Hi Bob,
A couple of pertinent comments/corrections on Garland Jeffreys. First off, scores of people still around can verify that waaay back in the 1970's yours truly was 100% responsible for bringing him to A&M. Had been a fan since his only Atlantic lp years before. with a great track, "She Didn't Lie." The original single of "Wild In The Streets" came later. FYI, it was actually a legit hit 45 in a few markets, particularly Cleveland and Boston. Also, it received major airplay on fm album rock radio throughout the northeast! Between his Atlantic & A&M signings, Arista released a weak 7 inch single by Garland, "The Disco Kid." And it deservedly bombed. Song was an insult to his artistic integrity!
Garland's A&M debut, "Ghost Writer" had some good original songs like "35mm Dream" and "Spanish Town."
Both garnered much AOR play. "Wild..." had never been in an album and was actually then unavailable. I conspired with Garland (who owned the master) that we HAD to get it on his lp. Jerry Moss did not want this 'old song' used and initially rejected it. Finally, Garland had to reshuffle all the tracks (including "Wild") when he presented his 'final mix' in a 'one on one' meeting with Moss. Jerry gave the whole thing a yes. as he ok'd the mix. After that, Garland mentioned that "Wild" was in there! Moss smirked realizing he had been had and allowed it to happen!
BTW, without the benefit of anything near a hit single, this album did initially sell over 100,000 units. Having "Wild on the album made it sell! Song later became an anthem.
Also, as you wrote, the two later A&M releases did not do anything. Yet, this great performing talent was able to then record three albums with the giant Epic label. Throughout his A&M and Epic tenure, he toured Europe; where he became a major live draw in France, Germany and elsewhere. Yes, his 'star' actually did rise in Western Europe far more than here. Soooo Garland did indeed achieve success and was able to enjoy it!
I look forward to seeing the documentary about him.
Stay well Bob.
Ron Farber
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Garland was not easily categorized and that's what made him so special. As an African-American and Puerto Rican, Garland would blend rock and roll, reggae, blues, and soul. I admired Garland's cross genre music from the first time I heard his Atlantic album and the song "Ballad Of Me" in 1973. Years later I signed Garland to Epic following his 2 A&M albums including "Ghostwriter", a classic album IMO with not only "Wild In the Streets" (which is licensed for synch regularly) but "I May Not Be Your Kind", "New York Skyline" and "35 Millimeter Dreams". "Matador" on the followup "American Boy and Girl" was indeed a hit across Europe. The first album we made for Epic, "Escape Artist", became the best selling album of his career and was named by Time Magazine as one of the top albums of 1981. The album was produced by Garland and Bob Clearmountain and the musicians included members of the E Street Band, the Wailers and the Rumour, as well as guitarists G.E. Smith, Chuck Hammer and Adrian Belew. A rocking cover of "96 Tears" went top 5 at album radio and charted pop as did the followup single R.O.C.K Rock. His live shows were universally acclaimed and we cut a great live album in NY and Paris and a much mellower album "Guts For Love" before I left to become head of A&R at PolyGram. After a break from recording Garland returned on RCA with a brave and controversial album entitled "Don't Call Me Buckwheat" which was a powerful statement about race relations in America which RCA naturally had difficulty promoting. Of his more recent albums his 2011 album "The King of In Between" is an undiscovered gem (https://open.spotify.com/album/4x5N46AlPoxpKL7ruYQA8e) and also the title of the excellent documentary.
I can honestly say that Garland is one of my favorite artists I ever worked with and his amazing wife and manager Claire Jeffreys along with daughter Savannah made this documentary to preserve Garland's legacy as he is suffering from severe Alzheimers.
Dick Wingate
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Hi Bob - I wrote & produced a few songs with Garland for a woefully under-heard album called “Wildlife Dictionary” in the mid-nineties.
We became very close friends, though time, & life, gradually led us different directions.
I have such love for that man. Just a pure artist & soul who knows what he wants to hear & is joyful as a newbie when he hears it. It was a blast creating with Garland.
He was also a pretty damn savvy investor and introduced me to some great stocks and mutual funds; he even gifted me Warren Buffet’s biography when I had my first kid - it wouldn’t surprise me at all if his investment choices supported him just fine during any fallow periods in this confounding business.
Here’s one of the tracks we did together. I’ve always loved it
“Boys & Girls”
https://youtu.be/TfZ7DDVdchU
Really excited to check this doc out.
Peter Zizzo
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Thanks for the heads up on the Garland Jeffreys doco.
