How Long: The Brilliant Musical Career of Paul Carrack

On Friday, as Mrs. Bear and I were driving home after a long week of work I put on one of my favorite movie soundtrack CDs, Invincible. This soundtrack not only includes the previously discussed I've Got A Name by Jim Croce, but also the great 70's single How Long by the band Ace. How Long - without a question mark - was the only hit for this English "pub band," but this did not stop singer-songwriter-keyboardist Paul Carrack from going on to success.

Carrack next joined the critically-loved Squeeze; a band that is well loved by every musician I know. Squeeze had the twice-a-hit single Tempted (1981 and 1993), on which Carrack sang the lead, and the great album track Black Coffee in Bed. Their work is well represented in The Squeeze Singles collection.

And then Paul joined Michael + the Mechanics, where he was the force behind the single All I Need Is A Miracle and the No. 1 hit The Living Years.

For a lot of musicians, this would be enough to cap off a lifetime career. However, Carrack continues to record solo albums, a number of which are purchased by other musicians looking for great songs to cover. As a prime example, when the Eagles made their come-back in 1994, it was Carrack's Love Will Keep Us Alive - co-written with Jim Capaldi of Traffic and Pete Vale - that was released as the first single from Hell Freezes Over.

The Eagles' fine current double-CD set Long Road Out of Eden features I Don't Want to Hear Anymore, written by Paul. I've already predicted that I Don't Want to Hear... will be included on the soundtrack album when Bill Hazelgrove's novel Rocket Man is made into a film.

Keep rockin' Paul!

A Future Soundtrack Album?

Earlier this week we posted two reviews of the novel Rocket Man by Bill Hazelgrove. Our instincts tell us that this novel may be made into a major motion picture... If so, here is one guess as to what the soundtrack might look and sound like:

Rocket Man - Elton John [Opening scene, the rocket boy]
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere - Neil Young [Belleview]
Hung Upside Down - Buffalo Springfield [suburban angst]
Up On Cripple Creek - The Band [bike ride to the white farm house]
Pleasant Valley Sunday - The Monkees [The Belleview Association meeting]
There Are Maybe Ten or Twelve - A.C. Newman [worries]
I Don't Want to Hear Any More - the Eagles [marital problems]
Tomorrow - Paul McCartney and Wings [hope]
Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe - the Byrds [sixty rockets on the pads]
Won't Get Fooled Again - the Who [Rocket Day!]
Rocket Man - Elton John [edit version, final scene]
My Days and All My Days Off - A.C. Newman [the crawl, closing credits]

Tomorrow's Attraction...

Today we posted the first of two reviews of the novel Rocket Man. Tomorrow we'll be posting another review of the book, this one composed by the artist and noted social critic Robert "Ice B" Gorham.

Stay tuned!

Harmony: A Review of Rocket Man (the novel)

In June of 1995, Richard Ford released what one source called a "dull, jaded, satirical view of suburban life...", a novel called Independence Day. The New York Times' overly serious review of Independence Day carried the weighty headline, "Afloat in the Turbulence of the American Dream."

I loved Ford's earlier (1986) novel, The Sportswriter, but I found Independence Day to be a bit too dry and slow of a read. So when I saw that the novel Rocket Man also deals with suburban angst, I worried that it might be a long trek through its 377 pages. This fear was groundless...

From the very first, I was hooked on this story by William (Bill) Elliot Hazelgrove and I made it straight through to page 370 before putting it down for the day. Hazelgrove smartly starts the tale with some laugh-out-loud humor before settling into the more serious sections. When it dawns on you that the story has become less amusing, it doesn't matter - you just want to know what happens next.

I'm not a fan of book or movie reviews that give away the entire story, but a few things should be mentioned about the plot. The lead character, Dale Hammer, is a former novelist, currently a mortgage broker, who has moved his family form the old, established, city of Oakland, Illinois to the "far west suburb" of Charleston, Illinois. In one week his life goes from being on automatic pilot ("I feel the surprise of a man who occupies a life he is not familiar with.") to one in which he faces multiple and substantive challenges. His life, as Paul Simon might have sung, is on fire and on the evening news.

