I spent this past weekend at the West Coast Ragtime Festival in Sacramento. Three days of ragtime and early jazz, from 9am (no, I didn't come in quite that early) till 11 at night (yes, I did stay that late), with informational seminars, and the opportunity to sit down with friends I see face-to-face only once or twice a year. That Festival has always been a major refresher, a transfusion of energy. Everything upbeat.
But this year was different.
I hadn't been there ten minutes when I ran into a dear friend, and learned that her long-dormant cancer had reawakened. Then, not five minutes after chatting with her, I greeted another very good friend, only to learn she'd recently had the worst kind of diagnosis, and this was going to be her last Festival.
Bummer. All day Friday and well into Saturday, I listened to the music, but I wasn't really tuned in. I started to wonder whether I'd gotten a wakeup call.
A couple of weeks ago, I debated myself in my blog post as to whether I should go ahead with my next mystery novel, or organize, edit, and write up the historical papers I'd acquired from the estate of Brun Campbell, the original Ragtime Kid. Brun desperately wanted to get his history of ragtime published, but he never did. Surrounded by ragtime at the Festival, I asked myself what difference one mystery novel more or less would make, when I could be Brun's second chance.
Brun and I had developed a nice relationship during the five years I'd employed him as protagonist of THE RAGTIME KID and THE RAGTIME FOOL, and given that the old piano man was quite the storyteller himself, I thought I was well-qualified to spruce up his notes and tell his story. Be tough to let an old friend down, especially one as engaging and insistent as Brun.
A passage from COMING INTO THE END ZONE, a memoir by the novelist Doris Grumbach, came into my mind. Ms. Grumbach wrote the book during the year she turned seventy, and it was in large part a compendium of indignation at the nasty stuff old age dumps on people, including the realization of how close one's personal horizon has drawn. The author remembered a friend who said she "thinks we die only when our work is done. I would like to think that is true. I have work still to do." When I googled Doris Grumbach, I was gratified - and amused - to find she is still alive, twenty-three years later and counting, and has written several more books.
Ms. Grumbach's friend could be right, but I suspect she's got it backward. More likely, when we die, our work is done. But either way, the bottom line is the same: Focus on what's at hand, and let the horizon lie where it will. It just might be twenty-three years out there. And if it's twenty-three hours, what are you going to do about it?
By late Saturday I found myself tuning into the music much better, though admittedly not quite as well as at past Festivals. Maybe next year I'll be back to form. And I'll be interested to see what I'm working on then...Lord willin' and the creek don't rise.
Showing posts with label The Ragtime Fool. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Ragtime Fool. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Which Of Your Books Is Your Favorite
I'm in the process of relocating my web site, which is going to take a little while. In the meantime, I'll put any announcements regarding my new book, A PERILOUS CONCEPTION, into these weekly blog posts.
My author copies for APC arrived this past week, and as always, I smiled as I looked at the lovely dust jacket the Poisoned Pen folks designed for the book. Some things never get old.
* * *
People often ask me which of my books is my favorite, then add, "I bet it's like asking which of your kids is your favorite."
Well, sort of. I like at least some things in all my books, and I don't dislike any of them. But no way can I select a favorite.
THE MUSIC BOX MURDERS, as my first mystery novel, will always be special on that basis alone. And its successor, SCAMMING THE BIRDMAN, a caper, not only was great fun to write, but Dick Lochte's comment in the LA Times - "Donald Westlake is the reigning master of this type of fiction. Karp isn't quite in his league, but his ending is one that's worthy of Westlake and then some." - was damn sweet icing on the cake. The third in the Music Box Series, THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, was satisfying, in that I felt I took a good step forward in exploring the disabilities and anxieties a person inevitably encounters in the process of growing old.
My medical-ethics standalone, FIRST, DO NO HARM, got the best reviews and sold more copies than any of my books. Hard not to love a success like that. But even more pleasing was the fact that I'd finally written a story I'd been incubating since I was a young boy, and had been working on for some twenty years.
