Andrew Calhoun epics, poems and a waterbug By Andrew Calhoun with Richard CuccaroSometimes it's better to just let the artist do the talking. In the liner notes of Andrew Calhoun's trancendentally beautiful album Shadow of a Wing, he writes, "Some people see the universe/God as a beneficent teacher, refining us through some karmic kindergarten of suffering. Still the question lingers &endash; if we're all chinks of the divine, why the sadistic hazing process? Maybe whatever created this whacked out world of woes is just as screwed up as we are. And if the Teacher doesn't have the answer, perhaps the search has a real purpose. These songs are about love, and my way of loving, which is either a co-dependent train wreck, or a sacramental journey toward revelation, depending on faith. And then, there are the birds." As the title suggests, there are several tributes within to the ethereal beauty of these winged creatures. In the first track, "Meditation Song," he sings:
Way up in the clouds, there's no resistance Viewing the ground from a frightening distance Removed from the struggle, feel your existence Fade from the clutch of the close and curious And from your own reason for being so furious Up where the rolling wheel is one with the word Above the roar of the crowd, hear the song of the bird
I forget if the Acoustic Live booth at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival has been situated next to the Waterbug Records booth in years past. Last July, it was, and we had a chance to become acquainted with its owner… Andrew. He slept behind it, in his 1990 Plymouth Voyager -- 280,000 miles on it -- on a futon frame bed in the back. He'd get up around 8 o'clock and begin puttering around, getting the CDs arranged for the day, preparing for another day of support for a myriad of other performing artists. Later in the day, others would come to man the booth, some of them performers. At some point, Andrew would break out the guitar and serenade a group of admirers. His warm, deep baritone, reminiscent of the late, great Stan Rogers rolled out song/poems forged in the furnace of ancient myths, which he taps regularly. After mining his stock of CDs for a recording by British comedic poet Les Barker, and interviewing Waterbug artist Jonathan Byrd, for last month's feature article, I talked with Andrew for a bit, probing his background. It became obvious that there was a story here, waiting for me. Early Days He handed me two of his CDs. One was Shadow of a Wing. The other was Tiger Tattoo. He said about Tiger Tattoo, "This is my story." And it is. The autobiographical musical vignettes are a fascinating look into his life. They form a companion piece with the bio on his web site. The piece on the web site is filled with shimmering passages. Although we'll be treating the reader to a healthy portion of that bio, we recommend that all our readers visit the web site and read it in full. Andrew begins: "I was born in New Haven, Connecticut, November 30, 1957. I have two older sisters and a brother. As a child I had some trouble learning to tie my shoes, causing my father considerable frustration. He worked at Bell Labs and most of the rest of the time on a system of philosophy expressed in mathematics. He read us the Bible for two hours every Sunday, although we preferred horsing around with him. My mother liked to cook and made jars of oatmeal cookies. She read us wonderful books and poems, including the Iliad - 5 times &endash; walked fast and yelled a lot. She paid me a nickel to memorize Yeats' 'Song of Wandering Aengus.' My brother memorized all of 'The Congo,' by Vachel Lindsay. 'Fat black bucks in a winebarrel room, barrel-house kings with feet unstable, sagged and reeled and pounded on the table…' My mother leapt from topic to topic in conversation, sometimes in mid-sentence. This influence is revealed in manic songs like 'Never Enough' and 'A Seat in the Mezzanine.' [from his album Phoenix Envy] We lived in a large Victorian house in Long Branch, New Jersey, which had a carriage house, a grape arbor and raspberry patch, and two apple trees. There was a stained glass window, a coal bin, and a room full of aborigine shields and weapons in the basement. The place had been owned previously by an archeologist… …In 1968, my father was transferred to Naperville, IL. I played a couple of years of Little League baseball, one of the only experiences of childhood which brought me into harmony with my peers. I threw a slow pitch, which would sinkover the plate, not due to spin but due to lack of velocity, with pinpoint control. And I played outfield and first base. My mother had been teaching high school and a couple of students with family troubles came out from New Jersey to live with us. They were hippies,and played guitars, so I asked for one. My first useful lessons were with Anne Jones, whose family still teaches folk music in Lombard, Illinois. In 1970, my mother read a blurb in the Chicago Sun-Times about a mailman who sang his own songs. My parents went down to hear him, and then brought the rest of us with them, every weekend for a year. It was John Prine. I was usually up late trying to learn Elizabeth Cotton and Mississippi John Hurt fingerpicking tunes, and would have dropped out of Glenbard West High School except for one great English teacher, Bernice Pond. I listened to Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, Etta Baker, Joseph Spence, Martin Carthy, Joni Mitchell, Leo Kottke, Ewan MacColl, Leonard Cohen, etc. Carthy remains my favorite living musician, a steady beacon of musical integrity and imagination." Many years later, on Tiger Tattoo, Andrew would document his attachment to Prine in the song, "Goin' Down to See John Prine."
