The Oppenheimer Report 8/27/18

Arizona Senator John McCain has died at 81 of brain cancer, and after watching a CNN special about his storied career as a public servant, first as a Navy pilot and then as a politician, I think McCain might have made a decent President. Too bad somebody had the bright idea to make Sarah Palin his running mate when he was running against Obama. Sometimes, I am shocked by decisions made in order to pander to the Republican base. Palin was not McCain’s choice, and she clearly undermined his status as one of the rare politicians with honor. Somehow, the American voter made the quantum leap from a moron who almost became Vice President to an imbecile who did become President. It simply astounds me that Rump had the gall to impugn McCain’s integrity as a war hero, and his flag raising debacle today has me convinced me that the orange emperor has become unhinged. Admittedly, I don’t know who John McCain really was, but compared to our Commander-In-Tweet, he looks pretty good. I take bittersweet pleasure in hearing so many people in the media attacking Rump, and I don’t know how our country got so far down the toilet drain that this clown looked like a viable alternative to the status quo. Sadly, that speaks volumes about the sorry state of American politics. As I said when he was elected, his election was a shot across the bow of democracy and freedom. People hated the Washington insiders enough to vote in this clearly unqualified, boorish, incompetent puppet of big money. Now, even his media darling Fox News is beginning to say “enough is enough.” What a nincompoop. My biggest fear is that there will be an over-reaction in the other direction, and that the pendulum will swing too far to the left in the next election. They’ve got a few morons in their ranks as well.  

Last week, local singer/songwriter Christina Hutt asked me to accompany her during her performance at the Kearney fireworks display next Saturday night. A few weeks ago, we played together at the Kearney Regatta, and although it was a last-minute gig, and I was flying blind during that performance (no rehearsal, no capo or nuthin’), she was happy enough with my accompaniment to ask me to join her again. Last weekend, we actually rehearsed - something new for me - and I think she’s going to put on a great show. While there is no guarantee the show will take place, because weather is always a factor, if it does, there will likely be a large audience.

Coincidentally, Christina and Gina Horswood, another great female vocalist who lives in the area, just completed background vocals on a new song I co-wrote with singer/songwriter Sean Cotton and my wife Shauna. The unmixed recordings showed promise, and we’ve gone with a kind of eerie, Cajun voodoo vibe, which should be interesting. Sean just sent me a close-to-final mix of the song and I’m excited. Good musicians and singers make all the difference, and I am grateful to be in the midst of all this remarkable talent. The song to which I refer is entitled “Watch For Wolves” and it was inspired by an experience I had late last winter while walking on the frozen lake near our house. I came across a freshly killed deer carcass near the shoreline. There was blood everywhere on the pristine, snow-covered, and otherwise undisturbed lake, and the implied violence of this spectacle, coupled with the eerie silence of the winter morning, moved me to write the song. The song uses the metaphor of the wolf as predator to imply a much larger threat, one that I feel is omnipresent of late. I think we’ve penned a good song, and I’m eager to hear the final product.  

Wish me luck next Saturday night!

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 8/20/18

Townes Van Zandt and Blaze Foley

Every week is a new music adventure for me these days, and as the mystery and the history unfold in front of me, I am constantly learning from different mentors. Hosting a radio show which professes to be about songwriting, I feel honor bound to up my game every week, and to research some of the music about which I know comparatively little. As I begin to connect the dots, I rely on the rich oral history to enlighten me. Songwriters know songwriters. In my capacity as radio how host of Lyrical Workers, I have now had extended conversations over the phone with several very different and interesting songwriters. Each time I have one of these conversations, it peels back another layer of the onion. I learn something about the writing process and am reminded of how much I don’t know.

Last week, at 12:30AM, during the first half hour of Shauna’s 60^th birthday, I had a 45 minute phone conversation with a guy named Gurf Morlix. Gurf was originally from Hamburg, N.Y., just south of my hometown of Buffalo, and I first learned of him listening  a compilation CD of Buffalo artists distributed by the Buffalo Music Hall Of Fame. I fell in love with his haunting song Drums From New Orleans, and it inspired me to learn more about Gurf Morlix, the man with the unusual name. Buffalo was full of great musicians but I’d never heard of most of the guys on that Buffalo Music Hall Of Fame CD. As I began to explore Gurf’s career, I discovered that this hometown boy had made it pretty big in the music business. He left Buffalo in 1975 and headed down to Austin, Tx., and he never looked back. He told me that when he left Buffalo in his 20s, he was looking to spread his wings as an artist, and to add his own creative two cents to the genre of country music, a genre not widely embraced in Buffalo. He joked about the fact that he picked Austin because it was warm. I was impressed by his experience. He’d worked with/ co-written with of artists like Lucinda Williams, and he’d toured with the legendary Warren Zevon.

