PARIS – Readers of this blog might remember that just over a year ago I published a big feature article in The Village Voice about Elliott Murphy, a major singer-songwriter of the last half century, who gave up his life as a rocker in New York City for …life as a rocker in Paris. Murphy is a one of a kind who has had an atypical career that began with his first album, Aquashow, released in 1973, when he was hailed as the next Bob Dylan. Since 1989 he has lived in Paris and tours Europe year round serving his fans here, who have now supported him through not only the first four albums from major labels, but right up to his most recent, possibly his fiftieth or more, album, called Infinity. Now to get to the point of this impossibly long lede: (jump to the nut graf below):
Some months after my article about Elliott was published I decided – but not for the first time – to see if there were any of Elliott’s songs that I might myself be able to play on the guitar and sing. It was not an easy task – so deceptively simple can they be, as I discovered. Then, somehow, I managed to give a spin through one of the great songs of that first album, “How’s the Family.” I succeeded in finding adequate chords, and a key that suited my voice – that required a lot of trial and error. And the only thing that really stumped me was the vocals in the chorus.
That said, I was also conscious that my effort bore very little resemblance to the sublime original version Elliott did on Aquashow – and still does. But I had a feeling, a way to approach it, that made it feel to me a little more like some kind of crooner song and approach – with a bit of jazz and folk mixed in.
I recorded the song on my iPhone 13 Max in my living room – guitar and vocals. Then I had the crazy and somewhat presumptuous idea that I should send the recording to Elliott to see what he thought – and as a way to show my thanks for his creations. I excused myself over the vocals on the chorus, however.
To my enormous surprise, he wrote back and said that if I ever considered releasing the song, he would be happy to add some backing vocals on the chorus and a bit of harmonica! That was it. All the motivation I needed to do a proper recording in the studio and get this DONE! My first studio recording in a decade.
In short, I wasn’t going to let pass an offer like that. So I set about the recording: I went to Basement Studio in Paris, owned and operated by my old friend Nick Buxton, and he recorded me on my guitar and vocals. He did a rough mix of that, which I then decided to send to my childhood friend, Danny Colomby, in Canada. I have known Danny since I was at minimum eight years old. I have ALWAYS dreamed of doing a recording with Danny, but never felt up to it.
Danny is a musical wizard, and always was (in my eyes.) He is a magical bass player, who has played with legends. His first cousin was Rick Danko, bass player for The Band, while his father’s first cousin was Bobby Colomby, drummer for “Blood, Sweat, and Tears.” But beyond that, Bobby Colomby discovered Jaco Pastorius, the greatest ever electric bass player, and he produced Jaco’s first album. I especially love Jaco’s work with Joni Mitchell. So when Danny – who plays like Jaco – accepted to play along on this track, I was over the moon.
What I never expected was that Danny would put two different basses, including the fretless, in a beautiful backing melody, and some keyboards and percussion. And a great mix! Out of this world.
The ultimate moment was when I sent Danny’s mix finally to Elliott Murphy, and he not only returned it with his backing vocals and his harmonica, but also some Rhodes piano, percussion and guitar! What is so fabulous aside from Elliott’s musicianship here – that ethereal harmonica – is that he had the humility to contribute to a cover of his own song that is so different to the original, except for the obvious main melody and all the lyrics. (To start with, the tempo of my version is much faster than the original.). To accept that and to play his harmonica along with this different version is a testament to the depth of the man. Out of respect for him, in addition to my version, I am posting here below his own original from Aquashow.
Finally and ultimately, after all this bla bla, give a listen to those extraordinary lyrics, written by a 24-year-old, more than 50 years ago, and that still ring true today.
My cover of “How’s the Family” is now posted and available for streaming or download at all the major music streaming services – Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, etc., and in Spotify, in the link above. My plan now is to create a music video for it. So keep posted!
PARIS – Hard to believe that a year has passed since my 7,500-word portrait of Elliott Murphy appeared in the Village Voice celebrating the 50th anniversary of the musician’s debut album, “Aquashow.” Not so difficult to believe that Murphy today released another album in his epic never-ending (to borrow an idea from Bob Dylan’s concert tour) run of personal opuses. If you did read that big article, you might remember Murphy saying of a singer-songwriter: “If you can’t come up with 10 good songs a year, then what are you doing here?” And guess what? “Infinity” – is it his 51st or 52d album? I’ve lost count – is better than that: 9 wonderful songs.
