So we’re in the dressing room and Tom and Joni Mitchell are discussing open tunings.<\/p>\n
Tom had just finished up the first set with "Panama Limited", a compilation of Bukka White numbers.\u00c2\u00a0 And Tom and Joni were reminiscing about the days back in Detroit, when they met, when the old blues men were still revered, when Tom first heard "Urge For Going".<\/p>\n
Actually, Tom was past deadline on his new album.\u00c2\u00a0 He needed material.\u00c2\u00a0 He got Joni to send him a tape.\u00c2\u00a0 And, at the end, Joni added a number she’d just written, a song she wasn’t sure was any good.\u00c2\u00a0 And Tom liked it so much, he named the album after it, "The Circle Game".<\/p>\n
Truth be told, Tom Rush was a little before my time.\u00c2\u00a0 He grew out of the folkie era.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, if you want to know more about this period, buy Joe Boyd’s "White Bicycles".\u00c2\u00a0 Although at dinner Tom laughingly told me that Joe had stolen all the good stories from him, for they were roommates at Harvard.<\/p>\n
Tom took piano lessons.\u00c2\u00a0 He hated them.\u00c2\u00a0 But, when a relative showed him how to play the ukulele, he took to it, he embraced it.\u00c2\u00a0 And from Groton to Harvard, somehow he switched to the guitar.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that he was a musician at first, he was a deejay, running a live music show on Harvard’s 5 watt station.\u00c2\u00a0 He used this as an entre to meet all the legendary blues and folk pickers, to get them on his show.\u00c2\u00a0 And he could!\u00c2\u00a0 This was before the days of superstardom, when access was easily had at the club.<\/p>\n
Eventually, Tom was goaded into taking the stage at an open mic night.\u00c2\u00a0 And through a combination of moxie and luck, he got a residency at Club 47.\u00c2\u00a0 And ultimately made a record.\u00c2\u00a0 With someone lost to time who said he had a tape recorder.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, after all his jealous contemporaries got deals, Paul Rothchild signed Tom up to Prestige, and then Jac Holzman’s Elektra.<\/p>\n
Tom was the singer\/songwriter star before James Taylor.\u00c2\u00a0 He was the college campus favorite.\u00c2\u00a0 Whenever I hit the dorm rooms of upperclassmen, they all had "The Circle Game", and his debut on Columbia.<\/p>\n
Actually, his deal with Columbia lapsed, they failed to pick up their option.\u00c2\u00a0 But Tom’s manager and attorney told him to re-up anyway, not to go to Warner, to play nice with Big Red.<\/p>\n
A total mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 The deal was worse and the record didn’t sell.\u00c2\u00a0 Tom found himself dropped.\u00c2\u00a0 And then he decided to drop out of music and become a farmer in his beloved New Hampshire.<\/p>\n
But it didn’t take.\u00c2\u00a0 In six months Tom started playing gigs again.\u00c2\u00a0 He felt contrary to Columbia’s protestations, baby boomers were still interested in music.\u00c2\u00a0 They might not want to go to clubs, but going upscale, Tom booked Boston’s Symphony Hall and sold out!\u00c2\u00a0 And he’s been cottage industry ever since.<\/p>\n
Funny how these musicians are humble, how they’re evasive.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s so hard to make it that after they’ve crossed the threshold, they don’t like to talk about the desire, the effort.\u00c2\u00a0 Sitting with Tom in Valentino it all seemed like luck.\u00c2\u00a0 But I know better.<\/p>\n
But as low key as Tom was at dinner, he positively came alive at the gig.\u00c2\u00a0 You see he gave a performance.\u00c2\u00a0 Not like you see on TV, not like you experience at the arena.\u00c2\u00a0 It was just him and three guitars.\u00c2\u00a0 And a lot of tales.<\/p>\n
You see Tom’s smart, and educated.\u00c2\u00a0 So what comes out between the songs is just as fascinating as the music itself!\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the story of a life.\u00c2\u00a0 Told with the humor of an observer who’s still here to reveal the details.\u00c2\u00a0 Of time in New Hampshire, Wyoming and now California.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, Tom’s moved across the country.\u00c2\u00a0 But his most rabid fan base is still on the east coast.\u00c2\u00a0 Did I know that from one corner of Wyoming to the other was the same distance from Toronto to D.C?\u00c2\u00a0 The traveling was hell, that Tom was doing to his supposedly fifty but really more like sixty five gigs a year.\u00c2\u00a0 But he didn’t tire of getting up on stage.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a rush, to play music for a living.\u00c2\u00a0 He had no regrets.<\/p>\n
Before Joni arrived he did "Urge For Going".<\/p>\n
But the highlight of the first set was the aforementioned "Panama Limited".\u00c2\u00a0 When he made his guitar duplicate the sound of a train north of Memphis, and the Panama Limited coming in from the south.\u00c2\u00a0 This wasn’t hit of the minute, this was part of a long folk tradition.\u00c2\u00a0 This wasn’t gloss, this was America.<\/p>\n
But it was "Merrimack County" that touched me the most.\u00c2\u00a0 This transcended conversation, transcended McCabe’s music room.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re all from somewhere.\u00c2\u00a0 And for those of us who have developed in the wide open spaces, our dreams are as vast as the landscape.\u00c2\u00a0 And all that hope and reflection was embodied in Tom’s performance.<\/p>\n
And there was a killer version of "Drift Away", prefaced by a story of meeting its writer, Mentor Williams, in the Nashville airport.<\/p>\n
And, in his discussion of cover versions of "No Regrets", Tom told of humoring Bono, who had taken to performing the song on his band’s tour.\u00c2\u00a0 Turned out Bono didn’t have a sense of humor about the music of his homeland.<\/p>\n
Then again, was this detail apocryphal?<\/p>\n
You never knew with Tom.\u00c2\u00a0 So many of the stories started believable, but when you got to the end, you wondered if you’d been had.\u00c2\u00a0 There was a punch line.\u00c2\u00a0 Was all that preceded it also false?<\/p>\n
And following "No Regrets", Tom segued into "Rockport Sunday".<\/p>\n
Tomorrow’s the first day of the week.\u00c2\u00a0 According to Christians, it’s the lord’s day.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t work, we’re supposed to reflect.\u00c2\u00a0 And hearing this instrumental about a morning in Maine, I felt at peace, that all my choices had been if not right, at least arguable, that the mistakes I’d made were minor, that my life might not be perfect, but it had turned out all right.<\/p>\n
I followed the sound, just like Tom.\u00c2\u00a0 Funny how we’d never met previously, but we were alike.<\/p>\n
There are stars and then there are musicians.\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes they’re one and the same, but not so much anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 As the stars become more plastic, we’re driven to the musicians, they point the way, just by following their muse.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re not about accumulating a pile of money so much as joy, both on stage and off.\u00c2\u00a0 Telling their stories, about life.<\/p>\n
I’m only pissed I missed the show Friday night.\u00c2\u00a0 When spotting Jackson Browne in the audience Tom launched into "Jamaica Say You Will".\u00c2\u00a0 You see Jackson was signed to Elektra’s publishing company.\u00c2\u00a0 Tom had access to his tunes.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s how he ended up recording "These Days".\u00c2\u00a0 They were all in it together.\u00c2\u00a0 And although Tom’s Festival Express buddy Janis Joplin and so many are gone, many have survived.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re still out there, accessible.\u00c2\u00a0 Make the effort, partake of their wisdom and joy, you’ll be richer for it, not monetarily, but where it truly counts, in your heart.<\/p>\n
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