Nevada Bob Gordon Is On the Road Again

Nevada Bob at the grave of Robert Johnson.

There's something about surviving cancer that not only gives you "a new lease on life" but also a new attitude toward all of your future experiences. Nevada Bob Gordon had two things going for him: a wonderful lifelong love of 58 years and a willingness to do whatever hard work was necessary to make a go of whatever they had to face. 

That cancer at age 31 ought to have killed him. The doctors told him that he was finished. But Bob had other plans. This past year his wife Carol passed and Nevada Bob, who has an authoritative deep baritone voice, wrote a song for her which he recorded on his first album Long Train To Nowhere. "Carol's Song" is beautiful and heartfelt, in a Johnny Cash sort of way.

With the advent of the pandemic he decided also to write a book and is currently in talks with a potential publisher. 

There are some things Nevada Bob has in common with Bob Dylan. After Bob (Dylan) recorded Blonde On Blonde in Nashville, he went back and recorded another, an then another. So, it seems, Nevada Bob has just completed his second album.... in Nashville. 

Come along and ride this train.  

But there are two more pieces of that story. One of the key session musicians of Nashville's A-Team back in the 60s was Charlie McCoy, who played guitar on "Desolation Row" (recorded in New York) and a variety of instruments during Dylan's sessions in Nashville, including that Salvation Army trumpet accompaniment on "Rainy Day Women". Nearly sixty years later, and Charlie McCoy was there in the studio two weeks ago for Nevada Bob's second album, just has he had been there for Bob on Long Train To Nowhere.

There's one more parallel to the Dylan story I will add. No question about it, Dylan was not shy about photographers documenting nearly every aspect of his life. Nevada Bob has a photographer accompanying him, too. Gary Firstenbrg is a first rate photographer who has a passion for all things related to music history, especially the blues. The photos here are just a small portion of the images in my folder from their journey together through points of interest in the Deep South, courtesy Gary Firstenberg.

A lot of history down there.

Studio time.

Hanging out with an old friend.

After hours kickin' back with the boys.

Big mic for a big man.

Everything is bigger in Texas.

Nevada Bob with Charlie McCoy

Jokerman.

These boots are made for walkin'.

Just passin' through, singing the Delta blues.

Tailgating with Dolly Parton.

Ending where B.B. King had his beginning.

If a picture is worth a thousand words.... there's a lot of new stories here. Have a safe trip back to Nevada, Bob.

Links

Come Along and Ride Nevada Bob Gordon's Long Train to Nowhere

Gary Firstenberg's Turning Negatives Into Positives

Art and Food in the Deep South: Doin' the Charleston Shuffle

It has been my good fortune to have visited Savannah on a number of occasions, but I've never made it to the much ballyhooed Charleston with its rich cultural history. Fort Sumter squats in the middle of the bay, its claim to fame being the location of the first shot of the American Civil War in April 1861, 153 years ago later this week, and one of my favorite Civil War Cards when I was a kid.

Located on the Atlantic Coast about 100 miles north of Savannah, there seemed plenty evidence of idyllic Southern charm in this once vibrant cultural center, the oldest and second largest city of South Carolina.

The city has garnered high marks for its history, architecture and distinguished restaurants. According to Wikipedia, Charleston has received a large number of accolades, including "America's Most Friendly [City]" by Travel + Leisure in 2011 and in 2013 by Condé Nast Traveler, and also "the most polite and hospitable city in America" by Southern Living magazine.

Since we'd just been in Savannah, I was unable to perceive a distinctly warmer degree of friendliness, but I'm sure the local citizenry is pleased to have such accolades flung their way. The other description that stuck with me is, "If you like Savannah, Charleston is 10X what Savannah is."

Being our first visit here, we failed to really plan anything beyond a cursory walk amongst the historic buildings, graveyards and cobblestone lanes of this city on the sea. History buffs might have been immediately drawn to the fort, which is probably to be a target for our next pass. Naturally I felt drawn to pass through Gallery Row in the arts district as we meandered about the central corridors of town.

The Gibbes Museum.

