Make a Little Music Every Day Till You Die

I found out Henry Gaffney, one of my favorite teachers (my thesis advisor at Berklee) died yesterday. We were generations apart both in age and in musical taste, but I loved his gruff informality, profanity, his outspoken but sincere and kind atheism, and relentless insertions of a "y" where an "h" should be - oh, the yoomanity!


It's a real shock - I was still hoping to see him on a trip back to Boston sometime, or maybe I'd catch him out here on the West coast. Oddly, his passing seems to be affecting me more than some family deaths have. I knew him really mostly in passing - but he's one of the teachers who really affected me, gave me a lot to consider and mostly inspired me. 


I think I'm coming to see that teaching is a real through-line in my life, no matter how I've resented or resisted it. I've just kept falling into these situations where I'm instructing or tutoring or advising people. The old adage of those who can't teach, do, has always haunted me. I didn't want to be one of those washouts who resorts to teaching because he can't hack it in the "real world." 


I'm starting to think that may be backwards. Maybe teaching is just as valid and important as any other passion and pursuit. I know plenty of artists, writers and poets who crank out mediocre art, enjoy moderate success and give nothing back to nobody, content to live their meager version of the Artist's Dream.


Henry had the stones to admit that he didn't love the musician lifestyle - he refused to tour behind any of the several albums he released because he hated it. He didn't like being on the road, isolated from places and people he loved. He loved writing but didn't need the attention of being an ARTIST. At a younger age I might have faulted him for that, saying it was the easy way out, he should have stuck with it until he became James Taylor or Randy Newman at least. Now I think that's pretty brave - some people can be content with being John the Baptist or Big Bill Broonzy, making straight the way of the Elvis. 


I don't really have a poem for tonight, call me lazy or maybe only music can really do the trick. But here's a great little song from an awesome stupid movie called "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story." It's sort of a combination of "Ray," "Walk the Line," and "The Patsy Cline/Buddy Holly/Richie Valens Story." It's sly, off-color, silly and dead-on-accurate in its depictions. I think Henry would approve. 

The music is also terrific throughout. This clip from the grand finale manages to both mock saccharine, sentimental uplifting tunes but still be an incredible saccharine, sentimental uplifting tune.

Love yourself, but not only yourself.


Abyssinia, Henry.