Everything Is an Afterthought

I'm late in posting this, but Bruce Springsteen turned sixty one week ago today. Over at Mental Floss, Matt Soniak posted the very entertaining "60 Springsteen Facts for Bruce's 60th Birthday." 

Regarding Number 17 on his list—
—I was reminded of a passage from the "Two Jewish Mothers Pose as Rock Critics" chapter of Paul Nelson and Lester Bangs's Rod Stewart book wherein, during a give-and-take between the two critics about the nature of fame and what it can do to an artist, this same story about Springsteen came up. Paul said: 

I asked Bruce if any of this were true when I interviewed him in 2007.

"Oh yeah," he said, "oh yeah. I think it was St. Louis, though, or St. Paul. I forget where. I was by myself. I sort of enjoyed the license that that strange part of my job, where people recognize you, allowed me to kind of step into people’s lives, and it was just a night where I wasn’t doing anything and it just sounded like a good idea. The kid ran into his room and came out with an album cover and held it up next to me [laughs] after we came in the door.”

Springsteen volunteered that he does still see the kid's mother occasionally when he's in town (whichever town it may be), though it sounded as if such meetings were in the nature of a before- or after-concert encounters, not a visit on his own part.

Copyright 2009 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.

In the latest issue of Rolling Stone, David Browne reports that in 1979 Paul Nelson was recruited as an advisor to a commission headed by legendary producer John Hammond to update the official White House Record Library. As a result of the commission's efforts, President Obama can enjoy vinyl versions of Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, Springsteen's Born to Run, Randy Newman's Good Old Boys, Led Zeppelin IV, the Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed, the Ramones' Rocket to Russia, the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, the Flying Burrito Brothers' The Gilded Palace of Sin, as well as records by Santana, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Isaac Hayes, Elton John, the Cars, and Barry Manilow.

It's not difficult to surmise which selections were high on Paul's list of suggestions.

The entire article, "Obama's Secret Record Collection," can be found here.

Copyright 2009 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved. 

In January of 1973, a few weeks after Elliott Murphy first played his demos for Paul Nelson, then an A&R guy at Mercury Records, Paul presented him the recently released debut album of another songsmith: Bruce Springsteen's Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. Later that same month, Paul invited Murphy to join him at Max's Kansas City, where Springsteen was playing with a very early incarnation of the E Street Band.

This week over at Wolfgang's Vault—which features free streaming of vintage live concert performances—the featured concert is, with relative certainty, the show in question. Recorded January 31, 1973, after the show Paul introduced Elliott to Bruce, thereby launching a friendship that continues to this day.

Copyright 2008 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.

Last night in Paris, France, 35 years after Paul Nelson first introduced the two men to one another at Max's Kansas City, Bruce Springsteen invited Elliott Murphy onstage to perform "Born to Run" with the E Street Band. While this has become something of a tradition—Springsteen, whenever he performs in France, asking Murphy to play along—last night he extended the invitation to the next generation, and Murphy's 17-year-old son Gaspard shared the spotlight.

Later, Springsteen called Elliott back onstage to join in on the last song of the night, "American Land."

Copyright 2008 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved. 

"You don't know me!" Dave Gahr shouted through the phone lines at me the first time we spoke back in November of 2006. "You know I knew Paul," he yelled, "and that's about it!" Indeed, Paul Nelson and Dave Gahr had been extremely good friends. 

It wasn't necessarily that I'd upset Gahr (though I probably had)--that pretty much constituted normal patter for Dave, who, then 84, was close to deaf and fairly fed up with the world as a whole. To speak with him on the phone almost required that you repeat everything two and three times and at the top of your own voice. I must admit that, because of this dynamic combined with Dave's constant reminders that publishers are only out to screw you, my initial calls with him usually left my hands shaking. 

When he learned that the Paul Nelson project was to be my first book, he said: "Well, you picked a doozy! The most beautiful man of all--and it won't sell!" Then, laughing at his own audaciousness, he allowed, "In Minnesota it'll sell a few." 

This morning Clinton Heylin e-mailed me from the UK to let me know that Gahr, who lived here in Brooklyn, had passed away over the weekend at his home in Park Slope. His health had apparently been deteriorating over the last several months. He was 85. 

When I finally met Dave in person last September (the 12th--Leonard Cohen's birthday), he was kind enough to invite me over to his huge, four-story house to pick up some photos he'd taken of Paul Nelson and which he'd agreed to let me use in the book. Over the next couple of hours, he escorted me floor-by-floor (and then down into the basement) and showed me just a fraction of his amazing photographs. Each floor was like visiting another era in American culture, with each room providing storage for photos organized by subject and year. 