The books in my ragtime historical trilogy were thoroughly enjoyable to research and write, allowing me as they did to enter a subculture new to me, and to play with the ideas of birth, aging, death, and renaissance, both literally and metaphorically. As a group and individually, I'm very happy with the way they turned out.
And now we come to the one book I can exclude, where the analogy of books to children breaks down entirely. Who ever turns thumbs-down or even thumbs-neutral on their newborn baby? But a current release is never a contender for favorite. It always seems full of sharp, jagged edges that could make me bleed if I were to expose myself to them. I've learned, though, to give a new book a little time. With distance, and the intervention of a newer story, the nasty points in a book smooth out, and I come to think, well, maybe it's not so bad after all. Let a year or two pass, then ask me how I like A PERILOUS CONCEPTION. But for now, I'll leave the covers closed and just admire the lovely dust jacket.
My author copies for APC arrived this past week, and as always, I smiled as I looked at the lovely dust jacket the Poisoned Pen folks designed for the book. Some things never get old.
* * *
People often ask me which of my books is my favorite, then add, "I bet it's like asking which of your kids is your favorite."
Well, sort of. I like at least some things in all my books, and I don't dislike any of them. But no way can I select a favorite.
THE MUSIC BOX MURDERS, as my first mystery novel, will always be special on that basis alone. And its successor, SCAMMING THE BIRDMAN, a caper, not only was great fun to write, but Dick Lochte's comment in the LA Times - "Donald Westlake is the reigning master of this type of fiction. Karp isn't quite in his league, but his ending is one that's worthy of Westlake and then some." - was damn sweet icing on the cake. The third in the Music Box Series, THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, was satisfying, in that I felt I took a good step forward in exploring the disabilities and anxieties a person inevitably encounters in the process of growing old.
My medical-ethics standalone, FIRST, DO NO HARM, got the best reviews and sold more copies than any of my books. Hard not to love a success like that. But even more pleasing was the fact that I'd finally written a story I'd been incubating since I was a young boy, and had been working on for some twenty years.
The books in my ragtime historical trilogy were thoroughly enjoyable to research and write, allowing me as they did to enter a subculture new to me, and to play with the ideas of birth, aging, death, and renaissance, both literally and metaphorically. As a group and individually, I'm very happy with the way they turned out.
And now we come to the one book I can exclude, where the analogy of books to children breaks down entirely. Who ever turns thumbs-down or even thumbs-neutral on their newborn baby? But a current release is never a contender for favorite. It always seems full of sharp, jagged edges that could make me bleed if I were to expose myself to them. I've learned, though, to give a new book a little time. With distance, and the intervention of a newer story, the nasty points in a book smooth out, and I come to think, well, maybe it's not so bad after all. Let a year or two pass, then ask me how I like A PERILOUS CONCEPTION. But for now, I'll leave the covers closed and just admire the lovely dust jacket.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
When Fiction Comes Up Against Reality
For the past few months, I've been doing work that would have to rank at the top of any list of interesting activities for a historical novelist. After writing two books (THE RAGTIME KID and THE RAGTIME FOOL), which featured Sanford Brunson Campbell, the "Original Ragtime Kid of the 1890s" as protagonist, I was lucky enough to obtain three big boxes of items that once belonged to the real-life Kid, who died in 1952.
Imagine my feelings, reading autobiographical manuscripts describing Brun's adventures as an itinerant ragtime pianist during the first decade of the twentieth century, and his efforts during the last decade of his life to revive ragtime music and the reputation of his hero, Scott Joplin. There were also musical compositions unknown to current ragtime enthusiasts, 78rpm recordings of Brun playing his and Joplin's music, personal effects (including his barber's razor strop), business and tax records, and extensive correspondence with prominent musicians, entertainment figures, and politicians.
Brun was known as someone who never let facts get in the way of a good story - no wonder he was such a compelling figure to an historical novelist - and so, some of his written material was contradicted by well-established information. I think what inspired Brun to tell many of his tall tales was the desire to bring Joplin the recognition Brun (rightly) thought his old piano teacher deserved. As my Brun put it in THE RAGTIME FOOL, "Well, the way I told it, that's what Mr. Joplin deserved...That's how it should've been."