…We lived out in the suburbs, it was a special thing When they drove into Chicago to hear a mailman sing That next week, they took my sister, one week later, they took me / I got a stamp on the back of my hand and I saw my destiny Just an ordinary mailman with a gift for stringin' words / Who wrote and sang the greatest songs that we had ever heard And every song was different and every time was new / And every other month or so, he'd write a song or two With mugs of coke and peanuts, in the musk and cigarettes / We'd sit through rock star wannabes, to hear John's second set…
Andrew recounts how Prine filled him with awe and then, eventually, with dismissive celebrity antics, destroyed Andrew's hero worship. At the song's end, there is a hard-won resolution and coming-to-terms:
And if I reach the pearly gates, when comes my time to go / I hope St. Peter's not too busy to come out and say hello Will he sing "A friend that's been turned down will be a friend of mine." / Or stamp the back of my right hand - goin' down to see John Prine There in the gloom I will request my favorite songs again…"
Andrew's first forays into performing were with a band he joined, and from there, he grew, immersed in the Chicago nightlife and absorbing lessons from a throng of master professors: "My earliest performances were as part of The Osbornes, a group comprised of me and my brother and Doug Tursman on banjo. We gave free shows in our basement. At thirteen I began writing songs and performing in coffeehouses solo (after the bitter break-up of the Osbornes). At fifteen I lied about my age and worked all summer at Cintas garment factory to earn the money for a Martin D-28. At sixteen I began driving into Chicago to play at open stages at The Earl of Old Town, Somebody Else's Troubles, etc. On Monday nights, you could start at Troubles, go over two doors to Papa's III if you could stand the noise and smoke, thence to the Earl which had a 4 o'clock license. Chicago was a good place to be. I saw Odetta, Jim Post, Cyril Tawney, Jean Ritchie, Clancy & Makem, Rosalie Sorrels, Blind Jim Brewer, Art Thieme, Margaret Christl, Homesick James, Paul Geremia, Gamble Rogers, Andres Segovia, Vassar Clements, The Newgrass Revival, Leo Kottke, Kris Kristofferson, Loudon Wainwright III, Martin, Bogan and the Armstrongs, Norman Blake, Jean Redpath, and Leonard Cohen perform there when I was in my teens. And some great people you've never heard of. Steve Goodman used to borrow my Martin at open mike nights at Troubles. From Chicago to Kerrville to Portland Andrew spent a number of years performing in and around Chicago and made three albums. He married young, then divorced. In 1990, he went to Kerrville where he connected with other songwriters. He teamed for several years with Kat Eggleston. Together they toured the United States and Europe. In 1992, he founded Waterbug Records, an artists cooperative label. Waterbug was the first to distribute music by Chuck Brodsky, Cosy Sheridan, Dar Williams, Erin McKeown, Sloan Wainwright, and others. In 1999 he moved to Portland, Oregon, where he became fast friends with Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer. When Andrew got to Portland, Dave was extremely welcoming and supportive, sending other singer/songwriters to the songwriting group that Andrew had formed. The bio states: "Dave created a vocal arrangement for my song 'Joy' on Thanksgiving, 2001, and he and Tracy and Claire Bard sang on the recording for Tiger Tattoo. Dave Carter passed away in July, 2002 at the age of 49." Andrew had been taking care of Tracy's cat during their tour when Dave died. He wound up staying with her for the rest of the summer, during the first months of her grieving. He later took some of their CDs and went out on tour. As he states: "I went on a hundred day tour that fall, the longest of my life, and took Dave and Tracy's CDs with me to sell and told their story." In our interview, he told me: "I had never really gone on the road &endash;5 weeks in Europe was the longest I had done -- I had kids young and then I was running the record label. So I just broke for air there, and hit the road in a van and booked gigs as I went. There was a lot of chaos in my personal circle. There was a suicide attempt, a coma, three cancer diagnoses and surgeries, three divorces, and my girlfriend back in Portland broke up with me in the middle of it. Just an incredible series of events. I was staying at one couple's house, good friends of mine and was telling them this litany of things. The next morning, the woman told me that her husband had been diagnosed with leukemia a month ago. There just seemed to be endless tragedies surrounding me. I remember I was in Miami and my girlfriend had just broken up with me …over the phone [laughs]. It seemed to go hand in hand with telling Dave and Tracy's story and singing Dave's songs. I got a standing ovation for the very first time. Often I'll love somebody's songs and I can't do them, but Dave's songs… I wouldn't have thought that I could sing 'When I Go,' or some of these, but most of the ones I've wanted to learn, I can pull off pretty well. Also, it's a nice way to keep him with me…. It got kind of surreal. I was a basket case by the time I got to the southwest. I stayed at Dan Bern's