Chapter Two
In November 1987 I was cast in a play written by Hindi Brooks called A Minor Incident. It ran for a month at the West Bank Café Theater in New York. Paul Hipp played the young man injured in the accident that Hindi had written about to begin the play. In addition to being an actor, Paul was a singer, songwriter, and guitar player whom I had met before. It was by sheer coincidence that he was cast in A Minor Incident. I had met Paul when he was putting all his talents to use in an off-off-Broadway show called Rockabilly Road that featured, among others, Paul and my daughter Sherry. With dark good looks and a robust baritone voice, Paul had been so strongly influenced by rockabilly that he sometimes appeared to be channeling Elvis Presley. A year later he would achieve acclaim, first on London’s West End, then on Broadway, playing the title role in the musical show Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story.
During our run at the West Bank, Paul and I began writing and performing together. He and his band had a regular gig playing the 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. shift at the Red Lion Café on Bleecker Street. When he invited me to a rehearsal on one of our days off, I zipped my black Telecaster guitar into a padded gig bag, hoisted the bag on my back, took the subway, and walked up Bleecker Street affecting casual familiarity with the Village until I remembered that I had earned that familiarity as an audience member. On my way to the Red Lion I passed several locations of clubs at which I had witnessed some of the great jazz players and emerging rock bands more than two decades earlier. With the exception of the Village Vanguard, most of the clubs were gone or had new names.
Jamming on guitar with Paul and his band was so much fun that when Paul invited me to sit in with them it was an easy yes. With Paul and Mark Bosch covering all the guitar parts, as long as they kept my guitar level down no one would notice if I made mistakes. The truth is, no one noticed much of anything. By the time 1 a.m. rolled around, most of the people in the club were several sheets to the wind. Even so, the waitresses kept bringing drinks to the tiny tables. The more drinks they imbibed, the louder the patrons talked, which made other patrons talk even louder. After fifteen minutes of performing mostly for ourselves, Paul turned the mic over to me. With Paul handling harmonies, I sang “Will You Love Me Tomorrow.” Most of the patrons conversed right through my performance, which significantly increased my appreciation for musicians who regularly play the 1 a.m. shift in a bar.
One or two people looked up with a vague sense of recognition. I could almost see them thinking, Is that…? No. Can’t be…. But I could tell who knew for sure by their attention and the knowing smiles and nudges they gave their tablemates.
My connection with Paul was fun and musical, but not physical. Wanting to share my life in New York with Rick, I had invited him to come see me in the play, an invitation on which he had not yet taken me up. A couple of days after I told him that Paul and I were playing on Bleecker Street, Rick came to New York unannounced. When he showed up at the apartment where I was staying, I was surprised but glad to see him. I wasn’t sure how he felt but I assumed he was tired after hours of travel. That night he attended the play. Then he came to the Red Lion to watch Paul and me perform. The next day he flew back home and moved into the cabin on the creek—the very cabin in which I had wanted us to live.
To be fair, the woman Rick had met in Burgdorf had told him that she wanted a simple life. Inexplicably to him, I was being drawn back into a scene for which he had little regard, and that scene included a young man with whom I was spending more time than with him. Rick had made a big change from his chosen lifestyle—at the time, that of a mountain man—to live in the more modern-day world to which my children and I were inextricably connected. Where was his wife?
From my point of view, the man I had met in Burgdorf was then doing everything necessary to support his chosen lifestyle, and he had made me laugh with his dry sense of humor. Where was that man?
It was possible that our economic inequality, the complicated nature of my work and family, and the stress of years of litigation had contributed to the decline of our relationship. Whatever the reasons, although our divorce wouldn’t be final until the following year, our marriage was effectively over.
In May 1988 I attended one of Bruce Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love concerts at Madison Square Garden. The phrase “blew my mind” unquestionably applied to that concert. In addition to the band’s scorching musicianship, Bruce and Patti Scialfa were newly in love. Not only did Patti’s three-octave vocal work complement Bruce’s raw, gritty singing style, and not only was her attire exactly right for the theme of a carnival, but the chemistry between Bruce and Patti was electrifying. Old songs, new songs, it didn’t matter to Bruce’s fans. We loved every minute of every song. We loved the carnival atmosphere. We loved the expanded horn section. And we loved watching the Boss and the Big Man (saxophonist Clarence Clemons) lean up against each other with the affection of longtime friends delighted to share their musical history with fifteen thousand other friends. Two and a half hours after the first welcoming roar from the audience, I was elated to have attended that energetic and emotionally charged rock concert and at the same time disheartened because I didn’t think I could ever make an audience that happy. But soon my dejection gave way to action. I had already written a few new songs. I added a few more, re-signed with Capitol Records, and recorded the City Streets album at Skyline Studios in New York with Rudy Guess playing guitar and coproducing. Among the many first-rate musicians who responded to my invitation to join me in the studio were drummers Steve Ferrone, Omar Hakim, and Max Weinberg; saxophonists Branford Marsalis and Michael Brecker; and Eric Clapton.
