Customer Reviews

Stargeezer

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

'Music Is Just A Bunch Of Notes' wasn't exactly a hot item in 1972. Though the footnote to a rave review indicated it could be purchased through 'Sweet Jane Records', any responsive readership of the short-lived, radical rag(in Australia, The Nation Review) would have been unlikely to swell Spider's coffers. I was sad to admit at the decade's close that this gem was suffering terminal turntable damage. So, great news a quarter of a century later that Spider took the key songs from that collection, and travelled from Twin Cities to New Orleans to record with Willie Murphy & others what we have here packaged as, "Stargeezer". All seventeen tracks glove together with such aplomb you'd be forgiven for thinking you were hearing a set of accomplished first takes. Koerner's voice is not some exemplary instrument in a showcase way. But he inhabits these songs as truly, as dutifully, as lovingly as any troubadour worthy of the name. In the early 60s, also at Twin Cities, Dylan was eagerly acquiring his folk persona, absorbing the material that has remained the bedrock of Koerner's repetoir. Dylan revisited this legacy in the early 90s with two excellent, subdued 'roots' albums which received about the same acclaim as Koerner. No point in comparing the results pound for pound as if the men's ambitions also twinned. Koerner's songs fit him in a way that privileges the listener with the rare understanding of a sense of how the songs grew. The joyful ease & timelessness of this set is testament to the power travelling blues can ellicit. Koerner may not have circumnavigated the globe to the extent of Bob. However, there's no argument about the length & breadth of his inner journeys.

I have to admit I am purchasing this album based on the previews. However, I have seen Spider John twice live and the song segments I listened to sound just like the real thing. Spider played in a small bar in Bayfield, WI when I saw him and he is the most authentic musician I ever heard. He is very tall and thin and wears the work boots and flannel shirt of the working man. I have heard that he spent a chunk of his life hopping trains and living the life of a hobo. His songs have the rhythm of a train through them; they are written about interesting characters that we do not get to see in the modern world. Listening to Spider's music is authentic. It is special because it has been created by a life of experience. He is an individual in a world of music that all sounds the same.

'StarGeezer' is a very nice little album from the same school of folk music which spawned Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Dave Van Ronk, and so many others who started performing in the 1960s. The teachers at that school were Cisco Houston, Pete Seeger, and Ramblin Jack Elliot. The Dean and practitioner in chief was Woody Guthrie, who virtually invented modern American folk music.

Unlike Guthrie who mostly did his own songs and unlike Elliot, who mostly did Guthrie's songs and traditional material, Koerner gives us an excellent blend of traditional and original material, where little of the traditional is stuff we have heard on half a dozen other albums.

This CD encourages me to go back to my old vinyl and get another earful of Spider.

Very nice listening!

Okay, Okay those of you who have been keeping tabs know that I have spend much of the last year, when not doing political commentary or book or movie reviews, reviewing many of the old time folk artists that, along with the blues, were the passion of my youth in the early 1960's. You might also know, if you are keeping tabs, that I have been attempting to answer a question that I have posed elsewhere in this space earlier about the fate or fates of various performers from that period. Spider John Koerner was a lesser known, but important, fixture on the Cambridge/Boston folk scene during that time, as well as later once the hubbub died down and he and a local stalwart, Mr. Bones, carried on the tradition in smaller venues and in front of smaller crowds.

The CD represents a later 1996 attempt to keep up with folk developments as well as the old traditions. I find the CD as whole a little uneven in quality but certainly his efforts on "Stewball", "Danville Girl" and "Casey Jones" rank with the best of his earlier work. I would make special note of his cover of the old popular tune "Stardust". That cover may be worth the price of the whole CD. He is coming from some very different place on that one, and it is a very nice place indeed.