Thank you to Mick Miller at M.A.D. Amps, and Heights Guitars in Cleveland, Ohio.

Spencer Bohren does not walk. He glides. I was there the warm October night Spencer Bohren glided into Heights Guitars. First you have to visualize a small, but fashionable, shop in what was formerly a Christian Science Reading Room. Most of the architectural appointments are still intact. The walls are covered with old wooden guitars of every make and pedigree. The floors configured respectfully with classic amplifiers from Fullerton and Chicago, mostly.

Spencer, who was wearing a dark suit and a long chartreuse scarf; hair pushed back, a bit like Leopold Stokowski, was in Cleveland to play a benefit at John Carroll University. It had been a tough couple of months for Spencer. The waters of Lake Pontchartrain had consumed his home in New Orleans and washed most of his gear out into the street. Spencer was drawn that night to a very cool black & white Supro lap steel, sitting propped against a little tweed amp. He tuned the Supro to an open G minor chord, plugged into the little tweed amp and proceeded to play something so haunting, and so beautiful, that it momentarily stunned the three people fortunate enough to have been in the store that night. When he finished, we got up off the floor and applauded Spencer like we’d never applauded anybody (or anything) in the 15-year history of that shop. Spencer walked out with the Supro, bound for Europe and eventually home, to New Orleans.

One of the reasons that rig sounded so wonderful that night was that little tweed amp. It was a MAD Amps Temper Tantrum. It didn’t require any set-up or sound check. The amp didn’t fight Spencer. It complemented him, his style and that Supro. That’s what an artist demands. There is no time for negotiation. Spencer plugged in, turned up about half way and proceeded to kill everybody in the room. We were so deeply impressed we decided to make that amp, “Temper Tantrum” (# 004) a gift to Spencer Bohren from MAD Amps. They are perfect for one another.

Spencer Bohren's '55 Chevrolet and Airstream trailer

“I heard about the hurricane… HOW’S THE CHEVY?”

chevy and airstream

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard these words in the past few months. The next line is usually a slightly embarrassed, “Oh, and your kids… how’re your kids… and your wife?”

The Chevy in question is, of course, the Bohren Family’s legendary red & white ‘55 Chevy Bel-Air. The one with all the chrome. The one that towed an Airstream trailer full of guitars and children all over the country through the ’80s and into the ’90s. The one that’s approaching 900,000 miles on the odometer. Yes, she’s a mythical beast, and to be truthful, she’s in trouble.

A couple of years ago our Chevy was involved in a hit and run accident, and I foolishly thought I could parlay the insurance money into a minimal restoration of the whole body.

I failed.

Along the way, however, I met a wonderful guy, a mechanic and auto body man named Tevis DeLaundro, who took the Chevy to his shop in New Orleans East, almost as a mission of mercy. I gave him the remaining insurance money for starters, and over time sold a few treasured instruments and amps to keep the project moving. The last time I saw the Chevy, she was runnin’ good and stopping well (which is significant for any fifties car). She had new upholstery on the seats and door panels, and all the chrome and windows had been removed. Tevis had the body as smooth as glass, primered, and ready for paint. That was August 25th.

On the morning of August 29th, Hurricane Katrina visited New Orleans and left in her wake a disaster of biblical proportions. New Orleans East was one of the hardest-hit areas, and we naturally assumed that the Chevy was lost. And make no mistake, the Chevy has indeed sustained considerable water damage. Tevis, however, once I finally managed to track him down, refused to let it go. His family’s house had ten feet of water in it for two weeks; his wife and kids are evacuated indefinitely to Jackson, Mississippi; most of his tools, equipment and office are ruined; his shop is seriously damaged, and still, he refused to let the Chevy go.

When I said, “My house is ruined and I have no money to spend on the Chevy,” he replied, “You already paid me.”

I said, “That was before the hurricane added all this water and mud into the equation.” He countered, “But I made a promise.”

I said, “I’m letting you off the hook.” He got frustrated and replied, “That car can be fixed!”

Tevis told me he had a vision.  ”I see that shiny red & white 1955 Bel Air driving out of the muddy ruins of New Orleans East,” he said with a faraway look in his eyes, and I couldn’t help but think of the mighty Phoenix rising from the ashes, or Pegasus unfolding his powerful wings. And I knew there was nothing I could do to stop him.

Now it’s going on three years since Hurricane Katrina brought her winds and the levees failed, flooding 80% of the city. Tevis is still living in Mississippi and comes to New Orleans only occasionally. The Chevy has had to take a back seat to our home repairs, and Tevis is occupied with sorting out the next chapter of his own life. We have a feeling that the restoration project is very likely out of our reach. In any event, there are many decisions to be considered. We promise to keep you posted on any new developments.

Stay tuned . . . And thanks for your support.

Spencer Bohren

<a href=”../music/audio-interviews.php”>Listen to Spencer and Marilyn Bohren talk about the seven years spent touring the country in the Chevy and Airstream</a>

Back and forth, St. Louis to New Orleans, and back again. It’s a whole day drive of 700 miles each way, but we skim along the highway, using the time to plan and scheme our personal recovery from Hurricane Katrina. In the month of October alone, I made three trips back to back: once alone, once with Tucker, and once with Spencer. Each time the highway seemed a little bit shorter. Perhaps it was due to increasing familiarity, or perhaps it was the incendiary display of autumn leaves Mother Nature was painting.

