I Do Declare Garland Jeffreys Day In Minneapolis! Friday, January 20th, 2012!
Let's go back to the night of June 19th, 2010. At a concert I produced for Ramblin' Jack Elliott, a guy comes up to me and introduces himself, appearing stately, with a hat on and wearing camera equipment on both sides of himself! He hands me his card and we meet about a month or so after the concert to go over some photographs he shot backstage with Jack and myself. The photos were amazing and we have since become great friends! His name is Doug Webb and he is the head of Connect Artists. I would soon find out that he had been doing web and video work for Garland since 2008! He had also created an online fan site dedicated to all things Garland called Wild In The Streets! I had an immediate nickname for him and called him Webb on Web. I didn't believe that was his real last name! I still don't! Now I have been listening to Garland since I was 14 years old, playing him on my high school radio station KDXL 91.7 FM in St. Louis Park back in 1982. From the first time I heard Ballad Of Me, I knew that this was an artist that would be around for a long long time! A song nearly 40 years old now and every word still rings true!
Music and Lyrics by Garland Jeffreys
From the album Garland Jeffreys (1973)
Oh what can I say?
It happened that way
I'm a freak in the family
Like a newborn child
With a frozen smile
I'm a jester emotionally
In the night, yeah
I dream of you
The sweetest dream
Of just we two
Holding each other
Only thirteen
Like a hawk in the night
I separate wrong from right
I'm a legend you see
Black and white as can be
And I give you this ballad of me
But in my way
I wish to say
I'm still afraid
Of all my friends
And mystery
of unknown things
And lifeline hands
And Scorpio
And old Mojo
And sidewalk queens
And rooftop fiends
Oh, whoa, whoa
Some of the other songs I played on the air included Bound To Get Ahead Someday, Cool Down Boy, Wild In The Streets, 35 Millimeter Dreams, She Didn't Lie, Scream In The Night, No Woman No Cry, 96 Tears, What Does It Take (To Win Your Love), and El Salvador which have all gone on to become classics today! It didn't take me long to ask Doug "When was the last time Garland played in town here?" I do recall an early 80's concert with Carmen McRae and one with Lou Reed back in the 70's, but that was it? Doug replied "Let's just say it has been a little while!" I said "Well, we have to get him back here!" Long story short, over the next 19 months I would occasionally email Garland's management asking them to consider Magic Marc Productions for a booking in my hometown and when the time was right to please let me know? That time has arrived and now he is finally coming back to Minneapolis! Promoting this concert is a collaborative effort with Doug and I wouldn't want it any other way!
Garland's music has no boundaries! Call it rock, reggae, blues, jazz, and soul or rhythm and blues, he plays it all! He is a poet of a kind and I know it too! 1977's Ghost Writer, 1981's Escape Artist, 1992's Don't Call Me Buckwheat and Garland's latest 2011 release The King of In Between, of which Ben Greenman of The New Yorker has described as "Both humble and defiant, nostalgic and restless" are all amongst some of the best work ever done by anyone, period! Ben's description of the album also applies to Garland's persona. In a recent story in the Brattelboro Reformer, Dave Madeloni ended his interview with Garland by asking him to reflect on his five-decade long career. Garland's reply was "I think I am proudest of a point of view that is interested in people of all colors, all races, to be in an ideal place, an ideal world, where we are accepting of one another. What is happening in this country now in terms of the variety of people is amazing. You can't stop it. We have to be accepting. That has been my position from the very, very beginning."
Garland promises us he is on the 90-year-plan. Like all the other legendary musical greats of our times (Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Bruce Springsteen, and Pete Townshend) Garland is also giving us his gift of a lifetime of music! At 68-years-old he is at the top of his game! Turning out new future classics like Coney Island Winter, 'Til John Lee Hooker Calls Me, Love Is Not A Cliché and Roller Coaster Town! He is one of my musical heroes and I am honored to be able to bring him back to town! Special thanks goes out to Claire Jeffreys for making this all possible! So Ladies and Gentlemen, as it is written in the liner notes of The King of In Between,
In between the cracks
In between the lies and the facts
In between the secrets and the lies
The other side of the tracks
Between the mansions and the shacks
Between the whites and the blacks
The King of in between.
Now let me add the King of the Twin Cities! I am going to give him the key to the city when he gets here! Please welcome Mr. Garland Jeffreys!