This Thursday night, I'll be featuring clips from my phone conversation with Gurf, placed throughout a show prominently featuring the music of Gurf and a now-deceased  songwriter named Blaze Foley. Foley will likely become better known with the imminent release of a film made about his short life, produced and directed by actor Ethan Hawke. The movie has already received critical acclaim at The Sundance Film Festival, and I look forward to its release. Blaze and Gurf arrived in Austin around the same time and became close friends shortly thereafter. Sadly, Blaze suffered from some of the self-destructive forces that plague so many creative artists. He never received the recognition he might have, had he not been held back by his demons. Hearing Gurf talk about his friend Blaze, I was reminded of the oldest story in entertainment: another creative genius falls prey to substance abuse and self-destruction.

As I have said on numerous occasions, made even more evident as I enter my 4^th year as host of  Lyrical Workers, there is a universe of good music about which I know very little. As the door opens a crack, thanks to mentors like Gurf Morlix, Jon Brooks, Gordon Shawcross, Rob Lutes, Bobby Cameron, John Campbelljohn, Noah Zacharin, and a few dozen other contemporary songwriters, I am lit up by yet another creative bright light. It's always been my mission to get better at this, and knowledge is power. Ultimately, I want what most songwriters want: to connect with others through my personal interpretation of all that has come before me. With every new artist I discover, I can place another piece in the ever-expanding puzzle of the music I love, and I become a better songwriter because of it. Last Friday night I had the extreme pleasure to see blues phenomenon Matt Andersen perform in Huntsville at the Algonquin Theatre. Two years ago I did not know who Matt Andersen was, and now I am a huge fan. With each new discovery comes the growing realization that the field of talent around me is limitless, and so then is the potential for my own growth as a songwriter.

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 8/13/18

Tomorrow, my wife Shauna will turn 60 years of age, and I am at a loss for what to do for her. In a perfect world, I would have thrown a big party for her, perhaps with some live entertainment and a lot of guests. In fact, that won't happen, because Shauna is at present too sick to entertain guests, or to be in any way social. Anyone with chronic illness in their family will understand this, but I sometimes tire of having to explain it to those who don’t. I simply don’t want to ambush her with a surprise party or saddle her with the pressure of entertaining a room full of guests. Over the past year she has only been out a handful of times, and it is always a last minute decision, depending on her pain level.

When I turned 60 several years ago, I spent it quietly at home and then later doing my Lyrical Workers show at the radio station. Shauna was not well enough to join me, and quite honestly, I was in no mood to celebrate at the time. For some puzzling reason, I did not have my mid-life crisis until I turned 60, but that birthday really pulled the rug out from under me. I just wanted the day to be over. As it turned out, Shauna and my friend Juan Barbosa had planned a surprise party for me, and the secret plan was for Juan and a group of guests to ambush me as I left the radio station, and then to whisk me off to a restaurant where Shauna had arranged for a late dinner. The problem was, I stayed extra late at the station. I was feeling sorry for myself, and I just wanted to be alone. Juan and all the guests, whom I of course had no idea were waiting for me, sat outside in the cold October night for over an hour waiting for me to finish my show. It being a week night, some could not wait. While I abhor surprise parties – and we had one for Shauna’s fortieth and for my fiftieth – that sixtieth ambush turned out to be fun.    