With the first LP he had critics proclaiming him the next Dylan and his face was plastered all over NYC subways with the statement: “Elliott Murphy is going to be a monster.” While he did end up being a monster, it was not one of the kind that people could have imagined at the time. At 76 this month – and another couple of concerts next week at Paris’s New Morning to celebrate his birthday as usual – he’s still telling his life’s story in rhythm, melody and lyrics as he always has.
You can’t run with the hare and hunt with the hounds
As regular readers of this blog might remember, I stand by Ernest Hemingway’s dictum warning fiction writers not to do book reviews, because “You can’t run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.” While I write, sing, and play songs myself, I would never even feel qualified to critique others in any but an impressionistic manner. So I devised two ways to do album talk on this blog: First, my long-since disused “Morning Exercise Music” column; and, second, my Not Reviews (of music, books, plays, films, everything). So this is a Not Review: It’s about the music I’m listening to these days, and what it made me think and feel.
Aquashow
In fact, while I wanted to talk about it on the blog, my first listen to “Infinity” was supposed to be as casual background music while I worked on something else. That plan went out the window within the first few bars of the first track. I found myself completely drawn in, unable to do anything but listen, and I also called up the lyrics on my screen and began jotting down thoughts and impressions with each song.
The album kicks in with “Granny Takes a Trip,” in which I was blown away by the chess analogies since I play the game daily! The song’s playful, almost Sgt. Pepper’s-like rhythm set the stage for an album that is both energetic and reflective. It’s the kind of track that takes a few listens to fully unravel, but even on first pass, it’s clear that Elliott’s songwriting remains razor-sharp.
“Red Moon Over Paris” had me remembering that blood moon we all saw not long ago, and I couldn’t help but wonder if some of this album was born from the isolation of the pandemic (until I later saw otherwise in Elliott’s newsletter!). “Hoping for a change to come… hoping it’s a lucky one,” he sings, making me think that in any case, this album was fed by a lot of the general political situation that we are now facing. That is confirmed by the line he uses paraphrasing John Lennon: “Maniacs are running this world, you know?”
Elliott Murphy as Late W.B. Yeats
A lot of the lyrics also drew to my mind the late poetry of W.B. Yeats, when he had that burst of creativity in his 60s and 70s… and I’m remembering the Yeats lines from “The Second Coming”: “Things fall apart…Darkness drops again….” (Although the poet was in his fifties when he wrote that one.)
As with the chess, I had to smile as I listened to “The Lion in Winter / The End of the Game,” a tribute to the late Peter Beard, the legendary photographer and adventurer. It brought back a memory of both my own 14-month sojourn in Kenya many red moons ago, and a phone call I’ll never forget that I had with Lee Radziwill, Beard’s friend and sister of Jackie Kennedy Onassis. She called the Trib to see if we could send her an article we ran about Beard being crushed by an elephant. Elliott has always had a knack for weaving historical and personal threads together, and this track does it.
“Fetch Me Water” is the wonderful moment when we get some of Elliott’s higher singing notes I was waiting for, and with slide guitar, and Melissa’s beautiful violin bringing in a touch of Scarlett Rivera-esque magic. There’s another sound to this – a traditional sound. And the backing vocals, nice, probably some Melissa there too…. It’s haunting and melodic, featuring one of his signature non-word vocalizations – his “ba ba ba ba ba ba” floating through the mix like a callback to some of his early work. “Makin’ It Real” injects a necessary jolt of rock ‘n’ roll energy, sounding a bit to me like a cross between Iggy Pop and Frank Zappa. (By the way, Elliott likes to refer to his music not as Folk Rock but as Rock Folk.) And then there’s “Night Surfing,” which has a hypnotic quality, its unique vocal delivery and ukulele rhythm giving it a dreamlike atmosphere. It also has some kind of Springsteen-esque thing about it, but is distinctly Elliott.
The album closes with “Count My Blessings:” a song that felt to me like it was recorded in Elliott’s living room, which I made a note of before I read in the credits that it was recorded on a Tascam 4-track cassette recorder, giving it that intimacy that’s rare in today’s polished world of overproduced music. Co-written with longtime guitarist collaborator Olivier Durand, we also find Elliott’s beautiful, understated harmonica, giving another layer of the personal to this the song. Its delivery reminded me a little of early Tom Waits.
