Jonathan Byrd
Songs Worth Living In
by Richard Cuccaro
A wistful tune slowly pours from the speakers. A fiddle and cello both breathe
softly behind a slow, deliberate fingerpicked pattern and a reedy voice full of
ragged miles sings the story. Inside the song, a car glides down a country road.
In the mind's eye of the author, hills take shape high above the road and a mist
shrouds the trees on the upper ridges while the car's headlights probe the road
ahead. The driver's lone companion is a car radio. As the song's lyrics tumble
forward, we become a silent passenger. Songs are journeys and the best
singer/songwriters take you with them.
The sadness implicit in the song speaks of a man who has just lost a woman
and is now is in reflective mourning. The radio keeps him from giving in to
loneliness and heartbreak.
"I left out from Sylva.12:30 on the dash.
I had a thermos full of coffee and a pocketful of cash
(W)NCW out of Spindale kept me going until three
I want to thank you for getting me a little east of Hickory
Just this side of Iredell County, I can get the BBC
There's some station they call 'country'
but it don't sound country to me…"
The chorus suggests that this has happened before and is likely to happen again.
"Radio, radio. It's just you and me again.
You are the midnight preacher
Listen to the wheels spin /
Listen to the wheels spin…"
The song is "Radio," the third track on Jonathan Byrd's second album, The Waitress.
It's just one of the songs that demonstrate Byrd's prodigious ability to create
whole worlds within his songs. While his debut album, Wildflowers (2001) relied
mainly on historical subject matter, The Waitress (2002) uses predominately
contemporary themes. Either way, the sense of reality in his work is astonishing.
In "The Ballad of Larry," also from The Waitress, the title character is a old war
veteran living on canned goods, cigarettes and malt liquor "The prozac of the poor."
He drives an old Ford Econoline van. "They're both on their last legs, if looks are any sign."
The song creates a chance encounter that allows us to see past the crusty
surface of the old man, finding a previously ignored intrinsic worth.
Larry answers an ad for a broken old piano being given away free by the song's
frustrated protagonist/owner.
"I had an old piano / It just didn't belong
A couple of missing keys / That seem to be in every song."
Larry shows unexpected chops on the old instrument, rolling out a mean barrelhouse boogie.
"He banged the barrelhouse blues baby, he rolled like Jellyroll
He played songs of love and country from C to shining C
and not once, not once, did I hear a broken key"
At song's end,
"A broken old piano and a broken old man / rolled away smokin' in a broken old van"
The song returns to its thematic chorus -- reminiscent of John Prine's "Hello in There":
"You think you have nothing to give / look around how people live
Loneliness is poverty / Say 'hey,' say 'hey' to me"
One of the contemporary ballads on Wildflowers is "Tinytown," Here, the confines of
small-town life are comfortable for most of its residents, but weigh heavily on others.
"Here in Tinytown, you can take a look around / We got lots of little things to do
You can drive in your Tiny car; have a drink in a Tiny bar / eat a little plate of barbeque"
Lazaro the barber is initially content:
"He likes to garden and it suits him just fine /
livin' in a Tinytown, growin' columbine"
But Charlene who runs the B&B
"…has got a big sky dream …when her mama dies,
she'll sell the house and store / and Tinytown will see Charlene no more"
Her husband is gone and the kids are in college. Her widowed mom is old and in a home
for the elderly. Lazaro and Charlene begin a romance. When the old woman dies,
Charlene picks up to move to Montana. Lazaro begs to go with her.
"I ain't got no money, but I'm handy with a
hammer / Can I go, Charlene, can I go?"
Without Charlene, Tinytown is no longer enough for Lazaro:
"Cause here in a Tinytown, you can take a look around
We got lots of nothin' to do…
You can drive in your Tiny car; have a drink in a Tiny bar
eat a little plate of barbeque / another stinkin' plate of barbeque"
Jonathan leaves it right there, but you just know she's going to say "yes."
Beginnings
From his web site, we learn: "Born in Fayetteville, NC, Jonathan got his musical
start singing in a Baptist church. After learning piano and classical flute, he convinced
his father to buy him a cheap electric guitar. The adolescent Byrd started breaking
the rewind button on cassette players, learning Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix licks.
