I bought a copy of Whose Boat Is This Boat? and contributed to helping people and areas hit hard by Hurricanes Florence and Michael. The creators and publisher of the book are donating 100% of the proceeds via the various organizations working with hurricane victims and devastated areas: Foundation for the Carolinas, One SC Relief Fund, North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund, World Central Kitchen, and Florida Disaster Relief Fund.
This week, Stephen Colbert made a big announcement about how much purchasers of the book have contributed to the relief cause in this fun way:
I thought I’d wander back through diaries that I kept on and off for several years and see what I could find with today’s date, 6 December. I found a couple: one from 1977 and one from 1981. Both are back in my Trekkie days, which were, admittedly, not fanatically so. I liked the show but didn’t let it take over my life. I called my diary Captain’s Log and used a few different dating systems, both of which are translated with the transcriptions below. I’m going to try not to edit the writing, so that my mistakes in spelling and grammar stand.
Captain’s Log: 120.677 [December 6, 1977]
It’s 8:00 AM and snowing. It really looks good. I told Phil on Saturday that it was gonna snow today. I hope to pass all of my tests and go to ballgame tonight. At the ballgame I hope to see Madison beat Reynolds and Leesa. . . . Lord, be my guide this day
Captain’s Log: Supplimental
Today has ended rather boring, but well. I made 84 on my Math 110 test so I’m out of there with an 87.
It continued snowing and freezing the rest of the day so the games were called (I didn’t get to see Leesa). We all sat around tonight listening to music then watching “Houston, We’ve Got a Problem” . . . . God be praised!!!
My Mars Hill College ID Card
Okay, so I was a first-semester freshman music major (flute) at Mars Hill College when I wrote this. I was living on campus in Spilman Hall. My roommate was Johnny Sawyer, with whom I’d grown up in Walnut. He was hardly ever there, so it was like having a private room. The Phil mentioned is Phil Shuford, who lived across the hall with his roommate Yogi Something. I don’t know where Yogi is, but Phil lives in Ozark, Missouri. We’re friends on Facebook. The math course I reference was an early computer course, in which we learned to create those punched cards that were the apps of 1977. And in those MHC days, Leesa was in my heart and mind but not with me. She’d begun her career at Creative Hair Design in Asheville and was working hard to build a clientele and support herself and Lane, who was seventeen months old at the time.
Captain’s Log Stardate 8112.06 [December 6, 1981]
As seems almost usual for me on Sunday morning, I woke up ill at the world. The Lord knows how hard it is for me to get up before 11 AM. I almost decided not to go to church, like every Sunday, thinking that I got nothing from the small, country service. Then I realised, as always, that they are my people and, even though I may get nothing from the service but seeing them and feeling their friendship, that is enough. Then I also come face-to-face with the fact that the singing I dread with such passion is for them and not for me, and that, being graciously given the gift from God, it is my duty to sing for them. It should also be my desire to do so. Well, Allen met me at the door asking if what he heard about me signing with Capitol was true and he was followed closely by Butch asking the same. I quickly gave them my practiced explanation about Townhouse but they were still pleased. When time for me to sing came around, as I was getting my guitar, Raymond spoke up about my struggles with my music and my witness for the church and my hopefully impending record deal. Then totally unexpectedly he suggested a standing ovation for me and I was overwhelmed. If it is not the Lord’s will for me that this all go through all right, He sure is planning to teach me a great lesson in disappointment. Even at that, though, this morning was a great blessing, and I am very thankful for all those people there.
As far as my music and my career go, I am constantly trying to ask with a sincere heart that the Father’s Will be done and not my own. I could live with losing this deal but not with going against His plans for me.
Oh, in church I sang “A SONG FOR CAROLINA” and “DEAR MOTHER”.
The rest of the day was the usual big chicken dinner and lazy Sunday afternoon. I did, however, add music to and edit some lyrics I wrote last night called “DO YOU EVER MISS ME”
We practiced for the Christmas program this evening then I returned home to watch “YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN” on the tube.