“Infinity:” Another Elliott Murphy album all of a piece
One thing that really stood out for me with “Infinity” is its coherence. Every track feels like an essential piece of a larger story, a deliberate construction rather than simply a collection of a bunch of songs at hand. Elliott once raised that point with me about having to eliminate potential songs for an album if they didn’t fit the overall vision of the album, and that approach is evident here. So maybe that’s what happened to that 10th good song….
Again, in the interview that I did with him for that Village Voice article published a year ago, Elliott said that what’s missing from much of today’s pop and was at the center of his and his contemporaries’ songwriting, is personal storytelling. “Infinity” is a lesson in how it’s done. And I cannot end this without mentioning that a big part of the magic of this album, like so many of Elliott’s others in recent years, is that it was produced by, and with some backing instruments played by, Elliott’s son, Gaspard, who is clearly the next step towards the infinite of the Murphy musical story….
CASTELLAMMARE DEL GOLFO, Sicily: One of the things that fascinates me in playing music, is the question of the roles played and interchange of timing and emotion and melody. Sometimes I think there is a tradeoff between timing, the count, the rhythm, and emotion. Other times I think I just don’t know what I’m doing. The other day I stumbled upon a recording I did at home in 2015 of Bruce Springsteen’s song, “Born to Run.” As I now work on a new cover song recording that I hope to release in the coming months, this Springsteen one I did years ago made me think about that whole question again. The timing, the count, in this attempt at “Born to Run” is ALL OVER THE PLACE! It sounds like I didn’t know what a metronome is; although I know it was really because I didn’t care. It was an after dinner and wine effort to do a crude recording of “Born to Run” in a slowed down, folky version, rather than the original hard romping rock. While there is no constant rhythm or count, there is definitely meandering emotion.
[B. Spurgeon’s B. Springsteen lies here (I wonder if those initials ever hindered his career?!):]
Aquashow
With the song I am working on at the moment, by Springsteen’s friend Elliott Murphy – about whom I did a huge feature article in The Village Voice last February – I did use a metronome. This is his song “How’s the Family,” off Murphy’s first album, Aquashow, which was released in 1973. Although I had done an initial version of the song in the same way I did the Springsteen, and the emotional rambling worked for me, it was essential to use a metronome for the recording, as I am asking musician friends around the world to contribute their parts remotely – bass, drums, etc. But how strong will it be? Only the final recording will tell me.
Again, though, it reminded me today of my 2016 CD, “Out of a Jam,” where, although recorded in studios with the bands present, some of the songs were done with a “tick” – the metronome – and others we decided to do without the count. For instance, on the song Borderline, I used the metronome; but due to various reasons, on the song, “When You’re Gone Away,” we did not use a metronome. And the rhythm does actually change slightly over the song from the opening to the end, in a very slight crescendo. It felt appropriate for the song. And which is more effective? Not sure it’s possible to say – except I have noticed over the years that Borderline performed live tends to get a more enthusiastic response than did the Borderline of the CD.
This morning, I saw an astounding video of Prince doing a monumental live version of “Play That Funky Music.” One of the keys to the whole performance was the astounding tight rhythm section and Prince’s more than impeccable melodic expressions on the guitar within that tight confine. Hits you over the head with that rhythm and tightness of timing! Filled me with an admiration I hadn’t felt since certain Jimi Hendrix moments.
But it did raise in my mind that question again of how much leeway a musician has within the confines of rhythm, count and beat, etc. Oh, yes, and regarding that Springsteen effort I did – another thing it brought to my mind, again in relation to the recording I’m doing at the moment, is when is reverb too much reverb? At the time I recorded it, I felt that I had put about 300 percent too much reverb on it. Now, I find it charming – this feeling of a big room, an otherworldly thing that goes along with the slowness of the version of the song.
Well, isn’t that what playing music is really all about? That there are no formulas? Just like writing, and most of the other arts. I hope to post that new Elliott Murphy cover sometime soon, once it is done!
