Light: I Am The Light of The World

Rev. Gary Davis: I Am The Light of the World
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Many people just listen to music as background noise, or something to sing or dance to, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But those of us who consider music a hobby, or an obsession, aren’t satisfied with that. We investigate. We try to learn more about the songs and the artists we love, and in that effort are often rewarded with deeper knowledge. Or, at least, more knowledge. Much of what I know about the blues comes from investigating covers by musicians that I already knew, and that is consistent with the blues tradition of artists learning traditional songs, or original songs (or original songs thought to be traditional) from recordings or performances by others.

I first became aware of Rev. Gary Davis through listening to Jorma Kaukonen’s performances of his music, solo and with Hot Tuna. And I learned about Davis’ influential finger-picking style that had an impact on Jorma, and others, including Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan, Ry Cooder, David Bromberg, and many, many more. I learned that he was born in South Carolina in 1896, was blind since infancy, and was an actual Baptist minister. That he played and recorded music into the 1940s to niche success. But that the folk and blues revival of the 1950s and 1960s catapulted him to greater fame, performances at the Newport and other folk festivals, and led to covers of the songs he wrote or popularized by popular artists. I learned that Davis generously taught many of these younger musicians how to play in his style, and his songs, and that he died on the way to a gig in New Jersey in 1972. And I discovered that while many of Davis’ songs were religious, he also wrote secular songs.

“I Am The Light of The World” is a religious song, based on the Gospels, and steeped in his faith. I’m not a religious person, in the sense of believing in a god or anything like that, but I do believe that humans have an obligation to try to do right by each other and, in the best of situations, help each other to do right. And while I suspect that Reverend Davis would disagree with me in the particulars, I think that he would, ultimately, focus more on the deeds than the beliefs.

Now, I am far from perfect. I’ve committed all seven of the deadly sins, and more of the less lethal ones, over my lifetime. Not to mention, I’m a lawyer. But one thing that I am comfortable in putting on the good side of my personal ledger is my 20 years as a volunteer with AYSO, the American Youth Soccer Organization, which I have written about before. We are a soccer organization, but one that tries to focus more on enriching children’s lives than a team’s won-loss record. For a number of years, I have been involved in training volunteers in management—not only the nuts and bolts of running a program, but in the AYSO way of doing things.

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to help instruct at Regional Commissioner training. RCs, as we call them, are the leaders of local programs. I was one back at the turn of the century, and it was one of the most important things that I have ever done. RCs work incredibly hard, spend countless hours making sure everything is done right, and are all volunteers, as are all of the board members who help the RC, and all of the coaches and most of the referees. People say that it is a “thankless task,” but I found that many people thanked me, and in turn I tried to thank all of the RCs who followed me, and all of the other volunteers, not only explicitly, but by continuing to assist the organization locally and nationally.

A few years ago, pressed by some very smart and committed staff and volunteers, AYSO decided to put together a weekend of training for RCs from around the country, usually at its office in California. The weekends are instructional, but they are more. They create relationships, act as therapy sessions (there are tears!), and help the RCs, some who are brand new, and even others with experience, recognize the support that they have both from the staff and the volunteers around the country. And the constant message is that it is the RCs’ mission to provide a good environment for the kids, and a positive experience for the volunteers. It is an inspirational weekend, not only for the students, but for the instructors as well. I got to see a group of nearly 40 strangers, from all over the country, with different racial, educational and financial backgrounds, varying political beliefs and very diverse lives, bond, learn, interact, socialize, act crazy, marvel at magic tricks, and, at the end, have an enormous group hug as a new AYSO family.

What does this have to do with our theme, and this song? Each of the RCs who were trained at this session will go back home, to Alabama, Idaho, Illinois, all over the hand that is Michigan, Nevada, California, Tennessee and Hawaii, and be the light of their soccer worlds, and bring the light into the lives of thousands of children. And when those kids’ smiles light up their faces, into the lives of their parents.

Football/Soccer: The Victory Song 1993

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If you had told the young me that I’d be a huge soccer fan at this point in my life, I would have looked at you a bit dumbfounded. Unlike today, when millions of kids around the country at least try soccer, when I was growing up, in my part of the New York suburbs, soccer was a game mostly played by the children of German and Italian immigrants. In junior high school, I had played fall tennis, but when I moved to high school, there was no fall team. A friend suggested that I try out for the soccer team, because they needed big guys to play defense. So, I did.

