John Flynn: I Will Not Fear by Richard Cuccaro 

John Flynn stood on the roof of the dugout at Veteran's Stadium in Philadelphia 
as the boos rained down on him. They poured on him from the high-priced box 
seats all around and cascaded down from the notorious "700" section high above, 
pelting  him like hailstones. It was the "seventh inning stretch" of a baseball game 
between the hometown Phillies and the St. Louis Cardinals. He'd come out, guitar 
in hand, to sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," but some things had turned 
inexorably wrong.

He'd sung for the Phillies' fans before, right after 9/11, when baseball resumed after the tragedy.
 A rendition of "God Bless America," sung in his crowd-pleasing, burr-edged baritone, had met
 with heartfelt appreciation. This time was different. He'd expected to sing that song again, but it 
had already been sung earlier that day to the sell-out crowd. Harry Kalas, the Phillies' broadcaster 
who'd just been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, made an impromptu switch and sang it in a 
burst of patriotism during the pre-game ceremonies. It was left for John to sing "Take Me Out to 
the Ballgame," originally designated for Harry, so John hurriedly figured out the chords. Unfortunately, 
the Phillies' pitcher had just given up a grand-slam home-run to the Cardinals, and the Phillies were 
hopelessly behind. The day was intended to honor both Harry and Richie Ashburn, another local 
baseball hero. The bobble-head dolls of them that each fan expected to receive had run out prematurely. 
After the Cardinals' grand slam, large pockets of the crowd became surly, and then late-game beer sales 
were cut off. That made them even more mean-spirited, setting the stage for the unexpected derision 
John would face. (Fans at this stadium once made the national network news when they snowballed 
a man dressed as Santa Claus riding a holiday float during a Philadelphia Eagles football game.)
John got through the song and then defiantly yelled, "...show 'em how we really do this song in 
Philadelphia!" and sang the song again.  This time the crowd got angrier, and they booed even louder.

Epiphany
When John got off of the dugout and made his way to a tunnel underneath the stands, he was shaking 
with revulsion from all the negative energy that had been directed at him. At that moment, one of his 
boyhood heroes, home-run hitter Dick Allen, still employed by the Phillies, walked toward him. Allen, 
a black man, had been booed mercilessly by racist hometown fans during his playing days. He'd made 
a habit of mocking them by drawing "BOO" in the dirt near first base. Dick smiled and said to John: 
"Where I come from, that's a standing ovation." John said that he realized in that moment that in spite 
of having been reviled, he was "still standing," and felt that "it was freeing somehow." It put things 
in perspective about "seeking approval." He realized that it was time to speak his mind, and "not worry 
about what the audience is going to think of a song. There's so much stuff going on in the world right 
now… I'm not deluding myself into thinking that I can change any of it, but it's my responsibility to 
speak my peace."

Inspirations
John Flynn can remember the moment when the idea of being a songwriter jelled for him. In the mid-sixties, 
he was 8 or 9 years old and in a darkened movie theater watching a "funky movie" of the life story of Hank 
Williams (played by "the guru of sun-tan," George Hamilton) entitled "Your Cheatin' Heart." In the film,
a man gave Hank the title of a song and then left him alone in an office. As the film presented it, right then 
and there, Hank wrote a song to express the title. That cause-and-effect action imprinted itself on John's mind. 
Also, at that time, the Beatles, and their ground-breaking, convention-shattering musical creations were making 
an impact on radio airwaves, movies and television. John became infected along with the rest of America. 
At 12 years old, he began playing guitar. "My uncle was an ex-marine, Kingston Trio fan. He taught me 
the standard folk progressions for songs like 'If I had a Hammer' and 'Michael Row the Boat Ashore.'  
He wrote the chord diagrams for me and that was my training." John began writing his own songs from 
the start.. He liked to re-write others' as well and  told me, "I re-wrote 'Fire and Rain' as soon as I learned 
the chords." He also performed in church at guitar mass. He tells of how his love for playing guitar affected 
the way his parents dealt with him. "Whenever they wanted to discipline me, they'd threaten to take away 
my guitar. Being confined to my room wasn't really a punishment, unless they took away the guitar." In fact, 
coming out of high school, he had an opportunity to go to Annapolis, but turned it down because he wouldn't 
be able to bring his guitar to "Plebe Summer."  Two months? No guitar? No way.
Robert Kennedy was his hero and John had his poster in the wall. The RFK assassination had been devastating. 
All through high school he'd wanted to go to law school and go into politics someday. He went to Temple 
University and majored in Political Science. John paid his way through Temple by playing in rock bands. 
He also played solo gigs in bars. Whenever possible, he'd slip in one of his own compositions among the 
cover songs. He entered numerous contests, building his confidence as a songwriter, winning second prizes 
and honorable mentions. The pull of the music grew ever stronger, and he eventually became disillusioned 
with politics.

