In the past I've talked about a wide variety of subjects related to the arts and creativity. More recently I have been delighted to see the rising star of a singer-songwriter who I have long believed to be one of the best in America - and that's Jason Isbell. Jason's most recent Cd "Southeastern" has been gaining rave reviews and we have seen him on shows like David Letterman, and heard him on NPR's Fresh Air, among other places. Jason is also now married to another of my favorite songwriters Amanda Shires, who will have a new CD out in August. Good fortune has it that I met Jason twice, and I thought it might be fun to tell the story of those encounters.
Sometime around 2003 a friend gave me a CD by an Alabama band called the Drive by Truckers. There were good songs all throughout the CD, but one stood out strongly and that was the now legendary song "Outfit." This was one of Jason Isbell's breakthrough tunes with the band, and he went on to pen other knockout songs like "The Day John Henry Died", "Danko/ Manuel", "Goddamn Lonely Love" and "Never Gonna Change."
Not too long after he went solo, I was happy to hear that he and his band were going to play Club Congress in downtown Tucson. I made plans to go and even took Jason a small gift - a laminated bookmark made out of the actual autograph of the author Chuck Palahniuk. I remember seeing Jason stepping into the club and at some point pulled him aside, said hello, etc and asked him if I had heard correctly that he was a big fan of Chuck Palahniuk. He said yes - and I gave him the autographed bookmark, and let him carry on getting ready for the show. He was gracious, mellow, and very thoughtful. When he got on stage he put on a killer good show and we talked once more before we left. By that time I had a few beers in me and was feeling chipper - but I still remember what I told him when I left him that particular time - I told him "You are a poet. Like Townes Van Zandt or Ray La Montagne. Keep up what you are doing."
The second time Jason and his band played Club Congress I made plans to be there, and again Jason put on a helluva show. I remember he had a cold or sore throat and was coughing pretty hard - not just a smoker's cough, but a sick man's cough. Poor guy was pretty sick it seemed, but then he jumped on stage and threw down again and it was a great show. You'd think his vocals would have suffered but you couldn't tell a lick of difference. I guess after those years of hard living and traveling with the Drive by Truckers he had gotten a good taste of what it meant to carry on and be a road warrior. Sick. Well. Hungover, or anything else.
After that show it was very, very late and I was gonna say hello to Jason but he had disappeared outside the backstage door at Club Congress. It was a chilly night out - an odd night for Tucson for sure, quite cold. On my way out I decided to walk around the side of the building and could see a group of people by the backstage door. Jason was among them and I walked up to them, stuck my hand out and said "Hey Jason - I'm the artist Neil Myers. Just wanted to say a quick hello." And he said "Oh yeah. I remember you. I think I've seen some of your work online." People were starting to dissipate and go home and he said "How's the art business?" And I told him a little about how things were going. He listened intently, smoking his cigarette and coughing hard from time to time - still suffering his sore throat. At times I can be a bit of a talker, so we leaned against the rails and I talked about art and songwriting and he mostly listened. It's hard to describe the vibe of Mr Isbell. But perhaps the best way to say it is the feeling that he is absorbing stories - yours and other people's. Behind the glow of his ever present cigarette, there in the dark were two keen eyes paying close attention. He wasn't shy. Not in the slightest. But he listened to even small talk with a sense of acute attention.
For the next twenty or thirty minutes the survivors of the late night show came and went, some said hi to him and asked him about the meanings of some of his songs. I remember someone asking him about "Chicago Promenade" and he didn't really seem to feel he could explain what it meant. He just sort of gently brushed the issue aside and was very sweet to the person who asked it. He always thanked people who came to the show, and those who popped around back of the club to wish him well. We stood for a while and chatted with Jimbo Hart - and Jason introduced me to Browan Lollar, his guitarist who is also an artist and a friend I still chat with here and there. We talked about songwriters and the Dillinger gang, who were caught all those years ago right there at club congress. And at one point there was nobody left out there behind the club. It was getting bitterly cold and though Jason gave every indication he was happy to chat all night - I remember telling him that he better get back inside before the cold made his throat worse. I didn't want to be the reason his throat went to hell for the next few shows. We shook hands and parted very amicably - and I remember telling him as he went in the door "Oh, I forgot to ask you - do you know the songs of Justin Rutledge?" He said he didn't and I told him to check him out if he got a chance. He said "Justin Rutledge", to make a mental note and we parted ways.
I drove home still shivering from the freezing cold desert air. But I had that great satisfaction of having had an enjoyable talk with someone who I knew was very special. And in turn, when critics and so many others now find themselves getting on the long train of Isbell appreciators - I am almost amused at how long many of us had been following his work before his latest CD. And how many of us knew that this songwriter was unique.
