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A Man in Full Singer songwriter Jonathan Edwards makes his home in Maine. s d interview by Colin W. Sargent war Ed an

h t’s a crisp afternoon in the Spurwink lives here. With an Ed Harris intensity to runner who’s just finished a race. He’s section on the Cape Elizabeth coast. his eyes, he welcomes us at the door and about to start one. IWhat invisible hand is conducting us leads us barefoot downstairs to his studio inland from Route 77 and the Spurwink through a maze of photos and awards to You’re from Northern Minnesota. Can you show me Meeting House, only to slow to a stop in a comfortable leather couch. Like a shad- something in this house that proves that? front of an understated sage-green ranch ow, his dog Holly, jumps up beside him. He gets up and returns with a haunting house in broad daylight? Through the windows, in squares of green, black-and-white photo of a young woman in son; inset: courtesy Jonat d Surprise: Jonathan Edwards, the folk are the raised beds of the Victory garden the late 1940s holding a guitar. star who brought us “Sunshine” dur- we’ve heard he prizes out back. First im- This is from Minnesota. It’s a picture of

Diane Hu ing the darkest days of the Vietnam War, pression: He doesn’t look like a marathon my [birth] mom. I was adopted when I was *Mougalian Rug Cleaning provides expert rug cleaning services for area rugs of all types and sizes. S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 5 1 0 1 Interview COASTAL DISCOVERY CRUISES 2- to 2½-hour cruises Puffins/Nature • Lighthouses nine months old. This other snapshot is me. Sunset Puffin/Nature Cruise • Charters It was taken the day I was adopted. It’s the The original cover of my new album, Tomorrow’s Child. MONHEGAN ISLAND MAIL BOAT EXPERIENCE 3 trips daily during summer Edwards, seated on his kiddie seat with 207-372-8848 the furious seriousness of the very young, ex- tends both hands toward the viewer, search- ing. Produced by Darrell Scott and accom- panied by Nashville Vince Gill, Jerry Douglas, Shawn Colvin, and Alison Krauss, Craig Carreno the album is Edwards’s springboard to live WWW . MONHEGANBOAT . COM performances that will zigzag across venues vast and intimate: Stonington Opera House in Maine; Birchmere, in Alexandria, Virgin- ia; Timberline Lodge Amphitheater, in Gov- ernment Camp, Oregon; and One Longfel- low Square in Portland, September 9 and 10.

PORTLANDSTAGE Searching seems to be a motif in Tomorrow’s Child. where great theater lives Yes. Everything I do comes to bear on what I do and what I write.

One of the striking songs on your new CD is “I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground,” written and recorded in 1928 by Bascom Lamar Lunsford. It tunnels into your memory, has North Carolina roots, is gently subversive. Is that what attracted you to it?

I wish I was a mole in the ground Yes, I wish I was a mole in the ground If I’s a mole in the ground I’d root that mountain down And I wish I was a mole in the ground.

This song just spoke to me. Joe Walsh, who lives in Portland, is on the board at One Longfellow Square and teaches at Berklee [College of Music in ], suggested he arrange it and I record it. It’s about heart- break, sadness, and defiance.

When James Taylor’s new album was released this BUY TICKETS: 207.774.0465 summer, it topped the Billboard 200. It was hard not son

www.portlandstage.org | 25A Forest Ave, Portland, Maine to think, they’re looking for a new Tony Bennett. d I enjoy the audiences, period. Sometimes I’ll

look out and say, “I see a lot of old people Diane Hu

1 0 2 p o r t l a n d monthly magazine in the audience.” Then I’ll speak to the new members. “Thanks very much for bringing your parents.” Jonathan’s fiancée, Sandy Owen, says: “This is a good time to mention Jonathan’s album is number one on the folk charts.”

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Edwards: I had to decide I was ready for this. Established 1936 | Family Owned & Operated | 3rd Generation I take better care of myself than I ever did. Fully Licensed & Insured | Master Plumber License 510 There’s going to be a lot of touring this year. 179 Presumpscot St, Portland | (207) 772-2801 A colleague saw you perform in Newport, Rhode Windham | (207) 893-1911 Island, decades ago. Take us there. www.richardpwaltz.com | [email protected] Family Owned & OperatedIt was a littleSince tiny 1936 club twice the size of Now Under 3rd Generationthis room. Ownership It was right across from the Fully Licensed & Insured | Master Plumber License 510 S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 5 1 0 3 foliajewelry.com

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harbor. I totally felt at home there. I met Cheryl Wheeler there. She’s a friend. Also in Newport, I played aboard a ship, the Black Pearl. I was there for a week. That’s where I got sailing in my blood, after I met Barclay Warburton. some bitters? Do you have a boat now? (A quick smile.) I’m not so sure about bitters. No time to dream of doing that. I’m not preaching the horrors, not me.

