Saying Goodbye to Robert Redford

How’s this for an eerie coincidence: on Monday, September 15, I stayed up late to watch The Natural, my vote for the best baseball movie ever, inching out Field of Dreams, A League of Their Own, and The Bad News Bears (and maybe Eight Men Out – it’s been a long time since I’ve seen that one).  Just a few hours after I finished the film and went to bed, Robert Redford, the star of The Natural, died at 89 years old.

My mom wrote to me after learning about his death: “All of the great ones are gone.” I don’t subscribe to that view, but I understand that if you’re in your 80s and have seen Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant and Paul Newman come and go, you might be inclined to think that the best is behind us.

It was my mother who introduced me to Redford, the actor, through movies like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, but it was Redford, the director, who may have made the biggest impact on me. After my parents split up in ’79, my mother took me to films that she thought would shed a light on grown-up topics, including divorce and general family discord. There was The China Syndrome, then Kramer vs. Kramer, and then Redford’s Oscar-winning Ordinary People. These latter two movies were interesting choices, because the mothers aren’t portrayed in a particularly positive light, and goodness knows my mother blamed my father for their marriage’s demise. But these films dramatized troubled families and the subsequent fallout on the children, and that may have been the point: to see that others experienced difficulties similar to my own, and in the case of Ordinary People – far worse.

I grew to watch other Redford-directed films like The Milagro Beanfield War and Quiz Show, and filled in some of the gaps from his acting career, like The Electric Horseman, All the President’s Men and Barefoot in the Park.

But it’s The Natural I love the most. Hell, Randy Newman’s score alone does it for me.

Gene Siskel placed The Natural at number 10 in his list of favorite films of the year, saying, “I loved every corny bit of it.”  Ebert wasn’t so kind, giving it 2 stars, and writing, “Why did a perfectly good story, filled with interesting people, have to be made into one man’s ascension to the godlike, especially when no effort is made to give that ascension meaning?” He’s not wrong. The movie is flawed. It’s cheesy. It’s shallow. It’s a fable, pure and simple. But, like Siskel, I loved every corny bit of it.

And now I can say that I loved every corny bit of it while Redford was breathing his last.

All of the great ones are not gone. But we lost another one this week.

Saying Goodbye to Rick Davies of Supertramp

I wrote about Supertramp’s Breakfast in America eleven years ago and later included it in my list of all-time favorites, along with the band’s album, Crisis? What Crisis?  In my summary of those two inclusions, I wrote:

I can’t overstate how important this band was to the young version of me, insecure and creative, the youngest child of separated parents. Hodgson’s lyrics were the empathetic voice I craved, though I can’t say for sure that I understood them all at the time. Listening to Supertramp nearly forty years on, the band’s output still holds up. I’ve always loved the juxtaposition of Davies’s and Hodgson’s respective oeuvres, one cynical and cranky, one spiritual and nurturing, and together they were greater than the sum of their parts. 

Rick Davies died a few days ago, and as important as some of Hodgson’s lyrics were to me as a youth, it was Davies’s piano skills that attracted much of my attention, as I moved beyond the Michael Aaron piano books I’d been trudging through for years and started to explore playing songs that I loved. When I was twelve, I purchased the manuscript book of Crime of the Century, and I studied those songs with curiosity, amazement and confusion, unable to play some of the licks to my satisfaction. Easiest among the lot was the title track, and for a brief period I played the song in the living room of classmates Jon and Scott Wittkopf, who added drums and guitar to the mix. It was my first foray into playing with a group, and it jumpstarted my excitement to be in a band as I dreamed of music stardom.  

My brother soon encouraged me to learn “Another Man’s Woman,” a piano tour-de-force that begins with a terrific percussive groove and culminates with an equally terrific solo, and I managed to do a fair job of replicating it by ear rather than a manuscript. Soon to follow were songs like “Asylum,” “Just Another Nervous Wreck,” and “From Now On.” This band was inspiring!

But for any pianist, it was “Bloody Well Right” that set the standard, with Davies’s extended blues-based Wurlizer solo instantly recognizable. I must say that I fumbled through it as a child, only kinda-sorta achieving the spirit of the solo if not the actual notes. It wasn’t until I was in my 30s that I finally sat down and transcribed the solo note for note, slowing the tune down to identify some of the faster runs, and even today it’s an intro that break out from time to time.

