The Wind In New York City
Warner Brothers might have paid for the record, but the reviews made me buy it. That woman who wrote Maria Muldaur’s "Vaudeville Man"…she had an album of her own. This was the heyday of the west coast singer-songwriters. Wendy Waldman had something to say.
Senior year of high school is a victory lap. It’s your last hurrah before you’re called up to the majors, to college. A land away from your parents awash in parties. But when college is done, then what?
Maybe it was the era. I signed up for the LSAT, but then Jack and Phil knocked on my door the night before and convinced me to go to Montreal instead. That’s what the seventies were like. You had to take advantage of the opportunities. If there were corporate recruiters on campus, I wasn’t aware of them. All I wanted to do was ski and listen to music. Although even I knew that took money. Where was that money going to come from? And, before I did that, I had to write my goddamn thesis. I hadn’t put in three plus years to drop out. But suddenly, I could see why people did. But that wouldn’t solve the problem, that would just leave me with more questions than answers.
So I kept buying albums, looking for answers.
I bought Wendy Waldman’s debut the same time I bought the New York Dolls’. I loved Todd, I’d buy anything with his name on it. And, I liked "Jet Boy" and "Personality Crisis", but it was Wendy Waldman’s album that got me, from the very first note. "The Train Song" pulled out of the station, and I left with it. But the second side, that’s the one that killed me.
The way Wendy tossed off lyrics about old time love. No hesitation was necessary, I jumped right in. And stayed there as she sang about being a natural born fool. But the third track on that side was my anthem. "Lee’s Traveling Song" began with these lyrics:
Hitch a ride on a plane to California
My mind won’t let me be
Whoa, whoa, what will be my destiny?
I’d just flown back from California. The golden land of opportunity. Who your family was, all the east coast bullshit, was irrelevant. I’d dropped my sister off at graduate school. I should have stayed too. I was born for California, I escaped to California.
There’s no SAD. Everybody’s so into their own trip you’re free to pursue yours. You can make your own life, without worrying about freezing to death.
But before I left for good, after I escaped with my degree from Middlebury, I went to the Bitter End, to see Wendy Waldman. And I felt that same vibe. The one in her records.
That first record ran shotgun all the way to the west coast. I’d slip it into the Blaupunkt whenever I needed centering, when I wasn’t sure I was on the right path.
And it was Wendy’s third album, "The Main Refrain", that got me through law school before I met my girlfriend. Two years in Utah had left me so broke I was sleeping on floors. I needed a shock to the system. And law school was it. It wasn’t that it was hard, it was easier than college, but WHO GAVE A SHIT? I was just going through the motions. But when I laid on my bed and listened to "Prayer For You"…I felt that somehow I’d make it through.
Love. Sex and connection. That’s what carried me through law school. And then I truly had to face life. And I’d be lying if I told you I had it figured out, that I was good at it. My parents had run out of patience, and I’d run out of money. I was living on nothing in the land of the sun, paralyzed, trying to figure out what was next.
When my ex-wife moved out in ’89, I relied on the old records to get me through. I found new meaning in "Blue", and resonated with "It’s Alright Ma, (I’m Only Bleeding)". I spoke with Joni Mitchell, but she was different from her records. And even though I was in proximity to Bob…does anybody speak with Bob? But, as the nineties wore into the twenty first century, and via the Internet I gained a larger following, a broader reach, I wrote about Wendy Waldman. And she wrote back.
It’s funny, all these years later it’s not about stardom. Hell, Wendy’s not a star. But you can’t believe you actually KNOW the person who made those records you listened to again and again, that got you through.
After failing to break through with five albums at Warner, Wendy went to Epic. Where she missed again. Then on to Cypress. Same deal. She left for Nashville. Became a producer. And along the way wrote hits for the Dirt Band and Vanessa Williams. I loved "Save The Best For Last", and when I found out Wendy had a hand in it, I loved it even more.
And during that time in the desert, Wendy continued to make music. And, she recently assembled a compilation of that music, "Seeds and Orphans".
Acts are not supposed to have it anymore, they’re supposed to be burned out. But there are songs on "Seeds and Orphans" I love as much as the ones on those seventies records. This one especially, "Restless In Mind". The changes sound like that final year of college, when you’re trying to keep the flame of hope alive, waiting for better times.
Wendy sent me a CD. I’d been listening on Rhapsody. Told her she’d get a check for a cent or two. But I needed to OWN this material. And ripping it into iTunes just now for transfer to my iPod my whole mood changed as it played. My problems fell away. I felt that I had purchase in this world, that I owned a piece of it, that I counted, and I rarely feel this way.
And when I removed the CD from the drawer, I noticed it was burned. Then I realized the booklet was handmade too. Wendy had used the power of technology to keep on keepin’ on. The system may not have wanted her anymore, but that didn’t stop her, she was still soldiering on.
I checked her MySpace page, to see if any of these "Seeds and Orphans" tracks were up there. They weren’t. But one of my all time favorites, "The Wind In New York City", from her last Warner Brothers album, was.
I got e-mail from the most beautiful girl who goes to Aspen. She told me this song reminded her of how lonely she felt the last time she gave it up too soon and laid in bed all night in a New York hotel room, just waiting for the sun to rise so she could escape. This was our bond, the connection bred by this record.
And now you can hear this record. Doesn’t matter if you listen or not. It’s just that it’s AVAILABLE! That it’s not dead, that it’s not in deep memory.
Used to be the filters determined if you had a career or not. The powers-that-be determined if you were allowed to have exposure. Most acts got no exposure. But those days are through. And this is what the labels hate. They’re needed no more.
Oh, make no mistake. Nobody does a better job of attracting notice than a major label. But do you want this notice? Do you make music that gets noticed with carpet bombing techniques?
The future is murky. But we now know the tools are there. You can do it for yourself. And we’re gonna be there to support you. Because we love you.