The one positive in Hammer's situation is that he's been selected (or maybe simply volunteered for the role) to be Rocket Man, the adult who supervises dozens and dozens of scouts on the day they meet in a public park to launch their working rockets. Hammer is trained for the assignment by his predecessor Dale Heinrich, a man both highly intelligent and organized and so strange that Hammer is unsure "whether to shake (his) hand or call for the boys in the white suits."

Does Hammer meet and overcome the challenges in his life? Does he, as a non-conformist, buckle down to succeed in his new role as the Rocket Man?

You'll have to read the book yourself to find out, but for me the ending came together as smoothly as Elton John's song Harmony. I look forward to the next good read from Hazelgrove.

Highly recommended for book clubs.

A Pebble Could Start An Avalanche...

This essay is by William (Bill) Elliott Hazelgrove, author of the novel Rocket Man, and is reprinted here with his permission. [Photo: flickr (Bright Meadow)]

A Pebble Could Start An Avalance

You never know what could start an avalanche. In book marketing there is a feeling of being completely overwhelmed. You could concentrate on the big sites and press releases and try and get major media hits. This requires time and supreme effort and a lot of times does not pan out. This doesn't mean you shouldn't try for a People Magazine or a USA Today or the New York Times. But books are a funny thing. You never quite know what starts the big slide toward a bestseller and that is because books are still sold the old fashioned way - by word of mouth.

In the internet age we are constantly bombarded with notices. So and so wants to be your friend, so and so wants you to join their group, an email from an old friend who noticed you had published your book. Our email boxes bulge with unanswered queries as we go thundering down the road for Larry King or Good Morning America. But the truth is we just don't know what will be the stick, the rock that will break the precipice. I know lots of authors who have done the big shows and their books still didn't hit. That doesn't mean these shows didn't affect them, just not the way they thought they would. Big publishers put thousands of dollars behind a new author in promotion and the book falls from sight. Why? No one really knows.

When I was trying to get my first book published I used to send out six queries a week. Sometimes I would just get four or five and I would carry the last one around with me unable to find a mailbox or a stamp. Many times, the publisher or agent who would respond would be to that last query! Who knows why, but it happened more than once. It is probably just that last unturned rock, that final exhausted moment where you put the final three chapters in the mail that the Gods line up for you. Who knows, but you really can't afford to not do it.

I had an email the other night from someone I knew in college. They said they heard I published another novel. I was tired and had been traveling all day and almost didn't respond, dangerous because then other emails would flood in and I might never get to it. But just before I went to bed I responded and asked how he was doing and yes I published another book and here is a link to the book on Amazon. Maybe he will buy it maybe he won't. Maybe it didn't matter that I responded. But then again, maybe he is a film producer, a friend of a friend who knows Oprah or who is in a book club or who has a large network of friends he emails regularly. The point is we just don't know what pebble might start an avalanche - so we better make sure we give each one a good kick.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com

Novel Excerpts from Rocket Man...

In the near future, we plan on posting a two-part review of the novel Rocket Man by author William Elliot Hazelgrove. In the interim, here are a couple of sample excerpts from the book, reprinted here with the permission of the author and Pantonne Press.

It occurs to me that failure on a spectacular scale is a bit like being a professional athlete. Only a few people know of the true isolation that thudding, redundant rejection on a colossal scale can bring. The athlete is immersed in his privileged cocoon of wealth and specialty, but few know what it's like to stare down a one-hundred-mile-an-hour fastball. There is insight in the extreme edge of failure or success. The privilege is the view afforded to those who can endure the pressure, the vagaries, and the threat of oblivion...

I turn and stare at the mass of angry people. They are the mob I avoided all my life. They are my secret horror, the majority, the conservative mainstream that I cannot come to terms with. And I had been foolish enough to think that I could hide out among them. We are separated by just yellow tape, but it is all the difference in the world - they believe in their lives. It is their frantic desire to get it all done. My brethren of khaki-clad men with five-hundred-dollar watches and cell phones and Blackberries and shaved heads and full bellies are taking a gamble on something as amorphous as a dream. I, on the other hand, believe in nothing, and that's why I do what will ensure my fate.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com

Culture & Sociology Examiner: The sad lonely Men of Starbucks--the unemployed

Click on the orange link, below, to read this article. William Elliot Hazelgrove lives in Oak Park, Illinois and is the author of the novel Rocket Man.

Photo: flickr (ozzzie)

Culture & Sociology Examiner: The sad lonely Men of Starbucks--the unemployed

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