Our recent mail has asked for an update of our personal state of affairs. We are glad to oblige, but it is just as important to place our story in the context of the most astonishing natural disaster and its ramifications ever to hit America. Each trip back shows more healing and recovery for all of us; however, it is far and away from the city we have loved since our first trip there in 1975. Let me give you some “snapshots” from various parts of town. These are observations from October 25 through 28, bookended by a day of driving in each direction, first south and then north again up the Mississippi River.

Driving into town in the dark of night, I considered the various ways I could take Spencer, who had not been to New Orleans since our first visit pre-Rita in mid-September. With each of my three successive trips, the skyline of New Orleans showed more and more illumination, although it still was a shadow of its former glow. Metairie seems pretty normal from its I-10 view at night, so we got off at the very end of this suburb and took Veterans Boulevard east, over the 17th Street Canal, into pitch darkness where city street lights normally show the way. No one was on the streets. We opened our car windows to fully experience the eerie stillness, when we were assaulted by a smell of decay and a mountainous shadow on our left. Rising 40 feet high for several city blocks of green space loomed the skeletal remains of trees that had once graced our streets, parks, and neighborhoods. Block after block, mountain after mountain. One large heap had been turned to wood chips. Perched on another mountain were two vehicles, hard at work, processing the debris. Spencer was duly impressed.

As we drove towards City Park, darkness continued to envelope us, even though Hurricane Katrina had visited almost two months ago. We drove down Marconi on the side of City Park, and campfires came into view, surrounded by tents and trailers. Parked for blocks in the neutral ground were hauling trucks of every size, shape, and description. Parallel to the trucks are the campsites of the truckers, as they are mostly from outside of the area. Those drivers who are from New Orleans likely have damaged homes. I was reminded of the camps of Okies in The Grapes of Wrath and the WWI soldiers in their Hoovervilles. A subculture of New Orleans was brewing on the fringes of City Park.

That night we slept in our house, which was hospitable enough but devoid of such amenities as electricity or gas. Since Tucker and I had already stripped and curbed the kitchen a few days earlier, Spencer and I drove to the French Quarter in the morning for a quick breakfast before getting to work. The only thing out of place seemed to be the extreme cleanliness of the Quarter. With limited tourists and transients, the Quarter is not as overtaxed and feels fresher than usual. Many of the curbed refrigerators I had seen the week before had been picked up. In a move typical of the city, the fridges have become signboards around town, advertising plumbers, stating opinions about Tom Benson, cheering on Mayor Nagin, and requesting delivery to Washington, D.C. My favorite refrigerator signage scolded, “I sleep alone. Thanks curfew!” Another interesting group of signage is the big X spray painted on all homes that were checked by the National Guard as they searched for survivors following the storms. Each of the four spaces in the X carries notation in a specific spot: identification of the search team, date, people found, and pets found. Some of the cryptic messages are sad, indicating whether the occupants were alive. One of the pet blocks stated, “One chicken rescued.” Houses like ours that were obviously boarded up did not receive the Guard graffiti unless a search was requested.

We could have immediately returned to our house after breakfast, but I felt that Spencer needed to see some neighborhoods to get a feeling for the context of our decisions. Tucker and I had done this the week before in an unforgettable tour of places that will be many years recovering, as well as some spots well on their way. Everywhere Spencer and I went, the floodwater has receded. What becomes apparent is the flood lines on the buildings, indicating just how high the water rose. Two feet, three feet, six feet, eight feet. The lines rise along the length of a block, pick up across the street, and then they rise even higher. Some houses have several parallel lines, indicating how the water drained some, hesitated, and then drained some more, before hesitating again. Places that have always seemed equal in elevation now show an apparent grade. We noticed how the neutral grounds are higher than the homes, how the homes rise or sink down into their lots, compared to the streets. Before a storm, people often park their cars in the neutral ground (median strip to those of you outside of New Orleans). On Carrollton Avenue blocks filled with cars parked on the neutral ground were totally inundated by the floodwaters. A gray/brown film coats everything that the waters touched, the color coming from the detritus of the lake, as well as whatever it swirled into on its way into the city: fluids from invaded garages, storm leavings from the hurricane, bits of the chemicals we keep under our sinks, the fluids from the cars, rust from yard tools stored under the piers of raised houses. It became a silt-like sludge that coated everything. We were fortunate to have only one centimeter of this material in our kitchen, Tucker’s room, back bath, and the patio. On some street corners, carpets of hardened sludge-mud cracks into stepping stones. Many homeowners remove it by the shovelful from the first-floor of their dwellings. These are the neighborhoods that brought us to tears. While the fallen trees have been removed and the streets are accessible to cars, the homes are quietly devastated. Unlike our neighborhood, which has a quiet hum of repair going on, the homes of middle class citizens a few blocks from Lake Pontchartrain create a ghost town. Water lines are up to the eaves of the roofs, doors and windows are open to facilitate aeration, the whole scene is covered in that gray/brown coating. No one is there. Period. Block after block after block. These are the homes of working people like ourselves. Several of Tucker’s friends live in this area. It is quietly devastated and deserted. We wonder if those houses are salvageable. We did not venture into the lower ninth ward, where the houses were crushed by the water and moved off of their foundations. We really didn’t need to. Emotionally, it was impossible.

