I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: LEE FIELDS-“Still Hanging On” (Field Recordings, April 18, 2012).

This was another Field Recording from SXSW filmed on the patio of Joe’s Crab Shack [Lee Fields: Early Morning Soul].

Lee Fields is soul singer who I don’t know.  Evidently he toured in the 1970 sand resurfaced in the ’90s.  He’s got a great powerful voice, but you can tell he’s a bit wiped out.

It was Friday morning during South by Southwest, and Lee Fields was gassed. The veteran soul singer told us he’d given his all in a concert the night before, and you could tell that our early appointment at Joe’s Crab Shack in Austin, Texas, had left his voice gravelly and raw.

He has steadily put out funk-tinged blues and gospel records, crooning love songs and belting world-weary anthems with an expressive voice full of swagger and regret.

So on that March morning, Lee Fields reached deep, fought off the morning fog and gave a passionate, stripped-down performance of “Still Hanging On” with the help of guitarist Vince John. It was a rare peek at a legendary, impossibly gracious singer who proved that, after all these years and even with little sleep, he’s still got it.

Somehow the rawness and weariness of his voice makes it all the more poignant and impressive.

[READ: January 8, 2017] “The Weir”

This was a fascinating story that went in a few different directions.

It begins with a fifty-something year old man throwing tennis balls to his dogs.  He is on a large swath of land that abuts a river.  He is using this time with his dogs to think about his family.  His wife left him six weeks ago and he feels he is coping well (the dogs help).

But his son was the real problem.  He was gone missing.  For years.  His wife had even said that it would be better if he were dead.

While in his thoughts, he sees a young woman hugging the cliffs on the edge of the river.  As he watches her he realizes that she is going to jump in (the river is extremely fast and dangerous).  He rushes to try to stop her, but she can’t hear anything with the noise of the river.

Without even realizing he did it, his jacket and shoes were off and he was jumping in.  The river is crazy and violent and he is tossed around.  Finally he catches up to her, but she is attacking him–whether on purpose or not he doesn’t know.  Eventually he is able to drag her to the shore.  The water was really cold.  The air is cold.  She is cold and he is cold.  She is breathing but not responsive.

He hauls her back to the car and wraps the dogs’ rug around her. The only thing she says is “not the hospital.”  So he brings her to his house.

It’s all really exciting.

He brings her home and puts some of his clothes on her–anything to get her warm.  The sequence in which he takes off her wet clothes is embarrassing and funny (even though no one sees it).

She comes to and they start talking.  She reveals why she doesn’t want to go to the hospital. She accuses him of raping her (since her clothes are off) and then says that everything talks to her: trees, walls, that clock, this wood.   And he realizes that she is crazy–which probably explains why she jumped in the river, right?

He goes into the kitchen to call an ambulance, but once she figures that out, she flees.  She almost gets hit by a car and then runs off into the night.  When the ambulance arrives (he had forgotten) they are mad that he doesn’t even have her name.

That’s a pretty great story in itself.  But there’s more.

He keeps reliving that moments–he wonders if he did the right thing–should he be congratulated or should he feel like failure since she ran off.

Three weeks later she turns up at his door asking for her clothes back.  She’s doesn’t thank him and is still standoffish, but he invites her for coffee and they wind up talking.

And it turns out that this strange friendship goes on for years–she never passes judgment or tries to cheer him up which he find irritating at first but realizes it’s enough that she listens.

Again, that could be the end, but there’s more.  And each new piece adds more to this complex scenario.

I really enjoyed this story a lot and when it did end, I still wanted more.