IN THIS ISSUE: The return of Alabama Shakes & Willy Loman, and a gift of inspiring words
Dear friends,
Welcome to the fourth edition of the Alchemy newsletter.
Since my last writing, I received a package in the mail from my daughter Emily in Chicago. She commissioned a piece of art for me and our little show. More on that below.
The other night I took myself to see "Death of a Salesman." I'm a little late - the show, which opened in April, closes a limited run in a few weeks. It wasn't easy to get a ticket, but it was well worth it.
But first up, on the latest episode of Alchemy: Brittany Howard, the frontwoman of Alabama Shakes. The band is back with its first studio album in 11 years. There are few artists whose voice, stage presence, and artistic daring I admire more than Brittany's. And she's as magical in conversation as she is in concert.
Don't forget, we'd love to hear from you & we'd love to know what you would like to hear from us. So just reply to this email and let us know!
- Anthony
This week on Alchemy: Brittany Howard
The return of Alabama Shakes is quite an occasion. The band broke out of Athens, Alabama in a big way with their debut album, "Boys & Girls," back in 2012. It would sell a million copies. Their follow up, "Sound & Color," went to #1 and earned them three Grammys.
I first met Brittany Howard over a Zoom call in the dark days of the pandemic. She was promoting her debut solo album from her back porch in Nashville. I was sitting in my apartment in New York trying to ask sensitive questions over a shaky cellphone connection. But we made the best of it.
I’d heard Brittany was passing those idle days of the COVID quarantine fly fishing along the Elk River. The very image of that obsessed the TV part of my brain. I wanted to shoot it for our story. So did my producers. We pleaded with our bosses to allow us to drive the 13 hours down to Nashville so I could put on waders and interview Brittany (very socially distanced) in the middle of the river. Sadly, this idea was immediately rejected.
Brittany was just beginning her time away from the Shakes then, and that debut solo album "Jaime" was so good I doubted she’d ever go back.
"I think music gives me answers. The creation of music is the question. And I think when I hear a song back, it may be some time before I realize I was talking to myself."
-Brittany Howard on Alchemy
But as she explains on Alchemy, the band regrouped naturally to do a benefit show for a friend in Tuscaloosa. "And then it was kind of like, 'It feels good to see y'all. It feels good to play together again,'" she says. "And it kind of started from there."
All of Brittany’s albums - solo and with the Shakes - have been exciting. Because you’re never quite sure where she’s going to go.
"I don’t ever want music to be easy. I don’t think it would be very interesting if it was just so easy," she told me.
- Click here to see Episode 7 of Alchemy with Brittany Howard
- The new Alabama Shakes album "I Must Be Dreaming" is out August 28
What I'm watching: Death of a Salesman
I finally made it to the Winter Garden Theatre last week to see the remarkable new production of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.”
My wife and son caught it awhile ago, and it has to close soon, so I bought a solo ticket and hopped the subway down to 50th Street. In a crazy coincidence, I ended up sitting next to an old friend I’d worked with at WCBS back in the '80s. “Are you in this seat?” she asked as I slid in from the aisle. I thought she was telling me it was taken. But as she later explained, “in a city this size, it boggles the mind” that on a random night two old colleagues could so casually end up side by side at the same event.
And then the lights went down and Nathan Lane, playing Willy Loman, drove onto the stage in a red 1964 Chevy, its headlights sweeping out across the seats, searching for some hope in this beleaguered old salesman’s car crash of a life. I settled in then to watch Lane and Laurie Metcalf, as Willy’s wife Linda. Two giants of American theatre giving towering performances in one of the greatest plays ever written. And it’s all just another night in New York.
Whenever I get down on this city - and it can crush you under its boot some days - I remember that every evening great actors are making magic somewhere here and all you have to do is buy a ticket. That show can lift you up, or even change the way you see the world.
