Howard Wyeth

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Howie Wyeth
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Howard Pyle Wyeth
Manhattan, New York
, United States
GenresRock, stride, ragtime, jazz, blues, zydeco
Instrument(s)Drums, piano

Howard Pyle Wyeth (April 22, 1944 – March 27, 1996), also known as Howie Wyeth, was an American drummer and pianist. Wyeth is remembered for work with the saxophonist

Robert Gordon, the electric guitarist Link Wray, the rhythm and blues singer Don Covay, and the folk singer Christine Lavin. Best known as a drummer for Bob Dylan, he was a member of the Wyeth family of American artists.[1]

Family

full length portrait of N.C. with his palette in his studio
N. C. Wyeth (1882-1945), Wyeth's grandfather

Wyeth was born in

milk train.[3] Wyeth married once, to Rona Morrow, and later divorced. Catherine Wheeler was his partner for seventeen years, from his mid-thirties on.[1]

The Wyeths are a family of visual artists and, earlier, illustrators who lived and worked together in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. Including the Hurds and the McCoys, at least eleven artists are among the family and in-laws.[5] Wyeth was the namesake of his great-uncle Howard Pyle (1853–1911), the artist and illustrator for Harper's Weekly and the author of The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood and four volumes of children's stories about King Arthur. His grandfather N. C. Wyeth was a student of Howard Pyle and a prominent illustrator of children's books for Charles Scribner's Sons. His grandmother Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle was an illustrator of children for The Saturday Evening Post who married Walter Pyle, Howard's younger brother. He was the nephew of the painters Andrew Wyeth, Henriette Wyeth and Carolyn Wyeth.[3]

Early years

Wyeth was the son of music lovers—his father enjoyed playing

stride piano and music theory. He studied percussion with Alan Abel of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and received a bachelor's in music at Syracuse University in 1966.[1]

Wyeth played at various times in the bands the Dogs and the Worms after moving to New York City in 1969.In 1972 on a solo album by John Herald co-produced by Bob Neuwirth for Paramount, Wyeth played with Amos Garret, Steven Soles, Ned Albright and Rob Stoner.[6]

Desire

Subject playing for TV in a four-piece band including Rivera, Dylan and Stoner
The World of John Hammond, Chicago 1975
"Hurricane" from Bob Dylan's Desire, 1976. Luther Rix on congas.
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The songs were co-written with

John Hammond recorded at the WTTW television studios in Chicago.[7]

The group found themselves with a Billboard No. 1 pop album, the last Dylan effort to reach that mark for thirty years until 2006 when he released Modern Times.[8] Robert Christgau who distrusted the project thought the song "Joey" was "deceitful bathos," and Dave Marsh called "Joey" "elitist sophistry" and "contemptible,"[9] but Rolling Stone counted Desire the 174th greatest album of all time. Desire eventually reached RIAA multi-platinum, selling over two million copies before its re-release in 2003.[10]

The project is remembered for its "loose and swirling" sound and the songs "Hurricane", "Isis", "One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)", "Oh, Sister", "Black Diamond Bay" and "Sara".and Collected review excerpts; Super Seventies RockSite! (1996–2007). "Bob Dylan - Desire". Retrieved 2007-02-18.</ref> Sony credited Wyeth as an accompanist with an "uncannily sympathetic ear." Larry Sloman called his drumming "ethereal."[11] Billboard said Stoner and Wyeth were one of the strongest rhythm sections in music.

Rolling Thunder Revue

Dylan, Levy and Neuwirth conceived the

T-Bone Burnett (guitar), David Mansfield (steel-guitar, mandolin, violin, dobro), Roger McGuinn (guitar, vocal), Neuwirth (guitar, vocal), Rivera (violin), Rix (drums, percussion, congas), Mick Ronson (guitar), Soles (guitar, vocal), Stoner (bass) and Wyeth (piano, drums).[13]

Joni Mitchell, who flew in to sing for one show, nearly left, but when she told Wyeth goodbye, he was hurt, "And I suddenly realized, more than anybody Wyeth's reaction was so heartfelt, his expression of it was so open. Like it's just his soul is so beautiful. And I stayed."[11]

Astrodome only half full it was a "monumental flop." According to Wyeth the newcomers brought their own bands, "They weren't doing it the way we'd been doing it. We lost the whole togetherness thing."[15]

In pouring rain, the Hard Rain recordings for television and most of the live album were made outdoors at Colorado State University's Hughes Stadium in 1976 at Fort Collins, Colorado. The show was "triumphant" and well received, one reviewer calling "Idiot Wind" the "most passionate and emotional live performance" Dylan had ever made. Stoner said, "everybody is playing and singing for their lives, and that is the spirit that you hear on that record."[15] Due to low ticket sales, the Rolling Thunder Revue ended two days later in Salt Lake, Wyeth's final concert with Dylan and this band.[16]

