Gypsy Rose Blanchard - A Look Backward at a "Killer"

[There has always been something about the Blanchard murder case in Springfield, MO that haunted me. The pictures of Gypsy Blanchard, as did the name, seemed way too familiar. My fractured memory finally connected the dots this morning. I wrote this piece back in 2006 for the Holler If You Hear Me blog - long before Gypsy Rose Blanchard and her boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, conspired successfully to kill Gypsy's mother. Do I feel "punked?" Quite the contrary. Maybe by Dee Dee Blanchard, but certainly not by Gypsy Rose. It'll be one of the better accomplishments I'll take to my grave - helping bring a moment of joy to a little girl who has moved from one jail to another.]



Gate 9
(by Bill Glahn)
I needed a little extra cash so I signed on with the Ozarks Empire Fair as a ticket taker for the 10-day duration from July 28 to August 6. The car payment was overdue. So were the phone and Internet service payments. The $5.35/hr pay sucked, but there was an opportunity to put in a lot of hours in a short period of time. On my first day at work. they took one look at me and reassigned me to Gate 9. They explained that it was a parking lot job, but that they would still pay me the $5.35 rate instead of a drop to $5.15. Thanks.

Instead of handing me a little red flag to wave cars into open spaces, they handed me a walkie-talkie programmed to Channel 3. Channel 3 is the security channel. “Don’t let any traffic proceed down Smith Street past the Gate 9 entry,” I was told. Gate 9 is the entry to the west parking lot, by far the biggest at the fair. Smith Street is designated one-way during the fair. At Gate 9 a wooden barricade blocked the northernmost lane of Smith. An orange barrel, the other. I was to move the orange barrel only for fair operational people, emergency vehicles, and the crew and performers for the grandstand shows. In short, I was the last line of defense against traffic that wanted to continue down Smith to Grant Ave, a main artery. Or the fans who wanted to get to the backstage area at Gate 10, just 100 yards down the road. Or the farmers who wanted to take a short cut to Gate 7, which lay beyond Gate 10 close to Grant. All these people I had to direct through the west parking lot and instruct them that they would have to head south through the parking lot, exit, and then make 2 or 3 left hand turns to get to the place they wanted to go. That place was clearly visible a couple of football fields downhill on Smith from Gate 9. Not many wanted to hear that, from Gate 9 onward, Smith was closed to traffic by order of the Springfield City Council.

Gate 9 has history. “Last year, the Gate 9 attendant walked off the job on his first day,” Ellen, one of the supervisors in security told me. “He said he wasn’t getting paid enough to take so much abuse. I had to finish his shift and find somebody else.” Of course, she told me this four or five days into my employment, and by that time I already knew as much. On day two this year, a taxi zoomed through the barricade during the morning shift and sent the orange barrel airborne, hitting the golf cart of one of the supes riding to the gate to explain why he couldn’t go through. The morning shift attendant had little desire to stay after the incident.

My shift started at 3 p.m. each day and ran through 11 p.m. During one of the year’s worst heat waves, Gate 9 offered no shelter from the elements. By the time I reported to work each day, the asphalt was melting. A pair on sandals ruined by day 2; a pair of sneakers by day 4. And the tempers of the people in the cars were already frazzled by the time they got to Gate 9. I couldn’t blame them. I couldn’t let them through either. I needed the paycheck. So, no matter how much abuse was hurled my way, I remained polite.

“No, ma’am, I can’t move the barrel for you. You have to exit through the parking lot and take Norton to Grant.”

“No sir, there are no exceptions.”

“Yes sir, I realize your hogs are just down the road inside Gate 7. City Council has designated this stretch of road for emergency and operational use only.”

Sometimes, expletives were hurled at me in response. Tires screeched as frustrated drivers stomped on the gas as they entered the parking lot. A couple of farmers threatened to kick my ass if I didn’t move the barricade.

“No, sir. I can’t do that. I need this job.” Neither followed up. Sometimes there is an advantage to being physically intimidating. Even when you don’t mean to be.

I lost my composure only once.

It was on Sunday July 30, day three on the job. At about 6 p.m., a new Cadillac DTS pulled up to the barrier. I approached the driver’s side window.

A cool blast of AC hit me as the driver rolled down his window. He seemed to be in his late 60s or early 70s. A woman of similar age sat in the passenger seat. Both wore scowls that seemed permanently fixed. They were obviously well-off, dressed in conservative finery. Neither seemed as though they had allowed themselves the discomfort of exiting their air-conditioned domain for any time longer than it took them to go from their house to their car.

