Frank Gutch Jr: These Are People I’ve Known (But Who Try to Keep It a Secret); Plus Notes

The past week I have been revisiting some of my earlier DBAWIS columns and am shocked at how few people (as far as I can tell) know about them, even now.  When I write about musicians, it is usually personal, both the person or people and the music, and I feel that sometimes they are more water under the bridge than anything.  No one sends notes asking about someone I wrote about in 2012 unless something has happened since and there are so many truly talented people who deserve recognition.  So this week, I am going to point toward artists you may have missed whom I think are above the norm in terms of talent and/or personality.  And maybe I owe a few of them money, but that is neither here nor there.

Frank Gutch Jr: Generation Found; It Was a Long Walk Home (Thoughts Spurred By Separation From Viet Nam-Era Army); plus N-n-n-n-notes…

 

For years I have been telling you that music isn’t just music.  Some of you understand, mostly musicians who spend a lot of energy and time helping out those in need.  Others shrug it off because they know either that there is no good music anymore so what good would it do, or that musicians are either children avoiding growing up or are millionaires waiting for the train.  Don’t tell that to the people at Sweet Relief or Musicares or any of the other charity organizations out there.  There is a lot of hard work being laid down by scores of musicians and music people, aware that good fortune can turn sour at the drop of a hat.

Frank Gutch Jr: Charlottesville Revisited (Revisited),

The reason Charlottesville is being (Revisited) is because I do believe that somewhere out there in the ether Charlottesville has already been Revisited and, hell, I am sure I confuse people often enough without reusing headers.  It would be akin to writing a book and naming all the chapters “Chapter One,” which, now that I think about it, is a pretty good idea.  But the second Revisited, placed in parentheses, separates the first from the second, does it not?

Frank Gutch Jr: The Forgotten Past, Recent and Otherwise; Plus a Few (Very Few) Notes

 

Joseph LeMay‘s album Seventeen Acres has been out how long?  Three months?  I wrote about it in an earlier DBAWIS column and have barely mentioned it since.  I have to wonder why.  I love some of the songs on that album and like everything about it.  It is beautifully recorded, masterfully produced and mastered and, even more important, made up of outstanding songs.  And yet I push it into the past.  So I started thinking— how does that happen?