THE PRETENDER

Its raining.  And it'll still be raining in the morn which translates into, no work!  So I'm up late.  Sittin' here listenin' to Jackson Browne.  Gawd I luv this guy's stuff!   He's the real deal as witnessed by time. And n e body payin' attention!!

And many were including many who cite him as a major influence or inspiration.  'Specially way back in the day when even he, himself, surprised himself with what he was writing and then, performing.  And then, he became a legend to the booty boogie'n, music lovin', mushroom huggin', hippie counter culture of the 70's. Wadda way to follow the 60's and the summer of luv!

As some may have been accused of 'playin around', he was exhaulted by his peers.  I'm readin' One Way Out, Alan Paul's highly acclaimed biography of the Allman Brothers Band, and took a break.   Pulled Jackson up on Pandora, popped the top on a Beck's NA, and sank in for a listen.  Having read a few minutes earlier that JB was both influence and inspiration to Gregg, I couldn't help but drift back to the story as I drank in The Pretender.  Dylan might'a said he and the likes of JB just wrote 'em down and that made 'em all a pretender a'sorts. 

Bob didn't say that.  I said that!

What he did say was this:  it didn't come FROM him, it came THRU him.  All he did was "write it down".

Anywho, here's Gregg.  The same guy who, standin in Linda and Berry Oakley's kitchen in Jacksonville, March, '69, found magic.  Screamin' to get out of him.  Fresh back from LA and new to the house, he didn't know where the light switch was.  But he found a box of kitchen matches, briefly illuminated in the light of a passing car.  Streaming, chasing shadows across the kitchen walls.  Bouncing, chasing itself across the kitchen counter.  Then it was gone.  Right out the same window it had come in.  But not before Gregg snatched up the matches.  He struck one using it to find and light another.  Then he blew out the first.  Maybe even spit on it a bit to cool it down.  I dunno.  If he did, he didn't mention it.  I did.

Then he commenced to write on Linda's ironing board set up there in the darkness of the kitchen.  Match by match he wrote.  One for light.  Another for pen.

Match by match, word by word, line by line, the magic poured out and lay down on the ironing pad. Gregg stared.  Posterity stared back.  The rest is history. 

And... oh yeah, the song? 

Whippin' Post!!

How long does it take to write a song for posterity?  One box of kitchen matches.

I'd read this as he told that story in his autobio.  Now, he was givin' credit where credit was due.  He and JB had been roomies for a time out in LA. 

Gregg, in so many ways, stands alone.  But he stands in good company when it comes to respect for JB. Like a pied piper, many followed in his footsteps.  The influence and inspiration on Gregg wasn't direct.  It was the kinda thing you had to wait out for it to develope.  For the process to unfold.  It started with the acoustic, one of JB's preferred writing instruments.  Gregg had a justified prejudice against unplugged having grown up with a "tennessee flatop"...  cryin' "crying-in-your-beer stuff"  and "shoved down (his) throat".   Gregg preferred a little blues mixed in with his cryin'.

But it was immediate.  In those acoustic melodies he could see right away the mystic avenues its muse could open up.  Vibrations reaching waaaay out there and waaaay down deeeeep inside there to unlock untapped... what? 

Brilliance!  As its turned out!!

And, as I write this final paragraph JB is doin the Load Out.  I luv synchronicity!  Its a gift that lets u know dreams u maybe hadn't even dreamed yet,  are real!