Beyond the obvious piano chops of Rick Davies, his sonically-edged compositions helped to compensate for Hodgson’s sweeter side. Davies basically played Lennon to Hodgson’s McCartney, or Amy Ray to Emily Saliers of Indigo Girls, offering a bit of cynicism and realism to the philosophical Hodgson. I thought that Davies really hit his stride on Breakfast in America and Famous Last Words…, the final Supertramp albums before Hodgson left the band. I loved songs like “Gone Hollywood,” “Oh Darling,” “Just Another Nervous Wreck,” “Put on Your Old Brown Shoes,” and “Waiting So Long.” They may not have been hits, but they helped elevate the Supertramp releases into satisfying listening experiences, making them “complete” albums, and not just some filler songs amongst a few of Hodgson’s hits.

I got to see Rick Davies twice: once at Alpine Valley in 1983, and then two years later at MECCA in Milwaukee. For the latter show, I was excited that Davies would have more of a chance to shine as the only songwriter left in the band. Unfortunately, the setlist was lacking, as was Davies’ ability to hold an audience. It was decent, but it was clear that Supertramp missed Hodgson. Unfortunately, they would never play together again.

It was just two weeks ago that Hodgson lost a publishing royalty appeal between him and the rest of the band. A sad way to end the legacy of a great band.

The Grayness of Human Beings

A couple of months ago, a patron at a Chicago White Sox game made some very meanspirited and personal remarks to Arizona second baseman Ketel Marte, and the fan was subsequently banned from all MLB games indefinitely. Reports are that the 22 year-old was “very apologetic and remorseful,” which is promising; I hope he uses this unfortunate experience as an opportunity to recalibrate his life. I also hope that Major League Baseball doesn’t banish the fan for life, or even for a year, but rather invites him back to enjoy baseball with his regrettable indiscretion behind him.

People can be cruel. People can be dumb. The world is run by cruel and dumb people, for crying out loud. But I’d also like us to give people a little more leeway than what is often offered on social media, podcasts and YouTube. Lord knows that if I were held accountable for all the stupid shit I spouted as a 22-year-old, I’d be banned from all sorts of businesses, websites and homes – including my own! I’m wiser today, I’ve smoothed out some of the rough edges, and I try not to utter every stupid thought that pops into my brain.

As we look around the world today, on the news or on internet comments or social media, we’ll witness words and actions that exemplify the worst of humanity. If we look a little harder, we’ll also see words and actions that exemplify the best of humanity. It’s so easy to observe the worst in someone and use it to summarize their entire being. One false action, one slipup of a remark, one viewpoint that doesn’t correspond to our own, and WHAMMO! You’re now an asshole. A pariah. A “them.”

This isn’t the best way to go through life, for it too easily distills a complex human being into a one-word pejorative. I’ve had discussions with my children about this. There is a celebrity who’s done some amazing things but who’s also made some remarks that my children don’t agree with. This celebrity is now banished from their lives, relegated to the island of assholes who aren’t worth their time, which is unfortunate, because it doesn’t address the full human being; it cherry picks the one thing that they find abhorrent and ignores all the good they’ve done.

People are gray, sometimes impressing us with their words and actions, and sometimes letting us down. Goodness knows that I don’t always live up to my highest ideals. There are a multitude of words and actions from my past that I wish I could take back, but it would also be wrong for someone to take a few of those words and actions and make a blanket statement about who I am as a person. I am more than my missteps. I’m also more than a guy who holds a different viewpoint that you do about a particular subject. It’s OKAY to have an opinion that doesn’t align with yours.

People are numbskulls. People are geniuses.
People are despicable and amazing.
They’re pathetic and inspiring.
They’re disappointing and promising.
They’re mean-spirited and kind, cowardly and brave.
People are dishonorable and commendable, capricious and steadfast,
stingy and generous, hypocritical and trustworthy.
They’re hateful and loving. Weak and strong. Lazy and indefatigable.
They are painfully serious and side-splittingly funny,
They’re boring as hell and engrossing.
They are black and white and red and orange and yellow and brown and…
GRAY.

Let’s try to refrain from painting a broad brushstroke about someone’s entire being based on one or two things that we don’t appreciate. Okay?

