Discovering Rod McKuen - Part Two

The journey continues.

I took the traditional fan route by buying the odd McKuen book, as many albums as I could find in South Africa and reading as much as I could find about the man, something which was not always an easy task given that I was located at the southern most tip of Africa and the Internet had yet to be discovered.

The album which really got my attention was the 1969 "Sold Out" birthday concert album.

I'm not a fan of live recordings but this one had everything - a great overture, all the hits plus some new songs, audience participation, fabulous orchestra all of which was capped off by a performer at the peak of his powers.

The liner notes, written by Edward Habib, said it all:

This album is a documentary of Rod McKuen's birthday concert at Carnegie Hall, April 29, 1969. It may tell us why he is not only the best-selling and most influential poet-writer in America today, but a man whose singing and performing is so original that one might suspect him of stumbling out of another time. The list of what Rod McKuen has done with his life is staggering:

Poet

Classical composer

Writer of film scores and screenplays

Lumberjack

Best-selling recording artist

Outspoken critic of anything he likes or dislikes

Entertainer

Composer and lyricist of nearly 1000 songs

Actor

Cowboy

Etc.

But somehow, what Rod is doing with our lives is more important. He cares and sometimes he gets clobbered for it. Not on that Tuesday night in April. If you were there you know. Robert Sherman of the Times concluded his review of the concert by saying, "Mr. McKuen would be pleased to know that Odetta, the folk singer, had to spend much of the concert in the rear of the hall because as she explained, - "I can't dance in my seat'."

As a human being, as a writer and in his performing, Rod McKuen is totally honest. It is perhaps a tribute to this honesty that even though he forgot some of his own lyrics during the concert and was still attempting to master a song he had written with Henry Mancini only days earlier, these forgotten lyrics and that less-than-perfect performance of the new Mancini-McKuen song remain a part of this album. Far from flawing an otherwise perfect concert, they add to it.

I continued following Rod and even wrote the obligatory fan letter, the only time I did so. No-one was more surprised than I when a few weeks later I received a reply.

I also attended two of his concerts when he visited our shores during the 70's. Strangely I don't remember much about the shows except that the friends I took to the second show, not fans at the time, left converted.

And then life happened. I drifted away from Rod, though not very far, and he slowly drifted away from his audience, perhaps further than he originally intended.

It would be some time before he returned.

Next - The Idea