I was recording that album when Rick called me at the studio to tell me that the Idaho Supreme Court had upheld Judge Beebe’s ruling and the ranch road was now legally confirmed as private. His delivery of the news was followed by a pause during which I could almost imagine his unspoken thought: And aren’t you ashamed of yourself for not being home with your husband to acknowledge how much a part of the victory he was?
My husband was very much a part of the road victory, and yes, I did feel his pain about my not being there with him. But then I remembered his gloomy outlook when I was there, which made me not want to go home, which added fuel to his frustration, which kept me away. And there was the inescapable reality that I had work that brought in necessary income that I couldn’t do at home. My work took me to places of which Rick was openly contemptuous, places where I interacted with people about whom he complained on a daily basis. My children lived in some of those places, and they and their fathers were some of those people.
Hearing what I interpreted as a reproachful silence at the other end of the line, I sensed a hunger in Rick for someone I no longer believed I could be. My own hunger for artistic creativity and optimism was too strong. As I tried and failed to find words to express my appreciation, the silence grew painfully uncomfortable.
What I thought he was hoping to hear was, “I want to be with you so much that I’m putting my album on hold and coming home tomorrow. I promise I’ll stop running around and stay home with you.”
What I said was, “Thank you.”
I replaced the handset. The ranch, the road fight, and the man who was still legally my husband began to recede. However, like objects in a rearview mirror, they were closer than they appeared and would remain so for a long time.
I was exceptionally happy with the City Streets album and was actually looking forward to going on tour to promote it. (Yes, I did just say that!) I incorporated some of the elements from Bruce’s show that had inspired me. Obviously I wouldn’t have Bruce, Patti, Clarence Clemons, or someone with whom I was newly in love, but I would have a well-designed set, gorgeous lighting, a collection of both new and familiar songs, and a stellar nine-piece band led by Rudy and me. Though not everyone in the tour band had played on the album, all were ready, willing, and able to rock the outdoor venues known as “sheds.”
The City Streets Tour lasted for two and a half months during the summer of 1989. It was the longest I had ever been away from my Larkey children, though I did build in some days off that allowed me to visit them. When I first learned that we would be traveling by bus I envisioned something like the Trailways bus that had brought my mother and me to Florida in 1951. But touring on a bus designed for the specific needs of a touring band turned out to be so much better than flying from city to city that a bus became my tour transportation of choice from then on. Note to reader: this was true only if none of the choices was a private jet.
Because few women who have been pregnant would ever describe being with child as “easy,” let me just say that my daughter Sherry’s pregnancy with her second child in 1989 was uncomplicated enough for her to sing backup and play percussion alongside Linda Lawley on the City Streets Tour. Linda’s husband, Danny Pelfrey, played saxophone, guitar, and other instruments. Sherry’s husband, Robbie Kondor, played keyboards. Lorna’s husband, Rudy Guess, played guitar and sang backup. We were one rockin’ family. Several months after the tour ended, my biological family increased by one with the birth of Sophie Leann Kondor on October 17, 1989. I have no doubt that my granddaughter’s experience of a tour in utero contributed to her decision early in life not to become a professional musician.
Knowing that my fans wanted to hear songs from Tapestry, I gladly delivered them. They were probably a little surprised when I liberated my inner Chrissie Hynde by strapping on a low-slung guitar and slamming out a hard-driving rhythm with my band, but I appreciated that my audiences were kind enough to indulge me. Our last song before intermission was “Jazzman.” After the apex of Danny Pelfrey’s last saxophone solo, I climbed up on the piano to propel the band as they increased the intensity of the Big Rock Ending, then I gave them a cutoff by jumping off the piano. That was so much fun it should have been illegal.