Christine Lavin - The Mischievous Godmother of Modern Folk Music
by Richard Cuccaro
Ok, What constitutes beauty? The question gets answered, sort of, in women's beauty pageants,
year after year. In her new live performance DVD, Girl UNinterrupted, Christine Lavin facetiously
states to an Indianapolis audience that a phone call from the U.S. Olympics Committee has declared
the creation of a new competitive category. She then straps a cave explorer's lamp to her forehead,
and announces, "I'm going to find the best-looking man in Indianapolis to represent our country in
the Handsome Olympics!" The concept of attractiveness gets turned on its head. Using the lamp,
she says, "I can see what a man looks like in a bathing suit, under his clothes… so I'm going to leave
the stage and find this lucky, lucky man, whoever he might be!" Like Diogenes, she descends from
the stage to conduct the search. She then wanders the darkened studio with lamp, guitar and remote
operated microphone, singing "You Look Pretty Good For Your Age," stopping here and there to
admire various male characteristics: "Look at that shirt… I'm movin' on, but I'm not forgettin' about you!"
The lamp's spotlight finally settles on a reluctant royal recipient ("I think we have our winner!").
Christine performs the coronation and coaxes the "monarch" onstage to fulfill additional "duties."
The "king" is then joined onstage by a group of loyal male subjects for a rousing rendition of Christine's
satirical "Sensitive New Age Guys."
Although she pokes gentle fun at song characters and some audience members, very often she's her own target.
One good example of her self-deprecatory humor can be found in one of this fan's favorites, two songs into the
evening: "Good Thing He Can't Read My Mind." Here, Christine examines the phenomenon of doing things we
really don't enjoy, simply to accommodate a romantic interest. Singing sarcastically, she includes activities like
attending the opera… "Yes! she's a wonderful Parsifal!" -- Going skiing… "Yes! 'exhilaration' is the word I was
just thinking!" -- Eating sushi… "Interesting texture!" At the song's end, she adds a coda, still ladling on the sarcasm:
"She is singing folk music. …I do not like folk music, but he likes folk music and I love him! …Oh yeah! I hope
she does Kumbayah! It's a sing-along and it's my favorite!"
To see Christine Lavin in concert is to witness a complete gamut of life's emotions played out on a scale beyond
which most performers would find possible. She sings outrageously funny modern folk songs with a finely controlled alto.
There are those heartbreakers too, but invariably, Christine is turning life's woes into a reason to laugh at fate.
Sometimes she includes lighted baton twirling with the lights turned out. The in-between-songs repartee with
audience members creates an involvement that is rarely matched by any performer. She also engages in some
high-tech highjinks, using an electronic digital delay to enable her to harmonize with herself at various
points during her concerts.
Beginnings
As an eleven-year-old in Poughkeepsie, New York, she listened to WNEW. Back in the days of free-form radio,
she got to hear the giants of the 60's folk revival, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins and Dave Van Ronk. The family was
not well-off. With eight brothers and sisters, there was no great record collection. Her father had some show tunes
and some classical recordings. At twelve-years old she got her first guitar. She learned how to play by watching
one Laura Webber twice a week on television. The study book to follow along cost one dollar. With her brother
Eddie holding the antenna out the window so as to not lose the reception, she followed along faithfully. Years later,
in 1989, she met Laura Webber in San Francisco. Laura read a newspaper interview where Christine said she'd
learned guitar from a woman on PBS. Laura did the math and figured it out. She walked up to Christine after a show
and asked, "Did I teach you how to play guitar?" Laura then told Christine that she made up for all the live students
that didn't practice.
She'd play at school and Girl Scout events. At age thirteen, she began writing her own material. It comes as a surprise to
learn how serious she was as a child. At her first public performance, at thirteen years old, at a Girl Scout function, she
sang an original composition, "The World is Going to End." She recalled that there was a dampening effect on the parents.
Her performances continued through high school -- dances, more Girl Scout events and "hoots," the evolved form of the
"rent parties" that folkies used to hold back in the fifties, to make ends meet. She found a partner in Roxanne Bottos, who
had a beautiful voice . Christine played guitar and they did harmonies.
The Burgeoning Career
After high school, Christine attended the State University of New York (SUNY) at Brockport. She had about seven majors
before settling on English. She continued playing weekends at the university's "Crypt" Coffeehouse and other college events.
After graduating, she moved to Florida for one year. It was here that Christine's quirky appreciation for athletic events made
its appearance. One of the jobs she took was as a vendor of Cracker Jacks at Miami Dolphins football games. Her profit was
only seven cents per box and she didn't make much money because she'd get into the game so much that she didn't sell anything
after the first quarter of the game. As she recalled, "I did a lot of cheering for the Miami Dolphins."
After the year in Florida, she moved to upstate New York to work for Lena Spencer, proprietor of Caffe Lena, one of America's
longest-running folk music coffeehouses. Here, for six months, Christine lived upstairs, and worked as a waitress and bread baker.
