CHICAGO — It was a musical miracle of sorts, the arrival a few days ago of a voice from the past singing songs from long ago. The voice was that of Steve Goodman, singing a dozen songs on a new CD titled “Steve Goodman: Live ’69.”
That was a long time ago, 1969. But for those of us lucky enough to have been alive and listening (often using fake IDs to sneak into clubs such as the venerable Earl of Old Town or the short-lived The Fifth Peg), it was, listening to Goodman sing “Ballad of Spiro Agnew,” “Country Pie” or “Wonderful World of Sex,” as if we were transported instantly back 50 years.
But yesterdays are yesterdays and Goodman died in 1984 when he was only 36. And so, the “miracle” part of all this was that the CDs arrived as Goodman’s old friend and collaborator John Prine was fighting to live, until he too was gone on Tuesday.
They were a pair, John and Steve, the heart of a batting order, a musical murderer’s row that also included the still alive and kicking Bonnie Koloc, Jim Post, Ed Holstein (his brother Fred died in 2004), Michael Smith and Corky Siegel. There were, and remain, other members of our golden folk age.
“Live ’69” contains no original songs but covers of such artists as Bob Dylan, Willie Dixon, the Beatles and Jefferson Airplane. Famous Goodman creations such as “Lincoln Park Pirates,” “Go Cubs Go” and “City of New Orleans” were still years away.
But listen and you will hear (or remember) the onstage exuberance and energetic musicianship that made Goodman such an irresistible and beloved performer.
This is the latest in a remarkable series of new archival Goodman albums released over the last year by Omnivore Productions. Previous releases have been “Unfinished Business,” “Santa Ana Winds,” “Affordable Art” and “Artistic Hair.” In writing about these a few months ago I observed that Goodman “left a solid legacy and remains a poignant presence in his music, a few concert videos, fewer radio interviews and a remarkably thorough biography by Clay Eals, ‘Facing the Music.’”
In it are many Goodman-Prine stories, including Prine’s memory of their first meeting, in the backroom of the Earl when, expecting to meet a tall and debonair singer, Prine sees “a little guy come back with a big chunky face. … My jaw dropped and I didn’t know what to think of this guy.”
Eals goes on to write that they quickly developed a “brotherly bond.”
Yes, they did, sharing stages and friends. Bonnie Raitt, who you have no doubt just watched on some screen singing Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery,” once said this of Goodman: “Steve was just an irrepressible impish jukebox of songs and energy.”
It has been wonderful these past few days to watch Prine receive an outpouring of acclaim as one of the greatest songwriters of his generation.
The liner notes of “Live ’69” by Rich Warren are deeply personal and illuminating. Warren has had an award-winning and influential career as radio producer and host, mostly for WFMT-FM 98.7, where he frequently hosted “The Midnight Special.” He also is a stylish writer and 2017 inductee into the Folk DJ Hall of Fame.
In 1969 he was a University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign college kid crazy about radio and folk music. He writes of first meeting Goodman at the Earl and how he recorded the material for this album at the university’s “cavernous auditorium” where Goodman “blew the roof off the place.” He would record Goodman many times in subsequent years and the two would become friends.
He remains an ardent admirer, writing, “I’ve been involved with folk radio for 50 years and recorded hundreds of artists. I’ve rarely seen anyone with the energy, vibrancy, vast repertoire and crowd-pleasing ability as Steve Goodman.”
He also writes, “But for leukemia, Steve would have been as famous as his friend John Prine.”
He is surely correct but for any of us who ever saw these two rare talents share a stage, it never seemed about fame, did it? It was all about the music, wasn’t it?
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