Omaha Rainbow : Issue 6
John Stewart's vision of America, Americana and the American people, is particularly romantic. He focuses on the everyman; even when the subject is something of a miracle, Armstrongs moon walk, Stewart sings about the people watching the event, not the event itself. His heroes are the dreams every man/child thinks about, good people with a tint to sin to keep 'em interesting. He knows pity and pride; sometimes horny but most times humble.
When he wants to, Stewart combines this simplicity with a dramatic flair to produce a very powerful song. 'Draft Age', which closes ''Signals Through the Glass'', with the rolling drum, strategically placed strings and trumpet crescendos, is a stirring portrait of a boy becoming a man set against a backdrop of that past part of America. The beautiful mixture of drama, emotion and Stewart's telling the tale as an everyday event is breathtaking.
He rarely uses this power, opting, instead, to take a more subdued approach. The tragedy of Bobby Kennedy's death (John and Buffy toured for Kennedy) in 'Clack Clack' is a gentle, personal loss, not the universal moralizing of an 'Abraham, Martin and John'. The pain of losing a loved one in a war, the pain Stewart sings of in 'Hero From the War' and 'Oldest Living Son', knows perhaps no greater expression than the helplessness in Stewart's voice as he sings ''...but there ain't nowhere to run for the oldest living son."
'Earth Rider' is a personal favourite. It tugs at loneliness, the desire to be free from it. It is a simple three verse song that humanises every John Wayne cowboy I know. The great loner, as much a part of the American heritage as the Rocky Mountains, is lonely, pained by his unhappiness, all alone, and doesn't the wind ''...across the hill from Placerville'' feel free ?. Stewart doesn't tell what the loner would be happy with, whether a man is really free across the hills from Placerville...But damn if the other side of the mountain does look greener.
Thanks to Lowell George and Jim Croce, truckdrivers are emerging
as a new American mythology. A few of the songs Stewart wrote about
truckdrivers stand as excellent, particularly 'Big Joe' from the ''Willard''
album and ''Sunstorm's'' 'Joe'.
But Stewart is so in tune with that myth, that myth is such a big part
of Stewart's Americana, that many of his songs colour the up-to-now rough
sketched hero. 'Lady and the Outlaw', for example, is as real to
the truckdriver as the ever diminishing dream outlaw. 'Bring It On
Home', with its reference to a "big machine" comes out of the
truckdriver myth, but applies to anyone who lives off the road, truckdriver,
travelling salesman, musician, etc. The chorus of 'Road Away' fits
the truckdriver, even if the verses don't.
Both the truckdriver and Stewart are loners and nomads. Stewart even has a name for that part of him, the Lonesome Picker. Home is a place for the Lonesome Picker to come from, dream about and be going back to. When Stewart sings about a homelife, the people in 'Armstrong', 'Sunstorm' and 'The Pirates of Stone County Road', he is singing about somebody else. Even the precious 'Little Road and a Stone to Roll' is somebody else; John Stewart as opposed to the Lonesome picker.
Stewart and the Lonesome Picker are usually the same, though. His first solo album, "California Bloodlines", saw them together as one: Stewart singing 'California Bloodlines', 'She Believes in Me', 'Mother Country' and 'Never Goin' Back' while the Picker's songs are 'Shackles and Chains', 'You Can't Look Back' and, particularly, 'July,You're A Woman'.
While many believe ''Bloodlines'' to be Stewart's best album, I disagree. ''Bloodlines'' was the first of the neo-cowboys, an important part of change so many made from folk to country. The songs are good, perhaps the most honest expression of rational nationalism this generation will ever know, but even those that are perfect ('July,You're a Woman', 'Some Lonesome Picker', 'California Bloodlines' and 'Mother Country') have more to do with establishing credibility than being good songs.
One problem with "Bloodlines" I never noticed until the live ''Phoenix Concerts'', album is how it strains for credibility. No where else does Stewart reach for believability, and he certainly does not need to. Not even the atypical 'Daydream Believer' gets as questioned as the radio drama to 'Pirates Stone County Road' on the live album.
My favourite of Stewart's seven solo albums is ''Willard'', also the strongest collection of songs. Peter Asher's production adds light touches of beauty that complement Stewart's romantic words better than the use of strings on any of the other albums. ''Willard'' takes the "California Bloodlines" foundation and builds a wonderful structure upon it. And while later albums have added much to that identity (so much so that only the live album can prompt a comprehensive review of Stewart's creation), "Willard" is the most complete single whole of his recording career.
''Willard" is also the marking of a change for Stewart. The portraits 'Mother Country', 'Nebraska Widow', 'Razor Back Woman', 'Pirates of Stone County Road' and 'Lincoln's Train' of the ''Signals'' and ''Bloodlines'' albums are set aside. Stewart reaches for that portrait in song, 'Willard', 'Bolinas' and 'Sunstorm', but always produces more than the equivical, austere statements. There is no political position taken in 'Draft Age', though the listener indubitably applies his or her own belief to the song. It is as if Stewart had, between "Bloodlines" and "Willard", lost something akin to his innocence.
