the Space Opera odyssey, part six

Chapter Six: When the Mountain Won't Come to You....of Frank Gutch's Lost In Space: The Epic Saga of Fort Worth's Space Opera is out and posted here
http://www.rockandreprise.net/spaceopera6.html
or click on the headline.

Frank sent this note along note with the new chapter:

"Through the New York phase now, Joe Nick. Next up, the remaining years, including the reunion Caravan of Dreams gig, the second album and the reissue of the Epic album on CD. Got a great email from Don Swancey and will include it at the end of the next chapter. Also, David is working on the old tapes, including the tapes you guys played on the air, and hopes to put out something when they are as good as they can be.

Keep the faith,

Frank

Heart of Texas Country Music Museum

I paused from judging duties at the World Championship Barbecue Goat Contest in Brady, Texas, the geographical center of the state, over the Labor Day weekend to cruise through the Heart of Texas Country Music Museum. Every visit, I'm more and more impressed with the exhibits, particularly all the stage costumes director Tracy Pitcox has accumulated, not to mention Ferlin Husky's Cadillac limo with only 86,000 miles on it. The museum is part of the traditional country music empire Tracy has built including the Hillbilly Hits radio show that airs on KNEL in Brady and around the world online, the Oprys he stages, and the Heart of Texas record label that has become home for legends including Leona Williams, the great Darrell McCall, Ferlin Husky, Floyd Tillman, Hank Thompson, Joe Paul Nichols, and Al Dean. For more information on the museum, the label, the Oprys and the radio show, click on the headline or go to hillbillyhits.com

Springfield, Ohio: The End of the American Road

(click on the headline to access Terry Bryne's website: terrencebyrnes.com )

On our way to Montreal a few weeks ago, Ed Ward suggested we contact his longtime friend Terry Byrnes. Terry showed us around Oscar Peterson's old neighborhood and turned us on to the wonderful farmer's market in southwest Montreal Marche Atwater, which I've learned sounds way cooler when you say it in French.

Terry's biggest revelation was the photography project he's been working on for 43 years - that's right, photographing one place over the course of four decades - the town of Springfield, Ohio, which was the terminus of the National Road, aka the Cumberland Road, the first highway in the United States which was extended to Springfield in 1838.

Most photographers couldn't get away with Terry's slow, purposeful documentation. Perhaps it's because he shows up once a year and people remember - enough to refer to him as "the Canadian," an outsider cool enough and far away enough to be tolerated. The Springfield Museum of Art has recognized his Main Street Project, as it is known locally, with an exhibition and by showing his work on their website:
http://www.springfieldart.museum/content/view/198/282


Springfield is a rust belt town and shows it in the slow decline that Byrnes has documented. If the town appears to be beyond saving, the people living in it compensate by being a most colorful lot. There's a haunting quality to every image below the surface, perhaps because of the backdrop of industrial decline, creeping poverty, and not much reason to hope.

And yet, the images beckon, to be looked at, examined, thought about. Some project beauty; others truth. No two are alike. The camera captures a moment in life in each image. Forty three years of that tells a deep, rich story. Terry told us he thought his Springfield project. Lately he's been focusing on abandoned homes and ephemera that he's found. Like an archeologist, he's sifting through the ruins, trying to make sense of it all until there's nothing left to ask questions about.





(all images copyright, Terence Byrnes)