For the next two and a half days, we continued gutting our home down to the wall studs. In the process we found evidence of all kinds of animal life: mice, bugs, lizards. With each successive trip to the curb, the house breathed and sighed, its moldering halitosis lessening by the hour. An electrician and plumber came by to give us estimates for the repair, which has been deemed pretty complete because of the floodwaters reaching the workings beneath the piered section of the house. A work crew from down the street came by to look through our discarded belongings, willing and able to try to resurrect a couple of drowned appliances. Overall, though, our pile grew and grew in all three dimensions. Soon it overtook half of the yard next door, crept nearly to our front porch steps, and climbed to ten feet! At the same time, Mr. J across the street had sustained flooding AND extensive roof damage to his own home and his apartment building next door. He had hired a crew to gut both buildings. Their pile was a consistent ten feet high across both lots. Spencer had made friends with the workers there, and they began a friendly rivalry for the biggest heap. In the end, our friend Sam came by with a group of buddies. A couple of them took out Spencer’s workbench, with its water-curled cabinet doors, and they heaved that waterlogged and watersogged bench onto the top of our pile. Spencer crowned his mountain with a Mardi Gras staff made of an eight-foot ginger lily stalk wound with Mardi Gras beads. Mount Marilyn won!

Any story of New Orleans is not complete without mention of food and music. In her current state, New Orleans does not offer either on that all-night basis for which she is known. We were fortunate one night, though, to try Angeli’s on Decatur Street in the French Quarter. Angeli’s is a sandwich stop and bar where we have eaten on Mardi Gras’ past. A crowd spilled from the doorway this particular night, sharing hurricane stories and enjoying the mellow air. We sat at the bar, with Casablanca showing on the wall opposite, no volume. A small group played standards from the 1930s to 1950s: a trumpet player sitting front and center a la Preservation Hall, a guitarist, violinist, and bassist. Each was quite a character, as evidenced by the musical improvisation. With the quiet jazz, the selection of blue collar and faded hippie clientele, the volume-less movie showing on the wall, and subdued lighting, an ambiance unlike any I have experienced pervaded Angeli’s at that moment on that night. People ate informally, flirted, and discussed the resurrection of their blocks. The bartender honked a few notes on a harmonica he took from his pocket and then teasingly commented on how they never invited him to play. At one point, a most unlikely character joined the musicians to sing “Sunny Side of the Street.” With his welder’s hat and his pants belted below his belly, we weren’t sure what to expect, but this fellow sank into the song, gesturing with his arms and ending on one knee as if he was on a Broadway stage. The house erupted in applause. This night touched me deeply, pulling me back through time, to what I imagine the French Quarter and Brasai’s Paris felt like seventy years ago.

Ah! New Orleans. Make no mistake, progress is being made. Many of us have gutted our houses on faith that the flood insurance will provide enough capital to rebuild. There really is no choice when the alternative is allowing the building to continue moldering and mildewing. Many people have not returned for the same reason it was so difficult to leave: lack of cash and transportation. Others have lost jobs or personal businesses. Many have children who have no school to go to yet. Tucker’s school is one of only a handful that will begin classes in January. They have had to become a charter school to avoid the pitfalls of a broken public school system. The city lacks revenue because of drops in spending and the attendant taxes. We are all learning more about the infrastructure of a city than the layman expects to know. Our gardens remain polluted, with bits of greenery starting to show through. Electric and gas service, while improving, are still spotty. Everyone has a story. Unprecedented random acts of kindness power the recovery as neighbors share warm showers, clean beds, and rides. For the tourists strolling Bourbon Street, hurricane drinks in hand, New Orleans is just like it always has been. That is because most tourists don’t venture past the Quarter, where tent cities abound, streetlights remain haphazard, garbage pickup is finally coming once a week, and charities still provide lunches, immunizations, and counseling.

The task is monumental. Repairing our home is a daunting job. But we have a secret weapon: the love and good wishes of all of you, our friends. It is what urges us forward. And in fact, the positive energy sent to New Orleans, where so many people have enjoyed themselves and discovered new parts of themselves, is sustaining us in our recovery. Please keep us in your thoughts.

Marilyn Bohren
October 2005

Originally published in the Quad City Times

A moment of silence, please, for New Orleans: a city never before silent – from the lone trumpeter serenading dawn on the Mississippi River levee to the scores of funky horn players, drummers, and guitarists who nightly defended the Crescent City’s centuries-old reputation for musical excellence – and a city that will not remain silent for long.