place. He sent me to the hot springs and talked me into staying overnight. I wound up staying a couple of days. One night I drank some wine and started singing some Scottish ballads I was working on. He hadn't heard anything like that before and got excited about it and helped me to focus on them as a project in a way only someone listening with fresh ears could've. Dan's girlfriend was away and the place was a mess. The next morning I started cleaning everything, throwing out wine bottles, washing the dishes, cleaning the stove… I was hoping he wouldn't come in and tell me, 'You don't have to do that.' I was halfway through cleaning the kitchen floor and he walked in and said, 'You don't have to do that.' I said 'Please, just let me do this.' It proved to be very therapeutic. I used to be a janitor, so I sent him to the store for a squeegee and taught him how to wash windows. We washed all the windows in the house. Then he cleaned the bathroom and said, 'Danielle will be so happy when she gets home'[laughs]. Then I went to San Diego and spent Christmas with my sister. When I got back to Portland, I had some money in my pocket and I thought, "Maybe I really can do this for a living!" And so he does. Carrying On After the long road trip, his bio states: "I spent more of 2003 obsessively translating oral tradition ballads from old Scots dialect; the result is the CD Telfer's Cows: Folk Ballads From Scotland, which came out way better than I'd hoped, and scored me some ink in Dirty Linen…. Shadow of a Wing followed, 18 songs which to me represent Andrew's stupid journey through the world of love; a look at the workings of idealization, betrayal, forgiveness and acceptance." For a while, Waterbug Records didn't do any new releases. Andrew moved back to the Chicago area and took over the administration in January of 2005 from some others and began running it out of the basement of his parents' house. He writes: "2004 has seen the revival of the Waterbug label with a new team of artists, among them Jonathan Byrd, Anais Mitchell, Louis Ledford, Rachel Ries, Michael Troy and Karen Mal, and two new samplers, Waterbug Anthology 7 and Vote in November: Election 2004 Anti-Theft Device, our first political CD. Arie Koelewyn hand-printed a new collection of my poems, released in April of 2005 on East Lansing, Michigan's, Paper Airplane Press. I just finished a solo CD of songs I wrote between 1973 and 1981. These days I do poems in my shows &endash; Mary Oliver, Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas, and have plans for a CD alternating songs and poems by different writers, where Dave Carter and Annie Gallup will hang out with Dylan Thomas and Edna St. Vincent Millay. And there are some new songs with some juice. And a live CD sometime, and of course, the long awaited comedy recording. For now, I've moved the label back into the basement of my folks' house in Glen Ellyn, IL and I'm operating out of here until further notice."
It's always the beginning of the dream That started with the men behind the scene With the lotus ever-knowing and the holy women rowing I know you know exactly what I mean
--Andrew Calhoun I couldn't have said it any better. --R. Cuccaro Web site: www.andrewcalhoun.com Upcoming performances: Nov 5 7:30pm Labyrinth Cafe, Fort Lauderdale, FL 6 7pm House Concert, Miami, FL 305-251-1960 10 Lamb's Retreat for Songwriters , Harbor Springs, MI $400 (Katrina Benefit) 19 House Concert, Evanston, IL 847-332-1744 20 7pm Greenleaf Grill , Waukegan, IL $8 Dec 3 "Folkstage" on WFMT / XM Satellite Radio
Under the Radar A New Series at Satalla hosted by John PlattJohn Platt interviews the members of Red Molly before their set. There may be no greater champion of local underrecognized but deserving talent than Fordham University Radio WFUV's John Platt. Time after time, we hear tracks from these artists on his City Folk Sunday Breakfast show heard from 8 to 11am every week. It is fitting, therefore, that he is the host of the new series, "Under the Radar," held on the second Tuesday of each month at Satalla, located at 37 West 26th Street, just east of Sixth Avenue. With the demise of The Bottom Line, Satalla has picked up much of the slack caused by this loss. The line-up of great acoustic performers over the past few months has been eyepopping. This new series began in September, with a line-up of Nadine Goellner, Mutlu and Kevin So. It continued in October with Kathleen Pemble, Red Molly and April Verch, a Canadian Fiddler. The format has John conducting an interview onstage with each act, so that the audience has a chance to get to know them on both a personal and professional level. The November 8th line-up includes Ina May Wool, KJ Denhert and Terence Martin. Acoustic Live plans to attend all the future shows in this exciting new series. Coming on Dec.13 is Rachel Sage, with Little Toby Walker, and one artist to be announced. We hope to see you there!
April Verch, from the Ottowa Valley, becomes airborne in her performances. She dances and plays simultaneously, in the tradition of many Canadian fiddlers.
John Platt, seen here at the WFUV studios, is flanked by Dan Bonis, left, an amazing slide player and back-up for Terence Martin, at right. They're part of the line-up for November's "Under the Radar."