Lena would let her perform between regularly scheduled acts. One night, the manager for Don McLean (famous for the song
"American Pie"), saw Christine's "in-between" act. He told her that if she learned how to play guitar better, to look him up when
she came to New York City. That same evening, the late, legendary folksinger, Dave Van Ronk also saw her and suggested she
come down to the city and play there. She said, "OK, but I need to get better at playing the guitar, though." He replied emphatically…
"I'm a teacher."
The Big Move
In March of 1976 she moved to New York City. She took lessons with Dave for two years. He was a consummate blues player,
and taught Christine to play with much greater polish. The songs, however, did not match the style of her repertoire. For instance,
although she learned the classic "Maple Leaf Rag" from Dave, it was not something she'd ever include in her act. She spent eight
years working at temp jobs and playing music on weekends. Five years into this period, in 1981, she managed to get her first album,
Absolutely Live, recorded, but still worked at temping.for another three years. One of my favorites from that first record,
"Gettin' Used to Leavin," was the primary soundtrack to my own life -- moving from place to place, leaving homes, friends and
relationships behind. Christine seemed to be "reading my mail". Some other songs that covered an array of emotions were:
"Amoeba Hop" [microscopic romance!] "Mistresses' Lament (I'm Mad)" [uh oh! bad decisions!] "Doris and Edmund: The Movie,"
"The Air Conditioner Song" and "I've Been Living On Milk And Cookies (Since You've Been Gone)."
Her next album, The Bellvue Years, released in 1983, contained a heavier dose of the humor that pervades her work. Song titles
included were: "If You Want Space, Go To Utah," "Cold Pizza For Breakfast," "I Want To Be The First Folk Singer On The Space Shuttle,
" and "If I Could Be Sonja Henie."
A year later, in 1984, she bucked the conventional wisdom that is so often aimed at musicians and quit working at her day job, going
from "$25,000 per year to $6,000." However, her songs began receiving airplay and it "opened things up." The sacrifice began to pay off.
The Fast Folk Connection
One of the vehicles that enabled Christine to advance her career was her association with The Fast Folk Musical Magazine. From 1982 to 1984,
she volunteered and participated in the production of this cooperative effort to produce records and shows by folk artists. Begun in the
early 80's the vinyl records were produced in Queens, Long Island City, just over the Queensborough Bridge. Christine volunteered to drive
over to the factory and pick up the records when they were ready. The Fast Folk enterprise grew and began visiting cities around the
United States, scouring for local, undiscovered people writing songs with literary merit. Christine was the Assistant Engineer for the album
of Boston singer/songwriters produced during that period. A yearly tradition began which saw a collection of singer/songwriters performing
at an Annual Fast Folk Shows at the Bottom Line on West Fourth Street in Greenwich Village. Christine performed in many of these shows
well beyond her volunteer years and her performances at these shows and on other Fast Folk compilations can be found on the recordings.
The Fast Folk Musical Magazine ceased to exist as an ongoing enterprise in the late 90's, but the recordings remain available on-line through
Smithsonian Folkways.
The Godmother Emerges
Perhaps because of the fortuitous appearance of Dave Van Ronk early on in her career and because of the help she's received from others,
Christine has a natural inclination to want to help other "below-the-radar," talented singer/songwriters. While some of the artists on the
compilations she's organized and spearheaded had achieved a measure of fame, many had not. In each album, though, the songwriting is
brilliant and the recording of each song is technically and flawlessly complimentary. The albums include: When October Goes: Autumn Love Songs
(1991), Big Times in a Small Town (Highlights of the first Annual Martha's Vineyard Retreat --1992), Follow That Road (2nd Annual Martha's
Vineyard Retreat -- 1993), On a Winter's Night: Winter Love Songs (1994), and Christine Lavin Presents The Stealth Project 2000: musicundertheradar (2000).
Look Out! They Travel in Packs!
Christine's gregarious nature led her to participate in two particular projects of note. In the first, A Winter's Night Tour, she performed with sharp-witted
singer/songwriters John Gorka, Patty Larkin and Cliff Eberhardt. From city to city, they traded songs, both wistful and humorous to adoring audiences.
In the other, The Four Bitchin' Babes conceived in 1990, Christine invited three singer/songwriters, Megon McDonough, Sally Fingerett, and Patty Larkin,
to join her for a group concert project. Using the aforementioned title, they barnstormed the country, regaling audiences with womens' humorous
(and other not so humorous) laments such as: "Prisoners Of Their Hairdos," "Not Bad For A Broad," "Ladies Lunch" and our old favorite "Good Thing
He Can't Read My Mind." A live album featuring "The Babes" entitled Buy Me, Bring Me, Take Me: Don't Mess My Hair followed in 1991 In 1993,
a second album was produced, this time recorded in a studio with singer/songwriter Julie Gold, (writer of the Bette Midler hit "From a Distance")
replacing Patty Larkin as the fourth Babe. As the group continued to tour, another album entitled Fax it! Charge it! Don't Ask Me What's For Dinner!
appeared in 1997. On this studio album, new member Debi Smith replaced Julie Gold. Christine's ever-expanding interests saw her leave both projects,
but both have lived on in other incarnations since. The last Winter's Night tour I was fortunate to see featured Cheryl Wheeler taking Christine's place,
with Cliff, Patty, and John. The result was still devastatingly funny.