In the second year of its existence, New Orleans was erased from the map by a long-forgotten hurricane. They rebuilt. Nearly a century later, two devastating fires consumed all but a fraction of the city. They rebuilt. The spirit is strong in this town, and they will rebuild again.

Everything we love came from or through New Orleans, or La Nouvelle Orleans, as the French colony was called in the beginning. Ships arrived at the end of the seventeenth century carrying French, African, Italian and German adventurers who planted seeds for the magnificent multi-cultural extravaganza to come. Slavery came later, though in a much different form than over in America. Rather than forbid cultural behaviors from Africa – music, arts, dancing, cooking, language – New Orleanians encouraged them. The sounds of the slaves from the sacred ground of Congo Square, just north of Rampart and Orleans, continue to resonate in the music of every jazz, blues, and yes, even rap artist, who picks up an instrument anywhere in the world.

New Orleans, with her spectacular Mardi Gras Indians, celebrated cuisine, world-renowned architecture, subtropical ambience and that glorious music, will rise again. Her physical appearance will undoubtedly be changed somewhat, but her spirit will remain strong and wild. Indomitable.

In a world that is daily more homogeneous, we need New Orleans. The wind from Hurricane Katrina that blew with such ferocity as to rip the physical and emotional heart from the city will once again blow through saxophones, trombones, clarinets, trumpets and tubas on its storied avenues, at Snug Harbor on Frenchmen Street, the Maple Leaf on Oak Street, Tipitina’s at Napoleon and Tchoupitoulas, and countless other little clubs throughout this legendary place.

Spencer Bohren
Sept. 2005
St. Louis, MO

written exclusively for ELMORE MAGAZINE – 160 East 89th St.,
New York, NY 10128
www.elmoremagazine.com

The very mention of the great city of New Orleans conjures an endless variety of colorful images in the minds of people all over the world. It’s a place where life is lived at a slower pace, in lush and slightly worn surroundings, and where good food, slow conversation, architectural grandeur, and sensational music are simply part of the fabric of life. Nestled in a dramatic crescent near the outlet of the great Mississippi River, New Orleans has played a starring role throughout most of American history. In her early days, New Orleans was part of the French Colony, La Louisiane, and her customs, cultural diversity, Catholicism, and general attitude of tolerance created a very different atmosphere from America. The Crescent City welcomed social and artistic contributions from all quarters of her population, and the results continue to resonate powerfully to this day. The world-renowned cuisine blends ingredients from the kitchens of France, Italy, Germany, and Africa. Countless architectural treasures echo the great civilizations of ancient Europe and Africa, but with a casual Caribbean accent. Often called “The Most African City in America,” the cultural mix celebrates a cornucopia of people from around the globe.

And then there’s the music. Is there anyone in the world who does not love the music of New Orleans? From the early days of Congo Square, with its slave dancing and drumming, to Nineteenth-Century Storyville’s excitable jazz bands, to the Rhythm and Blues explosion in the 1950’s, the renaissance sparked by countercultural music lovers in the 70’s, and the current heady extravaganza of funk, soul, hip-hop and brass band experimentation, New Orleans always shows us where the music is headed.

But there’s more… something else that’s difficult to describe. There’s something in New Orleans that makes uncountable visitors feel at home for the first time in their lives. Something that makes them go back home, sell everything they own, and move to this sensual city on the big muddy river. No matter how you try, there’s something about New Orleans that you just can’t touch, but that touches you deeply. It is this essential Spirit of New Orleans, even more than the evocative architecture, the spicy food, the noble greenery and, yes, even the sensational music, that punctuates the inconceivable losses sustained in last month’s hundred-year storm, Hurricane Katrina. Make no mistake. New Orleans will rise again, and she will be special. We can only hope and pray, however, that precious social fabric so horrifically torn will be mended, that the cultural mix which so informs every aspect of this special city can somehow be resurrected, and that the impulse to celebrate that unites all of her citizens will be restored.

We ask that you remember us in your thoughts and prayers – It will be a long road to recovery – and that you come see us when we are once again ready to receive visitors.

Let the Good Times Roll.

Spencer Bohren
September 14, 2005

Dear Ones,

With her counterclockwise swirling motion, Hurricane Katrina has thrown out the baby with the bathwater. New Orleaneans are blown across the landscape of America, radiating out from the center of the storm, and leaving a void that is currently filled with the Gulf-swollen Lake Pontchartrain. The city’s population has been replaced by the leavings of a frantic society: fallen trees, roof shingles splayed by high winds, household items too cumbersome to carry, the litter of discarded looting, gun shells, garbage, sewage, sorrows too innumerable to list. It’s a sorry situation, yet as a member of the displaced persons of a once-magical city, I remain deeply moved by the yearnings of all I meet, as they earnestly ask what they can do to help us.

Spencer, Tucker, and I had been keeping an eye on Hurricane Katrina’s progress through the Gulf of Mexico, as she bore down on us in New Orleans. We prepared for possible options: water, and canned food in case we stayed; full gas tank, car food, inventories of possessions we could not live without in case we left. There was boarding and taping up windows, yard cleanup, and laundry for either event. By Saturday night we were still weighing the options, but we felt we could go either way. Sunday morning we knew we had to leave. By 10:30 a.m. we were in our PT Cruiser, driving down Highway 90 toward Mississippi, having spun a blessing around our little shotgun house to keep it safe and dry.

