JUNE 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM INDIE SCENE Danny Clinch GARLAND JEFFREYS After an inspirational break to raise his daughter, it’s time to get wild again

GARLAND JEFFREYS IS A NEW YORK Jeffreys has seen his share of that period of time, it wouldn’t necessarily City man through and through. Born in struggles. Stardom seemed imminent when be disastrous, but it wouldn’t be what I Brooklyn, he fi rst made his name on the his self-titled 1973 album earned critical would expect to give to my kid. I was there, city’s thriving folk scene in the mid-1960s. buzz and a contemporaneous single, “Wild and she benefi ted from it.” He fell in with fellow Syracuse University in the Streets,” became a radio hit. But as Now teenage Savannah Jeffreys is student Lou Reed, and before long found the ’70s turned into the ’80s and he was writing and singing songs of her own, and himself in the studio playing guitar on shuffl ed from one major label to another, her father is back in business. “It’s been Vintage Violence, the 1969 debut solo the expected commercial breakthrough centuries,” he jokes. “But making this new album by Reed’s Velvet Underground never materialized. “There have been album was just a heavenly experience.” Most bandmate John Cale (and contributing a disappointments,” he concedes. “Record of The King of In Between was recorded song, “Fairweather Friend”). After making companies aren’t concerned with what’s live, complete with the vocals, with only an album with his Woodstock-based band thoughtful or artful. They don’t think in minimal overdubs added. In addition to his Grinder’s Switch, he kicked off a solo terms of quality.” beloved New York City and other subjects, career that found him returning often to the Frustrated with his lack of traction, the album fi nds Jeffreys pondering a topic Big Apple for inspiration. Jeffreys didn’t release new music for nearly fairly new to his songwriting: mortality. “It’s Now 67, Jeffreys is still seeing the nine years. Upon his 1992 return with not that I was suddenly looking for it,” he world through a New Yorker’s lens on his Don’t Call Me Buckwheat, he discovered says. “It’s simply a fact. If I was still 50 I latest, The King of In Between. “Everybody that “Wild in the Streets” had become probably wouldn’t be that focused on it.” needs a handle, and I think that’s defi nitely something of an anthem for the burgeoning Given his prior experiences with record been the case with my songs to a degree,” skateboarding community. After a few years labels, it should come as no surprise that he says. “But it’s not as simple as that. of increased visibility, he disappeared yet Jeffreys has chosen to release his newest New York is only a metaphor—the content again—this time for a very different reason. effort independently. “I’m making decisions reverberates way beyond New York. “It had to do with my daughter being born,” now without interference,” he says. “There It’s about what’s going on in this Jeffreys says. “I never had a child before, was no screening for the record company. country, people suffering, the diffi culty of and wanted to be around for her. I learned We’re putting the creativity out directly.” making a living.” how to be a parent. If I didn’t stay home for –Lee Zimmerman

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