Look What You Done For Me

Song written by Al Green and Willie Mitchell; performed by Al Green

The way that I remember it, Al Green just did not come up in conversation. I started noticing his name in some of the music journalism that I was reading, but nobody mentioned him before that. Or, if they did, the name didn’t stick. I didn’t notice him being played on the radio. But then I must have hit critical mass on hearing about the man and so I decided to find out what I had been missing.

I wandered down to the basement location of Haffa’s records. Ron owned the place and he became something of an older brother who watched over me. He went so far as to let me run the place every now and then. Of course, he had a copy of Al Green’s greatest.

I clutched my purchase all the way up the street to the first floor apartment, knowing my roommate was probably out- the perfect time to see if I had made a mistake. We lived in a former funeral parlor, so we had a certain ambiance. (My bed fit in this perfect little alcove, too.)

I would like to claim that I knew immediately that I had stumbled upon greatness. I probably expected the muscle of Atlantic stars like Aretha and Sam & Dave or the drive of Motown. This was something else. That voice… that incredible voice. And the songs grooved.

I have written elsewhere (maybe too many times) about the joy of feeling a pride in loving an artist that just hasn’t caught on yet. There is that joy in early discovery that grants a certain sense of pride in your position. “I knew the Beatles when they played in Hamburg and Love Me Do was still called Love Me Sue.” (They never did as far as I know, so just stop right there.)

On long car rides and slow week nights,

I have always been known to turn on guests and inflict something I want them to hear and love. Not everyone agrees with me, but usually someone in the group gets that lovely look on their face that indicates recognition. Usually, I want to dust off my hands and retire from the room, announcing, “My work is done here.” This has worked for Jonathan Richman and The Raspberries, Berlioz and Roland Kirk. I’m saying that it works within a few minutes.

That has never been the case with Al Green, I am sorry to say. Absolutely, the look arrives, but it takes about a half hour- six or eight songs. On the other hand, I could be walking around with someone a week later. A lull happens in the conversation. I notice that they are ever so softly singing Call Me or Love and Happiness.

Of course, there is also this, which is just… well… words fail me.

Lastly, let’s be clear that this is the original version by the guy that co-wrote the song with Mabon Hodges.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 77 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

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Violette Heymann

Pastel portrait by Odilon Redon

One of the earliest hints that my mother had a life before I arrived had to be the cabinet in her work space in our house.
Her drawing table and easel sat nearby, but the cabinet contained the good stuff- all sorts of art supplies. Pretty quickly, in our house, you learned which shelves were off limits.

Now, I knew about crayons. Heck, I daresay I loved the little waxy things. Don’t get me started on the big box. But, one of those forbidden shelves held items that looked suspiciously like crayons. The fact that they were forbidden meant they had to be pretty special, right?

Did I mention that the cabinet was made of metal with a loud latch? I am not directly saying that I was every caught trying to use something that was not allowed.

I don’t know if the requirement to use them only with permission and oversight was driven by the difficulty in replacing them or in the impossibility of erasing them off walls and such. Either way, my humble efforts never approached my mother’s brief examples of the possibilities.

Even so, they were just glorified crayons, right? Pastels? Give me a break.

About the same time

I saw what Matisse could do with colored paper cut outs, I got a first glimpse of a Redon canvas. The effervescence- the sheer explosion of color and beauty- really, it stopped me in my tracks.

Van Gogh is understandably inescapable. Redon is certainly well-known, but not in the same name-dropping way. Of course, I carry that bundle of names with me that I wish were commonplace, but Redon seems like he should be out there a bit more.

But, back to our thesis. He did this with pastels? Honestly, that seems like magic to me. Everybody says “You have to see it in person,” but you do. The art literally glows. The flowers are close to fireworks exploding at night.

We spent some time making a museum store employee track down one of their new prints. That’s not normal behavior for me. The person helping us seemed pretty excited that someone was so interested, but still. I see that print every day. It can’t be in my office however. I wouldn’t get anything done.

Apparently we have to go to France now.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 78 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.

The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci

Book written by Jonathan Spence

Years and years ago, we watched an episode of one of those PBS documentary series, probably Frontline, about marketing. They demonstrated how computers had revolutionized the marketing industry. While the marketers would not go so far as to say that they could predict what someone living in one particular house might want, they could divide the United States into small areas that likely shared the same tastes. Moreover, they had cute names for all these groups- nicknames that went well beyond yuppie and millennial.

Anyway, they picked on people like us and proceeded to describe our lifestyle and got pretty close. We spent a fair bit of time trying to differentiate ourselves from their expectations. I’d like to think that we realized that they picked on people like us because people like us were the target audience of Frontline.

One thing that particularly interested the marketers was the magazines to which a given household subscribed. I know they mentioned Scientific American because we proudly announced to thin air that we were a National Geographic family. Perhaps we aspired to Scientific American. We never quite got beyond the occasional issue, but we did get a subscription to The New York Review of Books, which probably fit with expectations.

So,

I approached NYRB with some trepidation, read it and discovered that it was not over my head. No surprise that the writing was excellent. Many of the names were familiar. Others, I promised myself to track down, but let’s face it, that’s always a trick. For whatever reason, I never find myself with the appropriate names when I’m in a bookstore. So, if you are an author, call yourself something memorable.

Jonathan Spence, I managed to recall. Honestly, it was not just the rhythm of his name that held it in memory. He was the resident expert on a topic I knew practically nothing about- Chinese history. Anyone happening to be alive on the planet would have to admit that this is a subject worth a little time- big place where many important things have happened and all. But where to begin?

The modus operandi for NYRB is to have some qualified talent gather a few books together and then write an essay that ties the books together with some of the reviewer’s own thoughts. If you want to dip your toe in a subject, the essays provide wonderful introductions.

I don’t really remember if Spence was part of the reviewed or doing the reviewing, but I suspect that he did a little of both during our brief subscription flirtation. Either way, his name stuck. For that matter, I don’t know if I first read his more detailed accounts of specific events or an overview of Chinese history, but I know a little now- never enough, but I can almost place Chinese movies in some context. That has to count for something.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 79 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.