Layers of color streak by as the train rushes north. The gray of the Hudson River lies beneath the greens and browns of the pine trees, all under an orange and lemon sky, all moving in different directions. The water flows south, the trees hold steady, and the sun slips into the evening. Syracuse is still a few hours away, plenty of time to relax, listen to music, and enjoy the ride. I’m going to visit my dad. This will be the first time I see his new room in the memory care unit.
***
In the summer of ’93, my ex and I got restaurant jobs and lived on Cape Cod for the summer. Her boss got wind of my music obsession and gave me a crate of records he didn’t want. There was a lot of Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin, but those were easy to offload. Also buried in that batch were records by Hound Dog Taylor, Gatemouth Brown, and Taj Mahal, blues legends I’d never heard of. Those gems have only sounded better over the years. They resurfaced yet again during the pandemic and led me to wondering about contemporary blues musicians. Cue Selwyn Birchwood.
***
My dad once had a thing for indulgent purchases. When I was a kid, he bought a Camaro. Not as his second car, there was no such thing, but as the family car. He was married with three kids, and he set his sights on a 1983 white Camaro. My mom fumed. The backseat was so small, one of us had to lay on the floor during long trips.
Casey: “It was a Berlinetta. I definitely remember riding in the ‘way back.’ Not dad’s smartest choice.”
***
Even a cursory spin of Selwyn Birchwood’s third album, Living in a Burning House, makes it evident he’s a red hot guitarist. Whether he blasts from the outset of a song or hangs back until a transition or solo, Birchwood can uncork guitar pyrotechnics with broad appeal. But his guitar playing is only one ingredient. He’s also a great blues singer with the right amount of raspy in his voice and a compelling conviction in his delivery. When he sings of devotion, like “I’d Climb Mountains,” I believe he would. When he sings a love song like “She’s a Dime” (“She ain’t no six, seven, eight, or nine/She’s a dime”), I’d be glad for the song’s narrator whether or not I was in a healthy relationship. Birchwood has a way of bringing listeners in by favoring songs that stick over displays of prowess that might quickly dissipate, an auteur’s sense of the big picture.
***
My dad was unpredictable. His feelings stayed in until they didn’t, which could be confusing and scary. But my love for music comes from him. He played guitar and sang in wedding bands in the ‘70s and early ‘80s. First, Country Jam and then Middle of the Road. His guitar and amp were part of the living room landscape. That’s where he figured out chords and lyrics for the songs his bands would cover. Atop his tube amp sat a binder of typed notes with handwritten edits, a shoebox of blank cassettes, and an early boombox. I wasn’t drawn to much of the music he listened to—mostly the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, and the like—but seeing my dad break down songs is the earliest memory I have of seeing music in motion. Gradually we found common ground in blues and country. I taped those Hound Dog Taylor, Gatemouth Brown, and Taj Mahal records for him. He turned me onto Ray Charles and Willie Nelson. Conversation was never easy for us but putting on one of his CDs, whether at his house or in the car, was an ever-reliable ice breaker.
***
“I find peace in the sound
of singing my diary out loud
so you don’t have to guess
what it is I’m all about”
-“Through a Microphone”-Selwyn Birchwood
***
After the scope of Birchwood’s talents sinks in, come the details, the touches that elevate Burning House. He’s a fine arranger with a knack for placing horns and keyboards in the mix, sweetening the periphery rather than flooding the foreground. As a writer, he seems aware of the tropes but bends them to suit and amplify his perspective. In “Freaks Come Out at Night,” he writes about his version of rowdy—playing guitar and frying catfish over a campfire. I appreciate that as much for what it is (a good kind of troublemaking) as what it is not (that country music rowdy which makes me nervous). He’s not a confessional writer but presents a vulnerability that grounds the flashier side of his talents. He sings about his faith (“Revelation”) and feeling like “a loner who never likes being alone” (“Searching For My Tribe”). In other hands, “You Can’t Steal My Shine” might come across like a “Keep your chin up!” greeting card. But when Birchwood sings “you can take my bed because I’m already woke” he’s clearly not just talking about his mood or possessions. It seems to me he’s speaking of Black pride and resistance. Classic blues for the modern age.