The roads opened before us, with very little congestion. As we were led onto I 59, we became one of four lanes of traffic leaving the area as both sides of the highway sped in a single direction north. As the traffic slowed, we exited onto secondary roads and eventually found ourselves in Kosciusko, Mississippi, on the Natchez Trace to the northeast of Jackson. The spot was secure, although the storm was making its way towards us. In the morning we traveled west through Mississippi and into Arkansas, before it became clear that we needed to stop this frenetic flight. Occasionally we tuned into a radio show that updated us on the progress of the storm, which was thankfully sidestepping the center of New Orleans but devastating our neighbors on the coast. We paused in Hot Springs, Arkansas, a delightful town of bathing and spa renown from the 1920’s and 1930’s. And there we spent two nights, walking up the mountain trails, taking to the waters, and playing Pirate’s Cove for distraction. And talking, talking, dreaming, weighing our current options, and talking some more. During this time the lake levees gave way in New Orleans, and we tuned in, with horror, to the inattention our national government paid to the plight of the people who live lives so different from our own and who so populate New Orleans. These are the people who rely on minimum wage jobs to support their families and don’t have personal transportation or the people who are medically compromised. Many had fled to the Superdome, but even more had tried to tough it out through the storm in their homes. Unlike us, they did not have the option to pack up their car with a few precious, indispensable items and drive to another state. And how these people suffered over the next few days! We realized our home may be filling with water, but we found our hearts pulled even more to the condition of these people.

As we regrouped in Hot Springs, we decided to turn towards the next gig in St. Louis and found refuge with our friends, the Vlastos family. They welcomed us warmly, fed us and entertained us with four children’s antics, and allowed us – encouraged us – to talk about the high drama of our lives. When we checked our email, there were 80 loving, concerned messages from friends and relations around the world, all hoping we were well and offering help in many forms. It was heartwarming to feel such concern from all of you. The messages have doubled and continue to rise, as Django also fields calls from people who want to be in touch. Over the next couple of days we were offered a lovely house in St. Louis to use until the crisis in New Orleans passes, and Tucker has been taken in by a high school just a couple of blocks away. When we were visiting our new home just yesterday, several neighbors came by to offer more help, and we realized that we are their connection to the tragedy in New Orleans. They want to help at any level they can, and we personify the people who have lost all earthly possessions and must begin anew. And while we do not know for sure the damage we have personally sustained (although I’m sure it is substantial) and we are fortunate to have each other alive and well, we are quite aware that the next year will bring unanticipated challenges and unprecedented decisions. Throughout this ordeal, we realize that we must identify how people can help. This is what we came up with.

1. Donate to your American Red Cross, (800) 435.7669, or the Archdiocese of New Orleans, through Catholic Charities, (703) 549.1390, or any other of a number of charities who have their people on the ground, daily making a difference. If you prefer to be more specific, we can help distribute your contributions to musicians we know and friends in need via email. [ visit contact page ]

2. If you have an extra house or apartment, please consider offering it to a displaced family from New Orleans or the Gulf Coast. MoveOn.org has a network established, and the previously mentioned charities can very likely help. Once again, we may be able to connect you with our friends and neighbors in need via my website. If you happen to be a friend or neighbor in need, please touch base with us. Maybe we can help.

3. Please remember Hurricane Katrina next time you vote. A nation as great as ours deserves sharp, sensitive leaders attuned to the needs of EVERY American, and every American deserves the opportunity to take advantage of the benefits a well-run democracy can provide.

4. Our first priority is to stabilize the calendar so we can continue to make a living. More than ever, if you can offer gig opportunities – concerts, art shows, blues lectures in university or school settings, and/or concert tours – please get in touch. Hurricane Katrina has drastically altered my schedule, and I need to get some work generated NOW.

5. Please check back with us and others you know when we are finally allowed to return home to New Orleans, for we will certainly need your energy and support as we attempt to restore our homes and lives.

You know that the Bohrens have a knack for travel and living on the road. We were feeling the rhythm of the road by the time we got to Arkansas, and it was like meeting an old friend. Out here we can manage. Faced with the reconstruction of a city whose physical needs have been ignored through ignorant coastal mismanagement and the redirecting of funds that could have made the aging levee system safer, we will have a much more difficult time embracing the return home.

May peace and love fill all of our hearts.

Marilyn Bohren
St. Louis, Missouri
September 3, 2005

Cafe Lena review

By David Greenberger

Spencer Bohren Cafe Lena, Saratoga Springs, Sept. 20

Mixing, gospel, folk and blues, Spencer Bohren has a similar sensibility to Geoff Muldaur. Equally affecting as a singer and guitarist, his vocals are resonant and believable. Last Saturday’s show at Caffe Lena found him alternating between electric slide guitar, an acoustic Gibson and a banjo. Adept at each, his playing and singing were intermingled in the best possible ways.

