Omaha Rainbow : Issue 15
Apologies, to begin with, for not having the hoped for John Stewart interview in this issue. However, I'm very hopeful this will be rectified in the March OR16. Rod Wilson has just gone out to California where he should be getting to talk to John, so if he is successful the results of that conversation will appear in here.
Rod willalso be seeing Arnie Moore, and I'm delighted to pass on news of 'Wideload' received in a recent letter....."A peculiar thing happened to me a little more than a month ago. Within a period of four days I received calls from both John and Hoyt Axton to work with them on special gigs. In John's case Chris had hurt his back and couldn't play a 20th anniversary show at the Troubadour. John called me the evening before the gig, and with a rehearsal of one hour we went and played two fine sets. We played several things off the new album, which I'm positive you'll love. More commercial (if I can safely use the term), but there are several pieces there that are hypnotic to me. Hoyt called a few days later and asked me to play The Palomino the following weekend, this time with no rehearsal. That has now become a more attractive gig in that Hoyt is the biggest draw that club has at this time, and that covers some ground, if you know what I mean."
"Recently I've brought a new advent to my musical career. I'm producing 'demos' for various publishing firms in town. It's very rewarding in that I get with a young songwriter and handle the production on the first recording of what hopefully will be a future hit song. That has been keeping me busy on top of the other sessions, plus the group I'm with. I can't remember when I've ever been so busy with diversified projects as I am now. I played on Hoyt's newest album for MCA (not released yet), and the soundtrack album for "OutlawBlues" (now released on Capitol ESTl1691)"
The most exciting thing happening to me now is the group I've been playing with the past year or so. I think I told you about Shelby and Ian; she being Shelby Flint and he Ian Jack, her husband. They've really grown in the past year as writers, and the band has kept pace in terms of maturity. We've had some demo's produced by Michael Stewart (he loves the group) slowly making the rounds to the various record labels."
Things certainly seem to be looking up for Arnie. I hope the Shelby and Ian deal comes off for him, and we'll have an update in OR16, once Rod has seen him. Arnie was quite right when he said he was positive I would love the new album. This column is being written early in November and "Fire in the Wind" hasn't shown in the American charts yet. However, it is being added on to the playlists of a considerable number of radio stations, so there's plenty of time for it to happen.
Though not having our own interview with John, I can plunder an article by Robert Hilburn in the Los Angeles Times of Tuesday 18 October 1977.
"Back at the Palomino last weekend, John Stewart was in a celebrative mood. The new album is just out and the initial radio response has been sensational. "Fire in the Wind" is a bold, determined, affirming work; one of the best LP's in the folk-country genre in years.
Things were so light-hearted backstage that when RSO President, Al Coury, informed Stewart of a pressing plant foulup that caused some of his records to be shipped with his music on one side and Alice Cooper's on the other, Stewart just smiled and quipped, "Does that mean people are going to expect me to kill a chicken out there tonight ?"
A year earlier on that same Palomino stage, Stewart had enlisted the help of his fans in getting him signed by asking them to write to the RSO president urging that he sign Stewart. The campaign worked. Coury received hundreds of letters. "I knew it was a make or break situation," Stewart recalls. "It was risky, but it seemed like a last-ditch stand. If Al had said no, I don't think I could have signed with another company. The industry was very much aware of what I had done at the Palomino. Billboard magazine had reported the whole thing. A Columbia or UA would have seen that RSO turned me down and that would have been that....."
"All of a sudden we started getting all these letters asking us to sign John," said Coury. "The funny thing is the company had just opened its doors so we weren't getting much mail. Most people didn't even know our address. So we didn't know what to make of it when these letters started coming in. There was a dozen the first day, then 20, then 25 and so on. They were not only from just about every state but from places like England, Scotland and Australia."
Coury said he probably would have signed Stewart anyway, but he might have waited another six months or a year. "I was so busy getting the label started that I wanted to make sure I could do for John what he'd expect from us."
Once signed to RSO, Al Coury had worked closely with Stewart on the album. "I studied all his other albums" Coury said. "We really sat down with him and critiqued them. I told him we've got to really make something special. We talked about how competitive the business is today, how every track on albums by the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt and Fleetwood Mac is good. It's no longer just one or two good tracks per album. The secret, we knew, was in the songs. I had John resolved from the beginning that if he didn't come up with ten great songs, we'd find one or two tunes by other writers. We had to make a real strong album. If we didn't do that, I told him, I wasn't going to release it.
Part of Coury's reasoning was that simply another 'good but not great' Stewart album would not catch on. "The tendency with radio people, press people, reviewers is to try to discover something new," Coury said. "That's the excitement of the business. The veteran artist has got to be twice as good to get recognised again. Everybody has already discovered Stewart....."
Feeling the pressure of the project, Stewart jokes now about how he'd go to Coury occasionally for reassurance. "I'd throw him little openings like, 'You know if this record doesn't make it, there'llbe no more albums.' I kept waiting for him to say, 'No, man, we'll do more.' But he just kept saying, 'Right.' So, I'd go back into the studio and work all the harder."
Like many of the tunes from "Fire in the Wind," the title song carries a slightly harder, rock tinge than much of Stewart's earlier work. But it remains wholly convincing. It is not a desperate attempt to be more commercial. The song is a richly appealing tale of sexual temptation.
Wanderlust, independence and desire continue to be key themes to Stewart's work. 'Eighteen Whesls' ranks with Dave Dudley's 'Six Days on the Road' and Lowell George's 'Willin' as one of the best truck driver songs in years. It's a vigorous, rowdy tune with wonderfully suggestive lyrics. There's also a not-so affectionate tune about President Carter.
The heart of the album, however, revolves around three songs that seem direct outgrowths of Stewart's career frustrations and determination. 'Rock It in My Own Time' is a gentle, but fitting tale of self affirmation. So is 'The Runner,' which offers : When your dreams are all just flashbacks/Andyou're crying beneath the wisecracks...
The LP's most notable selection is 'The Last Hurrah.' Of the song, Stewart says, "It was a song I had to write. It came at the end of the album when I had no idea whether it was great or awful. I was so into it. There had been so many problems recording it, I told myself, 'If it doesn't turn out, I at least have the right to write my own epitaph.'"
It, then, became the album's final bittersweet selection : Loyal friends and front row dancers/Hitch your wagon to a star/Chilly winds blew cold this morning/This may be the last hurrah..."
Stewart didn't sing 'The Last Hurrah' during the opening Palomino set. He said he didn't know how to introduce it, it was such a personal tune. But he did sing it in the second set, without introduction. In the dressing room after the well-wishers had passed through, he was asked what he would like to see happen over the next six months. Pausing only momentarily, he said, "A gold record!"
I guess everyone connected with Omaha Rainbow will say, "Amen to that."
Memo to Al Coury. We've only had John over here once before
back in April 1974. You must get him over here again in 1978. It's
the least you can do for the loyal friends and front row dancers over here.....