{"id":6721,"date":"2014-03-04T01:00:12","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T06:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/home\/?p=6721"},"modified":"2014-03-04T16:19:54","modified_gmt":"2014-03-04T21:19:54","slug":"happy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/happy\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Happy\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After years of waiting, Happy Dunbar once again had what he referred to as the feeling. It was a\u00a0sense \u2013 a frisson, as an old French girlfriend once described it \u2013 that he had gotten only a few times in\u00a0his life. That, he understood, was why he could vividly remember each and every instance.\u00a0The first came when, as he often joked later, he integrated a black church in Newark, where a\u00a0visiting minister named Solomon Burke \u2013 known in the secular world as The King of Rock & Soul \u2013\u00a0filled not just the building, but also Happy’s needy soul, with a belief in the healing power of music.\u00a0In those days, Happy, who had yet to acquire his music biz moniker, was rarely the least bit happy.<\/p>\n

He was alienated long before he’d ever actually stumbled upon the word, a lost soul bearing the name\u00a0Harry who rarely fit in, and whose only source of solace came from the black stations broadcasting\u00a0from his home town and from Harlem.\u00a0Seeing Solomon Burke sing and preach in a church setting was a revelation, for above and beyond\u00a0the joy Happy experienced came a sense that he, a white kid of nine, might possess a special gift. In\u00a0contrast to his peers, for whom music was simply there, a part of the world no more important than\u00a0pizza or bubblegum, he seemed to have the ability to recognize real and unique artistry. Whether that\u00a0meant that his choices would ultimately translate into popular acceptance, let alone stardom, was not\u00a0for him to determine. His strength was not as a taste-maker, but rather, as he eventually came to phrase\u00a0it, as a seer.<\/p>\n

It was not until years later, in a small club in Greenwich Village, that Dunbar, still unhappily stuck\u00a0with his given name of Harry, had another epiphany. Armed with a fake New Jersey drivers license\u00a0that added three years to his tender age of fifteen \u2013 and bore the strikingly inappropriate name of Barry\u00a0Plotkin \u2013 he was stunned when he witnessed the New York debut of a singer from Ireland who had only\u00a0recently dumped the group with whom he had a minor hit.<\/p>\n

Despite being short, stocky, and seemingly willfully dyspeptic, Van Morrison, sensed instantly,\u00a0had it \u2013 the same indefinable magic he’d felt in Solomon Burke.\u00a0That was the very moment that Dunbar realized that his own gift might prove to be a calling.<\/p>\n

Lacking the skills to make it as a musician, he would channel his energy and passion not into guitar,\u00a0piano, or vocals, but into the business of music.\u00a0Bolting across the river into Manhattan the moment he finished high school, Dunbar clawed his\u00a0way into a world that to him represented the promised land. He did a stint as a gofer at a recording\u00a0studio, then toiled as a schlepper for a concert promoter. He wrote liner notes for a record label that
\nissued bootleg reissues, then a graveyard DJ shift at a radio station that no one in his limited sphere of\u00a0contacts had ever heard of. He produced vanity demos for self-styled artists who squandered family\u00a0money, plus a few for people who deserved a break that would likely never come. Then at last he got a\u00a0legitimate gig, coming on-board a company that had a small but respected niche on the jazz scene.\u00a0Even as he made the transition first from squatter to sharing an actual mail box, then from thrift\u00a0shop furniture to Ikea, Dunbar kept searching for someone \u2013 anyone \u2013 who could thrill him the way he\u00a0wanted to be thrilled. There were more and more artists he came to appreciate and admire: Sonny\u00a0Rollins, Nina Simone, Bobby \u201cBlue\u201d Bland, Thelonius Monk, Love, Cyndi Lauper, Slim Harpo, the\u00a0Chambers Brothers, Irma Thomas, and Willy DeVille among them. But though there was no doubting\u00a0either their talent or the joy he derived from listening to them, there was something inside of Dunbar\u00a0that wanted more.<\/p>\n

It was not until he relocated to California that Dunbar at last got the long sought-after sensation\u00a0once again. Based on little more than a hunch, he stopped in at a tiny club in Santa Monica, where\u00a0lightning struck in the form of an older-than-his-years hipster named Tom Waits.\u00a0Hoping that he was finally in a spot not simply to acknowledge a budding phenomenon, but to be\u00a0the mover and shaker who could accelerate the ascent, Dunbar approached the singer after the first set.\u00a0Though they seemed to hit it off, the result was far from ideal. The Eagles, Dunbar learned, had\u00a0recently recorded one of the songs that Waits performed that evening. That break, not surprisingly, had\u00a0yielded both a manager and a recording contract. In other words, Dunbar’s musical instincts proved to\u00a0be better than his timing.\u00a0Having at last started to receive some financial rewards from what would later be looked back on\u00a0as the boom years in the record biz, Dunbar, like most of his co-workers, was ill prepared for the\u00a0disaster caused by the inability \u2013 or unwillingness \u2013 of the big labels to recognize the importance of
\ndownloads.<\/p>\n

