Tom Paxton: Rare Appearances

Like his folk contemporaries in the 1960s, Tom Paxton joined with Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, and Dave Van Ronk to point out the injustices in the world, call for change, and uplift the heroes who were making a difference in people’s lives. Though Paxton himself shies away from calling himself a political songwriter, he does consider himself “an observer with a conscience.”
His songs do, however, express his concern with the environment (“Whose Garden Was This?”) and take shots at various institutions: social power in the twentieth century (“Yuppies In The Sky),” the profit-driven funeral industry (“Forest Lawn”), corporate bailouts (“I’m Changing My Name to Chrysler”), and incompetent businesses (“Thank You, Republic Airlines”). Paxton also did his share of Vietnam era songwriting: “The Willing Conscript,” “Jimmy Newman” (about a soldier’s death), “Johnny Got a Gun,” and “Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation.” He also isn’t afraid to touch more recent war-time subjects, such as “On the Road From Srebrenica,” about a massacre in Bosnia.

Other songs became classics. “Rambling Boy” and “I Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound” were sung by nearly every professional and amateur folksinger during the 1960s and 1970s and are still sung today. Even words from another song, “Peace Will Come and Let It Begin with Me,” have been sung by three very disparate singers: Pete Seeger, Willie Nelson, and Placido Domingo. His children’s songs have also become classics. Among them are “The Marvelous Toy,” “Goin’ To The Zoo,” and “My Dog’s Bigger Than Your Dog,” which was even co-opted for a hot dog commercial.

But it is Paxton’s ability to put himself into a situation and write from that emotional point of view that distinguishes his folksong legacy. “The Mother” is a sensitive song about a mother telling her young adopted daughters how painful it must have been for their birth mothers to let them go and how grateful the adoptive mother was.

In “The Bravest,” Paxton put himself in the emotional space of the New York firefighters who lost their lives in 9/11. “The chorus was the first thing that came to me for that song,” Paxton said in an interview last week. “I didn’t want to write it. As I watched the TV coverage, where we live in Alexandria, Virginia, we could smell the smoke from the Pentagon. It was that horrible acrid smoke that just burns your nose. I didn’t want to write the songs. I just felt I was in over my head with something like this. But the chorus kept coming to me about those firemen climbing the stairs while everybody else was going down. That dichotomy just haunted me so I gave up and wrote the song.”

According to Paxton, the lyrics hang on the walls of fire departments all across the country. They have become a part of the firefighters’ culture.
Over Paxton’s four decades of writing and performing, his wife Midge has been his strongest supporter and his severest critic. In his 2002 album, Looking for the Moon, he included one song about his wife. In his current CD, Comedians and Angels, the entire album is about his affection for his wife and for his daughters. “I could write a bitter, acerbic, angry bunch of songs about the way things are in the country, but I’ve been there, and I’ve done that. I wanted to do this,” Paxton said. “To me, it feels like just a natural progression to be in this kind of state of mind at this point.”

His concerts usually include a little set woven around his daughters. “In concert, I do the songs I wrote for them when they were children and then I do ‘Jennifer and Kate.’ You’ll hear that little set in St. Cloud,” he said.

That St. Cloud date will be extra special. He will come from an intimate solo evening in Minneapolis at the First Unitarian Society, and then will travel to St. Cloud to play with Minneapolis composer and mandolin virtuoso Peter Ostroushko. It will be a reunion for both of them. “We did a few shows together around Minnesota about ten years or so ago, and it was just a glorious three-day experience for me,” Paxton remembered. “He’s such a wonderful, sensitive musician. He picks up every nuance and puts some nuances in.”

Ostroushko admitted, though, that this is Paxton’s show, then quipped, “I’m kind of the Vanna White of the Tom Paxton show. I’m really there for the glitz and glamour.” Then he turned serious. “Tom Paxton is a legend,” he said. “He’s someone who over the years has delivered the goods. He’s written some classics that will always be part of anybody’s singer/songwriter’s repertoire…For my own self, he had an influence on my music when I was growing up. I listened to him along with all these other original New York stylists…There’s something about someone who has that much longevity in the business and that strikes me as being very honest and a very likeable fellow on and off stage.”

If You Go

WHO: Tom Paxton
WHERE: First Unitarian Society, 900 Mount Curve Ave, Minneapolis
(behind the Walker Art Center)
WHEN: Saturday, April 5, 7:30 pm
HOW MUCH: $18.00 advance, $20.00 day of show, $10 for students,
INFO: (651) 293-9021

St. Cloud Concert

WHO: Tom Paxton with Peter Ostroushko, mandolin
WHERE: Pioneer Place on Fifth, St. Cloud, Minn.
WHEN: Sunday, April 6, 7:30 pm
HOW MUCH: $20 in advance (http://www.ppfive.com), $24 at door
INFO: (320) 203-1233