FTW, 4.25.2021

In my dotage, I am become a folkie. These days, the most regular spins on my turntable are the Byrds' Fifth Dimension and Notorious Byrd Brothers, the three Fairport Convention albums with Sandy Denny, and Joni Mitchell's Blue and Hejira. When I'm too busy to flip LPs, John Fahey's The Return of the Repressed and The Legend of Blind Joe Death frequently provide the soundtrack to meal prep and consumption. 

I got my copy of Richard Thompson's memoir Beeswing last week and devoured it in a day. Thompson's a good talespinner, no surprise, and I particularly like the approach he took to the task of writing a book: focusing on the most interesting part of his creative life, although not hesitating to refer to his earlier and later life in his narrative. 

Myself, I liked the approach Bob Dylan took in Chronicles, Volume One (writing about what he thought was important, which turned out in large part to be other singers he admired, and other writer's songs -- what his "Great American Songbook" phrase reveals more than anything else is his love of songcraft, full stop) better than the one Pete Townshend did in Who I Am (well-edited, but with inordinate focus on the part of his life after his most creative years, which becomes a tiresome litany of houses he was buying and women he was chasing). 

Reading Thompson, one gets the sense that he used "unloading his head" as an opportunity to process long-suppressed trauma, and reveal a little more of himself than his affable-but-reserved persona usually allows. It's interesting to read his take on the hothouse milieu of mid-'60s London in which Fairport germinated (didn't know he'd written a song about walking home from seeing the Who at the Marquee, but of course he did), the life of a touring musician in those early years, and his impressions of folks like Nick Drake and Sandy Denny. Although the subtitle indicates a stop at 1976, he does address his split with Linda, without going into a lot of detail, and owns his failures. No less than one would expect.

After having a few days to process the end of the Trout Mask Replica guitar project, I've realized that I've only completed the first step in a journey that will take years. My next one is to start working on mastery of the material. I might not be posting videos, but I'll surely be playing, which is the important bit.

ADDENDUM: The TMR guitar project made me more aware of time, which is an awareness I probably needed. Blowing stuff like this takes me out of that realm and into different space, which I also probably need, after six months devoted to transcription and rote learning.