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BOOK 4. A Thanksgiving with “Tutsie, Foxy, Mighty Whitey, and Captain Timmy”
(On Thanksgiving Day 2009, Tuts and Tim and Nicky and I took a little trip together up to Jos Van Dyke to see the Fox. We were talking with him and Tessa about doing a three-man concert there featuring Ruben, Nicky and Myself, that now sadly will never be. In this Thanksgiving post, I‘ve tried to capture some of what was so wonderful about that time together.)
From “Book 4. A Little Trip To Jos Van Dyke”…
Today is Thanksgiving and we will pass it it in a small sail boat called “Stargazer” with Tuts, Captain Timmy Carstephen, Nicky “Mighty Whitey” Russel and The “First lady of ALL The Virgins” The Good Lady Delia, ( of St. Thomas, Harlem, Haight Ashbury, and Tortola) We will be on our way to spend the day with our old friend “Sir Foxy”, (recently Knighted by The Queen Of England, honest) in Jos Van Dyke, in the British Virgin Islands.
We have been planning a trip to see our friend Philiciano Callwood aka “The Fox” aka Foxy. He has a beach front bar in Jos Van Dyke, that has become quite popular over the years. We are going up to see him about scheduling a concert. Tuts and Timmy and Nicky and I have each and all known him for many years. Tuts and I have known him the longest, in fact since we were all boys living in Bournefield in the 1950’s.. Philiciano (or Phillie as he was known then} was brought down from Jos Van Dyke to St. Thomas by his mother, who worked as a house keeper for Mrs. Creque and the three naughty Creque daughters.
They all lived in the huge pink Creque Mansion on the “Hidaway Road”. A Mansion large enough (people said) to contain both Heaven and Hell in equal measure, and according to he girls.. it certainly did.
That any of them survived the Creque Mansion is the kindest kind of miracle, and Foxy’s subsequent success may be proof positive that the long sufferin’ can earn and redeem good karma points. Knowing (and loving) the Creque girls as we do, Tuts and I can “vouchify and attest” that he earned ‘em, every one.
These many years later, we (and they) are all very happy for his good fortune. That good fortune includes falling in with the Lady Tessa, late of wildest Australia, who turned out to be his Ms, his match and his mate.
As I mentioned, our little group of travelers includes a lady who is also a legend in her own time, “Miss Delia” of St. Thomas, Harlem, Haight Ashbury and Tortola. Our little crew are all miraculous survivors.
We have been “adults” since childhood, which means our childhood lives were shot thorough with adult concerns and behaviors like “where are my cigarettes and where is my rum” and our adult lives shot through with the behaviors and of concerns of childhood, like ”where are my cigarettes and where is my rum” (while Tuts and I got clean and sober long ago or we would be long gone, recovery doesn’t change the past or the depth and longevity of the connection between and among kindred spirits)
We are intending to sail up to “The Foxes Tamarind” on Timmy’s 28 foot sail boat “The Star Gazer” Timmy (I should call him “Captain Timmy,” he’s had his Captain’s papers since he was 18) has been sailing these waters since he was a child. First on his family’s beautiful 48 foot, black hulled Ketch “The Shellback” and then on the mighty “Maverick” certainly one of the most beautiful awe and dream inspiring sailing ships to ever grace the harbor at Charlotte Amalia.
One of my very earliest songs was about the Maverick.
“Maverick Sailing On the tide
Maverick where are you bound tonight
With new born child below, blow ye winds oh blow
Keep them safe from rock and wave and blow ye winds oh blow
Maverick, take me for a ride
Maverick, I need a place to hide
From things I should not know, Blow ye winds oh blow
Keep us safe from rock and wave, and take us where we want to go”
We are all children of “Trader Dan’s” a St. Thomas, waterfront bar that drew and welcomed one and all, (including school children in our two-tone uniforms and empty book straps).
There was no minimum drinking age in the Islands in those days (I had been buying rum on credit at the local shops for my mother and stepfathers, since I was six) and those of us with a predilection, or as the recovery materials put it “a predisposition to alcoholism” were blindly (no pun, I mean it) demonstrating what early onset familial (genetic) alcoholism looks and sounds (and feels) like. We were having the time of our lives.
As I’ve said, that any one of us survived (many, maybe most, didn’t) is really quite unexpected, but here we are sailing out of the lagoon, and east to Jos Van Dyke. We have all made this trip in many a vessel over the years.
One trip found Tim and Tuts and I in an ocean racing Donzi with my little twins Lelia and Archie, and their beautiful Mother Annie. We stopped at Sandy Cay” on the way up that day, and had to swim ashore with the little ones. Archie rode on Tut’s back like the Ginge bread man, and Twinkle rode on mine (yes, yes, they were wearing their little life vests) still it was so exciting for them that they have never forgotten, (their Mother has likely never forgotten either), What a beautiful and exciting windblown day that was, and what a beautiful and calming day this is, as we sail on Timmy’s little “Star Gazer”.