Brun did tell some good stories, and told them well. He had a very engaging voice. After five years wandering through the midwest, playing bar-room piano, he decided to go home to Arkansas City, KS, to visit his high-school sweetheart. "While I had been away," Brun wrote, "the local gossips had told her all kinds of stories about me and my ragtime career, the places in which I had played and other poisonous gossip. Some of it was true..."
"I arrived dressed in a loud checkered suit; cloth-top, colored patent leather shoes with pearl buttons, a light-colored hat with a loud hatband around it, and that ever-loving loud silk shirt, together with the loud-patterned necktie, about made my ragtime dress complete. When the natives saw me in that getup, I created quite a sensation.
"I thought my girl would faint when she gave me the once-over, and my mother stood dead in her tracks when she saw my loud clothes. But I was her darling boy and my appearance was soon forgotten by her."
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
The Ragtime Kid Comes To San Marino
"THE TWO-FOUR BEAT"
by
S. Brun Campbell
Down in St. Louis, on Chestnut and Market Streets,
That was the home of that old two-four beat.
It was there Tom Turpin wrote "Harlem Rag,"
While over at Sedalia, Mo., Scott Joplin wrote "The Original Rags."
But when he wrote "The Maple Leaf Rag,"
He put the two-four beat right in the bag.
Louis Chauvin played piano on Chestnut Street
And was the best of them all on the two-four beat.
That beat spread to Memphis down to old Beale Street,
And then down to New Orleans, to Rampart, Franklin and Basin Streets.
When Buddy Bolden heard it he blew out a loud jazz call
That rocked Lulu White's "Mahogany Hall."
It put New Orleans jazz right on the ball,
And made it the music of the Mardi Gras.
Then up at Memphis Handy blew a fuse -
For in 1912 he wrote the "Memphis Blues."
That was good, so he wrote another, the "St. Louis Blues."
Now Zez Confrey, just to be a tease,
Set a new jazz pattern and wrote "Kitten on the Keys."
Then George Gershwin got into a musical stew
And sat right down and wrote "Rhapsody in Blue."
So from Bolden to Gershwin it's been a musical treat,
But it all goes back to the two-four beat.
by
S. Brun Campbell
Down in St. Louis, on Chestnut and Market Streets,
That was the home of that old two-four beat.
It was there Tom Turpin wrote "Harlem Rag,"
While over at Sedalia, Mo., Scott Joplin wrote "The Original Rags."
But when he wrote "The Maple Leaf Rag,"
He put the two-four beat right in the bag.
Louis Chauvin played piano on Chestnut Street
And was the best of them all on the two-four beat.
That beat spread to Memphis down to old Beale Street,
And then down to New Orleans, to Rampart, Franklin and Basin Streets.
When Buddy Bolden heard it he blew out a loud jazz call
That rocked Lulu White's "Mahogany Hall."
It put New Orleans jazz right on the ball,
And made it the music of the Mardi Gras.
Then up at Memphis Handy blew a fuse -
For in 1912 he wrote the "Memphis Blues."
That was good, so he wrote another, the "St. Louis Blues."
Now Zez Confrey, just to be a tease,
Set a new jazz pattern and wrote "Kitten on the Keys."
Then George Gershwin got into a musical stew
And sat right down and wrote "Rhapsody in Blue."
So from Bolden to Gershwin it's been a musical treat,
But it all goes back to the two-four beat.
Sanford Brunson Campbell, age 15, rode a freight train from his Oklahoma home to Sedalia, MO in 1899, to take ragtime piano lessons from Scott Joplin. The composer nicknamed his student "The Ragtime Kid," and he went on to have a most interesting and colorful ragtime life - so interesting and colorful, he served as a principal character in two of the stories in my historical-mystery trilogy.
One of those books, THE RAGTIME KID, is the focus of this year's One Book/One City Festival in San Marino, CA. I'll be down there next Thursday with a presentation, "The Ragtime Kid - Separating Fiction From Reality." Not an easy undertaking, since Brun could rarely resist the temptation to embellish a story, and he rarely told the same tale the same way. Emerson could have been thinking of Brun when he made his point about consistency, hobgoblins, and little minds. But that was a great part of what made The Kid such an interesting character, in both senses of the word.
