vid: the folk music of my youth
The late, great Steve Goodman, although from Chicago, sure played Philly enough, sometimes alongside his friend John Prine in some memorable shots at the Phila Folk Fest. I recall a performancer of him and Prine at the '74 fest that was shown on Channel 12, the local PBS channel.
(If anyone videoed those TV shows, I absolutely NEED the whole season of that show.)
While John Hartford was my North Star and Bromberg and Blake defined my aesthetic in a so deep a way that it took the Ramones to shake me up.
But Steve Goodman was the first folk guy I heard do standards -- specifically "It's A Sin To Tell A Lie". And, boy, could he solo. He also wrote "City Of New Orleans" and was a close associate of John Prine and produced his last great album, Bruised Orange.
Ironically, the song real folk people associate most closely with Steve Goodman was written by Mike Smith, a song called "The Dutchman".
The old guy playing the mandolin here is God. Yep -- it's Jethro Burns, another close associate of Steve Goodman.
Class act.
posted by skip heller @ 10:31 PM
2 Comments:
Skip:
Great to see your fond and insightful post that invokes the 1982 video of Jethro Burns and Steve Goodman playing Goodman's "City of New Orleans." Goodman often doesn't get his due. You might be interested in my 800-page biography, "Steve Goodman: Facing the Music." The book delves deeply into the musical friendship of Steve and Jethro, and Jethro's son, Johnny, is a key source among my 1,050 interviewees. So were John Hartford, David Bromberg and, of course, John Prine, with whom I had four hours of talks, and Michael Smith, whom I interviewed for two hours.
You can find out more at my Internet site (below). Amazingly, the book's first printing sold out in just eight months, all 5,000 copies, and a second printing of 5,000 is available now. The second printing includes hundreds of little updates and additions, including 30 more photos for a total of 575. It won a 2008 IPPY (Independent Publishers Association) silver medal for biography.
'Nuff said. Thanks again for the post!
Clay Eals
P.S. The PBS show you're referring to is "Folk Festival USA." I don't have any video of that, but I do have a little audio.
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Clay Eals
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ceals@comcast.net
http://www.clayeals.com
actually, i'm one of the people who bought that book real fast, and i can't say enough wonderful things about it.
In Philly, the show was definitely called Philadelphia Folk Festival, and opened with the amazing un-be-credible Gamble Rogers playing "Deep Gap Salute", which was his tribute to Doc Watson's "Doc's Guitar". You have audio at all of this?!
By the way -- your interview with John Hartford where he discusses legacy... amazing. Thank you personally for such a wonderful book about such a worthy artist.
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