Here’s a great piece the West Seattle Blog did acknowledging my CD release. Thanks so much, West Seattle Blog!

***
West Seattle music: Richie Jenkin marks new life with ‘New Songs’
July 10, 2014 at 1:11 am | In West Seattle news, WS culture/arts | 5 Comments
Ever dream of ditching the day job – assuming it’s NOT your dream job – and making a living doing something you love?

West Seattle musician Richie Jenkin worked as a social worker downtown, coordinating a program for homeless men. He says it was good work he enjoyed, but the time came for it to end.

All his life, Richie had been a musician, sometimes in clubs, sometimes in bands, sometimes teaching guitar, sometimes playing at home alone, or with friends. So as his social-work job started to wind down, he wondered what was ahead. First, he says, “I began teaching guitar again, and when I had built up a big-enough student load, I resigned from my day job. Thoughts ran through my head about doing some recording of songs, but I took no action. Six months went by. One morning while sitting quietly in my music room, and without prior thought, I got up and walked over to my recording equipment that had been lying dormant for many years, and began work on a version of an old favorite folk song: ‘500 Miles.’ “

In the three years since then, Richie says, he has been consumed with writing, playing, singing and recording songs, both originals and covers. He continues teaching. And now he has released a CD, “Richie Jenkin: New Songs,” a product of his new life. Here’s a sample track:

You can hear more of his album at his website, richiejenkin.com. It is also available for download from iTunes and from Amazon.

***

Florida 2010

Some three years later and I’ve posted nothing since December 2010, when I put up the last of four pieces I had written about four very wonderful, wondrous people. And those pieces were written some time before that! So… no blogging really. Much much guitar teaching and much much writing and recording songs!

Things are shifting around here: A new website; new social media links and plans for a video log.  As usual, we see what happens…

The more I teach, the more I’m in touch with a sense of awe: The whole process of learning an instrument; the courage it takes to confront and be with one’s awkwardness, shyness, lack of persistence, lethargy, frustration. All things students can experience as they engage with themselves through the guitar. I just so love being in the presence of all this to say nothing of the honest interest, enthusiasm and joy and laughter that shows itself in the course of a lesson. It’s just us chickens sittin’ around – but sittin’ around on the edge of our seats with courage and beautiful intention.

This is a piece about Eldo Kanikkeberg, The Singing Motorman. It’s pretty self-explanatory. The Seattle Waterfront Streetcar is no longer in operation.

Ye Olde 99

The streetcar run is a lot of fun
To the Waterfront Special you’re welcome to come,
Let’s all take a ride today,
The Metro fare is regular pay,

Oh the one-eyed car on the railroad track
Will certainly bring old memories back,
The smooth electric train,
You can ride without any pain,
Old 99 is on its way,
And we’re all sure it’s here to stay.
* * * *
Down to land’s end on the shores of Elliott Bay in Seattle there runs an old-time streetcar clickety-clackin’ down the track, giving tours of waterfront destinations from Pier 70 in the North on down to Pioneer Square, then up the hill to Chinatown. For the most part, those that ride ride for the fun of it, out on the town on a day off or on vacation.
Hey Jack! This aint no sit and stare inside yourself commuter ride… this is The Waterfront Streetcar. And the man up front stepping on the bell and pulling on the air horn is Eldo Kanikkeberg, The Singing Motorman; six-foot two and two hundred thirty-five pounds of maximum out there personality, and Norway’s gift to the popular culture of the Pacific Northwest.

Get the picture: The Streetcar is a two person operation. The motorman is up front in the driving compartment while the conductor hangs out inside the car, opening and closing the door, taking money and tickets and acting as tour guide and congenial host to the multitudes. And come summertime, we pack ‘em in good. I was conductor to Eldo’s motorman for seven years and that’s a lot of up and a lot of back.
Eldo sang and laughed and told jokes and acted silly for everybody on the Waterfront Streetcar. He loved his work. His job description: singing and laughing and acting silly for everybody. Driving the streetcar was the work’s vehicle, what moved it along. So he loved that too. (Are you listening?)

I can hear him now with that Norvegian twang:
“Now just the other day my friends Ole and Sven were fishing in the bay out there and boy were those fish yumping! Well after a good day fishing Ole says to Sven he says, “Sven, this is a heck of a good place to fish, we better mark the spot and put an ‘X’ on the side of the boat.” Well Sven shook his head. He didn’t like that idea too much. “Why you dumb son-of-a-gun,” he says, “how do you know we’re gonna get the same boat tomorrow!?”

