journeybear
May-31-2021, 5:48pm
Patrick Sky, one of the bright lights of the folk scare of the 1960s, a contemporary of Bob Dylan, great friend of Dave Van Ronk, special friend of Buffy Saint-Marie, died Thursday 5/27/21 at the age of 80 in Asheville NC, from two types of cancer. He had a deep, complicated love-hate relationship with the music industry. While he enjoyed some success with his music, and the respect and admiration of his peers, he never really caught on with the public the way many of his contemporaries had. But he caught on with me. He was the funny uncle I'd never had.
Pat Sky was born in Georgia but grew up mostly out in the sticks in Louisiana, in the traditional homeland of the Creek Indian tribe - he was part Creek, part Irish. After serving in the army, he wound up in Florida, becoming part of the folk scene there. That's where he met Buffy Sainte-Marie, striking up a relationship, and soon moving with her to New York's Greenwich Village, then the epicenter of folk music. She recorded Patrick's song, "Many A Mile," on her second album (named the same), before he recorded it on his first. He got signed to Elektra and recorded two albums of mostly traditional-style folk songs, half of which were original - including the aforementioned "Many A Mile," his most-covered song. He then got signed to Verve/Forecast, which allowed him a bit more latitude to express his mordant sense of humor and often oddball approach to songwriting. After two records of modest sales, the label dropped him. In this period, he also produced three albums by Mississippi John Hurt for Vanguard. Somehow, whatever he was doing wasn't enough for his career to take off. He stuck it out there for another year, but finally, frustrated and furious, he left New York.
uHjxZkAoAAg
He moved to a small town in Rhode Island, where hardly anyone knew him. It just so happened to be the same small town where my mom lived. Being artistic radical freethinkers - she sculpted abstracted human figures in wood - it was inevitable they would meet, becoming best buddies. He was welcome any time at our place, and as I said, he became the funny uncle I'd never had. He was part folksinger, part Rabelaisian raconteur, part Ralph Kramden - always tinkering with things and trying his hand at different get-rich schemes.
At one point, my mom had the bright idea of setting us up in a business to keep me from scuffling around with our local redneck-y population and getting into trouble. I was quite the hippie-looking cat at the time, with a big Jew-fro that would have attracted the wrong kind of attention. She spotted him the money to start a candle-making business. We made mostly sand-cast candles, which didn't sell, and standard tapers, which sold modestly. We had lots of fun with the sand-cast ones, though, making funny shapes - such as hands with a wick in each finger, or the obligatory middle finger style. He ended up giving up on it, and gave all the equipment and supplies to me. I set up a roadside table to sell them, along with the extra vegetables from our garden. Sales were slow this way, too, though occasional, as curious tourists would stop on their way to or from the beach. Mostly, it was a way to justify hanging out and playing mandolin for hours every day. I got in a lot of practice that way. :mandosmiley:
He did like drinking, and having grown up in the back woods like he had, knew how to make whiskey and brew beer. One day he went off shopping with my brother to the hardware store, and came back with a big cooking pot, a bunch of copper tubing, and a fifty pound bag of chicken feed. Pretty soon he had a still going. That 'shine was not smooth, but it packed a wallop. Leastways, I think so; my memory of that isn't clear. I more clearly remember when he took to making beer in a big plastic garbage can in his kitchen. That brew packed a wallop - I think it ran 15-20% alcohol. We'd dip coffee mugs in it and have a go. I don't think I ever got through more than one. Or two. Maybe I don't remember so clearly after all. :whistling: I swear, it's a wonder we never got arrested for any of these shenanigans. So much for my mom's idea of keeping us kids out of trouble. :grin:
Though to be honest and fair, she was a bit of a wild one herself. She'd taken up smoking pot around 1968 - which is something I'd found out by accident when a friend of mine and I bumped into her and her friend at a multi-media happening put on by the Hog Farm at the Yale Bowl, and she was more buzzed than we were. Our anti-establishment attitudes contributed to our growing disenchantment with what we saw as square society, and after I somehow graduated high school in 1970, we moved out of CT and up to what had been our summer home in RI. Her artist/writer/actor/musician friends from New York, who used to come up for weekends in the summer to escape that city heat got to be more open about their freewheeling ways, and we had some fun times, I tell you. Well, I won't tell you, because - well, just because. That summer was an eye-opening, mind-altering experience. But I will say the following spring, when Passover came around, that Seder was a scene from Rabelais. Boone's Farm apple wine was the drink of choice then, and instead of drinking the traditional four glasses of wine during the course of the ceremony, we went through four cases of the stuff. No, it was not kosher-for-Passover, but neither were we. ;)