If there were a cocktail called the Jonathan So you share nothing with the scary Calvinistic Edwards, how would a 21st century mixologist theologian of the same name? shake you up? Some folk, a dash of balladeer, Nothing.

1 0 4 p o r t l a n d monthly magazine Interivew

Dark rum then, for the drink called the Jonathan Edwards? No dark rum. In the late 1970s I used to live in St. Croix, where they serve light rum. I got used to it.

What do you like about playing at Jonathan’s in Ogunquit? Everything about the venue I like. I’ve been Give the gift of 20 years playing there. Jonathan West is a memories with dear friend. a sit.stay.snaps According to urban legend, you almost didn’t get to gift card. record your monster hit single. It was late one night, in the early a.m. We were recording an album, and the sound en- gineer and I were the only ones in the stu- dio. Recording [with magnetic tapes] was very young then. He inadvertently record- ed over one of the songs he’d spent the af- ternoon recording. He looked for it every- where, everywhere. Ironically, the song was called “Please Find Me.” Finally he gave up and said, Do you have something else that’s three minutes long? I said, yeah. A last-min- ute substitution. I recorded it with the bass, [email protected] | 646-715-6223 came back and added the track with my 12-string, then a third track with drums. It was “Sunshine.”

What are your 30 best seconds in show business? I’m standing at the foot of the Washington Monument in 1971, at a huge anti-war rally. It was a rose-colored dawn in the Potomac River Valley. I had just written “Sunshine.” People had just started hearing it. [He waits two beats.] That song was the perfect song to play that morning.

What are your worst 30 seconds in show business? I was opening for Pat Sky at Boston Uni- versity or BC. As I neared the stage, a guy in the audience yelled, You suck. What to do? You do the best you can. At the micro- s (2) d phone I said, Thank you very much. Usu- war

Ed ally they don’t say that until I’ve played an

h three or four songs.

Tell us one time you were forced to play “Sunshine” when you didn’t want to. There’s never been a time. I have always been

son; courtesy Jonat one-hundred-percent grateful. If I had never d had another song, I’d be thrilled to leave this world remembered for that one song.

Sandy Owen hands Edwards a glass of water. WWW.CONCORDCOACHLINES.COM

From top! Diane Hu (This is a good sign, because it means he’s go-

S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 5 1 0 5 Interivew

ing to sing, right here in the basement studio of his home in Cape Elizabeth.) He slings the guitar around his neck and sings it stunningly it like he just wrote it for five people. Better than the first time any- body ever heard it. The day before, he’d sung live on NPR’s World Cafe. Some guys have all the talent.

You know so many fellow musicians. How about Paul McCartney? I haven’t met him, but I want him to hear my version of “She Loves You.” BOSTON THEATER Can we hear it? It seems impossible, to cover that song. The WEEKENDS Mt. Everest of cover challenges. How could he Looking for an inexpensive getaway to Boston that includes possibly make it his own? Then Edwards starts tickets to a blockbuster Broadway road show? The famous singing, and it’s so wistful and lonely the way Show of the Month Club makes it easy! he plays it, it makes your hair stand on end. It’s track number five on his album My Love Will Keep (2011). To hear it, visit https:// Boston Citi Shubert www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9075lmLck8. Opera House Theatre Nov. 7 & 8, December 14 & 15 12 & 13 Where’d you go after you lived in Boston? In 1973, I lived in Nova Scotia, farming $385 $279 pp/do pp/do 680 acres. I lived there for eight years. My daughter Grace was born at the top of a hill in our cabin in 1976. One day, I got a phone DRIVE-YOURSELF WEEKENDS INCLUDE: call. It was Emmylou Harris, calling from ★ Saturday night top-price ★ All taxes L.A., calling me out of this farm. She said, orchestra ticket ★ A $25 Gift Card for What are you doing up there? She asked me ★ Overnight accommodations Maggiano’s Little Italy to sing with her on her Elite Hotel album. at the Revere Hotel in ★ A free one-year Two years ago, I took Grace back to see Boston’s Theatre District membership in Show where she was born. When we pulled in, I ★ Sunday breakfast of the Month Club caught sight of a neighbor behind a team of ★ Hotel parking horses pulling a manure spreader. When he recognized me, he brightened. ‘Jon, get out JUST WANT TICKETS? of that car and spread some manure for me.’ Show of the Month Club reserves the best seats for Boston’s top shows! Here are just a few: As we talk, he and Sandy take us out to show us the garden, and this isn’t a haphaz-