The sea breeze is extraordinary; it’s coming down through (Sir Francis) Drake’s Passage and across Pillsbury sound bringing the coolest freshest air imaginable. Its way too easy to forget how good it feels head to toe, body and soul, to sail these waters and to sip this sweet sweet breeze…
Tuts is talking like he’s having a flashback to the swim in which he became the first native Virgin Islander in known history to swim from St. Thomas to St John.
“Look, look” he says, there’s the two poles on St. Thomas that I saw from the tip top of the giant wave, and there is the undersea cables that I told you about! And look, look how the current is trying to sweep everything southwest; out of the sound and into the sea, “De nex stop out dey is New Orleans m’boy, Wha? Not me again meson, not me again!” “But Tuts,” somebody says, “dem boy sae you ‘fraid!, an das why yu ain’ gon do it again, dem boy sae yu ‘fraid man, yu ‘fraid!
“Oy fraid? Oy fraid? Yu damn right ah ‘fraid”, he says indignantly, “Who ain’ fraid a out dey, schipid in dey ass! Meson, yu don know dey got Shak out here big like de Bismark? Me bouy, de shak dem so big yu cou drive a safari truck on dem, in fact if yu wan tu know de whole trut, das de onliest way I mek it to Sain John.
Off to the left are the beautiful gold and green islands of Thatch Key, then Congo and Luango. We see the remains of the old great house of the plantation on Luango, where the white overseer was dispatched by freedom seeking slaves in the first moments of the St. John uprising of 1733.
Beyond the keys, to the North and East is Jos’ Van Dyke. An Island named after a Dutch Pirate Captain but settled by the Quakers and part of the British Virgins. When the English renounced slavery in 1833, the Quakers on Jos’ gave the land to the people that they had held in bondage there.
The Danes abolished slavery in 1849 consequently slaves in St. John were always trying to find their way to Jos Van Dyke and Tortola and freedom. In fact there is a huge iron sugar cane boiling kettle on the sand in Jos’ that a St. John slave was able put his wife and children into, and sail (or row) them safely all the way to Jos Van Dyke and freedom. When I first came up to see the fox in the sixties, the iron kettle was still on the beach.
We slide up to a new concrete wharf and head for the old wooden customs office only, now it’s a new concrete customs office, where we discover that the gentle portly gentleman who had manned the post since salt met water, had been called away to work the customs house at the Pearly Gates.
As Delia and the current customs gent negotiated, I spotted our friend Ruben Chinnery sitting at a table under the trees in front of a little beach side café, We have all known Ruben for at least forty five years, and Tuts and I for closer to fifty, back then, Tuts and Ruben and I had a little “Band” that knocked the living hell out of “Perfidia” I was the singing Sax man, Tuts played the Trumpet and Ruben strangled the guitar til’ it squeaked for mercy. Good lord we loved to play that song. it was also the only one we could play. Perfidia and nothing but Perfidia.
We have jammed together at Foxy’s many times since then, and we are here today to see about setting up a gig in which Ruben, Nicky, (Mighty Whitey) and I would be playing together all day long (maybe three sets each and one or two super long jams)
After speaking with Tessa and The Fox, it’s on. We will decide on the date at a future time. That done, we socialize… hug and smooch and then…we head back down Pillsbury Sound.
Between little St. James and the entrance to the Lagoon, Timmy (the Captain of the little ship) cuts the engine and announces that we aren’t going any further until he hears a few specific tunes. The mighty fine fellow hands me my guitar and says “The first one is “Mademoiselle”.
The boat is rocking like crazy and I am sitting on the roof of the cabin, so I jam a foot against a stanchion and the other against the life lines and, once properly “jammed”, I sing my friggin’ heart out. It isn’t everyday that tough, and weathered, beaten but not bowed, hombres honor me in this way. I am really touched that my lifelong tough guy compadres feel this way about my music, and I will fall overboard and drown, guitar and all before I will disappoint them.
Here’s a recent “LIVE” recording of Mademoiselle..
Scott Fagan and The MAAC Island Band Release New Album “10 Great Songs In Search Of An Audience”
Book 4. Scott Fagan and The MAAC Island Band, Release New Album “10 Great Songs In Search Of An Audience” www.10greatsongsinsearchofanaudience.com
That’s the headline, here’s the story…These songs (and many other songs of mine) have not found their audiences because, after all is said and done, I have not been successful at promoting myself to the point where audiences have heard these songs and accepted or rejected them. Complexly, It’s simply that simple.
For one reason and another I have always been inhibited about promoting myself. At this point that is unlikely to change. I am really relieved for my son Stephin (Merritt) that he has Claudia (Gonson) to help him with that, because if left entirely to the elements for self promotion that he inherited from his dear mudder dear and his fine pater fer’tater, the boy might be raising Chihuahuas. Not unlike his Grand Father the Great Frankie “Tic Tac Toe Trio” Galvin, who couldn’t promote himself either, and wound up in a skeeter riddled rust bucket trailer in “El Swampo De Los Everglades” with little Beau “The Father Abraham of Chihuahuas”, and Beau’s multiple wifeys and Babble barking nations of offspring.