My talk will be at the Crowell Public Library, 1890 Huntington Drive, San Marino, CA 91108, April 28, 7pm. Please come by, if you're in the neighborhood. There'll be food for mind and body.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The Ragtime Kid in Venice
It's official now. The Friends of the Crowell Public Library in San Marino, CA have announced the selection of THE RAGTIME KID (and by extension, THE KING OF RAGTIME and THE RAGTIME FOOL) as the 2011 selection for their annual One Book/One City Festival. There's a preliminary schedule of programs during the next three months, leading up to my talk at the library on April 28. If you live in Southern California, you might enjoy taking in some of the ragtime festivities.
The Ragtime Kid was a real person. His name was Brun Campbell, and in 1899, at age 15, he hopped a train in Oklahoma, and traveled to Sedalia, MO, to take piano lessons from Scott Joplin. Before Brun left Sedalia to pursue a career as an itinerant pianist in the midwest, Joplin nicknamed him The Ragtime Kid, a title which Brun carried proudly for the rest of his life.
By the end of World War I, though, ragtime gave way to jazz, and Brun was out of work, so, like his father, he became a barber. In 1929 or 1930, he moved his family from Tulsa to Venice, CA - less than 15 miles down the 110 Freeway from San Marino - both to take advantage of better economic conditions on the west coast, and to provide a more healthful environment for one of his daughters who suffered from asthma. Brun lived in the same house and worked at the same barber shop in Venice from then until his death in 1952. Despite his wife's highly negative attitude toward ragtime (which led me to re-christen him THE RAGTIME FOOL), he was a major player in the ragtime revival of the 1940s. He even appeared as a character, though not in a very favorable light, in Ray Bradbury's homage to old Venice, DEATH IS
A LONELY BUSINESS.
But Venetians these days don't seem terribly interested in Brun; relatively few have even heard of him. That's not as it should be. I'll have more to say on this in upcoming blogs, as I keep you posted on the San Marino festivities. And I'll certainly have my say in San Marino on April 28. Crowell Public Library, 1890 Huntington Drive, 7pm.
The Ragtime Kid was a real person. His name was Brun Campbell, and in 1899, at age 15, he hopped a train in Oklahoma, and traveled to Sedalia, MO, to take piano lessons from Scott Joplin. Before Brun left Sedalia to pursue a career as an itinerant pianist in the midwest, Joplin nicknamed him The Ragtime Kid, a title which Brun carried proudly for the rest of his life.
By the end of World War I, though, ragtime gave way to jazz, and Brun was out of work, so, like his father, he became a barber. In 1929 or 1930, he moved his family from Tulsa to Venice, CA - less than 15 miles down the 110 Freeway from San Marino - both to take advantage of better economic conditions on the west coast, and to provide a more healthful environment for one of his daughters who suffered from asthma. Brun lived in the same house and worked at the same barber shop in Venice from then until his death in 1952. Despite his wife's highly negative attitude toward ragtime (which led me to re-christen him THE RAGTIME FOOL), he was a major player in the ragtime revival of the 1940s. He even appeared as a character, though not in a very favorable light, in Ray Bradbury's homage to old Venice, DEATH IS
A LONELY BUSINESS.
But Venetians these days don't seem terribly interested in Brun; relatively few have even heard of him. That's not as it should be. I'll have more to say on this in upcoming blogs, as I keep you posted on the San Marino festivities. And I'll certainly have my say in San Marino on April 28. Crowell Public Library, 1890 Huntington Drive, 7pm.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
My Ragtime Historical-Mystery Trilogy Is Honored
As am I.
The Friends of the Crowell Library in San Marino, CA host a yearly One Book/One City Festival, where a particular book is selected, every reader in the city is encouraged to read it, events are planned around the major theme(s) of the book, and the author visits the city and gives a talk. This year's honoree was T. Jefferson Parker, for IRON RIVER.
