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MP3 Daniel Dworsky - Ghosts in the Well
SOUND MAKERS: Top 10 Vocals of the year for * FRIENDS *
https://www.tradebit.comrsky: " Well thats Beautiful. My two sappiest songs..."
11 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Folk Rock, JAZZ: Smooth Jazz
Details:
Ghosts in the Well An Audio biography by Daniel Dworsky
The Players ......... Instrument ... Bonus contributions
Dot Fahn .............. Vocals .......... The funniest person on the entire planet
Garner Thomas ... Sax ............... Class, Wings
Jim Hanson ......... Bass .............. Depth, Bottom
Karen Maseng ..... Vocals ........... Soul, Verisimilitude
Lanla Gist ............ Vocals .......... Magic, Grace
Steven Adams ..... Brains ........... Fearlessness Innovation Patience
Yoav Kutner......... Heart, Soul ... Moral Support since 1976
NOTE: Although DaMia Satterfield regretfully does not appear on this album,
DaMia is here in spirit and this album is dedicated in her honor and in loving memory to her Mom and Dad.
Danny Dworsky .. Everything else such as Drums Piano and Guitar are my fault
1.) Boats on the Mississippi
I was accidently born in Minneapolis a decade after my mother was, "done with the child thing". Although assured that it would never happen again, the woman never really saw a way to forgive me. That''s pretty much it for Mom.
Dad worked by day with his older brothers Pere and Mish making barrels in the front yard of the family home. They wore big steel reenforced boots, hard hats, thick rubber aprons and gloves that reached past their elbows. They laughed raucously like pirates amidst a great show of banging, honking, ringing and fire-falls of sparks. Brightly painted barrels waddled up belt ramps like German tourists and whisked down roller coaster curves at alarming speeds. They delivered barrels all over the Midwest in four ancient rigs painted fire engine red with " Dworsky Barrel" written roundly on the side of each tractor door. If you failed to catch the name on the door Dworsky Barrel assaulted you painted larger and louder on the side of the trailer itself in the same gold trimmed flaming yellow, fairly leaping off it''s red background saying with all it''s might, "The Circus has come to your town!" or perhaps, "Your town is on fire!" Yay!
As the company grew, the front yard expanded capturing the next door lot on which stood an abandoned three story nineteenth century red brick firehouse. It had dark massive shiny oak wood floors with a single gaping round hole cut in the center of each one to clear the largest of large firemen. There was a fat brass pole fixed only to the third floor ceiling running freely through mid air past two unreachable floors until it came to rest in a bolted bracket on the cobblestone floor of the garage. This pole remains hauntingly polished by four generations of daring or dared Dworsky Children in damp denim overalls.
Although the three brothers owed the bank "A million dollars" They couldn''t bring themselves to tear down the old fire house. My generation were henceforth referred to as "The collateral." When the minus Millionaires were asked, "Why?" they exclaimed, "What? Give up the fire house? Are you Kah-ray-zee? It has a brass pole. Didn''t you see the brass poll?
Bet yer still too scared to try it aye?
...Uh huh, That''s what I thought."
On or off duty, the brothers were astonishingly funny men. By night they reined in a now forgotten, but in it''s time over enthusiastically followed occapella show called:
THE MILLIONAIRES®
Also called:
THE TRIO UH, QUARTET THAT WOULDN''T DIE®
Although they played competitively at various auditoriums in the five state area, they never placed because they would insist dead pan all the way to the stage that they were in fact, "uh ...a quartet."
When a club owner or M.C. nervously asked, "Where is the fourth member of your group?" They would look at each other worriedly and then in one voice ask, "What do you mean?"
Exclusively it was an up river riverboat show that never made it to the coast nor was it meant to. It was all just for fun. Some of the fans were unfortunately in the habit of following the youngest member of the band, A.Y. (my father), all the way home after the gig. They were for the most part young women who would make drunken and adoring overtures from assorted passenger side car windows, only to lurch away at right angles from my mother exploding out the front door with a broom. This is by the way the proper Minnesota way to escape an on coming tornado.
2.) Tiny Hands
The Collateral (Generation II in America)
Ben b.1944, Rafi and David (The Twins ) b.1947, Baila (b. Much later) Danny (much much much later)
In 1960 my mother shoved us all into a station wagon and drove me, my three brothers and one sister to Tajos, New Mexico. Mom was aiming for Hollywood but assumed erroneously that Southern California was perhaps, souther? Eventually we made it to the Pacific. It appeared unexpectedly early one morning through a mountain pass. It was the absolute biggest most amazing unbelievably beautiful and exciting thing I had ever seen. I still can''t get over it. It was spilling right over the very edge of the world steaming heaven itself with wonderful cotton ball clouds. A single tired red biplane appeared to be flying in reverse beside us perhaps dragged backwards by the long cloth billboard with backwards writing across blue sky filled with tremendous loaves of honey colored braided bread. I must be hungry.