So the point is.. this release, this album, is about the songs and not the dude that yodels ’em. That is why it is titled as it is and why it is a mix of sessions here, there and everywhere. The trick is to get the songs to the people that will love them or leave them alone. Songs are born to have a life (and relationships) of their own, but they have to get out there in order for that to occur. My job (after wrassling the thing out of the ether) is to get the song heard by whatever means possible. I love these songs and have spent many years trying to get them to you. I’m going to try my very best to promote them. I sincerely hope they find you this time. That’s the story Morning Glory.
P.S. Oh yes! Please go and give them a listen, and if you like one or more, then please pass them on www.10greatsongsinsearchofanaudience.com Thank you, Scott Fagan 2012
Book 4. “10 Great Songs In Search Of An Audience”
I’ve just started a kickstarter project called “10 Great Songs In Search Of An Audience” which is the title of the new album that ! (along with the MAAC Island Band) am trying to finish up (we have four more tunes to go) If you have enjoyed my posts and identify at all with my passions and proclivities, then please by all means do what you can to support the project.
Just go to www.kickstarter.com and look for 10 Great Songs In Search Of An Audience and follow their directions!
I think that this could be the break through album (this is not to say that I don’t enjoy being your very own secret artist and that I’m anxious to abandon you in favor of universal accolades, pieces of eight, the lusty waterfront wenches of Trader Dan’s, money in the bank, clean clothes, a new set of guitar strings and something to eat) rather it means I’d very much like to have something tangible to leave for my long sufferin’ little ones who have heard their dear father dear described, damned and dismissed as everything but a success.
Ah well…Yes indeed, please do go and listen/see what these “10 Great Songs In Search Of An Audience” are all about and whether or not you like im’.
Here is our most recent recording from the album “10 Great Songs In Search Of An Audience”
“Sure Has Been Good Loving You Baby”
Book 2 SOON .3, and Book 4. Soon 3
Book 2. SOON .3,
As I said, I’m trying to stay focused on “SOON”. And as I further said, the first time I saw the RITZ Theater (where SOON would open in January of 1971) was from my room at the Forrest Hotel.
At that time I had a south-facing room on the ninth floor; I was gazing out and noticed this odd, curiously configured roof top down below. Over time I realized that it was what a theater roof looks like from above. Years later, I would gaze at the same roof from below. Reaching across time to reconnect with the me that was, once upon a then.
I certainly felt much more at ease and at home looking out the window in (or from) what the Daily News, (in recounting the details of the murder most foul of a Barnum and Bailey circus clown), described as a “cheap west side hotel”.
In reality the Forrest Hotel was straight out of Damon Runyun, because Damon Runyun lived there and wrote there for many years. This or that reality is of course the past perfect invitation to investigate (if only for a moment) the question of relative reality, or the relative question of what (rather, which) reality is the real real deal. Dig? Capeche? Were we living in a world of Rock and Roll, or Guys and Dolls the reality show?
The truth is both and.. thirty or countless more other parallel realities all scrunched into one.
To be continued …
Book 4. Soon 3
I am riding on a train up over and through the Allegany Mountains on my way back to the Middletown collective (MAAC) from Johnstown, PA. Where I met the young impresario who intends to stage a concert production of SOON this coming 17th, 18th, and 19th of November. I’ve spent the last two days and nights thoroughly enjoying my self with he and his family. An all American mix of Mexican/Hungarian salt of the earth folks of the first order. I like him and them (Johnstown) very much and so we will proceed with the show.
As I referenced earlier in the Memwa? The possibility, likelihood and indeed chronic evidentiary factorama of yours truly having FAE (Fetal Alcohol Effects) is quite good, almost guaranteed.
The dear Mudder dear is no longer here to ask about her consumption of Ethel in the nine long months starting with December 1944 and ending with me birthday on the 26th of August 1945, but based on what I know as a “once upon a moment” UCLA trained “little time big time” drug and Alcoholism wazam, the referenced likelihood is almost inescapable, and more to the point the symptoms (and their side-effects across the life areas) appear to be ever-present.
If I ever get around to publishing my book “The New Paradigm for Alcoholism Addiction and Recovery” you will see what I’m talking about.
However, if you are too wise to wait, and know it may be best look FAE up now, then you will know that I don’t do too well with working on more than one thing at a time, and right now I’m working on many more than one thing at a time and it appears that I will be for the foreseeable future. The question for anyone would be “how to do it”; the question for me is HUH?
Apparently folks with FAE are blessed (well perhaps blessed isn’t exactly the right word, but you know what I mean) with the ability to go really really deep on a subject, but have extreme difficulty “changing sets” or, trying to move, pull ourselves out of, or shift our attention, from one subject to another.
For example, that is why, when I am concentrating on anything (like writing a song.. words OR music), I long ago learned that it is better, far better, if I do not try to cross the street, or be married etc.
I do love going deep beyond deep, but good Godawmighty it would be nice to be able to move comfortably and effectively from one thing to the next. Or just effectively.
That is why my Memwa? posts have begun to slow down as our gigging has picked up.