“I don’t want to go to the fair. Move the barricade,” the man barked at me in a manner that indicated he was used to getting his way.

“I’m sorry, sir. Smith Street is closed to all traffic from this point onward. You’ll have to proceed through the parking lot to Norton and exit there.”

“I am going down to Grant. Move the barrel.”

“I can’t do that, sir. Please proceed through the parking lot.”

The guy looked at my name badge and took note. “I know many important people in this city. I can have your job. This isn’t a request. I said move the barrel.”

I gave him the city ordinance spiel. He reiterated what an important a member of the business community he was. I would “have to make an exception."

By now I was ticked off. “Well, sir, if any of your important buddies are on city council, take it up with them. But if you want that barrel moved, you’ll have to get out and move it yourself. And there will be another barricade further down the road. You’ll have to get out of your air conditioning and move that one too. Do you think you can handle it?”

“Look. If you don’t move the barrel, I will sit here until traffic backs up to the zoo.”

The zoo is about a mile back on Smith; by the early evening rush, traffic was probably backed up to the zoo anyway. So I called his bluff with one of my own. “Then I guess we’ll just have to get a tow truck.” I pressed the button on the walkie-talkie. “Gate 9 to security. We have a car that won’t move and it’s blocking traffic.”

As the guy turned his wheels to pull into the parking lot, his wife leaned over and said, “This makes you not even want to go to the fair.”

“Ma’am – the first thing your husband told me was that you didn’t want to go to the fair. No loss there.”

I returned to being Mr. Polite. But no matter how many cars offered up some bottled water or Pepsis to this beleaguered “ticket taker” (and there were several), there weren’t enough random acts of kindness to make me like this job any better.

Then came Tuesday night.

Miranda Lambert was the headliner. Although I’m unfamiliar with her music, she did a fine version of The Band’s “The Shape I’m In” during her sound check. Come downtown / Have to rumble in the alley. I laughed to myself. Out of nine lives, I spent seven / Now, how in the world do you get to Heaven / Oh, you don’t know the shape I’m in. It was perfect dark comedy – this heat was about to burn number eight right out of me.

I had been instructed to let the wife of one of the fair board members through Gate 9 to meet Lambert and view the show from backstage. Rank has its privileges.

She proceeded through to Gate 10 at around 7:30. The show started at 8 p.m.

About 8:10 a ragged-looking car approached the gate. An old Dodge (I think) from the mid-80s. One of the cheap models. Definitely on its last legs. Definitely the car of a person who is struggling. I motioned the car into the parking lot but it stopped. I approached the driver’s window. It was a lady, slightly overweight, not well-dressed.

“I’m late. I got lost. I need to get to Gate 10. They’re waiting for us there.”

“Who is ‘us’?”

“The name on the guest list is Gypsy Rose [I don’t remember the last name]. This is Gypsy Rose and she’s a big fan of Miranda Lambert’s. We’re backstage guests, and Gypsy Rose is supposed to meet her tonight.”

I glanced over at the passenger seat. Gypsy Rose might have been 10 or 11 but her frail body was more that of a 6-year-old. She was dressed in a new t-shirt and new baseball hat, probably the best “duds” her mom could afford. There was no hair protruding out of the cap. She had what looked like a surgical wrap around her neck. She didn’t say anything. She just looked at me with wide hopeful eyes.

I got on the walkie-talkie. “I have Gypsy Rose at Gate 9. She doesn’t have a Gate 10 pass, but she was told to go to Gate 10 for entry.”

The response was what I expected. “Gate 10 is shut down. We’ll check to see if she’s on the guest list and then she’ll have to go to Gate 5A.”

Then word came back that she wasn’t on the Gate 5A list.

I wasn’t going to dash this girl’s dreams. “Bill, can you come down to Gate 9?”

Bill Cantrell was my direct supervisor and I had grown to know him as a genuinely nice guy who had enough years (16) with the Fair to get things done. I told Gypsy Rose and her mom not to worry. Her mom kept apologizing for being late. Gypsy Rose never said anything, and I realized that she couldn’t vocalize. But, damn, she could communicate. And what she kept saying with her eyes was that this was the biggest thing in her life. She was excited and kept bouncing up and down in her seat with anticipation. She wasn’t discouraged. She gave no indication that she had anything but the highest appreciation for life.

