Walt Disney and The Sherman Brothers

The first time I saw a professional songwriter at work was in the 1961 Disney animated feature, The 101 Dalmatians. Most likely I saw it at our local Fox Fullerton theater a few years after it's original run. I watched Roger Radcliffe, the aspiring song-smith and male lead of the movie, pounding-out ideas on the upright piano in his London bachelor flat. "Could a person really make money by writing songs?" I wondered. My answer would come some thirty years later with my first published song, Ancient of Days.

(L to R) Robert, Richard and Walt

My childhood was filled with Disney music from movies like Mary Poppins, The Parent Trap and The Jungle Book. Many years later I learned that the guys behind the tunes in these three movies, as well as the indelible It's A Small World, were brothers, Robert and Richard Sherman.

Robert, two and one-half years older than Richard, grew up the polar opposite of his brother: Richard was outgoing and Robert, very much reserved. Their push-pull personalities served them well as a creative duo, but less so when not working. I found out much more about the brothers by watching an excellent documentary, The Boys: the Sherman Brothers’ Story. I was surprised to learn that they are basically strangers these days--Richard lives in Hollywood, and Robert resides in England. Sadly, as displayed throughout the documentary, they have little in common. Other than song writing and being born to the same parents, they don't seem to enjoy one another. As a cinematic voyeur,  one gazes through the window of this movie, never to witness a genuine exchange of warmth between the two.

The documentary starts with the Sherman boyhood days in New York City, then to their eventual re-location to Los Angeles. Richard takes the viewer on a present-day tour of a backyard garage, once owned by the family, where their collaboration started. He also scouts some of their early stomping grounds around Hollywood.

In 1958, they wrote a song called Tall Paul for Mouseketeer Judy Harriet. The song was then covered by another Mouseketeer, the popular teen sensation Annette Funicello. This caught the attention of Walt Disney. The Sherman Brothers were promptly signed as Disney staff writers. Subsequently, their first song with Disney was The Strummin' Song. Robert and Richard quickly became a staple in the company's movie production machine.

Walt Disney's favorite Sherman Brothers song was Feed the Birds from the movie  Mary Poppins. Walt asked them to perform it often at his office piano, leaving their boss misty-eyed most every time. Robert and Richard also had success away from the Disney Studios with music from movies like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

With numerous awards between them, Robert and Richard Sherman continue to inspire new generations with their songs. I am grateful for their influence in my own songwriting. My prayer is that someday they make peace with each other. Fame and fortune pale in comparison to the importance of brotherhood and family.

A Necessary Rest

In May of 2011 I left the position of worship leader at a church--a job I was blessed to have for almost seven years. For a year-and-a-half before that, I played guitar there as a hired gun almost every weekend. So altogether, I was blessed with over eight years at the church.

It was my decision to end it. Some smarter folks than I would probably stay-on because of the security factor, but I needed to close the curtain when the show was over. I was tired and uninspired. The drive was 40 minutes each way. Some weekends I had to travel 320 miles to complete the schedule of services, and then I was back in my cubicle on Monday morning to start it all over again. After eight years, I was thankful for the opportunity to serve these saints--to learn so much about managing a large congregation (7,000 attendees) and the resultant weekly ministry responsibilities. But I knew my position there had run it's course, so I put in my resignation.

The tricky part was: I didn't have any clue what was next. My greatest concern was that I get back to balance again and go from there. Because of some savings and income from songwriting and production, Brenda and I could make it through financially without the church income... for a few months, anyway. Little did we know that several months later we would still be praying for the next chapter to open up.

In the mean time, we visited churches all over the greater Nashville area, giving little thought to anything close to home. One Sunday in July, we decided to visit a church around the corner from our neighborhood. We had seen the growth of that little church from it's inception--meeting in a high school--to it's full-blown campus, beautifully crafted out of an empty Kroger grocery store. We walked in, loved the folks, the pastor, the worship, the vibe, and were generally blown away. Could a wonderful place like this be so close to home?

Since that day, Brenda, my dad and I have called The People's Church of Spring Hill home. Like all ministers, I needed a break and, for months, sat with the congregation to regain my strength. Just a month-or-so ago I started playing and singing on the worship team. I feel refreshed and energized, and am grateful to be back in the game!

Every minister needs a break. It's dangerous for our families, churches and our health to keep plodding-through without a time of refreshing. I am thankful for the break I've had, and I'm excited about 2012 and all that God is doing.

The Muscle Shoals Sound

A string of R&B hits by such artists as Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett and Clarence Carter were recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama in the early 1960s, and helped launch a phenomenon that would become the "Muscle Shoals sound." Detroit had  Motown, Nashville had country, Memphis had Stax, L.A. and New York had their signature sounds, but Muscle Shoals had a rock, R&B and soul-sound all of it's own.