Interesting gigs every one, for example, Yesterday, July 30th was National Dance Day. A concept promoted by the great tv dance show “So You Think You Can Dance” along with producer Nigel Lithgow, and the great Congress Woman Eleanor Norton Holmes. We did an event, a National Dance Day Dance Party at a sky scraper housing development for seniors and the disabled (HOY Towers) in “Steelton” an honest to God, Steel Mill town (fallen on hard times like many another) in rusty post industrial Central Pennsylvania. We and they had the greatest time.
Here’s our recording of the theme of the day “Shake A Bum” and a photo of the good folks dancing.
National Dance Day! 2011 Steelton PA. Scott Fagan and The MAAC Island Band
However in addition to steady gigging, The SOON production and the Memwa? We have a Television show in development, two upcoming albums and “The Virgin Islands Songs” making its way towards a stage production inSt. Thomas.
This is not me complaining, it’s just that I am like a cross-eyed juggler.
We are busy and I am grateful. I just wish that I were capable of being more effective, as many too many things not mentioned, like the record company and music publishing, distribution and promotion and editing video and so on and on are not getting done in a timely manner.
I’m grateful a thousand times over for the grace and the real blessings that I have been given, the gift and the gifts.
I just wish that I could manage it, and them all, better.
Book 4. Up Coming Gigs And Book 2. SOON .2
Book 4. Up Coming Gigs And Book 2. SOON .2
We are busy and traveling a fair amount, and of course, it’s all interesting. This Saturday (June 18th) we are in Harrisburg, PA doing MODE Magazine’s Big LUAU on City Island, from 6 – 10 PM then We Travel up to New York City for Tuesday June 21st to participate in the big City Wide “Make Music New York” Festival.
We (Scott Fagan And The MAAC Island Band) will be playing at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza on 1st Ave between 46th and 47th Streets (right across from the UN) from4 to 5 PM.
Folks are saying that we were assigned to the UN because I “sing in tongues” but it’s not “tongues” it’s just how we sing (and speak) down in the Virgin Isles. We are looking forward to both gigs; the band and I are rarin’ to go. We will be back in Harrisburg for “Music Fest” on Sunday, July 3rd and in Lebanon, PA. on August 6th for the “Pablo Emilio Memorial Music Festival”.
The band is excited to play in the Islands, and the European Festivals, it’s all in the works…we will do our absolute best, and we shall see.
Book 2. SOON .2 continued…
This whole mem.wa? thing started out in large part as a response to a gent who had contacted me because of his interest in writing a book about the “SOON” Story.
He asked me about it and in the process of emailing back and forth he concluded that perhaps I ought to be the one writing about it. Mostly because (I suspect) he realized what kind of nut he was dealing with (the kind of nut that doesn’t want anybody changing his words) and because not only do I insist on holding on to all of my “old” words but I can (and do) make up perfectly good new ones at the drop of a hat, or skip of a synapse.
In any case he (not unreasonably) hoped that I would get right to it (the SOON part) but instead, I have spent the better part of the last two years writing 240 pages about half of everything under the sun with very little mention of “SOON” There are reasons for that.
First of all. while some folks see SOON as the end all be all of my work and life, I don’t. (However, I see it as an important piece of music. I love Music and I love people who love music and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let it go until I know the people who would dig hearing it have heard it).
Interestingly, there are a number of self-important people who have consulted themselves and then had the gall to publicly proclaim that “Scott Fagan peaked early with “South Atlantic Blues” and never did anything meaningful after that.” I certainly don’t think that’s true either.
In an attempt at orderliness I conceptualized the mem.wa? as four sections each encapsulating one chronological segment of the life (if you knew how many different things occur to me almost all at once, almost all the time, you might appreciate the attempt to bring order, however, for lack of better experience or “other” experience, this “blizzardito” of ideas and images, is one of the things that makes it ever interesting to me, to be me.) It may be symptomatic of FAE, but “dems the symptoms I got” and thank God I find them interesting and amusing.
Anyway, or rather, further, I imagined the mem.wa? as (thanks to modern technology) a hybrid of words and music (yes I know that’s what a song is) meaning a book with music (yes I know that’s what a Musical is) a combo platter of lit and music, a book that you could listen to (yes I know..) but or rather, a book that allowed you to hear the music in the muse. A mix of book and blog able to organically include music in the experience, a,a,a, Blook!
Anyway when chronologically It was time to write about the teenage years, I felt as if I would need to tread very lightly to avoid hurting other people, not a one of which needs any more pain in their life and I simply don’t have the time to spend zig zagging between truth and consequences, or turning ragweed to roses and so I slowed down a bit to plex on it.
After plenty of good plexateing (and because of the recent SOON activity), I’ve decided to revisit that stuff later, a quick synopsis will suffice and help to put things in context. Here it is.
“Lots of singing, lots of juicing, lots of trouble with the law, lots of love, lots of jealousy, lots of trouble with the law, homeless, violence, lots of trouble with the law, singing in the dungeon, juicing in the dungeon, lots of ah..difficulty in dealing with authority.
