The Man Behind Sparklehorse.

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: APRIL 27, 1999
Time: 12:00
Tran: 042701np.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Michael Ondaatje
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:06

KEN TUCKER, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Ken Tucker, Critic at Large for "Entertainment Weekly," sitting in for Terry Gross.

My guest Michael Ondaatje is probably best known as the author of the novel "The English Patient," which was made into a rather popular film a few years ago. But Ondaatje has actually published more books of poetry than fiction, and he has a new collection just out called "Handwriting."

Ondaatje was born in 1943 in Ceylon, now called Sri Lanka -- an island at the southern tip of India. One of his books is a non-fiction account of his parent's lives there called, "Running in the Family." When he was 19 he moved to Canada with his mother, where he's lived ever since.

"Newsweek" once described Michael Ondaatje as "looking like a cross between Paul Newman and Zeus." And to continue that metaphor on my own, he writes like a god who's also a hustler; always leading you into one direction while arriving at a different, pleasantly unexpected place.

I asked him to begin by reading the first poem in his new collection, "A Gentleman Compares His Virtue to a Piece of Jade."

MICHAEL ONDAATJE, POET, "HANDWRITING;" NOVELIST, "THE ENGLISH PATIENT":

"The enemy was always identified in art by a lion
And in our book of victories
Wherever you saw a parasol on the battlefield
You could identify the king within a shadow

We begin with myths and later included actual events
There were new professions
(Unintelligible) girls who screamed on prone (ph) farms
To scare birds stilt-walkers tightrope walkers

There was always the untaught hold
By which the master defeated the pupil who charged him
(Unintelligible) carried the weapons of a goddess
Bamboo tubes cut in 17th century Japan

We used as palm holders
We tied bells onto falcons
A salted water gardener in Maimpaly (ph)
The letter "M"

The word "thereby"
Devil wild
Cursive scripts
There was the two dimensional tradition

Solitary spent all their years writing one good book
Frederico Atesio (ph) graced us with breeding the racehorse
In our theaters human beings wondrously became other human beings Bangles from Pulinara (ph).

A nine chambered box from Gompola (ph)
The archaeology of cattle bells
We believed in the intimate life and inner self
A libertine was one who made love before nightfall

Or without darkening the room
Walking the El Hambra (ph) blindfolded
To be conscious of the sound of water
Your hand could feel it coursing down banisters

We aligned our public holidays with the full moon
3 a.m. in temples the hour of washing the guards
The formalization of the vernacular
The Buddah's left foot shifted at the moment of death

That great writer dying called out
For the fictional doctor in his novels
That tightrope walker from Kurnagalar (ph)
The generator shut down by insurgents

Stood there swaying in the darkness above us"

TUCKER: Thank you.

When you write lines like "we tied bells onto falcons," "we aligned our public holidays with the full moon;" who's the "we" in that poem?

ONDAATJE: Well, one of the ways I attempted to write this very informal and personal history of a country where I was born, was to take on a voice of "we" as a populous. As -- not a royal "we," but a human "we" that sort of moves from ancient to modern or ancient to contemporary almost.

So in a way, a poem like that is a kind of history of a culture that's no longer available to a people. So, I mean, it does move from a kind of a more mythical situation to real events.

TUCKER: The poems in this book, more than many of your earlier ones that I've read, deal very specifically with images and ideas of Sri Lanka or this Ceylon that you remember.

ONDAATJE: Mmm-hmm.

TUCKER: Is there reason for this emphasis at this point in writing this book?

ONDAATJE: Well, I think in a way the book I wrote before about Sri Lanka, which was called "Running in the Family." Which was about my family, my father and my mother's generation and my grandparent's generation, was in a way a kind of society that seemed to be very cut off from the rest of the country.

You know, I mean, there were kind of -- if not an elite they were not very conscious politically. And I have been going back to Sri Lanka a lot in the last few years, and one of the few things I wanted to do was write outside the family -- to write about the country and different aspects.

So the tone is definitely very different, and I didn't want to, you know, retreat back and write a "Running in the Family Part Two." So I wanted to write more about a country that's going through a very tragic phase.

TUCKER: In what sense?

ONDAATJE: Well, in the sense that it is -- has been in a state of war for the last -- since about 1983.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm.

ONDAATJE: And, you know, it's a country that's tragically caught up in a racial, political, religious war that seems almost not -- that it cannot solve. That one can't solve these things, but that they -- from a Western point of view we always think we can solve political situations in other countries. And here, it seems to be a kind of torment that one cannot end this war.