Next year, the committee has renamed the Festival OB/OCx3, to select the three books (THE RAGTIME KID, THE KING OF RAGTIME, and THE RAGTIME FOOL) of my trilogy for their community read. During March and April 2011, the library will sponsor programs on music (especially ragtime) and concerts, and I'll talk to the readers on April 28, at 7pm, then sign books. Pretty cool.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Alan Chandler, C'est Moi?
People ask me all the time whether one or another character in one of my books is "you." More disconcerting, sometimes they don't ask; they insist a particular character is me. I usually reply to the effect that I never use real people, myself included, as models for fictional characters, that knowledge of a real person's M. O. would limit his or her freedoms of expression and action as a character in a work of fiction.
But I may have to think this through. My sister told me that Alan Chandler, the 17-year-old ragtime pianist in THE RAGTIME FOOL, is "me." I told her Alan is nothing like I was at his age. I couldn't play a note of music. I would never have run off to Missouri to meet an old man from California, to give him an important book I'd bought for a large sum of money from an old woman in Harlem. I'd never have dared to speak to my parents the way Alan spoke to his. And I was amused at Alan's naivete about racial relations in Missouri in 1951. He was unaware that segregation existed outside the deep South. Just clueless.
But a little while ago, Tim Reed, a friend and fellow music box collector, sent me a link, http://www.njn.net/arts/starts/season05-06/2412.html , he thought might interest me, given that I grew up in New Jersey. The video was from NJN, New Jersey Public Television and Radio, and presented the history of Asbury Park, the resort where my family and I spent two weeks every summer throughout the 1950s.
Did I know that the town was founded by a pious Methodist, who wanted to set up a proper resort for proper, well-to-do Christians? Yeah, kind of.
Did I know this target population had "help," who needed to live somewhere, so a Black section of the city was established literally on the other side of the railroad tracks? No.
Did I know that this Black ghetto was a hotbed of popular music, a major venue for the most popular ragtime, blues, and jazz musicians of the day? Nope.
Did I know that even into the 1960s, Asbury Park remained segregated, that Blacks had their own separate (but not equal) beach; the Black beach was adjacent to the sewer outlet? No.
Did I ever notice that I never saw a Black face on the Asbury Park City Beach during the 1950s? No.
Did that ever strike me as odd? No.
All right, then. Isn't it so that people in our dreams are not "somebody else?" Aren't they completely our own creations, put up by our subconscious minds to populate the stories we call dreams?
- Sounds reasonable.
Wouldn't I have loved to talk to my parents the way Alan talked to his?
- Damn right I would've.
Wouldn't I have loved to hop a train to Missouri with the key to a special ragtime event in my book bag?
- Well, yeah. I guess I really would've.
What would I have given to be able to play piano like Alan?
- Chalk one up for the sister.
But I may have to think this through. My sister told me that Alan Chandler, the 17-year-old ragtime pianist in THE RAGTIME FOOL, is "me." I told her Alan is nothing like I was at his age. I couldn't play a note of music. I would never have run off to Missouri to meet an old man from California, to give him an important book I'd bought for a large sum of money from an old woman in Harlem. I'd never have dared to speak to my parents the way Alan spoke to his. And I was amused at Alan's naivete about racial relations in Missouri in 1951. He was unaware that segregation existed outside the deep South. Just clueless.
But a little while ago, Tim Reed, a friend and fellow music box collector, sent me a link, http://www.njn.net/arts/starts/season05-06/2412.html , he thought might interest me, given that I grew up in New Jersey. The video was from NJN, New Jersey Public Television and Radio, and presented the history of Asbury Park, the resort where my family and I spent two weeks every summer throughout the 1950s.
Did I know that the town was founded by a pious Methodist, who wanted to set up a proper resort for proper, well-to-do Christians? Yeah, kind of.
Did I know this target population had "help," who needed to live somewhere, so a Black section of the city was established literally on the other side of the railroad tracks? No.
Did I know that this Black ghetto was a hotbed of popular music, a major venue for the most popular ragtime, blues, and jazz musicians of the day? Nope.
Did I know that even into the 1960s, Asbury Park remained segregated, that Blacks had their own separate (but not equal) beach; the Black beach was adjacent to the sewer outlet? No.
