Jonathan Pointer's Quiet Masterpiece by Richard CuccaroA fingerpicked guitar nimbly picks out an ominous fiddle tune, creeping under the skin, a bit too much for comfort, like a bluegrass number written by the master, Ralph Stanley, the kind that deals with violence and death. A man is singing, in conversation with himself, with quiet desperation:
If I tidied up the house… Replace the buttons on her favorite blouse… Refrain from speaking in my usual tone… Maybe I could come back home…"
Jonathan Pointer, in his second album, is proving once again, that he doesn't need to state that a man is in trouble with his self image. This man has lost someone that he needs in order to survive and has lost her forever. Instead he crawls inside that person's mind and lets that person tell us himself.
If I don't touch her with my hands… And if I prove that I'm a different man… Wipe off the toilet seat and polish the chrome… Maybe I could come back home…"
Jon's voice is a hoarse whisper and it's all the more scary in it's understated manner. It's as if he's whispering frightening secrets in your ear.
I'll live down in the cellar if it's not too cold… In spite of how my allergies react… And scrape away the many-calloused layers of my soul… If only she would let me come back…
There's a vocal and lyric similarity to someone we've known for a long time. The laser beam searchlight of the lyrics… the fugitive thoughts of this convicted emotional felon… are eerily familiar. We've come to expect these kinds of dark truths from one Leonard Cohen:
There's little comfort in regret… And I unravel as I pull the thread… What if I forgave her for letting me go… Do you think she'd let me come back… Man, I want to come back Do you think she'd let me come back home…"
While in the past, Jon has written songs in collaboration with some strong Nashville songwriters, everything on this album is his alone. Standing alone, he proves that he's one of the baddest songwriters on the planet. There have been similarities drawn by friendly critics to Tom Waits and Randy Newman. I was late in seeing these similarities. However, when I first listened to this album, I realized immediately that Jon was hanging with some very serious company. The first person that came to mind was the darling of the contemporary singer/songwriter world, Iowa's Greg Brown. Like Greg, Jon looks at some very bleak human conditions and can do it with compassion, inventiveness and humor. One of the first examples to catch my ear was "The Blues Must Die." Given his love of the intricacies of jazz-style guitar ( both his treble and bass runs are exquisite), he has a somewhat jaundiced opinion of the blues. He half-facetiously postulates: "There's really only four blues songs with different lyrics." Jon's musical experience includes a stint as a member of a blues combo that played three nights a week and two shows on Saturday. In a typical gig, he says, "We'd do an uptown blues, something down and dirty, an uptempo swingy thing and then start over again. At times, I'd doze off and keep right on playing!" This made it possible for him to lampoon "da bluze," singing:
I'll tell you all a story that never made the news It's about a man whose plan it was to kill the blues… He'd bust it like a junkie Hang it like a con Spank it like a monkey…"
The song kicks in with an energetic boogie-woogie beat. There's a thumping, tinkling piano, a wry, sarcastic sliding dobro, the chuckle of shuffling brushes on a snare drum, along with the heartbeat of an upright bass. After a struggle in which the mythical figure overcomes the lure of playing the blues, he finally achieves its destruction. As a hypothetical bluesless dawn arrives, Jon sings:
Goodbye stormy Monday… There'll be brighter days ahead The world wakes up to find find that the blues is dead Harmonicas go silent, several guitar licks are banned Universal happiness is finally at hand Suddenly, musicians find they cannot piss and moan They take to playing polkas once the blues is gone.
At this point, producer Crit Harmon chips in with dueling accordions playing the requisite polka. As the song chortles its way through situations of a world bereft of blues, the protagonist finally sees the flaws in his plan and a resurrection takes place. It's 5 minutes and 22 seconds of cleverness and a whole lot of fun. Jon's musical influences include Jaques Brel. "Washington Street" is a sad reminicscence that tells the story of the lonely world of an old woman who lives with the constant memory of her departed husband. Jon employs a lilting European jazz-style fingerpicking while accordion and violin are used appropriately to evoke a Parisian atmosphere.
