Fifty Years
Entry #6
June 30, 2024
I’ve been thinking about identity, and how modern humans learn to define themselves as they go through their lives. Sometimes those identities get redefined as the years pass, as people grow and experience and learn. Musical artists often have an onstage identity - a mask if you will - that’s different from their offstage identity. The artist him or herself is actually an artistic expression.
I once wrote a song with Darrell Scott that describes the outward presentation versus the inward sense of self. Titled “When There’s No One Around”, you can hear recorded versions by Darrell, by myself, and by none other than Garth Brooks, who has said that the lyrics describe him as he really is behind the mask, underneath the hat and the western shirt.
One of the more successful local groups in Boulder, Colorado 50 years ago was Dusty Drapes and the Dusters. The group started when several friends who played rock and jazz decided to play a night of country music. The show went well and they decided to do more. It wasn’t long before they’d all cut their long hair and bought Stetson hats and other western wear at Shepler’s. The name was just a lark, but bassist and vocalist Steve Swenson, who was a good front man, assumed the name Dusty Drapes and didn’t look back for the next ten years or so.
In 1974, as a member of Ophelia Swing Band I adopted the stage name “Howdy Skies”. I sorta thought of Howdy Skies as a happy Western Swing fiddler/singer/entertainer like Bob Wills and my costume was a western shirt and jeans with maybe a bolo tie or neckerchief. I was not the front man/MC for the group, more featured instrumentalist who sang the occasional song. It wasn’t a particularly deeply developed or elaborate roll, just something that hopefully added a little color to the presentation. In Ophelia Swing Band we all had stage names. Lead singer Dan Sadowsky was Flip Casey, fiddler Linda Joseph became Vicky Delmonico, and bassist Duane Webster was Bubba Barnhard. We later added percussionist Chaz Leary, who had already adopted the stage name Washboard Chaz. He had painted “CHAZ” in big letters on his washboard, and still decorates his washboard in that way.
Nancy Blake spoke to me once about an interview she and her husband Norman had done. The interviewer asked what music they played around the house, and one of them answered that they play stuff they’d recorded in the past. The interviewer thought it a little odd that they would spend their off time doing that. She kinda shrugged her shoulders and said, “People don’t understand that we use our music to define our lives.” I find that as I go along, I have more interest in retaining what I’ve already learned than in learning new things. Age is a likely factor in this trend, but maybe the life of an artist leads me there.
Does Junior Brown consciously play a roll? Does Sam Beam throw off his Iron and Wine identity offstage? The stage or artist name Old Man Luedecke seems to fit the curmudgeon character in many of his songs.
The members of Hot Rize were conscious that we were not from southern Appalachia and didn’t learn ballads from our elders or grow up on farms (Nick knew about farm work though). When we dressed in suits and wore colorful ties from the 1940’s and ‘50’s, we were placing ourselves in the mold of early bluegrass bands. We aimed to pay tribute to stage presentations of folks like Flatt and Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers and of course Bill Monroe, but we were also just trying to fit in. We figured if we dressed more like a traditional bluegrass band, we could get away with an electric bass, a phase shifted banjo, and jazzy mandolin licks. Our outfits weren’t set when we started but the suits became the formal stage wear, especially after a few months when our flashy original guitarist Mike Scap quit the band. Charles Sawtelle switched from bass to guitar after that, and our rhythm style soon solidified around his guitar playing. It was funkier and very soulful, and it occasionally stepped outside normal lines in a unique way. Hot Rize made its reputation with that sound and look.
Later we decided to play the part of another band during concerts, with a quick costume change and different instruments in our hands. The different music - Hank Williams and Bob Wills sounds played with solos on steel guitar and electric guitar instead of Flatt and Scruggs and Bill Monroe stuff with banjo and mandolin - cried out for a different identity. So now we had our somewhat invented neo-bluegrass band identities, to which we added a new set of neo-honkytonk band identities. We sorta put our own true personalities into the centrifuge, separating out the slightly urbane hipster Hot Rize roll from the under educated, blithely yokel Red Knuckles roll. I was Red Knuckles and I was mostly the straight man who prompted gags with Pete Wernick’s steel playing alter-ego Waldo Otto, or Nick Forster’s applause addicted electric guitarist Wendell Mercantile. Charles Sawtelle’s character was the mysterious Slade. I used to ask him if Slade was his first or last name, and he’d make a big deal about coming up to the vocal mic to answer, “That’s right Red!” Later Slade’s character stopped speaking altogether. When Sam Bush, Darol Anger, or Eddie Stubbs sat in on fiddle, they played the roll of Waldo Otto’s brother Elmo Otto. If I’m not mistaken, Washboard Chaz once sat in with the Trailblazers with the name “CHUCK” painted on his washboard, his own alter ego that day being “Scrub-board Chuck”.
I’ve always thought that performing is putting a dressed up and rehearsed version of yourself into a stage roll. Some people - not me - seem to have a sense of themselves, knowledge of who they are and what they can and can’t be. Bob Dylan formed his artistic identity as he went, but when he changed styles, he kept the same stage name. At one point in his illustrious career Garth Brooks tried on a rock identity named Chris Gaines but he ditched it quickly.
When I left Hot Rize, I ditched the costumes and worked on my own identity as plain old Tim. I was free to do what I wanted, and given that my attention easily wanders, my music jumped regularly from genre to genre. I might have confused people less if I’d have stuck to one thing in my solo carreer. Also, I focused more on songwriting in my new solo identity. Now all these years later, I’m known for an eclectic style and for the songs.
In the past months I’ve been working towards putting a songbook together. Randy Barrett who was responsible for the recent book on Ben Eldridge’s banjo style, will put the book out on his Barcroft Books imprint, and we agreed to include 40 songs. It was interesting to go back through the catalog and measure the songs against each other. I can see that I’ve developed as a writer, maybe gotten a little better. I’m amazed that I have been able to keep finding new things to write about, and that in spite of all the growth over the years, all the songs still sound like they’re mine.
A friend once remarked that what you’ve done eventually defines who you are.
How does a human learn? We’re lucky if we have good teachers, starting with a mother and a father, but there’s a lot to be said for trial and error, for blind luck and imitation. From the trial and error, you learn what works and what doesn’t, and you work to embellish and strengthen the working things, discard and hide what doesn’t. I guess that’s the overall learning process for any activity.