The
Songwriters Exchange and the Rebirth of American Folk
By
Piero Capizzi
Translation
by Kathy Fay
There
was a time when folk, as a musical genre, seemed to be on the wane. The image of
the folksinger armed with nothing more than a guitar and a harmonica had
disappeared from the face of the earth. The poor songwriter appeared
anachronistic and irrelevant for the public and the record industry. First
buffeted by the gentle but powerful breeze of groups like Lovin’ Spoonful,
Buffalo Springfield and above all Byrds, who brought an electric jolt to the
sound; then rocked by the earthquake, with its waves of color and lysergic
fragrances, produced by Beautiful People of San Francisco; it was finally swept
away by the hurricane of the hard rock bands in the Seventies, headed by Led
Zeppelin. In New York, cradle of the folk movement in the Sixties, many of the
clubs that acted as incubators of the movement had closed or taken on a new
identity. The Cafe Au Go Go and the Gaslight shut their doors in 1970 and ’71,
respectively; shortly after the lights went out at Izzy Young’s Folklore Center
and he retired to Stockholm, on the other side of the ocean; the Bitter End
changed their name to Other End in 1975, only to return to their original name
again years later, but focusing on artists who were already successful. Gerde’s
Folk City, run by Mike Porco, was the only place still active in the city
although, after moving to a new location in 1970, it began a slow decline that
would only end with its closure in the Eighties.
To
tell the truth, a single stronghold of original music continued to exist even
in those dark years of the early Seventies when it seemed like the interest in folk
music was dead. To find it, however, one had to leave Manhattan and travel for
more than three hours, all the way to Saratoga Springs in upstate New York. The
little town between the Adirondacks and the Hudson River had been founded in
the late 18th century as a resort to exploit the local springs, which supplied
an excellent mineral water and attracted many visitors for their restorative
properties. One of its highlights, then as now, was Caffè Lena, founded
in 1960 by William and Lena Spencer. The club, which could rightfully claim to
be the oldest coffeehouse in the United States, specialized in acoustic
folk music. In 1961, at the dawn of his career, a young Bob Dylan, newcomer to
the Big Apple, played there a couple of times and, in general, all the elite of
the genre made the 200 mile trek from NYC to play at the little club, accepting
the small fee that Lena could afford, for she had created a place where the
musicians she booked felt more at home than in any other place in America. She
was, herself, an adorable hostess: a plump little woman with a motherly
attitude, affectionate and at the same time bold, and determined to defend her
little club in spite of the fashions of the time. She opened her club before
the great explosion of the folk revival and kept it alive even during the dark
years for acoustic music, gritting her teeth and keeping faith with her values.
Her audiences were very different from those of the coffee houses in the
Village: they were mainly working class people (factory workers, farmers,
traveling salesmen, shopkeepers) and not students. Consequently, Lena could
afford to take chances and could risk bringing to her club young musicians or
at least musicians who were not yet famous, certain that they would be
successful or at the very least would feel the affection of the audience. A
couple of times she faced the very real threat of closure and, on two
occasions, top folk artists staged benefits that brought in enough money to
keep the cafè open. Lena died in 1989 at the age of 66, and since then, the
club has become a non-profit organization that continues to support the ideals
of its founder. Anyone interested in learning more about the history and music
of that magical place can find two collections, “Welcome to Caffe Lena” (Biography
12046, from 1972) which contains pieces by Rosalie Sorrels, Patrick Sky, Hedy
West and Paul Geremia, among others, and a triple CD from 2013, “Live At Caffè
Lena” (Tompkins Square 2967) which contains the best of Sixties and
contemporary folk.
Returning
to the city, in the mid-Sixties playing folk music in the Big Apple wasn’t
easy. This was the situation Jack Hardy found when he moved to New York
in 1975. The young man was a descendent of the Studebaker family, which had
built an empire of wagons and stagecoaches first, and of automobiles later. His
father Gordon was a musician, dean of students at the Juilliard School and
former president of the Aspen Music Festival; his mother, Lillian, was a
painter. In his own young life Jack, born in Indiana in 1947 and raised in
Colorado, had already set a record: in 1969, while attending the University of
Hartford in Connecticut, he was arrested and convicted of libel for a lewd
cartoon attacking then President, Richard Nixon. Although his sentence was overturned
on appeal, Hardy remains the only person in the history of the United States
ever to be convicted of libeling a U.S. President. Still in school, he played
with the band Some Dead Bears, which spread a message of social change,
and proudly displayed a portrait of Che Guevara on stage by way of provocation.
In 1971 young Jack published his first collection of songs, Jack Hardy (Great Divide 1759), still pretty rough
around the edges, which he later semi-disowned. From the outset, he refused to
accept the demands of the record industry, and inaugurated his status as a
proud independent that he would maintain for the rest of his life,
self-publishing all his work.