It must not have been hard to make the team, because I was inexplicably not cut, and spent the next two fall seasons practicing and mostly watching my teammates play from the bench. Occasionally, usually when my father showed up at the games, the coach gave me a sympathy run out on the field, including one memorable stint at forward, where I had a pretty epic collision with the opposing keeper. It was fun, but when I injured my leg before my junior season, and with no real prospects to ever play for the varsity team, I hung up my cleats for what I believed was the last time. Remarkably, at my 35th high school reunion last year, I spent a surprising amount of time with my former soccer teammates.

When I went off to college, I found out that Princeton has a fun event, Cane Spree, deriving from a quaint 19th century tradition where freshman and sophomores would brawl over the use of walking sticks (really). By the time I was there, it had morphed into a day-long intramural competition between the two classes, but if I recall, varsity athletes were barred from playing their sports. Somehow, I found myself playing Cane Spree soccer, out of shape, unpracticed and frankly pathetically. And after the game, I figuratively hung up my cleats for what I believed was the last time (since I didn’t actually have cleats).

Following the flameout of the NY Cosmos and the collapse of the North American Soccer League, the soccer landscape was pretty bleak in this country through the 1980s. Then, the US was awarded the 1994 World Cup, which led to an actual uptick in interest. It also roughly coincided with my son getting to the age where he could join AYSO. Soccer is, in many ways, the best game for little kids to play, since they can run around and kick a ball much easier than they can hit a baseball, even off a tee, or shoot a ball into a hoop. We signed him up, and I agreed to be an assistant coach, because that’s what dads do.

I fell in love with the game.

First, I fell in love with coaching the kids and the socializing with their parents on the sidelines. I started to take coaching classes and read books and websites about coaching kids. We started attending local minor league games, and went to see the MetroStars (who became the Red Bulls). Within a short time, I found myself as the assistant commissioner of our local region, then commissioner and then area director for essentially the county. My family started going to AYSO meetings and conventions around the country, and both of my kids were enthusiastic players. My wife organized our local soccer camp, and it felt like soccer was sort of our family business. It was a great way for us to do something that we all enjoyed as a family. I even started to play in the occasional pickup game. I was still terrible, but it was fun.

But even into the early 2000s, soccer was still hard to find on television. Even with the great Women’s World Cup victory of 1999 (my family was at the opening matches at Giants Stadium), and the men’s surprisingly fine showing at the 2002 World Cup, MLS games were not easy to find, European and South American games were rarely available (at least in English), and there was no streaming available on the slow Internet of the day. Due to our soccer camp work, we hosted young, mostly English, coaches, some of whom played at the lower levels of the English system, and we were able to follow a few of their careers on the web (and still do).

In 2001, my soccer loving son decided to do an independent study project for his enrichment class on English football, and using my abilities to wrangle the myriad filesharing sources of dubious legality then available, I found enough football songs to create a CD to use as background music for his presentation. Without a doubt, the worst of these songs is the one in the video above, which commemorates the Arsenal F.A. Cup winners of 1993 (but the video features a very different group of Gunners). Really—listen to it and revel in its awfulness.

A couple of years later, our cable system started carrying what was then the Fox Soccer Channel, featuring regular English Premier League games. My son and I decided that we needed to pick a team to support. Considering that most of the US teams that we root for are generally disappointing, we felt like this gave us a clean slate to pick a good team to support. We considered Manchester United, but they were at the time in a marketing arrangement with the hated Yankees, so they were out. Chelsea was in the process of buying themselves to prominence, which we didn’t approve of. Arsenal, though—they played attractive soccer, weren’t crazy spenders, and had some wonderful players, including Thierry Henry (now the Red Bulls captain). We picked them, and that season they were The Invincibles. Of course, since then, it has been a somewhat more painful experience.

And speaking of painful experiences, a year or so ago, as part of an attempt to improve my health and fitness, I started playing soccer again. I’m still bad, but improving, and I’m lucky to play with a group of very supportive guys who don’t bust my chops about my lack of skill and fitness. My cleats are in a bag, now, by the front door, and I don’t expect to hang them up for a while.

Football/Soccer : That's the Way the Ball Rolls

The Rumour: That's the Way the Ball Rolls

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   After 15 heroic saves, US goalie Tim Howard's block party had to end some time, and in the third minute of extra time it did when Belgium's Kevin De Bruyne found the net.

