[Landline] Pleasures

Harry Dean Stanton, Michael Hurley, Patsy Cline, Donna Stoneman and two Beatles

Apr 17, 2025

Some small kindnesses to pass along…

Photo of Ampex tape of Harry Dean Stanton's 1985 performance on KCRW Snap program

Harry Dean Stanton: June 24, 1987

Bliss. An hour-plus of Harry Dean Stanton with Steven Soles and Kenny Edwards in live performance on L.A. public radio in 1987. Harry played shows in L.A. clubs (the Mint, Jack’s Sugar Shack, McCabe’s) all the time during the 20 years I lived there (1988-2008), and I never checked him out, stupidly thinking it was just some kind of misguided actor vanity stuff. Or I’d get to it later? Who knows—who cares to recall—the thought process, if there was any. Anyways, here he is, singing like some kind of USA-Mexico borderlands angel, working through what I gather is a typical Harry set of country, Dylan, folk and canción covers in English and en espanol, with between-song chit-chat with bandmates and ‘Snap!’ show host Deirdre O’Donahue. It’s beautifully, warmly played and sung, with an emphasis on Mexican immigrants’ border-crossing experience-songs—which feels really good/righteous at this moment. Empathy and joy; pleasure and respect. I’ve listened three times already and I believe I’ll listen 300 times more—better now than never.

Stream it here: https://www.kcrw.com/music/shows/bent-by-nature/performance-harry-dean-stanton-steven-soles-cover-songs-cancion-mixteca-live-paris-texas

“The Singular World of Michael Hurley”

On April 6, a few days after Michael Hurley died, Portland-area DJ Tom Humphrey conducted a terrific three-hour Snock salute on his ‘Backroad to Nowhere’ XRAY FM radio show, as you just knew Tom would do. Lots of songs—deep favorites, deep cuts—and a few smart, heartfelt reminiscences: I listened to the broadcast live on the computer, and friend, even with that handicap, time disappeared - stars winked and sparkled - lips puckered - werewolves lurked - aliens hovered - and fragrant smoke gently lingered.

Stream the whole show here — https://xray.fm/broadcasts/63516 — and if you can, send this fantastic station some dollar support.

Thanks for doing that, Tom.

And for those who missed the link in the previous Landline, here’s Byron Coley’s 11,000-word career/life-spanning feature on Michael from Arthur magazine’s 35th and final issue in 2013: https://arthurmag.com/2013/04/27/on-the-trail-of-the-lonesome-snock-byron-coley-investigates-michael-hurley-arthur-no-35-2013/

You can also check out the feature, with all the accompanying artwork, in PDF format by downloading the whole issue from this page (scroll all the way down): https://arthurmag.com/read-the-magazine-in-pdf-format/

When I revived Arthur in late 2012, four years after it had collapsed, the purpose was, at a minimum, to publish articles on four specific artists we'd meant to cover in Arthur for years and hadn't (timing was always been off, etc). Michael was the big one. Thank you, Byron.

Lennon & McCartney: All gates open

I was stunned to read this in T-Bone Burnett’s open-hearted review of yet another Beatles book (John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs, by Ian Leslie) in the pages of the New York Times recently:

Whew. How had I never heard about this before? You guys know about this? Incredible.

It reminded me of this less intense but still-adjacent passage from John Hopkins' "The Tangier Diaries 1962-1979" (1995):

There is a passage about them being high on LSD, after recording the song “Getting Better” during the “Sgt. Pepper’s” sessions, that seems to me central to Leslie’s understanding of his subjects: That night, John and Paul did something that the two of them practiced quite a few times during this period: They gazed intensely into each other’s eyes. They liked to put their faces close together and stare, unblinking, until they felt themselves dissolving into each other, almost obliterating any sense of themselves as distinct individuals. “There’s something disturbing about it,” recalled McCartney, much later, in his understated way. “You ask yourself, ‘How do you come back from it? How do you then lead a normal life after that?’ And the answer is, you don’t.”

Well, that’s how things go sometimes. All too much indeed1.

Eddie Dean says: “Here’s a rare pic of DC WGAY DJ Don Owens with his Starter's Pistol [that we couldn’t fit into the Post piece]. Don was one of Patsy's big boosters and helped make DC Bluegrass Capital of the World.”

Eddie Dean on Don Owens, Donna Stoneman and Patsy Cline

Last weekend, operating on a whim, I randomly checked in with D.C.-area author/journalist pal-at-a-distance Eddie Dean. The timing was good. Eddie had just got a fantastic piece published in the Washington Post (and its syndicated affiliates), based around a new Patsy Cline box set out on the Deep Digs reissue label.2

“I got to talk with Donna Stoneman (Roni's 91-year-old older sister) by phone for the piece,” Eddie wrote, “and she is so vivacious she really lifted my spirits and her testimony brought Patsy back to life and helped make the story more than just a record review. Donna is a national (musical) treasure.”

Eddie’s piece soars. Here’s how it opens:

In the late ’50s, “Don Owens’s TV Jamboree” was a must-see every Saturday for country music fans across the Washington metro area. A promoter and DJ with a carnival-barker’s zeal, Owens was known to kick off his radio program with a pistol shot, and he ran his TV show in the same freewheeling style. Broadcast from the Raleigh Hotel at 12th Street NW and Pennsylvania Avenue, the Jamboree was high-octane entertainment for the have-nots, many of whom wouldn’t have felt welcome in the lobby. Owens honored the music but also celebrated its backwoods roots with cornball humor. He often included his dog, a classical-music-loving mutt that yapped on cue at the fiddle-and-banjo racket.
The popularity of “TV Jamboree” was proof of country music’s reign in the postwar years, when Southern rural migrants had turned D.C. into a town of honky-tonks and boardinghouses. Owens seemed to relish that fact, even as he winked at any high society types tuning in for their weekly cringe at the hicks run amok on WTTG-TV Channel 5. “We’ve got plenty of hillbillies crawling out of the walls!” he’d crow as he plugged show dates for featured performers at local firehouses and moose lodges and county fairs.
By 1959, the “Jamboree” had become a regular gig for a rising star named Patsy Cline…

So many cool dots get connected across this long, endlessly colorful piece of primo Eddie Dean storytelling; I won’t spoil the surprises here — get a big cup of coffee and read it for yourself: “A lavish new Patsy Cline box set captures the trajectory of her career”

That’s all for now. Much more soon,

Jay

Southern Arizona

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I am aware that’s a George song. The point stands (if it can).

There’s an Arthur connection here for the nerds keeping score: Eddie’s piece on country music collector/archivist Leon Kagarise in the online-only Arthur No. 32 from 2008.

LANDLINE by Jay Babcock

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