On
his arrival in the Big Apple, unable to find anything better for himself, he
decided to open his apartment to colleagues and aspiring musicians and make it
the new home of folk music. The flat was located on the third floor of 178 West
Houston Street and had been built in the late 19th century. It was a bohemian
lodging with a bathtub in the kitchen and a separate toilet at the end of the
hall. Hardy’s idea was very simple but powerful: every Monday evening he served
a pasta dinner and wine to anyone who showed up at his door with a guitar and a
new song. In this way he gathered around him a small tribe of young and
not-so-young songwriters who could meet every week in a congenial environment,
talk about music and politics, exchange views and above all stimulate one
another to carry on with their art. Hardy acted as host, master of ceremonies
and mentor, making suggestions, recommending revisions and adjustments,
building friendships and professional connections. Right from the beginning,
certain personality traits would characterize his style and way of operating.
He saw the act of composition as a serious business requiring labor and
fatigue. He was very strict in his judgment of what he wrote himself and of
that which others submitted for his opinion. He didn’t give anyone the benefit
of the doubt and he had no hesitation in rejecting a badly written song. This
meant that his opinion was sought and at the same time feared by those who
participated in his Mondays. Another striking feature was his way of making
everyone welcome, and his immense generosity. He never refused to help, was
always present and worked hard for the development of a movement that was the
sole focus of his entire career.
In
1976 Jack decided to try again to self-publish a record. To say that The
Mirror Of My Madness in its first version was a Spartan product would
be a pure euphemism: published without a cover and without a label, with a
photocopied insert of the texts and credits of the musicians, the album was
like a pebble tossed into stagnant waters and, certainly, made few waves, at
least until it was reprinted in 1980. Yet it was no less than a masterpiece!
Accompanied by his brother Jeff on the bass and by two of the Roche sisters in
the chorus, it contains at least two examples of absolute beauty like The
Tailor and Down Where the Rabbits Run, and remains on excellent
levels on both sides, with references to Dylan (Houston Street and Murder),
upbeat ballads (Out of Control) and assays into folk blues (Victim of
the Dawn). From these first solo trials, Jack had a clear idea of what his
goals were in recording his works: he subjected his accompanists to a brief but
intense rehearsal session before entering the studio and then expected to make
a direct recording. One take, no retakes. He wanted to feel the interior
urgency, the emotional excitement of the moment. Any stumbles or even little
mistakes were part of the artistic fragility that he considered a strong point
of his authenticity. As we will see, his choice to seize the moment, to capture the instantaneous act would remain
an article of faith for him and a distinctive trait of his style.
Hardy
was not the only one interesting in reviving the dying folk scene in New York.
Three young artists, Charles McKenna, Raphaela Pivetta and Robin Hirsch,
stumbled by accident on an abandoned site on Cornelia Street. The street
that runs through the heart of the Village could boast a long history: named by
a rich landowner in 1794 in memory of his beloved granddaughter, during the
Prohibition era it had been the site of one of the most celebrated speakeasies,
those sleazy clubs that sprang up amid the city’s night life, selling bootleg
alcohol. It the Fifties and Sixties it was home to Caffè Cino, one of the
outstanding locations for alternative artists to present their works of
figurative art, poetry and off-off-Broadway theater. Early in July 1977, after
months of minor repairs and cleanup, the trio opened the Cornelia Street Cafè
at number 29. The equipment was minimal, a hot plate, a cappuccino machine and
a tiny refrigerated display case of desserts which customers could order and
consume. From the outset, the space opened to poetry readings, musical
exhibitions and small theatrical performances. One of the first patrons of the
cafè was a girl who arrived with her dog and always ordered a cold cappuccino.
Almost immediately she offered to sing live and was hired. She stayed on full
time as a singer and waitress. Her name was Carolyne Mas. Thanks to her, word
got around among the musicians of her acquaintance and, starting in December of
that year, Jack Hardy moved his Monday evenings to the new location: that was
the official birth of the Songwriters Exchange. The rules for
participating in the evenings were the same as always: open to anyone on
condition that they played a brand new song written in the last week.
A
couple of years later, the publication of the group’s manifesto signaled the
maturity of the venue and its artistic movement. Cornelia Street – The
Songwriters Exchange (Stash
301, published in 1980) is a milestone in the rebirth of the city’s folk
spirit. The collection included twelve excellent compositions by eight artists
who, at the time, formed the core of the new movement. Just to name a few, they
included Rod MacDonald, who would come out with two fine records in the
Eighties, with a note of merit for No Commercial Traffic (Cinemagic
8007, from 1983); Cliff Eberhardt, who presented here his lovely "Summers
in New Jersey,” and later became a collaborator of Richie Havens and is still
playing; David Massengill with his “Contrary Mary"; the duo Simon
& Kaplanski with their moving love song “Say Goodbye Love” – of the
two, Lucy Kaplansky would become one of the finest interpreters of the new folk
with her soloist recordings on the Red House label; Tom Intondi, author of
three self-produced LPs, including the excellent City Dancer (City
Dancer 1, from 1976).