194468 194469
Somehow in all of this Patrick was writing songs for a new album. It was intended to restore his career, put him back on the map. No, actually, it was intended to either blow everyone's minds with its brilliance or smack conservatives and nay-sayers upside their heads with its satire. He recorded it that spring, but no respectable record company would touch it. This was "Songs That Made America Famous," which lampooned a different facet of society in each of its fourteen songs - sometimes more than one in each - and often using crude language. He skewered the left as well as the right, all manner of races, religions, nationalities, genders - you name it, nothing was off limits. It must have been liberating for him, to fully explore his penchant for satirical humor without having to kowtow to corporate powers-that-be running a record label. He paid a price, though, having the door slammed in his face again and again, until Adelphi gave it a shot in 1973. It got decidedly mixed reviews, of course, and didn't sell much. He claimed he never made any money off it. But in a way - though certainly not the way one wants - it brought him a sort of immortality. People remembered the record, and still do. Perhaps that's more notoriety than immortality. But I'd never heard anyone use humor in songwriting to the extent that he did, and that had a profound effect on my own songwriting. I also got quite a chuckle about being sort-of included in the thank-yous: "all the crazy friends in Rhode Island, and wherever they are." :cool:
Here's an audio clip of him and Dave Van Ronk in 1973 doing one of the few non-salacious songs on the album. The name in the refrain is the birth name of then-current Pope Paul VI.
kMUoHhtMnTg
Eventually, my mom realized she was having a bit too much fun enjoying life, and wasn't getting enough work done, so she scaled back the party vibe at the house. I went off to college in the fall, and though I'd see Patrick on term breaks, we slowly, unnoticeably, drifted apart. He went through a rough divorce, which didn't help his sobriety any. He pulled himself our of this downturn, though, with another get-rich scheme, one that actually worked somewhat - investing in an Irish pennywhistle manufacturer. This led to an unforeseen career as a builder of uillean pipes, both complete and as do-it-yourself kits, which he continued the rest of his life, off and on.
He recorded another album in 1975, a good bit more "normal." Then not another one for ten years. He'd already moved on by then. Eventually he and his second wife, Cathy, moved to North Carolina. He got a job working at the help desk for a computer company. A lot of musicians are pretty proficient with math and computers and such, in case you hadn't noticed. Their brains are wired that way. Just imagine calling the 800 number and getting him on the line, walking you through the steps to fix your problem. But you'd never know it was him, or believe it if he told you. He did delve deeper into his Irish roots, building sets of uillean pipes and playing them a bit with Cathy, eventually recording an album of Irish traditional tunes in 2009. He would play occasional showcases and festivals, but the pipes had more appeal to him.
He was quite a character, and quite an odd choice as a role model ... but I had the good sense to pick and choose which facets to emulate. His voice did not record well, which didn't help his career, much - nor his satirical bent. The freedom with which he used language in writing his songs was a liberating example. Perhaps most of all, his joie de vivre was worth embracing. He may have been crucially flawed as a musician and human being, but he was a whole lot of fun to hang out with and learn from. I'm forever grateful and glad his winding road led our way.
For those wondering where's the MC in all this ... perhaps you missed the part where I mentioned practicing at our roadside stand? That's not enough? How about the way he opened my mind to using humor in songwriting? Still not enough? Yeah, I guess not. OK, well, on his first record Ralph Rinzler plays mandolin on two songs, cuts #7 and #12. Here you go.
qOBJBKqjSxQ
0yvua4QhUJw
Here's one of his later performances. You'll hear a bit of his wry wit, still intact and active, in the introduction.