Performing since the sixties and now based in New Orleans, the Wyoming native spent the better part of the eighties touring the country in an Airstream trailer with his wife and children, towed by their ‘55 Chevy Bel Air. Not surprisingly, Bohren’s got a troubadour’s eye for detail, taking notice of the towns he passed through and the people he continues to meet. His two sets mixed originals with worthy covers. The former included his “Night Is Fallin’,” which sounds like the classic it deserves to become. The latter ranged from Woody Guthrie’s “Deportees” to Fred Neil’s “Blues on the Ceiling,” a couple by Hank Williams (”Long Gone Lonesome Blues” and “I’m So Lonesome I could Cry”) and the Rolling Stones’ “No Expectations.”

Bohren’s first set ended with one of numerous stories he told with a hypnotic ease. This one recounted a road trip he’d made which took him past the infamous Parchman Farm prison. This led into an acapella blues he learned from a tape a friend at the Smithsonian supplied him with, and which he was listening to when he happened upon the facility. It was a searing number originally recorded by Alan Lomax at Parchman decades earlier. With his eyes closed and his voice moving from a whisper to a wail, Bohren captured his own personal connection to the song as well as the dignity in the performance that inspired him.

In fact, Bohren’s storytelling had a life of its own. While most stories prefaced specific songs, one did not and it reveled in a life of its own. This tale of a woman named Dawn Petty from Bird City, Nebraska had the masterful strokes and unforced confidence of a natural storyteller. Free of the hyperbole of a raconteur and nuanced with the subtlety of music, Dawn Petty came to life and wanders around in *my* memory now.

METRO SANTA CRUZ    January 29 – February 5, 2003

Spencer Bohren

Call me a godless heathen and a musical philistine to boot, but I just assumed nobody could make me want to sit through old-timey standards like “Amazing Grace” or – sweet Jesus! – “Gospel Plow” ever again.  But, friends, Spencer Bohren has changed all that, and I’m here to testify that his Carry the Word is no mere history lesson.  With an ear for uncanny arrangements and an otherworldly acoustic and slide guitar style, Bohren has injected this roots music with the same rawness that turned the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack into a shocker of a success.  The topper is a bone-chilling, pitch-black version of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “One Kind Favor” (a.k.a. “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean”) that drives the song through Springsteen’s Nebraska on its way to the haunted graveyard of Howlin’Wolf.   Henfling’s $8-$10; 8 p.m. (Steve Palpoli)

The Times-Picayune

By Keith Spera Music Writer

Spencer Bohren is not a particularly religious man, but he has a special affinity for gospel groups, both real and imagined.

At The Parish of the House of Blues on Tuesday, Bohren sat in with the Blind Boys of Alabama, adding his trademark acoustic slide guitar to three songs by the famed gospel singers. So impressed was Clarence Fountain, the Boys’ 80-ish leader, that he declared of Bohren and fellow guest guitarist David Lindley, “Those boys played like they’ve been born again.”

When Bohren was recording his much-acclaimed “Carry the Word” two years ago, he communed with a gospel quartet called the Nott Brothers. The Notts grace the CD with rich, warm harmonies, complementing the intimate arrangements of traditional spirituals, songs that Bohren has performed since childhood.

When his mother first listened to “Carry the Word,” she was struck by how much it sounded like Bohren and his brothers harmonizing with their father years ago in church. A Swiss promoter heard it and called to book Bohren and the Nott Brothers for a series of concerts in medieval cathedrals.

Bohren had to decline. And the Nott Brothers won’t be joining him today at 5:10 p.m. on the Lagniappe Stage at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. But in a way, they will: Bohren is the Nott Brothers and the Nott Brothers are Bohren.

A last-minute change of plans during the recording of “Carry the Word” forced him to sing all the parts he had mapped out for a real gospel quartet; he named the fictional group the “Nott Brothers.” Bohren inhabits the soul of this music so completely that most listeners don’t notice the rues. “Carry the Word” was named the best local album of 2000 by The Times-Picayune, and has earned similar kudos elsewhere.

After a 35-year odyssey of many miles and many forms of music, Bohren found his most affecting artistic statement residing almost completely within himself.

“This gospel record has moved people that none of my other records might have gotten to,” Bohren said. “I don’t want to be branded as some born-again zealot—that’s far from the truth. But this music is meaningful to me. It came out so easily. I didn’t have to think a lot about it, its so deep inside of me.”

Crescent City’s siren song

Bohren, 51, was raised in Wyoming. He does not remember learning to sing or play guitar; it was something he, his parents and siblings just did, often in church. At 14, he started playing professionally in 1964 at women’s clubs, church functions, county fairs. The folk music renaissance was in full bloom then; archival recordings of Mississippi Delta bluesmen that found their way to Wyoming fueled Bohren’s early fascination with acoustic blues.

The day he graduated from high school, Bohren set off on three decades of roaming. First came Denver, then the West Coast. He lived on a commune in Oregon, joined a touring Seattle band and bounced back to Colorado, where he met Dr. John at the height of the good doctor’s hoodoo psychedelic period.