PARIS – Thank goodness for friends who get you to move your butt. Last Friday, I had a very busy day with TAC Teatro, doing two shows, one in which I performed, the other that I filmed. A friend visiting Paris contacted me and said he wanted to do an open mic with me – the open mic at the Pomme d’Eve in the 5th Arrondissement, near the Panthéon. Going out again was the last thing I wanted to do after that long day, but the friend was visiting Paris only for the weekend. So I said I would go. Thank goodness I did! Another great night at this Paris mainstay open mic run by Riyad Sanford, after his previous musical evening at the Klein Bar across the river had been closed down.
My need for relaxation – and a beer – after the long day was more than fed by the laid-back atmosphere in this medieval kind of basement room with its curved ceilings, cut off from the world in every way except for the warm crowd of spectators and musicians. And above it all, Riyad, with his warm MCing of the open mic. My friend said it brought him right back to Greenwich Village in 1970 – or thereabouts. Think “Inside Llewyn Davis”
There was a long list of performers, and as I mentioned in my previous post about the open mic at The Pom, it’s important to get there even earlier than the 20:30 sign up time if you want a good spot on the list. I had a pretty good spot in the middle of the evening with one drawback. As I said when I got on stage, Riyad really did me a great injustice to have put me right after one of the most spectacular acts of the evening – a girls band singing a cappella. I did a video of them, which I have placed above in this post.
So there I was having to follow these geniuses! How could I do that? Only one choice: Doing the song I have done more often than any other, and in more places around the world than any other: “Mad World” by Tears for Fears. But then, I decided that the situation called for taking a risk on a new song I have never performed before in public, and only learned recently. This meant even more fear for me of screwing up and having the room erupt in distracted discussion. But if you take no risks, you make no gain.
Ouf, as the French say, the two pints of beer I had before mounting the stage did their trick, and as soon as I started singing the song I lost my stagefright, and it felt like I was on stage at the Olympia. That, of course, was also thanks to Riyad’s gentle prodding of the public to not erupt into discussion during this more peaceful, gentle, quiet number. At least I think that’s the case.
Anyway, tonight is Friday again, as I write these words, and the open mic will again take place, and if you happen to read these words tonight, get your butt over there now, whether you want to or not!
Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren, 1st position, celebrates on the podium with his trophy. Photo Credit: McLaren/LAT Images
PARIS – Several of my lives and passions came together over the last three days resulting in a personally imposed lock-down thanks to the victory by Daniel Ricciardo at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, Italy on Sunday. Now if that sentence full of facts gets your head spinning to sort it all out, how about checking out the result of all that passion, which is the video I put together for a song in tribute to Ricciardo, written and performed by a couple of Aussie expats in France who I met during my open mic wanderings: “I Can Take Anybody Down,” by Chris Kenna and Melissa Cox:
The last thing I imagined after watching the F1 race on Sunday – and being at first appalled by the crash between the two series’ leaders, and then ecstatic about Daniel Ricciardo’s victory– was an email from Melissa Cox telling me she had a song from Chris Kenna, and did I by any chance have any photos of Daniel Ricciardo to illustrate it in a video. The last thing I imagined after reading that email was that my next 48 hours and more would be occupied passionately making a video myself for what I feel is an absolutely fabulous, dynamic, and cool song of tribute to one of the finest, nicest, coolest and most deserving drivers in Formula One.
The situation, it turned out, was actually linked to the previous post in this blog, about Elliott Murphy. Melissa Cox and I, who had met at performances of Kenna and Cox a few years ago, got in touch because it turned out that she not only plays violin with Kenna, but she is also part of the regular band playing with Elliott Murphy! So those two worlds suddenly joined.
Kenna and Cox
But whenever I had met Chris Kenna in the past in bars around Paris, where he is a mainstay of the Paris music scene, we had always spoken about his love of Formula One – which, of course, has been central to my own life and livelihood. And another passion of mine that then joined up in these last few days.
Well, when I heard this fabulous song for Ricciardo, and Melissa asked for photos, of course, another passion took hold: Making videos, mostly those involving music…but this time, with Formula One as a theme. And so, another passion suddenly joined up here, and little by little I got hooked on making this video.