Rolling Stone and Sing Out! are just a couple of the many publications that ran his work. He photographed Dylan (from the early Sixties until just a few years ago) and Malcolm X; he was the first photographer to shoot Bruce Springsteen--and had over 4,000 images to prove it (among them the cover shot for The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle); Miles Davis, Johnny Cash, and John Lennon were just a few of his more notable subjects.

 
Dylan by Gahr

Slowly leading me up the stairs to the next level, he'd encourage me to sit down and take a rest; in his kitchen, he poured us coffee and told me some of his tales. Like the time he was hired by Time magazine to photograph Arthur Miller in his apartment, but Marilyn Monroe, dressed in a terrycloth bathrobe, answered the door instead. Taken aback, he said not to worry about the camera around his neck--that he was there to photograph her husband, who, Gahr learned, was sick in bed with the flu. "You must grow very tired of photographers," he told her. "Well," she said, "there are some photographers I love." At that point, she revealed to him that she had a favorite photo of Miller that she carried with her always: she reached into the breast pocket of her robe and showed the photo to Gahr. It was one he'd taken of Miller many years before. 

Lennon by Gahr

About the many record covers he shot, he said: "Most of them aren't worth shit. They're just pictures. When I get a stunning one, it's so rare." He told me about one he'd taken of Gladys Knight that he was particularly proud of: "Every so often one or two things are really at the top of your toil." 

And about growing old, he promised me: "Fifty to seventy should be your best years." 

The last time I spoke with Dave was a couple of months ago. He said that he had a few more photos of Paul that he wanted me to see, but that he had to find them first. "Then I'll call you," he said. This morning I shared the bad news with Dave's old friend--and Paul's, too--Jay Cocks, who summed it up this way: "Gahr was terrific. I'll miss him. Music will miss him."

Springsteen by Gahr

Copyright 2008 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.

When I interviewed Bruce Springsteen a few weeks back, among the many fond memories he shared of his friendship with Paul Nelson was how, in Paul's review of The River, he had correctly identified the influence that London Calling had had on that album. Springsteen told me about the great affinity he'd always had for not just the Clash but punk rock as a whole. "I felt a deep connection to those things," he said.

It's a connection that continues, as demonstrated by the recent release of the first single from Springsteen's upcoming album, Magic. Following in the tradition of great radio songs like the Clash's "Capitol Radio" and "Radio Clash," Elvis Costello's "Radio, Radio," and Van Morrison's "Wavelength," "Radio Nowhere" is an all-out rock & roller that best describes itself:


Flat out, "Radio Nowhere" is the best thing to hit the airwaves in years.

Watch the video here.

Copyright 2007 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved. 

"There were a few people who picked up on me very early before my first record, when I was playing solo at Max's Kansas City," Bruce Springsteen said about Paul Nelson, "and he's the one who stands foremost in my mind."



From 1975 to 1982, Paul wrote a series of infrequent but expansive meditations about Springsteen, his music, and his remarkable relationship to a rapidly burgeoning audience. How accurate were Paul's perceptions? "Oh, they could come out right now," Springsteen said, "and they'd be right on the money. That was my job the way that I saw it, and he perceived it. That's quite a connection to make."

I spoke with Springsteen Tuesday afternoon, an interview that, by the time all was said and done, took eight months to arrange. In the interim, Springsteen wrapped up his tour with the Sessions band and released a live album documenting it; recorded a new studio album with the E Street Band, Magic, due out October 2nd; and suffered the death of his longtime friend and assistant, Terry Magovern, who passed away in his sleep on the night of July 30th.

As an interviewee, Springsteen was open, funny, and philosophical without being pretentious. And on the subject of Paul Nelson, he spoke eloquently.

Paul entered Springsteen's life in 1972 when the young singer/songwriter (who was then 22 or 23) would take the bus from New Jersey into New York City to play the opening half of double bills at Max's Kansas City. Paul was impressed enough to keep coming back, bringing with him other writers and artists (including Elliott Murphy) and turning them on, too, to the New Jersey phenom.

Everything Is an Afterthought examines Paul's friendship with Springsteen (mostly in Springsteen's own words) and how the artist's special brand of rock & roll represented for Paul more than just music. The book will reprint all of Paul's articles and reviews about Springsteen, presenting for the first time Paul's preferred texts, based on his original manuscripts. (For instance, Paul's review of The River is considerably different than what got published in 1980 and which can be found online.) 

Documenting Springsteen's early career, Paul's writings reflect not only his fondness for the man but how he had to come to terms with his friend's music when it took turns down alleyways both unexpected and dark.

Copyright 2007 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.