(…cont.)
Bob Dylan
Badger’s passion for Bob Dylan was a much more immediate and passionate and diverse connection in the sense that Dylan like himself were both raised in the climate of the Fifties Cold War era. And Badger was first inspired by Dylan’s Civil Rights Movement lyrics in Oxford Town. Much more important though was Badger’s identification with Dylan’s genius and the changes Bob went through in various voice styles and also his identification with his varied American soul that he explored over the decades. Dylan was the ultimate songwriter and poet of Badger’s generation. Of course Badge outgrew all this and eventually took his music in his own directions. One of the major regrets in his life though was not meeting Dylan face to face. He had one chance at it in Berkley once where a friend of his had an invitation to a party after a Dylan gig, but refused to give him the pass that would have gotten Badge into that inner circle and bash afterwards.
Badger Stone had an interest in music at a very early age.
“When I was little I sang out in the barley field because no one would tolerate my singing more than three seconds at a time. I always sang to my dog and I’d keep time to her panting tongue.
I always liked to sing but I never wanted to be a singer. That’s the funny part about it. I had to sing or I’d burst.
The only reason I enjoyed going to town is because my Mom might be in a good mood that day and let me listen to the car radio. Back then when I was about eight years old, Johnny Cash was some kind of god to me. The shrine was the radio. I might not get Holy Communion that day but I confessed to my mother anyway. Some days she’d allow me the sacrament, and sometimes she would not. There was no guarantee my god was gonna sing that day though.”
Johnny Cash
Badger Stone was precocious. This literally means “blossoming before the leaves sprout”. His early maturity is a sign he knew which direction he wanted to go in with his life. His first song shows he had a good sense of repeated rhyme and an interest in girls at a very early age.
My First Song
Run it, knee it, nigh it, know
I gotta girl I love so.
Run it, knee it, nigh it, know
gotta girl I’ll never let go.
1952, age 7
Badger began also to figure out early on what that struggle would mean when it became to getting what he wanted, whether it be the use of Dad’s D-28 Martin guitar, which our brother Ronnie cruelly kept from him. Badge dredges up this ugly childhood memory in this excerpt from his song, A Ballad of a Guitar Strumming Portagee.
But I have no vision as you can tell,
And my arms can’t reach all the way to hell;
You may think I am a mystic,
Pulling this off the eternal shelf,
But I would not be writing songs today,
If my brother did not beat me up when I was twelve.
Yeah, he just went down to the whorehouse
With his guitar lesson money,
And instead of guitar lessons,
He bought a little honey.
And then he would come home all filled with sass,
And mighty crass saying teach me
a tune real quick or I’ll stomp your ass.
So although I wrote a thousand tunes by the age of 21,
I owe it all to my brother who played
Russian Roulette with a .44 gun.
Where are you now, Ronnie, when I need you
to help me sing these songs that must be sung.
Oh, he died when he was only 20-years-old.
Now he’s just a memory and a name,
And yet when I was crying all alone
He returned from the dead and said I was not to blame.
So as I was walkin’ down the road,
A thought occurred to me:
I will never be the savior of man,
I’m just a guitar strumming Portagee.
And though I’ll do the best I can,
I’m just a guitar strumming Portagee.
San Francisco, 5.12.81
(cont…)