Jonathan headed straight from high school into the Navy, carrying a guitar behind
his bunk for three tours in the Mediterranean."
Then, "Back home, Byrd began to connect with a vibrant folk music scene. At fiddle meets
and festivals, Jonathan fell in love with traditional music. And through music, he found
a connection with his native ground. His writing took a hairpin turn, as he flat-picked
fiddle tunes and began writing new ballads."
The Historical Ballads
Using the older forms to create new ballads, Jonathan puts on a song show that is
strikingly vivid. It goes beyond an aural sepia-tone daguerreotype. When we listen
to the stories, many of them tragedies, the events burst into brilliant color. Jonathan's
tragedies rival those of Townes Van Zant. Case in point: "Her Eyes were Green"
from Wildflowers, a ballad of a love lost…
"Once I loved a farm girl, only seventeen / She was old enough for me
She would bring me water from her daddy's spring / To my shanty down in Cherokee
Her eyes were green, her eyes were green / Green as the moss by a mountain stream
I see her always in my dreams / And her eyes were green"
The girl bears a son and sends him to the song's protagonist, telling him to escape to
Tennessee. The girl, trying to escape in the night to also go to Tennessee, is mistaken
for a prowler and shot by her father.
Fascinated by his ability to achieve an authenticity, I asked Jonathan how he was able to create
that sense of existing in the historical past. The answer was twofold: First, he had to study old songs
and dissemble them to figure out how they were structured and what tempo they followed.
In addition, as he stated, "There has to be a reason for each character to be doing the things
that they're doing."
In a similar, and still beautifully wrought tale on Wildflowers, "Ashe County Fair," the narrative,
told in flashback, a young man has seen a beautiful girl selling pies at the fair.
"Last year I met a beauty there / Her arms were brown but her face was fair
There were seven roses pinned in her hair"
He buys more than he can eat, just so he can talk to her. He asks her to go away with
him to be his wife. She replies that she needs to stay with her family, making pies to sell
at the fair. As the song begins, the young man is returning the next year to ask again,
having sold his cabin and parcel of land to bring her a wedding ring. He arrives in town
to find that the fair has been cancelled due to a sickness that took many of the town's
residents, his heart's desire included. He leaves the ring on her grave stone, to wander heartbroken.
Jonathan's also got some guitar chops as two instrumental pieces on Wildflowers show.
"Bean an Fir Rua/ Backstep Cindy" is a slow, pensive guitar piece with double stringed
picking and bends that translates as "The wife of the red-haired man," It is followed followed
by a fast-strummed and flat-picked fiddle tune. He calls it "North Carolina dance music."
"Big Hoe-down" is a beautifully done old-time
fiddle tune from West Virginia. Some precise flat-picking; Many hammer-ons and pulloffs.
In Wildflowers, most of the songs were played in DADGAD tuning to give them a Celtic feel.
When he made The Waitress, he had gone back to standard tuning and most had a country
feel to them.
I asked Jonathan, how he became so proficient at guitar, intending to mean "playing the old stuff."
He initially reacted as if I was asking, "How to you get to Carnegie Hall?" and replied, laughing,
"Practice!" He then got specific, recalling, "I listened to a lot of Doc Watson and Norman Blake.
When I found a guitar piece I liked, I'd listen to it all day, learning the rhythm and the tone."
The Sea and the Sky, Jonathan's 2003 release, a collaboration with the band Dromedary would
be worth owning simply for the beauty of its fabrication. Bound like a book, and filled with black
and white paper-cut illustrations by the artist, Jan Burger, it is, additionally, filled with lush, lovely
music. Informed by Jonathan's four years in the U.S. Navy, it becomes a work of art through his
ability to express the power of the ocean from different viewpoints and historical perspectives.
The album uses various traditional sources, such as Portuguese, Irish and Spanish. As Jonathan states:
"There are common ancestors, such as tempo and feel of rhythm that link different styles.
Folk music is folk music. Certain rhythms come up over and over again, no matter where you are
in the world."
Truly a cornucopia of sounds, it's worth taking note of the musicians' credits. They read like this:
"Jonathan Byrd picked steel string guitar, flamenco guitar on track 8 ["Little Bird"] and sang.
