I was drunk the day my Momma got out of prison
The Globe and Mail has shocked me with some attention paid to the utterly wonderful Steve Goodman.All of us enjoy his superb "City of New Orleans" but there is also the perfect country song he helped formulate.
The review in the Globe makes me feel very sad I never saw him perform. Especially Michael Smith's magnificent "The Dutchman".
It also includes gratuitous stupidities - "He got his recording contract, improbably, thanks to Paul Anka, who spotted Goodman in a Chicago folk club." What does that "improbsbly" mean? Is the reviewer, Peter Feniak, simply expressing infantile and uninformed prejudices against the judgments and good sense of Paul Anka, and, if so, why? Paul Anka (an Ottawa boy) is one of the true geniuses of the music industry of the last 50 years, and his championing of Steve Goodman seems entirely consistent with all his other good calls. I wonder what similar calls Peter Feniak has made.
posted by Alan Adamson @ 7:38 AM
1 Comments:
Alan:
Good to see your post about the 5-26-07 G&M review of my Steve Goodman biography. Goodman often doesn't get his due, and I am most grateful to the G&M and Peter Feniak for such prominent treatment. I think the "improbable" comment relates to the different musical sensibilities of Goodman (a folkie at heart) and Anka (who had gone Vegas by that point). In the book itself, I quote Anka fairly extensively and give him his due, and I'm grateful that Anka granted me an interview. It was after more than five years of trying. I hope you get a chance to read the book someday. If you do, I would appreciate knowing what you think of it -- good, bad or ugly. Thanks again for the post!
Clay Eals
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