What, besides half the bands I was in?
In the late 80’s going into the early 90’s, in the wake of successes by Suzanne Vega, Sarah McLaughlin, and Tracy Chapman, there was a handful of female singer/songwriters who arrived with respectable debuts, and then…nothing. Maybe a second album, but then they just vanished. Perhaps they lost label support, didn’t want to play the music business game or just had some personal stuff to deal with(and
not necessarily substance abuse problems). But they all had something unique going on, albeit maybe too esoteric…
Then there was someone I personally knew, that I had some small part in helping along, a guy named Frank Fairfield. Now, I do keep it in context that the appeal of what he did was limited to a special audience, but he was so good and singular that he could have gone farther; unfortunately he walked away from all of it. He was a curious combination of Doc Boggs, Fiddlin’ John Carson, and a little bit of Robert Johnson, among other things(if I’ve lost you, no problem, we’re talking about some
real roots music of the early 20th century, before any specific notion of folk or country music).
I was a vendor at a music gear swap meet held in a community in the mountains above Burbank, CA. As I was setting up, I peripherally noticed a figure in a suit with a guitar sitting down to play, and when he started, my skin crawled, but in a good way. It was a rustic, ancient voice, coming from a young person, a sound of woe from times past. I turned around and here was this guy who looked like he was teleported from the Great Depression, but it was no hipster affectation, it was who he was. He lived in the neighborhood, and was just starting to go around playing on the street.
As he relied on public transportation, it was a tough go, but I helped him out a bit, had him open for a bluesy/rootsy band I was in at a club gig, and suggested that he come down to this huge record store in Hollywood where I worked, where busking near the entrance was encouraged. Through that he got noticed and signed to a small modern folk label, did one album that got rave reviews and was a hit with the Gillian Welsh/Americana crowd, and was featured(as a modern day example)in a PBS series on regional American music that became better known through the development of recording technology in the 1920’s/30’s. But for some reason(I think it might have been a negative review calling him out for being ‘inauthentic’)he soured on the whole thing and just stopped. Very disappointing, but it’s what he had to do for himself…