Did I ever notice that I never saw a Black face on the Asbury Park City Beach during the 1950s? No.
Did that ever strike me as odd? No.
All right, then. Isn't it so that people in our dreams are not "somebody else?" Aren't they completely our own creations, put up by our subconscious minds to populate the stories we call dreams?
- Sounds reasonable.
Wouldn't I have loved to talk to my parents the way Alan talked to his?
- Damn right I would've.
Wouldn't I have loved to hop a train to Missouri with the key to a special ragtime event in my book bag?
- Well, yeah. I guess I really would've.
What would I have given to be able to play piano like Alan?
- Chalk one up for the sister.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
On the Road Again
What with my being on the road to publicize The Ragtime Fool, and having to post this week's blog from my Sidekick device, Marjorie May Campbell agreed to wait one more week to finish telling us about her fool husband. Not that she was happy about it, but as she said, after all those years trying to deal with Brun, a person learns to make do.
The first event on the trip was Monday evening at The Avid Reader in Sacramento, where ragtimers Tom Brier, and Bub and Petra Sullivan came by to hear how I came to write the ragtime trilogy. Then, last night at San Mateo's M is for Mystery, Camille Minichino, a physicist who, as Margaret Grace, writes mysteries set in the world of miniatures,and I had a lively discussion about how we write, why we write what we write, and doing and not doing research. The audience included ragtimers Washboard Kitty Wilson, and Phil and Darwyn (who commented that she'd read Mrs. Campbell's remarks on this blog, which prompted Marjorie May to say she was glad SOMEONE listens to her).
Now I'm on the way to L.A. I'll go to Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego Thursday, and the L.A. Times Festival of Books Saturday, to sign in the LA Sisters in Crime Booth, the Mysterious Galaxy Booth, and the L.A. Mystery Bookstore Booth. And do a little research in between. More on that later.
The first event on the trip was Monday evening at The Avid Reader in Sacramento, where ragtimers Tom Brier, and Bub and Petra Sullivan came by to hear how I came to write the ragtime trilogy. Then, last night at San Mateo's M is for Mystery, Camille Minichino, a physicist who, as Margaret Grace, writes mysteries set in the world of miniatures,and I had a lively discussion about how we write, why we write what we write, and doing and not doing research. The audience included ragtimers Washboard Kitty Wilson, and Phil and Darwyn (who commented that she'd read Mrs. Campbell's remarks on this blog, which prompted Marjorie May to say she was glad SOMEONE listens to her).
Now I'm on the way to L.A. I'll go to Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego Thursday, and the L.A. Times Festival of Books Saturday, to sign in the LA Sisters in Crime Booth, the Mysterious Galaxy Booth, and the L.A. Mystery Bookstore Booth. And do a little research in between. More on that later.
--Larry
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
The Ragtime Fool is a Killer Book...and Introducing Mrs. Marjorie May Campbell
Good news for the week: The Independent Mystery Booksellers Association selected The Ragtime Fool as one of its Killer Book recommendations for March. www.killerbooks.org
Now to the business at hand. Having read The Ragtime Fool, Mrs. Marjorie May Campbell, Brun's wife, has requested space to tell her side of the story of the Ragtime Fool. I'm glad to let her do that. The keyboard's yours, Mrs. Campbell.
Well, hello. My name is Marjorie May Campbell. I was Brun Campbell's wife, and I'll say right off, if anybody was ever a Ragtime Fool, it was Brun.
I want to thank Mr. Karp for letting me have my say on this blog of his. He promised not to change anything I write, and I intend to hold him to that. It's not that I think he wrote me up unfair, but there are always reasons why people do and say things, and if I come across a little bit prickly in his book, well, you just try being married to Brun Campbell for upwards of 30 years.
Brun and me got married in Oklahoma in 1918. I knew he had some bad habits, but don't all men? But he was very good looking then, and charming besides, and he promised sincerely, no more drinking, and no going to low places to play that ragtime music of his. He'd cut hair in his barber shop 6 days a week, and go to church on Sundays.