I explained the situation to Cantrell. He broke through the red tape – got hold of one of the stage crew and found out that Gypsy Rose was indeed expected and that everyone was worried when she didn’t arrive. While Bill arranged for a customer services vehicle to transport Gypsy Rose and her wheelchair to Gate 10, I chatted her up with questions that didn’t require more than a shaking of her head. Her body language spoke so much more.

“Have you ever seen Miranda Lambert before?” (No)

“Do you like her CD?” (Big shake yes)

“Are you excited?” (Her whole body started bouncing up and down and her hands clapped together as she put special emphasis on her yes nod.)

The customer services guy lifted her onto the cart and as she sped toward Gate 10, I yelled “Have fun!” The smile she flashed back to me was only surpassed by the one she had on her face the next day when she and her mom stopped by to show me pictures. It was a smile that will be embedded in my brain forever.

The rest of the week was a breeze.

Mr. & Mrs. Cadillac DTS are probably still miserable people. But that’s their problem. I’m feeling just fine.

links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Dee_Dee_Blanchard
http://hollerif.blogspot.com/2006_08_06_archive.html

Untethered: The Sounds of Robert Fisher Transcending

Willard Grant Conspiracy: Untethered (2018)
(review by Bill Glahn)

Most often lumped in as “Americana,” by streaming services and music publications, a lot of Willard Grant Conspiracy’s music echoes from more distant shores. While some “twang” may creep in on occasion, like a refugee from Dave Alvin’s Eleven Eleven album, it’s more helpful to think “Waterlow” from Ian Hunter’s Strings Attached album, the choral arrangements during the last minute of Fairport Convention’s “Meet On The Ledge,” or even the mood of Nick Cave’s The Good Son.

The other problem with defining WGC as Americana, is that Robert Fisher’s themes predate America by a good long stretch. They’re as old as the world. And The Willard Grant Conspiracy often embellish his songs more as a chamber orchestra – one that plays in the court of common folks rather than kings. And how do you pigeon-hole an album like In The Fishtank, a collaboration with Dutch Electronica outfit, Telefunk – with it’s world music drum loops?

Fisher, the vocalist and primary songwriter for WGC describes the band’s sound in more abstract terms: “…if you draw a picture, you draw a geography, you draw a good fictional place in time for something to exist in, it immediately draws a picture in the listener’s head, so when the audience is hearing the song, they’re drawing pictures upstairs. Same with film.”

Cinematic - if it isn’t a music genre, it should be.

The first time I heard a Willard Grant Conspiracy tune was on a sampler CD that came with the British publication, Uncut. The track was “Soft Hand” from their album, Regard The End. Widely regarded as the band’s best song, “Soft Hand” contained the undeniably captivating refrain “there I made you smile, there I made you smile, there I made you smile, made you smile again.” Whether your mind draws a picture on the giving or receiving part of that refrain, the result is the same. It’s a revealing part of Regard The End – an album that is comprised of dark landscapes such as “The Suffering Song,” a tune that channels the most bleak of Leonard Cohen tunes. In Fisher’s mind, however, it’s the simplest of life’s pleasures that win the day. “There I made you smile.” Perfect. I wouldn’t know until years later, while watching a Farrelly Brothers DVD (Stuck On You) that “Soft Hand” had been used in the film.

Willard Grant Conspiracy flew so far under the radar in the United States that keeping up with their releases (and backtracking) has proven difficult. Some are only available as imports and a large number are out of print, even in this era of downloads. On a German TV interview, Fisher said, “I think in the U.S. the kind of music that we do is marginalized by the major labels and because media is not as accessible as it is here (Germany) for an independent label.”

Robert Fisher didn’t fit any major label’s image as a viable “pop star.’ A man of tremendous girth, he would perform at concerts, not prancing around the stage, but confined to a chair. With a band that couldn’t be easily boxed into a single genre, mass popularity wasn’t an option. Neither was abandoning his musical vision. “If I wasn’t here doing it today [in Europe], I’d be sitting in some roadhouse in the [California] desert doing it.” Like many artists that work on the fringe, Fisher supplemented his income with a day job – one that had flexible hours (real estate agent) until health issues intervened. All the while, writing new material.