We were thrilled when Garland agreed to take part in our live music trivia TV show RocKwiz when he was on tour here in Australia back in 2014. He was so generous and the sweetest guy to work with.
Inspired by your story, I’ve gone back into our archive and uploaded some of the show to YouTube.
Hopefully you’ll find time to check it out.
Thanks for the enormous wisdom and insight you impart with each Lefsetz Letter.
Cheers
Peter Bain-Hogg
"Wild In The Streets - Garland Jeffreys (inc intro and interview)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vauLKlnL-cs
(Note: Garland starts performing just after 1:00 in this clip, if you were ever a fan you want to watch this.)
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Saw Garland Jeffreys in 1980 at the Dutch Pinkpop festival.
Line up included Raymond van het Groenewoud, Joe Jackson band , J Geils Band, Van Halen, The Jam was the closer. *Google is your friend…
Jeffreys has the 10.00 am opening slot. He left it all out there. For my money by far the best act on that day…
Yet….. stayed a cult figure in Holland. Saw him years later in NYC, again very good. You are right, his recorded output didn’t match his live performances. Too bad.
I will check out the doc.
To be continued,
Sjaak Blaauw
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"R.O.C.K." should have been a hit. WXRT in Chicago played the heck out of it (they still play it from time to time). Back then I just assumed it was as well known in other parts of the country.
You can't tell me rock stations not playing black artists didn't have something to do with that. If it was done by Springsteen, Seger or Cougar everyone would have heard it..
https://youtu.be/bdqq1qg2kkM?si=457KmFpqO6ZfbX4y
Pete Kuehl
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In the early 80’s, I lived in Vail. We wore his music out. Obsessed with Modern Lovers. But it was a blip for sure.
Vicki Whicker
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Haven’t yet seen the documentary yet but I last saw Garland Jeffries and band play a great set at the Town Crier cafe in Beacon, NY in January 2019. Aside from some humorous kvetching about having to travel 90 minutes north of NYC to work (we’re on the Hudson River in Dutchess County) Garland Jeffries showed that the spirit of “R.O.C.K.” Is still strong and vital in an aging talent and his likewise aging fans. Actually, it was a quite diverse and very enthusiastic audience. As you observe, success in Music is a fickle business, but Mr Jeffries definitely made his mark.
Anthony Napoli
Beacon, NY
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So nice to see you recognize Garland, his Guts For Love album was so
overlooked, the title track along with Surrender, Fidelity, Rebel Love, Real
Man etc. make up a really great album.
Bob Herman
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I don’t know if the movie specifically mentions the Circle Jerks cover of “Wild in the Streets.” But talk about a solid source of mailbox money! That song is one of the most played hardcore punk songs and has been in many movies, commercials, etc. At a glance their main studio version has 17 million+ streams.
Trashy Ashell
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I think about this a lot - he was on a pretty parallel line with Springsteen coming from my middle of no where end of Brooklyn. 22 stops.
What about the racism?
Hard work. Opportunity. And a little bit of luck.
What if Garland Jeffreys was a white performer? Maybe that more than anything is something you can focus on from here with your writing.
Thank you,
Jerry Jaworski
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Garland should have moved to Montreal, where Matador was a huge hit in the early 80s thanks to constant airplay by CHOM. He might have been able to nurture and build a real career before moving home again, like Heart or Neko Case and others.
Leila Marshy in Montreal
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As a club promoter back in the 80's I was pitched Garland several times. There was plenty of product in the record stores and nice displays as you entered Streetside Records. Everyone was doing their job. I never booked him. No radio ,which ruled back then. I don't even remember college radio paying attention. Not uncommon in those days.
Also- Incident on 57th is one of the most underrated songs written by Springsteen. Love that record!
Richard King
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Saw him open for U2 in 1981 at the Warfield in SF. One of the few great soul men not from the 60’s.
Keith Goldstein
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I LOVE his two Epic albums, "Escape Artist" and "Guts For Love". There are some really great songs on both. Again, nothing great enough to break through, but really pleasant listens.
Marc Reiter
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I’m so glad to see you writing about Garland. He may not have had the hits but he was an artist in the truest sense of the word. As one of the many donors of this film, I’m looking forward to seeing it. “Escape Artist” from 1981, was the album that drew me in and I felt should have been the breakthrough he needed. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. Fast forward to 2011. I’m watching Letterman one night and Garland performs his new single, “Coney Island Winter.” Wow, I was blown away, as he sounded better than ever. If you have not seen it, check it out and you will totally see how Garland never lost that passion, even at almost 70 years of age.