    By that point everyone in the office had stopped working to watch the match on TV. Yes, there was work to be done. Deadlines to be met. But why tidy up a presentation when history was unfolding before our eyes? We gathered around the screen. Some wore scarves. We prided ourselves it using words like "match", "pitch" and "nil". But when Romelu Lukaku made it 2-0, most of us walked back to our cubicles, tossing our scarves on to the floor.

    And then we heard Jim.

   "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLL!" Jim held that note for at least 30 seconds longer than Bill Withers did with "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY" on "Lovely Day". His face turned as red as rare steak. And then he gave in to a coughing fit.

    I walked up to Jim, ready to present him with a yellow post it note, the closest our office had to a yellow card,  when I realized the US was really back in the game. 19-year-old Julian Green scored on his first touch, making  it 2-1 in the 107th minute.

    Again we gathered by the TV to "ooh" and "ahh", to cheer and to groan and ultimately to see the dream end. Sometimes the ball rolls where you aim it. Sometimes a keeper robs you at the last possible moment, Clint Dempsey.

    For every time that's happened here are ten opportunities to make fun of goalies.

   And now to the subject of the song choice

Coming off their best album together, Squeezing Out Sparks, Graham Parker gave his backing band "That's the Way the Ball Rolls" for the Rumour's third album, 1980's Purity of Essence. At the time The Rumour was made up of legendary pub rockers Brinsley Schwarz  (Brinsley Schwarz), Martin Belmont (Ducks Deluxe), Andrew Bodnar and Steve Golding. There were two separate recordings of the album. One for the UK and a second for the US. The US version doesn't have "That's the Way the Ball Rolls", but you get the Glenn Tilbrook-penned "Depression" and a cover of "Rubber Band Man".

FOOTBALL/SOCCER : ROD STEWART

I bloody hate football, me. I suppose I ought to be ashamed of myself, as a brit, but, there, I've said it now.

The beautiful game is a waste of energy to me, and all the fuss and hyperbole leaves me cold. Furthermore, like the Charles Addams cartoon above, am I the only person over here enjoying the ignominy of the english early bath after 3 lack-lustre games? (Or so I heard, as I was certainly not going to waste our current glorious weather in front of a TV. And it is wonderful to walk and drive through the deserted streets of this country whilst the games are on.) In truth I was going to give this theme a miss, but I have belatedly been stung into prose by newcomer JJ's reminder of the horror referred to below, when my glorious Lindisfarne sullied their name and reputation with the travesty unwound in his piece. So how can I take away that flavour, yet stick within a theme with no resonance for me? And then it came to me: Roderick David Stewart, football trialist (failed) for Brentford F.C.

Now, in fairness, I am not that keen on Rod Stewart either, at least not these days. But there was a time when he could do no wrong. Ignore his ghastly gargles through the Great American Songbook and, more recently, Motown. Forget even the Britt Ekland  silk and satin years and beyond. (Do you think I'm sexy?No.Not one iota.) I refer to the gravel voiced guttersnipe, busking his way around Europe, before blagging his way into Steampacket, a multi-voiced venture with Long John Baldry, featuring also the then husband and wife, Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger. From CND sympathising folkie, Rod was now morphing into "Rod the Mod". A spell in the Jeff Beck Group led him into contact with longterm partner in mischief, Ron Wood. Upon the dissolution of the Small Faces, Ron Wood stopped their ship from sinking, as replacement for Steve Marriott, drafting in his old mucker on vocals. The rest is, as they say, history, with Stewart having dual success with the (no longer Small)Faces and with his own solo career. I loved those first 4 or 5 Faces LPs and his contemporaneous solo work, feeling his mojo became lost as he left the former to concentrate on the latter. One was tempted to ask him, as he became a megastar, where, Rod, did it all go so wrong? (On a football related note, this was often the question asked of George Best, legendary 60s soccer player, as he cavorted in baths of champagne with various Miss Worlds)

So why is Rod Stewart my theme, even if he once bid to play the game professionally? Why, so I have an excuse to play this wonderful clip from, as ever, my beloved Top of the Pops. Maggie May was arguably his breakthrough moment, and despite being credited to his solo career, it is with the Faces that he appears here, joined by famous underground DJ, John Peel, "busking" on mandolin, before the scene descends into a kickabout. Both Rod Stewart and John Peel were big afficionados of football, Rod, I think, famously being the most conscientious supporter of his Scotland side, themselves absent from many a world cup these last few years. I still hate football but I do love that clip.