I''ll be right back.
(That''s not a song title. I''m going to get something to eat.)
L.A. looked like an amusement park gig set up left over-night with mean security guys. I was afraid it might vanish when the air started smelling like burning leaves. It''s a minnesota thing. In California, houses were made like stage props. A couple wooden frames covered with a thin layer of shiny bird poop stuff called "stucco". Irresistible to tiny hands and facilitated many opportunities for them to be slapped. Having lived in Minnesota all my 3 years of life where everything is built of brick and stone and nothing is ever put on stilts, I had this feeling that we had arrived early. The place didn''t seem finished.
I began my training in music at home under the tutelage of my sister Baila then aged 12 and brother Rafi, aged 14, on Piano. David (Rafi''s mirror twin /accomplice) fashioned a guitar book that I still use for my own students. David also showed me how to get around on banjo and mandolin. Ben started teaching me a bunch of rude story ballads spoofs and novelty songs that were about various animals that would be repeatedly abused or abandoned only to return and haunt and torment their evil owners. Rafi countered that with piano tunes by Tom Lehrer. I loved that stuff.
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To everyone''s short lived amusement and eventual dismay I began composing stupid little tunes on piano and guitar as early as 6 years old about sparky the returning slug. Ghost fryers in the sky. Hell''s Hamsters. Relatives told me in secret that I was the spirit and image of my father at his most obnoxious. Which explains why mother''s bourbon name for me was "Devil Seed".
After my rich but shy relatives set us up in a small house in Reseda, Baila and Ben took over the responsibility of educating and raising me in earnest with little or no further help from any other adult. This was fine with me. By the time I was 7 the world had been divided into us and them . Us, the children and them being anyone over the age of 20.
I enjoyed a great deal of fuss and attention over my "talent." Baila organized my life for me. She would dress me up in my little black suit and I''d give recitals to her friends in the scouts and get driven to talent shows and "interfaith" competitions. We were devout Baptists, Catholics or Jews depending on the venue. That is, mostly it depended on which house of faith had the best gospel choir or rhythm section. I''ve been baptized six times. After the Jewish right of passage it seemed like a piece of cake.
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Don''t Sandy, it''s fictitious... (Sigh)
Baila briefly joined the Cherokee nation at some point in the early 70''s.
Recitals. (The early years)
Baila would throw a table cloth over the keys, blind fold me and I''d play something bombastic like Greig or flashy like Joplin. We''d sing in harmony and play country tunes together on dulcimer and guitar. During and between tunes we complained about each others tyranny secretly in gestures to the audience. These were great days. I felt like everyone was my uncle or my auntie.
Aside from missing A.Y. and wondering when he would join us in California, life was pretty good. I was the "Tiny Jewish answer to Little Stevie Wonder". We were the darlings of the Jewish/Goyishe/Lost tribe community centers of greater Los Angeles, right up until our mother met and married a perpetually unemployed ex-con bisexual, tone deaf boxer with a broken nose and Brooklyn accent named "Rocky".
3.) I''ll never tell
The Pianos were removed from the music room, placed in storage in the garage and replaced with a color T.V. and a bar.
Ben volunteered to the US Army. The twins tried that but were rated 4F so they fled to the Holy Land. That would be Israel, not Nashville. Baila floated in and out of the picture, but was clearly walking wounded. Our mother had married an "evil clown". He was covered with blurry tattoos, smoked huge cigars the size of knockwurst, dressed like a color-blind Mafiosi, laughed like a hoarse coyote and hated anyone who wasn''t white - which accounted for all my friends. Other than that the man was a prince. His real name was Bernie. Bernie Bedrock. I was now called Danny. Danny Bedrock and I was ordered to refer to Rocky as "Dad".
At this point things get kind of fuzzy I remember boxing lessons. Lot''s of hair cuts couple of broken ribs-mine, a back injury, an eye operation. A court appearance where I finally got to see A.Y. for about ten seconds. A scary judge with a southern accent. A social worker named "Stanley" who smelled bad and never made eye contact, An L.A. lawyer named Mr. Fiddler who was extremely short and mean and kept picking things off his suit, a series of foster homes ...
