“We head across Kansas/On our way home/Colorado, thank you, goodbye”
- Kansas You Fooler/Ozark Mountain Daredevils
My first time in Kansas was when I was twelve. Mom, Dad and I were off (on the only real vacation we ever took) to Colorado and some other points westward. We set off from Northeast Missouri in the red farm truck with a shell on the back. Mom and Dad were in the front, I in the back, the little sliding window in between, our mode of communication. It was August, 1970, no air conditioning, but there never was in our vehicles back then, so what was there to miss? I was out of my mind with excitement. We were westward ho just like cowboys and settlers on the countless Westerns I'd seen on TV. Maybe we'd see Indians, but for sure we'd see mountains, something I'd never laid eyes on. I started asking about them the minute we crossed into Kansas. “Are those them?” They were not, Mom and Dad explained. We had a long way to go yet. Indeed, we had 411 miles to go. That's a long way to a twelve year old, especially in Kansas where there's not much to see but flat. Every fifty miles, though, I was sure I saw something up ahead in the distance…Nope, not them. I read a book of biographies about Medal of Honor winners and when I could pick up a station, listened to the tinny little am radio I had. Make it With You by Bread and Close to You by the Carpenters seemed to be on heavy rotation that summer. Eventually, the mountains showed up and a lifelong love was kindled. You can have the beach any day. Give me the mountains.
I've been across Kansas a few times since that childhood adventure. It was still flat. For all its topographical blandness, though, Kansas has some pretty wild, violent and colorful history. Here are three examples:
Before shots were fired at Fort Sumter in 1861 and the nation was plunged into civil war, Kansas had its own prelude to the event. Para-military factions on both sides of the slavery issue fought a vicious guerrilla war that earned the Kansas territory the epithet “Bleeding Kansas.” Anti-slavery advocates, lead by the infamous wild-eyed Old Testament prophet-looking zealot John Brown, clashed with pro-slavery border ruffians like Bloody Bill Anderson, William Quantrill, Jesse James and Cole Younger. Citizens of the territory and Western Missouri were terrorized, with hundreds killed and properties burned throughout the 1850s and into the Civil War years.
Dodge City is famous for its raucous history between 1872 and 1885. It teemed with all manner of cowboys, drovers, buffalo hunters, gamblers, gunfighters, lawmen, merchants and prostitutes. In fact, the term red light district comes from the Red Light Bordello that thrived there during those years. Unrelated to that, Dodge City is the windiest town in America with average winds of 15 MPH. Hold on to your cowboy hat.
In 1892, the Dalton Gang-- Bob, Grat and Emmett along with Bill Powers and Dick Broadwell rode into Coffeyville, Kansas on a bright October morning. With the law closing in on them, they knew their luck was running out. This was going to be their last big haul before fleeing to Mexico. The scheme was audacious, hold up the two town banks simultaneously. The best laid plans were foiled when a townsman recognized them and alerted other citizens. When the gang members exited the banks, the townsfolk rained gunfire on the them. In a full scale shootout worthy of Hollywood, Bob, Grat, Powers and Broadwell were killed and Emmett was wounded and taken prisoner. Four townspeople lost their lives in the melee. They still celebrate the vanquishing of the Daltons in Coffeyville every October 5th.
On to music:
Best Band: The best band from Kansas is Kansas, formed in Topeka in 1970. The band member concocted a distinctive blend of hard rock, operatic-tinged, violin-infused, wonky time-signatured songs that made them hugely popular and concert headliners through the mid-70s. Their two songs, Carry on My Wayward Son and Dust in the Wind will be played on Classic Rock stations until the apocalypse or Keith Richards passes from the earth, whichever comes first. The latter song is immortalized in the movie Old School in the graveside service scene for Blue.
Best Solo Artist: Back in 1995 when I first started to bang around on the guitar, you didn't have any fancy internet to learn from. You either took lessons, picked up tips from friends or bought an instruction book. At music stores you could find “Fake Books,” that gave you guitar chords for songs. Generally, the only thing available were collections by well-established artists, The Beatles, The Eagles, James Taylor and the like. For more obscure things, you had to figure it out on your own. One day I was filing through the bins of those books at a music store when I came across a two paged offering for a single song. It was from a current cd that I had been listening to incessantly by a guy named Freedy Johnston. What were the odds that his song, Bad Reputation, that I knew and loved, would show up there all by its lonesome among the Neil Young and CSN&Y fake books? I made my purchase quick and went straight home and got started. It wasn't that hard and it was something a little outside the lines. You get tired of playing Peaceful Easy Feeling pretty quick. There's always a fondness for the first songs you learn to play. Bad Reputation, it's one of those for me.
Freedy was born in Kinsley, Kansas in 1961. He had an early passion for music but was hampered by being raised in the middle of not much. He was able to buy himself a guitar from a mail order catalogue when he was 16. Shortly after that, he had a friend drive him 30 miles to the nearest town with a record store so he could buy the new Elvis Costello album he'd heard about. He attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence and threw himself into the new wave music scene there. He moved to NYC in 1985 and worked at an architectural firm and in restaurants while pursuing music on the side. Eventually, he sold some family farm land back in Kansas to finance some recording sessions and in 1990, was signed to a record deal. He's gone on to middling success, well respected by other musicians and landing some songs on movie soundtracks, including Bad Reputation on the film Kingpin. I saw him at the Ryman in Nashville with Shawn Colvin and Patty Griffin. It's a fond memory. He's the kind of artist that I have a soft spot for. He's somewhere between a household name and never heard of him. A guy who has been grinding it out for years, putting out quality material to little fanfare, but doing it for the love of the art; doing it because it keeps his soul alive.
Wildcard: The Embarrassments. Never heard of them, have you? Check out the clip below for more information.