All in all, interesting and unusual (by virtue of the people and the settings, down in the Bongo Isles, the deep South in the early 1960’s) worth revisiting, and without question, a set up scenario for lots of trouble with the music business.
So, as noted elsewhere, as a homeless teenager living on a piece of cardboard, on a hillside (Sara Hill) at the end of the airport runway in St. Thomas, I signed on as crew on a fifty foot ketch called “The Success” she was on the last leg of a round the world cruise and bound for Miami. We sailed out of the harbor at Charlotte Amalie at dawn on July 2nd 1964.
My mission was simple and clear, save my beautiful alcoholic mother from herself and get my younger brothers back from social services’s foster care system, set my sister up, get my Pop an Irish Bar in a good drinking locale, eradicate racial prejudice and social injustice by singing my heart out and making a million dollars. Ah… right away.
And..if at all possible, somehow rescue my own 15-year-old sweetie from the guy she had gotten pregnant for and married and gone away to the states with so she could get out of the house ‘cause (the rumor was) she was being molested.
The content and emotion of those days may have been captured somewhat in my song “South Atlantic Blues” written in 1965.
Here are two recordings of it. The first recorded in 1967, is on the ATCO Album “South Atlantic Blues” and the secondrecording that I’ve posted here, is from the LIVE album ” Shake A Bum” recorded in 2010
” South Atlantic Blues” Scott Fagan
You know the Islands are the perfect place for going away
Life’s so easy there you live from day to day to day to day
The father of missions, he once walked proud and tall
He must had seen too many Christians, cause now he’s very small
The poor man’s got no Gods at all
Not counting alcohol, not counting alcohol
You say that’s dues, I’ve got news for you
It’s South Atlantic Blues, South Atlantic Blues
She lives in the alley, the hope gone from her eyes
Her dress is torn and dirty, loving lips are cracked and dried
She sits and cries, my life’s a lie
Her children think she’s died, her children think she’s died
You say that’s dues, I’ve got news for you
It’s South Atlantic Blues, South Atlantic Blues
She stands by the seaside, my love, she waits for me
And I can’t help her as she wonders, how long will it be
I told her once, we would be free, from Charlotte Amalie
Charlotte Amalie, Charlotte Amalie
You say that’s dues, I’ve got news for you
It’s South Atlantic Blues, South Atlantic Blues
You know the Islands are the perfect place for going away
Life’s so easy there you live from day to day to day to day
day to day to day to day…
After many adventures and poetical ruminations, a month later we arrived in the states, and I got a singing gig at a folk Club on US 1 in Ft.Lauderdale called “The House Of Pegasus”. A month after that I arrived in New York City with 11 cents to my name. I called the only phone number I had which had been given to my Mother by a friend of a friend of a songwriter.
The name with the number was Doc Pomus.
I called him and he set a time for me to come sing for him the next day. I did and Doc was kind enough to sign me on the spot.
What’s this have to do with SOON? It’s what they call “backstory” or setting the context, it was also the beginning of my exposure to the for real and serious music business.
Doc was a very successful song writer, with hits galore. Among them; Lonely Avenue, Young Boy Blues, Teenager In Love, Hushabye, This Magic Moment, His Latest Flame, Little Sister, Return To Sender, Go Jimmy Go, Save The Last Dance For Me, and Viva Las Vegas, we lived at the Forrest Hotel on 49th between Broadway and 8th, the Brill Building was right across the street where Doc’s Music publisher Hill And Range Music had their offices.
I of course thought (and my recent three song audition and instant signing reinforced the idea) that music (and by extension the business around it), was magical and made up of people appropriate to populating the magical musical land. I thought that Doc and his partner Mort Shuman, (and the other professional songwriters in and around the Brill Building) had it made in the shade.
I was very surprised (and unhappy) to hear Doc’s descriptions and characterizations of music publishers and record companies as exploitive and dishonest (my fluffity and flautin’ words not his, Doc was more colorfully direct and to the point).
My initial reactive defense was something like “well that’s too bad for the people who get hurt, they probably did something wrong, and anyway, I’m here to make a million and rescue my family.
I don’t want to or have time to, get caught up in stuff like that”
However, Doc was trying to educate me to the reality of the people and the business that we as artists (writers, singers, musicians) were in and had to deal with.
I really didn’t want to hear that stuff or believe it, I much preferred my own magical thinking. Only weeks before I was “sad glad good bad happy mad dreamy lad” swimming in rum and coke delusions down in the beautiful Virgin Islands and suddenly I was a signed and (at least expected to be) grownup professional recording artist (although I wasn’t old enough to sign my own contracts, my Mudder dear had to come to New York to sign them for me) in what was turning out to be a cut throat snake, scorpion and piranha infested reality.
I had seen all kinds of blood spilled in crazy drunken violence, had come face to face with the deepest kinds of hatred, knew all about suffering, deprivation and sadness, but really nothing at all about manicured men in tailored suits whose ambitions for money (yours, mine and everybody else’s) appeared to supersede every other human value and concern.
Though I knew scads about ‘life’s other side” I knew very little about this one and I honestly had never imagined that such people actually existed. And, I really didn’t want to know.