The Career
After graduating from Temple, before going to law school, he decided to take a couple of weeks and go down 
to Nashville. He camped out in Cedars of Lebanon State Park and "made the rounds" of the music publishers. 
He'd gone there knowing no one, with no connections. Auspiciously, though, while sitting in a reception area 
at Electra Records, he found himself sharing a couch with John Prine. Prine, although famous, was an "amiable, 
regular guy" and they shared songwriter's shop talk. John Flynn kept shopping his songs around. He'd been 
getting rejected and then, sitting at the campfire at the state park, wrote a "sweet little ballad" entitled "Rainbows 
and Butterflies," Shortly after that, Al Cooley of Combine Records said, "I can get that on the radio." It was 
later recorded by Billy Swan and it became a top-40 hit on the country charts. John was then put "on a draw," 
meaning he'd collect a weekly paycheck from a publisher against future royalties. It wasn't much but he "scraped 
by." While he didn't exactly fit into the Nashville system of co-writing with other singer/songwriters, he says that 
he co-wrote a couple of songs, one with Dave Mallet and one with Kim Richey that he felt were good.
He put out three albums (one is out of print) before getting into children's music. He'd write songs for, about and 
with his children, Sean, Sarah, Cole, and Ethan, documenting their growth, "the way somebody else might use a 
video camera." He also included them in the songwriting process, using their poems and stories.
His self-titled album, John Flynn and earlier, Haunted by the Ghost of a Chance, had established him as a talented 
singer/songwriter, but he'd gone on to stake out lucrative niche doing children's songs and was revered for the 
albums A Manatee Sneezed on Me, and Love Takes a Whole Box of Crayons. The latter had received The 
American Library Association's Family Album of the Year award and established John in the children's music 
field. John also enjoyed doing assemblies, songwriting workshops and artist residencies for elementary, middle 
and high schools, and continues to do these.

The Change
However, he says, "My writing has always come out of where I am in my life." His reactions to 9/11, the death 
penalty, and the current occupant of the White House, have provoked new expression. During the past summer,
 John decided that his career would need a change. He felt that it was time to do more political material. Although 
he has loved singing to children, he states: "I found myself on stage in front of 8,000 people, at WXPN 
Singer/Songwriter Weekend, at Penn's Landing  in Philadelphia at a free concert. I had new songs that I wanted 
to sing, but I was there as the children's entertainer. I sang those kids' songs, but I knew it was time to make a 
change." This past fall of 2002, he finished up a spate of children's concerts, and then went back to singing covers 
in bars in order to support his wife and four children, as well as doing regular concert performances and school 
workshops. The children's CD's have gone out of print and that's where John is leaving them for now. He doesn't 
want to be lured into having to sell new batches of them at new "children's" concerts. Any bookings from here on 
will feature the "whole" John Flynn. This is here we find him today.
He is preparing to issue an new album which will have more political material than anything he's ever done. 
This month, John will appear as part of a workshop panel on "Politics and Music" at the National Folk Alliance 
Conference in Nashville. He will share the stage with John Hall and Holly Near.

New Causes
He's become active in fighting the death penalty. He helped promote a concert for Sister Helen Prejean ("Dead Man
Walking"), and for MERCY  (Musicians Encouraging the Repeal of Capital Punishment) The core of a recent song 
offers a view from a condemned man: 

"I deserve to die, but you do not deserve to kill."

Concerning his views on the current occupant of the White House, a recent composition expresses the frustration 
of many concerning Iraq:

Osama Who?    © John Flynn
The president pulled on his Stetson and strapped on his holster
Said there's nowhere that yellow dog can hide
He smiled at the numbers he'd been handed by his pollster
And swore to bring him in dead or alive
The hoosegow is still empty, no new boot hill grave's been dug
But now he'll get that blank look when you ask him and he'll shrug…
Osama who?
Since last September I wrack my brain 
But can't remember
You let the cat out of the bag, dad
But mamma knew I'd see it through
Osama who?

His latest album To The Point can be purchased on his web site www.johnflynn.net. His reaction to 9/11, 
"I Will Not Fear" is there as an extra track.

You can see the fearless John Flynn in our area on March 7th 8:30 at Minstrel Coffeehouse, 
300 Mendham Rd. (Route 24), Morristown, NJ 973-335-9489  for only $5   See you there!

Brooke Fox: Choosing the Artist's Path by Richard Cuccaro


At Brooke Fox's apartment, I'm listening to her sing "Don't Fall Back." In her mid-twenties, her deceptively 
young face and youthful corn-silk hair belie a maturity that runs deep in talent and artistic credentials. 
Her boyfriend, Kurt Gellersted, in the next room, is putting together a score on a computer screen with 
musical notation softwear. He's surrounded by the hardware he and Brooke use to make demos. Between his 
M.A. in Music Composition from NYU and her Berklee College of Music education, they form a juggernaut 
ready to scale the formidable competitive barriers of the New York singer/songwriter arena.

Her crystal clear voice soars and plummets with uncanny ease. The lyrics to her songs show a propensity for 
observing the world around her, rather than the myopic introspection that afflicts so many younger (and older)
 songwriters. In "Don't Fall Back," she counsels a friend who's had a wrenching departure from a relationship:

You pushed back
Laid your napkin on the table
And swiveled out the door.
Something she said
Pulled the trigger in your head
Left a love lying dead on the floor.
Now nobody owns you
No one controls you
But nobody holds you high
Don't fall back
It'll be all right
And there's a force deeper than the ocean
Rolling through your soul tonight

This is all rendered with a poetic grace and skill that commands the listener's attention and provokes a curiosity 
to know where all this talent comes from.