TUCKER: You wrote in that memoir, "Running in the Family," that your parents went from being "two of the best known and wealthiest families in Ceylon to my father owning a chicken farm and my mother managing a hotel."

ONDAATJE: Mmm-hmm.

TUCKER: How did that happen?

ONDAATJE: Well, I mean, the problem there was my father was a very serious drinker, again, of mythic proportions -- as I heard. And, I mean, he lost all his money and then as a result of that lost jobs and ended up on a farm that his father had owned.

And so it was a very different kind of world that he ended up in. And my mother, after they divorced, moved to England and got a job in England. So, the family kind of split up at that point.

TUCKER: How old were you at that point?

ONDAATJE: I guess I was about five or six when they broke up.

TUCKER: Uh-huh.

ONDAATJE: And you know, when I was 11 I went to England to go to school, which was a sort of tradition -- a middle class tradition. You know, if you could afford it you sent your kids to school in England, and then they would eventually come back after getting their Oxford blue or Cambridge blue or something like that -- ideally.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm.

ONDAATJE: And I was of the generation that did not come back. I had a brother who did not come back and a sister who did not come back. But I do have another sister in Sri Lanka who still is there. And who I'm obviously very close to.

TUCKER: Did you ever feel after you'd grown and begun a career in Canada that you were a writer in exile?

ONDAATJE: Well, in the sense that I hadn't really dealt with my past in Sri Lanka I suppose I hadn't -- during the time when I for started to write poetry, which was poetry about the landscape I was living in which was Canada at the time, I did feel separate in some ways.

And it took a while for me to be able to write about my own family, and it was about my third or fourth book of prose that I did attempt to write "Running in the Family." But in a way I do keep -- I have gone back to write about Sri Lanka in this last book. And I probably will with other ones as well because it is very much a part of my background.

And in a way, the literature hasn't been spoken as much as, you know, obviously in other countries. I mean, when I was writing "Running in the Family" what was very sad was that there was very little written text that I could find. You know, even to the point where people didn't keep diaries or keep journals.

And the only histories that existed were kind of memoirs by viscounts or something like that who were there when the English were there.

TUCKER: Why would that be?

ONDAATJE: I think that was because, essentially, you know, the energy of story which certainly exists in Sri Lanka is an oral one. You know, and I think -- if I sat down to a meal I could get the most fantastic stories told to me by uncles and aunts and about anything at all.

And these were -- actually in a way "Running in the Family" was an attempt to try and kind of tell those stories in a literary way -- to tell them within a book. And -- but there was never a sense that people could sit down and write a novel. I think that that was quite a new thing in some ways.

TUCKER: So did you begin your career as a poet or did you -- when you professionally began that career were you wanting to be a poet or did you write prose?

ONDAATJE: Oh, I wanted to a poet. In fact, the thing is I never thought of being a writer until I came to Canada. And, you know, I think it would have been -- seem to be presumptuous or something, I'm not quite sure what it was. But when I came to Canada when I was 19 I met other writers of my own age and I began to write.

And what I wrote for the first five or six years was poetry. It wasn't until I wrote a book called "The Collected Works of Billy the Kid" that I started to include prose within that book. And then from then on I have written, I guess, three novels now and the memoir.

TUCKER: "The Collected Works of Billy the Kid" is just wonderful. It's one of my favorite of your books. It's more like a novel in the form of a collection of prose poems to me. And it struck me that your prose is often very poetic and a lot of your poetry has a very prosy conversational tone.

ONDAATJE: Mmm-hmm.

TUCKER: Has this occurred to you?

ONDAATJE: Well, I mean, I suppose I'm conscious of the difference, but I think I like to kind of erase the boundaries between genres; whether it's prose and poetry or prose and imaginary interviews or whatever. I think in a way when I was making "The Collected Works of Billy the Kid" I saw the thing not so much as a book as a huge wall of collage. Or something, you know, like a fresco (ph) where I could kind of repeat stories which started off as poems to see them in terms of prose or a picture or if I could have had sound I would've had sound.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm.

ONDAATJE: You know, in a way it was sort of a frustrated film as well. I wanted to make my Western movie and I couldn't. And so I made it within the form of a book.

TUCKER: It seems as if you're often attracted to figures of popular myth or popular culture, that Billy the Kid -- another of your books "Coming Through Slaughter" was a novel about the jazz musician Buddy Bolden.

What is it about these figures that wouldn't automatically occur, I think, to think that a poet from Sri Lanka would be drawn to such subjects?