Of course, time pressed as it seemed this thing should come out as close to Daniel Ricciardo’s victory as possible, while his many millions of fans are hot on the story. So that is where all these merging passions came together to force me into a personal lock-down and finish this thing. It would never have been possible, of course, had I not many friends, colleagues and acquaintances in Formula One who kindly helped me out, including especially Bernard Asset, who is one of the series’ best and most respected photographers – and who I worked with on my book about Formula One published at Assouline (which will be spoken of more in a future blog post), who incredibly selflessly allowed me to use a lot of his photos and even chose a selection, treated them and sent them very quickly. And there was the McLaren team’s media staff as well, who gave me access to their collection and videos; and Steven Tee, who is another of the great F1 photographers, and whose LAT Images is probably the biggest, best database of F1 photos there is.
The Extraordinary Musical Pedigree of Kenna and Cox
It was especially great fun to be able to make a music video for someone else from the Paris music scene, as I have made many for my own songs, but few for other people. And Kenna and Cox are no ordinary other musicians based in Paris. Kenna was a farm boy from south-western Victoria state in Australia, who grew up milking cows and trapping rabbits with his brother before dreaming of being a rock star. He may not be a household name, but got a lot of big tastes of that life and world as in Australia he opened for bands like Midnight Oil, Men at Work, The Church and Ian Moss (Cold Chisel), and then when he later moved to France – for the love of a woman – he not only has lived off his own gigs in small venues and bars ever since, but he occasionally supported big names here too, including for Jeff Beck, Peter Green and Tommy Emmanuel.
Kenna and Cox
He has now been playing with Cox for more than a decade, when the two Australians ran into each other at a gig, and he asked her to play a tune with him. She is from Sydney, where she studied classical violin since the age of 10, but then later got discovered jazz, blues, folk, rock and world music. Although her dream had always been to live in Paris, she first tasted a bit of the rest of the world. To quote from her bio: “Under the name Black Sesame, she released an album of electro-pop songs in between residencies as a jazz singer in Tokyo and Guangzhou. But it was Paris she dreamed of; and an invitation to study film composition at L’Ecole Normale de Musique saw the dream become reality.”
So she got to Paris, and has never left – or rather, the two now live in a remote village and commute for gigs, recording, etc.!
As I write these words in closing, I think about how amazing life is when one thing leads to another in an organic manner that you could never have predicted between the moment of one action – for instance, Ricciardo’s victory, or Kenna and Cox meeting at that gig, me writing the Elliott Murphy item leading to Cox contacting me about the song – and the string of events that it sets in motion! And speaking of motion, and e-motion, check out the video and song now because there is LOTS of motion, locomotion and emotion in this “I Can Take Anybody Down” cry of victory for Daniel Ricciardo and his fans!
This blog item feels more and more like liner notes, and no liner notes are complete without the lyrics to the album (well, that’s arguable!), so here I am also going to post the lyrics to this song (which you can also find at Chris Kenna’s bandcamp page, with the song:
They call me the honey badger
And I hail from the west,
I’m an animal behind the wheel –
It’s the thing that I do best.
Nothin’ gets me higher,
Higher than the moon,
(Than) when I’m trippin’ major nutsack
On a Sunday afternoon.
When I’m thirsty for a shoey
Then I hardly use the brakes;
If someone holds me back,
Well I just pounce on their mistakes.
When they see that number 3,
With Lando by my side,
Well they know their race is over
So they take the corner wide.
I can take anybody,
I can take anybody down.
I can take anybody (passion and commitment)
I can take anybody down.
The boys in orange hold their breath
Until their faces all turn blue,
Well I’ll get them on the podium
If it’s the last thing that I do.
All the stallions and the toros
They’re all chafing at the bit,
(And) Mr Hamilton is arguing
With the boss down in the pit.
I can take anybody, (passion and commitment)
I can take anybody down.
I can take anybody, (passion and commitment)
I can take anybody down.
[Uh, watch your back, we’ve got the McLaren on turn 20]
Here comes Danny Ric
[We need to go faster otherwise we let the McLaren pass]
Here comes Danny Ric
Coming up behind you
[Keep pushing – mate, you need to go now]
It’s Danny Ric, oh yeah
Coming up beside you
[Oh shit, he’s got you]
It’s Danny Ric!