In
the meantime, Hardy had already published his third work, obviously printed at
his expense. The Nameless One (Great Divide 1761, from 1978) is
considered by many critics to be his most mature work. It contains gems like “Dover
to Dunkirk,” “Works and Days" and above all his splendid
composition “The Vicious Cycle.” With respect to his previous work, his
Irish roots are more obvious here (“May Day,” "The Three
Sisters” and “Blackberry Pie"), while the instrumentation is
more complex and evocative thanks to the accompaniment is his brothers Jeff and
Chris, respectively, on the bass and violin, the drummer Howie Wyeth (who had
previously worked with Dylan) and full complement of Roches sisters. His voice
is also unmistakable, not powerful, but raw, extremely evocative and poignant.
The lyrics are more mature and richer in social messages. Hardy is a cultured
man, a great reader, particularly fond of poetry (T.S. Eliot and Yeats above
all) and fascinated by Celtic mythology with its emphasis on the seasons and
cycles of the earth. From the ancient bards he draws what he calls their three
powers: to enchant, evoke and offend, even, in the political sense. In his
compositions, he uses techniques that exploit the sounds of words and phrases,
as well as rhetorical figures, to arouse emotions and trigger reactions. He is
intent on writing songs that will be universal and will remain in time: “my
definition of folk is music in which the song is more important than the singer.”
This album brought the songwriter’s name to the attention of the world outside
the American borders, all the way to Europe. In 1981, a tour of the Old World
brought him to Italy for the first time, to the town of Samarate, near Varese,
thanks to the organization of Paolo Carù, with the essential contribution of
Adelmo Quadrio who published an excellent interview with Hardy, which then
appeared in the newborn magazine, Il Buscadero.
The
following year was a momentous one for the entire American neo-folk movement,
thanks to yet another of Jack’s initiatives: the group of folksingers revolving
around him coalesced into a cooperative and had taken possession of another
club in the Village, the Speakeasy, which, for a while, would be their
headquarters. In February 1982, the first issue of a record-magazine
entitled The CooP: The Fast Folk Musical Magazine
Obviously,
the publication started as a statement of intent, a powerful but homemade
vision, without too much in the way of advanced technology. To survive, it
needed volunteers, who were often the musicians themselves. For example, the
first subscription manager was a young songwriter who debuted in the first
issue of the recorded magazine with her own composition “Cracking.” Her name? Suzanne
Vega, a musician who with compositions like “Luka” would bring folk music
to the attention of the public and the critics. Vega continued to publish her
songs in the Fast Folk Magazine with stunning regularity until 1984 and
remained close to Hardy and his tribe even after becoming a star, appearing,
for example, in an album recorded live at the Bottom Line in 1988. With the
expansion of distribution and of the number of listeners-readers, the magazine
began to include artists from other American states. The April 1982 issue, for
example, introduced Shawn Colvin, from Illinois, with the piece “I’m
Talking To You,” that launched her toward the contract with Columbia and the
many Grammy Awards she won during her career. The October 1985 issue marked the
debut of a skinny Texan who always dressed in black and whose name was largely
unknown, Lyle Lovett; the same issue featured the first notes of the
Californian Cindy Lee Berryhill, who later authored two fundamental LPs
for Rhino. In April 1986, when the publication dedicated an entire issue to the
Boston scene, the opening piece, “For My Lover,” marked the breakthrough of another
woman who would revolutionize the folk scene, Tracy Chapman. Finally,
the December 1986 issue came out with a piece by the then-unknown Michelle
Shocked, a secretary on the magazine who, as legend has it, helped Hardy and
his friends staple up the librettos that were included with the records. It’s
hard to find another project that launched as many talents as the Fast Folk
Magazine!
In
the meantime, Our Hero continued publishing records in his own name. In 1982
two of his albums came out, Landmark (Great Divide 1762) and White
Shoes (Great Divide 1763), the former ready from some time earlier, for
an abortive project for Flying Fish, and full of references to European
tradition; the second more electric, urban and decidedly American. Both are
good LPs, with a definite preference for the second, which contains two
classics from his repertoire like “Femme Fatale" and the title
track. That year Jack came back to Italy for his first tour of the country,
organized by Adelmo Quadrio, his Italian manager and dear friend; among others
he held a concert at the Cinema dei Circoli Riuniti, in Leffe, near Bergamo, a
theater which mostly showed adult movies, establishing a collaboration and a
personal relationship with the legendary musical promoter Gigi Bresciani. In
1984 he published The Cauldron (Great Divide 1767), another major
work with a few extraordinary compositions like “Night Train to Paris,”
“Fallen" and “The Silver Spoon,” scattered with the pagan symbolism so
dear to its author.