“We were hanging around all these people with pirate suits and snake tattoos and glitter and feathers and beads,” Bohren said. “We were hippies, but we’d never seen anything like this.”

Dr. John regaled Bohren with tales of New Orleans and its Mardi Gras Indians and spiritual churches. “I didn’t know anything about this,” Bohren said. “New Orleans was very undercover at that time.”

Intrigued, Bohren and his wife journeyed south. They arrived in New Orleans just before Fat Tuesday. The city “wrapped its tendrils around us, and the next thing you know, we were stuck.”

Gigs were scarce in New Orleans in the mid-’70s, but Bohren landed on eat a place called Spaghetti Eddie’s. He performed with a legendary crew of hard-partying locals, slowly building a following. In 1983 he packed his ever-growing family into an Airstream trailer and hit the road. After seven years of near-constant touring, the family settled in Wyoming.

In 1996, he and his wife made a fateful visit to New Orleans. Sitting in Jackson Square on a brilliant fall afternoon, they had an epiphany: The Big Easy was home. The family packed up once again and landed in Mid-City.

“We were welcomed back with open arms, as if we’d never been gone.” Bohren said. “There’s something real special here. Touring Europe 30-some times, I’ve seen a lot of amazing things, and played with great musicians from a lot of places. All of that experience makes me realize more than ever how truly unique New Orleans is.”

All parts Bohren

For the first 20 years of his career, Bohren didn’t make a record. “I didn’t feel that it was that big a deal,” he said. “You’re at the gig, everything’s cool, you drink some beers and the next thing you know it’s 20 years later.

“It’s hard for me to believe, because now I make records all the time. I can’t imagine that I deprived myself of that kind of pleasure for that long.”

He now has more than a dozen albums to his credit, including several Japan- and Europe-only releases. The seeds for “Carry the Word” were sown with its predecessor, the acoustic guitar and harmonica meditation “Dirt Roads.” Bohren bookended with a pair of old spirituals. Encouraged by positive response to them, he decided to make an entire album of such material.

He entered a friend’s Jackson, Miss., recording studio in April 1999. A Mississippi gospel quartet, the Williams Brothers, was scheduled to come in on the last day of the session and add harmonies. The band’s leader called that morning with bad news: He and the others were laid up with the flu. With no time to find a replacement, Bohren laid down the gospel himself.

He would sing one part, roll back the tape, add another, then do it again, building the “quartet” one take at a time. He rendered the soul-swoop falsettos, the bass parts, all the gospel harmonies that resonate so deeply throughout the album. And he invented the “Nott Brothers” name.

“It was so different than the plan. In the end, I think it’s much better. It went very quickly, because I knew exactly what I wanted. There was no teaching any lyrics; I just went in and sang it.”

The powerful simplicity of “Dirt Roads” and “Carry the Word” made Bohren rethink his methods.

“I realized that maybe all these records that I was making along the lines of John Hiatt or Steve Earle weren’t really what I had to offer,” he said. “These last two records are these simple, rootsy records and they really struck a chord with people.

An artist’s life

As good as they are, they likely will never sell big numbers. Lean times last year forced Bohren to accept his first-ever day job; it didn’t last. Then in February he appeared on “A Prairie Home Companion,” the syndicated radio variety show with Garrison Keillor as host, and played for 4 million listeners. He’ll return to the show May 19, and hopes the exposure will give his career another boots.

Such are the ups and downs of the life of a musician, the life he’s chosen, the life that chose him.

“At this point, I feel real good about my life and myself and my music,” he said. “I realize that the music is just a reflection of whatever life I’ve got going. Maybe that’s why these records are so calm.

“It’s a great gift to be an artist. My daughter once said, ‘It’s maybe not a good living, but it’s a great life.’ It’s true. We’ve made a life that would be impossible to pay for. It’s been quite a journey.”

LAST DECADE IN PARIS
Chapter Three

By Mike Zwerin

The Mississippi Delta was shining
Like a National guitar
– Paul Simon

When I first met Spencer Bohren, the Paul Simon line above was not yet a cliche. And it had taken Bohren a while to come to terms with the idea that journalists are more interested in his lifestyle than his music. I think I was the first journalist to put that on the table with him.

He was an excellent guitarist, sang with conviction, had a warm low-keyed stage presence and ‚ along with John Hammond Jr. ‚ was one of the few white solo blues singers who made a living at it. He would drive a total of a thousand miles to get to four or five one- nighters a week and when he started to raise a family he realized that he’d either have to start bringing them along or lose them. His wife, Marilyn, was a midwife in Louisiana, delivering babies for circus people. The circus people recommended the mobile-home life. Bohren saw that what these people lacked in space and privacy was made up in rich relationships.

The Bohrens first hit the road as a family when their oldest son, Django (named after the Gypsy guitarist) turned six. There were four children, the youngest was seven months. They were all born at home and the older ones were home-schooled. They started with an old Chevrolet towing a bottom-of-the-line trailer. Bohren learned how to repair the engine “with a flashlight in my teeth. I’m a hell of a mechanic on a small-block Chevy engine. I learned in the School of Hard Knocks ‚ or rather valve knocks. I dug us out of some major holes.”

