Stew of The Negro Problem: Passing Strange

Saw him do an interesting talk/conversation at the Library of Congress last night. Someone from the DC theatrical company Studio Theatre asked him questions and he sang songs while playing his acoustic guitar. he explained his songwriting method, how he got into theatre and did Passing Strange, how he got into teaching MFA students, his upcoming projects (one on the 1968 Poor People's March to DC), and he talked about fave music, film, and theatre. Re music, he mentioned Bill Withers, Lou Reed and others, but noted his love for James Brown, Beatles and Dylan (and he sneered at the music on radio these days. Sounded a bit too old man cranky with that).

I liked the story about and the acoustic rendition he did of "Black Men Ski." His number about Park Slope Brooklyn women pushing fancy strollers while talking on iphones was a bit light and novelty-ish. He closed with an impressive fairly new tune called (I think) "Florida You are Killing Me" that started light and funny; said other than Cuban food Florida offered nothing and then got real serious re "your hanging chads and lynched boys"). Impassioned soulful delivery on this tune

he sneered at the music on radio these days

has ears

But that just over-encouraged some of the late 50s and up folks in the q and a part after to get all baby boom classic rock worshipful

Saw his new production "Wagner, Max! Wagner" at the Kennedy Center. He and his Passing Strange co-writer Heidi Rodewald (she palyed bass) plus a band with horns, sitar, strings doing wordy songs about loving Wagner's music while trying to come to grips with Wagner's anti-Semitism. Plus another theme about blues, and per Stew, African-American embarrassment about the blues because of its historical roots. He combined these with a song about Wagner's blues. I don't know Wagner's music or life, so some of this was way over my head.

Afterwards Stew talked about classical music but with soul and jazz analogies, comparing either Mozart or Beethoven to Marvin Gaye and someone else to Coltrane. Plus asserting that the only music one can't play loud on a Sunday morning without offending someone is Wagner.

While not all the themes came together for me (and some lyrics in both English and German were garbled in his fervent delivery), I love Stew's punky-pop guitar playing and clever melodies

Part of the blues schtick didn't work too well...Jokes and songs meant to tie this theme with the Wagner one about how the production was really about obscure (made-up) bluesman Big Dick Wagner and not the famous Wagner. A couple of 12 bar blues clichéd songs...

he's got a new musical (him and Heidi Rodewald, that is) at the Public Theatre in May

http://www.publictheater.org/Tickets/Calendar/PlayDetailsCollection/1516/The-Total-Bent/?SiteTheme=JoesPub

hopefully the blues aspects will be done better than the ones he did in the Wagner thing

Listening to his Notes of a Native Song album now. Clever and entertaining lyrics, with sometimes enjoyable music.

You say you got mad pains, maybe you should listen to Bad Brains

That’s a light lyric but he’s got more complex ones about serious subjects. I like the bitter sweet melancholy part of “Brave Knave”