Trombone John
If you happened to have read my post explaining the origin of my song, Pretty Old Things, you’ll know I have, like many fans of The Antiques Roadshow, a difficult time saying goodbye to old stuff, even if it has no sentimental value at all. If I live for a while with an object I find aesthetically pleasing, even if I don’t know the original owner, or the object’s past life, I can usually whip up some nostalgic reason to not get rid of it. So, you can imagine how it goes for me with something that actually emits a strong association with my past. Such was the case with my father’s trombone.
My father played his trombone in the high school marching band, which makes it a pre-war antique, valued at around $200, give or take (conservative estimate). My thoughts about playing the trombone, which admittedly are not well developed, are that you either make a lifetime commitment to the mastery of the instrument, or you decide, when you’re released from your duty, to never play music again. My father chose the latter; except on the rare occasion when my sisters and I could get him to dust off the case, open it up, breathe in the musty, moldy aroma, and make a little noise on it, which was rare, and usually left him with a 2-week sinus infection.
Somehow, as time went on, the trombone wound up with me, and like a lot of objects, a few years back it was taking up space in the barn that I was busy converting into the Little Big North recording studio. As the build out was nearing completion, I decided it was time to make some hard decisions about a lot of stuff that I was holding on to. So, I made a deal with my sentimental self. I would get rid of the trombone on one condition. I would first immortalize it in a song, then let Ebay have its way with it.
Around this time, I had been thinking back on some of the musicians I’d met over the years. Not the ones I arranged to play with one way or another, but the ones I’d met by chance. In most cases, it would be at one of my gigs—a solo acoustic night in some Manhattan pub or before a show with my band, Left Exit, at a frat house in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Often the musicians would be just passing through. They might play blues harp, or a beat up guitar. On one occasion, it was a man named Faulkner, who had a set of tuned, empty, crushed tomato cans that he made sound like steel drums. Sometimes I would hear their stories, other times they were more mysterious. But, for me they would always invoke thoughts of the hard scrabble lives of delta blues musicians back in the 30’s and 40’s that laid the foundation, through their raw technical prowess and emotional delivery, for blues rock. The most famous of these delta blues legends was Robert Johnson, who was said to have made a deal with the devil at the crossroads in exchange for making him the greatest guitarist in the world, or something like that.
And so, having made my own deal with the devil (the one that lives inside of me and convinces me to hold on to old junk), I decided I would write a tribute to the musicians of the 20th century who lived on the streets, on and off, and were driven, despite their unfortunate circumstances, to share their music with whomever would listen. Occasionally, I was lucky enough to be one of those listeners.
By the way, I still have the trombone.
Here are the lyrics. See below the lyrics for a bonus link. Trombone John can be heard on Malone Alone Yellow and Loose Leaves.
Trombone John
You lived a childhood on a farm
Played your horn
Out in the barn
And when the banks came to repossess
You had more
Than anyone could guess
You spent your days fixin’ cars
And your share of nights
Behind bars
Carry on
Trombone John
You were here but now you’re gone
Late at night I can hear your song
Play it all night long
Trombone John
Then you fought the war across the sea
Came back home
And you still weren't free
Sharecroppers son with an American gun
Milk and honey
You had none
You lost your home but you had to survive
So you played your horn
At the corner dive
Carry on
Trombone John
You were here but now you’re gone
Late at night I can hear your song
Play it all night long
Trombone John
Nothing but Blue Skies
Night and Day
In The Wee Small Hours
And Purple Haze
But when the moon was high
And the crowds had gone
In the midnight hour
You'd play a song
A song that lived
Down in your soul
Into the starry night
You’d let it roll
Carry on
Trombone John
You were here but now you’re gone
Late at night I can hear your song
Play it all night long
Trombone John
(And just for fun, in case you think TJ couldn’t have played it, here’s a trombone version of Purple Haze.)