Eldo sat up in the front of Ye Olde 99 just driving along: pulling handles, blowing the air whistle in rhythm, banging on the bell and all the while singing Streetcar songs that he would make up set to traditional popular melodies. Or else he would be thumbing through his book of Norwegian jokes (yokes!), preparing for the next golden moment.
Stuck at the passing track or at the end of the line or just stopped at a light, Eldo would throw on the brake, walk back through the car to where I stood, grab the mic and it was showtime. We had an old beater guitar from 1940 painted with a picture of Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger that Eldo would bring for me to play and we would do it: sing together strumming madly faces pressed to the one hand-held microphone and jam ram those tunes.

“Ooh ooh, it’s the Streetcar run,
The Waterfront Streetcar line,
Ooh ooh, it’s old 99,
The Waterfront Streetcar is right on time.”

Or one I wrote for Eldo to the tune of Chuck Berry’s “No Particular Place to Go:”
“And now we come to the end of the line,
I change my poles and I check the time,
I light up a smoke and it’s time to split,
With a clackety-clack and a clickety-click,
Wavin’ hello and drivin’ slow,
With no particular place to go,”

Eldo had been a bus driver with Seattle’s Metro Transit for thirty years, and he had always shown up singing and kidding and putting a distinctly light touch to his work. But when he landed down on the Waterfront he broke new creative ground. The Singing Motorman did the work his way, and an otherwise rigidly ruled Metro Transit had to expand its universe to accommodate him!
Eldo was a great teacher for me. As I said, he was way out there. He would sing his songs and tell his jokes and in these ways speak himself so clearly; and he would do it for anyone… anytime. No worries here about what other people were thinking. Not a whisper of holding back. Absolutely no retreat and no surrender… and he would drag me with him. He taught me about self-expression and about finding a way out by finding a way through to being and doing what fills my heart. And he taught me by simply being and doing who he was in a bold, powerful way. Eldo so was so damn insistent; bald-faced, arrogant, self-consumed. God he could be obnoxious and a bitch to work with! But he had a message of joy and fun and good will that you couldn’t smother. That the world couldn’t smother.
When he wasn’t “on the job,” The Singing Motorman was still working at it, playing accordion in a German strudel band or entertaining with his one man Norvegian lounge act. In fact, when Eldo died suddenly one Thursday afternoon, he was caught in the middle of a song he was performing at the Norski nursing home on Phinney Ridge in Seattle.
* * * *
A beautiful summer afternoon on the Seattle Waterfront. At every station another mob scene waiting to happen. Eldo’s got his shirt wide open and his collar up and he’s moving and shaking it like he’s Elvis or something as he grabs the mic and lets loose with another yoke from the Ole and Sven collection. And then the music, the hokey lyrics, the bottoms-up open-faced balls of it all. A lot of people love it, smile, clap, hoot. You can see some others disdain the silliness, wonder why we’re making asses of ourselves instead of driving the damn streetcar down the track. But those folks, they’re in the minority. And anyway, Eldo’s never ever going to acknowledge them, or even think about them. You see that’s just not part of this big man’s job description.

The why as I see it today:
Practice is the process that allows your body to take over the playing so you can be with the music.
It works! And it’s also where all the resistance and avoidance can come up. So let’s join the party and see what happens. If you’ve embarked on something like learning a musical instrument, you’re in for a great ride! What a gift to yourself – this work and play! I love it!

I remember when I first saw Lynn Simpson. She was walking up the stairs to my house carrying her guitar and moving slow and tired. I came through the door on to the porch to greet her.

“Hi. You’re Lynn, right?”

“You’re Richie?”

“Yeah. That’s me. C’mon in.”

Lynn walked like she was weary of carrying herself around. She came into the house, into my little music room, and sat down. She was in her early fifties but looked older, with a mottled, heavily made up face, a big unwieldy body and reddish-brown tinted hair that curled and sat around on her head.

“You see I need to play good enough to accompany myself singing when no one else is around to help me do it – so I can get up on stage and not have to ask my friends all the time. I hate that depending on them.”

Lynn tells me lots of things at our first lesson. How she’s worked hard for a living her whole life ‘til it was all she could do… How a bad fool man for a husband taught her a lesson but that’s way over… And how she cared for her mother and an invalid friend for many years running… And running through it all, through her life like a stream, has been her love of country music. The pure heart sound of the great ones who knew… Hank Williams… Patsy Cline… George Jones…

And now somewhere deep inside Lynn has decided to take a stand for playing this music herself. (She wouldn’t say it quite like that, but she’d make sure you knew what was up.) She hangs out at the clubs and lives the life of drink and smoke and music and music people, and in the daylight hours learns to play guitar from yours truly.