But before I met him, the blues business had begun to look up. He had recently bought what he described as a “maxed-out silver Airstream chrome- home deluxe,” 35 feet long with three axles, a hardwood interior and cedar closets (”it’s a real dish”). And then there was also a new Ford van that was “made to tow, it’s a killer vehicle.”

The fact that the loan officer was a blues fan is the only explanation Bohren could think of for approving a $31,000 loan to someone with $91 in the bank and without “what most people consider a job.” He called it a “dream life, that endless American highway åOn the Road’ thing. We’re not really political, we just know a lot of people who don’t fit the envelope exactly. I think we’re only taking advantage of the freedom America offers.”

It was the old Huck Finn vision of freedom in America, free of school, free of prison workplaces. He ran into some resentment and jealousy, but also a great deal of respect and generosity. A shrimp fisherman in Florida who was touched by his music gave him a mint condition 1928 National guitar. He told Bohren this incredible wartime story about his friend Shorty, who said, just before he died: “Arthur, take this guitar and give it to…” Another time, Bohren was buying a Toyota part from a funky biker who was running what appeared to be a fencing operation in New Orleans when he saw this black 1958 National that looked like a compressed Buick leaning against a wall. The biker said to take it home.

“I guess it’s my good looks,” Bohren said, laughing. He was born and grew up in Wyoming and you get a touch of the prairie when he laughs. They traveled by the old blue highways, driving slowly, stopping often, the kids were always looking out the windows, interested, thinking, asking questions. It took Django four years to learn his multiplication tables but he learned them.

The family was thrown together, they’d become friends. And returning over and over to the same towns, the family accumulated a lot of outside friends, although they only saw them a few at a time. Kind of a horizontal crowd. “My life is horizontal,” Bohren said. “I may not be famous but I’m working everywhere, I’ve got all the local gigs in America, I’m a local everywhere.”

Six weeks a year he worked in Europe, mostly Scandinavia, and then he left the family behind. Early in 1989, he recorded an album with Totta Naslund, a Swedish blues singer, and so that tour was longer than usual. He refused to do it until the record company agreed to pick up the tab to bring over the family. The music has to fit family life rather than the other way around.

On a later tour, while Bohren was working in Paris, Django was sitting in the Airstream, which was parked in his grandfather’s driveway in New York state reading “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Django read four or five books a week. They had no television. If there happened to be one somewhere, Django would turn it off in order to read. “I guess a kid growing up in America without television is rather unusual,” Bohren said, understating up a storm.

He grew up in a church-oriented family. His father was a deacon. He sang gospel songs with the choir. From there it was a short step to the folk movement in the å60s. Moving to New Orleans, he discovered the vast difference between white and black gospel. It was another short step to Robert Johnson.

He lived in Denver, Hollywood, New Orleans: “I had bands, played with bands, endless bands, bands, bands. Then I went out solo, started to build my own circuit. It got better every day. I wasn’t famous but I was popular in blues circles. I used the genuine Delta, Georgia ‚ whatever you want to call it ‚ blues as a jumping-off point. I love the feeling of early blues. It’s so informative, almost like reading a newspaper.”

About once every two years he worked Medicine Bow, Wyoming, close to where he grew up: “It’s a crossroads for two highways nobody ever travels on anymore, 90 miles from the nearest town. Windblown, open range, no fences, mid-Wyoming. My mother stands next to me and points to elderly people saying things like, åThat’s Mrs. Mills, she was your kindergarten teacher.’ I draw tons of people. They tell me what a charming little boy I was. They forget all about the time I was åa nasty drug addict’ and they just about threw me out of town.”

He produced two of his own albums and then sold them to small record companies that barely get them distributed, let alone paid royalties. His wife, who had a business degree, was his manager. Gigs were usually self-promoted. They had a regionalized mailing list and sent out periodic postcards to keep in touch between appearances. The kept a telephone answering machine in a friend’s house and rented a mail service (a packet once every 10 days or so) two blocks from Fats Domino’s mansion in Arabi, Louisiana.

One day they got a letter from Ojaste and Christian Di Natale, an English teacher and a physiotherapist who had started a label called Loft Records in their spare time, of which there was plenty, in Vichy, France. The partners had stumbled on one of Bohren’s records and wrote to the address on the jacket. Bohren became a Loft artist. He said he thought it was “pretty hip to have a record company in Vichy.”

So after Josephine Baker, Sidney Bechet, Jerry Lewis and Samuel Fuller…Ladies and gentlemen, Spencer Bohren. The French are always pleased to discover American talent from under American noses. Business had been better than good, media play out of sight, when he opened at the Platinum Bar of the Meridien Hotel in Montparnasse for a week. “They seem to think I’m some kind of star over here,” he said. “I’m beginning to believe it myself.”

Mike Zwerin has been jazz and rock critic for the International Herald Tribune for the last twenty years. He was also the European correspondent for The Village Voice. Mike Zwerin is the author of several books on jazz and the jazz editor of Culturekiosque.com.

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