Where do you see yourself in relation to music right now? How has your relationship to music changed over time?

When I took up the guitar, I saw myself as playing & singing old country & old blues. It turned out that I had to do a lot of work to get my singing “ready for prime-time” (whatever “prime-time” means in rural Idaho). In the interim, I learned a lot about the guitar & other instruments—especially how to be a solid back-up player, but also how to get out on my own, too. Now I’m looking forward to a new incarnation as a singer of old-time songs—blues, especially, & some old country, too, especially where that intersects with blues (e.g., Jimmie Rodgers). This spring I’ll be doing the senior citizen center/nursing home/assisted living center circuit in this general area, & if that goes well, I may do some busking in McCall & try to separate the Boise touristas from some of their shekels; & there are a few local venues that would make sense for this kind of music.

Where do you place yourself in relation to a musical tradition or heritage? Could you talk a bit about musical influences?

This is a hard question for me. I’ve liked “Americana” music for a long time—I was first introduced to it thru my sister’s folk singer records, & then later discovered it in a different incarnation thru Grateful Dead covers of songs like “Death Don’t Have No Mercy,” & “Duncan & Brady” & “You Win Again” way back in the early 70s. I have all three of those songs in my repertoire, tho I can’t say I’ve listened to Grateful Dead any time in recent memory (or even less-than-recent). I listened to lots of rock—various sorts: psychedalia & electric blues from the 60s & early 70s; then a lot of punk—Iggy & the Stooges, Ramones, Sex Pistols, Patti Smith (especially), Tom Verlaine, X, the Minutemen, Johnny Thunders, etc.—but I don’t see this as reflected in my music other than just the concept of “do-it-yourself.” I suppose I come down thru the folkie tradition in some way that included the mind-altering 70s & various other raucous detours before ending up with a resonator guitar playing & singing “Hesitation Blues.”

Do you have any advice for people who are starting out as performers &/or composers?

Spend at least as much time playing your instrument as listening to recorded music. You can get some ideas from recorded music, but a lot of times folks use recordings to beat themselves over the head with the old “I’ll never be able to play like that” shtick. I thought Dale Fisk was right on when he said, “play with people who are better than you.” & play with other folks as soon as you can—which depends a bit on the instrument. You learn at an exponential rate when you play with others. Try to remember: this ain’t a competition—all musicians have strengths & weaknesses; all musicians tend to think: "if only I could do such & such in a certain way." Know why you want to play the instrument (but realize this may change over time). & how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice…. practice is really just very focused playing. & speaking of playing, don’t forget you’re “playing” an instrument—don’t take yourself too seriously.

Is there a question about music/musicianship you’ve always had a hankering to answer? If so, what is it, & what’s the answer you’ve wanted to give?
Why does my wife, Eberle, find it so natural to play in odd time signatures & with accents coming in unexpected places? Answer: I haven’t a clue!

A Picture is Worth….

What do the 10 films on the following list have in common?

1. Back to God’s Country (1919)
2. The Grub-Stake (1923)
3. American Madness (1932)
4. It Happened One Night (1934)
5. Mr Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
6. Theodora Goes Wild (1936)
7. The Awful Truth (1937)
8. You Can’t Take it With You (1938)
9. Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
10. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Well, if I had to compile a “desert island” film list, this would work. Of course, there’s a lot of Capra here, but also films by Shipman & McCarey; there’s Cary Grant & Irene Dunn & Clark Gable & Jean Arthur & Jimmy Stewart & Claudette Colbert & Lionel Barrymore & more—certainly no one actor or actress appears in all these films; & the films are a mix of screwball comedies & melodramas. The one constant factor in all 10 of these movies (&, according to the IMDB page, over 130 others) is the cinematographer, Joseph Walker.

Walker’s career started in the silent era, when the “picture” was nearly everything. A westerner (born in 1892 in Colorado), Walker certainly seemed capable of undergoing the rigors of location shooting—a large segment of Shipman’s Back to God’s Country was shot near the Arctic Circle, & some of her film The Grub-Stake was shot in wintry conditions at Priest Lake, ID. According to the IMDB, Walker’s career began in 1919 with Back to God’s Country; however, a very informative page from filmreference.com points out that he’d done newsreel work prior to this. He had a background in electronics, & was responsible for a number of inventions & innovations throughout his career.

Walker worked for Columbia pictures from 1927 until his retirement in 1952. He was nominated for four Academy Awards: You Can’t Take it With You (1938); Only Angels Have Wings (1939); Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941); & The Jolson Story (1946). In 1981 he won the first Gordon E. Sawyer award honoring “an individual in the motion picture industry whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry.”

Obviously, the images are the crucial thing for us when we watch the films he shot. All the Walker films I’ve seen have an aura—lighting, for one thing, but also an ability to capture a landscape, not necessarily in the sense of landscape portraiture (though he certainly could do this in the Shipman films or Capra’s Lost Horizon (1937), but rather a way of creating an environment & rendering it as mythic—this seems particularly true in the Capra movies, in which the images accumulate into an American mythos—not a “real” picture of America in the 30’s & 40’s, but the most real picture of the mythic “America” as it existed then. A shot of a newsboy holding up a headline; a shot of Jean Arthur in the Congressional gallery; Gable & Colbert in the half light on a bus; the images of banks in both American Madness & It’s a Wonderful Life—these images & so many others define an unreal, but “true” vision of the U.S. in the Depression & afterwards. Of course, something similar is true of his work with Shipman—Shipman’s vision of an untamed & idealized wilderness—“God’s Country”—as well as the harsh aspects of both nature & man’s cruel frontier outposts in it—also are brought to a vivid & sometimes majestic life by Walker’s camera work.

Walker died in 1985 in Las Vegas, NV.


The pic up top shows Bert Van Tuyle, Nell Shipman & Joseph Walker at Priest Lake during the 20’s (I-r; I don’t know the identity of the man furthest to the right)

The lower pic is Jimmy Stewart & Donna Reed through a car’s rear window in the rain from (of course) “It’s a Wonderful Life”