ONDAATJE: Well, it's very strange. I mean, when I was a kid in Sri Lanka we all played Cowboys and Indians. I mean, it sounds appallingly bad, you know, taste and absurd politically and socially, but I mean, I'm afraid that existed and it still exists. It's like jeans being the most important thing in European countries, you know.

So, that was, I guess, the start of it. But I think I've always been as a writer interested in history as much as in writing. And the figures of Billy the Kid, the figures of Bolden were interesting to me in the sense that because they existed in reality -- when I began the book I could in fact do research, I could inquire. Curiosity was the most important thing I needed when I was writing a book.

And so I attempted to write about things I didn't know when I began the book, so I would learn those as I went along. So I was learning about the politics of range wars and Billy the Kid or the politics of immigration when I wrote a book called "In the Skin of a Lion."

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm.

ONDAATJE: And I'd always been interested in jazz. So, I mean, jazz was a great passion. As I said before, the person I really wanted to be was Fats Waller all my life. And as I couldn't play the piano and as I couldn't be a Fats Waller, I wanted to write my jazz story, you know. So that's how that began.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm.

ONDAATJE: But I love the act of starting off with an historical moment or historical person and trying to discover that person over a period of three or four years when you're writing a book. To try and catch them, you know, not that you'd ever catch a person historically, but to try and kind of create in fact a portrait of that person by improvisation I suppose.

TUCKER: My guest is Michael Ondaatje. We'll be back after a short break.

This is FRESH AIR.

BREAK

TUCKER: My guest is poet and novelist Michael Ondaatje. He has a new collection of poetry out called "Handwriting."

In the middle of this new book you have a section called "The Nine Sentiments." I want to ask you to read one section from this long poem. But first could you explain what the nine sentiments are?

ONDAATJE: Well, I mean, it's a very abstract term actually, but I think essentially it is a way of in love poetry of rather than writing poems specifically about a person, to talk about aspects of love, to talk about stages of love. I mean, I think if one studied Indian love poetry very carefully every time one talked about a certain location where there was a beach or a forest or a desert or a stoned field; those would signal moments of emotion or kinds of emotion in a love story.

So that there tended to be various stages of a love relationship; from joy and passion to disturbance to unhappiness to some kind of resolution. So, "The Nine Sentiments" is really to try and catch aspects of love at various times.

Maybe I should read one or two of those.

TUCKER: Yes, please. Thank you.

ONDAATJE:

"The pepper (ph) vine shaken and shaken
Like someone in love
Leaf patterns
Saffron and panic seed

On the lower pillows
Where they're (unintelligible)
While she loosened from her hips
The string with three calling bells

Her fearless heart
Light as a barn owl
Against him all night."

Another section.

"An old book on the poisons of madness.
A map of forest monasteries
A chronicle brought across the sea
In Sanskrit (unintelligible)

I hold all these
But you have become a ghost for me
I hold only your shadow
Since those days I drove your nature away

A falcon make him a coward
I hold you the way astronomers
Draw constellations for each other
In the markets of wisdom

Facing shelves on a dark blanket
Saying these are the heavens
Calculating the movement of the great stars

TUCKER: Those are really lovely, very sensuous lyric poems. I noticed that in the acknowledgments to "The Nine Sentiments" you say you quote a line from Van Morrison's song, "Cypress Avenue."

ONDAATJE: Right.

TUCKER: I love that song, but I must admit I wasn't -- I haven't been able to pick out the line.

ONDAATJE: The line is, I think, "conquered on a car seat."

TUCKER: Uh-huh.

ONDAATJE: I don't know which poem that is. I've forgotten which one it is. I think - hang on, I know...

TUCKER: ... I also notice that in your 1984 book of poems called "Secular Love" you refer to another Van Morrison song, "Madame George."

ONDAATJE: Right. Actually, I think, you know, that two or three regular characters are in all my books. One is Fats Waller, one has become Van Morrison -- I know the book I'm working on right now there are some other references to Van Morrison.

TUCKER: Really?

ONDAATJE: Yeah. And I think when Anthony Minghella was making the film of "The English Patient" I said the only person I wanted him to cast is Van Morrison in some small role so I could meet him. And he's as big a fan as I am, in fact more so. But I guess in the excitement of making the film he forgot - I thought he would be a good ambulance driver or something.

TUCKER: Uh-huh. A good grouchy one.