Well, in the next seven years, we had three beautiful daughters. The youngest had asthma, and the doctors said we should move to Venice, California for her health. I was glad, even though I'd be leaving all my friends and family in Oklahoma, but I figured so would Brun, and it was them who kept getting him to drinking and playing ragtime, and I figured in California, we could start off new.
Not that it didn't work pretty good for a while. Every so often, Brun would fall off of the wagon, which did grieve me, but like my mother always told me, men are just plain going to do that, so I put up with it best I could. But then around 1940, these musicians in California, this Lu Watters and Turk Murphy, and I don't know who-all else began playing ragtime again, and people took note,. And that was all Brun needed to hear. I could put up with a drink here and there, but when he started playing ragtime on our piano, that was the last straw. I mean, that music is the devil's own, it leads young people into temptation, and the low places they go to hear it just pours gasoline on their fire. And it's not only the preachers who say it's bad - I've read lots of articles by medical doctors, brain specialists, and they all say the same thing. Ragtime can damage young peoples' brains. Well, I had to look out for my daughters, didn't I? I told Brun, no ragtime in the house, period, so he went and moved his piano into the garage out back. Sometimes he and his pals took it down to the barbershop a few blocks away.
But that wasn't the end of it. He started spending all of his time writing articles for magazines about ragtime and that Scott Joplin person who invented it, who I figure he's burning in you know where on account of that. Then, Brun started to make records of it, and sent the money to Mrs. Joplin, who was still alive then in New York. Never mind what it cost us to make those records. I tried reminding Brun about his promises, but of course, he said he didn't remember making any such promises. Isn't that the living end? Well, you can believe who you want.
Some man, his name was Paul Affeldt, came to interview Brun around 1948, and he brought along a Mr. Spiller, with some new music recording paraphernalia...hold on. Mr. Karp says I've got to stop here, else it's going to be too long for his blog. He says I can go on next week if I want, and I'll hold him to that.
Now to the business at hand. Having read The Ragtime Fool, Mrs. Marjorie May Campbell, Brun's wife, has requested space to tell her side of the story of the Ragtime Fool. I'm glad to let her do that. The keyboard's yours, Mrs. Campbell.
Well, hello. My name is Marjorie May Campbell. I was Brun Campbell's wife, and I'll say right off, if anybody was ever a Ragtime Fool, it was Brun.
I want to thank Mr. Karp for letting me have my say on this blog of his. He promised not to change anything I write, and I intend to hold him to that. It's not that I think he wrote me up unfair, but there are always reasons why people do and say things, and if I come across a little bit prickly in his book, well, you just try being married to Brun Campbell for upwards of 30 years.
Brun and me got married in Oklahoma in 1918. I knew he had some bad habits, but don't all men? But he was very good looking then, and charming besides, and he promised sincerely, no more drinking, and no going to low places to play that ragtime music of his. He'd cut hair in his barber shop 6 days a week, and go to church on Sundays.
Well, in the next seven years, we had three beautiful daughters. The youngest had asthma, and the doctors said we should move to Venice, California for her health. I was glad, even though I'd be leaving all my friends and family in Oklahoma, but I figured so would Brun, and it was them who kept getting him to drinking and playing ragtime, and I figured in California, we could start off new.
Not that it didn't work pretty good for a while. Every so often, Brun would fall off of the wagon, which did grieve me, but like my mother always told me, men are just plain going to do that, so I put up with it best I could. But then around 1940, these musicians in California, this Lu Watters and Turk Murphy, and I don't know who-all else began playing ragtime again, and people took note,. And that was all Brun needed to hear. I could put up with a drink here and there, but when he started playing ragtime on our piano, that was the last straw. I mean, that music is the devil's own, it leads young people into temptation, and the low places they go to hear it just pours gasoline on their fire. And it's not only the preachers who say it's bad - I've read lots of articles by medical doctors, brain specialists, and they all say the same thing. Ragtime can damage young peoples' brains. Well, I had to look out for my daughters, didn't I? I told Brun, no ragtime in the house, period, so he went and moved his piano into the garage out back. Sometimes he and his pals took it down to the barbershop a few blocks away.