***
My dad tempered his spending impulses as he aged. But at the turn of the century, after my grandmother passed and left him a bit of money, he treated himself to a Gibson SG electric guitar, a dark red hollow body. In recent years his memory started to fade. He got lost while driving. His sleep and eating habits fell off. He played guitar less, too, though with the slightest prompting he’d talk about how sweet that Gibson sounded and how easy it was to play because the action was low.
Eventually he had to stop driving and begrudgingly move to an assisted living facility. To ease the transition, my brothers, sister-in-law, and I tried to make his new apartment as comfortable as possible. Family photos covered the walls. CDs were placed next to the television, and the Gibson was within arm’s reach of the couch on a new stand. On moving day, I put on one of his John Lee Hooker discs. “Oh yeah!” he responded, “this is the kind of music we like.” I never felt a stronger connection to my dad.
***
Jeff Parker’s Forfolks is a different kind of electric guitar album. It’s a quieter, solo record, all instrumental with Parker weaving layers of overdubs. Introverted compared to Birchwood’s extroverted Burning House, but no less striking. When my partner Joh’s dad first heard Forfolks he literally stopped in his tracks—“Whoa, who is this?”—and asked to see the album cover. “This reminds me of American Garage by Pat Metheny.” I don’t know Metheny’s records, but took it as high praise because among the records he’d recently passed on to Joh was a treasure trove of early ‘60s era jazz gems, including Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, and Jimmy Giuffre. Forfolks is a record with reach.
***
But he never settled into the place. He couldn’t fill his time. He missed driving, or at least the idea of it. He’d get antsy and agitated. He stopped listening to his CDs and his guitar lay dormant. Instead, he kept packing up the photos and CDs—even the Gibson—and insisted he was moving out. Sometimes back to his old house. Sometimes to Maine, where he hadn’t lived since before he went to Vietnam in 1966. One time he was convinced he needed to return to Canada, where he’d never lived before.
***
Parker has an inviting tone and conducts multiple currents, layers that tend to be mellow and mid-tempo, but have such depth and clarity. The effects are more exponential than additive. For example, “Four Folks” has one looped line with soloing on top and a hypnotic backdrop that fades in and out. The blankets of sound are so warm, but also so light, almost without mass, packets of energy. “Flour of Fur” opens with two guitar lines, one droning like an organ, the other buoyant and jittery. One to lose yourself in, one to follow forward. It’s like entering Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (or insert your favorite “lone astronaut in the space station” existential adventure), a reassuring glimpse of the infinite or as eerie as you’ll let it be.
***
By the time I arrived in Syracuse, my dad had been in his new room in the memory care unit for a couple of weeks. The room was much smaller and his movement was restricted to a smaller part of the facility. His days were less open-ended and filled with scheduled meals and activities. Following the nurses’ advice, the photos and CDs, even the Gibson, had been removed. The sight of such a sparse room bummed me out, but my dad beamed when he showed off his room, more content than I’d seen him in years. All the artifacts that I thought would continue to bring him joy had lost their meaning. They’d become distractions, maybe irritants, Tetris pieces that kept raining down and he didn’t know how to manipulate them. It was counterintuitive for me, but having less stuff to manage—memories and music of all things—and more structure in his days, worked for him.
***
“Excess Success” is my favorite track. It’s the longest song and Parker makes the most of the larger canvas. The main riff, two bars of quarter notes quietly chugging along, is mesmerizing. It’s magnetic, too. I’m so drawn to that line I’ll search for it when Parker moves it to the background later in the song. Other times I’ll think how, with minor alterations in attack and/or volume, it could dovetail with a Bob Marley song. Other times Fugazi. It’s incredibly malleable. And that’s only part of the picture. The organ-like drone returns and there’s a bounty of delicate soloing to consider as well. I’m not sure how things of such varying mass and velocity stay connected, or at least in close enough proximity to flow together. It’s amazing how Parker expresses complex ideas so clearly, more Kurt Vonnegut than James Joyce. I wonder if Forfolks left Parker with piles of discarded ideas or if he’s able to cut to the chase with his initial outlines. Clearly, Forfolks can prompt mental rambling. To be fair, there have been numerous occasions where I’ve merely marveled. It’s perfectly suited for either pursuit.
***
I’m used to listening to my Dad’s CDs when I visit. I realize the next time I take a train to Syracuse that won’t happen, so I’ll bring some great guitar records. I’m pretty sure he’ll flip for Selwyn Birchwood and Jeff Parker.
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