LAUGHTER

Well, since you mentioned "The English Patient," I have to ask you whether the making of that book into what became such a big commercial hit - did it alter your literary life in any kind of significant way? I imagine it must have thrust you into a kind of prominence you hadn't had before.

ONDAATJE: Well, you know, living in Canada it's a bit easier than living in the States, I suspect. You know, but -- I guess what I enjoyed about that process was that I did meet people who worked on the film who I admire a great deal. You know, whether they were actors or the director or, you know, someone like Walter Merch (ph) who was the sound editor who I had always admired as an editor.

And I took this as an event where I was going to learn something, learn about the process of filmmaking and then about editing, which has always interested me.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm.

ONDAATJE: And so that certainly did change my profile, but the important thing I guess was to kind of hide back and work on another book.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm. Well, let's get back to your poetry. I wonder if you could read the short poem that's on page 19 of your book called, "The First Rule of Sinhalese Architecture."

ONDAATJE:

"Never build three doors in a straight line
A devil might rush through them
Deep into your house
Into your life"

TUCKER: Is this a rule you've actually heard or one you made up?

LAUGHTER

ONDAATJE: No, it's one I heard. I mean, I think a lot of this book is in fact made up in the sense it's things I've heard and listened to, and have discovered in my various journeys and visits in Sri Lanka. I mean, whether it's an old myth of how one feeds a sick child or how one, you know, avoids certain fears such as this one.

Or how -- you know, in the first poem I read about a gentleman compares his voyage to a piece of jade, all those images, in fact do come out of events -- most of them are in terms of Sri Lanka.

So if you look at a statue of a Buddha before his death you see that the left foot is not quite next to the right foot. This is -- because that -- his left foot does shift at the moment of death. So small images like this make up larger stories in the poems.

TUCKER: I wonder have you ever written in imitation of other poets you admire or worked in forms that interest you as kind of formal disciplines or exercises -- sonnets or, you know, things like that.

ONDAATJE: No, that's interesting. I haven't -- I guess, I suppose, when I read a poet or a novelist that I'm very fond of I don't read them to learn. You know, I'm sure I'm learning from them, you know, the way one learns from anything good and also learns bad things from something bad.

I do learn from them, but for me it is a kind of unconscious education. You know, so that if I'm read a novel by DiLilo (ph) or someone else I can - it is -- for me the pleasure of the text, the pleasure of being in that world of that novel.

And, you know, I'm sure that the influences are there when I see my (unintelligible) by the writers. But I don't set out to try and write in the pattern of DiLilo or Hemingway or whoever it is.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm.

ONDAATJE: But I might like them. I think that makes me feel that I am wearing a mask, and I think the active writing for me is such a private one and such a one of difficulty and one of almost reconnaissance I'm trying to find something in a dark room. That the last thing on my mind is, perhaps I can find this by putting on the clothes of a writer I admire.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm.

ONDAATJE: So it is a very private thing. But I'm sure those influences are there, you know. And it's not just writers too, it's painters or photographers or, you know, swimmers that would influence a writer, I think.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm. Michael Ondaatje, I'd like to thank you for talking with me today.

ONDAATJE: Thank you.

TUCKER: Michael Ondaatje, his new book of poems is called "Handwriting."

I'm Ken Tucker. This is FRESH AIR.

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Ken Tucker, Washington, D.C.
Guest: Michael Ondaatje
High: Poet and novelist Michael Ondaatje. He won Britain's highest literary prize, the Booker Prize, for his novel set in post World War II, "The English Patient." Ondaatje was born in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, and lives in Canada. He has a new book of poetry, "Handwriting."
Spec: Entertainment; Lifestyle; Culture; Michael Ondaatje

Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 1999 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1999 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Michael Ondaatje

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: APRIL 27, 1999
Time: 12:00
Tran: 042702NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Mark Linkous
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:30

KEN TUCKER, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Ken Tucker.

My guest Mark Linkous is the man behind Sparklehorse, a rock band for which he writes, sings and plays nearly all the music. Since the release of Sparklehorse's 1995 debut called "Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot," Linkous has been hailed for making lushly textured, invitingly elusive rock music.

His new Sparklehorse album called, "Good Morning Spider" has arrived with another layer of interest since a few of its songs refer to a 1996 accidental overdose. Linkous has been out on tour to promote "Good Morning Spider."

Here's a bit from the album called, "Painbirds."