Andrew Reissiger strummed flamenco guitar, charango and electric guitar. Rob McMaken plucked
mandolin, Appalachian lap dulcimer, cumbus (choom-bush) and sang harmony. Robbie Link
thrummed bass and cello. Jason Cade bowed fiddle [particular tracks cited]. Rex McGee bowed fiddle
[particular tracks cited]. Chris Frank squeezed the accordion."
The album begins with "True Companion," a compelling love song, to either the sea itself. or the
vision of a loved one
"Take the burdens of my day / All my worries roll away
Every day you are my true companion, like the sun."
"The Young Slaver" is the most prominent traditionally-styled song. It's a story-song with one
verse following another until the song's conclusion, without any choruses. Once again,
Jonathan immerses himself and consequently the listener, into history, to bear witness to
events in lives lived long ago.
Two lovers address one another before and during a young man's ill-fated attempt to seek his
fortune in the slave trade. The young woman begins each verse to him with "Oh my dear"
and he responds with, "Fairest one."
"Oh my dear, you prepare, are you going anywhere
Oh my dear, back from town, are you to a vessel bound
Off to war on an angry sea.
Fairest one, I love you, this is something I must do
Fairest one, if I stay, then your honor I'd betray
So I seek lesser company."
The young man believes he has to acquire wealth and
prestige to win his love's hand:
"I'll return and your marriage I will earn
with promotion and bravery."
However, he fails to reckon with the destructive nature of his chosen path.
"Fairest one of my land, I do not deserve your hand
Fairest one, like a fool, I have been the devil's tool
And my soul is in jeopardy."
She has already seen his plight.
"Oh my dear, I have dreams, in the night I hear the screams
Oh my dear, in those lands, you have blood upon your hands
And your soul is in jeopardy."
As expected, he never returns and she laments,
"So I made you a grave by the sea."
He has seen his fate and ends with,
"Fairest one, in the deep, I will lay myself to sleep
and make me a grave by the sea."
While the entire album is musically exceptional, "Gold Coast," an instrumental, highlights
Dromedary's chops. For the author, the flamenco guitar and bass are standouts in this piece.
"The River Girl," has an exotic, almost Oriental feel. The fiddle's bowing sway takes on the
character of a Chinese violin. The chord intervals of the song use far-eastern influences.
The poetry in the verses is structured to make the most of its Asian-like character.
"The moss is green, oh, and wet upon the elder tree
The river's angry and so is the sea / I walk the bridge, I walk the bridge again
To see the river girl weave and spin."
Jonathan is currently working on an album that will combine traditional forms with rock. We'll be
anxious to see what results.
Early versions of our printed October issue stated that Jonathan would have to cancel his
October 28th appearance at Columbia University's Postcrypt Coffeehouse in New York City
due to travel and scheduling conflicts. We're pleased to report that all conflicts have been
resolved and that his performance will go on as scheduled. Acoustic Live hopes that this
small jolt of attention will pry loose a few more New York City gigs in the future for this
American treasure.
Web site: www.jonathanbyrd.com
Upcoming performances include:
Oct 2 12 noon-10pm Carolina Acoustic Music Festival
Koka Booth Amphitheater at Regency Park, Cary, NC
6 7pm MERCY 2 (Musicians Encouraging the Repeal of Capital Punishment)
Emma's Revolution, Pat Humphries, Sandy O, SONiA and disappear fear,
John Flynn, Kim Harris, Reggie Harris, Jonathan Byrd, David Roth, Greg Greenway
Wilmington Friends School Wilmington, DE
7 8pm Cousin Andy's Carbondale, IL $8
14 8pm Sawbriar Pilot Mountain, NC $8
19 8:30pm The Grey Eagle Tavern Asheville, NC
20 8pm The Rosewood Theater Morgantown, WV
21 8pm with Bonnie Lee Panda, Erik Balkey and Pat Wictor
The Space 295 Treadwell St Hamden, CT 203-288-6400 $10
28 9pm Postcrypt Coffeehouse 2980 Broadway Basement of St. Paul's chapel,
Columbia University (212) 854-1953