I was at thrilled and excited to see all of Doc and Morty’s BMIwriter awards along the hall ways at Hill and Range, and the awards to song writers Otis Blackwell and Elvis Presley for “Don’t Be Cruel” and “All Shook Up” songs that represented the “liberation theology of Rock And Roll” songs or rather “energy and intention” that inspired and sustained me through a fairly challenging childhood.
Back at the Forrest I said “Doc, I saw all the BMI awards at Hill and Range, I didn’t know that Elvis was a song writer, that he wrote “Don’t Be Cruel” and “All Shook Up” Doc said “Scotty, Elvis didn’t write those songs, Col. Tom Parker said Elvis had to have half of the song or he wouldn’t record them.” I was dumbstruck..I couldn’t believe that Elvis would do something like that, I couldn’t believe that someone would make Otis give away half of what was his.
Doc explained that Elvis had nothing to do with it, it was all Tom Parker, and Tom Parker was all about the money.
Morty took me to a song writers bar on 50th Street just off Broadway and introduced me to a parade of writers (primarily African American) responsible for many of the great Doo Wop hits who had either been cheated out of their royalties or manipulated into actually selling the rights to their songs lock stock and barrel. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
I can’t tell you how much of a true believer I was, music meant the world to me, gave me (and millions of others), hope. Had unified my generation, pulled my sister and me through hell and high water, To discover that slick “business men” had been hurting and cheating and stealing from the people who actually made the music, and that the people, the public didn’t know a thing about it, and therefore no one would do anything to stop it, was soul searing and outrageous to me. And frankly, that was only the beginning.
So there we see part of the genesis of SOON.
This belief/ idea that if “people only knew they would do some thing” was an old one for me.
In 1954 my step father Howard and my Mother, fleeing bills in St. Thomas, moved us into an apartment at Parada 25 and Aveneda Fernandez Juncos, in Santurce, Puerto Rico, next to what was at that time considered the largest and worst shanty slum in all of Latin America, “El Fangito”. When I first saw naked little children, feeding themselves out of garbage cans, I said to my self “If the people in America knew about this they would do something about it” and I decided that “I’m going to learn to write songs and tell im’ cause if they knew about it, they would surely do something about it”
This was an earlier element in the Genesis of “SOON”
I still believe. The only difference now is the realization that writing the song and even singing it at the top of your lungs is no guarantee that anyone will hear it, or that the information will get to the people, or if in fact the song is heard, that the people who hear it will care enough or can afford to care enough to do something. Things simply aren’t as simple as they once seemed. However if one cares, then you’ve got to keep trying.
Continues…
Book 4. What a Wonderful Gig!
What a wonderful gig we had in Brooklyn yesterday (Saturday 5/7/11) at the big Convergence in Red Hook Event. What fun!
The MAAC Island Band fluted and banged their socks and maracas off and I (while breaking three strings myself) sang like a banshee in flames. The dancers twirled the colors swirled and the music that makes happy, ruled the land.
Many a girl from yesterday was there, piffeled up with perfume and looking all shiny and new. Each as enticing as ever.
There is a communal space (parallel to the muggled mundane) in which “them that makes the music and them that receives it” are intimately bound in transcendental joy, breath to breath, beat to beat, spirit to spirit. I thee, you, me… a “we”. A “we” that is at once plural, that is at once singular. A “plural singularity”, a delight to sing in, a delight to sing from, a delight to sing to. All in all, past wonderful.
We will be back in New York for the big “Make Music New York Festival” on June 21 st. Musical artists of every kind will be playing simultaneously all over the city. We “Scott Fagan And The MAAC Island Band” are scheduled to play at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza (46th and First, across from the UN) from 4:00 to 5:00 PM. We can hardly wait! Perhaps we will see you there!
Here are two more tunes from the LIVE Album “Shake A Bum” I hope you enjoy them.
Here is “Mademoiselle”
and Here is “Where My Lover Has Gone”
Book 4. Virgin Islands Singer Scott Fagan to perform at The Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition’s big “CONVERGENCE IN RED HOOK” on May 7th 2011
Here is The Press release for the upcoming NYC gig.. followed by the “Backstory attachment” to that press release, that folks got. It’s here because this sort of stuff is interesting, and necessary in this business.
I have added the Theme form “SOON” and The Theme From “The Virgin Islands Songs” You will find them at the very bottom of the page.
BWAC.org is a great venue and we very much enjoy our time there, come on down (or up as the case may be) if you are free.
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For immediate Release:
Virgin Islands Singer Scott Fagan (Subject of Jasper Johns Lithograph “Scott Fagan Record”, Author and Lyricist of “SOON” the very first Rock Opera produced on Broadway, and Father of 2009 OBIE Winner and Magnetic Fields front man Stephin Merritt), is coming to New York to perform at The Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition’s big Spring opening “CONVERGENCE IN RED HOOK” on May 7th 2011.