Jason if you read this, I want to congratulate you on your sobriety, your continually beautiful and meaningful songs - and for that cold night by the railroad tracks at 1am talking about songs and life. You have proved yourself the poet I always thought you were, and we thank you for sharing your talent with the rest of us.
Neil
www.jasonisbell.com
www.amandashiresmusic.com
www.neilmyersart.com
Showing posts with label Browan Lollar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Browan Lollar. Show all posts
Monday, July 22, 2013
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Pastel Dust, Manet's Blue Couch, and Isbell's Poetics
This week I am finishing a series of small 8 x 10 inch oil paintings depicting subjects in Santa Fe, New Mexico and various spots around southern Arizona. I am also working on a series of pastel studies - the first pastels I've done since I was a small kid. When I was maybe 8 or 10 years old my mom had me draw a bit in pastels and I even did a portrait of her, which I still have among my old collections of our drawings. I never forgot them, and decided just recently that, as an artist, I really needed the challenge of something new.
Another reason was that I bought a pastel of Venice, Italy from the Tucson artist Gabor Svagrik. This pastel was a gift for my wife for her 33rd birthday. I used to show work with Gabor at the Max Gallery, and my wife had frequently commented on his cityscape pastels - how they would remind her of her youth that she spent in her native Belgrade, Serbia. Though this piece by Gabor was a gift for my wife, I actually felt that it was a real benefit to me also - as I spent a long period of time looking at the subtlety of Gabor's handling of the pastel medium. The soft glow of the figures in the rain, brought out so well in the velvety haze of the pastel chalk. It made me remember toiling away for hours as a little boy, slashing colors and shapes in pastel onto the paper. It also made me remember the original thought that I'd had - that an artist strengthens his or her legitimacy by working in multiple mediums.
Of course, this does present it's own set of artistic challenges for me. A lot of my work is about the effect of the thick oil paints and bright colors; and neither can be reproduced exactly in pastel. Pastel does not posses the pure force and shine of oil colors, and if you lay pastel on the paper too thickly you are not doing yourself any great justice. In fact, as a medium, it seems to me to be much more about subtlety than force. Artists like Gabor, as well as masters from the past such as Monet, Manet and Degas all used pastel to enhance the warm glow of emotional effects. I, on the other hand, have to decide a crucial question, ie, "What does a Neil Myers pastel look like?"
As I've been doing these small studies over the past week, I was reminded of the greatest pastel that I'd ever seen - a phenomenal piece by Manet called "Madame Manet on a Blue Couch". When I saw the piece in 1996 in Paris, I was stunned. It was such a unique work because it was a portrait but not a portrait - in a peculiar sense. When I was looking at it, what struck me powerfully was Manet's soft portrayal of the couch itself, surrounding the central figure and almost becoming the object of the piece more than the figure. It felt like a couch that one could just collapse into. Inviting and soft, asking for repose.
When I began to think about artists changing mediums, I also remembered the late watercolors by Cezanne. These works, in my view, were utterly different than his oil paintings. What was so unusual about them was mostly that the paper was often nearly all white, and Cezanne only seemed to work to evolve certain details in the work. I have not studied his intentions behind the work sufficiently to resolve whether or not he considered most of his late watercolors finished or not. To me they look unfinished - but I do realize that he must have been bringing out what seemed to him to be essential elements; the arm of a tree, the spine of the Mont Sainte Victoire - and the images emerged as though through the white fog of the paper.
I think I will have to resolve, in the coming days, the debate over whether or not a Neil Myers pastel or watercolor will represent a break from his oil painting style. We shall see. I've always worked with a little bit of free experimentation spirit in the back of my mind, and frequently I too am along for the ride in seeing where these imagistic explorations go.
Stay tuned to http://www.neilmyersart.com/ and I'll post the first of the pastels on "the painter's closet" page as soon as they are ready.
Also, for those of you who love great music, I'd like to shamelessly plug a new self titled CD by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. I just downloaded it last night from itunes, and found myself sitting at my desk with my guitar, figuring out the song "Cigarettes and Wine", a beautiful tune that harkens back to other slow blues-rock songs of the past. The CD has already received praise from Rolling Stone and Spin magazine. For those of you who don't know him, the leader of the band Jason Isbell is a former guitarist/ singer / songwriter for the Drive-by Truckers - and he was responsible for penning some of DBT's most memorable songs like "The Day John Henry Died" and "Goddamn Lonely Love." I've met Jason twice when he and the 400 unit played shows in Tucson. The second time we met up he and I spent a cold half hour standing behind Club Congress in Tucson, talking about music and life. Jason's a really cool guy, a person who is very real and very level. He's a master songsmith, a real Southern-American poet. His band are a talented bunch of guys as well - the guitarist of the band Browan Lollar is an artist on the side, and he designed the graphics and images for the new 400 Unit CD. You can check Jason and the band out at http://www.jasonisbell.com/ , where you'll find all relevant info and links to their myspace where you can sample the music. I urge everyone to support great indie artists such as Jason and his band. And don't miss a chance to catch them live if they swing by your area.