Forced anew to cobble together a living \u2013 managing a couple of acts that proved to be perpetual\u00a0headaches… producing sessions that required tapping into the favor bank for guest appearances\u00a0intended to up a release’s profile… hawking songs to TV shows… even selling the vintage Camaro he’d\u00a0painstakingly restored \u2013 Dunbar kept up the quest that he often described with a Dusty Springfield title:\u00a0Wishin’ And Hopin’ that one day he would stumble upon the special talent with whom he could share a\u00a0rise to fame and maybe even fortune.\u00a0Then one gloomy September Thursday, after being kept waiting for over an hour for a meeting\u00a0that was over and done with in less than ten minutes, then discovering that his next appointment had\u00a0been scratched, Dunbar decided to blow off the rest of the afternoon by driving to the funky beach\u00a0town of Venice.<\/p>\n

Trudging unhappily down the boardwalk, where the peddlers, freaks, and buskers looked forlorn\u00a0in the absence of weekend crowds, Dunbar was stunned when, despite his overwhelming desire to\u00a0avoid anything resembling human contact, something caught his ear.\u00a0It wasn’t one more would-be Dylan or Robert Plant wannabe, or a whiny Justin Bieber clone, or an\u00a0aspiring Justin Timberlake.\u00a0Nor was what he heard blessed with the kind of vocal purity Dunbar associated with Aaron\u00a0Neville, or the guitar virtuosity that he loved in T-Bone Walker.\u00a0What impressed him first and foremost was a rare kind of emotion \u2013 something heartfelt that\u00a0derived from an almost magical convergence of voice, guitar, and lyrics.\u00a0Unless Dunbar had suddenly become delusional, there was, he felt, something incredibly\u00a0distinctive \u2013 na\u00efve yet somehow wise… cynical yet strangely hopeful… rural yet strikingly streetwise \u2013\u00a0that was fresh, winning, and above all, necessary.<\/p>\n

Even better, Clete Holmes, Dunbar learned after treating the musician to fish tacos and a couple of\u00a0Mexican beers, had no representation, no label, nor any professional baggage whatsoever. He was a\u00a0guy who’d played little clubs first in the Rust Belt, then in places like New Orleans and Austin,\u00a0supplementing whatever cash he made by working odd jobs and busking.\u00a0Some of his songs were drawn from personal experience, while others were inspired by snatches\u00a0of conversation overheard in dive bars, Greyhound stations, or honky-tonks. Plus there were a couple\u00a0that were triggered by unlikely signs he’d seen on the kinds of streets people in show biz brag about
\nflying over.\u00a0Careful not to do anything in haste, Dunbar worked with Clete over a period of weeks. The first\u00a0session dealt with what Dunbar called stage presence, with Dunbar teaching his new protege how to
\nmake contact with the audience in a personal way, without resorting to the over-the-top flourishes that\u00a0both of them dismissed as Vegas. Next came what Dunbar referred to as sequencing, mixing up-tempo\u00a0numbers with ballads, while at the same time balancing humorous pieces with those that carried a\u00a0special kind of poignancy. Then they focused on what Dunbar deemed breathing room, which meant\u00a0patter that added a personal touch so that Clete never resembled a human jukebox, simply pouring out\u00a0song after song after song.<\/p>\n

Calling in markers, Dunbar started getting his star-in-the-making guest spots at neighborhood\u00a0coffee houses and funky out-of-the-way clubs. The purpose, above and beyond creating the beginnings\u00a0of a buzz, was to prep Clete in every way imaginable.\u00a0Based on the response \u2013 not just from the audiences, but also from Clete, whose charisma was\u00a0increasing in direct proportion to his growing confidence \u2013 Dunbar, with each passing day, felt that his
\ninstincts were justified.\u00a0Never a particularly sound sleeper, he started finding himself awake at 3 AM, wondering if he and\u00a0Clete Holmes would one day follow in the footsteps of other tandems that had jointly risen from
\nobscurity: Colonel Parker and Elvis, Phil Spector and the Ronettes, Jon Landau and Springsteen,\u00a0David Geffen and Laura Nyro.<\/p>\n