Fare thee well, Patrick Sky; I'll see you anon, by and by. :mandosmiley:
VwWHEXbdsiU
Pat Sky was born in Georgia but grew up mostly out in the sticks in Louisiana, in the traditional homeland of the Creek Indian tribe - he was part Creek, part Irish. After serving in the army, he wound up in Florida, becoming part of the folk scene there. That's where he met Buffy Sainte-Marie, striking up a relationship, and soon moving with her to New York's Greenwich Village, then the epicenter of folk music. She recorded Patrick's song, "Many A Mile," on her second album (named the same), before he recorded it on his first. He got signed to Elektra and recorded two albums of mostly traditional-style folk songs, half of which were original - including the aforementioned "Many A Mile," his most-covered song. He then got signed to Verve/Forecast, which allowed him a bit more latitude to express his mordant sense of humor and often oddball approach to songwriting. After two records of modest sales, the label dropped him. In this period, he also produced three albums by Mississippi John Hurt for Vanguard. Somehow, whatever he was doing wasn't enough for his career to take off. He stuck it out there for another year, but finally, frustrated and furious, he left New York.
uHjxZkAoAAg
He moved to a small town in Rhode Island, where hardly anyone knew him. It just so happened to be the same small town where my mom lived. Being artistic radical freethinkers - she sculpted abstracted human figures in wood - it was inevitable they would meet, becoming best buddies. He was welcome any time at our place, and as I said, he became the funny uncle I'd never had. He was part folksinger, part Rabelaisian raconteur, part Ralph Kramden - always tinkering with things and trying his hand at different get-rich schemes.
At one point, my mom had the bright idea of setting us up in a business to keep me from scuffling around with our local redneck-y population and getting into trouble. I was quite the hippie-looking cat at the time, with a big Jew-fro that would have attracted the wrong kind of attention. She spotted him the money to start a candle-making business. We made mostly sand-cast candles, which didn't sell, and standard tapers, which sold modestly. We had lots of fun with the sand-cast ones, though, making funny shapes - such as hands with a wick in each finger, or the obligatory middle finger style. He ended up giving up on it, and gave all the equipment and supplies to me. I set up a roadside table to sell them, along with the extra vegetables from our garden. Sales were slow this way, too, though occasional, as curious tourists would stop on their way to or from the beach. Mostly, it was a way to justify hanging out and playing mandolin for hours every day. I got in a lot of practice that way. :mandosmiley:
He did like drinking, and having grown up in the back woods like he had, knew how to make whiskey and brew beer. One day he went off shopping with my brother to the hardware store, and came back with a big cooking pot, a bunch of copper tubing, and a fifty pound bag of chicken feed. Pretty soon he had a still going. That 'shine was not smooth, but it packed a wallop. Leastways, I think so; my memory of that isn't clear. I more clearly remember when he took to making beer in a big plastic garbage can in his kitchen. That brew packed a wallop - I think it ran 15-20% alcohol. We'd dip coffee mugs in it and have a go. I don't think I ever got through more than one. Or two. Maybe I don't remember so clearly after all. :whistling: I swear, it's a wonder we never got arrested for any of these shenanigans. So much for my mom's idea of keeping us kids out of trouble. :grin:
Though to be honest and fair, she was a bit of a wild one herself. She'd taken up smoking pot around 1968 - which is something I'd found out by accident when a friend of mine and I bumped into her and her friend at a multi-media happening put on by the Hog Farm at the Yale Bowl, and she was more buzzed than we were. Our anti-establishment attitudes contributed to our growing disenchantment with what we saw as square society, and after I somehow graduated high school in 1970, we moved out of CT and up to what had been our summer home in RI. Her artist/writer/actor/musician friends from New York, who used to come up for weekends in the summer to escape that city heat got to be more open about their freewheeling ways, and we had some fun times, I tell you. Well, I won't tell you, because - well, just because. That summer was an eye-opening, mind-altering experience. But I will say the following spring, when Passover came around, that Seder was a scene from Rabelais. Boone's Farm apple wine was the drink of choice then, and instead of drinking the traditional four glasses of wine during the course of the ceremony, we went through four cases of the stuff. No, it was not kosher-for-Passover, but neither were we. ;)