When I was 10 years old, I was taken to a revival of "Annie Get Your Gun" on Broadway. Ethel Merman, who’d originated the role 20 years earlier, was back playing Annie Oakley, the sharpshooter and folk hero from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show.
Never mind that the brassy Merman, who grew up over the bridge in Queens, hardly had the twang of a cowgirl from “the Wild West.” Or that she was now perhaps a little old for the part (she was 58). My young eyes were blind to all that. But my ears - wow - they were thrilled by Merman’s mezzo-soprano, which could still blow out the back doors of a Broadway theatre (and actors weren’t mic’d in those days!) When she belted out “There’s No Business Like Show Business” I suddenly understood that this was what “going to a Broadway show” was all about. Goosebumps, still.
The same month that Merman returned to Broadway, May of '66, CBS broadcast a production of "Death of a Salesman." Lee J. Cobb reprised his role as Willy Loman, which he’d debuted on Broadway back in 1949. I don’t recall why I tuned in that Sunday night (I usually watched Bonanza), but the vulnerability and despair of this aging traveling salesman touched me even as a ten year old. Now, as a 70 year old, Willy’s broken dreams have far deeper resonance.
"He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that's an earthquake."
-Death of a Salesman
When his play opened in ‘49, Arthur MiIler explored Willy’s decline in an essay for The New York Times called “Tragedy and the Common Man.”
“The fateful wound from which inevitable events spiral is the wound of indignity,” Miller wrote. “Tragedy, then, is the consequence of a man’s total compulsion to evaluate himself justly.”
In the second act, when Biff Loman confronts his father: “Pop, I am a dime a dozen and so are you!” And Lane (as Willy) abruptly bellows back, “I am not a dime a dozen! I am Willy Loman!” I felt my chest tighten. As Helen Shaw wrote in her Times review, “A great performance makes you hear familiar lines anew.”
My friend, who’d consulted for the show and seen it multiple times, said that Laurie Metcalf’s Tony-winning performance was different every night. It feels that way in the theatre, utterly real and in the moment. And though I knew Willy’s fate (this was the fourth production of "Salesman" that I’ve seen) I was gutted all over again.
The exhausted sold-out theatre gathered itself in the end to give the cast a sustained standing ovation. After joining in, my friend and I slipped out the side doors of the Winter Garden and caught the subway home. Just another night in New York.
"Creativity Eats Darkness"
A new piece of artwork arrived in the apartment recently. As many of you who watch the show know, the phrase is a quote from Jeff Tweedy and it’s become the rallying cry for Alchemy.
My oldest daughter, Emily, sent the poster as a birthday gift. She commissioned it from a graphic artist who she works with in Chicago named Barderies Hampton. And you will see it up on the wall behind me soon in our next episode.
Tweedy, an esteemed songwriter and frontman of the band Wilco, is one of the most eloquent explainers of the creative process. He dropped the phrase when talking about his recent solo album.
"When you align yourself with creation, you inherently take a side against destruction. You're on the side of creation. And that does a lot to quell the impulse to destroy. Creativity eats darkness."
-Jeff Tweedy
We talked last year for a story on CBS Sunday Morning when Tweedy, now 58, said music is as important to him as it’s ever been. "It's the only place I feel like I'm powerful in any kind of way," he said. "I mean, it's hard to be scared when you're singing a song, you know?"
I’ve interviewed Jeff a few times over the years. We also talked during the pandemic, when he put out a great little book, "How to Write One Song."
I told him I was struck by the title. Why not: "How To Write Songs?"
"If you wanna write two songs, you have to buy two books," he joked.
The book is a primer of Tweedy’s own creative process and I highly recommend it. I asked what creativity did for him. "It’s a good way to kill time without hurting anybody," he said. "It teaches me about myself. It functions the same way I think meditation might function for a lot of people."
Well, thanks to my daughter Emily and her friend Barderies, Jeff’s words and our rallying cry are now enshrined on the wall offering constant inspiration. Keep an eye out for them!
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