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the definitive biography of the beloved Chicago singer-songwriter
Seattle-based journalist Clay Eals has written Steve Goodman: Facing The Music (ECW Press, $29.95), the definitive biography of the beloved Chicago singer-songwriter.
You can't put it down.
You can't pick it up, either.
The 778-page book with an 18-track tribute CD weighs just over 4 pounds. Goodman would appreciate a joke about heavy lifting. Eals' passionate tribute is about Goodman stepping lightly into the face of death. Goodman died of leukemia in 1984 at age 36. He was diagnosed with leukemia at 20.
The Old Town School of Folk Music has declared this weekend as "Steve Goodman Weekend." A "6-String Social" takes place from 6:30-8:30 tonight at the old Old Town School, 909 W. Armitage, where Goodman hung out. Eals will sign books at 1 p.m. Saturday at the current Old Town School, 4544 N. Lincoln. And the evergreen event is a 2 p.m. Sunday performance and panel discussion at the Old Town School with Earl Pionke of Goodman's beloved The Earl of Old Town nightclub, along with songwriters Ed Holstein and Michael Smith.
Eals, 55, began work on the Goodman biography nine years ago. He interviewed 1,067 people, including Goodman's songwriting compatriot John Prine, his Maine East High School classmate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Kris Kristofferson, Steve Martin, David Allan Coe and -- disclaimer -- me.
"Steve Goodman is not a household name and there aren't any books out there on him," Eals said in an interview from Seattle. "I felt the mantle on my shoulders to do the most comprehensive job I could. Clearly, it is a biography of Goodman, but it is the story of an era told through one person's life."
Facing The Music is larger than some suburban Chicago phone books. Even the 547 pictures are amazing and most have never been published. Some images are gems, like the 1950 or '51 Christmas card the Goodman family sent out with a 2- or 3-year-old Steve Goodman on the front (the Goodmans are Jewish) and Michael O'Sullivan's tender portrait of Goodman hanging out with friends Pionke, Prine, Jimmy Buffett and Ed and Fred Holstein in Goodman's apartment circa 1972. Other pictures are unnecessary, like fuzzy Zapruder-like pictures of Goodman play-acting down a sidewalk in Albany Park (courtesy of Organic Theater founder Stuart Gordon).
The Goodman biography is immaculately researched and Eals stitches his world of source material (interviews and file stories) in a seamless manner. The book is too heavy on Goodman's youth, but the stories of death are honest and poignant. Buffett visited a fading Goodman in a Seattle hospital and played a song he wrote for the old Cubs fan. Photographer Jim Shea accompanied Buffett on the visit. After Buffett finished the song, Shea said, "all the bells and whistles next to Steve's bed went off." Buffett whispered, "I guess he didn't like my song."
Goodman died the next day.
"I didn't want it to be just a music book," Eals said. "I wanted it to be a book anybody could identify with. Goodman wrote about themes that affected everybody viscerally to the core."
Eals saw Goodman in concert twice; in 1977 and 1981 in Eugene, Ore. He owns 150 Goodman concert tapes.
"Steve Goodman was the best entertainer I ever saw," he said.
Eals did not have the cooperation of Goodman's wife, Nancy, his brother, David, or his mother, Minnette. But Goodman's long-time manager, Al Bunetta, assisted, and Eals delivers a priceless anecdote about Bunetta's secretary tweaking her boss with Goodman's ashes.
"It was a challenge to work without some of the family," Eals said. "But the book needed to be done and it was important to get the memories down from people while they still could. There's about two dozen people in the book who have died since I talked to them. And Nancy is far from absent in the book. David is very present in the book. All the way through, they are part of Steve's story."
And so is anybody who calls Chicago home.
STEVE GOODMAN WEEKEND
• 6:30-8:30 p.m. tonight, "Songs of Steve Goodman," 6-String Social featuring Chris Farrell, Harry Waller and others at the Old Town School, 909 W. Armitage (the school location Goodman attended).
• 1-3 p.m. Saturday, Steve Goodman: Facing The Music book signing. Author Clay Eals will sign his book in front of the Different Strummer at the Old Town School, 4544 N. Lincoln.
• 2-4 p.m. Sunday, Steve Goodman Music Performance and Panel Discussion, Old Town School, 4544 N. Lincoln. Panelists include singer-songwriters Ed Holstein, Michael Smith (who wrote "The Dutchman" and "Spoon River," covered by Goodman), White Sox fan Earl Pionke, folklorist Ronald Cohen and Eals. Moderated by Chicago radio personality Roy Leonard, a friend of Goodman's.
All events are free. For more information, call the Old Town School of Folk Music at (773) 728-6000 or visit www.oldtownschool.org.
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