Yellow-eyed Junco On Old Mining Wheel — Image by kenne
Old friends? They mostly vanish, they are ghosts out on the road
Some turned around, threw up their hands, and disappeared
Like old folk songs, their stories change, fairytales of love and pain
Another verse, another chorus, one more year.
— from The Light Beyond the Coyote Fence by Tom Russell
Eastern Bluebird — Photo-Artistry by kenne
He had a blue wing tattooed on his shoulder
Well, it might have been a bluebird, I don’t know
but he’d get stone drunk and talk about Alaska
The salmon boats and 45 below
Well, he got that blue wing up in Walla Walla
and his cellmate there was a Little Willy John
and Willie, he was once a great blues singer
so Wing & Willie wrote him up a song
— from Blue Wing by Tom Russell
Kenne & Joy In New Orleans (12/26/07) — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Decatur Street, New Orleans (12/26/07) — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Heart Within A Heart
“Folk Singer” — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Who’s Gonna Build Your Wall? by Tom Russell on His Album Wounded Heart of America (2007)
— Albert Camus
Photo-Artistry by kenne (Early 2000’s In The Woodlands, Texas))
— from Love Abides by Tom Russell
“The Common Man” — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Poetry and Music Soluting The Common Man.
Julian Tuwim’s poem nails it.
In my younger days,
I worked with many a Harlan Clancy —
Tom Russell writes and sings
about in the album “Folk Hotel,”
referencing Aaron Copland’s anthem,
“Fanfare for the Common Man.”
In those early days,
the winters could be harsh,
and having spent many
a Christmas in the cold north,
I end this trilogy to The Common Man
with Merle Haggard,
“If We Make It Through December.”
— kenne
The Common Man
— Julian Tuwim
Tim Russell writes, Harlan Clancy
“. . . out there in the middle of Ohio,
a place you’ll never likely go . . .
Euro tourists never make it there . . .
the America of the shit jobs, farms,
remote ranches, wrecking yards,
inner-city brothels, shooting galleries,
used car lots, and back street bars that
still have Narco corridos, or Otis Redding,
or George Jones on the jukebox.”
“Desert Scene” — Photo-Artistry by kenne
“The sky above, the mud below
The wind and rain, the sleet and snow
Two horse thieves from Mexico
Drinkin’ hard and singin'”
— from “The Sky Above, The Mud Below” by Tom Russell
Western Bluebird — Image by kenne
I can’t think of bluebirds without thinking of Tom Russell’s song, “Blue Wing” — one of my favorite. Both help me see the sky above.
— kenne
Blue Wing by Tom Russell
He had a blue wing tattooed on his shoulder
Well it might have been a bluebird I don’t know
But he’d get stone drunk and talk about Alaska
The salmon boats and 45 below
He said he got that blue wing up in Walla Walla
And his cellmate there was Little Willy John
And Willy he was once a great blues singer
And Wing and Willy wrote ’em up a song. They said…
CHORUS:
It’s dark in here; can’t see the sky
But I look at this blue wing and I close my eyes
And I fly away beyond these walls
Up above the clouds where the rain don’t fall
On a poor man’s dream.
They paroled Blue Wing in August, of 1963
He moved north picking apples to the town of Wenatchee
Then winter finally caught him in a run down trailer park
On the south side of Seattle where the days grow gray and dark
And he drank and he dreamt of visions when the salmon still ran free
And his fathers’ fathers crossed that wild old Bering Sea
And the land belonged to everyone and there were old songs yet to sing
Now it’s narrowed down to a cheap hotel and a tattooed prison wing
CHORUS:
It’s dark in here; can’t see the sky
But I look at this blue wing and I close my eyes
And I fly away beyond these walls
Up above the clouds where the rain don’t fall
On a poor man’s dream.
Blue Wing by Tom Russel Video
Computer Painting by kenne
You ask me what’s a coyote fence? A crooked line of cedar poles
Surrounding our adobe, our refuge from the road
Some nights we can see light of fires as Indians dance
And the eyes of God shine through the coyote fence.
— from “The Light Beyond the Coyote Fence” by Tom Russell
“On The Roads Outside Of San Diego”
On the roads outside Oshiobo,
I fell down on my knees
There were female spirits
In old mud huts, iron bells
Ringing up in the trees and
An eighty-year white priestess,
Who made juju all night long
East of Woodstock,
West of Viet Nam.
— from “East of Woodstock, West of Viet Nam” by Tom Russell
— kenne
Tom Russell posted the following on Facebook and I felt a need to share it — a collaborative effort of three great singer-songwriters:
“Exciting news….we were walking through the old Greenwich Village this afternoon, vastly changed, and I thought – “it would be great to do an album release show at The Bitter End.” So we walked into The Bitter End, and out walks the owner. He warms up to us and I tell him I used to work there every Sunday…so we might hook the opening gig there for the next album release tour.
Maybe a return to The Bitter End! Lets make Greenwich Village great again! This is Lucinda Williams and myself doing Bob Dylan‘s “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” off of the record “Mesabi.” All records and books: www.fronterarecords.com
Your reporter for Nova Beat at the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal….”
Ronstadt Generations Live at Teri’s Bistro, Alamos, Sonora (January 26, 2016)
— Images and Video by kenne
(Short Video Clip by kenne)
Pulled these images and video clip out of my January travel archives in memory of Mike Ronstadt
(August 25, 1953 – August 7, 2016)
— from Beyond the Blues by Tom Russell
A Labyrinth of Wild Flowers — Image by kenne
— from Box of Visions by Tom Russell
Tom Russell with Iris Dement — Box of Visions (Audio)
Two-tailed Swallowtail, Just Grunge ‘n’ — Grunge Composition by kenne
— from “Love Abides” by Tom Russell
