His performances were full of energy and sparkle and good
humor. Much of what he sang were his own
compositions, and his style was certainly eclectic, ranging from folk to
country & western to oldies, from soft ballads to comedy to satire to
jazzed-up foot-stompers. Anyone who has
had the pleasure of hearing him live, especially in a small club on a warm
summer night, can only wonder why he did not become a bigger star.
I saw Steve Goodman perform many times in Chicago, in small folk-houses
and in large halls (like the Park West on Armitage Avenue). Most of the venues are long-gone. I first saw him in the mid-1970s at the Earl
of Old Town saloon with the great Chicago blues band Martin, Bogan &
Armstrong, and I will never forget their exhilarating rendition of Mamma Don’t Allow It, which no one there,
especially the musicians, seemingly wanted to ever end. A couple years later I returned to the Earl
to see Goodman once again, and smiled as, early in his act, he pulled an
audience member up to play with him.
They played for hours, and seeing Steve Goodman and John Prine do an
impromptu three-hour riff was a thrill I still remember. In his middle career years he was joined in
concerts, and on recordings, by county music legend Jethro Burns. I once drove alone from Chicago to Rockford, almost
a hundred miles from where I started on the South Side, in a light snow storm
(I was very young then) to see the two of them play; consummate musicians they
were, Goodman on his guitar and Burns on his mandolin. (I had the pleasure of conversing with Jethro
Burns for a couple of minutes during a break while standing shoulder-to-shoulder
with him in the small, two-man men’s room – a most pleasant fellow). A few years before his death, Goodman moved,
with his wife and children, to Southern California, hoping for more success from
the connections he could make there.
His breakout hit was City
of New Orleans after it was recorded by Arlo Guthrie. He had great range in his many compositions –
from Would You Like To Learn To Dance,
a soft, gentle invitation to take a chance at love, to Banana Republics, a ballad about disaffected American expatriates
south of the border. Some were intensely
personal, filled with bittersweet emotion, notably My Old Man in which he mourns and reconciles with his long-passed
father, and Old Smoothies, about the
joy his loving grandparents experienced watching an old couple ice skating together.
Goodman had a great sense of humor, and what a treat it was to
see as well as hear him do Talking
Backwards, The Auctioneer, Vegematic, This Hotel Room, or of course The
Broken String Song (which always seemed like he was making it up on the
spot when he actually took time to repair a broken string in the middle of a set). He could fill up half an evening, if he
wanted to, with just these fun, and funny, songs.
North-sider that he was, Goodman was a big, and
long-suffering, fan of the Chicago Cubs baseball team, and composed two tunes
still often played today – Go Cubs Go
and A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request
(featuring the now inoperative lyric, funny then – “the doormat of the National
League”).
Along with life-long friend John Prine (fellow Chicagoan and
fellow former US postal worker), Goodman wrote Souvenirs, a favorite of mine, and the “perfect” country song You Never Even Call Me By My Name. He also popularized songs of other composers,
notably Michael Smith, who wrote The
Dutchman, Roving Cowboy, Crazy Mary, and Spoon River – all soft ballads that became big Goodman fan favorites.
Goodman was a leading figure among the Chicago
singer/songwriters and folksingers in a now-bygone era, along with others such
as Prine, Bonnie Koloc, Ed and Fred Holstein, and Tom Dundee.
Although not well-known by his fans during his lifetime,
illness and mortality were always on Goodman’s near horizon, perhaps explaining
in part the energized emotion and bittersweet tenderness of so many of the
songs he sang. His You Better Get It While You Can was more poignant than many of us
realized at the time (“from the cradle to the crypt is a might short trip, so
you better get it while you can”). Steve
Goodman passed away in late September 1984, just days before his beloved Cubs finally
entered post-season play for the first time since before he was born.
Although I enjoy a great deal of popular music I don’t go to
concerts much, preferring mostly to listen to music in a comfortable arm chair
with a subtle pinot at hand. But Steve
Goodman had to be seen in person, to share in his warmth and energy, and so I
have seen Steve Goodman far more than any other performer, and he is still
sorely missed, after all these years.
