THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS PRESENT "DOUBLE TROUBLE" - FACES OF GRIEF, WITH PATTI SMITH AND LUCINDA WILLIAMS. DOUBLE DOWN!!

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Some philosophers posit the difficult truth that a world without grief would deprive us of a deeper appreciation of the evanescent beauty of life. Life cannot be grasped; it flows mysteriously from one moment into another - here, and gone. This is your moment to take it all in, so be present and celebrate it, they urge. When Stephen Colbert says that the devastating loss of his father and brothers in a fatal plane crash taught him gratitude one has to step back in awe and wonder to reflect on the heart tugging idea that grief may be a gift.

Today we feature two survivors of loss - physical and spiritual. When Lucinda Williams asked “If we lived in a world without tears, how would broken find the bones?…” she hinted at this enigma 17 years before a stroke almost took her life; Patti Smith survived a punishing revolving door of grief: losing her husband Fred, her brother Todd, her best friend Robert, and somehow she moved through it all to create one of the most incendiary recordings of her career - after an 8 year hiatus.

PATTI SMITH

Patti Smith is a national treasure - (I don’t throw that title around) - although, she’d probably demur saying she was just a chick from New Jersey who got lucky. But, anyone familiar with her memoir Just Kids knows it wasn’t luck that drove this waitress with artistic aspirations to migrate to New York City to seek her rock n roll fortune among the poetic luminaries of the era - it was true grit and an unshakeable confidence in her talent.

I admired her then - in Sinatra drag on the cover of her debut album Horses, with all that tomboy swagger, but I LOVE her now as our eternally youthful elder poetess, touring the world like a good will ambassador for the embattled Peace and Love generation. On the song Gone Again she rages against loss, even as she acquiesces to its inevitability.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS

Lucinda Williams is the ideal blend of tough and tender, of homespun heart and poetic sophistication. She is one of the best singer songwriters America has produced, and that’s saying something. She’s a short story Magus with an authentic Southern twang, whose autobiographical fiction stirs the heart like few others can.

Her album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, released in 1998, brought her to the attention of a much broader national audience, and her open hearted vulnerability proved both a blessing and a curse. Her artistic output and touring schedule accelerated, but in 2020, those wheels came off the axel, when a stroke took away her ability to play and sing. Thankfully, she’s been working her way back, and the last chapter hasn’t been written yet.

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