It all passed too fast, and it seemed that everything we stopped to see had closed five minutes before. Seriously. We arrived at The Confederate Museum at 3:35 and The Gibbes Museum at 5:01. No harm done, really. We just kept walking, and seeing, and resting on one of the abundant city benches, and walking some more.

The endpoint of our journey was a relatively new restaurant called Husk, the offspring of award-winning chef Sean Brock of McCrady’s and the Neighborhood Dining Group. By coincidence we ate lunch next door to McCrady's. Brock's gained much publicity for his "low country cuisine." The three-year-old restaurant had atmospere for sure, and though the menu stimulated our taste buds, our praise of the dinner fare was not universally shared in our trio of explorers. My sides seemed dry and tasteless, and my mother's chicken was, in her opinion, ordinary. (Not what you expect from an expensive eatery.)

I mean no disrespect here. My snapper was wonderful and my son's cultivated palette found his meal quite sumptuous.

A variation of Canal Park's Art Dock?

Years ago I heard a defense of the pre-Civil War Southern lifestyle that went like this: "The North knows how to make money, the South knows how to spend it." Slavery aside, the appeal of "Southern Charm" was its connection to the European appreciation of aesthetics and manners, a worldview that strikes me now as being more akin to Epicureanism and even hedonism than Biblical. (Remember, this is the Bible Belt.)

As for the art in Charleston, well, they certainly have much there for people to see. At the corner of Broad Street and East Bay there's a street sign that reads, "Gallery Row." I poked in and out of each and came away convinced that there's probably a local art scene everywhere, but especially in places where there' history and beauty.

Much of what I personally saw seemed aimed at the tourist trade for whom this city is a Destination with a capital D. But if you peel back the surface a bit there was definitely plenty of evidence that some interesting work is taking place here and there. The Gibbes made the most notable impression as a place to follow and return to.... were one in the habit of being in the vicinity.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Embrace it.

Mississippi Burning

Well, despite the economic fireworks on Wall Street, they pulled it off. Obama and McCain made their appearances at Ole Miss in Oxford Town just as scheduled. Strange PR antics this week, but my guess is that we’ve not seen the end of any of it, so let’s be sure to keep our collective seat belts fastened.

I just finished reading (listening to) another great book, Ten Days That Unexpectedly Changed America by Steven Gillon, based on the History Channel series by the same name. It was interesting because the key word here is “unexpectedly.” They chose ten dates that were not the ones we might usually choose, like the signing of the Declaration of Independence or the attack on the Alamo. Instead they chose more obscure dates and issues which had wide ranging ramifications. Shay’s Rebellion was one such event. The assassination of William McKinley was another.

Interestingly enough, the tenth day in the book's ten events had to do with Mississippi and race relations in America. It dealt with the killing of three young civil rights workers who were taking part in the Freedom Summer efforts to register black voters. Two were white students from the North.

The chapter details the background of this tragedy as well as the fallout.

If you are not familiar with the great lengths to which the Southern white politicians made it near impossible for a black to vote, I strongly recommend the last chapter of this book as a place to begin your homework.

What was galling to many black leaders, however, was that blacks in Mississippi had been dreadfully oppressed, terrorized and mistreated for a hundred years, and no Federal action was taken. But when two whites from good families got killed here, the FBI came in by the boatload. No expense was spared to insure justice was carried out.

The film Mississippi Burning, starring Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe, is a powerful portrayal of this specific moment in our history. Though criticized for bending facts for the sake of story, one does come away with at least a partial sense of the terror of those times. And the tenth chapter of Gillon's exceptionally researched book vividly acquaints us with those details.

That being said, one hopes that the problems of voter registration in the Deep South are behind us. We have on the ballot our nation's first black candidate for our land's highest office. It would be a shame if blacks were still still hindered somehow due to continued shenanigans.

It's hard to say what the next four years will bring whoever reaches office. George Reedy, in his book The Twilight of the Presidency, wrote, "One of the American people's most cherished notions about the presidency is that the office somehow ennobles the occupant and renders him fit to meet any crisis." (p. 30) The American people love their myths.

As for the future, we can only hope for the best.