2008 Woodie Awards
KCUR's 'Cypress Avenue' turns 30 with Jim White
Derek Simons
Issue date: 9/22/08 Section: Culture
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"Cypress Avenue," his remarkable weekly program of "intelligent music," broadcast from noon to 2 p.m. every Saturday on KCUR, was celebrating 30 years on the air.
Shapiro hosted a special live broadcast for the anniversary, followed by performances from musical guests Jim White and The SteelDrivers. His passion for interesting sounds, however, started much earlier than 1978.
"It was a Christmas in 1942 when an uncle gave me a phonograph, an RCA Victor Victrola," Shapiro recalled. "I won't explain what a nice Jewish boy was doing getting Christmas presents, but the fact is, I fell in love - I was captivated by it."
He called his first radio program "Ballads by Rockers," but said he improved in naming his shows. The next one was called "Music."
Shapiro credits the formula for his success to a jazz pianist named Billie Taylor. While studying at NYU, Shapiro heard Taylor on the radio deconstruct music by analyzing various arrangements and decided he wanted to do the same thing with rock and roll.
By day, Shapiro pays his bills working as a tax lawyer, but his passion for music is unquestionable. Each week, he carefully examines the career of an artist, digging out forgotten tracks and providing background information on how the recordings were made, who produced and engineered them and which unsung session men helped out in the studio.
The audience at the Folly listened with rapt attention to his anecdotes of bygone disc jockeys, content to hear less music played and more music talked about than is his custom.
Asked in an interview with the U-News if he had a favorite encounter with a musician, Shapiro was quick to point out he considered himself merely a DJ.
"I do a 'drop-needle' show," Shapiro said. "I never do interviews - I just play the music."
The one exception in all of the 30 years was a telephone interview with Cedella Booker Marley which he said was an opportunity he couldn't pass up on.
This made the evening at the Folly all that more significant, because Shapiro brought pan-handle Pensacola, Fla., native Jim White out for a live interview before his concert.
Shapiro broadcast only five songs during the hour-long transmission. As someone who loves music enough to donate 18 linear feet of vinyl albums to UMKC's Marr Sound Archives, you can be sure he chose them carefully.
Here is his playlist to commemorate his on-air longevity:
Elvis Presley: "That's All Right, Mama"
Bob Dylan: "Bringing It All Back Home"
Marvin Gaye: "What's Going On"
Bob Marley: "Get Up, Stand Up"
And, his favorite song of all time,
Van Morrison: "Into the Mystic"
Jim White has become something of a cult figure over the last 10 years with his self-described manic bi-polar alt-country ballads and his obsession with Jesus.
Promoting the show at the Folly, Shapiro made sure listeners were familiar with songs such as "God was Drunk When He Made Me," from the album "No Such Place," but White's obsession with religion runs deeper than a song or two.
White's breakthrough album (picked up by David Byrne's label LuaKa Bop) was called "Wrong-eyed Jesus."
Growing up south of Pensacola, in the panhandle of Florida, White said many of his songs were inspired by the fervent religious dedication in the area.
"Pensacola is to Jesus what Memphis is to Elvis," White said.
Apparently, just as Elvis imitators gravitate toward Memphis, Jesus imitators flock to his home town, which he lovingly refers to as the "Redneck Riviera."
Interspersing songs from his new album, "Transnormal Skiperoo" with tales of his unusual life, White described growing up amongst tornadoes and 50-seat revival churches.
"We had a purist in town who would dress only in white robes and a crown of thorns squashed down until he was bleeding," White said. "You could hear him coming because of the sound his huge wooden cross made while being dragged along behind him."
Competition arrived quickly, however, and the town was faced with a dilemma. The second Jesus attached wheels to his cross, and thus many considered him a cheat. The town divided into the Rollers versus the Draggers, but for White it was just more grist for his already fertile imagination.
Playing Saturday evening with an improvised trio, White stuck mainly to his new compositions. Perhaps his happy marriage and his love for his two children has tempered his most strident emotions lyrically, but still, White managed to convey his inner angst, while maintaining his bitter-sweet sense of humor.
A recently-penned number called "If Jesus Drove a Motor Home" had the audience laughing out loud, but the overall tone of his musical set was rather somber and restrained.
A woman sitting next to me who was unfamiliar with his very personal brand of Americana was disappointed by the depressing nature and melancholy rhythms, but couldn't deny or doubt his talent. She found his spoken interludes to be the best part of the evening, declaring he was a natural as a stand-up comic.
She wasn't far off in her judgment.
White is, after all, an observer. His songs talk of everyday people and things. Only, the people he observes are anything but normal. He told us tales about getting drunk on a beach with a friend and running toward the oncoming water spouts caused by tornadoes. And of course, he would then proceed to play a song he wrote about the experience.
My particular favorite had to do with a friend of his who happened to have a soft spot for nurses. This friend was shot through the neck one day by a spear gun.
White said his friend went home to shower and dress up nicely before presenting himself at the hospital with what could have been a life-threatening injury.
This is Jim White - the unexpected story framed by a sublime melody.
His sound veers between a sober Tom Waits and a deconstructed Eels. He renders vivid portraits of those chance acquaintances you might have made in an early-morning diner or a Sunday afternoon Pentecostal picnic - encounters, like that of meeting Jim White himself, which you are unlikely to forget.
dsimons@unews.com
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