The lone constant in WGC being Robert Fisher, it seemed that 2013’s Ghost Republic would be the band’s swan-song. Fisher had moved to Brodie, a former mining town in the California desert to write the album before passing away in February 2017.

So… along comes the news of a Willard Grant Conspiracy posthumous album, Untethered. Anything but a pillaging of the vaults, Untethered has been lovingly assembled by Fisher’s long-time collaborator, multi-instrumentalist David Michael Curry from the last recordings Fisher made. It’s a tough listen - sometimes harsh, sometimes beautiful, sometimes challenging.

Untethered opens with “Hideous Beast,” an unexpected curveball. Coming in under 2 minutes, it has more kinship to Ginsberg’s “Howl” than anything in the previous WGC canon. Fisher dispatches the rage he accumulated during a lifetime of hardships. It’s both frightening and necessary to understand the music that follows.

Fisher often wrote about pain and death. “Do No Harm” is one of the albums most beautiful songs and a coda of sorts to “Soft Hand.” More of a final prayer than a command, Fisher parts this world with the simplest of all requests: “Take my orders from the stone… do no harm when I sleep.”

The remainder of Untethered is a mix of instrumentals and reminisces. Addressing the paradoxical nature of humanity, he sings “I want to feed you to monsters/ your goodness will save you” ("Love You Apart"). The final vocal track, “Untethered,” is the only song written between Fisher’s diagnosis and death (a span of only a couple of months). On it, Fisher sings “Dreamed last night I was blown apart and busted/ sidestepped my way into the path of a hurricane/ for the first time in my life I felt untethered.” And then there’s “Trail’s End,” an instrumental that rolls along like the sound of the closing credits of a particularly fine movie. It may be the most cinematic Willard Grant Conspiracy album of them all. (Rating: beyond the ether.)

Bonus tracks:

Referenced tracks:

Anarchy 2018 - The Pink Fairies Return

(review by Bill Glahn)

Pink Fairies: Resident Reptiles

The Pink Fairies originally rose out of the ashes of The Deviants, who in 1970 fired Mick Farren and hooked up with Pretty Things drummer/vocalist, Twink (S.F. Sorrow era). Farren and various Deviants members had played on Twink’s first solo album during his final days as a member of The Pretty Things. The band would gain a reputation for anarchy, free gigs, agitprop, and drugs, as well as chaotic concerts and a chaotic line-up of band members through the years [often contributing and pinching members to/from Hawkwind, Motorhead, Farren (again)], etc. For a more complete documentation of that, pick up a copy of Keep It Together! Cosmic Boogie With The Deviants & The Pink Fairies by Rich Deakin (forward by Mick Farren).

The Pink Fairies recording career had apparently come to a close by 1973 (save a 1976 single on Stiff Records), but resurfaced with Kill ‘Em and Eat ‘Em (1987) with Larry Wallace (Motorhead) at the helm. There were reunion gigs with various line-ups, but  new studio releases wouldn’t come until the late ‘90s with a pair of albums that were basically Twink and Paul Rudolph and some hired hands (Pleasure Island, No Picture) and released on Twink Records.

2016 yielded Naked Radio, a Pink Fairies’ album in name only. Featuring none of the principle members or creative force (Twink, Rudolph, Wallis), fans used such terms as “sham,” “dodgy,” and “farce” to describe the less-than-stellar result.

2018 yields a new Pink Fairies studio album and another new line-up. This time Paul Rudolph is back at the helm of a three piece – the rhythm section made up of ex-Hawkwind bassist (1984-1996) Alan Davey and original Motorhead drummer (although for a very brief time) Lucas Fox. The results this time are worthy of the Pink Fairies moniker, in style, if not in membership.

Resident Reptiles starts off with the one-two punch of the title track followed by “Old Enough To Know Better.” Rudolph may not be a great vocalist, but that has never been a strong part of The Pink Fairies. Rhythmically, much of Resident Reptiles resembles Lemmy-era Hawkwind – all the thunder intact. That adds an element to The Pink Fairies missing in the earliest days where much of the rhythm was chaotic rather than driving. That carries through for most of the album, but things start to run out of steam on the last track, “Apologize.”