Those musings, in turn, led to more constructive thoughts as he plotted the best, wisest way, and\u00a0hopefully most appropriate way to introduce Clete Holmes to the powers-that-be in the music business.\u00a0Days turned to weeks, then weeks into months as Dunbar pondered, night after night, what needed\u00a0to be done. And all the while, he continued to raid his rapidly dwindling finances not just to keep Clete\u00a0going, but also to produce the right demo.
\nThen one evening, while nursing a beer and pondering how long it had been since the last time he\u00a0had anything even resembling a date, it hit him. Champ Sumner was the man who could make what he\u00a0wanted a reality.\u00a0Champ, who had started as a wunderkind before making the leap first to record mogul, then to eminence grise in the rapidly expanding world of multimedia, had the wherewithal, both literally and figuratively, to provide exactly what was needed.<\/p>\n

Even better, though Dunbar was someone who had worn out his welcome in many places by\u00a0hounding relentlessly, then hounding some more, Sumner was not someone with whom he had burned\u00a0many bridges.\u00a0Managing to schedule his first face-to-face in ages with the industry heavyweight, since he knew\u00a0that merely sending an email with a link would never accomplish what he wanted, Dunbar did his best\u00a0to be on time and put on the charm.<\/p>\n

Then, instead of handing Sumner a CD, he begged for the chance\u00a0to play it for him, even if that came to mean only a tiny morsel of one tune.\u00a0Happily, it wasn’t just one little bit that Champ listened to, nor even just one song. To Dunbar’s\u00a0great glee, it was three songs in their entirety that he chose to hear.\u00a0\u201cI’ll need to see him play,\u201d Sumner then stated, much to Dunbar’s satisfaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cSay where and when.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn front of an audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd not in some shit hole.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ll make it happen,\u201d Happy Dunbar said happily.<\/p>\n

It took no small amount of begging, pleading, nudging, and wheedling, all sweetened by more\u00a0coke than he could afford, but ultimately Dunbar got what he wanted: a prime-time slot at a Monday\u00a0evening open mic in West Hollywood.\u00a0After giving a final pre-show pep talk to Clete Holmes, in which he stressed that the musician simply be and trust himself, Dunbar went back to the Silverlake apartment that, even after seven years, still didn’t feel like home.<\/p>\n

In contrast to the advice he had given to his new protege, he, himself, the putative voice of\u00a0experience and wisdom, could not find a way either to be or to trust. His entire being, to his chagrin,\u00a0seemed to consist of little more than exposed nerves, ravaged by anxiety and doubt.\u00a0Nothing made time pass more swiftly \u2013 not meditation, not medication, not exercise, not booze.\u00a0He would have gone out to a massage parlor in the hope of finding some solace, but even the cheapest\u00a0ones would have been an unthinkable extravagance.\u00a0Instead he let his mind wander, summoning memories that were long forgotten or suppressed. He\u00a0thought about the Swedish girl whose name he could no longer remember, a sweet innocent who made\u00a0him feel like somebody. And about the dinner he once had with not-yet-famous Jimi Hendrix at a\u00a0Spanish restaurant near New York’s Chelsea Hotel. And about the promises he’d made to himself when,\u00a0three years before, he was misdiagnosed with what proved, after an awful scare, not to be prostate\u00a0cancer.<\/p>\n

Then, though not given to prayer, he prayed that Champ Sumner would not let him down.\u00a0When the big evening came, despite his fear of being stood up, Dunbar did his best to convey\u00a0nothing but confidence, especially in the presence of Clete Holmes. Nonetheless, it was with great\u00a0relief that he greeted Champ Sumner, whose arrival at the club sent a buzz through all those who\u00a0recognized one of the last remaining power brokers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs he ready?\u201d Champ asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou’ll have to tell me,\u201d Dunbar responded.<\/p>\n

Every second felt like an hour as Dunbar, with Champ Sumner beside him, suffered through a neofolkie\u00a0with stringy hair whose self-confessional woes were no more scintillating than her reedy voice,\u00a0then a heavyset guy who wasn’t anywhere near as clever or funny as he thought he was.\u00a0Then onto the stage came Clete Holmes.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething tells me I’m not in Pittsburgh anymore,\u201d he said with a wry smile. \u201cOr Dubuque\u00a0either, it appears. So I guess I better put up or shut up.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a wink at a cute redhead, Clete strummed his guitar, then started to sing.<\/p>\n

I wasn’t born in the bayou
\nI wasn’t raised in the ‘hood
\nI was never told I was special
\nI was never told I was good.<\/p>\n

