Song Of the Day, May 21, 1990
Chris Beneke-One Day
Chris Beneke-I Will Be Your Ghost
Live tape, ca. 1990
My friend Chris Beneke is one of my favorite songwriters of all time. His songs have an honesty, a simplicity, and a beauty thatI admire and envy. These tracks are from an open mic night performance at the Bottleneck in Lawrence in the winter of 1990 (is that right, Mark Johnson?). There were just a handful of people there; I seem to remember it was very cold that night. I also believe it was the first time I ever heard him play. There was a board tape made of this brief performance, and for years a few cassettes circulated amongst a few of us Wilmas guys and and other members of our camp. It would be no exaggeration to say that they were prized by each of us who owned it, and that we felt we were privvy to something unique and fragile.
Chris didn't play in public that often, I'm not exactly sure if he just didn't care for playing, or just didn't care for the venues available to him, or just had several other irons in the fire most of the time. He tried a few things with a band (which Mike Horan and I participated in), but I recall most vividly his solo acoustic performances, his breathy voice and buckling knees evoking nothing so much as some absurd cross between Daniel Johnston and Big Star. Chris recorded a longer tape of his Little Hits a few years later while out of the country, and there are some four-track demos around somewhere, so maybe Chris will let us run some of his other gems at some point.
posted by Jon Harrison at 8:07 PM
6 Comments:
What's Chris up to now? Is he still writing songs?
Jon, I can't find the exact date. These are either late Dec 89 or early Jan 90. Certainly not any later than that.
Chris played these on my Yamaha SE200 (strat knockoff) and Silvertone.
Jon and I did solo sets too that night. I wish I still had Jon's part - as usual, he was really good. Mercifully my part of the program, which included a supreme error in judgement (two duets with a then-current girlfriend) seems to have vanished. Thank goodness.
Jon, you have played both of these songs with the Moodswing?
Yes!
Jon
Man, I really thought I had more of these sets but I don't (just bits & pieces). Good ol' Rocky Top! Good ol' Indian Summer for that matter!
Okay, sorry.
I think I knew Chris Beneke in Prague. Not very well. He obviously made a lasting impression.
http://caitoceallaigh.com/2008/01/30/the-last-honest-folk-song/
I've always wondered what happened to him, too.
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