Robbie Robertson – "Robbie Robertson" (1987)

 

I'm a man with a clear destination

I'm a man with a broad imagination

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In the last 2 or 3 lines, we learned that the artist Kathryn Dunlevie immersed herself in the solo music of Robbie Robertson – who is best-known as the lead guitarist and primary songwriter of the Band – while working on her Mistick Krewes series of photomontages.  (If you missed that post, it's just below this one – just scroll down until you see it.)

Like that previous post, this one starts off with one of the Mistick Krewes images.  That particular image is titled “Rag Man.”  Its caption consists of three lines from a song called “Somewhere Down the Crazy River,” which was released in 1987 on Robbie Robertson’s eponymous debut solo album.

I’ve strewn other images from the Mistick Krewes series throughout this post.

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“Erato”

Kathryn explained to me that the title of the Mistick Krewes series was inspired by New Orleans and the social clubs – known as “krewes” – who create a Mardi Gras parade float, host a Mardi Gras ball, or otherwise participate in Mardi Gras celebrations:  

In New Orleans in 1857 a newly formed secret society, the Mistick Krewe of Comus, began the tradition of celebrating Mardi Gras with a torch-lit procession of extravagant floats.  My Mistick Krewes series is an homage to the rich jumble of that city’s overlapping heritages and the still perceptible aura of its tempestuous history.  

“Bayou Lafourche”

Since its founding in 1718, New Orleans’ cultural, political and natural landscapes have been continually invaded and eroded, bought and sold, enriched and transformed.  A visitor to New Orleans today might pass through districts, buildings and gardens that exhibit the intertwining of centuries of Native American, Spanish, French, African and American influences.  City streets are named for Greek muses, native tribes and 18th-century French nobility.  Surrounding swamplands are swallowed by encroaching gulf waters.  The atmosphere is charged with an air of mystery, a strange sense of desire, and a whiff of something hazily remembered, beckoning from just around the next corner.  It is a place where history is revered, and where it can sometimes be “mistickally” re-experienced.

 

“Tchoupitoulas”

In these works I am combining my photographs with imagery from popular as well as archival sources.  Adding layer upon layer, revisiting each composition again and again, I am working toward scenarios that compel even as they may mislead.  Interweaving elements from nature, history and contemporary life conjures up landscapes populated with plants, wildlife, and otherworldly beings, evoking lost times and the Mardi Gras traditions that celebrate them.

“Terpischore”

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Robbie Robertson and the other musicians who would eventually become the Band got their start in 1958 playing behind Ronnie Hawkins, a rockabilly singer who was a native of Arkansas.  Later they backed up Bob Dylan.

Despite the fact that all the Band’s members save one were Canadian, their music has always sounded more Southern than anything else.  

“Calliope”

One critic described their first album, Music from Big Pink, as “country soul.”  Others noted elements of folk, rock, jazz, and R&B.

The Band’s rootsy, eclectic style is a perfect fit for the cultural melting pot that is New Orleans.  Not surprisingly, Robertson – like Kathryn Dunlevie – feels a deep affinity for the Crescent City.

“New Orleans has always felt like a second home to me musically and spiritually,” he once said. 

“Calcasieu”

A few years after completing work on the Robbie Robertson album, Robertson traveled to New Orleans to collaborate with Aaron and Ivan Neville on the 1991 album, Storyville – which got its title from the New Orleans neighborhood that was once the city’s red-light district.  

Many of Storyville’s brothels employed musicians – Joe “King” Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, and Louis Armstrong were among them – to entertain their patrons.  

“Pontalba”

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Click here to listen to “Testimony,” the final track on the Robbie Robertson album.

Testimony is also the title of Robertson’s 2016 autobiography, which the New York Times described as “[c]onfident and well oiled, [with] the mythic sweep of an early Terrence Malick movie.”  (If you’re familiar with Terrence Malick’s first two movies, Badlands and Days of Heaven, you know that’s high praise indeed.) 

Click below to buy Testimony from Amazon:

(All the photographs of Kathryn Dunlevie’s art that are included in this post are © 2016-2020 by the artist.  All rights reserved.)

Robbie Robertson – "Robbie Robertson" (1987)

Are you out there?

Can you hear me?

Can you see me in the dark?

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Today’s 2 or 3 lines is quite different from the usual, run-of-the-mill 2 or 3 lines.  (Though now that I think about it, 2 or 3 lines is never really run-of-the-mill, is it?)

For one thing, there is no featured song.  This is the first of the 1800-odd posts that I’ve written since giving birth to 2 or 3 lines a little over 12 years ago that features an entire album – not an individual song.

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I usually introduce each post by quoting two or three lines from a song’s lyrics.  Today, I’m starting things off with one of the images from artist Kathryn Dunlevie’s Mistick Krewes series of photomontages.