Among those drawn to the Shoals was Paul Simon, who came in search of the band behind the recording that many call the essence of the Muscle Shoals sound: "I'll Take You There" by the Staple Singers. Simon's collaboration with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section produced the hits "Kodachrome" and "Loves Me Like a Rock."*

I was recording a project with my friend Lenny LeBlanc several years ago in his studio, just outside of Muscle Shoals. Between sessions, the late-great Ava Aldridge, writer of Dr. Hook's "Sharing the Night Together"--who was also singing on the session--took me on a tour of the Shoals in her great-big Cadillac. I saw the studios like FAME and Muscle Shoals Sound, where great music was made--and still is to this day. She then drove me to a small, nondescript store-front, with no more than 800 feet of space inside, and told me that the Rolling Stones recorded "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses" for the Sticky Fingers album there in December of 1969. As we peeped through the dusty window into the shadows of the abandoned store, she pointed to the back restroom area. There, Ava told me, the signatures and notes of many famous artists most likely still cover the walls. Wow--I had to stop for a moment to take it all in!

The Osmonds recorded "One Bad Apple" in  Muscle Shoals. Mac Davis recorded "Baby, Don't Get Hooked on Me" and Percy Sledge's "When A Man Loves a Woman" was recorded there, too.

When I think back to that little impromptu tour Ava gave me more than twenty years ago, I am amazed that so few people know about the city of Muscle Shoals. Just like Bethlehem--considered insignificant, yet chosen as the birthplace of the King of Kings--Muscle Shoals, though diminutive in stature. was chosen to give birth to incredible music; it's greatness is profound.

Rest in peace, Ava Aldridge. Although you've been gone for several years now, your influence will be felt for generations to come.

*Excerpts from an article by Debbie Elliott: The Legendary Muscle Shoals Sound.

What's In A Name?

For goodness sake, are you as tired of all the name changing going on as I am? Just this week the governor of Rhode Island, Lincoln Chafee, called the Statehouse Christmas tree a "Holiday Tree",  and he's catching a lot of flack for it. What's next?

My nephew Jonathan, an avid Disney aficionado, Tweeted this week that the Walt Disney Company has been slowly taking father Walt's name out of several corporate logos, to simply read--Disney. The Muppets movie, now in theaters, is conspicuously missing "Walt" in the castle logo at the beginning of the film, leaving just the founder's last name. Other Disney logos have changed over the past year as well, including Disney's California Adventure Park changed to Disney California Adventure. The names of several shops in both North American Magic Kingdoms have changed over the years as sponsorships come and go. Has this changed the perception of Disney? Does a moniker really make the product?

The Disney name game doesn't compare to the  "Christmas Tree" versus "Holiday Tree" ballyhoo. I think the tree fiasco is a game the governor of Rhode Island has already lost to the overwhelming majority. You see, no matter what one wants to call this season, everyone knows what it's all about: BABY JESUS! I think it's pretty silly that a politician would try and lessen it's importance by instituting a name change. Isn't "holiday" a contraction of "Holy Day"? The joke's on you, Mr. Chafee!

Sheepish

Random stack of ready-to-knit colors

My home is filled with color...not just warmth, love, rest and solace. All of those qualities define our sanctuary--thanks to my sweet wife. But the particular color I describe comes from all of the yarn that she spins. I'm not talking about tall tales here, but the real thing. My wife loves everything about fiber--all the way from cleaning and dying a fleece, spinning it, to knitting, what to me are, works of art.

Cleaned fleece, ready to spin

When people come into our home, there is usually a knitting project, in some stage of progress, laying in a basket, atop beautifully-spun yarn. Most of it is from sheep, but some of it comes from exotic places like the coat of a rabbit (angora), alpaca and silk, even plant sources like linen and hemp. Sometimes you have to watch where you sit around here or you'll get a rude reminder by the protruding needles to plant your rear elsewhere--this is a knitting zone!

Brenda does all of this because she loves it. Some Saturdays, when she's decided it's gonna be a dye day, the stove is crammed with kettles, boiling bright colors into the fibers of wool from average barnyard sheep. After the dyed fleeces are dried (spread out over the entire patio table and chairs in the backyard), they are somehow smoothed-out, spun, plied and formed into hanks that stack nicely into colorful rows of soon-to-be mittens--even a funky cap.

Bobbins filled with newly-spun fiber

All in all, Brenda doesn't ask for much, just a good cup of coffee and a few square yards of real estate to place all of her paraphernalia, like a drum carder (cleans the wool), spinning wheel, shelving for finished skeins of yarn and bins of raw, un-cleaned wool, straight from the naked backs of freshly shorn sheep. Hey, did I mention that she is beautiful, too, and an amazing cook?

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that I've got it made around here. After all, she's been stumbling around my guitars and amps for over two-and-a-half decades now. We will celebrate our 26th anniversary on December 21st. My life is filled with fiber, and sometimes a few sneezing spells, but I wouldn't trade it for anything!

Foundations For Young Artists

You've probably heard it said, too: "Boy, this butter tastes better than margarine!" Some people have never tried the original, so they make judgements by the knock-offs. This is backward and, unfortunately, the way so many young artists in our culture base their opinions these days. It's true with every genre of art, and life in general.