I can take anybody (passion and commitment)
I can take anybody down
PARIS – I have a confession to make. I thought I knew just about everything there is to know about all the rock, folk, or just any musicians who count that I needed to know about. What arrogance! The last thing I expected to discover now, at my age – don’t ask what that is – was a musician who got his start in 1973 and had albums published by Polydor, RCA and Columbia Records, who was produced by people as astounding and legendary as Paul Rothchild, and who has lived in my backyard – in Paris – for the last 30 years. Of course, I HAD heard of Elliott Murphy for many years. But because I had heard of him as the American musician the French were in love with and who they thought of as an “American” star but I didn’t because I had not heard of him while growing up in Canada, I had brushed him off entirely…having never listened to his music. More arrogance. But that all changed over the last week after I stumbled upon his memoir: “Just A Story From America.”
Not only have I come to his music 48 years late – and keep in mind that even in March 1973, a month before this was released, I was keenly aware and waiting for the latest sounds, coming home one day that month with that month’s release of Led Zeppelin’s “Houses of the Holy” and Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” – but I have also come to the memoir late. Fortunately, not 48 years late! This brilliant memoir was published in English in May 2019, and in French last November. So I am only a little behind on that! And the way I have started this blog post will make me look quite ignorant to the millions who have known and loved Elliott Murphy’s music for nearly 50 years!
As far as I can see, Elliott Murphy’s memoir, “Just A Story From America” is a self-published – or I should say, independently published – book in English, but with a bona fide French publisher in the translated version. And it also came out in a Spanish translation at a publisher in Spain under the title, “The Last Rock Star.” So maybe the promotion and marketing of the English edition was a little lacking. (Unless I am being arrogant again!) In any case, I have now read this memoir as quickly as I read that memoir of Steve Forbert a few years ago, or Terence Rigby’s memoir (by Juliet Ace) a couple of months ago. Forbert, like Murphy, was another of the many “new Bob Dylans” and Rigby was another “supporting role” kind of artist, which you could almost say in some small way Murphy was too. Someone who was never a household name, but played as well as the big guys, and often WITH the big guys. On the other hand, in fact, no. You can only say that the comparison between the great actor of usually secondary roles, and the great musician who was eclipsed in the fame sweepstakes by friends such as Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed, Billy Joel, and many more, is a great and real act of his own. End of story. So I am writing this blog post today to say to any of the few readers of this blog who do NOT know Elliott Murphy’s music AND Elliott Murphy’s writing, to please, waste no more of your life’s time and get to know him.
While reading the memoir, I went to YouTube and started my searches for his albums, in order of appearance. There are now some 40 of them, so to listen to all of the Elliott Murphy albums will take me some days. But I was immediately astounded upon hearing his first: Aquashow, released in 1973, by Polydor. Here I was listening to a cross between David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, and wait for this, Graham Parker and Elvis Costello, all wrapped up into one.
But there’s more, much more: At the same time that I discovered the musician I also suddenly discovered Elliott Murphy the writer and journalist, and there will be many more discoveries yet to come: Elliot Murphy has published in Rolling Stone, Spin, Vanity Fair, among other magazines, and written books in addition to the memoir – novels, short story collections and poetry. As a writer, he has as great a voice as he does as a singer. That voice and the story it tells so beautifully makes this memoir a touching work from beginning to end. Extremely touching. It is the highly personal story of a man who confronted the death of his father when he was 16, when his father was 48, and actually witnessed his father’s fatal heart attack, running off to find a doctor to help – too late – and then having his fairly wealthy, Long Island idyllic life disintegrate around him.
His father was a show business impresario, having created an amusement attraction called Aquashow, with dancing girls and water shows, that was hugely successful; followed by a successful restaurant that hosted stars and the political elite. His mother dined with Eisenhower, met with Elizabeth Taylor, the world of Elliott Murphy Sr., revolved around high style and success. Until the heart attack showed how flimsy the world really is.
For the boy, Elliott, known at the time by his middle name, James – or rather, “Jimmy” – it was, naturally, his whole world that fell apart. As it did for his mother, who at first tried to keep the restaurant going, but it failed eventually. Eventually, she ended up as a salesperson at Tiffany & Co. and stayed there for 20 years.
No wonder Elliott Murphy was angry at life. But it was an anger that he channeled into his touching first album with his new name, his real name: Elliott Murphy. The album being called…Aquashow. Yes, Elliott Murphy’s Aquashow lived on.