As always it is quite late as I write this so I’ll sign off for now…MC…”Dear Mother, I know He’ll come again”
I’d left Mars Hill College two years before, December 1979, in the middle of my junior year, and transferred to Belmont College in Nashville for the spring semester of 1980, to study music business. But it was too much business and not enough music, so I stayed only one semester before transferring to UNC-Asheville–as an English major–for half the fall semester of that year before quitting altogether. I lived at home in Walnut, writing songs and playing solo at different events and venues around the area. I had a manager named Ron Weathers, who worked out of Asheville, and we’d spent some time in Nashville, where Earl Richards recorded my songs for his publishing and production companies. Earl had cut a deal with Townhouse Records, which was distributed by Capitol Records, and my first album was in the works.
The Townhouse/Capitol thing eventually fell through. Although I probably still have the lyric somewhere, I don’t remember anything about “Do You Ever Miss Me”; most likely it was a Leesa lyric. I remember singing “A Song for Carolina” at a couple of big events, one of which was the ceremony in Raleigh, North Carolina, celebrating Liston B. Ramsey’s ascension to Speaker of the state’s House of Representatives, but again, I remember little about it. “Dear Mother” I still perform now and then.
On Friday, June 15, I spent the morning driving from Johnson City and East Tennessee State University to Harrogate, Tennessee, and Lincoln Memorial University. The 13th Mountain Heritage Literary Festival took place over that weekend. It was my first time to attend such an event, my first time to lead a fiction workshop.
I had five good folks in the workshop–Sue, Rebecca, Sam, Luke, and Mike. I decided to call it “Song Scenes.” I’d selected a handful of narrative verses from songs I like. We began with the first verses of Springsteen’s “Thunder Road,” McDill’s “Good Ole Boys Like Me,” and Carpenter’s “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her.” We discussed the narrative elements — how (and what) the writers of these songs achieved in such a short space. Their overnight assignment was to take a verse I handed them and 1) figure out how it works, just like we’d done in class, and 2) write something of their own in which they attempted to evoke the same narrative ambience using some or all of the same elements. All five of them came up with terrific stuff, and I was so pleased with their work and their discussions. Thankfully, they seemed to enjoy the workshop as well, so maybe I’ll get to do this again someday.
The whole weekend was great! During the day, we had the workshops, special events (presentations, performances, and so on), and when everything was finished in the evening, many of us gathered on the dormitory’s patio with guitars and other instruments and beverages in red or blue Solo cups, enjoying the company until late.
One view from Pinnacle Overlook near Cumberland Gap
It’s a very old tale—boy meets girl; boy trades girl for a shot at fame; boy comes to regret that last part. Gabriel’s Songbook, a debut novel by Johnson City author Michael Amos Cody, is a love song to music—creating it, performing it, and generally being passionate about it. What it is not is a love song to the music business.
Twenty-one-year-old Gabriel Tanner leaves his new wife, Eliza, and his little hometown near Asheville for the chance to prove himself in Nashville. He’s hoping for a big break, but reality sets in as soon as he arrives: “Young men with guitars awaited country music stardom on every corner, warbling songs about trucks and alcohol and mamas and cheating hearts, guitar cases opened at their feet. Grungy kids Gabriel’s age or younger, looking both frightened and defiant, one moment weaved and bobbed through the starry-eyed sidewalk crowd like the children they were, the next disappeared into some black hole of a bar.”
Gabriel’s Songbook chronicles the talented-but-naïve young musician’s ups and downs with a vast array of music-business figures: managers, producers, label executives, promoters, engineers, disc jockeys, contract lawyers, marketing consultants, bandmates, writing partners, hair stylists, and wardrobe consultants. They all have big plans for him, but eventually he comes to understand that they’re all working their own angles, which are not necessarily to his benefit. Through it all, Gabriel works hard to remember why he’s doing all this, and what he’s given up along the way. He goes back to the night he saw the new girl at their high school in the crowd at one of his shows:
In the purity of that moment—filled with music and Eliza—I discovered a light. A guiding star, as I’ve always imagined it. Over the years, even in times when I felt most earth-bound, I kept sight of that star in the heavens. When I sat in some darkened room with my guitar in my arms, trying to fit words to music, it hovered above me like a muse invoked. And when I finally got a real stage and an audience made up of more than friends and family, it became a spotlight, or the spot-lit reflection of myself in some pretty woman’s smiling eyes. I followed that star … without question, through a great wilderness and some of my wildest dreams.