Recent stuff
Christine released Getting In Touch With My Inner Bitch in 2000 and it featured eight brand new songs, plus four live versions of old favorites.
She released The Subway Series in 2001, songs inspired by New York City, written during the 25 years that she's lived there. These include
updated versions of some of her most popular songs, including "Shopping Cart Of Love: The Play," plus new songs never before recorded --
some very serious songs here -- "Moon-Rising Tide / We Are The Lucky Ones," and "If We Had No Moon." She used echo chamber and digital
delay.effects for added effect on these two. The latter was included on an album of space-related songs released by the National Space Society.
This was a 68 minute special show, performed live at Fordham University.
Her latest CD, I Was In Love With A Difficult Man has just been released. It's Christine's first all-new studio production in five years. It features
many of the songs she performs in Girl UNinterrupted. There is the familiar humor in songs such as "Wind Chimes," in which the song's narrator
resorts to using a baseball bat to get rid of offending night time sounds coming from wind chimes on neighbors' back porches, only to find that the
sound of crickets quickly fill in, resulting in a regretful nostalgic wish for… wind chimes! Somber, thoughtful notes are struck by "Something Beautiful,"
an elegy to a friend who passed away too soon. The lyrics state:
"…she left something beautiful in her wake
as our spirits sink, our voices break
her work remains for us to see
her paintings and her poetry…
" In Firehouse, she's written a tribute to the firemen from her neighborhood firehouse who were lost in the attacks of September 11th:
"…too hard to think this was the end
for young men charging up the stairs as hell came rolling down…"
Then, shifting back to humor, "Making Friends With My Grey Hair."gives a mirthful nod to encroaching age as years catch up.
Familiar facets of the aging process are broached as she sings:
"I want to make friends with my grey hair
it's here to stay it's not going anywhere
you may think I'm kidding but I swear
I want to make friends with my grey hair
" and
"When I was a kid I was skinny and tough
I couldn't give blood, I didn't weigh enough…
But holy moly things have changed
I look in the mirror who's that stranger
where did she come from? where did I go?
… You gotta make friends with those new pounds
they're here to stay they're not leaving town
so you used to be a stick guess what? you're round
start making friends with those new pounds."
Hobbies? Are You Kiddin' Me?
I facetiously asked Christine if she had any hobbies, thinking she was too busy to ever attempt anything so ludicrous. She quickly corrected my
shortsighted assumption, stating that her newest hobby, knitting, is now in full swing and is given space on her web site, www.christinelavin.com.
In "Knit Talk," she states: "I stated knitting on October 1st… if you knit and are coming to my show, why not bring your knitting with you? …come
a little early and we can have a knitting circle in the lobby or backstage… I am a rank beginner and would like to meet other knitters who can help me
to learn faster!"
Her other long-time hobby is baking. She used to host the Sunday Morning Breakfast with Christine show on WFUV-FM (90.7 MHZ) and liked to share
recipes such as Chip Mergott and Annie Bauerlein's Blueberry Pancake Recipe. On the new CD she has included a ten hour recipe (most of it is "while
you sleep") in the song "Sunday Breakfast With Christine," in which, after giving mention to "flapjacks in the pan… tabasco on your scrambled eggs…
jelly on your toast… Popovers muffins bagels," she sings "…what if I bake your favorite… petit pain au chocolat?" The recipe then follows with rhymed
phrases: "…packet of yeast, pinch of ginger… 3/4 cup hot water, cup of flour… stir, cover with plastic… let sit for six hours". After the recipe is finished,
she repeats the earlier suggestions repeating: "tabasco on your scrambled eggs…" et cetera. It's a long song, but very informative. Take notes!
The web site is a cornucopia of links to other interesting, related topics involving other musicians, books to read, anecdotes, and photographs.
There's even a section devoted to "31 Helpful Tips For the Performing Songwriter," many of them gleaned from other folk artists. At the end she advises:
"… make sure you pay attention to the rest of your life, too. Make time for family and friends, eating healthy, exercising, reading, meditating, exploring
other interests, having fun. …In order to have something to give audiences, you've got to have a full, interesting life, and if all you do is work-work-work,
you'll be missing out on all that life has to offer. Being a performing songwriter is one of the greatest careers I think one can have, but make sure you have
other things in your life that make you happy, too (I'm learning how to decorate Ukrainian Easter eggs and I love to watch competitive figure skating more
than anything in the world. I'm even learning how to play golf, though bumper-bowling is my favorite sport). Why, I feel a song coming on right now!"
Christine will be sharing a bill with Buskin and Batteau
at the Bottom Line (212-228-7880),
at 15 West 4th Street in Greenwich Village, NYC,
on Friday January 24th and Saturday, the 25th.
This author's reservations are already in, along with friends and family. Join us!