The
same year, Hardy returned to Italy for an extended tour that turned out to be
quite an adventure. Jack, his brother Jeff, the guitarist Mark Dann, and the
drummer Howie Morrel piled into the van supplied by the Premiata Ditta Rizzi,
and the group headed south where they had several concerts booked (Galliate,
Rapallo, Alzano Lombardo, Bologna, Florence). On the way to Rome, where Jack
was scheduled for a concert at the Folkstudio, the van broke down and the group
ended up stuck on the road, awaiting repairs, and forced to spend a night in
the vehicle. Things went better for the tour in 1988 when, thanks to the
interest Giancarlo Cesaroni, owner of the Folkstudio, Jack was invited to sing
two of his compositions (“The Wren” and “The Hunter") on Andrea Barbato’s
popular TV program “Va’ Pensiero.”
Of his later recordings, I’d like to call attention to The Hunter (Great
Divide 1769, del 1987), another of the pearls of his production with songs like
“Coyote,” “Dublin Farewell," "Dun Do Shuile” and “The Wedding Song,”
and Two Of Swords (Great Divide 1771, del 1991), recorded live in
his Houston Street flat, which contains “Forget-Me-Not,” one of his most
touching compositions. In 1997, Hardy was awarded the Kate Wolf Memorial Prize,
named for the great California songwriter who died far too soon at the age of
just 44; the motivation explained that the award went to “an artist who makes a
difference with his music.” It was in that same year that the Fast Folk
Magazine project came to an end, partly due to the lack of volunteers to help
with it and partly because digital technology made it easy for new artists to
print their own CDs. The cooperative continued, however, to reorganize in the
Fast Folk Cafè, a tiny club in the TriBeCa zone below Canal Street in New York,
where the group struggled to survive the rent increases and municipal
restrictions that wanted to limit live music. After the cafè had to close, the
evening meetings of the songwriters continued every Monday night back at Hardy’s
flat on Houston Street, where they had all started. Those meetings became so
legendary as to be immortalized in the short story “In Hoboken” by Christian Bauman, who was inspired by Jack
in the creation of one of his characters (Geoff Mason). A video made the rounds, explaining better than a thousand words, what
the atmosphere was like in those musical evenings at his house. In the video,
we see an already famous Suzanne Vega return to visit her mentor, bringing a
new composition; Jack goes through the text with her with the air of a teacher
and the tenderness of a friend, suggests a few changes, corrects a couple of
passages. The complicity between the two is obvious. the songwriter listens to
him, eyes shining with affection, then performs the song, holding the page with
the lyrics on her knees. When, in 2000, Hardy’s landlord tried to evict him,
the entire folk scene, with Vega at its head, rose up and took action to
protect that cult location. In 2001 he experienced the awful tragedy of the
death of his brother Jeff in the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers.
In 2010 he came to Italy once again for what would be his last exhibition
in this country. At the Teatro del Cuscino in Novara, in a concert organized by
his friend Quadrio, he sang one of his songs in Italian, “Brigata
Garibaldi," dedicated to the grandfather of songwriter Frank Mazzetti, who
had fought in the Spanish Civil War. A short time later lung cancer would
take Jack from us suddenly, on March 11, 2011, at the age of just 63. A few years
later, the friends of a lifetime paid him the tribute of a double CD, A
Tribute To Jack Hardy (Smithsonian Folkways 60007, in 2016), in which his
pieces were reinterpreted by, among others, Suzanne Vega, Nanci Griffith, Rod
MacDonald, Lucy Kaplansky, Terre Roche and John Gorka.
Hardy left an indelible imprint with his solo production, in addition to
his activity as a promoter of the folk scene and discoverer of talents. His
dream of seizing the artistic act at the instant of its performance to
capture all its energy would have been applauded by Marinetti and the Italian
Futurists. There is no doubt that in a hypothetical list of unsung
heroes of the singer-songwriter world and of artists little known yet
hugely important, Hardy occupies an outstanding role among the most influential
personalities of American music in the past century. Lucinda Williams, who
knows whereof she speaks when it comes to great songs, expressed all her love
for Hardy when she said “Jack wrote some of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever
heard.” And who can doubt Lucinda!
P.S.: I’d like to thank Cesare Rizzi, Adelmo Quadrio and Gigi Bresciani for
letting me rummage around in the attics of their memories.
Original article in Italian and translation provided with kind permission
of Adelmo Quadrio and Il Buscadero.