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GARLAND JEFFREYS PERFORMING
AGAIN
After enjoying a flourishing career in Europe, Garland
Jeffreys, one of New
York's favorite sons, has come home. Last summer,
after a nine year hiatus,
Jeffreys gave an impromptu show at a community house
on Long Island. The
response was overwhelming, and marked the beginning
of his return. He was
reminded that there is nothing more exciting and
rewarding than performing
live. Now he's back on the road, giving his fans
what they—and he—have been
missing all these years.
In August he organized a benefit in East Hampton
for his friend Denis Craine,
an ALS sufferer and community activist. The show
was an unprecedented
success, with appearances by Garland, Paul Simon,
Phoebe Snow and Suzanne Vega
, drawing over 3,000 people. Garland was featured
on CBS This Morning with
Mark McEwen, and Roger Friedman of Fox News wrote,
"Why he isn't a bigger
star is a mystery to me—there is no other more
lively performer. Audiences
love him and his mixture of blues, soul and rock."
Garland sang Skip James' "Washington D.C. Hospital
Blues," filmed by Wim
Wenders for the six-part PBS series, "The Blues."
Mr. Wenders also filmed
Lou Reed and Lucinda Williams. Scheduled for airing
in fall 2003, other
directors in the series include Martin Scorsese
and Mike Figgis. At
Christmas, Bruce Springsteen invited Garland to
be a part of his Asbury Park
charity shows, and Garland's set included a newly
resonant rendition of his
1977 "New York Skyline," which "transfixed
the crowd" and "demonstrated a
supple and smoky voice with a wonderful vibrato,"
(Chris Jordan, Asbury Park
Press).
Making his first appearance at The Montreal Jazz
Festival, Ron Corbett of The
Ottawa Citizen describes how during "Spanish
Town,"..."people start to rise
from their seats. By the end of the song the crowd
has doubled in size, and
people are streaming in from other stages in the
park, summoned by friends
who have told them something memorable is happening
on the small acoustic
stage set up in front of city hall. Garland Jeffreys
is back..."
Recent shows in the Northeast have featured Garland
and longtime accompanist
Alan Freedman on acoustic guitars.
BIO
If we are all undeniably shaped by our environments,
then here is mine:
Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, in the Fifties and Sixties,
the embodiment of the
urban melting pot. I surely was melted, a mix of
black, white, Puerto Rican
with a faint trace of Cherokee. My grandfather was
head waiter at Lundy's,
the world-famous Brooklyn seafood restaurant. Those
were the days when it
was honorable for a black man to be a waiter, an
elevator operator, a soldier
or a porter, like my father was at one time. I used
to ride along with him
on the Pennsylvania Railroad, the New York to DC
line, and there was nothing
more exciting than sleeping in the double deckers
and watching the towns roll
by.
My mother had me when she was sixteen and she named
me after seeing the word
on a fancy box of cards. She was just a kid, and
music was the soundtrack of
her life, just like rap is today--only her music
was Duke Ellington, Dinah
Washington, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra and even
Benny Goodman. I soaked it
up. It was background to the forty eight hour card
games that floated from
one apartment to another, when they would put little
Garland to sleep in the
bottom dresser drawer. The adults were cool. They
talked jive. Daddy-o and
doojie, hep and hipster and, "Man, I was with
that cat when he flipped out."
There were characters all around...Davey Nichols,
Stetson, Spook, Sister,
Shorty Bolden...people I knew and heard about who
hinted at dangerous things.
In truth, I didn't need to look far for influences,
not when my uncle was
living downstairs and up to no good. To balance
that out, there were
families like the Haynes, a few blocks over, who
came from the West Indies.
They built houses, bought real estate, and lived
a clean, sober life. Mr.
Haynes lived to be one hundred, with eight of his
children gathered around
him on his birthday.
Most of the kids in my public school were Jewish
or Italian. Starting in
kindergarten, I used to have crushes on the white
girls. Once I got called
into the principal's office for slipping one a love
note. They called my
father in and he defended me. "From this note,
it seems to me Garland likes
this girl. I don't see anything wrong here."
My father was raised an orphan in Harlem. Later
in life he told me how at
four years old he used to scamper across rooftops
early in the morning, then
drop down to steal milk from the stoops. I never
went hungry. But when I
was little I would cut across the yard to Sweetie
Pie, the neighbor lady's
house and ring the bell. She would call me Frankie
Boy and give me pickles
and a biscuit. Today my six year old daughter walks
down the street and
rings the doorbell to get a cookie from our neighbor.
I'm sure I never told
her the story about Frankie Boy.
Visit
Garland Jeffreys' web site
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