From: jmf@endor.harvard.edu ( ghost )
Subject: Re: Who is Eric Anderson? (Cheryl Wheeler content)
Organization: DAS Purchasing, Harvard University
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 19:08:50 GMT


In article <1k713pINNr76@hp-col.col.hp.com> judym@col.hp.com (Judy Miller) writes:
>I heard that Cheryl Wheeler was going to be at the Mercury Cafe in Denver.
>But I called, and she's only warmup to Eric Anderson.  
>Who's he?  What's his music like?  This may be my only chance to
>see Cheryl, but I'd like to know what I'm getting into.

Old Eric, folk star of a bygone era, might not be pleased to hear he's
dis-remembered this well, but its no worse than he deserves.

He's a man with a definite foot fetish;

one famous song has the refrain 

"take off your thirsty boots & stay for a while
 your feet are hot & weary from a dusty mile"

there's nothing all that terrible about this except that his friend
has nasty feet & I don't want to hear about them, feet being maybe my
2nd or 3rd least favorite body part to hear celebrated in song;
people have said that this was supposed to be some kind of code song
to enhearten civil rights marchers, but you won't get that from the song
itself.

A little later, however, in another song, he sings

"loving you & leaving you's the hardest thing to do
 to give my foot another chance to try another shoe"

Somehow, I don't think he's really singing about feet, or shoes, anymore...
what do you think?
(I think someone should clip off that ..foot.. & hand it to him)

Then he wrote all about the "something something violets of dawn"
nothing super-offensively wrong with this one other than he thinks he's a poet,
a real flowery poet, lots & lots of terminally clever imagery, among it
something about the lady being puppy-warm, I think...
strike that nothing-wrong phrase.

He's written one song I can think of that I actually like;
refrain goes
"love...
 it isn't really love at all
 but something that I heard love called
 something that I heard love called"

There might be another good one lurking in his working, but I can't recall
it right now.

Small story from the wayback machine:

I won free tickets to Passim about 20 years ago (& it hurts to admit it,
the 20 years part).  I got free tickets a lot back then, with the enticement 
being "real live famous folk person will appear", and I wasn't as
discriminatory about the person's material as I might be now; part of the
enticement was that almost the only live folk singers I had heard, back in
the midwest, were friends of my sister's (some were very good, but none were
famous.)

I invited my brother, living in Boston before me, to come to the show.
Maybe it was the opening act I really wanted him to hear; I can't remember
now, because what followed blew it all away in the worst possible way:

Anderson showed up, lurched around on stage, pinned up a picture of 
something or other on the wall behind him (took a lot of pinning, because
the Passim wall is brick & Anderson had a lot hand-eye coordination
problems with that pin...or maybe it was tape that just wouldn't stick,
--its been a while), mumbled something totally incomprehensible
for about 7 minutes.... 

Bob Donlon, the guy who runs Passim, who doesn't like demonstrably dosed
performers & who has a pretty bad temper when provoked, used infinite patience
in suggesting that Anderson might like to play something..."Are you going to
play anything?", I believe he said.  Anderson kept on lurching & mumbling.
He did pick up a guitar at one point, did some cursory un-tuning, then
thought better of it, apparently, & proceeded with what to him may have
even sounded like a story.

Donlon threw/guided him off the stage, & told him something to the effect 
of what the temperature would be in hell before he played that club again.
I believe they've made up, however; I think I've seen him advertised there
in the ensuing 20 years.

My brother was philosophical about the whole thing;
"think of it as street theater", he said.  I'm not so tolerant
(and I despise street theater).

There's probably no valid reason to bring this episode up 20 years later;
Anderson has doubtless dried/wrung himself out, as he's still getting
bookings.  He's unlikely to repeat the performance.
However, I'm still meditating on his creative synonym for feet...


Don't miss Cheryl Wheeler, though, even if some of the take does go
to Anderson.
Newsgroups: rec.music.folk