That particular image is titled “Atchafalaya.”  Its caption consists of three lines from a song called “Fallen Angel,” which was released in 1987 on Robbie Robertson’s eponymous debut solo album.

I’ve strewn several other images from the Mistick Krewes series throughout this post, which will also feature Kathryn’s thoughts on New Orleans and the Robbie Robertson album.  

“Hurricane”

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You may remember that in the fall of 2020, 2 or 3 lines was graced with a guest post written by Kathryn Dunlevie, a college classmate of mine who has been creating what has been described as “wildly imaginative” mixed-media art for many years.

That post featured “Girlfriend Is Better” by the Talking Heads – a song that Kathryn saw the group perform live on their legendary “Stop Making Sense” tour in 1983.

“Avoyelles”

The post also featured a dozen images from the 2020 series of collages that Kathryn titled Women of Wonder.

About a year later, I started pestering Kathryn to do another guest post.  She delivered a draft several months ago, but it took me a lot longer than it should have to format it and get it up on 2 or 3 lines.

But as good ol’ Geoffrey Chaucer once said, “Better than never is late.”  (Today we would say “Better late than never,” of course.)

“Bayou Teche”

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New Orleans is a hot mess – it’s the most exotic and decadent place that an American can visit without a passport.

Kathryn never lived there, but she has many family members and friends with close ties to New Orleans: 

One of my best friends grew up in New Orleans, my best friend from high school has lived there since she finished college, the mother of my first goddaughter grew up there, my dad’s second wife was a New Yorker who spent her childhood summers there with her aunt, one of my brother’s best friends grew up there, and one of my daughters went to Tulane – as did the godmother of my other daughter.  

“Charybdis”

New Orleans – a/k/a/ “The Paris of the South,” “The City That Care Forgot,” and “The Big Easy” – inspired Kathryn to create the series of photomontages she named Mistick Krewes after the social organizations that orchestrate and participate in that city’s famous Mardi Gras celebrations.

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Several years after the Band broke up, Robbie Robertson – who had written the groups’s most famous songs (including “Chest Fever,” “The Weight,” and “The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down”) – released his first solo album.

“Goose Girl”

Kathryn immersed herself in the music from that album – which was titled simply Robbie Robertson – while she created the Mistick Krewes series of images:

I’m not sure when I first heard music from Robbie Robertson’s debut solo album, or how I came to own the CD, but as the images in my new series began to take shape, I knew I had to have that music playing in my studio as I worked.

Listening to it over and over got me, and kept me, in the mood to imagine a cast of characters who would have felt at home in the Crescent City. 

Robertson’s poetic lyrics, fervent music and haunting vocals transported me to New Orleans and guided me through its different eras and its many dimensions.

“The Rebirth of Venus”

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In the next 2 or 3 lines, Kathryn Dunlevie will tell us more about the history of the Mardi Gras krewes, and how the Mistick Krewes images are intended to evoke Mardi Gras traditions and create scenarios that “compel even as they mislead.”  

The remaining Mystick Krewes photomontages  will be strewn throughout that post.

“Spy Boy”

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Click here to watch the official music video for Robbie Robertson’s “Somewhere Down the Crazy River,” which was directed by none other than Martin Scorsese.  (Robertson had previously helped to create the musical scores for three of Scorsese’s movies – Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, and The Color of Money.)

Click below to buy the Robbie Robertson album from Amazon:

(All the photographs of Kathryn Dunlevie’s art that are included in this post are © 2016-2020 by the artist.  All rights reserved.)

Talking Heads – "Girlfriend Is Better" (1983)

I got a girlfriend that’s better than that

And she goes wherever she likes

(There she goes!)

Earlier this year, I was flipping through my copy of the Rice University alumni magazine when I came across an article about an artist named Kathryn Dunlevie.

Wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute, I said to myself.  There was a woman in my Rice class named Kathryn Dunlevie.

Sure enough, the artist who was the subject of that magazine story and my college classmate were one and the same.  (You can click here to read that article, which was titled “The Art of the Enigmatic.”)

Kathryn Dunlevie
(photo by Louise Williams)

I e-mailed Kathryn to congratulate her on being featured in the magazine, and sent her links to a few 2 or 3 lines posts that I thought might interest her.

When she complimented my wildly successful little blog, I asked her if she would contribute a guest post.  She graciously agreed to do so, and I was very pleased that she chose to write about “Girlfriend Is Better,” a great song by one of my all-time favorite groups, the Talking Heads.  (She also sent along photos of a number of her striking photo-collages, which you will see below.)

Kathryn, the floor is yours.

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The first I ever heard of the Talking Heads was 1979, at one of my openings in Houston, when a friend told me he’d just heard “some punk band’s cover of an Al Green song.” 

Manhattan Falconer

A few months later I was living in Madrid, making do with a local radio station that featured the music of groups like Alaska y los Pegamoides and Ejecutivos Agresivos, when the same friend showed up with a copy of the Talking Heads’ third album, Fear of Music.  It was my introduction to the Talking Heads, and it was life changing.