The best day of the 60''s was the end of the 60''s when Ben came home from the Army in one piece in 69 - a bit rattled between the ears but still able to rescue us. I moved in with Ben and took a job in Watts, Scotch-Guarding furniture with illegal laborers. We rented from a nice family of on-and-off junkies who were payed by the county to lecture at the schools about the evils of drugs. At night we sometimes played at the end of the piers for money towards rent, gas and food. No drugs. Ben and Baila missed a lot of parties on my account. Through out all this Ben managed to get himself into college on the G.I bill and Baila made the dean''s list in high school. They reviewed everything they learned at home and taught me as much as I could understand. I asked them a lot of questions about everything all the time. They supported each other and me and they still are the people I admire most in this world. They basically gave me their childhood.
4.) Ghosts in the Well
For me these were golden days. Short lived days. I was a minor. People talked. Questions were asked.
Rocky and Mom did the responsible thing and fled to Israel posing as returning orthodox Jews. I was 15 anti social and working with a maintenance crew at a summer camp for rich kids in Ojai. David was a head counselor at this camp. Baila married a nice gentile with a little teeny tiny drinking problem. Ben found himself in Seal Beach fixing cars and experimenting with psychoactive drugs that at times had him convinced that he was being chased by blades of grass or that his shoes meant something.
These were very confusing times for all of us. We were separated and on our own. It was like the end of the Harlow monkey experiment. https://www.tradebit.com
By 1972 Hitch-hiking was becoming tricky between everyone. I was packing a guitar in my left hand a roll of dimes my right pocket and a blade in my boot. In truth, I was more afraid of the various little law departments than I was of the rides. For this purpose I had stolen an entire case of Rocky''s Havana Cigars each looked like a scatological specimen in its individual corked glass tube. These bought me free passage from the Mexican border as far as Washington and back.
David was Home base in an apartment he shared in North Hollywood with Michael Asher. Yes, *that* Michael Asher the piano player''s piano player. My brother lived with God. We all still check in with him to this day. David of course and well, occasionally God. Hi Mike!
My mom, still with the boxer, both now devout orthodox Jews, Now lived in an absorption centre in Israel, declared my sister dead (She had married a "Goy") and sat Shevah, a jewish mourning ritual that lasts seven days. I was only 15 and unmarried so they just abandoned me with out any special ritual.
Rafi was writing songs off Broadway in New York. He lived in a shoe-box sized apartment on 42nd street and slept on a bed he fashioned himself from a solid wood door he found in the alley. It cost him 20 dollars because he got mugged there with the door in the Alley. Rafi attached the door to the entrance wall horizontally by it''s hinges so that it folded out into a bed. He secured the outer corners to chains at either end suspending himself each night above his piano. I thought this was pretty cool. Rafi invited me to stay with him as did David, Baila and Ben but I wanted to study music seriously and I knew that the Rubens Academy of Music in Jerusalem was one of best places for young composers. at 15 I was all ready a hack but I knew in my bones that if I was given a fraction of a chance I would become a great composer and make us all rich.
I tried learning hebrew by auditing hebrew classes at LAVC I never registered.
The instructor was a follower of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. So I learned a little hebrew and a whole lot of bullmake.
I really learned the bulk of my Hebrew as a Bowling shark. I raised enough money bowling for dollars to pay for lunch at the Hava Nargila Restaurant. The owners - one Mrs Carbine and her equally Iraqi husband ran a falafel stand at Carbine Bowl in Tarzana on the Ventura Highway. Alisa Carbine was actually quite a beautiful woman. Her Felafel however tasty was like all good Mediterranean food near poisonous. It was secretly called "Feel awful"
Getting to The Holy Land was easy. I told the guy at the Israeli consulate that
I was broke and that my Mum and Dad were in an absorption center in Pardes Hana Israel.
At first I went to the local Israeli High School. They put me in the tenth grade. They taught me bible in school as if it were history. There was military training with real guns. 15 year old Boys and girls slept innocently together in the same tents on field trips. Nothing was expected to happen between them and nothing did. They were children. Babies. They seemed like little ROTC robots in their military uniforms. After seeing what the military had done to my brother, I was resentful of all things military. I was resentful also that I wasn''t getting anywhere with Israeli girls.
Israel was Sparta to me. I was lost in a nineteen 50''s black and white Ronnie Reagan nightmare. It scared the make out of me how all the boys couldn''t wait to be soldiers. I had never seen nor heard such raw chauvinism, paranoia, or circular rhetoric from people who weren''t related to themselves.
October 1973. I was fifteen when the Egyptians crossed the Suez and in a matter of hours slaughtered around 2000 Israeli boys and girls in uniform. In some cases entire graduating classes. No one living in israel at that time came away unscathed. Everybody lost someone they cared deeply about.