Rich Ulloa / Y&T Music
"TV Live - Garland Jeffreys- 'Coney Island Winter' (Letterman 2011)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erXv_plrS00
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“Ghost Writer” came out in January ‘77 when I was living in San Francisco and I couldn’t get it off my turntable. He was getting airplay on KSAN and seemed ready to break big in indie rock and radio scene of the day. For me, the addictive track was the gut punchy, reggae rhythm and career-long, autobiographical social commentary of “l May Not Be Your Kind.” Then I caught 4 straight sets at the Boarding Room. Solid, but compared to the frenzy ignited by Bruce or Graham Parker & The Rumour sets of that era, the live shows were good but not great. He didn’t have a band that could push him over the top. The sincerity and craft, his authenticity, intelligence and integrity always came through, but live, lacked the ferocity, the reckless abandon of a mass appeal act. Throughout my 45-year run as a community radio dj in Tampa, I cherry-picked brilliant tracks from every LP thereafter “Revolution of the Mind,”
https://open.spotify.com/track/1HIwwiyTc321MaPo1f3vcF?si=BbNnFaBYSoK9KHtBYrm3LA
which closes 2013’s “Truth Serum” is a particular favorite. It serves as a fitting coda to a notable and under-appreciated career. Will always love me some Garland Jeffreys. I donated to the film’s production and look forward to seeing it. Regardless of popularity, he is the real deal.
Cameron Dilley
Chicago
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Garland was definitely "big" in New York.
Not "Madison Square Garden big" but when he played the Bottom Line, you went and were guaranteed a great show.
Like Willy DeVille, who was bigger in France than America, he had a devout following here. He was a New York Experience and influential in his way.
Can't remember exactly how, but I got the gig designing Garland's 2011 The King of In Between cd.
I had never met him but I dealt with Garland and his wife Claire and they couldn't have been nicer.
There's a lot of space between the measure of Springsteen's and Garland Jeffrey's careers but Garland is no also-ran.
William Nollman
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Thanks for sharing this – had no idea this doc existed and will certainly be watching.
I saw Garland Jeffreys play at Village Underground in 2001… I was new to the music business, freshly secured a job as Michael Krumper’s assistant at Artemis Records. I attended the show as a blind favor to Danny Goldberg. I was eager to do anything I could for the label.
The show was packed and I sat at a table with other industry folk, including James Taylor’s longtime manager. There was a clear reverence for Garland Jeffreys in the room, which candidly confused the s*it out of me. I remember hearing the song “Spanish Town” that night and being floored, not in a good way, by the lyrics about rice and beans and sucking on chili dogs… I just didn’t get it. At the time I hadn’t been trained in A&R and I didn’t have any context for what I heard. I walked out of the show stymied that Garland had fans. The vocal wasn’t great, the songs were very thin, and the storytelling felt inappropriately grand. Maybe now, 24 years later, I can grow my understanding.
This morning I relistened to “Spanish Town” – it’s a f*cking 7 minute-plus odyssey with sour cream vocals and a meandering narrative. Chorus arrives a hundred seconds in. Hot damn. It’s the type of coloring-outside-the-lines we crave from artists… and it does connect to me, now that I’ve suffered, lived, had kids, been divorced, etc etc etc.
Thank you again –
Jason Spiewak
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Years ago, I went to see Garland Jeffreys at the Continental Club in Austin during SXSW and approached him after the show to see if I could convince him to come to Halifax to play my Halifax Urban Folk Festival. To my astonishment, he said yes, and we flew him up, put a band of local musicians together for him, and he nailed his headlining show, actually standing on a table during the first song! He was a fantastically engaging performer with a ton of stories to tell and the audience ate it up.
I was originally drawn to Garland when I was working at Canada's largest record store (A&A Records on Yonge St.) after reading an article in the Village Voice wondering who the next Bob Dylan would be. That list included Bruce Springsteen, Elliott Murphy, Willie Nile and Garland Jeffreys. Over the course of the festival's life (now in its 16th year), I've also managed to bring in Elliott and Willie, but no Springsteen for obvious reasons. They were all wonderful people and even though, as you say, the hits eluded them, their catalogue of songs were more than worthy of attention. Garland even came over to my house after his show to regale us all with stories involving his many famous friends.
Just for fun, if you feel like checking it out, here's a great video from his rehearsal during his visit - I think you'll like it…
"Garland Jeffreys - Waiting For The Man (Live Acoustic)":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyEyCAjrJxk
Mike Campbell
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Having managed a record store in the late 70s... Garland was a critic's darling, and nothing more.