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- MUSICIAN MARK LINKOUS PERFORMING "PAINBIRDS" FROM THE SPARKLEHORSE ALBUM, "GOOD MORNING SPIDER")

God damn it's so very hot
Supposed to come a rain but it's not
Oh yeah
Here come the painbirds

Oh yeah
Here come the (unintelligible)
Spiral down those hateful days
Between our skins and (unintelligible)

TUCKER: That song, "Painbirds," contains a sound that I think is very characteristic of a lot of your songs that includes that sort of electronically distorted version of your voice. I noticed when I went to that Sparklehorse show the other night that your mike stand has two microphones; one that kind of projects your normal singing voice and the other that filters it through some kind of distorting effect.

What do you like about that sound?

MARK LINKOUS, MUSICIAN, SPARKLEHORSE: There's some type of documentary feel to it. I don't really know aurally why I like it so much, but it seems -- it seems to make the proximity of a voice seem a lot closer to your ear. And also that old radio broad -- you know, the Green Hornet sound.

TUCKER: Uh-huh.

LINKOUS: That's just. I mean, I started at first trying to disguise my voice because I didn't like it. But now I've gotten to really just use it as another instrument.

TUCKER: What didn't you like about your voice?

LINKOUS: I don't know, I think just the way lots of people just can't stand to hear themselves on tape.

TUCKER: Uh-huh.

LINKOUS: But I don't use it specifically for sabotage anymore.

TUCKER: No.

LINKOUS: It makes it fit well into the songs sometimes, I think.

TUCKER: Uh-huh. Well, in that -- in this song "Happy Man" that whole - what you were saying about the idea of the radio -- "Happy Man," it's almost like tuning in a radio station. The song kind of fades in and out and you get a lot of static.

Were you going for that kind of effect?

LINKOUS: No, that was mostly just sabotage. I was afraid that song would be used as - tried to be pushed as a single.

TUCKER: Uh-huh.

LINKOUS: And I would much rather something like "Painbirds" be a single.

TUCKER: Uh-huh. As -- you mean by your record company.

LINKOUS: Yeah.

TUCKER: For them to pick that song because it had like an obviously very catchy melody.

LINKOUS: Yeah, and plus I was really tired. It's an old song. That song was recorded before the first album ever came out. Plus, I didn't want to skip over it when I listened to the record, so doing all the radio static meant - honestly made it more interesting for me to listen to.

TUCKER: Uh-huh. I think we should hear a little bit of that song to give an example of what we're talking about.

LINKOUS: OK.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- MUSICIAN MARK LINKOUS PERFORMING "HAPPY MAN" FROM THE SPARKLEHORSE ALBUM, "GOOD MORNING SPIDER")

LYRICS UNINTELLIGIBLE

TUCKER: That's "Happy Man" from "Good Morning Spider."

Let's talk, if you will, about this accident that occurred in 1995 that seems to shape a lot of the content of your new CD. You were touring in England, and could you tell us the story about what happened?

LINKOUS: Well, there's only two songs on the record that really have anything to do with that.

TUCKER: Yeah.

LINKOUS: That's "Saint Mary" and "Pig."

TUCKER: Uh-huh.

LINKOUS: But I just -- I had a big bottle of Valium and I apparently had been taking them real heavy on top of prescription antidepressants and stuff. So I just passed out in a hotel room in London with my legs up under me.

So when they -- I went to the hospital and when they straightened them out it gave me a heart attack, and just a chain reaction of things shutting down in my body. So I ended up being in a London hospital for three months.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm. I read somewhere that you were like clinically dead for three minutes.

LINKOUS: Yeah, I think so.

TUCKER: Yeah.

LINKOUS: I don't remember a thing.

TUCKER: You don't?

LINKOUS: Uh-huh.

TUCKER: Yeah. And so what was it like once you came to and realized this had happened to you and you'd lost the use of your legs?

LINKOUS: Well, it was -- I didn't really understand what had happened for a long time. Until -- I guess I started recognizing people around me. But I thought I had it coming for a long time.

TUCKER: Really?

LINKOUS: Yeah.

TUCKER: In what way?

LINKOUS: Just messing up.

TUCKER: Yeah.

LINKOUS: Just being a -- yeah.

TUCKER: Messing up in what way -- in what sense?

LINKOUS: Just doing too much of everything -- over indulging.

TUCKER: Yeah.

LINKOUS: Things.

TUCKER: Yeah. So, it was like a warning sign?

LINKOUS: Yeah.

TUCKER: Yeah.

LINKOUS: Yeah.

TUCKER: Did you take it at as this warning that you better straighten up?

LINKOUS: Well, I took it as -- it was inspirational in a way because so many people came to see me and wrote me cards and letters. People who had the first record and how it affected them so much in a really good way.