Now I have go get busy getting my fingers covered in pastel dust!
http://www.neilmyersart.com/
Another reason was that I bought a pastel of Venice, Italy from the Tucson artist Gabor Svagrik. This pastel was a gift for my wife for her 33rd birthday. I used to show work with Gabor at the Max Gallery, and my wife had frequently commented on his cityscape pastels - how they would remind her of her youth that she spent in her native Belgrade, Serbia. Though this piece by Gabor was a gift for my wife, I actually felt that it was a real benefit to me also - as I spent a long period of time looking at the subtlety of Gabor's handling of the pastel medium. The soft glow of the figures in the rain, brought out so well in the velvety haze of the pastel chalk. It made me remember toiling away for hours as a little boy, slashing colors and shapes in pastel onto the paper. It also made me remember the original thought that I'd had - that an artist strengthens his or her legitimacy by working in multiple mediums.
Of course, this does present it's own set of artistic challenges for me. A lot of my work is about the effect of the thick oil paints and bright colors; and neither can be reproduced exactly in pastel. Pastel does not posses the pure force and shine of oil colors, and if you lay pastel on the paper too thickly you are not doing yourself any great justice. In fact, as a medium, it seems to me to be much more about subtlety than force. Artists like Gabor, as well as masters from the past such as Monet, Manet and Degas all used pastel to enhance the warm glow of emotional effects. I, on the other hand, have to decide a crucial question, ie, "What does a Neil Myers pastel look like?"
As I've been doing these small studies over the past week, I was reminded of the greatest pastel that I'd ever seen - a phenomenal piece by Manet called "Madame Manet on a Blue Couch". When I saw the piece in 1996 in Paris, I was stunned. It was such a unique work because it was a portrait but not a portrait - in a peculiar sense. When I was looking at it, what struck me powerfully was Manet's soft portrayal of the couch itself, surrounding the central figure and almost becoming the object of the piece more than the figure. It felt like a couch that one could just collapse into. Inviting and soft, asking for repose.
When I began to think about artists changing mediums, I also remembered the late watercolors by Cezanne. These works, in my view, were utterly different than his oil paintings. What was so unusual about them was mostly that the paper was often nearly all white, and Cezanne only seemed to work to evolve certain details in the work. I have not studied his intentions behind the work sufficiently to resolve whether or not he considered most of his late watercolors finished or not. To me they look unfinished - but I do realize that he must have been bringing out what seemed to him to be essential elements; the arm of a tree, the spine of the Mont Sainte Victoire - and the images emerged as though through the white fog of the paper.
I think I will have to resolve, in the coming days, the debate over whether or not a Neil Myers pastel or watercolor will represent a break from his oil painting style. We shall see. I've always worked with a little bit of free experimentation spirit in the back of my mind, and frequently I too am along for the ride in seeing where these imagistic explorations go.
Stay tuned to http://www.neilmyersart.com/ and I'll post the first of the pastels on "the painter's closet" page as soon as they are ready.
Also, for those of you who love great music, I'd like to shamelessly plug a new self titled CD by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. I just downloaded it last night from itunes, and found myself sitting at my desk with my guitar, figuring out the song "Cigarettes and Wine", a beautiful tune that harkens back to other slow blues-rock songs of the past. The CD has already received praise from Rolling Stone and Spin magazine. For those of you who don't know him, the leader of the band Jason Isbell is a former guitarist/ singer / songwriter for the Drive-by Truckers - and he was responsible for penning some of DBT's most memorable songs like "The Day John Henry Died" and "Goddamn Lonely Love." I've met Jason twice when he and the 400 unit played shows in Tucson. The second time we met up he and I spent a cold half hour standing behind Club Congress in Tucson, talking about music and life. Jason's a really cool guy, a person who is very real and very level. He's a master songsmith, a real Southern-American poet. His band are a talented bunch of guys as well - the guitarist of the band Browan Lollar is an artist on the side, and he designed the graphics and images for the new 400 Unit CD. You can check Jason and the band out at http://www.jasonisbell.com/ , where you'll find all relevant info and links to their myspace where you can sample the music. I urge everyone to support great indie artists such as Jason and his band. And don't miss a chance to catch them live if they swing by your area.
Now I have go get busy getting my fingers covered in pastel dust!
http://www.neilmyersart.com/
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