Billy Joel and "Code of Silence"

HBO’s excellent new documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes, praises Joel’s chameleon-like ability to compose in multiple genres, something that few music critics did during his time dominating the charts. Instead, they accused him of uninventiveness and trend-hopping, constantly shifting styles to match modern fads. But what crtics missed, most songwriters understood: a lot of artists adjust their songwriting styles, but not many of them do it well. By contrast, Joel’s prowess as a songwriter might rightly be compared to mid-century masters like Cole Porter or Irving Berlin.

One of Joel’s attributes that the documentary spends less time on is his expertise at wordsmithing. At his best, his ability to perfectly capture a character, a feeling, or a situation, is second-to-none. Listen again to songs like “Always a Woman,” “I’ve Loved These Days,” “Goodnight Saigon” and “Innocent Man,” and you might conclude that he’s achieving something far beyond composing catchy hooks.

For me, I can’t think of Billy Joel without recalling a lesser-known tune that he co-wrote with Cyndi Lauper, “Code of Silence,” from 1986’s The Bridge, one of the last vinyl records I purchased before switching over to CDs. It was a letter from a friend of mine that prompted me to examine the lyrics of this song with more attention than I was accustomed to, a letter I still have today. In it, my friend alludes to a past event in her life and how it impacted her, and then goes on to write out the entire lyric of “Code of Silence,” adding that the song describes her “to a ‘T’.”

This revelation hit me hard then, and it’s clearly continued to hit my hard over time, because it led to my composition, “The Diary You Keep,” from my album Trainsongs, and it also inspired an important character in my unpublished novel, Things I Hate About My Mother. I can’t hear “Code of Silence” without thinking of her. She had clearly experienced some sort of trauma, and I don’t need to work too hard to imagine what it might have been.

The lyrics of “Code of Silence” are effective because they express the victim’s point of view so well:

You’ve been through it once
You know how it ends
You don’t see the point of going through it again

And you can’t talk about it
Because you’re following a code of silence
You’re never gonna lose the anger
You just deal with it a different way
And you can’t talk about it
And isn’t that a kind of madness
To be living by a code of silence
When you’ve really got a lot to say?

And later in the tune:

And it’s hard to believe after all these years
That it still gives you pain and it still brings tears
And you feel like a fool, ‘cause in spite all your rules
You’ve got a memory

Joel gives most of the credit to Lauper, who happened to be recording her True Colors album next door to Joel, resulting in the collaboration. In an interview, Joel said “She did all the work.” Regardless of who contributed the lion’s share of the tune, as far as I’m concerned, the Joel-Lauper pairing was a match made in heaven, and I wonder what might have transpired had they committed to composing more songs together.

I’m a melody guy, first and foremost, with lyrics often falling a distant second. But man, when melody and lyrics are coupled together perfectly, it packs a punch. Give it a listen and see if it hits you the same way.

And to my old friend, wherever you might be, I hope you’re well, and I hope you’ve been able to crack the code.

S.W. Lauden on 1000 Greatest Misses

Last week, my podcast partner Chris and I recorded a terrific episode of our podcast, 1000 Greatest Misses, as we featured special guest author S.W. Lauden, also known as Steve Coulter, a great drummer formerly of the band Tsar, who we happened to feature on our podcast a while back. Steve has authored numerous book - both fiction and non-fiction - and is also the author of the Substack Remember the Lightning. Steve was nice enough to speak with Chris and me on our podcast episode 111, and then he interviewed us for an entry on his Substack. I encourage you to check out his writings in general, but below is the interview he had with Chris and me, as we discuss our podcast after over two years under our belts.

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I don’t usually rely on podcasts to (re)discover great guitar pop artists and songs from the past, but 1,000 Greatest Misses is definitely an exception.

This is largely due to the unique format that co-hosts Christopher Grey and Paul Heinz set up in 2023. Most episodes start with banter between the two music obsessives who then play samples from five different tracks that “hit all the marks but failed to chart” while discussing their personal perspectives and opinions.

“I will take credit for the idea, 8 years before I found the right person to partner with to bring it to fruition. My partner Paul Heinz and associate producer Bob Blum get credit for everything else,” Grey told me for the interview below.

“I do love turning people on to songs that have had an impact on me. I’m always texting Spotify or Youtube links to friends, saying, ‘Have you heard this yet?’ The podcast just allows me to reach thousands (okay, not exactly thousands) of people all at once, every week.”

“Chris has so much knowledge about the minutia of obscure bands, producers, record labels, and the like,” Heinz agreed.