Later years

McGuinn loved the tour and turned to the studio with Mansfield, Ronson, Stoner and Wyeth to record

The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991 (1991), Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3 (1994), Best of Bob Dylan (1997), Bob Dylan Live 1975 (The Bootleg Series Volume 5) (2002), and Desire (remastered 2003). Wyeth recorded four albums with Gordon, as well as albums with Don McLean, Leslie West and Moody. He is the drummer on Lavin's Attainable Love released by Philo in 1990 and the pianist on "Warmer Days", a song written by John Popper on the 1990 A&M album Blues Traveler.[18] Later he led his own groups on piano, playing ragtime, blues and early jazz.[4]

"Ain't She Sweet" from a medley on Howie Wyeth's "Chadds Ford Getaway", 2003
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Chadds Ford Getaway was Wyeth's one solo recording of ragtime and stride piano. It was remastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound and released as a two-CD set in 2003 by Stand Clear Music. Among the fifteen medleys are lesser-known works alongside "Ain't Misbehavin'", made famous by Fats Waller, and Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag".

Mansfield and Wyeth played on Chris Harford's Elektra album Be Headed in 1992 with a host of others. After Wyeth's death, Harford released a piano instrumental Ode to Howie Wyeth. [19]

Also that year, Wyeth played drums on Fishermen's Stew's 7" single release of "Small Life, Hollow Roads, and Fairy Tales" b/w "Fine" released on Berlin's Twang! Records in 1993.

Death

Wyeth died of

St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan on March 27, 1996. He was 51.[4]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Chapo, Andy (November 21, 1999). "Howie Wyeth: A Musical Life - 1944-1996". Archived from the original on October 27, 2009. Retrieved 2007-02-18.
  2. ^ "Perspective: N.C. Wyeth [1822-1945] | Western Art & Architecture". westernartandarchitecture.com. Retrieved 2017-05-22.
  3. ^ a b c Gopnik, Adam (15 November 1998). "'Pictures Great,' His Publisher Told Him". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
  4. ^ a b c "Howard Wyeth, 51, A Rock Drummer". The New York Times. 29 March 1996. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
  5. ^ Stevens, William K. (23 November 1986). "Sketching the Wyeth Dynasty". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
  6. ^ Herald, John (n.d.). "John Herald Albums and CDs". Retrieved 2007-02-21.
  7. Usenet: [email protected]
    . Retrieved 2007-02-19.
  8. ^ Hasty, Katie (September 6, 2006). "Dylan Earns First No. 1 Album Since 1976". Billboard. Retrieved 2007-02-18.
  9. ^ Marsh, Dave (2004). "Album Reviews: Desire". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on April 29, 2007. Retrieved 2007-02-20.
  10. ^ Recording Industry Association of America (May 26, 1999). "Press Room". Recording Industry Association of America. Archived from the original on 2006-10-15. Retrieved 2007-02-20.
  11. ^
    ISBN 1-4000-4596-7
    .
  12. ^ Kokay, Les via Olof Björner (2000). "Songs of the Underground: a collector's guide to the Rolling Thunder Revue 1975-1976". Retrieved 2007-02-18.
  13. ^ Sony BMG Music Entertainment (2007). "Live 1975: Liner Notes". Archived from the original on 2006-11-11. Retrieved 2007-02-19. and Sony BMG Music Entertainment (2007). "Hard Rain: Liner Notes". Archived from the original on 2007-02-04. Retrieved 2007-02-19.
  14. ^ a b Chapo, Andy (November 21, 1999). "Howie Wyeth - The Desire LP and the Rolling Thunder Revue". Archived from the original on October 25, 2009. Retrieved 2007-02-21.
  15. ^ a b James, Peter (2003–2006). "Warehouse Eyes - Hard Rain". Retrieved 2007-02-19.
  16. ^ Björner, Olof (2006). "Still On The Road: 1976 Rolling Thunder Revue II". Retrieved 2007-02-19.
  17. ^ Jan Hoiberg, Webmaster (n.d.). "Kinky Friedman: Lasso from El Paso". Retrieved 2007-02-21.
  18. ^ Official Blues Traveler Web Site (n.d.). "Blues Traveler - 1990". Archived from the original on 2006-10-28. Retrieved 2007-02-21.
  19. ^ chrisharford.com (2000). "Band of Changes". Archived from the original on 2007-02-03. Retrieved 2007-02-20. and After Dark (n.d.). "CD Reviews". Archived from the original on 2007-02-03. Retrieved 2007-02-20.

External links

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