TUCKER: Yeah.

LINKOUS: And that sort of inspired me to get better and make more records.

TUCKER: What was your rehabilitation like?

LINKOUS: I didn't really do a whole lot of it.

TUCKER: Yeah.

LINKOUS: It just involved learning how to walk again, really.

TUCKER: Mmm-hmm. And do you have complete use of your legs now at this point? Do you have to...

LINKOUS: ... yeah, I just have to wear braces on my legs.

TUCKER: Really?

LINKOUS: Yeah.

TUCKER: Yeah. And will you have to wear those braces for a long time?

LINKOUS: Yeah, forever.

TUCKER: Really?

LINKOUS: Yeah.

TUCKER: Yeah. But otherwise your health is good.

LINKOUS: Yeah, I think so.

TUCKER: Yeah, well, that's good. Well, let's play one of those songs that came out of that experience. I think I'd like to hear some of "Pig."

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- MUSICIAN MARK LINKOUS PERFORMING "PIG" FROM THE SPARKLEHORSE ALBUM, "GOOD MORNING SPIDER")

LYRICS UNINTELLIGIBLE

TUCKER: That's Mark Linkous, Sparklehorse on "Good Morning Spider."

That's obviously a much harsher kind of more explosively emotional piece a work than is on a lot of the rest of this CD. I hate to use that overused word "cathartic," but were you working out some kind of hard emotions that you had in the wake of that accident?

LINKOUS: Yeah, I think that was just wanting -- screaming at my body. My wanting my old body back.

TUCKER: Yeah. My guest is Mark Linkous, leader of the rock band Sparklehorse. Let's take a short break.

This is FRESH AIR.

BREAK

TUCKER: We're back with Mark Linkous, the man behind Sparklehorse.

I've read that you live on a farm in Virginia.

LINKOUS: Yeah.

TUCKER: Is that where you grew up?

LINKOUS: No, I grew up all over Virginia. Now I live -- I returned to Virginia after living in New York and Los Angeles.

TUCKER: Uh-huh. What did your parents do?

LINKOUS: My father was a coal miner. His father was a coal miner. My mom just worked in a factory.

TUCKER: Uh-huh. So, when you were growing up did you expect to become a coal miner if your father and grandfather had been?

LINKOUS: Yeah, I would have been.

TUCKER: You would have been?

LINKOUS: Yeah.

TUCKER: And when did you decide you didn't want to do that?

LINKOUS: I saw Johnny Cash on television when I was a kid.

TUCKER: Yeah?

LINKOUS: Yeah.

TUCKER: Can you remember that moment?

LINKOUS: Yeah.

TUCKER: Was it like the old Johnny Cash show?

LINKOUS: Yeah, he would swing around and say, "hi, I'm Johnny Cash."

TUCKER: Right. Yeah, at the beginning of it. That was great.

LINKOUS: Yeah, that's what I wanted to do.

TUCKER: And that was a great show because it had so many different kinds of people on it. It was like the first show where it was a country show, but he would have Bob Dylan on and lots of rock and rollers.

LINKOUS: Yeah, it was great.

TUCKER: Yeah. So that's when you decided this maybe was your ticket out?

LINKOUS: Yeah.

TUCKER: Yeah.

LINKOUS: Plus seeing "Thunder Road."

TUCKER: Uh-huh.

LINKOUS: Seeing Robert Mitchum flick his cigarette in a cop's eye and the cop crashes into a tree and the car blows up. That was really inspirational too.

LAUGHTER

TUCKER: Uh-huh. Johnny Cash and Robert Mitchum, you can't do better with inspirations like that, I think. Between the time when you decided you wanted to be a musician and you actually launched this career, did you hold down any jobs of any kind before?

LINKOUS: Oh, yeah.

TUCKER: Yeah. What sort of work did you do?

LINKOUS: House painting, dishwashing, chimney sweeper; tried to be a coal miner for a few minutes.

TUCKER: Did you?

LINKOUS: Yeah.

TUCKER: Didn't like any of them?

LINKOUS: I was miserable.

TUCKER: No. Did your father like his job? I don't know any coal miner - I've never read or heard of anybody who really enjoyed that work.

LINKOUS: I don't know. My father and my grandfather had a real -- they had a real strong work ethic, which I never really understood. Maybe that's why I became a musician in the first place -- just lazy.

TUCKER: I think a lot of times artists come out of that. You know, you sort of react against your parent, you look at it and you want to do something completely different.