She pauses a moment remembering an early frost and suits she could never throw out … the sound of his violin playing… playing Long the nights become … slow, the way she loses at solitaire with the moonlight o'er the garden she shuffles her cards until dawn."
I asked Jon if my reference to Brel was correct. He said " I was in full Parisian drag on that one." He remembered that in college, he became interested in Eric Satie, Claude DeBussy and Kurt Weill. These things show up in his songs when he's expressing himself. "Adoration." could've been written by Randy Newman. And if Randy had written it, it would sell CDs, big-time. The critical comparisons would attest to this. In droll fashion, Jonathan imagines how it would be if the world showered him with adoration:
"It would be like Christmas… folks would join hands together everywhere a joyous celebration… Girls would blow me… kisses… and send me hand-knit sweaters in universal love and adoration."
For those who find ruminations over lost loves irresistible, Jonathan offers "Hole in Your Overcoat." At times he likes to create an antihero, or "untrustworthy narrator" for his songs, such as in the first song quoted. In "Overcoat," he's the unworthy narrator, offering bits of advice like "rearrange the furniture just to prove that you're alive," then singing in the aching, yearning chorus:
She will always be the hole in your overcoat She will always be the door that stays ajar She will always be the twist in your undershorts The murmur in your heart. I just love that last line.
It's easy to picture Jonathan as a child, back in Missouri, perhaps in short pants, on a dusty, breezy day. A carnival has come to town and there is a side show with "freaks" of nature. Jon saw many of these, and in "Arcadia" he displays a remarkable mix of quirkiness in both his observation and his imagination:"
While a five-legged dog snaps at flies in a trailer The midgets play poker 'til daybreak And on this late summer evenin' just outside Arcadia Everything's dark on the midway There's a parakeet perched on a leather-skinned barker Who sops up his rum with his spongecake While the Siamese twins thumb a ride to Arcadia Everything's dark on the midway There's always another town, another road And questions you'll take to your grave But on this late summer evenin' just outside Arcadia The twins got a whore, in the trailer next door And everything's dark on the midway
Jonathan Pointer's work is both complex and accessible. He seems to get his inspiration from nowhere in particular and everywhere in general. It might come from the street or the news. He tends to view his childhood as unremarkable, in terms of mining an emotional source of creativity. No great religious input. Early musical experience was limited to an imposed relationship with the trombone, and its connections with the school band. No great childood trauma. His parents got his brother a guitar, but didn't get him one. "That really cheesed me off," he says. Finally, at 17, he got the money to buy one from his father. He then had an accident at a factory where he worked. A stamping machine removed the tip of his right forefinger. He had to re-invent his fingerpicking style. He's still at it, and judging by results, doing very well. This CD, Love Letters from the Outskirts of Bliss and his first, Scarecrows Burn, can be ordered through his web site www.jonathanpointer.com or from folkweb.com. Jon has asked, musically, for adoration. For many of us who've become familiar with his brilliant, arch humor, lyrical sensibility, and varied musical attack, it isn't necessary. He's already got it. See him whenever you can.
Dave Murphy - Time is Fleeting, but This Time He's Ready by Richard CuccaroFlash back to this past January 12th, 2003. It's Sunday at 10 o'clock in the morning. I'm streaming John Platt's City Folk Sunday Morning Breakfast show on WFUV. His "live" in-studio guest is Dave Murphy, a local singer/songwriter from Montclair, New Jersey. I'd seen him before, at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. He was playing an impromptu showcase in front of the Outpost in the Burbs booth on the midway. His husky baritone was impressive. It remains impressive and he wasted no time that morning in displaying its power. Time was a recurring focal point during that show, and the precious regard for its fleeting nature. It hangs over Dave Murphy's recent work. "Red," is the first track, on his latest CD, Chasing Ghosts. The second verse goes:
I spent half my life playing in the rye I had so many reasons for wasting so much precious time But everything has changed like the end of a song I don't know what it was but I know that it's gone
The song, with it's sense of a recaptured value of each moment we're here on this earth, is in particular, his reaction to 9/11. The first verse delivers us back to that day of stunned shock:
What would you expect me to do in this state of mind Stare down at my feet or up at the darkening autumn sky Come a little closer now and look me in the eye Twilight has come my friend and I've been crying
The chorus nails it, perfectly:
I opened my eyes and it isn't a dream All I see is red and red is all that I see Red is the color that we all bleed
One question posed within the belly of the song asks the listener to examine the daily state of affairs beyond the tragedy:
You look in the mirror and you're getting older You say that you love her but when's the last time you told her?