THETHE CHARLES WANG THEATREPLAYHOUSE THEBOSTON CHARLES OPERA PLAYHOUSE HOUSE BOSTON OPERA HOUSE BOSTON OPERA HOUSE The Mikko Nissinen’s ard garden. It is in perfect tune, in raised beds, with fall’s first monarch butterfly floating by: basil, cilantro, parsley, bor-

BOSTON OPERA HOUSE PLAYBILL®.COM PLAYBILL®.COM PLAYBILL®.COM PLAYBILL®.COM PLAYBILL®.COM age, lacinato kale, countless tomato plants, blackberries, and raspberries. Show of the Month Club members receive priority seating, the latest show announcements, ticket discounts and more. What’s musical about a garden? The fertility. The order. The sense it makes to me, across the seasons, months. New England’s Most Trusted Theater Ticket Resource There are ocean views everywhere in Cape Elizabeth. since 1956 You didn’t choose one. Is there a hidden part of you, or do you carry your own shore with you? showofthemonth.com • 617-338-1111, ext. 3 We are very near the beach. We can ride our

bikes there. I can listen here. I listen to the File

1 0 6 p o r t l a n d monthly magazine guy next door get up and go to work.

In your hit “Don’t Cry Blue,” you write, I’ve got to know the feel of every mile. How does this mile feel, out here in Cape Elizabeth, now that it’s been your home? Greater Portland’s Preferred Funeral Homes For five years. I’m feeling it really inti- mately and really well. When we leave, I Committed to providing valuable and personalized tell my neighbors, Please, there’s no way burial, cremation, and prearrangement services. I can pick these vegetables in the garden. 773-6511 • ctcrawford.com Take anything you can, and they watch Tit T 172 State Street, Portland • 1024 Broadway, South Portland for me. A few times a year some friends visit and we play outdoors. Anyone who wants to stops by. Honor Your Family

Balancing global and local, do your neighbors think with a Work of Art of you as the performer or the guy with the garden? With over 93 years experience, our All of that. monuments and markers are affordable, locally designed and carved using only the What are your favorite haunts here? highest quality granite. We like to go to David’s in South Portland, Quality Maine Tony Tirabassi Paul DiMatteo Craftsmanship Memorial Counselor Maine’s only Certified Memorialist and Local 188. I never saw the Bob Marley. But I love Maine’s Bob Marley. Maine Memorial Co. 220 Main Street, South Portland (Route 1) Tell us about your first trip to Maine. Across from Calvary Cemetery, next to Handyman Rental Our band, Headstone Circus [they also Cemetery & Cremation 767-2233 • www.mainememorial.com played under names like St. James Door- Memorials since 1919 Mon.-Fri. 8:30am to 4:00pm • Saturday 8:30am - noon • Evenings & Sundays by appointment knob, and Finite Minds] had a gig at Lor- ing Air Force Base, in way-the-hell northern HURRY IN, LIMITED TIME DARE TO COMPARE OFFER! Maine. At the NCOs club, not the officers club. I was wearing my vest with the stars from the American flag on it. We imagined going up on stage: Who were these hippies? It took forever to drive there the night before. Along the way, a crazy guy (I can say that be- cause he would say it himself) in our band, DARE to Joe Dolce, acquired this rutabaga, the big- COMPARE gest I’ve ever seen. The night got darker and NEW & IMPROVED darker until we saw the giant runway lights Queen Set wincing back and forth in white. Memory Foam (He waves his hands slowly.) Super Pillow Top Shhhh, shhhh. The lights AS LOW AS were frightening, mind- splitting. Joe told us to $ So Comfortable, pull over at the base of You’ll Never Count 999 These Guys Again.™ the lights, with the run- LIMIT 2 PER CUSTOMER way spilling out in front Purchase Serta® of us. He jumped out with his ru- Perfect Sleeper® and tabaga. In our headlights he out walked to- Limited Quantity Start Getting Rewarded! ward the lights, holding the mystical rutaba- PLU S Save $100s on everyday products and ga over his head. Poof. The lights went out, When they are gone, they are gone! services plus up to $100 off your next Serta® mattress purchase*. the sky went black. We looked at each oth- er. Whoaaaaaa.

Okay, why did you really come here? Maine: It doesn’t burn, shake, or fall into the sea. n

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