Dunbar snuck a glance at Champ Sumner, who was checking out not just Clete, but also the\u00a0reaction he was getting, particularly from the women in the audience. And with each passing moment\u00a0\u2013 and each additional verse, he was more and more convinced that this, at long last was it. That\u00a0enabled him to relax as Clete went into the finale.<\/p>\n

I’m not much for praying
\nOr hoping dreams will come true
\nBut I’ll never stop trying
\nTo make things better for you.<\/p>\n

As applause rang out around the room, Champ Sumner leaned toward Dunbar.\u00a0\u201cWe may be onto something,\u201d he said, filling Dunbar with pride.\u00a0Then Clete once again took hold of the microphone.\u00a0\u201cThank you,\u201d he said to the audience that he’d already won over. \u201cNow what do you say we get\u00a0our blood pumping?\u201d<\/p>\n

Without waiting for an answer, Clete merrily launched into an upbeat number.<\/p>\n

Down in Austin, Texas
\nThere’s a dance they call the Stomp.
\nIt’ll make you frisky,
\nIt’ll make you want to romp.
\nFirst you stomp!
\nThen you stomp!<\/p>\n

With each use of the word stomp, Clete did just that, stomping hard with his right foot \u2013 a move\u00a0that was instantly picked up on by the entire crowd. That led to Clete creating a frenzy by repeating\u00a0both the word and the action again and again.<\/p>\n

Once more Dunbar managed to steal a peek at Champ Sumner, who looked positively enthralled \u2013\u00a0until, that is, a girl with spiky blond hair and the skimpiest of mini-dresses jumped onto the stage and
\njoined Clete at the microphone, shouting and stomping.\u00a0Champ Sumner’s look turned from first from glee to disbelief, then to what Dunbar took to be\u00a0scorn.<\/p>\n

Without another word, Sumner turned and headed for the exit.\u00a0Forced to fight his way through a romping and stomping crown, it was only when he at last made\u00a0his way to the parking lot that Dunbar caught up to Sumner.<\/p>\n

\u201cDidn’t you like him?\u201d Dunbar asked plaintively.<\/p>\n

\u201cSure, I liked him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen what’s the problem?\u201d<\/p>\n

Champ gave him a look that Dunbar took to be pity. \u201cSome idiot girl jumps on stage and grabs\u00a0the mic?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it’s Springsteen, or Jagger, or even Tom Petty \u2013\u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’d punch her fuckin’ heart out! It’s not just talent that gets you somewhere in this world. It’s\u00a0being willing to kill.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that, Champ Sumner climbed into his Bentley, leaving Dunbar speechless as he headed off\u00a0into the night.<\/p>\n

Feeling alone as never before, Dunbar allowed himself a rare moment of reflection. So much that\u00a0he had either sacrificed or deferred while chasing a dream came surging forth. He had no wife, no kids,
\nno home, nor even a dog. All he had \u2013 all he might ever have \u2013 was a love of music, plus a belief that\u00a0he, even if he had little to show for it, knew what it could be… should be… ought to be.<\/p>\n

Promising himself that he wouldn’t let Clete Holmes know what Sumner said, Dunbar took a deep\u00a0breath, then started to think about indies, smaller labels that might position his new discovery to be the
\nnext Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, or George Thorogood & the Destroyers, or even Norah Jones.<\/p>\n

Then back into the club Dunbar went.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Alan Swyer is an award-winning filmmaker whose recent documentaries have dealt with the criminal justice system, Eastern spirituality in the Western world, diabetes, and boxing.\u00a0 In the realm of music, he’s written scores of liner notes, has produced several records, including a compilation of Ray Charles love songs, and contributes regularly to Britain’s “Blues & Rhythm.”\u00a0 His fiction has been published hither and yon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After years of waiting, Happy Dunbar once again had what he referred to as the feeling. It was a sense \u2013 a frisson, as an old French girlfriend once described it \u2013 that he had gotten only a few times in his life. That, he understood, was why he could vividly remember each and every instance. The first came when, as he often joked later, he integrated a black church in Newark, where a visiting minister named Solomon Burke \u2013 known in the secular world as The King of Rock & Soul \u2013 filled not just the building, but also Happy’s needy soul, with a belief in the healing power of music. In those days, Happy, who had yet to acquire his music biz moniker, was rarely the least bit happy.<\/p>\n

READ MORE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":186,"featured_media":6886,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,218,200,219],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6721"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/186"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6721"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6887,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6721\/revisions\/6887"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}