Looking back, do think that was it?

LINKOUS: No, I don't know. I mean, I know when I was growing up down in the mountains all I wanted to do was escape.

TUCKER: Uh-huh.

LINKOUS: But I don't think I chose music as a rebellion or anything.

TUCKER: Did your parents support what you wanted to do? Did they think it was OK to pursue that?

LINKOUS: Yeah. Although they've never understood it, really.

TUCKER: No. Do they understand it now?

LINKOUS: Now that they get postcards from around the world they sort of understand it.

TUCKER: Yeah. Have they ever come to any of your shows?

LINKOUS: Yeah. They still don't understand it.

LAUGHTER

TUCKER: Even after seeing it and hearing it. What kind of comments -- does your father have any?

LINKOUS: Yeah, he said, "well, I love you."

LAUGHTER

TUCKER: "Whatever the heck you're doing, I love you." That's great. For someone who likes to work alone, do you get satisfaction from performing live? Du you like performing with other musicians in front of audiences?

LINKOUS: Certain audiences, yeah. And certain musicians. When they really appreciate the slow songs. When you can get 500, 200, 2000 people to be totally silent.

TUCKER: Why is that important to you?

LINKOUS: Just because I think that they're captivated and they understand it. And they totally get it. And it's not just like a social situation where everyone's going out to drink and talk and socialize. They're really there to listen to what's going on.

TUCKER: Do you find it's almost kind of easy if you rev up the volume and that to get a crowd reaction, and then -- so that it means more to you when you have a quiet song that they respond to?

LINKOUS: Yeah, it is easier to just be loud. I think it's a lot more punk rock to play quiet and pretty these days.

TUCKER: Really?

LINKOUS: I think so.

TUCKER: Yeah, that's an interesting idea. Are you writing more new songs at this point?

LINKOUS: Not lately. I've just been so busy lately.

TUCKER: Because you've been on tour.

LINKOUS: Yeah, for a while. So, hopefully I'll have a little time off and can write a little bit.

TUCKER: Yeah. Are you ever able to write on the road? Do songs come to you like images or melodies in snatches that you try and record in some ways so that when you get back home you can...

LINKOUS: ... yeah, I do. Yeah, I just keep a little tape recorder and try to document whatever ideas I have and then get home and sit through them.

TUCKER: Are there things that just, say, within the past few days that happened to you that, you know, might pop-up at some point in a song? Because it sounds to me like images come to you -- the songs aren't necessarily linear lyrics and yet there are things you're thinking about ruminating on.

LINKOUS: Well, the sidewalk outside. The way you think of bricks and concrete being so sturdy -- they're just torn up all over the place. There is little places on the crosswalks where the bricks have just sank, you know. And I was fascinated with this dog the other day at one of the clubs. He would throw this all day and he'd chase it and bring back to you.

TUCKER: The bottle cap?

LINKOUS: Tireless.

TUCKER: Really?

LINKOUS: Yeah.

TUCKER: It was just some dog that was...

LINKOUS: ... just hanging out. I think he belonged to the soundman.

TUCKER: Uh-huh. I didn't know whether you allowed dog's into the concerts.

LINKOUS: Oh, yeah. We encourage animals.

TUCKER: Do you? Have you ever had any animals present in concerts that have helped?

LINKOUS: No, I wanted to get a little billy goat for the tour bus but the tour manager wouldn't let me. We ate at a Denny's in Oklahoma, and sure enough there was a trailer full of billy goats -- an unsecured trailer of pygmy -- pygmy goats.

TUCKER: Outside the Denny's, we should make clear. Not on the menu or near the kitchen.

LINKOUS: Right. In the parking lot.

TUCKER: Do you like billy goats?

LINKOUS: Not really. I just thought it would brighten things up on the tour bus a little bit.

TUCKER: Uh-huh.

Mark Linkous, leader of the band Sparklehorse.

This is FRESH AIR.

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Ken Tucker, Washington, D.C.
Guest: Mark Linkous
High: Mark Linkous of the rock band Sparklehorse. He writes, sings and plays nearly all the music. They debuted in 1995 with the album, "Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot." Their latest release is "Good Morning Spider."
Spec: Entertainment; Music Industry; Lifestyle; Culture; Sparklehorse; Mark Linkous

Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 1999 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1999 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Mark Linkous

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: APRIL 27, 1999
Time: 12:00
Tran: 042703NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Kevin Whitehead
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:50

KEN TUCKER, HOST: One of the great cliches about Duke Ellington's music is that he always wrote for individual soloists. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead says that's more or less true, but that more often he wrote from what his soloists improvised rather than for them.