Such dreams don’t always survive the trip, though Gabriel’s love for music endures: “This part, the writing of lyrics, I loved most of all about songwriting, even on this edge of exhaustion,” he remembers. “The soul churning. The stirring up of memories and feelings and dreams. The strange sensation that I was a bystander watching as the page filled with these things put into words.”
Through flashbacks, dream sequences, song lyrics, and even ghostly visitations, readers can watch Gabriel learning lessons the hard way, as he is transformed from a romantic idealist into a hard-drinking, hard-living “almost was,” often at odds with family and friends. Cody brings to life Gabriel’s passion for his art and his ambition to succeed in music, deftly portraying the anguish of unrealized dreams made even more bitter by regret.
A graduate of Auburn University, Tina Chambers has worked as a technical editor at an engineering firm and as an editorial assistant at Peachtree Publishers, where she worked on books by Erskine Caldwell, Will Campbell, and Ferrol Sams, to name a few. She lives in Chattanooga.
Gabriel’s Songbook has now been out in the big wide world for three weeks or so, and folks are beginning to read and respond. So far, responses have been good! And in the name of shameless self-promotion, I thought I’d share a few comments:
(1) Last week I went to Michael’s book reading in Asheville. It is always special to have the author read & discuss his book, but even more so when parts of the book are sung! I really enjoyed the reading & discussion that followed. . . . I have been snuggled up with the book all week. It is great! As you can imagine, his writing is very lyrical. It is also very vivid, bringing to life the town, scenery and people in the book. I was expecting a story about being conflicted between art & business, but to have a love story as well? It’s a very enjoyable easy read. You won’t be disappointed! Thank you Michael Cody for sharing this touching story.
(2) It’s difficult to put down. Exceeding descriptive expectations. But not surprised by how great it is. The reviews on the cover are spot on!
(3) I’m starting Chapter 14. This is one of the best books I’ve read in years. The story is a page-turner. The writing is remarkable.
(4) This book was a page turner for me! I recommended to all my friends!
(5) A fantastic book! It’s real. It’s heartbreaking and yet full of life and love. Michael Amos Cody paints the scenes with words that place you in the middle of it as if you were there. Just like his songs…it captures your heart and you are changed for the better.
(6) This is the best book I’ve read in several years. The story is compelling and touching. It was hard to put it down the three nights it took to read it. Not only is it a great story, but the writing is brilliant. One of my favorite, though little known, authors is Robert McCammon and one reason is that his prose is magical. I got the same feeling with Michael Cody’s storytelling. The wordsmithing itself is just incredibly good.
Are you a songwriter or an author? Or do you just love music and/or great literature? Have you ever aspired to be successful as a musician? Or have you wondered why some people “make it” and some don’t? Have you ever played in an original or cover band? Have you ever been involved in any way with the music industry, with managers, promoters, promisers, game players….? If so, you will LOVE this book.
I wish I could write as well as the author so that i could better express how much I enjoyed this book. This is a MUST read for anyone who has ever been involved in or infatuated by drama that is the music industry.
P.S. And wait until you meet the Turrenok brothers in Chapter 13.
(7) LOVE the book!
As you can imagine, I’m really tickled with these reactions. And I’d be tickled with yours, if you have a chance to read the novel and will take a moment to post a word or two about it. Even if you don’t like it, I’ll still be tickled at your having read it.
Photo by Ed Huskey, c. 1979.
Just follow one or all of the links below and let me know what you think:
For a few years before I joined Facebook, I kept a blog called Writing Life, and I and my blog were part of a community of bloggers who read each other’s writing, kept track of each other’s lives and thoughts, even got together in the real world from time to time. The ease of Facebook eventually distracted our little blogging community, whose inhabitants eventually wandered away into the shiny world of the new platform, where we occasionally “Like” each other’s posts but interact relatively little beyond that.
Don’t get me wrong — I still like Facebook and plan to keep using it. We connect and reconnect with people from our past, present and future. We share laughs and griefs. We share news and information. Mostly we share pictures. It caters to our short attention spans. It’s great. And it’s fun.
But I find myself missing the blog.
So I’ll begin it again. I’ll try to post every week or two. And I’ll write about words (written and read) and music (written and heard). From time to time I might even repost favorite items from Writing Life.
Anyway, whether folks read or not, I’ll begin writing soon.
A graduate of Auburn University, 