Rescue

My drawings immediately shifted to undulating rhythmic patterns of dash-like broken brushstrokes. 

Tipping Point

The next thing I knew, I was back in Houston and expecting my first child.  (What a year in a Catholic country will do.)  I immediately bought a copy of the newest Talking Heads album, Remain in Light, which had just been released.  

The famous line from that album’s first single, “Once in a Lifetime”  – “How did I get here?” – resonated with me. 

Touching Down

I had my baby and a year later, with my own “Houses in Motion,” I moved to the Bay Area.

The Long Goodbye

My best friend from college lived in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, and my toddler and I spent a lot of time with her.  I did more rhythmic pattern drawings, and tried to get used to the cold and damp.  

Undercover

When the next Talking Heads album, Speaking in Tongues, came out in 1983, it was something of a deliverance.  Though my days were divided between “This Must Be the Place” and “Burning Down the House,” everyone who came to my house ended up dancing. 

Ipanema

That’s when I started making my first serious mixed-media work.  And I got to see the Talking Heads at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, on their “Stop Making Sense” tour.  It was cinematic.

And nothing is better than that – is it?

Dr. Who’s Girlfriend

All these years later, I still find myself inspired by the Talking Heads.  My latest series, Women of Wonder, harkens back specifically to “Girlfriend is Better.”

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In case you didn’t figure it out, the friend who told Kathryn about hearing “some punk band’s cover of an Al Green song” was referring to the famous Talking Heads cover of “Take Me to the River,” which David Byrne later described as “a song that combines teenage lust with baptism.”  

The two Spanish bands that Kathryn remembers hearing on the radio when she lived in Spain in 1980 – Alaska y los Pegamoides and Ejecutivos Agresivos – released some very interesting records back in the day.  I plan to feature songs by both of them on 2 or 3 lines in the near future.

Kathryn heard the Talking Heads at the Greek Theatre on the UC-Berkeley campus in September 1983.  Here’s a poster advertising their Berkeley appearances:

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The photos that accompany Kathryn’s account of how she came to know and love the music of the Talking Heads depict eight pieces from her most recent series of collages, which she has titled Women of Wonder.  (Note: the collage titled “The Long Goodbye” was inspired by the 1973 Robert Altman-directed movie of the same name – a favorite of mine since I saw it when I was in college, and a favorite of Kathryn’s as well.  Click here to watch the opening credit sequence from this very idiosyncratic movie.) 

Kathryn was planning to show that series this spring at the Hooks-Epstein Gallery in Houston as part of the FotoFest Biennial 2020.  But the gallery could only exhibit Women of Wonder virtually due to the covid-19 pandemic.

Here’s a brief description of Women of Wonder written by the artist, along with photos of a few more collages from that series:

Intermixing my own photographs with elements from popular as well as historical sources conjures up unsettling entities and strange scenarios.  

Marlowe’s Mistake

The characters that emerge from this process find themselves in locales ranging from Rome’s Fiumicino in “Touching Down,” to Turkey’s western Aegean coast in “Hitchhiker's Guide to Kusadasi.”

Hitchhiker’s Guide to Kusadasi

“Khidr” harkens back to ancient times, while “Dr. Who’s Girlfriend” has arrived from outside of time.  

Khidr

“Our Lady of the Harbor” has escaped pre-disaster Pompeii and is on a mission to contemporary Los Angeles, while the denizen of “Tipping Point” floats above it all in a tent that has no floor and  apparently no gravity.

Our Lady of the Harbor

As diverse images converge and give rise to outlandish creatures and enigmatic situations, the Women of Wonder inspire us to go, unabashedly, wherever we like – and to proceed, without constraint, as we choose.

And nothing is better than that – is it?

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“And nothing is better than that – is it?” is a slightly paraphrased version of the last line of “Girlfriend Is Better.”   But you knew that, right?

Click here to go to Kathryn's website, which includes a biography, links to a number of articles about her art, and photos of hundreds of her collages.  (I was especially intrigued by the collages in her “Cover Versions” series, each of which incorporates a vintage album cover.)

Click here to see the Talking Heads performing “Girlfriend Is Better” in perhaps the greatest rock concert movie ever made, Stop Making Sense.  (The performances that were filmed for that movie took place shortly after the group’s Berkeley appearances, so what you see and hear in that video is very close to what Kathryn saw and heard back in 1983.)

The Speaking In Tongues album cover

Click here to listen to the version of “Girlfriend Is Better” that was released on the Speaking In Tongues album.

Finally, you can click on the link below to buy the studio version of “Girlfriend Is Better” from Amazon:

(All the photographs of Kathryn Dunlevie’s art that are included in this post are © 2020 by the artist.  All rights reserved.)