But that wasn't the end of it. He started spending all of his time writing articles for magazines about ragtime and that Scott Joplin person who invented it, who I figure he's burning in you know where on account of that. Then, Brun started to make records of it, and sent the money to Mrs. Joplin, who was still alive then in New York. Never mind what it cost us to make those records. I tried reminding Brun about his promises, but of course, he said he didn't remember making any such promises. Isn't that the living end? Well, you can believe who you want.
Some man, his name was Paul Affeldt, came to interview Brun around 1948, and he brought along a Mr. Spiller, with some new music recording paraphernalia...hold on. Mr. Karp says I've got to stop here, else it's going to be too long for his blog. He says I can go on next week if I want, and I'll hold him to that.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
THE APRIL RAGTIME FOOL
Happy April Fool's Day, the official release date for The Ragtime Fool, the concluding book in my ragtime historical-mystery trilogy.
Calculated publicity stunt? No. Until recently, Poisoned Pen Press released books near the end of the month. When I finished writing The Ragtime Fool last May, which projected to an April publication date, I assumed the book would come out in late April.
Where'd that title come from? In 1951, Brun Campbell, the real-life Ragtime Kid, was old and sick, and questioning what he'd done with his life. His wife seems to have had no doubts; she thought her husband was a fool for having devoted his existence to Scott Joplin and ragtime, the Devil's music.
But late in writing the story, I wondered whether Joplin's Journal might be a better title, since my fictional Brun's hope for validation centered upon recovering a diary his mentor had written many years before. But my editor pointed out that as the final volume of a trilogy, coming after The Ragtime Kid and The King of Ragtime, The Ragtime Fool was right on, and should stay. Feeling just a little foolish, I agreed.
I built my story around an event which I believe was the first public honoring of Scott Joplin and his music, a 1951 ceremony in Sedalia, MO, at the Hubbard (Black) High School. The racially-mixed audience listened to speeches and music, and applauded the presentation of a plaque proclaiming Joplin's accomplishments, which was to be hung on a wall in the school. To make the fictional antecedents fit a proper time line to the real-life ceremony, I had the story begin on April 2. But in the second draft, I realized I'd omitted a critical scene, and to remedy that, I needed to push Page One back to April 1. I resisted the change, because April 1, 1951 was a Sunday, and in 1951, in Missouri, Sunday was a day of rest, when nothing much happened. But I finally saw a way around that problem, and the plot of The Ragtime Fool began to unfold on April 1.
For ragtime enthusiasts, April 1 is The Day the Music Died. On April 1, 1917, Scott Joplin, ravaged by syphilis, and exhausted by years of fruitless attempts to get his opera, Treemonisha, into performance, died on a psychiatric ward in Manhattan State Hospital. Old Brun Campbell refers to that sad day in Chapter 2 of The Ragtime Fool.
In addition, some jazz authorities list April 1, 1917 as the date Victor Records released the Original Dixieland Jazz Band's “Livery Stable Blues,” the first recorded example of the music then called jass. Ragtime then stretched out beside its most illustrious composer, not to stir for a quarter-century, when music historians and musical performers began to breathe new life into the corpse.
Until about a month ago, these coincidences never caught my attention. But as I looked through Poisoned Pen Press's spring catalog, and noticed the date for The Ragtime Fool, a chain of associations cascaded through my mind: April 1...April Fool's Day...The Ragtime Fool...the day Scott Joplin and his music died...the day a bunch of damn-fool diehard Klansmen set a plot into motion to blow up Hubbard High School, with its integrated audience gathered to honor a great Black composer.
I'm glad I didn't think along these lines sooner. If I had, I'd have tied myself in knots, trying to avoid having people think I was trying to pull off a cheesy publicity stunt.
Now, all I can do is eat a little crow with my cheese.
While you're wondering whether to marvel at the way the stars have aligned for this book, or condemn me for over-the-top disingenuousness, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tx1jky1D1A , and enjoy “The April Fool Rag,” composed by Jean Schwartz, in 1911. I don't know the precise date of publication, but I could make a good guess.
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