When I was a kid, birthdays were a big deal; now, not so much. I am thankful for the life I have been fortunate enough to live so far, and I hope it goes on for a long time. Still, I try to celebrate my life every day, not just on these anniversaries, which mean less and less to me over time. Sometimes I am more successful at living in the moment than at other times, and this is one of my (and perhaps other people’s) challenges. While I am happy to acknowledge the day I was born, I don’t need the hats and horns, and I would be perfectly content to spend the day with the person or people I love. As Shauna joins me in this sixth decade, I think she will agree with me that, at this point in our lives, we are more inclined to be reflective of the lives we have led so far. These days, birthdays are more of an acknowledgment that time is passing more quickly, and I don’t really need or want to be reminded of that. Indeed, too many of our peers have already passed on far before their time, and more and more, with every passing year of uncompromised health, we are reminded to seize the day. Personally, one of the things I can say about the approach of each successive birthday, is that they seem to approach faster every year.

Happy 60^th birthday my dear Shauna; may we enjoy many more decades together. We’ll do something appropriate to celebrate when the time is right. This birthday will definitely be better than last year’s, which was spent at Toronto Western Hospital. For now, we’ll have a nice dinner, prepared by yours truly, in the beautiful house Shauna designed, and accompanied by her 93 year-old mom. While we don't know how long our lives will be, remember, it’s been a pretty good run so far, filled with love and light. Perhaps when you turn 70 we’ll go skydiving together. 

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 8/6/18

 

Photo by Shauna Leigh Taylor

I am always excited to hear about other people’s road trips, especially where they involve music tours. Vicariously, I imagine myself out on the open road, free and unencumbered by the day to day responsibilities of my life. When I was younger, I fantasized about hopping in my car for an impromptu road trip, travelling to the Southwest United States, and playing every gig I could find from New Orleans to Austin. Perhaps it’s the allure of the unknown, or the uncertainty and potential danger of being out of my comfort zone, or the exhilaration of maybe developing a fan base. Whatever the dream was, it was just that, a dream, and as I know from the experiences of others, the reality is never quite so glorious and exciting.

Many of my younger musician friends up here – and it seems like more and more of them are much younger than I – have done at least one tour, and vicariously I thrive on their adventures. Through them, and their posts on Facebook, I am provided a window into their travels. One songwriter friend, in his twenties, annually hops in his van and drives out to B.C., hitting various venues he books along the way, and documenting his experience. One day not too long ago, I bumped into him at the local supermarket, and saw the matrass in the back of his van. He jokingly quipped, “Yep, welcome to my home away from home.” Oh, to be young again. Years ago, my friends Juan Barbosa and Jeff Stamp, both local singer songwriters, did an ill-fated tour of the Maritimes. Afterwards, Jeff wrote a song entitled “Truckin’ ” about the experience. That road trip was filled with problems, from bad weather, gigs and lodgings that fell through, and all the other attendant problems which accompany an under-funded trip to an unknown destination. I called it the “hope and a prayer tour”. In one video they posted, they were performing out east on a colorfully lit stage, complete with a mirror ball and other special effects, but what we the viewers do not see is the absence of an audience. I talked to a young singer songwriter from Leamington, who performed recently at the monthly “Third Friday Coffee House” in Burk’s Falls. Exhilarated in anticipation of embarking on a short tour in Ontario to promote his recently released debut EP, he clearly needed to get this tour out of his system. I also knew in my heart that there would be disappointment, and loneliness involved. These tours can be soul-sucking, and are hard on families. Leaving behind a wife and three or four children, this guy was dreaming of something that I think only exists in our imaginatiion.  

Over the years, I have listened to the enthusiasm of hundreds of young upstarts as the venture out into the world to apprise the world of their musical creativity. More often than not, they return from these tours road weary, and perhaps not quite as confident of their ability to lead this troubadour’s life. Secretly, I suppose I take some twisted pleasure in imagining their less-than-well-attended gigs in Medicine Hat, Alberta, or Bumfuck, Saskatchewan, because it validates my reluctance to give in to my own wanderlust. I doubt I am alone in imagining my road trip adventures, and I will always look at a motorcycle and imagine myself rolling down some empty western highway, guitar strapped on my back, headed for a well-attended concert filled with my (imagined) adoring fans. The reality is miles away from the dream, but I comfort myself with the delusion from time to time. What has become apparent to me, largely through the travel experiences of others, is that I live in a beautiful home, and I am less and less inclined to leave it. If anyone really wants to see me perform (I have after all gone “Plywood” in Huntsville) I’m around, but my adoring fans in Bumfuck, Saskatchewan are just going to have to wait until some as yet undisclosed sponsor throws piles of money at me to go out on the road. Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen!

    - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED