My Direction Home

"How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?"

Last night, I watched the first of two parts, of the new documentary by Martin Scorsese, No Direction Home, which chronicles the early years of folksinger Bob Dylan's career.

As most MWBH readers know, I play a number of musical instruments (some better than others). But my first love is the guitar, which I first picked up when I was 11. Nearly forty years later, you'd think an adult who doesn't have to play it for a living would have given up on it. But I didn't. Nor do I intend to.

I started as a child, really. In a house of Midwestern meat-and-potatoes Republicans, I watched "Hootenanny" on ABC. That show has been described as the "commmercial" side of the 1960s folk music boom (or the "folk music scare," as we like to call it). But what the hell do they know? Who are Baez, Dylan, Seeger, and the rest of those clowns to say who sold out and who didn't? Like they didn't exactly starve up until now, right? Anyway, somewhere my mom got a hold of Peter Paul & Mary's album "Blowin' in the Wind." I played it to death in those days.

I knew that these songs were connected with what was going on in the world. And while I was as much for social justice and a better world for all as the next guy, I was proud to grow up an American, and was disconcerted to see outright disdain for a country I loved, on the part of those who appeared to be living quite well within its borders. And while guys like Pete Seeger could follow Jane Fonda around and play footsie with our nation's sworn enemies in Paris or Hanoi or wherever, other guys like the Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot could stay true to who they were, without being political outright.

Then there were coffeehouse hangers-on like Neil Diamond, who eventually discovered Vegas, and the rest is history. But that's another story...

By the time I reached college, I saw what people called "folk music" sort of merge with rock-and-roll, becoming "folk-rock" or just something else. But it was during the mid- to late- seventies that I discovered the real thing. Music that didn't have a copyright attached, that was played by people who didn't fly around in jets and get interviews in Time magazine, and who didn't compromise what they were doing just for three minutes on the airwaves.

I also had this buddy in college who, from the time he first heard me play, described me as transforming into this laid-back, easy-going fellow. This is remarkable when you consider that I'm not at all like this in real life. At least not when playing music.

Which makes even me start to wonder what I'm like in real life.

So I discovered the flip side of me. And it didn't stop there. I used to play for New England contra dances back in Ohio. One night they pulled me on to the dance floor. I haven't left. Being a dancer is probably the only thing that ever gave me a sense of charm and grace, at least in the eyes of the opposite sex.

But I was a musician first. (And whatever happens on the dance floor, we all know that, in the end, "chicks dig guitar players.") For awhile I sat in with zydeco bands coming up from Louisiana. My dancing chums got a kick out of it, and I got along great with the guys in the band. Then some of the promoters threw a hissy-fit. I'd get some b******t excuse about how people were paying to see "the authentic Louisiana experience." Apparently a bunch of guys from Louisiana needed guidance on what that meant, from a few uppity white middle-aged middle-class East Coast pseudo-intellectuals. One gal (a promoter, I hesitate to call her a "lady") even tried to literally pull me off the stage, after the bandleader kept begging me to join them. Her line? "They don't want you up there."

Who can argue with reasoning like that?

In forty years of playing, both amateur and professional, I had run into the dabbling of dillatantes before. An end-run is being contemplated. But I have to travel to Louisiana first. Now's not a good time. Stay tuned...

Meanwhile, the world has discovered "Americana," a genre that is traditional in its roots, and progressive in its wings. You can learn more at the website of The Americana Music Association:

"Americana is American roots music based on the traditions of country. While the musical model can be traced back to the Elvis Presley marriage of hillbilly and R&B that birthed rock 'n' roll, Americana as a radio format developed during the 1990s as a reaction to the highly polished sound that defined the mainstream music of that decade. By also including influences ranging from folk to bluegrass to blues and beyond, Americana handily bridges the gap between Triple A radio and mainstream country."

Works for me.

In recent years, I got comfortable on stage. My favorite audience was always the annual talent show at my son's Byzantine Rite parish. I should consider a triumphant return, shouldn't I?

But until then, there's work to be done. One of the features of the new place will be the provision for working on my music. The living room will be graced by that portion of the library devoted to music, and a few instruments will be on display, as opposed to all of them staying in the closet like before.

Because we all gotta start somewhere, even if it's starting over, or starting again.