Without the backstory, I think that no one could have known where this album came from. Except in the authenticity of the cry of pain.
Watching his life unfold as an artist in this memoir is a lesson in life and career: So much of his life was made by his audacity – and a little arrogance? – as he always went directly to the source of what he hoped would be a launching platform for his career. During a trip through Europe when he was 21, he stopped off at Cinecitta in Rome hoping to finagle his way into acting as an extra in films, arriving decked out in such a way that he thought they would believe his story that he was an actor in cowboy films in the U.S. Fellini took one look at him and offered him a role as an extra – actually something a lot more than that – in his film Roma!
Elliott Murphy today
Returning to the U.S., he made a demo with his brother of some of the songs he wrote in Europe, and he headed off to Polydor, knocked on the door, said he wanted his demo listened to, and they were invited up immediately into the office of one of the A&R people who listened to it, liked it, and arranged an audition later in the week with the head of A&R. He liked it and they got a deal! Off the street in a company they knew nothing about, except that James Brown was with Polydor, as was guitarist Roy Buchanan.
This kind of thing is repeated again and again throughout his life and career as he found himself scoring deal after deal, moving from Polydor to RCA – where Paul Rothchild produced the album, “Lost Generation,” in 1975, and where he then recorded his “Night Lights” album – then to Columbia, where he recorded his last album for a major label, “Just a Story From America,” the same title as the memoir.
During this period, he lived a life that he turns into a dream read with fabulous anecdotes about meetings with a seemingly endless string of household names in show business, that includes such a diverse cast as Frank Zappa and Liza Minnelli. Zappa invited him into a studio while he was recording an album, Zappa’s guitar amp was in the studio, but Zappa was seated in the engineering booth with the engineer, and playing his guitar from there that was attached to the amp in the studio! Minnelli he met at a party, and the two were encouraged to sing together…but he knew none of her broadway music show tunes, and she knew no pop, rock, folk, Dylan or otherwise! He met Jean-Michel Basquiat, who was just as arrogant about him as I was (until now), who looked away from him while they shared a stretch limousine, and said: “I hear you’re a has-been.” (He regrets now that he was so pissed off at that that he did not buy any of the drawings Basquiat was selling for only a hundred bucks each. Imagine the value today – that would be a very much “living well” kind of revenge.)
Here we see the life of a rock star up close and personal throughout the 1970s, and then the fairly sudden change for the singer songwriters when punk suddenly took over and made them all irrelevant. (How did Forbert come out and thrive at that moment?!!?)
That period coincides in his life with the moment he goes entirely and almost fatally off the rails. Like so many others – not Zappa – he was taking drugs – mostly cocaine – and alcohol as a daily diet. He was in so deep that he did not even know it. In short, he managed to discover his own problem with the help of a freak moment meeting an attractive woman who had herself been an alcoholic, and who took him to a meeting where he discovered he DID have a problem, and he had an epiphany. He never touched a drop of alcohol or drugs again, some 30 years ago now.
Elliott Murphy’s father’s Aquashow on a billboard in NYC
In fact, he had fallen so low that after all these successes in the 1970s, he had ended up moving back to his mother’s place, sleeping on a cot, and then working as a secretary in a law firm just to survive! But he had learned a lesson about life that he would never forget, and soon begin to apply: “Looking back, it’s hard to deny that my daily drinking and regular cocaine use had something to do with my bad decisions; what happens when your lifestyle instead of your work becomes your priority.”
That was it. From then on, his work took precedence over his lifestyle. But his lifestyle also improved. He ended up moving to France in around 1989 – a country where he had had quite a big success that he was not even aware of for years thanks to the record company’s keeping it secret from him – and then he met his future wife – Françoise – and then had a son, Gaspard, in 1990. He has lived here ever since, worked on something similar to Bob Dylan’s “never ending tour,” – not to mention getting invited to play with Bruce Springsteen during his Paris visits on several occasions – and he has expanded that writing career too. With this memoir as the latest result. Go out and get it! I have told only a fraction of the fabulous tales this book contains. It’s a real discovery…of course, as I indicated earlier, I’m probably preaching to the converted and I’m the only idiot out here who didn’t know much about Elliott Murphy until now!
