Stuck in the '60s profile picture

Stuck in the '60s

About Me

I consider myself a child of the ‘60s. I was co-editor of the student newspaper at NYU in Washington Square when Dylan was playing the coffee houses, progressive jazz was ascendant and the beat poets were having a liberating impact on American Lit. We expanded the newspaper to cover those cultural events. When I graduated, I joined the Air Force, spending the better part of four years helping to train Tactical Air Command pilots, who went immediately to war. The demoralizing effect of a war we were clearly losing and the domestic unrest it generated resonated even with those of us in the armed forces. I came home from that experience with a wife, two young daughters and a sense that freedom was every bit as important an element in life as all the euphemisms suggested. While finding work in public relations firms helped support my growing family, including the adoption of a third daughter, my creative release always came via my freelance writing. I’d played guitar, sang and wrote songs for a band in the ‘60s, but gave it up to concentrate on my prose and a couple of novels I’ve authored. I have traveled extensively as a journalist and I am the founding editor of an award-winning travel website: www.naturaltraveler.com. But music has always played a critical role in my life. I’d always felt that Dylan had liberated the songwriter in all of us, while setting his almost-impossible-to-reach benchmarks. I have come back to the guitar, letting it drive my creativity. My debut CD, “Stuck in the ‘60s, Vol. 2,” on Hollow Body Records, has been produced by Doug Kwartler, a gifted musician and songwriter, who also runs Hollow Body Studios and is a talented engineer, bringing a great deal of his musical genius to my work. Samples of that work are available here. Enjoy.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 23/10/2006
Band Members: Musicians on CD -- Tony Tedeschi: lead vocals and rhythm guitar; Doug Kwartler: lead guitar, slide guitar, banjo, backing vocals, bass, percussion; Michael Leuci: Hammond organ, drums; John Henry Trinko: piano; Dan Zellan, lead guitar; Mark Crosson: lap steel; Jim Leach: electric bass; Doug Drewes, stand-up bass; Rob Hecht, violin.
Influences: Started with the whole Sun Records thing: Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Elvis before he went mainstream. Then Dylan and the Greenwich Village folk scene. Blues, definitely blues: Lightning Hopkins, B.B. King, Jimmy Reed. Numerous female artists both vintage and new: Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Raitt, Lucinda Williams. Throw in some Ray Charles . . . and, well . . . Stuck in the '60s, maybe even the '50s some. Mark Knopfler, Willie Nelson and Richard Thompson have traveled across the years with me. Newcomers like Anne McCue, Ray LaMontagne, Jonny Lang, Andrea England (a wonderful Canadian singer-songwriter), Mary Gauthier (one of the best songwriters I've heard in years) and Susan Tedeschi (no relation) have added some recent spice. I came late to Leonard Cohen, but, damn, he hit me hard. I am also very much influenced by fellow Long Islanders like Doug Kwartler, Toby Walker, Joe Vicino, among those with growing reputations, Pedro Pereira and Michael Leuci, who have provided guidance and inspiration. Playing in this area and interacting with wonderful performers such as these is an ongoing source of inspiration. I have a master's in English Lit and there is no overestimating the influence of the great poets from Milton to T.S. Eliot, Donne to Pound; Whitman, Dickinson, Wallace Stevens. Among novelists, F. Scott Fitzgerald and James Joyce. How do they influence music? How do they not?
Record Label: Hollow Body Records
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

naturaltraveler.com

For the past eight years I have edited a travel essay website: www.naturaltraveler.com. The site has featured some of the best travel writers and photographers anywhere, all working pro bono, in orde...
Posted by on Sun, 29 Oct 2006 07:32:00 GMT

Stuck in the Sixties

I consider myself a child of the ..60s. Although I was born in 1941 -- which places me in my 60s -- it was the 1960s that molded, in many ways, who I am. I was co-editor of the student newspaper at ...
Posted by on Mon, 23 Oct 2006 17:18:00 GMT