Bob Davis
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I’ve known Garland Jeffreys since his Atlantic days, when I was a kid of about 14 and saw him open for my old friend Tom Waits at the Main Point in Bryn Mawr, PA, yes the same club that was known for helping break the many careers of folks like Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne (who played a week of free shows there in 1976 to help keep the club alive), Bonnie Raitt, all the great seventies artists that are still with us today.
Upon graduating 12th grade, Ghostwriter hit the stores, I bought it the summer of 77 along with Girl Happy by Elvis at Korvettes in Springfield, PA…..one of the greatest record stores of all time, ask anyone…..
I heard the acoustic versions of some of these songs over the years in performance, but the production was pretty glossy, and albeit not a huge album, I would hear it on the radio in Philly thanks to guys like Ed Sciaky, Gene Shay and Michael Tearson at WMMR. There is a lot of great music on there, maybe not “The Pretender” or “Born To Run” but it was in the groove, and he played many of those tunes for years in shows. The title track, Rough and Ready and of course Wild In The Streets…..opened doors the artist.
Fast forward, Escape Artist on Epic, a more new wave/reggae venture, and probably his most played album thanks to 96 Tears and R-O-C-K. Great album, probably my favorite……He toured with The Rumour those days and it was an amazing show if you got a chance to see it. When I began Friday Music ions ago, we had a Manfred Mann CD that included the track Mystery Kids which was from this GJ album.
1991…..I start a new gig in national promotion at RCA. I am in NYC and there is this import from RCA Germany on the desk by Garland called Don’t Call Me Buckwheat. I got all excited, here’s my old friend with a new RCA BMG album and I championed to get its release in the USA. It happened. I reunited with GJ and we went on the road for about 2 weeks across the country getting the album set up. I found this tune called Hail Hail Rock N Roll and brought it to radio, Top 40 radio at that……Garland and I locked in about 20 Top 40 stations commitments on the track, which was a good amount of radio in those days for a “new artist” the programmers loved the guy, many meeting him for the first time, many in their early twenties……as he told road stories, the story line behind the new album which was about race, but also the dream about bringing together the people as he noted in several of the songs. It’s a profound work, there are videos on YT of him singing it with Lou Reed overseas to a huge crowd.
I saw him do his final show in NYC at the City Winery a couple of years ago, it was a tribute show with a lot of the NYC new wave, punk and artists community at the gig, he sang on a few things, but mainly watched from the side of the stage with a huge smile on his face as David Johanssen, Suzanne Vega, Chuck Prophett, and many other nice artists honored the man.
He did everything you could possibly do. He had an impact on me, and I am sure anyone he worked with over the years.
God Bless,
Joe Reagoso
Friday Music
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Thanks for the alert Bob.
I'm looking forward to watching this if or when it gets to an online option or if by some chance a local showing of the doc in a theatre.
I'm one of the dedicated minority of GJ fans who bought all the albums over all the years and all the labels, recognizing both then and now that he was not for everybody and that he was not going to break through as a mainstream success. He was the embodiment of what Christgau called "semi-popular."
My particular favorite GJ moments are actually on the 4 song vinyl EP "Escapades" that came packaged with the original vinyl LP of the "Escape Artist" release. Those four songs feature (for me) the most brilliant synthesis of his reggae obsessions, genuine pain for the baked-in racism endemic to America now and then, and simply catchy melodies that kept it all both moving and listenable.
Even as a dedicated fan I could not get into his duet concerts that he did in the NYC area with his guitar pal (don't remember that dude's name).
When he was making another career push with an extended performance on Mountain Stage quite a while ago now, he was burning with anger and racial obsession, it colored his comments to the audience and did no favors for the ability of listeners to appreciate the set.
Garland probably said it best in one of his song titles: "I May Not Be Your Kind."
That was (and still is) certainly true enough.
jimeddy
Ann Arbor MI
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Bob, thanks for previewing for us the Garland Jeffreys doc.
Your post took me back to a Jeffreys album that I came to treasure. It was his 1992 release Don’t Call Me Buckwheat which was on RCA, and it came out almost ten years after his previous one. The whole album deals with racial inequality and self-worth, and the track that I have to revisit regularly—because it’s so relevant and insightful—is “Hail Hail Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Jeffreys ROCKS on this. He’s more than singing here; he’s spewing out choruses of rightful indignation. And the song’s midpoint-to close is a simple yet absolutely arresting reference to the white appropriation of black music; it is handled elegantly, and is doubly effective because of how Jeffreys arranged for the music to fuel the message--and vice versa. For me, this is one of those rush-up-the-spine moments that music can bring! Thanks, Bob.