194468 194469
Somehow in all of this Patrick was writing songs for a new album. It was intended to restore his career, put him back on the map. No, actually, it was intended to either blow everyone's minds with its brilliance or smack conservatives and nay-sayers upside their heads with its satire. He recorded it that spring, but no respectable record company would touch it. This was "Songs That Made America Famous," which lampooned a different facet of society in each of its fourteen songs - sometimes more than one in each - and often using crude language. He skewered the left as well as the right, all manner of races, religions, nationalities, genders - you name it, nothing was off limits. It must have been liberating for him, to fully explore his penchant for satirical humor without having to kowtow to corporate powers-that-be running a record label. He paid a price, though, having the door slammed in his face again and again, until Adelphi gave it a shot in 1973. It got decidedly mixed reviews, of course, and didn't sell much. He claimed he never made any money off it. But in a way - though certainly not the way one wants - it brought him a sort of immortality. People remembered the record, and still do. Perhaps that's more notoriety than immortality. But I'd never heard anyone use humor in songwriting to the extent that he did, and that had a profound effect on my own songwriting. I also got quite a chuckle about being sort-of included in the thank-yous: "all the crazy friends in Rhode Island, and wherever they are." :cool:
Here's an audio clip of him and Dave Van Ronk in 1973 doing one of the few non-salacious songs on the album. The name in the refrain is the birth name of then-current Pope Paul VI.
kMUoHhtMnTg
Eventually, my mom realized she was having a bit too much fun enjoying life, and wasn't getting enough work done, so she scaled back the party vibe at the house. I went off to college in the fall, and though I'd see Patrick on term breaks, we slowly, unnoticeably, drifted apart. He went through a rough divorce, which didn't help his sobriety any. He pulled himself our of this downturn, though, with another get-rich scheme, one that actually worked somewhat - investing in an Irish pennywhistle manufacturer. This led to an unforeseen career as a builder of uillean pipes, both complete and as do-it-yourself kits, which he continued the rest of his life, off and on.
He recorded another album in 1975, a good bit more "normal." Then not another one for ten years. He'd already moved on by then. Eventually he and his second wife, Cathy, moved to North Carolina. He got a job working at the help desk for a computer company. A lot of musicians are pretty proficient with math and computers and such, in case you hadn't noticed. Their brains are wired that way. Just imagine calling the 800 number and getting him on the line, walking you through the steps to fix your problem. But you'd never know it was him, or believe it if he told you. He did delve deeper into his Irish roots, building sets of uillean pipes and playing them a bit with Cathy, eventually recording an album of Irish traditional tunes in 2009. He would play occasional showcases and festivals, but the pipes had more appeal to him.
He was quite a character, and quite an odd choice as a role model ... but I had the good sense to pick and choose which facets to emulate. His voice did not record well, which didn't help his career, much - nor his satirical bent. The freedom with which he used language in writing his songs was a liberating example. Perhaps most of all, his joie de vivre was worth embracing. He may have been crucially flawed as a musician and human being, but he was a whole lot of fun to hang out with and learn from. I'm forever grateful and glad his winding road led our way.
For those wondering where's the MC in all this ... perhaps you missed the part where I mentioned practicing at our roadside stand? That's not enough? How about the way he opened my mind to using humor in songwriting? Still not enough? Yeah, I guess not. OK, well, on his first record Ralph Rinzler plays mandolin on two songs, cuts #7 and #12. Here you go.
qOBJBKqjSxQ
0yvua4QhUJw
Here's one of his later performances. You'll hear a bit of his wry wit, still intact and active, in the introduction.
Fare thee well, Patrick Sky; I'll see you anon, by and by. :mandosmiley:
VwWHEXbdsiU