passing through b/w a cab rolls through philadelphia…George Harrison

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passing through b/w a cab rolls through philadelphia the road... it's a blur and the sound of tires on the highway but life goes on beyond the suspended time and dates of the tour and so i am in philadelphia, where lee ann womack kicked off her christmas tour with no less than the duke ellington riding shotgun it is morning, too early not yet light but i am concerned about security and making sure i make my flight not even certain when i stepped out of my hotel i'd find a cab because there was just no traffic fate smiled a car pulled up... and i visited with a philly native who'd turned his life over to maharj ji the same indian guru that jimmy dale gilmore follows when he found out i was in "the music business," he turned around "i have some sad news...." he began, tentatively "george harrison died in the middle of the night." now i believe the world is divided into two camps beatles people and stones people and in the interest of fair play and full disclosure i'm probably the latter but that doesn't mean this won't go down in my mind's eye in the pantheon of where-i-was-when-i-heard along with on my tummy, doing my alegbra in the pepto-pink bedroom when 'mms broke in with the news that lynyrd skynyrd's plane had gone down on my bed, wrestling with chinese history in the lemon and lime bedroom of boynton beach, florida when my father came in with the "this has just been on television... they've gunned down one of your generation's heros" struggling back to consciousness in a soon-to-be-boyfriend's place when, upon picking up 19 messages all expressing their grief and concern -- and finally getting cnn on, i learned that my dear sam kinison was gone and now, george harrison the quiet one the spiritual one the mystical one the wilbury, damn it 57 -- and it's all over what of those left behind the people for whom"something" was a song hummed almost without KNOWING those of us who know harrison in only iconic terms or the personal refractions that come from seeing him through the facets of our own life experience... it begs taking that moment to ask "what does this man? this music? this cultural phenomenon meant to me?" i remember a friend bringing "eleanor rigby" down the street so i could hear it on my parents hi-fi remember watching that little green apple spin, almost hypnotizing me remember the notion that a frothy little hook could contain a pretty dark story and i remember thinking, "THIS is the enemy?" for while i'd missed "the ed sullivan show," the cultural war was on hair was getting long, patchouli was being worn, baths were being skipped and the status quo was being topped it was a scary time for middle america -- and while the stones were much darker, much more satanic -- it was the sweet-faced beatles formerly of the matching suits and "yeah yeah"s who were supposed to hold the line of common human decency only "LOOK at them..." they betrayed the grown masses, who wanted things to stay constant but they opened up a whole new world, a whole new perspective and if all the changes wrought weren't perfect, they brought us tolerance and exploration... not that i understood it on that level i just knew my baby sitters were getting progressively groovier and when you're a good girl in shaker heights, ohio, the peasant blouses, bell bottom corduroys, long straight hair were intriguing and music seemed to be the instrument and inspiration for it all indeed, catalyzing what would become a movement that WOULD ultimately set me free WOULD ultimately bring me here to the back of a cab in philadelphia where the streets fall away as the airport comes closer so i can go home and meet with more people, churn more moments, make more arguments, offer more counterpoints knowing, though, that it will all be gone and then what? will any of my clients impact lives the way george harrison did? who's to say... and perhaps on a smaller scale, they already have maybe they won't change the world but last night, there were several young girls dressed up for a big night out seeing the duke ellington orchestra, seeing lee ann in the name of "i hope you dance" -- and they may look deeper, farther, beyond because of a song it's a limited world you come in you go out hopefully, you live it with a passion and you experience it fully what you believe is what guides you what you leave behind is the lives that you've changed for better or worse in a year of the unthinkable (9/11, anyone?) and the personal (finally looking at my father's grave), i roll towards the holidays with clarity live now live out loud make a difference for whomever you can i don't know if george harrison were that over about it all but he was a quiet witness to that truth he knew that talking and doing were not the same and that may be why, keith richards girl that i am, i am sitting quiet and black irish mourning a man who's gone too soon, but according to the plan personal passages tied up in people we'll never know it's one of the things that drives us...and it's certainly something that shaped me think about that as the beatles music becomes the new aor white noise and remember what made them great beyond the hooks help those who don't get it get there celebrate the poetry and dignity and passion he embodied don't forget that it's all happening... right now... no matter wherever you are 11/30 -- Holly Gleason
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I Wanna Be Sedated…The Ramones

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I was a kid in Cleveland, Ohio when the rumbling started three chords, a buzzing sound, a splaaaahhhhh vocal that went everywhere at once ultimately landing nowhere it was pop music perverted revved up on reds, frantically thrashing about being poor, rebellious and judged it wore bangs and a leather jacket it was danger, albeit benign danger, with a beat and it could be found in that ultimate forbidden paradise: record revolution on coventry, where my parents cringed every time the magnet's pull lured me there the place smelled funny, standing there in my knee socks and plaid skirt trying to seem tough enough to not get slagged or slighted for my uniform inhaling the incense and musk and patchouli, hoping not to cough bopping my head back and forth, ponytail slamming in time, maybe cracking my gum and flipping through the record racks as music by the ramones, the buzzcocks, the deadboys and devo blared i was so young they were so young and all that rage felt like euphoria and now the quiet feels like a roar the ramones never became u2 but without them, there'd've been no pistols, no stiff, no punk, no wave -- not even that giant window display of elvis costello in day-glo black lite paint that freaked you in and astounded you with brilliant songwriting certainly there was a sweetness to the ramones' glue-sniffing turbo-prop high jinks that disarmed heck, it even charmed and that was the place where the onramp lifted up and off and took you to a place where it was all loud, euphoric and charged somewhere, i hope joey's got a good seat + a cold beer gabba gabba hey! -- Holly Gleason
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In Praise of Vince Gill