Resident Reptiles is a befitting title for this album - nothing new as far as style, but a welcome reminder of the vital link between hard rock and punk. The Pink Fairies circa 2018 are sounding more like alligators than dinosaurs. (B)

Suggested tracks:

Becky Warren Creates A Winner With Undesirable

(review by Bill Glahn)

Back home they pass Christmas Day by killing something wild
And mark the years by where they strip the soil away
(We’re All We Got, Becky Warren)

On Becky Warren’s 2016 debut album, War Surplus, she established herself as both a compelling storyteller and social warrior by documenting the fictional relationship (based on her true experience) between an Iraq veteran with PTSD and his wife. It isn’t the usual fare of a Nashville-based artist who travels the connecting lanes of rock ‘n’ roll and country music. War has both personal and universal consequences and Warren’s songs convey both.

Warren has had a checkered career as a performing artist. As founding member of The Great Unknowns, the Boston-based band had already broken up by the time Amy Ray’s Daemon Records picked up their debut album Introducing The Great Unknowns (2004). Marriage to a soldier, soon to be deployed to Iraq and the PSTD that followed, occupied the next 6 years of her life. Warren dropped out of music completely. The Great Unknowns sophomore effort wouldn’t appear until 2012, this time with a new line-up and Warren as the primary songwriter. Titled Homefront, it would be her first record to deal with the aftermath of war on returning vets and their families. It went nowhere. She would spend the next four years sharpening her skills and writing War Surplus.

With Undesirable, her sophomore effort, Warren expands the landscape to the streets of Nashville. Not the streets of travel brochures – no, not those glossy fabrications of country music glitter. The streets that Warren is travelling on Undesirable can be found in any city of the size of Nashville – streets dotted with hotels with weekly (or hourly) rates, payday loan outlets, buy here/pay here car lots, homeless shelters, cheap wine liquor outlets, thrift shops and street venders. In Warren’s words, these are the streets of “forgotten forget-me-nots.” And the language in which Warren sings wouldn’t pass muster of any tight-assed copy editor - apparent from the title of the albums’ first track, “We’re All We Got.” Or the second, “Nobody Wants To Rock N Roll No More.” And that’s a great thing. Correct grammar doesn’t occupy those streets.

Stylistically Undesirable moves between the Midwest rock style of Tom Petty and the more countyfied musings of Lucinda Williams. Thematically and lyrically she’s in a territory occupied almost exclusively by “urban” music. As small town America becomes a thing of the past, with more and more country folks being displaced to the poverty centers of big metropolises (and that includes musicians), Warren currently is ahead of the curve. Way ahead. Undesirable isn’t all doom & gloom but, in the end, hopeful and forward looking. “Ain’t nobody gonna tell us baby/ We know we’re in a real tight spot/ We’re all we got.” In Warren’s worldview, that’s enough. And it's true. (A)

Suggested tracks:

Grayson Capps, Bottle Rockets: Desk Cleaning For The Gift Giving Season

[Reviews by Bill Glahn. I've been working on these on and off over the last year, but never finished up due to other writing projects. These are two of the best releases with many more to come in the next week.]

Bottle Rockets: Bit Logic (2018) From the git-go, Bit Logic finds Brian Henneman (age 57) ruminating about this modern world of technology on the title track. “This ain’t no high tech train wreck, don’t think that’s the deal… It’s the new way of keeping it real,” sings Henneman, painting a somewhat positive landscape. “Be thankful that this old machine still runs, even on these zeros, bits, and ones.” But it’s a landscape pitted with caveats.

“Lo Fi” takes the listener on a journey from the AM kitchen radio, through the wide expanse of home stereo systems, and full circle to listening to music on the telephone. And regardless of the limitations of modern music delivery, a great song can still make his day.

For the Bottle Rockets, though, a band that has built a following on the fringes of rock ‘n’ roll and country with solid albums and relentless touring, the new world has placed some substantial road blocks. Henneman addresses these on the metaphorical “Highway 70 Blues” and the more direct “It’s A Bad Time To Be An Outlaw.” How this will play out in the end is an open question. Will streaming services (the most common form of listening among young folks) cut out the passing lanes for inventive songwriting and performing? Will the pittance of income derived from streaming make it increasingly hard for upstart bands to expand their touring schedules beyond local or regional venues?