“I’m definitely the novice on this journey, but I was able to tackle some of the legwork necessary to take his idea to the finish line. Then Bob came in and helped with some of the more grueling aspects of preparing for a weekly podcast. When you’re just starting out, you kind of underestimate the number of hours it takes to record a good half an hour episode.”

I caught up with Grey and Heinz by email to thank them for having me on as a guest (please don’t hold that against them), talk about how the show has evolved from their original vision, and what their plans are once they hit 1,000 songs.

I'm a big fan of your podcast, so it was an honor to be a guest. I think the format is really interesting. How did you land on that formula?

Christopher Grey: I was a guest on a couple of episodes of the Rock and/or Roll podcast with BJ Kramp. We had a ball, and he indulged my desire to talk about all these killer obscure tracks pulled from early ‘80s radio station compilation records. My initial premise was to keep the podcast short—5 songs per episode and put an expiration date on it. Hence the 1000 greatest misses, 200 episodes and out.

The better question is what kind of blackmail evidence did I have on Paul and Bob to get them to agree to work with me?

Paul Heinz: It certainly wasn’t the cash!

What have you learned over the course of 100+ episodes?

Christopher Grey: That it’s really hard to grow an audience when your subject matter is as specific as ours. For the amount of time I’ve spent adding links to Facebook posts, setting up guests and generally spreading the 1KGM gospel, we should have tens of thousands of listeners. Spoiler alert: We don't. But I will say that the folks that listen understand us and have proven to be as big or bigger fans than we are! They are so knowledgeable and hearing from them makes my day every time.

Paul Heinz: And we’ve also heard from quite a few of the artists we’ve featured, which isn’t something we expected. As for as listenership goes, when you consider the number of options for people to spend their time on these days, the fact that we have a crew of loyal listeners is really gratifying.

You occasionally have guests on (I loved the Peter Jesperson and Ted Ansani episodes). Any temptation to turn this into an interview podcast?

Christopher Grey: In my head, it’s certainly a lot more work to coordinate a show with guests. Of course, I understand that fans want to hear from artists and music industry figures, but there are so many podcasts that are better funded, researched, and that do such a great job in that space. The highest compliment I’ve gotten is that listeners feel like they are having a conversation with us. I think that was the original vibe we were going for.

Paul Heinz: I’ve had listeners tell me that they’re more interested in the banter between Chris and me than the songs themselves. Go figure.

Who is somebody that both of you agree would be the ultimate 1000 Greatest Misses guest (and why is it Paul Westerberg)?

Christopher Grey: I think Paul Westerberg represents a common ground for Paul and me. As our listeners know, Paul doesn’t always care for the songs that I bring to the table. In fact, his quote, "I wish it was better," is bandied around like a line from Caddyshack in our small community.

Paul Heinz: We even thought about putting that quote on the back of our t-shirts!

Christopher Grey: I would love to talk to Roger Manning or Jason Falkner as a fan, but I could see us featuring some hardcore record collectors that specialize in our favorite genres as well. Listeners of the show have proven to be extremely entertaining. Maybe we could get a power pop version of the Wack Pack of our most devoted listeners: Sharon, Jared, Andy, Pete, and Kevin!

Paul Heinz: I’ve never even heard of 80% of the bands we feature, so when we have guests on, I really have to do my homework. I know a bit about The Replacements, but having Paul Westerberg as a guest would be terrifying.

What are a few favorite artists or tracks that you specifically discovered through the podcast?

Christopher Grey: The list is long and varied. The High Back Chairs, Softjaw, Company of Thieves, The Argyles, Comsat Angels, SVT, Death Cab for Cutie (yep, I have blind spots), Graduate, The Shake Shakes.

Paul Heinz: Mine includes The Keys, The Planets, Falcon Eddy, Billy Bremner, The Cretones, The Toms, Enuff Z’nuff, Bash and Pop, Glen Burtnick and Paul Warren.

What's next for you two and 1,000 Greatest Misses?

Christopher Grey: We just recorded episode 111, (special thanks to Steve Coulter…aka S.W. Lauden!) and that leaves us with 89 more to go to satisfy the original intent of 200 episodes. We took a hiatus a few months back and retooled the show a little, and since then I’m enjoying it more than ever. Maybe there will be 1000 More Greatest Misses, maybe we will come up with a new concept, or maybe Paul will realize that I am dead weight and kick me to the curb and replace me with someone younger and better looking. Oh wait, that might be my wife's plan.

Paul Heinz: Nope. That’s my plan, too.