Now I was thoroughly confused. One minute I was a Jerry Rubin Clone next I wanted to be a paratrooper and the next I just wanted to go home. Now, to quote Judy Garland there was no place (remotely) like home.
L.A. is like that. You leave for ten minutes and nine Israelis take your place.
I had argued seemingly moments ago with people who were dead or worse they had lost fathers brothers sisters. I wanted to crawl into a hole and pull it in after me. I was too little to fight but luckily I was a complete lunatic. True to this calling I made solipsism work for ME. I lied about my age and latched on like a tick to an american entertainment troop touring Israel and Sinai as the accompanist to Tenor Jerome Barry of the New York Metropolitan Opera, Avi Kipper a left handed Drummer who is now one of LA''s finest Engineer/Producers, Marc Brull who is another talented and successful LA producer
Sizzling hot Contralto Bonnie (Rossloff) Kipper, Sigh, and her brother Michael Rossloff who now owns Bagel records.
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Aside from my musician friends there was only one person in the world at that time that thought I wasn''t worthless and that was my instant best friend Zohar Eviatar. She spoke fluent english right down to a midwestern accent. (Her Dad was from Minnesota) Other than that she was perfect. She was terribly smart and very kind. She was two years older than me so there wasn''t a chance in hell that I was going to get lucky when suddenly we both realized that we were in love and with each other.
This was even better than the Pacific thing before.
So naturally she wanted to meet my Parents. I was working two jobs and sleeping in a youth hostel. People talked, questions were asked, Social services were contacted...
Mom and Rocky sent me to the most remote, isolated and unsupervised boarding school in the world. It was staffed by a handful of peace core rejects and dregs from the bottom of the teachers union from all over Israel that no one else would dare hire. They were at best incompetent and and at worse predatory. Sde Boker was an isolated collection of bungalows in the center of the Negev Desert. It was a hole where social services threw troubled Israeli teenagers.
I might have resigned my self to eating dust for two years but there were some surprisingly good people stuck down there with me. Much of the album is dedicated to these fellow musicians and friends all of whom I love dearly to this day. Of course half of them won''t talk to me today because I wasn''t as nice a person then as I am today. Fine. I was worse then. Much much worse. But these people were something special and regardless of what they may think of me today, I never would have survived with out their support at the time.
The following songs are dedicated to:
5.) Rainbow ................ (Nancy Lewin)
6.) You Don''t .............. ( Just Tripping'' )
7.) Anthia .................... (Annie Newman)
8.) Gina ....................... (Gina Webster)
9.) Friends ................... (Tali Goralsky)
Some other people who were down there were Cliff Cohen another multi generation piano player who introduced me to the works of Art Tatum. The first time I heard a recording of Art I asked who are those guys? Cliff swore to me that it was one person. Cliff proved it by actually playing like that guy in the recordings.
Merri K. Was this beautiful creature with bells in her throat. If you closed your eyes and just listened she could transport you places... change you forever. She was and probably still is an absolute miracle.
Meredith and Cliff introduced me, kicking and screaming of course, to the music of film and broadway. Here I have to give the devil her due. I learned by listening to these two 16 year old children work these tired corny tunes and polish them into more than just really shiny corny tunes. These two had class. I don''t. Never will and finally, I really don''t care. Still, I appreciate it in other people.
Here''s the weirdest touch of all.
Remnants of the Pharaohs (The Chicago Apollo Theater Band) lived in a town called Demona some 20 miles or so to the north, they were calling themselves "The Black Hebrews". The other half that stayed in the USA reformed into Earth Wind and Fire save Phillip (Church) Upchurch. one of the most brilliant but cranky people ever to make real music. In the future he would remark after a vocal I did, in a session we shared: "It''s not gonna get any better than that." When I answered: "Thank you." He said: "I didn''t mean that as a compliment, I mean we are running'' out of time."
Over the years I have managed to work with or write for every member of the original Pharaohs in their various incarnations as The Phenix Horns, and DaBoom.
My favorite Pharaoh of all was my teacher and friend Louis Satterfield of blessed memory who taught me everything worth knowing about arranging for brass bass and that truly generous people can''t help being the way they are. There was no agenda with Louis. He helped people that could never pay him back. He gave of himself in a way that he made you feel you were doing him a favor by accepting.
10.) ''Sno Sentimental Thing .... (Z)
Zohar returned the following year. We have two children together. We are still together which is ''smarvelous ''Sno?
11.) Tie the Wind to Thee.
What better way to finish off Ghosts than with wind?
Lanla Gist has certain mastery over a natural inimitable vocal quality to sound as if the wind it''s self is calling you by name.
In this case your name is Oooo.
Right.
Just buy the the God Damned Album.
Peace,
Danny
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