Henneman, a master lyricist with a remarkably durable band, has already built a foundation for continuing onward. But there’s that nagging question – “Will such future songwriters/bands ever see that chance?” Maybe. But it’ll be a much longer, slower, road where durability may end up being the most important component. Welcome to the new wave of heavy mettle. (A)

Grayson Capps: Scarlet Roses (2017) Part swamp, part Nashville, part Red Dirt, part outlaw, with some southern rock mixed in, Grayson Capps has the kind of voice that holds it all together as a cohesive voice of rural America. Although it takes a little longer to warm up to than Capp’s 2012 masterpiece, The Lost Cause Minstrels, it is an equally worthy effort, exploring some new musical directions. Topically, all the fears, hopes, and trials of rural America continue to find their way into Capp’s lyrics. Both albums are worthwhile companions to Muswell Hillbillies, The Kinks most Americana-sounding album – a statement on the fears, hopes and trials of urban England.

Capps hails from Fairhope, Alabama, a town located on the east side of Mobile Bay, and one with a rather unique history, having been set up as a socialist experiment in the late 1800s. From Wikipedia… “Their corporate constitution explained their purpose in founding a new colony: to establish and conduct a model community or colony, free from all forms of private monopoly, and to secure to its members therein equality of opportunity, the full reward of individual efforts, and the benefits of co-operation in matters of general concern." How well they’ve succeeded is questionable. Capps concludes Scarlet Roses with “Moving On,” a song that recognizes that. The search for a better future continues.
 (A)

Snow Day

(by Bill Glahn)

Trip Shakespeare’s “Snow Days” isn’t a song that would usually find its way into my rock ‘n’ roll heart. There’s the bloated, almost operatic, singing. There’s the idea that “real” rock ‘n’ roll has its origins in the streets, not the highly academic origins of the band members. And there’s the academic “wit” of some of the lyrics. Chainfields? Motor Veins? But sometimes you just have to put working class chauvinism aside. “Snow Days” has a place in my heart and has had one since I first heard it on a trip to Minneapolis in the mid-‘90s, several years after its release.

It snowed yesterday in Springfield, MO. Snows aren’t unheard of in South Central Missouri or Northwest Arkansas, my primary locations since 1989. They are this early in the year. Having spent a good deal of my growing-up and adult years in New Jersey, there is a certain nostalgia attached to snow. But nostalgia is poor fodder for a good rock ‘n’ roll song.

I’ve got a story. Several, actually.

When my father was transferred to McGuire Air Force Base in 1965, snow days were an opportunity, not an escape from school. For the children of enlisted men, the opportunity was to make some money by teaming up with other kids to shovel the sidewalks. The good money was across the boulevard that separated the officer’s quarters from the lower income enlisted families. In those days, all Base Housing (except for General’s quarters which were comfortable brick houses with landscaped yards a few miles away) consisted of town houses built in courts of 18 units each. In our court there were something like 90 kids – one of the largest concentrations of juveniles in the whole complex and with a sufficient number of snow-shoveling age to form an impressive work force. We learned quickly that the best way to negotiate wages was to team up. Nowadays some people would probably refer to us as “union thugs.” As far as I can determine, Base Housing is now privatized. Probably the snow removal as well.

After my father left the Air Force my older brother and I would team up with other kids in the Holly Hills neighborhood of Mt. Holly (mostly ex-military) and then Prospect Heights, a working class neighborhood in Trenton. Old enough now to have a paper route, my parents were insistent on “saving money for college.” Record money would still be mostly dependent on the annual winter weather. From the beginning, I used the windfall of snow day cash to fuel my passion for music. First there were new singles by chart acts like Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Mamas & Papas, Aretha, Glen Campbell – mixed with 5 for a dollar cut-out singles of older tunes. I had a lot of catching up to do, having missed the soul wave in the segregated play lists of South Carolina. During the last couple of years of my snow-shoveling days it turned to albums. The last album I remember buying with snow money was the White Album. I probably wore that one out by January.

Once indoctrinated into the world of grown up labor, snow days meant something entirely different. They meant a brief respite from the ever-increasing demands of management. In the 21st century version of labor/management relations, things have declined to a point where labor is expected to brave the weather in all kinds of storms. There are no snow days. Show up for work or else. This includes all types of labor - lower level management, industrial workers, cash-register clinkers, fast-food workers, teachers… all of us. Lower pay, lower benefits, lower safety… “We are all outlaws in the eyes of (corporate) Amerika.”