Lance Jones
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Garland was interesting and good back in the day. I always thought he sounded too much like the Band, that he was trying too hard to emulate them. This is not a bad thing to shoot for, but I never thought the songs were transcendent.
But I’m happy that he’s comfortable and Content, how many people can say that?
Rik Shafer
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Musical tastes are highly subjective and it would be a dull, bland world if we all liked and disliked the same songs, albums, bands, solo artists, authors, painters, etc. So, while you may regard Garland Jeffreys as an also-ran who was never good enough to break through commercially -- and the world at large, sadly, has no idea who he is -- Jeffreys' best music continues to resonate with me decades after I first heard it.
You describe Jeffreys' "Ghost Writer" album as "listenable." I regard it as a gem, from start to finish. It's a classic life-on-the- streets-and-boroughs of New York album, vividly told, that spoke loudly to me in 1977 and to this day, even though (at the time) I'd only spent half a day in New York, years earlier as a 7-year-old tourist. "Ghost Writer's" mesmerizing title track and "I May Not Be Your Kind" are, to my ears, two of the finest reggae songs by any non-Jamaican artist. And "Ghost Writer" is still the only song I know that name-checks Shakespeare, Charlie Chaplin and Al Jolson, alongside references to Ludlow Street and Barrow Street, in a way that makes perfect sense. Unfortunately for Jeffreys, reggae had yet to be embraced by a broad American audience in 1977, the year his "Ghost Writer" album was released.
As for rock songs, "Ghost Writer" boasts not only "Wild in the Streets" but the equally memorable "Lift Me Up" and "Rough & Ready," the latter of which both Graham Parker and Jeffreys' old college pal, Lou Reed, would surely have been happy to claim as their own. The album-closing "Spanish Town's" gripping tale of a Hispanic immigrant family struggling to overcome poverty, racism and cultural stereotypes is beautifully sung and, sadly, more resonant today than it was in 1977. Fast forward 25 years and Jeffreys' superb 1992 album, "Don't Call Me Buckwheat," addresses the realities of being a mixed-race American with grit, grace, pain and tenderness. Given its subject matter, the album's failure to sell would likely have been a fait accompli in any decade, before or after
Jeffreys' most recent album, 2017's "14 Steps to Harlem" is as solid and engaging work as any, much better- known rock veteran in their seventies has made to date. That Jeffreys has never broken through to stardom does not diminish the continued high quality of his work. Perhaps he best summed up his fate in the second-to-last verse in "Ghost Writer, sining: "I’ve been writing down these old stories now / For ’bout 18 years or so / People are startin’ to call me a genius / I gotta’ tell ’em no, no, no, no." For some of us, the response remains: yes, yes, yes, yes,
Best wishes,
George Varga
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I gave it a good shot, and several of my bandmates went pretty far up the ladder. Turned 30, finally fell in love, went back to school so I could make some money. And I did, and that funded my ability to play where and when I wanted to, and with whom (to a point, but the universe of excellent players is far greater than the universe of successful musicians, and I seldom lacked for a challenge).
Now, at 76, I look around at my colleagues who put all their eggs in that basket, still gigging at $150/night, enduring the grind of the road, wondering how long their bodies will hold out, and hoping to die before they get old, and I have no regrets.
Best regards,
Darryl Mattison
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I so look forward to this documentary.
I’m a longtime GJ fan. His story is so compelling and should resonate in the modern era even more deeply than throughout his career.
I turn your attention to “Don’t Call Me Buckwheat”. One of my favorite records of the 90’s.
If it came out today, I suspect it would be massive and the back story would have gone viral. It’s that good and that compelling.
A true artist. A substantial body of work. An overused phrase, but he was ahead of his time.
Thanks for giving him some coverage.
Thanks for your work.
Best,
Vince Spiziri
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I was the production manager at one of his shows around 2019 in Essex, VT. Guy was the nicest ever, I was admittedly not super familiar with the material, my promoter was an old school Jersey guy, a friend of mine, but like Max Weinberg and a few other Jersey acts before him, the show drew less than 100 people in a 500 cap theater. The fans that were there were enthused, kind of, I don’t know, a seemingly sad booking that was underwhelming to say the least. Again, Garland was the nicest to work with.
Chris Friday
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