Scott Fagan and The MAAC Island Band, are currently promoting their LIVE Album “SHAKE A BUM” which includes selections from Scott’s new Musical “The Virgin Islands Songs”. Scott Fagan and The MAAC Island Band will perform three sets between 1 and 5:30 PM.
The Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Cooperative is located at 499 Vanbrunt Street, Brooklyn, NY. For Directions please visit bwac.org
Please contact Shari Brandt 717-944-1187 at the Middletown Area Arts Collective. www.middletownarts.com or scottfagan@lilfishrecords.com
Thank you!
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SCOTT FAGAN “De Real Ting Mon”
Scott who? Scott Fagan. Here’s the 411…
Scott Fagan is a brilliant musician born in New York City and raised in the Virgin Islands. This talented artist has a one of a kind sound with a Caribbeankick. Scott has been an international recording artist since leaving Charlotte Amalie High School in 1964 to sign with Columbia Records. During that time he has released nine albums and multiple singles, in addition to writing and appearing in “SOON” the very first Rock Opera produced on Broadway!
His Caribbean consciousness is manifested throughout his work. Scott’s musical innovations underlie the “Contemporary Caribbean” or “Caribilly” genre widely popularized by Jimmy Buffet, Kenny Chesney, and others. His very first album, “South Atlantic Blues”, released in the summer of 1968, now recognized as a classic, inspired Jasper John’s lithographic series “Scott Fagan Record” part of the permanent collections of museums all over the world, including MOMA, The National Gallery, and The Tel Aviv.
Scott’s albums: “South Atlantic Blues”1968, “Many Sunny Places”1976, “Sandy the Bluenosed Reindeer”2000, “Buried Treasures, (The V.I Songs Vol. l)”2004, “Dreams Should Never Die” The V.I. Songs Vol. ll) 2005, ”SOON”2009, “The Virgin Islands Songs, The MUSICAL”2010, ”Buckra De Paehae” ( a spoken word Calypso Comedy album)2010, and most recently his LIVE album with The MAAC Island Band “Shake A Bum”2011, Can all be found at www.thecollectedworksofscottfagan.com
Scott Fagan has spent 40 of the past 47 years, trying to revive his career after being “blacklisted” by the “old school” Music Business for his Rock Opera “SOON”. Scott wrote “SOON” to bring attention to the “absurdity and cruelty of the music business, and its destructive effects on artists and society”.
Here’s what Martin Brookspan had to say:
“The tide of Rock musicals reaches its high water mark in SOON… an inventive, imaginative, brilliantly realized creation.”
Emory Lewis said:
“SOON is a hallelujah blessing, glorious music easily the best score of the season… I loved every rocking minute.”
And John Schubeck:
“Staggering shots of meaning. Dynamite in so many ways.”
In spite of reviews like these, and a cast which included Peter Allen, Richard Gere, Vickie Sue Robinson, Nell Carter, Marian Ramsey, and Leata Galloway, SOON was pulled the day after it opened. Ironically, Scott’s son, Stephin Merritt of Magnetic Fields, Gothic Archie’s, The 666’s, and Future Bible Heroes fame, recently won the Obie award for his first musical “Coraline”. Quite a chip off the old block…
So, where’s Scott Fagan now? He’s busy busy, gigging with the MAAC Island Band, promoting the LIVE album “Shake a Bum” and Scott’s own Calypso Comedy album “Buckra de Paehae”, keeping an eye on two of his musicals in pre-production. First is “The Virgin Island Songs”, scheduled to debut inSt. Thomas,Virgin Islands, and the other?? “SOON” scheduled for November, in Johnstown,Pennsylvania. That’s right, “SOON” is back in production!
But wait, there’s more! You can catch Scott Fagan and the MAAC Island Band live in New York on May 7th, 2011 (from 1-5:30 PM) at The Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition’s big spring show “Convergence in Red Hook” www.bwac.org
At The United Nations Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in New York’s Citywide Music Festival (Make Music New York) on June 21 st at 4:00PM,
Or at Scott and the band’s stateside home base the Middletown Area Arts Collective (MAAC) (www.middletownarts.com) at 3 South Union Street in Middletown, PA. (Contact Shari Brandt at 717-944-1187).Thank You!
The Theme from “SOON”
The Theme from “The Virgin Islands Songs”
Book 4. Brand New Grandson…Jacob Max Charles Fagan! “Dreams Should Never Die” and “El Gringito”
Book 4. Brand New Grandson…Jacob Max Charles Fagan!
My boy “The Bix” (Scott Francis Fagan) Son of Patricia Trepuk Evelyn Nelthrop Fagan and Great Grandson of Max Trepuk (of M.E. Trupk and I. Levine fame) has just had a little one. Here’s a photo of the fine young gent.
The Newest Chip off the Old Block
He is not one bit better looking than his father or Grandfather (me) at his age and so unfortunately, is not terribly likely to be able to get by based on looks alone. This means the lad is destined for hard work and long labor and may expect to start his first job well before nursery school.
Such is life for the likes of we…
Too bad he doesn’t look like his Grand Mother Patricia, why then the boy would be “King of The World”.
