It happens sometimes - a promoter grabs an older photo of an artist to stick on their website to announce an upcoming gig. I’ve seen myself in photos from twenty years ago, looking saucy; or six or eight years back—skinnier, or heavier before I lost weight—and then gained it back. Memories of photographers in New York or Nashville, England or France. I’ll look at the photo and remember that shirt, that jacket; try to draw a line from a particular set of layers framing my face back to one hairdresser or another.
But this time, oh this time is really blowing my mind! A venue in Santa Cruz put up a picture of a 25-year old me. Not me twenty-five years ago (circa The Sugar Tree, my third solo album where I’d just moved to Nashville). I’ve seen that photo used not that long ago and I don’t look all that different. More years, many miles, some white streaks in my hair now…those brows in 2000 a clear testament to 90s overplucking. I’m smiling wryly and staring down the camera over my guitar—twenty five years ago I was used to all of it: writing songs, making records, touring, doing interviews and getting promo photos taken. Why, it only seems like yesterday in a way.
But me at twenty-five? We’re talking FORTY YEARS AGO! A snapshot of a wisp of a girl standing on some train tracks before a gig in Charlottesville, wearing a dress I probably couldn’t even get around my forearm now. It was one of my early band Last Roundup’s first forays out of NYC, we had yet to release any music, had just played loads of shows in Manhattan where we lived.
It’s so jarring, to see that photo on the venue website next to a bio listing all my accomplishments. Are we even the same person? Are people going to come to the show to see THAT GIRL? (not y’know, Marlo Thomas as That Girl although she was a big inspiration to me as a kid and this photo from 1985 is way closer to the mod sixties Marlo…we’re 20 years and then a quarter of the way into a whole other century now!)
I’ve seen my husband Eric struggle with this for years, promoters regularly trying to get away with using the iconic image of him with the Rickenbacker, big smile and one of a kind suit —the cover of his first album released in 1978—to promote his gig. But that image is…ICONIC…identifiable…hearkens back to a much-loved album and era and, well I’m not excusing anyone for trying to mine the past (though who amongst us hasn’t, hell I’ll soon be publishing my second memoir!) It just has me thinking about that girl in the photo and who might want to come see her play—she does look cool in the way only a twenty-something can: equal parts shit-scared and arrogant. That youthful mix of openness and inexperience—I took a train the other day past fields of new lambs and the way they stumbled and gamboled across the grass filled me with joy and wistful tears—that’s the look.
The girl in the photo has never been married. She hasn’t gotten pregnant and raised a daughter to be a thirty-six year old musician. That girl in the photo still has both her parents, still argues with them about what she’s doing with her life. The girl in the photo lives four flights up in a tenement building in dirty, dangerous Manhattan, paying $300 a month for a studio apartment with a tub in the kitchen and toilet behind a curtain. This apartment feels like paradise.
She’s only recently picked up the guitar and has written about a couple dozen songs. I doubt she realizes the forty years later she’ll still be doing pretty much the same thing. Will marry, divorce, eventually remarry. Move and move and move again: neighborhoods, cities, countries. I don’t think she imagines she’ll ever write a book but I know she wants to DO SOMETHING. MAKE HER MARK. FIND LOVE. Make her parents proud or sorry they ever doubted her. Hang out and stay close to her family and friends.
The forty year old photo can’t contain my life. It looks kinda intriguing though. Will it bring anyone to the show? Maybe it’s nostalgia, and I’m finally getting my due as one of the early players of Americana. Maybe it holds more appeal than a pic of a woman in her sixties: “Aw, look at that cute little waif - let’s go see her!” Or - “look, it’s an Amy Rigby tribute act! Funny, I don’t remember her ever being THAT young.” Or “Isn’t it kind of weird Amy Rigby named her daughter Amy? I mean, I know men have been known to do that kind of thing but…have you ever heard of a female Junior or the Third? Maybe it’s her granddaughter? Oh who cares, it’s Saturday night and we could use a night out. Do you think she knows any train songs?”
Little kid or old lady, you still got the gravy!!!! You make 65 look adorable and pooey on those clubs who tarnish your image by posting that kid! PS and btw, I am a female junior, but you would have never done that to your daughter!
all GREAT photos!! signed, don hollinger (that girl).