The sounds of commitment
Bruce Rickerd getting certified by the Guinness Book of World Records for not missing a performance in 21 years (Courtesy Cirque Du Soleil)
When I come home from my radio program I reflect on the show we made to share with you.
I consider questions I might have asked, a button I shouldn’t have pushed to aggravate my fine producer Dan Long or maybe an anecdote I could have contributed to inject some of my personality. I had a hard time getting to sleep after the Jan. 3 Nocturnal Journal. I was thinking about the thread of purposefulness that connected my guests:
* At the end of December, Bruce Rickerd broke the record for most theatrical performances by a male musician in his role as guitarist in “Mystere” at Cirque du Soleil at Treasure Island in Las Vegas.
His mark of 9,958 shows got him in the Guinness Book of World Records and as he told us, he is bearing down on 10,000 shows since “Mystere” debuted in 1993. Rickerd, 62, has not missed one gig playing prog-rock electric and Eastern European acoustic guitar.
* Nick Russo, the long time swinging piano player at Jilly’s on Rush Street is back in the game. You can hear him between 7 and 10:30 p.m. every Thursday at Zeal’s restaurant in the shadow of the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg.
I had heard Nick had been ill, but it wasn’t until I was helping him take his gear down after the show that I learned he goes to Dr. Vincent Buffalino in Naperville, the same heart specialist that has taken care of my parents. Nick was a great guest with great stories. “A month ago I wouldn’t have been able to do this show,” Russo told me as we rode down the Tribune Tower elevator. Russo, only 61, has survived two quadruple bypasses and congestive heart failure. “Dr. Buffalino has saved my life three times,” Russo said on Monday afternoon.
The Four Hoarsemen: (L to R), Nick Russo, Dave Hoekstra. Jon Langford, Dan Long
* Jon Langford, Nan Warshaw, Rob Miller and Bloodshot Records have been delivering real country music and rock n’ roll with consistent quality and utmost daring for the past 20 years. A Bloodshot Records anniversary celebration kicks off at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 10 at Metro in Chicago. Langford made the radio show despite the recent sudden loss of his mum Kit. He told me he is headed off to his native Wales on Thursday for the seventh time in something like the last 30 days.
Langford showed up on Saturday and even jammed with Russo on a velvet-drenched version of “Sweet Home Chicago.”
I sort of made them do that.
Facebook has become repository for whining and complaining about the weather, but Langford’s FB message about his Mom’s passing was a keeper: “Thanks so much for all the messages of sympathy love and support. Kit wanted to keep going forever. No quarter given to miseries and moaners. A life well lived and well worth celebrating at this festive time of year. “
You can smile in the face of adversity.
* Gregory Warmack, a.k.a. “Mr. Imagination” encountered an uncanny amount of misfortune in his life but it didn’t stop him from dreaming. Warmack died May 30, 2012 of an infection in an Atlanta, Ga. hospital. He was 64 years old. He is the subject of a major retrospective that opens Jan. 9 at INTUIT–The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago.
In the summer of 1996 I visited Warmack in his crowded studio-apartment near Wrigley Field. He told me how he became “Mr. Imagination.” In 1978 he was a hair dresser and clothes designer, but he had never been an artist.
“I used to give this guy nickels and dimes for wine,” Warmack said. “One day he turned around and said, ‘I want all your money.’ I had like 40 cents. I heard what sounded like two huge cannons going off. I saw sparks. I saw fire. I realized this guy had shot me. It felt like someone opened up my stomach and poured in hot coals. I ran into a bar and told someone I had just gotten shot. My eyes went dim and I was in a coma for six weeks.” Warmack said that while in the coma, he traveled back into the past through a tunnel of light. He then pointed to rows of Aztec-influenced sandstone faces in his apartment.
He saw the faces while he was in the coma. He saw himself as “Mr. Imagination,” an African king.
He was liberated.
Mr. Imagination and his artwork in New York, 2009 in a show curated by the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Md.
And he remained in the creative heavens despite the fact:
* His brother William broke his neck and died while trying to break into Warmack’s apartment. “It didn’t make Greg bitter or break his gentle spirit,” founding INTUIT member Cleo Wilson wrote in her notes to the exhibit. “In fact, he created an altar tribute to his brother at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen.
* In 2000, Warmack became an artist in residence in Bethlehem, Pa. A January, 2008 fire gutted Warmack’s home while he was at an art show in Florida. He lost everything include his beloved dog and five cats.
Friends helped him rebuild and move to Atlanta in 2009 where he created an Angel Garden for children of the world to congregate.
Just like the fortitude I heard on Saturday night, there is no limit to imagination–especially when you nurture the kid inside of you.
“If there was a limit to using your imagination when they built the first buildings they would have all looked the same,” Warmack told me. “Architects had to use their imagination. Fashion is based on imagination. The whole world is built on imagination.”
Perseverance and imagination is what “Mystere” is built on.
“Being a musician, if you’re not a star, most of the times you’re not making a whole lot of money,” Rickerd said in a Monday evening conversation before his 90-minute show at Treasure Island. “And when you don’t play you don’t make an money. I was a band leader and lead singer back in the day. If somebody was out, nobody worked.”
What bands were those?
“I had a band called Equinox,” answered Rickerd, who grew up outside of Ottawa (On.) Canada. “And Hard Wood.”
Hard Wood?
Rickerd laughed and said, “I never thought of it like that. You just gave me a totally different perspective on it. But I was just being responsible with my work. Reputations get ruined real quick. If you’re a no show for a gig, they don’t call you any more. With Cirque du Soleil, it’s not the same thing. I could have taken a day off now and then, but it is a responsibility. If I can do the job I will.”
Over the years Eddie Van Halen, E-Street Band guitarist Nils Lofgren and Michael Jackson have seen Rickerd perform at a Mystere. “Michael Jackson came here close to a dozen times,” said Rickerd, who also played behind John Lee Hooker as a 22-year-old in Canada. “Of course he was always incognito. We knew that because he was the only guy with a mask on followed by five seven-foot tall guys.
“Ronnie Foster (keyboardist George Benson, Roberta Flack and others) comes to the show. He’s a musical director at one of the shows here (“Smokey Robinson Presents: Human Nature”). Neil Merryweather is a bass player who produced Lita Ford records and played with Rick James. As a matter of fact I’ll be jamming with them after the gig tonight at a dive called Saddle n’ Spurs. After playing for 3,000 people I’ll go out and play for 30. It is way off the strip, a locals place.”
The work ethic never rests.
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