Lynn has a tough time making the guitar say something she wants it to say. Her hands shake and you need some control. She works at it, but even the simplest patterns and chords stay uneven and ragged. And it’s not a question of practice. If it was, Lynn would have it nailed. Her body just won’t come around. Later I’ll see bottles of pills stuffed in drawers and laying all over her kitchen counter. Blood pressure, heart condition, chronic leg pain and the tremor in her hands, and I can see that things are going to be difficult.

But Lynn is devoted. She keeps coming back and keeps working it. And furthermore, she is the stuff: heart and soul right out front where you can rub up against it real easy. She just can’t fake it. She’s been through too much. Layers worn away never to return. That’s the suffering heart, scarey-like on the sleeve. And therein lies her appeal and her magic; an attraction that draws people whirling around, so that Lynn and her music are a scene worth making.

* * * *

Out of this scene comes Linda Lou Simpson (that’s Lynn) and her Country Customers – Lynn’s band. She’s a singer from the belting, emotion-charged school of country madams who stand up in front of it all and wring out their hearts. And her Country Customers? We are players; pros with an off night or an off year to rehearse with Lynn.

But this isn’t a Sunday morning success story out of your newspaper, and Lynn isn’t any late-blooming country legend. Her timing and her pitch are way too undependable. I mean she is over the line – even for a raw country belter. It’s all just too painful for too many people to listen to and witness. And so, even though the sound is electric and somehow appealing, and even though Lynn has a compelling, heart-felt stage presence, the gigs are few and the reception is only pretty good.

* * * *

To Insist: To take and maintain a stand.

– Webster’s New World Dictionary

One more time. One more angle. Lynn does what she does because at a deep level her soul insists. It’s not a question of expectations or promise or any of that future crap. This is a present time manifestation of the life of the soul. Pretty scary. Pretty out front and center. But that’s life.

* * * *

Tonight!

Linda Lou Simpson and Her Country Customers

Live Country And Western Music
It’s Saturday night. Lynn is radiant in a shiny black outfit and a sequined leather jacket. She applies a pint for medicinal purposes and walks up to the mic to sing:

“Crazy, crazy for feeling so lonely,

Crazy, crazy for feeling so blue,

I knew, you’d love me as long as you wanted,

Then someday, you’d leave me for somebody new.”

It’s a crazy show. Not pretty. Certainly not consistent. The review might read:

“Last night Linda Lou Simpson and her Country Customers showed why they continue to confound the experts and their fans as well. The music could fly like an eagle and then dive like a submarine. Lynn seemingly has no control in her voice, one minute crooning smoothly on, the next flat-out flat and embarrassing. Her “Customers” were stalwarts all, and when smokin’ could make sense out of raucous mayhem; but they were also capable of messing with the groove of the simplest country classic.” Amen.

Fortunately for Lynn, what the world at large thinks about her is only part of the story, and not a crucial part at that. “Taking and maintaining a stand” isn’t reviewable. In fact, a lot of times it isn’t even recognizable; not unless you dig underneath and hang around a bit until you feel the drive, the insistence at an almost cellular level. Then it’s like, “Oh I get it.”

So let’s try it one more time…

TONIGHT!

THE FABULOUS LINDA LOU SIMPSON

AND HER COUNTRY CUSTOMERS

* LIVE MUSIC! *

It’s Saturday night! Check Lynn out. She is absolutely radiant in a shiny black outfit and a sequined leather jacket. She applies a shot and a beer for medicinal purposes and walks slowly up to the mic to sing:

“… Crazy

For thinking that my love could hold you,

And I’m crazy for crying,

Crazy for trying,

And crazy for luh-huh-vin’ you.”

Lynn turns to Jules, her rhythm man and sidekick:

“Okay Toots, let’s do one that jumps!”

We go into “That’s Alright Mama” and the money bounces off the table. This is what the band does best and we’re doing it again tonight. But wait a minute… something’s up with Lynn. Take a look… she’s weaving in and out and coming up short on the beat; kind of out of breath. And then just as you’re sure she’s really going to lose it, she pushes on, singing hoarsely into the mic:

“I’m leavin’ town baby,

I’m leavin’ town for sure,

Then you won’t be bothered

With me hangin’ ‘round your door

But that’s alright… “

“Sweet Dreams Of You”… “I’m Walkin’ The Floor Over You”… “I fall to Pieces”… The beat goes on.