The guy I most admired at my last job before I retired was the one who NEVER came to work if there was so much as 1 snowflake falling from the sky. The supervisors would make it a point of mocking and belittling him at warehouse meetings. “So-and-so made it and they live 20 miles away. How come you can’t?” It never flustered the guy. “I won’t risk my safety for this job.” He’d been employed there for about 15 years. He was a good worker, knew his job well. They threatened to fire him – never did. Everyone knew it was just his way of throwing the finger at an employer who didn’t want to pay him anything close to his value. Still… there were those who succumbed to the pettiness and labeled him a “sissy.” The fucking guy had more guts than all of them combined. As far as I know, he’s still employed there. I’m positive he didn’t go to work yesterday.

What has all this got to do with “Snow Days,” the song?

It’s this. Despite an aura of pomposity, when it comes right down to it, “Snow Days” envelops the subversive nature that is essential to a lot of great rock ‘n’ roll – this time with a beautiful arrangement and a calming piano break. It tells the tale of a dedicated and overworked teacher on a day when the snow is falling. And the respite that a day off can provide, if she’ll only take it. "There’s a blessing on the ground. Go home." That's rock 'n' roll.

Bonus photo: These are agricultural fields between Camarillo and Oxnard in Ventura County, SoCal where HillFire & WellseyFire have been burning since last week - agricultural workers are still expected to show up for work. Photo by Irvin Camacho.

Let The Motherfucker Burn! William Elliott Whitmore reaches fever pitch.

(review by Bill Glahn)

When William Elliott Whitmore began his opening set at the Granada Theater in Lawrence with “Mutiny” on Oct. 22, he was clearly in a defiant mood. So was the crowd, answering the call & response with vigor.

“Let the motherfucker burn.” “Let the motherfucker burn.”

Whitmore, armed with only banjo and bass drum, was attacking both with vehemence. And an urgency that these times call for.

Will Whitmore is a farmer by birth. He’s been planting seeds at shows in Lawrence, Kansas for 19 years by his own account. It showed. This crowd came early - no stragglers or “fashionably late” hipsters. When Whitmore took the stage, everyone who was going to be there was already there. And the joint was packed.

Whitmore has a voice that sounds like it grew up out of the dirt. There’s a welcome quality to it that contrasts to the, too often, dry vocals of too much of today’s politically oriented Americana. It’s field holler singing. And that makes sense. Whitmore still lives on the family farm in a house that has no bathroom. His albums tend to be short – more akin to vinyl length - no filler. He’s not wired for the “technological age.” His only contact info on his web page is a post office box.

Whitmore has a new record out. (cd, vinyl and download). It’s called Kilonova and is a departure from past releases in that it consists completely of cover versions. Don’t expect a “Great American Songbook” nostalgia trip, though.  Some of the songs will be familiar to long-time followers from past set lists. These are songs that Whitmore finds a kinship with, interpreted in a way that is 100% personal.

There’s a wide range of material on Kilonova, songs from artists that predate his birth to songs of a more contemporary age that you might expect from a man of Whitmore’s age (40). The first Youtube release was The Magnetic Field’s “Fear of Trains.” The second was “Busted”, written by a songwriter with farming roots, Howard Harlan, and recorded by both Johnny Cash and Ray Charles in 1963.

In Whitmore’s hands, “Fear of Trains” is starker than the original, captivating the flavor of the lyrics more fully. In light of the recent Kavanaugh hearings, it’s downright prescient. “Busted” is the state of being for working class Americans in this century. But there’s more.

“Don’t Pray On Me,” “Five Feet High And Rising,” and “Ain’t No Sunshine” all capture a sense of desperation that exists today. “Bat Chain Puller,” the conclusion of Kilonova, exposes the root of that desperation, rife with metaphors that a man of the dirt can appreciate.

Whitmore concluded his concert in Lawrence where he started – with “Old Devils,” a song referenced in “Mutiny” delivered with the same fervor. The man has stamina! It’s going to take a good dose of that from his audience as well. Lawrence was up to the task.

I’ve been travelling around the Midwest with my dog, Sally, taking notes. In the last few days I passed through eastern Iowa and western Wisconsin, home turf for Will Whitmore. It’s under water. Said one farmer, "I'm about to break the first rule of farming - never complain about the rain. What started off as a '100 year rain' is now a 500 year rain. If it rains like this for another week, there won't be a crop to harvest." The preservation of the earth is high on William Elliott Whitmore’s priority list. He starts the second leg of his tour tonight with label mates, Murder By Death, in Washington, D.C. at the 9:30 Club. If the crowd responds loud enough and long enough maybe the politicians at the Capitol will hear them. “Let the motherfucker burn!”