This edition of ON the Beat was originally emailed to subscribers on July 6, 2023. To receive Josef Woodard’s music newsletter in your inbox each Thursday, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.
Great American Songwriter in the House
A short list of undeniably great songwriters of the past half-century, after the Great American Songbook creators, is an inherently subjective topic to broach. From this seat, the top-five list would include Burt Bacharach, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Randy Newman, and Jimmy Webb. Webb’s now-and-again life as a solo artist was always eclipsed by the traveling power of his songs as sung by luminaries, but it can be great to hear it from the conjurer’s mouth, as we’ll get a chance when he makes a rare local appearance, at the Lobero on Thursday, July 13.
Webb has somehow managed to burrow into the heart of pop craft while concocting his own sophisticated dialect as a songwriter, a gift that, in his best tunes, worked wonders and added up to a thinking person’s ear-candy box. Certainly, that magical balance found profound expression in songs ennobled by Glen Campbell — especially the masterpiece “Wichita Lineman,” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” as well as through such gems in his songography as the hypnotic “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress” (widely covered, and with a definitive version by Linda Ronstadt, with Little Feat’s Bill Payne at the piano) and “Highwayman” (beautifully cut by The Highwaymen).
Let’s not forget that peculiar ode to an existential pastry, “MacArthur Park,” made a hit by Richard Harris but for my money made immortal by Frank Sinatra, or the weirdly infectious “Up, Up and Away,” the perky hit for the Fifth Dimension. In all, Webb work accounts for some of the finer, not necessarily categorizable pop songs in the history of pop. Says me and millions of others.
Music Academy Corner
As we ease into the hearty thicket of the Music Academy’s summer bounty of classical music offerings, the bigger marquee events grab at our attentions. Take, for instance, last Saturday night’s splashy symphonic takeover of The Granada Theatre, to the bigger-is-better tune of Holst’s The Planets — plus a delightful West Coast premiere of ascending Black composer Jessie Montgomery’s melodically and texturally mobile new jewel, Hymn for Everyone. Famed maestro Osmo Vänskä led the Academy Festival Orchestra, up to its usual high caliber tricks, capped off by Holst’s jukebox-y parade of planetary tributes — a strong influence on John Williams’s Star Wars scores — and Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide as a ripe appetizer.
But there are plenty of other pleasures in the margins of the Academy calendar (check the calendar here), including open-to-the-public master classes, humble yet cool chamber concerts such as the “Chamber Night” in the small Lehmann Hall next Wednesday (July 12), and more.
And then, in a special corner all its own, there is the delicious sneak attack of the “picnic concert” phenom. Each year, Fridays belong to the picnic concert tradition, where young Academy fellows rule the stage and come up with personal programs — uncharted waters, compared to the mostly pre-programmed concerts elsewhere on the calendar. Concertgoers are also invited to bring a picnic to the sylvan grounds of Music Academy’s Miraflores estate, pre-concert.
The series officially opened last Friday, with a refreshingly unconventional program/menu. Opening on a Ukrainian note (or series of notes), Ukrainian violinist Veronika Manchur (who we’d see as Academy Fellows Orchestra concertmaster at the Granada the following night) gave us Ukrainian composer Myroslav Skoryk’s gutsy and rustic Carpathian Rhapsody. Pianist Benjamin Pawlak was her partner. Moving to a different but nearby global cultural corner, violinist Arin Sarkissian (with harpist Kaitlin Miller) paid passionate tribute to the folk and “serious music” roots of his Armenian heritage, with folk-inspired scores by Komitas and others.
Other highlights on this musical picnic: the bitonal blues variation from Ravel’s Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano in G, boldly delivered by violinist Oliver Leitner and pianist Forrest Howell, an engaging trombone-ly foursome on Dutch composer Saskia Apon’s Trombone Quartet No. 1 (including the cool, hocketing “Deel Twee” movement), and Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano in D. Here violinist Steven Song and pianist Jihyun Oh did the honors, and with apt degrees of salty wit and almost romantic yearning. Almost is the key word, this being Prokofiev.
Wednesday Night Prayer ’n’ Roll Meeting
If it’s true that rock ’n’ roll is based on a critical, delicate balance of Saturday-night and Sunday-morning energies — party-time abandon meeting the unmistakable influence of gospel music — Paul Thorn is one of America’s primary evangelists for the notion. The former boxer and Southern rocker from Mississippi is, after all, the son of a preacher and nephew of a pimp — as duly explored on his Americana hit album Pimps and Preachers.
When he shows up for a good timing and gospel-tinged live show — as with his potent Mavericks Saloon show last Wednesday, in the “Tales from the Tavern” series — Thorn manages to seem streetwise, ribald, sweet-hearted, and true. Joined by his hot and flexible band with musical South in its mouth, Thorn, 58, powered through and charmed with a two-set show including such tunes as “800 Pound Jesus,” “Too Blessed to be Stressed,” “I Don’t Like Half the Folks I Love,” and, natch, “Pimps and Preachers.”
His inner preacher came out during an encore of “Get You a Healin,’” with Thorn wriggling his way down into the packed saloon, pressing flesh and healing us in his own special way. It’s as if Thorn is ordained by some sacred/profane halfway house party denomination of his own devising.
TO-DOINGS:
In a case of a veteran club-owning musician from Los Angeles landing onstage in Santa Barbara’s own prime eatery/showcase club haven, keyboardist Don Randi (with his band Quest) plays SOhO this Sunday, July 9. Randi was a part of the legendary studio musician aggregate known as the Wrecking Crew and has worked his musician trade in various ways but is best known for maintaining one of the longest-lasting jazz joints in L.A., the Baked Potato, born in 1970. There, in a woodsy hang zone in North Hollywood, you can soak in riff-slingers with a fusion leaning and partake of baked potatoes made in myriad ways. No word yet on whether SOhO will bust out a special baked potato item for the occasion.
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