“Thank you. Thank you so much… You know it sure is nice of Vicky to have us back here again, and we sure do appreciate it, don’t we boys? And now I’d like to blah and blah and…”

The words fade as you turn and walk out into the air and the night. Feels good to hit the breeze after all that smoke and beer. Inside Lynn and the band are still going at it. You can hear her milking some poor old song or other as you get into your car. Lying in bed about an hour later, there’s a tune she was singing that just won’t leave you alone. And the thing is you can feel it deep inside, and you’re thinking: ‘Linda Lou Simpson… god… you gotta really want it to do that… to get up there like that and…’

(POSTSCRIPT:)

Tonight Only

Linda Lou Simpson

And Her Country Customers

That’s the sign out front. Inside it’s 1:30 a.m. and the Country Customers are tearing down and packing up while Lynn sits at the bar counting the tips for the band. You can see she’s pleased from the inside out. It’s that glow. The one that says, ‘I’m in the right place at the right time.’ I sidle up next to her and give her a hug.

“Thanks, Richie. Thanks for playing with me.”

“We were great. I had a great time!”
“You stick with me, toots, we’re goin’ places.”

I answer with another hug, and I’m thinking, ‘yeah, but where?’ I mean what difference does it make, anyway… where we’re going… if we’re going… and all of that. Lynn is beautiful, the night is beautiful, and the music… is the music.

* * * *

A few months later I quit the band. It was time for a change… to move on. Lynn is most definitely still at it: rehearsals… occasional gigs… living into it and waking up into it every morning. It’s a life.

And for me, when I need a good strong jolt to shake me, I just remember how Lynn used to say it, how she would look around and want it so much:

“Let’s play it one more time, toots, this time like we mean it.”

Rico I don’t know where I met you. Carole says you wandered into a garage where I was jamming blues with some guys and asked if you could sit in on harmonica. I can’t recall that, but I do remember your magnificent shining soul of innocent enthusiasm… and the way you glowed and played around our kids and how you laughed and danced around to the music in our living room… and oh yes that black sport jacket weighted down and out of shape with all those harps you carried just so you’d always be ready.

“Hey Richie baby, you wanna play some blues?”

That’s what you’d ask me every time you’d come round to the house. And it was that beautiful version of Ruby and the Romantics’ “Our Day Will Come” that you taught me how to back you up on with the guitar, you bending all the way down on the notes (bending all the way down with your whole body) to reach every last bit of the melody:

“Our day will come, and we’ll have everything

We’ll share the joy, falling in love can bring

Our dreams have magic because

We’ll always stay, in love this way

Our day will come.”

But I’m not quite getting it yet, how you always wanted to play, to get high, to have fun; to do something not any something but something to express what kept pushing to the surface from the inside out.

“Hey Richie baby, you wanna play?”

And if I didn’t, if I didn’t feel like it, oh what sad-eyed disappointment.

Rico you so much needed to live in a world different from the one we were all struggling inside of. In your world everyone was happy and playful. What was all this suffering and fussing about?… You couldn’t stand that… yet it was a part of you… of all of us.

* * * *

And now Rico, to the Thanksgiving Day party at the house on 23rd Street – our friends’ place – where you had your vision; where you saw the endless table.

The two of us had sampled food and drink and chemicals of one kind or another and were sitting with our backs up against a living room wall discussing the plusses and minuses of the ten purple pills we’d each swallowed,

‘What were they? What were they up to?’

And then what happened? You tell me Rico. I think you went out for a walk. And when you came back in it was with a blast of joyous enthusiasm that lit up the room.

“Hey Richie baby, guess what? I saw Thanksgiving the way it’s gotta be where we can feed everybody, I mean everybody in the whole world at a giant table that goes on forever. And when I ring the dinner bell, when I ring the bell everyone comes to the table to eat and there’ll be room for everyone, and everyone can have everything they want. Richie baby, don’t you see? It’s so beautiful! I just ring the bell!!

What can you say to that? I just looked up at you stammering racing standing there with that mop of black curls and your thin face beaming out of your raggedy-ass sport jacket with the pockets all laden down with harmonicas.

“I wish we could do that, Rico.”

“You wish? Richie baby, it’s all that simple! The bell! The bell is all there is now for something like this. How can Thanksgiving be anything anyway withouteverybody? Oh man, oh Richie…please!”

I wish it was just like ringing a bell. A call to action. All of us here with purpose and love and ready to go do it on a moment’s notice… like Rico was ready. Talk about traveling light, he would have floated away if he hadn’t cared so much.

* * * * *

I think of a line from a Don MacLean song:

“This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.”

Maybe we all live that line at one time or another. A love for the world and for each other that is by its nature pure and holy and all-inclusive. Bound up and wanting out – wanting to know its own sweet expressive self so badly.

And so I think about Rico now – and about his crazy beautiful love that cried for everybody.