Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss

I may have crossed the line last night in my enthusiastic banter with our performers, at SFJazz the Joe Henderson stage.

As Mads Tolling was introducing his version of the 1974 Jimmy Webb song, “Wichita Lineman” I blurted out that the song is about Texas, not Kansas.

Then I publicly pledged that if I was wrong I would donate a million dollars to Mads favorite charity.

Yet, back home and at my computer, the evidence is not so clear.

Jimmy Webb was born in Oklahoma and raised in Oklahoma and Texas — evidence that implies that he was thinking or wanting us to think Wichita Falls and Wichita County, north Texas, on the border of Oklahoma, when he titled his lonely worker.

He also has songs about Galveston Texas.

Yet, The New York Times obituary said that Glen Campbell sang songs about “Galveston, Texas and Wichita, Kansas”. (I sent a note to the writer, Jim Farber, to no avail).

I don’t know how I started to think Jimmy Webb was writing about Wichita Falls and not Wichita Kansas.

Maybe Freedy Johnston told me. He is a singer-songwriter from back east who lived in Texas for a while and now lives in Portland.

There’s also a local leader — who was on the Historic Resources Board — Beth Bunnenberg who made a point to tell me she was from Wichita Falls, Texas, before Palo Alto.

I apologize to Mads and band and the audience for causing such a commotion. I said “Are there any Texans in the house”. A lady in the fifth row nodded her head. But Tammy Hall, from the piano, ad libbed “Texas is a good place to be from“. She told me last fall, after her show at Johnson Park in honor of historian and MLK expert Claiborne Carson, that she was from Texas. I promised to send her a copy of Annette Gordon Reed’s memoir about Texas and Juneteenth. (MLK by the way is from Atlanta before Alabama — he is the subject of a new book by Jonathan Eig, the one with the yellow cover).

I thought Mads trio with Tammy Hall piano and Marcus Shelby bass was a wonder. Set list; Monk, Mysterioso; Joe Henderson Black Narcissus; Theme from “The Flintstones>>Who Could Ask for Anything More by George Gershwin — Mads says its a contrafact, a new song built on the chords or changes of a known other; Wichita Lineman. An original Topsy Turvey based on Brubeck’s second most popular song, something about Turkey. (I guess not knowing the names of Brubeck’s tunes limits my credibility about Jimmy Webb and Glen Campbell).

I wonder how many more shows Mads Tolling, Tammy Hall and Marcus Shelby would have to do as a trio before they could play the main stage at SFJazz, which featured Keyon Harrold celebrating Miles Davis’s birthday). I wonder if there are plans to record together. I wonder how the trio came about. I suggest that next time each member calls out a song; Tammy and Marcus both lead their own groups beyond their considerable demand as side-people. Marcus also is creative director for Healdsburg Jazz Festival.

Mads Tolling appears Wednesday June 21 in Palo Alto, an Earthwise show featuring the debut of Will Bernard guitar, James Singleton (from NOLA) upright bass Charles Rumback (from Chicago) on drums.

Jazz is the only field wherein a BLT with bacon lettuce and tomato is different from a TLB with tomato lettuce and bacon.

I suggest TAMAMA or To Mama or Tu Mama for this trio. Maybe To Momma. To Momma Trio?

BW

Kudos to Aleta Hayes and Stanford’s Dance department for an amazing show at the old Roble Gym parts of which are now called Harry Elam Theatre. The show was a tribute to Bell Hooks, who attended Stanford. (Aleta Hayes leads Chocolate Heads, is senior lecturer in dance, and sang with William Parker for many years or tours — she is from Fresno before Stanford, Palo Alto, Princeton and New York City).

 

Sources:

Last:

one is the deal with the Australian line dance almost “the Madison” that is set to Tina Turner “Nutbush City Limit”. And how is “nut bush” in the context of Tina Turner not about sex?

I had an extra ticket so tried to invite Jose Cuellar aka Dr Loco but he said he has just finished hitting at SF Carnival with Bernal Beat. He appears in September at Guild Theatre, Menlo Park a benefit for farmworkers. Guild Theatre meanwhile won approval to expand their cultural empire into the Menlo Clockworks store adjacent. They say that they will feature acoustic and not amplified music seven nights a week. Interesting. On one hand, of the 1,000 acts I’ve presented, only one, Asylum Street Spankers out of Austin, claimed to be all acoustic (and no, in their vernacular, “devil electricity”); on the other hand, a governmental decree against amplified music — and not based on decibels per se — is an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. A noise ordinance that is not narrow tailored is against the law. Any noise restrictions at the new Guild annex should be based on noise complaints not weather Mads Tolling uses looping and amplifiers for his violin and effects. (Now that I have looped back to my main topic…).

Cuts: “Blue Rondo a la Turk” is the first track on side one of Time Out the 1959 album by The Dave Brubeck Quartet — that has “Take Five” as track number 3. Mads said that “Blue Rondo” is the second most covered or most popular Brubeck original.

Jimmy Webb to share stories behind G…expressnews.com

San Antonio Express News

How Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Linema…” inside hook.com

Galveston: A Look Back at Glen Campbell…wideopencountry.com

Jimmy Webb on writing “Highwayman..”texasmonthly.com

Glen Campbell’s Wichita Lineman: the bbc.com

Glen Campbell’s recording of Oklahoma…oklahoman.com

Behind the Song: Glen Campbell “Wic..” amerciansongwriter,com

Songwriter Jimmy Webb Reflects on G…texasstandard.com

A lineman for his country. jimmywebb.com post grow your blog community

“Wichita Lineman”: the story Behind t…sandraheyersongs.com

Jimmy Webb — Wikipedia

Wichita Lineman – Wikipedia

Washita County, Oklahoma – wikipedia

…I am implying that my understanding, based on sources I do not recall, is accurate and 10 other websites and online internet sources might be wrong. I am not going as far as to write to either Jimmy Webb directly or to the author of a book about him, but I do hope that journalist whose obituary graced the New York Times responds. Actually, come to think of it, I went to high school one year with Jim Yardley an editor of the Times. Or assistant managing editor. Maybe I can appeal to him and claim that Glen Campbell’s obituary is potentially inaccurate. He could ask Jim Farber to defend his statement that Glen Campbell wrote songs about “Wichita, Kansas”. If Yardley says I am wrong and need to make good on my statement of donating a million dollars to charity, I will consider the matter settled. I was Yardley’s editor for the Gunn Oracle in 1981.

I think its possible that based on the exact geography and population density, the lone figure in the song was closer to Texas than Kansas but over the years Glenn or Jimmy amended those facts to include the more popular and well-known Kansas city. And only Texans, like Beth Bunnenberg and Freedy Johnston would insist — apocryphally — that the song is about a Texan not a midwesterner. I guess my activism is to include the lesser known Wichita Falls into the minds of song listeners, as much as to be accurate or a debunker. It’s to open people’s minds to the possibility of the ambiguity per se. I am a line-blurred for the county or country. I am an anti-line mine. Last word: Mads quipped that Marcus quipped that he thought the song was about football.

The song was written in 1968.Glen’s version reached #3 and stayed in the top 100 for 15 weeks. Notable jazz versions include those by Fred Hersch in 2019 and Alan Pascua, 2005, Cryptogramahone owned by fiddler Geoff Gauthier), Sergio Mendes, Ray Charles, Jose Feliciano and The Meters.