Kevin says when you understand the relationship between Ellington and his soloists you'll know why the world celebrates his genius, not to mention his 100th birthday.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- "THE MOOCHE," COMPOSED BY DUKE ELLINGTON)

KEVIN WHITEHEAD, JAZZ CRITIC: "The Mooche," Duke Ellington and the orchestra in 1928 with Bubber Miley on trumpet. Miley wasn't the first to use a toilet plunger as a wah-wah mute, but he combined it with a small second mute tucked inside the horn for an even more extreme sound.

Duke's trombonist Joe Nanton soon picked up on it. So did Ellington the composer, who began writing such growls into his pieces. As often with Duke, a soloist's inspiration dovetailed with his own concept. Miley's talking trumpet is stylized blues singing the way "The Mooche" is a stylized blues tune.

Ever after, Ellington kept an ear out for some quark of phrasing, a pet lick or a pet trick he could grab from some band member and then throw back at them as an element of a composition. The searing tone and slithery motion of alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges defined the Ellington sound as much as wah-wah brass did.

This is "Junior Hop," from 1940, where Ellington the composer bends blues form much the way Hodges bends the notes of the melody.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- "JUNIOR HOP," COMPOSED BY DUKE ELLINGTON)

WHITEHEAD: It's not that Ellington lacked his own ideas, but for him the well-balanced jazz orchestra needs distinctive solo voices as well as a composer's grasp of form. But once a player's style really entered the bands sound it stayed even after the originator moved on.

When Bubber Miley left in 1929, very early, his sound was already entrenched. And his replacement, Cootie Williams, was expected to replicate it. If the understudy then developed the technique further, as Williams did, Ellington capitalized on that too.

This is "Concerto for Cootie," 1940.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- "CONCERTO FOR COOTIE," COMPOSED BY DUKE ELLINGTON)

WHITEHEAD: By the 1940's, Ellington's band sound had been shaped by about a dozen players who were never all in the band at the same time. They also include, Rex Stewart, Cat Anderson, Juan Tizal (ph) and Lawrence Brown on brass; Barney Bigard, Ben Webster and Harry Carney on reeds; and Jimmy Blanton on bass.

By 1960, saxophonist Paul Gonzalves (ph) and clarinetist Jimmy Hamilton had joined the list. In a way, the sound of each of these soloists became part of the orchestra's DNA. All the ancestors were in the mature sound.

In the same way Ellington's featured numbers might reflect his development as a pianist. "Dancers in Love," with bassist Junior Ragland (ph) carries echoes of childhood finger exercises, hot 1920s stride piano and the endless repetitions of dance rehearsals.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- "DANCERS IN LOVE," COMPOSED BY DUKE ELLINGTON)

WHITEHEAD: Because Ellington's music is a collective portrait of the people who played it, it's a model to other leaders of how a working band can develop it's own unique sound; assuming that band has some original stylist to begin with. To me, those who try to mimic the Ellington sound instead of using his method to find their own style really miss the point.

It's like their carrying around pictures of somebody else's family in their wallet.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- "BOY MEETS HORN," COMPOSED BY DUKE ELLINGTON)

WHITEHEAD: Rex Stewart on coronet, doing his typical knee bends on "Boy Meets Horn." In recent years Ellington has been accused of ripping off the soloists who inspired him and also his frequent arranger and collaborator Billy Strayhorn.

It is true Duke might have shared composer credits more readily. On the other hand, he often acknowledged the contributions of his colleagues and produced a number of small group records for the key soloists under their own name. And Strayhorn's "Take The A Train" was Duke's theme song for over 30 years.

In any collaborative art, from painting renaissance chapels to making movies, the person in charge usually gets the credit and there's a good reason for that. The person in charge creates the conditions under which inspired ideas can come forth.

TUCKER: Kevin Whitehead is the author of "New Dutch Swing." We'll conclude our celebration of the centennial of Duke Ellington's birth on Thursday when we talk with Gary Giddons (ph), author of "Visions of Jazz: The First Century."

For Terry Gross, I'm Ken Tucker.

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Ken Tucker, Washington, D.C.
Guest: Kevin Whitehead
High: Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead continues his look at Duke Ellington.
Spec: Entertainment; Music Industry; Lifestyle; Culture; Duke Ellington; Kevin Whitehead

Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 1999 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1999 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Kevin Whitead
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.