Buy the song here!

FOOTBALL/SOCCER: FOG ON THE TYNE

Lindisfarne feat. Gazza: Fog on the Tyne (Revisited)

It's like lycanthropy.

Once every four years, I change. I incorporate more red and white into my wardrobe, I become argumentative, I'm prone to fits of pouting and I spent entirely too much of my time enraged and yelling at the television.

However, this change isn't spurred by the full moon. No. It's the World Cup that does funny things to me.

I was born in England and spent my childhood there where amidst reading, writing and maths, I also learned several other life lessons - the importance of properly dunking one's biscuit into one's tea and that in this life, football matters. A lot.

I came of age during the height of Gazzamania - the 1990 World Cup - when the legend of Paul 'Gazza' Gascoigne was elevated to mythic proportions. His grinning visage was emblazoned on everything from candy wrappers to clothing and you couldn't escape headlines screaming out about England's favorite son.

Even pop music wasn't safe as in 1990, he got together with pop-folk act Lindisfarme to re-record Fog on the Tyne.

Gazza's version is a novelty hit in every sense of the word. It was catchy, it featured stilted "rapping" from a man who truly had no business being anywhere near a recording studio and every 30 seconds or so, the song urged the listener to, "Come on!"

In short, it's a perfect, silly World Cup song that sticks in your ear and celebrates that Geordie Boy we as a nation pinned our hopes on - the great Gazza.

Unfortunately, his career and personal life spiraled downwards and in recent years, Gascoigne has battled publicly with alcohol addiction.

But regardless of what the future holds for Paul Gascoigne, the fog on the Tyne will always be all his. 

Football/Soccer: Kasey Keller

Barcelona: Kasey Keller
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Like any good American, I have been glued to the television over the past week, watching the World Cup. It has been amazing to see everything, all over the country, come to a complete halt during the matches, and I’ve enjoyed getting into impassioned arguments with strangers over the relative merits of Croatia and Costa Rica. Or the tactical arguments over whether it is better to play a 4-3-3, or a 4-3-2-1. And whether using a false 9 really ever works.

When you come from a country with as proud and successful a soccer tradition as the United States, it is hard to decide what our greatest World Cup moment was. (Note—I’m focusing here on our men’s team. The women’s tradition, is, if anything, even better.) Was it our third place finish back in 1930? Or the victory over England in 1950, which made Joe Gaetjens a household name? Or was it something more recent, like our victory in 1994 (despite some of the ugliest uniforms ever) over Columbia (thanks, in part, to the tragic own goal from poor Andres Escobar)?

I mean, who could forget our incredible 2002 tournament, where we beat both Portugal and Mexico (of course, by the score of dos a cero, which has become a national chant) and only lost to Germany because of Torsten Frings’ dastardly cheating?

Or maybe it was our magnificent draw with the Italian thugs in 2006, despite ending the game with only 9 players? You could argue that our best moment was topping the group in South Africa in 2010, what with the stirring draw with England, the amazing comeback against Slovenia (and getting cheated by the referee’s awful offside call), and Landon Donovan’s incredible game winner against Algeria, which shook the world?

We’ve also had some big moments away from the World Cup, like beating Mexico at Azteca, or Paul Caligiuri’s game winner over powerful Trinidad and Tobago to clinch a berth in the 1990 World Cup? Or the Snow Game?

And, with all of that incredible history, there may be only one American soccer victory that has become so embedded in the national psyche that it inspired a song. Of course, I don’t have to tell you that I am talking about the 1-0 victory against Brazil at the 1998 CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Who can forget the legendary Kasey Keller, whose exploits that day in Los Angeles allowed the great Preki’s 65th minute goal to hold up? To this day, Americans remember where they were watching the match, and who they were with. We tell the story of Keller’s 10 saves to our kids, and sing this tribute to Keller, by the Washington D.C. area band Barcelona, whenever American soccer fans gather. (Although as a passionate Gooner, I do have to overlook Keller's tenure with Sp*rs, but country before club, right?)

Hey, look, an American soccer fan can dream, right? (And I'm not discussing last night's draw with Portugal.  Because I. Believe. That. We. Will. Win.)