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March, 1990. Vince Gill's genuflects at California country's high altar: North Hollywood's legendary Palomino Club, where Merle and Buck, Emmylou and Jones all did time from time-to-time. A sleazy, greazy kinda bar -- it's either played as homage to the heritage or for the low-ball guarantee to cover expenses and some West Coast hillbilly cred. For Vince Gill, just off RCA -- then home of superstars Alabama, the Judds, KT Oslin and Sylvia, it was absolutely the latter. The former Pure Prairie Leaguer (the voice of their AC hit "Let Me Love You Tonight") and free agent Cherry Bomb (the band shared by Rosanne Cash, Rodney Crowell and Albert Lee) was a shoulda that hadn't. After all, he had the voice of an angel, played guitar like the devil, was pretty enough and seemed easygoing. Once the old cigarette smoke and cheap booze was gone, Gill and his crew needed to mount a not-so-new Silver Eagle and ride north to Cal-country's crucible: Bakersfield. For the singer/songwriter, it was a moment when the future was fixin'-to-be-defined. In many ways, it was an all-or-nothing roll, and it was okay by the lanky Okie. Signed by Tony Brown -- an alum of Elvis, Emmylou and the aforementioned Cherry Bombs -- to MCA Records, Gill had finally made the record he'd wanted. And as the white lines fell beneath the wheels, he played that record that was his heart, his soul, his hand on the rock. In the interest of full disclosure, I was on that bus -- a lost acquaintance who fell into his life in the name of golf back when I was a kid and he was a Prairie Leaguer only to have my destiny changed in the name of rock criticism. "Almost Famous"? I lived it -- and if I was the boy writer, he was the inadvertent rock star/catalyst. Time had passed since my senior year of high school and his trajectory was more horizontal; I'd spent four years being the West Coast call for Rolling Stone, Creem, Musician and others. But I missed that hillbilly boy with the blues who could fire'em up and burn an ache to cinders. So the tape played and the moments passed. We listened once, then again. It was a startling record: unburnished heartbreak sung in a sweet tenor haunted with lonely. It evoked the desperation of Merle Haggard, with a bit of Bob Wills' swing, plus the jocular spirit radio like. If it were a different world, I thought, it could work. But the world was brutal. To reinforce that truth, the gig was a bowling alley lounge where the soggy carpet smelt of stale beer, the naugahyde of the bar stools was cracked and peeling, the juke box stopped at '79 and the formica on the tables was chipped like a cheap manicure. Standing beneath a sign that read, "Tonite VINC GI L," the conversation was reinforced by the tableau's bleakness. "I love your writing, but nobody gets it… If they wanted that, it would've happened," I said wincing, guilty, the voice of hard truth. "Maybe that Reba duet (the two-step friendly 'Oklahoma Swing') will work…you know, use her momentum to break. But 'When I Call Your Name'? They hate sad stuff, especially sad stuff that's classic country music. "And that 'Never Knew Lonely'? My god, they want shiny, happy -- not the depths of despair." It's a long story… "When I Call Your Name" topping the country charts. But one of Nashville's finest moments. And it created the dichotomy that defines Vince Gill's legacy. Vince Gill is a good guy, with a rapier wit, no need to suffer in the open or flex his artistry, so it's easy to make him Kenny Rogers. Mr. Middle America with an awards show gig, a set of golf clubs, a willingness to help out and a gift so profound, it's effortless. How good can he be? After all, we like our redneck romeos wild-eyed, swaggering and spitting and looking for trouble. Vince Gill's too tame, too well-spoken the naysayers argue. But that negates the utter naturalness of his affinity for traditional forms. When the Hargus "Pig" Robbins cocktail piano slinks through the ever-after come-on "If You Ever Have Forever In Mind," it's testimony to a lost time when country came out of bars with broken hearts and shattered promises… Ditto the cheaters' waltz "Pocket Full of Gold" that was remorse and recrimination bathed in pedal steel and burnished with high lonesome harmonies. Or the searing "Go Rest High (On That Mountain)" intertwining his battered valentine high tenor with Patty Loveless' raw holler grit and Ricky Skaggs' bluegrass whine that's as mournful an Appalachian elegy as the Carters, the Louvins or the Stanleys ever mustered. Even at his most pop -- the sleek "Whenever You Come Around" or the good-natured purgatory-(maybe) -raisin' romp "One More Last Chance" -- there's still the truth of the moment that demands witness. Real life is like that. It ain't fancy and it isn't always profound. Gill -- who plays Gund Arena with wife Amy Grant as part of their Christmas tour, another move neither Hank Williams Sr. or Jr would make the naysayers can grumble -- understands that. He's so not so full of himself he's going to miss the simple joys that make surviving the valleys or climbing the mountain worth it. Indeed, he don't much care what the critics think. Which is a shame. Because when conventional wisdom misses albums like The Key or High Lonesome Sound, it deprives country's legacy not more watered down pop-lite country crooners, but a writer/artist who enriches the genre with a deep sense of what matters about a musical form that's suffering an identity crisis. Vince Gill is the real deal, a country singer from the inside out. He weeps with the best rather than embracing two dimensional emotions that're pure Hallmark rather than landmark. He offers fans songs to define what they may not have the vocabulary or introspection to explain. -- Holly Gleason
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