In a way, that is exactly what happened. Not chronologically, remember it was the Buffy Ford/John Stewart duo that toured for Kennedy, but it is on ''Willard'' that the material reflects the bad taste left by the political deflowering of 1968. The idealists that supported Kennedy (and McCarthy, and after Kennedy, to some extent, the first attempt by George McGovern) were awaken from their idealism, and that includes Stewart.
The political awakening shows in only the most subtle ways on ''Wi11ard''. 'Great White Cathedrals', while seemingly about the twisting organised religion has done to what the bible said, is also very much about how politics and the principles of the United States of America have been turned around to the benefit of a certain powerful few. There is the implication in 'Oldest Living Son' that the cause of war (any war) isn't worth a damn compared to the life of one person, and 'Earth Rider' and 'Marshall Wind' tell us to reject the city life for the (apolitical) country.
In fact, Stewart never really shows his own politics, though his feelings are never hidden, until the paranoia that makes 'Wolves in the Kitchen' such a killer. The change is more evident in the colouring he adds, the morality tagged onto 'Willard' in the chorus, the snares on 'Back in Pomona', the tagged voice-over on 'Marshall Wind'. Stewart, remember, is a folk singer, and sings of the people.
Another equally important development is Stewart's ability to make easy transitions between personal emotions and observations. 'The Road Shines Bright' is a very religious song that equates his observations of a rural town holding services in the high school gym because their church burned down and the Lonesome Picker's religious trilogy of his soul, the road and the fact that he's going home. 'Joe', from the ''Sunstorm'' album, is more of a portrait from the ''Bloodlines'' record than his later work, but Stewart's emotions come through loud and clear.
"California Bloodlines'' is not the end of John Stewart, singer of America. Not by a long shot. 'Bolinas' from "The Lonesome Picker Rides Again" fits perfectly with what he did on ''Signals'', due in no small part to Buffy Ford's singing. The live album's inclusion of 'Cody' (originally on ''Signals'') is ample proof that that part of Stewart's career (and writing) is still a very active part of him.
Stewart's love songs are consistently beautiful. His vantage point is on the lonely road, looking back. The best of these is 'Anna on a Memory' (from his seventh album, "Cannons in the Rain''), a delicate and fragile story of a past love, the reason it ended, and his today. Stewart's best love song is not about a person but a love relationship. 'Joe' draws a picture of a light shining in a window, and explains perfectly the complex relationship between these two people.
Stewart writes great seduction songs, gently boasting, pleading and thanking all at the same time. His best known is 'July,You're a Woman', including an unlikely version by Pat Boone. It is an urgent mix of want, need and modest humour. 'Golden Rollin' Belly' has Stewart singing of the need on the road. 'Just an Old Love Song' is tinted with an honesty, in the last chorus, one expects from Stewart but not a song with that name. 'Light Come Shine' is my favourite, as Stewart boasts, doubts and laughs in one stanza, absolves the act, himself and the girl in the second, and then reaches for the universal philosophic statement.
But mostly Stewart writes about America.....that's the reason "The
Phoenix Concerts - Live" is a great album. And if Stewart's America
seems like a dream to most of us, well, that's our loss and the key to
Stewart's talent.
Now you should know that the author of this piece on John is the Editor of a very fine California magazine. His name is ART SCHAAK. His magazine is ROLLER READER. The whole of this article appears in his fourth issue (Vol.2 No.I Fall I974) and if you send him a realistic amount of money, he might just have a copy left to send you. The address for Roller Reader is : PO Box 1803, Studio City, California 91604, United States of America. You will also find included in that issue, pieces on Cockney Rebel, Tom T. Hall, Little Feat, Jesse Colin Young, Jesse Winchester, Charles Mingus, Paul Siebel, Jerry Riopelle plus various entertaining record reviews.
When Art wrote to me, giving me the go-ahead to reprint his article, he did make a couple of points.
"In looking over the article I notice a lot of very rough edges. I really gloss over the Warner and RCA albums. On purpose, of course, but the idea that Stewart's last truly creative album was ''Willard'' is neither true, nor should it come across."
"I think you'll find the new album, "Wingless Angels", as strained for credibility as ''Bloodlines''. ''Bloodlines'' is a lie, a pleasant dream, but a lie. Particularly in the light of the superior ''Willard''. In fact, I would like to see the argument that claims ''California Bloodlines" is better than ''Willard''.
'' Would any of you out there like to get involved in that argument ? Or, maybe, plead the case for one of John's other albums. You have his address, so go ahead. And if you do, let me have a copy. Might be worth reprinting in a future issue of Omaha Rainbow.....but only if you promise not to let the sudden fame go to your head !