Vacaville, USA, maker of stars
Brooke's credentials began taking shape at the age of five, in the town of Vacaville, California, about an hour 
outside of San Fancisco. Her grandmother was a musician who'd traveled around in the 1940's, playing accordion 
and piano. She perceived that Brooke was able pick out melodies at the piano, and began writing parodies of 
show tunes for Brooke to play. These parodies were then put to use in the big talent show during the annual 
week-long Vacaville "Fiesta Days." Brooke won first prize at the age of six. Her mother promptly used the prize 
money to enroll her in a local children's theater company. They did musical productions of "Annie," "Willy Wonka,"
 and "Carousel." In addition, her grandmother, who had a writing partner, would write music for melodramas that 
would be presented during "Fiesta Days." Brooke participated in the talent show and the melodramas every year up
 until she finished high school.
She started writing her own material on the piano at the age of 10, but didn't start performing them until she was 
13. She wrote a song called "Hold Your Head High," and would write entire children's musicals.

At seven or eight years old she used to write little twenty-page books. She said they'd go something like: 
"Cory walked down to the corner with her cat, Molly, and then they went to the store…" Then she recounted, 
"I'd take them to my parents' friends and might sell them for a quarter apiece. I had this little business, you know? 
I was very industrious," she said, laughing. "When people asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, I'd say, 
'I want to be a singer and a writer.' That's pretty much all that ever crossed my mind. That I wanted to be in music."
 
Not all roses
Brooke's early days in school were not without their emotional hurdles. First off, she states, "I'm an Albino, and 
that comes with a package. My distance eyesight is not good. In fact, I'm legally blind." After being teased in school,
 she'd go to a rehearsal, or go home and practice her music. She said, "I'd think, 'Well, I have my own secret thing.'"

In high school, she became sort of a "golden child of choir," for a couple of years, holding the post of president of 
the choral club. She said, "I started performing my own stuff. It was all piano-based. I'd play my songs in talent 
contests, but I wouldn't win. Someone else who'd sing something like 'The Greatest Love of All' would win. 
I'd come in, like, third. I learned very early about the way that, for the average listener, entertainment value 
will generally take precedence over artistic expression. The average person will tend to say, 'Play me a song 
that I know.' My mom would ask me to 'play one of those covers… the Fleetwood Mac song that I like.'''

Mozart strikes out
Brooke's life almost diverted down a more rigid path. As she states: "In high school I was very classically trained, 
as a vocalist. My choral teacher took me under her wing and I had private teachers. I was singing Mozart and 
Aaron Copeland. I used to do these honor choir things. A hundred singers would get together on a Friday and 
we'd rehearse for two days straight for ten hours each day. Then we'd give a concert on Sunday"

However, the acoustic songwriter in Brooke kept pulling at her. She remembers: "I started playing guitar when 
I was in high school.There was an old guitar around the house and just I picked it up. I took a few lessons, not 
very many. I'd start playing along with the radio, picking up songs."
The time came for Brooke to make a decision about which direction she would take. It went like this: "I was 
looking at all these colleges, There was a college in California that was going to give me a huge scholarship. 
I'd taken the audition and they really loved me. I came very close to going down that path. I was going to study 
opera and composition, a double major." Citing an urge to experience something new, she said, "I wanted to see 
Boston, and when I found out that I could major in songwriting at Berklee College of Music, there was really no 
choice. I realized that, even if I became an opera star, at the end of the day I'd still be writing pop songs."

From Berklee to Nashville
Berklee gave Brooke the infusion she craved. She says, "I loved Berklee. I loved Boston much more than I thought 
I would." One of her favorite experiences was the lyric songwriting course taught by Pat Pattison focusing on the 
craft and poetry of songwriting. She also took course electives such as "Music Business" and "Private Studio 
Instructor."  She was awarded a Berklee Songwriting Achievement Award and held annual slots in the college's 
songwriting showcases. Then, Berklee's yearly "Inside Nashville" trip gave Brooke an opportunity to discover its 
songwriting and creative community. She moved there after her graduation in 1998. After recording her first CD 
NightLight, she was offered a job at the same studio and accepted.

In the core of the Apple
After spending a year in Nashville, a friend in New York City asked her to share an apartment here. Seeing a 
better fit for herself, she said "yes." She's performed at The  Cutting Room, The Bitter End and The Living Room,
 and earned slots in the BMI Acoustic Roundup series and the ASCAP Pop Songwriters Workshop. She's forming
 a band these days, but says,  "I've always been about the song standing on its own in an acoustic setting." She says.
"If it doesn't move people in its purest form, I know I need to dig deeper." 

To listen to tracks from NightLight, or order the CD, visit Brooke's web site at www.brookefox.com

Brooke and band will be performing at The Baggot Inn, 82 West 3rd St, NYC, on February 28th at 9pm.