However, if he brings even a quarter of the happiness, delight and joy to his father, that his father has brought to me, then there is great cause for high kicking and hot footed celebration all across the land, and I welcome him with all my heart and soul.
God bless you little Jacob Max Charles Fagan, you are most certainly a chip off the old block. Welcome, Welcome, to the World.
Here is “El Gringito” from “The V.I. Songs Vol. ll” ’cause the dear lad is “Un Cuarto Puertoricanio”
and “Dreams Should Never Die” from the same CD to mark the occasion.
Book 4. Two More From the “LIVE album ” Shake A Bum” Here come…Soon and Where My Lover Has Gone
Book 4. Two More From the “LIVE album ” Shake A Bum”. Here are Soon and Where My Lover Has Gone.
Here are two more from the LIVE album “Shake A Bum”
“Soon” is the theme from my Rock Opera “SOON”. This may be one of my very favorite recordings of the song because of the “harp” or harmonica intro. Let’s see what you think.
Soon Scott Fagan/Joe Kookoolis
Soon everyone will see, everyone will know, the long, long night is over We will look and we will find we’ve left the past behind, it’s over
Soon all the world will say look we made it all the way, tho no child was ever blinder it will be a very special sun, that shines on what we’ve done, oh listen
I want you to listen..
Soon there will come a day, our love will show the way, and all men will be brothers
And I will see that day or die, with all my life I’ll try, with every breath I’ll talk it and shout it and sing all about it
Soon maybe not today, maybe not tonight maybe not tomorrow But I, won’t let a chance go by, I’ll really really try, don’t you ever doubt it
Soon there will come a day, our love will show the way, and all men will be brothers And I will see that day or die, with all my life I’ll try, with every breath I’ll talk it and shout it and sing all about it
Soon maybe not today, maybe not tonight maybe not tomorrow But I, won’t let a chance go by, It’s a case of do or die, won’t live with out it
Soon, Soon, Soon, Oh I know it’s coming soon…
“Where My Lover Has Gone” is a crowd favorite on gigs and online, let me know what you think.
Where My Lover Has Gone Scott Fagan
Morning comes down very heavy on me
Nothing at all like a new day should be
This morning saves it’s glory, for someone in another story
Somewhere a song, where my lover has gone
There’s no glad surprise for these sad eyes to see
No trace of the grace that her face had for me
These grey skies have no rainbow, cause rainbows are where ever she goes
Somewhere a song where my lover has gone
Somewhere the sun is shining, good old time silver lining
Somewhere a song, where my lover has gone
Morning comes down very heavy on me
Nothing at all like a new day should be
This morning saves it’s glory, for someone in another story
Somewhere a song, where my lover has gone
Where my lover has gone, where my lover has gone…where my lover has gone… where my lover has gone.
We are still hard at work on the “Shake A Bum” video…that’s coming soon.
Book 4. “Sloop John B”
Book 4. “Sloop John B”
Here is an interesting cut from the new CD “Scott Fagan And The MAAC Island Band” LIVE! “Shake A Bum”. “Sloop John B” is one of very few tunes that I do that is not one of my own. This is how I did it in Nassau on my way from St. Thomas (on the 50 foot Ketch “Success”) to sign with Doc Pomus and Columbia Records in July of 1964.
“Sloop John B” has been a part of me for so long now that it is completely filled with nostalgia. Which means that when I sing it, I of course, think of home and each and all of you…
This is how I felt the song then and how I feel the song now. I hope that you will feel it too, I do believe that you know exactly what I mean.
SLOOP JOHN B MEDLEY
Trad Arr Scott Fagan
Intro..
We came on the Sloop John B, Grandfather and Me Round Nassau Town we did roam, drinking all night we got into a fight, Oh Lord I feel so bad I want to go home.
The first mate well he got drunk He tore up the people’s trunk Constable had to come and take him away, Sheriff John Stone Please leave me alone Oh Lord I fell so bad I want to go home
So Hoist up the John B Sail See how the mainsail sets send for the Captain ashore let me go home I want to go home Please let me go home Oh Lord I feel so bad I want to go home
Delia Oh Delia, Delia all my life If I hadn’t ‘ave shot Delia she would have become my wife, Delia gone one more round Delia gone
I got drunk and I shot Delia I shot her in her side, The next time I shot Delia she bowed down her head and died Delia gone one more round Delia gone
Ninety nine years hard labor Judge that’s no time, for what I’ve done to Delia it should be nine hundred ninety-nine
Delia gone one more round Delia gone
Jailor oh Jailor, Jailor I can’t sleep, all around my bedside I hear the pattering of Delia’s feet Delia gone one more round Delia gone
Hoist up the John B Sail See how the mainsail sets send for the Captain ashore let me go home I want to go home Please let me go home Oh Lord I feel so bad I want to go home
We came on the Sloop John B, Grandfather and Me, Round Nassau Town we did roam, we were drinking all night we got into a fight, Oh Lord I feel so bad I want to go home.
Oh Lord I feel so bad I just want to go home.
You will find the CD here…www.thecollectedworksofscottfagan.com
Scott Fagan's Mem.wa? 