Dave was born in New York, in Flushing, Queens. During his early years, His family moved around, so he lived in Buffalo, Rochester, Westchester and then New Jersey. His parents moved to Chicago when he was around 20-21 years old, but Dave decided to stay in this area. He made a trip to Florida but then returned to live in New Jersey. As a youngster, he remembers sitting in the living room with his dad, listening to Herman's Hermits on radio singing "Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter," and "Henry the Eighth." His mom bought him a guitar when he graduated high school. He did Neil Young covers in college. He says "It's been a long, slow evolution." The heartland sound of his work was influenced by listening to country music on WHN in the mid 80's. Along with the country, he'd hear some of the newer "outlaw" stuff from Emmy Lou Harris and Steve Earle. He still marvels at how he got to hear Earle's "Guitar Town" on that station. He had a turbulent two-year marriage. Texas was where she was from, so they honeymooned in Houston. She introduced him to some of the "grass roots" music she liked and Dave absorbed it. There were gains and losses. His ex-wife threw his first guitar out a 3rd-story window after an argument. Win some, lose some. By his own admission, Dave has several "black holes" in his past. Running around, drugs and alcohol, took their toll and big chunks of time. He stated to John Platt that "you only have a finite amount of time on this wonderful, or not-so-wonderful planet." About ten years ago he decided it was time to take things seriously. One of the black holes was the aforementioned marriage. Dave had married in his early twenties, just out of college. During his college years in the late 70's, in West Virginia he'd partied, and played guitar with friends, learning covers, such as Neil Young songs (always a great learning experience - especially for a novice songwriter). He began writing the odd piece here and there ."Pretty mellow," he recalled. Once the marriage disintegrated he began looking to the guitar for more than just kicks and began writing more. He described coming into New York City in the mid and late 80's to play in open mics and showcases at places like Sun Mountain (now The Baggot Inn) and the now-defunct Speakeasy, where so many now-famous contemporary singer/songwriters played. As he became more serious about the music. He formed alliances with other musicians and gigged more often. He's opened for artists such as Slaid Cleaves and Ray Wylie Hubbard. He began recording his songs of self-discovery and introspection, finally publishing his first CD, the independently produced Under the Lights in 1998. This CD was chosen as a prestigious top 12 DIY (Do-It-Yourself) pick in the December 1999 issue of Performing Songwriter Magazine. Dave feels that the new CD has a more mature world-view than its predecessor. Less "look what I'm going through," and a more wider range of perception. He certainly showed that in the song "Red." While the new CD has its share of looking back, it combines the wisdom of years of observing himself and the world with an artist's eye and ear to create finely crafted songs. He feels that Mark Muller (Shania Twain Band), his producer had a lot to do with bringing this effort to fruition. He'd started off with a very simple idea for the production, Mark did much more with his material than he ex ected and he is grateful. Dave's upcoming live shows include:
• Mar 29 , 9:30pm, Bar B, 188 Allen St., NYC (just south of Houston St) • Apr 12, 8pm, Sweet Dreams Cafe, 42 Lincoln Place, Madison, NJ • Apr 19, 8:30pm, Postcrypt Coffeehouse at Columbia University, Basement of St. Paul's Chapel on the campus of Columbia University, 116th St. & Broadway, NYC • April 25 8:30pm, Outpost in the "Burbs", First Congregational Church 40 S. Fullerton Ave., Montclair, NJ Opening for Suzanne Vega
For information on buying his CDs or updates on his performing schedule, go to his website at www.murphyworld.com