Brenda led me to an interesting blog post recently, chronicling a meeting between author Ian Morgan Cron and the great composer/musician Rob Mathes in a Connecticut Starbucks. They were stunned when their attention was averted toward the background music coming from the overhead speakers:

“Do you hear that?” Rob said, his expression darkening. 

“Hear what?” I said. “Listen,” he said, glaring at the white speaker grilles above our heads. “Do you know that song?” 

I closed my eyes and strained to hear the music over the hiss and gurgle of milk being steamed for someone’s cappuccino. I shrugged. “Nope,” I said. “I can’t make it out."

Rob threw his hands up in the air. “That’s a cut off Miles Davis record Kind of Blue,” he said, his voice rising with indignation. 

“Alright,” I said. “Apparently this bothers you.”
“It’s Miles Davis!" he said, slapping the tabletop with his hand.

I’ve known Rob for 30 years. He’s talented. He’s smart. He’s not afraid to speak his mind.

“When brilliant compositions are used for background music it desensitizes people to their genius,” he continued.

I paused. “You mean familiarity breeds contempt?” I said.

“Precisely. If an amazing piece of music is constantly playing in the background your admiration for it doesn’t increase, it diminishes. It becomes no big deal,” Rob said, imitating someone trying to speak and yawn at the same time.

What we expose our children to, many times, is a weak (to say it mildly) version of the original. My objections to the classical education I was being fed in my first round of college became an epiphany when I started my second, more serious, round as a married 25-year-old. I saw that a classical education brought me back to the origins of great art, music and literature--with a proper historical context--to which all other great creative work is traced.

In a Fast Company website interview by Rick Tetzeli, director Martin Scorsese talks about how to lead a creative life and how to pass the torch to younger generations:

"At this point," says Scorsese, "I find that the excitement of a young student or filmmaker can get me excited again. I like showing them things and seeing how their minds open up, seeing the way their response then gets expressed in their own work."

"His biggest teaching project these days is his 12-year-old daughter, Francesca. He's trying to give her a cultural foundation that seems less readily available these days. "I'm concerned about a culture where everything is immediate and then discarded," he says. "I'm exposing her to stuff like musicals and Ray Harryhausen spectaculars, Frank Capra films. I just read her a children's version of The Iliad. I wanted her to know where it all comes from. Every story, I told her, every story is in here, The Iliad."

"Three months ago," he remembers, gesturing to the room around us, "I had a screening here for the family. Francesca had responded to Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, so I decided to try It Happened One Night. I had kind of dismissed the film, which some critics love, of course, but then I realized I had only seen it on a small screen, on television. So I got a 35-millimeter print in here, and we screened it. And I discovered it was a masterpiece. The way Colbert and Gable move, their body language. It's really quite remarkable!"

We must take our children and students back to the originals, to study them and discover what makes them so great. That's why I like to see the look on a kid's face when he hears a stellar vintage guitar though a great tube amp, or a vocalist's performance through a classic microphone and preamp. We must teach the next generation that a promising artistic future springs from an understanding of the great work that came before them--to learn from the best and stop trying to imitate the cheap, margarine knock-offs.

'Til the Next Gas Station

The melancholic afternoon shadows and crisp, cool evenings of late help create a backdrop for reflective inner dialog about the future. I had a relaxing, wonderful summer and fall, but now it's time to make some decisions.

I came upon a couple of videos today promoting a new music software that features Nashville drummer Harry Stinson and producer/engineer Chuck Ainlay. Both guys gushed about the virtues of Nashville, from a creative and personal perspective (I heartily agree!). Stinson said that he came to a place in his career, back in the mid-70s, where he felt stagnant and ready to get to a new level. He soon received a call from the folk/rock group America to fill-in for their drummer, who had an accident and needed to leave the road. Harry's name came up in conversation as a great replacement. He had 24 hours to get ready. So he gathered up all of the America records he could find, met the band in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, spent a meager hour and a half in rehearsal, did the show that night, and finished up the tour. What a cool place to be in life: ready, at the right time and place, when opportunity comes knocking!

Living in a community like Nashville, it's easy to forget that this a very special and unique place. It's also a tough place if you are here to make a living as a musician. I, too, am ready for the next season of my career. I am doing my best to stay adept at my craft, even though, at times, it's easy to get discouraged. This small bit of encouragement from Harry and Chuck today was like a drink of cold water. Sometimes I'm tempted to pack it in and try to make a living with something non-musical altogether. But really... what would I do? This is all I know; I've been playing music professionally since 1980. Sometimes it takes even a YouTube video to realize that I'm doing exactly what I should be: writing, playing, producing and looking to God for sustenance.

A musician's life is like a crazy adventure where you just start driving, don't ever look back in the rear-view mirror, and enjoy the ride until your gas light comes on. Just when it seems like the adventure's over, miraculously, there's a gas station right over the hill. You get filled up again and head back out on the highway!