Dr. D Investigates Dept. - The Case Of The Purloined Songbook

Four Or Five Guy© Dr. D dropped this into the comments section hoping it wouldn't be pulled. How wrong he was.

Part I: Nottingham

The Maze in Nottingham was the small back room of The Forest Tavern on Mansfield Road. The sort of place which is invariably described as ‘intimate’ and ‘authentic.’ Capacity was a little over a hundred, a third of whom could sit. The rest of us just lined the walls and massed in front of the bar, hoping that no tall bugger was going to block the view of the band on the small riser not 15 feet away. Through the rear door was a small courtyard, toilets off to one side and, opposite, another door with steep stairs behind leading up to a tiny space that performed the function of a dressing room.

Beyond the courtyard, through large double doors you were back out into the cold Nottingham night air and on Peel Street, where the women who work late would look at you quizzically before their attention was drawn to a slow-moving car, window down and the shadowy figure within.

The Forest, and with it The Maze, has, seemingly like much of the inner city, since fallen prey to the endlessly rapacious appetite for student accommodation. But prior to its repurposing it was by far the city venue that I would most often frequent to see live music.

And the reason for that was simple – my friend Jim would indulge his love of what’s variously called Americana, Alt. Country, No Depression, Roots-Rock or whatever nebulous term doing the rounds this week is, and book visiting American bands. With only a hundred or so tickets available margins were, to put it mildly, tight. Most times Jim would end up subsidising the show but every so often he’d sell enough to make up those outlays and more. And I like to think I helped to minimise Jim’s subs. But the truth is I was treated to many more memorable shows than not – Chuck Prophet would have been one of Jim’s decent pay-dates; the place was rammed, heaving and the condensation ran down the walls. Sally Timms, Kelly Hogan and The Waco Bros put on what seemed more of a revue than a gig. It didn’t seem to want to stop. Jim used to save money by putting up the acts at his home when he could but that night, due to the numbers, The Waco Bros slept on my floor. They seemed so intimidating on stage, so charming eating breakfast off their knees in my living room the next morning. Chris Mills in front of 20, Curtis Eller with even fewer, Peter Bruntnell with a very young James Walbourne in the band, Bap Kennedy, Chip Taylor with Carrie Rodriguez, Bob Cheevers, The Guthries, Andrew Bird, Hawksley Workman, Gene Parsons, Dan Bern, The Coal Porters… 

But I’m going to tell you about Ryan Adams.

Back, way back before he was persona non-grata, back even before he was famous – at least over here. Back to November 2000, a year after Whiskeytown had folded and his first solo album, Heartbreaker, had been released just a couple of months earlier. He’d come to Europe to promote the album and his first stop was Nottingham [not a big college town - Ed.]. The Maze was pretty much full, and expectations were high amongst a crowd who held Stranger’s Almanac and Heartbreaker in high regard. Listening back to the tape now it’s clear though that Adams was a bit nervous, he didn’t really settle into the set but gave a professional, if somewhat hesitant, performance. In my view, always the professional; Ryan Adams’ shambolic personae is more a tribute to his hero Keith Richards than it is an accurate reflection of his personality. Ryan Adams has always hungered after fame and was adept at manipulating his image and charisma and dangerous charm to this end. Welded to his undoubted talent he didn’t really have to go looking for fame, it came searching for him. And so it was on this November evening back in 2000, despite this strange uncertainty and diffidence he won over the room filled with people willing him to succeed and to be there at the beginning of something.

And at some point in the evening, in the sweet, sweaty fug of cigarette smoke and spirits, of beery breath and craning necks, someone stepped out into the courtyard, slipped up those steep stairs [see first para for set-up - Ed.] and stole Ryan Adams’ song book.  

Part II: Leicester

So there are lots of pubs like The Forest Taven, lots of back rooms like The Maze, up and down the UK, which provide a decent circuit for these exotic tourers. Nottingham, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds… but the next night, Ryan Adams’ second solo gig outside of The States, was going to be in Leicester. It’s only 20 miles away and I could get Jim to get me a ticket seeing as though he knew the promoter down there.

Leicester, like a great many provincial cities in the UK has been gifted by the combined efforts of the Luftwaffe and the City Planning Dept. with a nightmarish one-way system of ring roads and dual carriageways, flyovers and underpasses none of which are adequately signed. Consequently, I arrived at The Musician just as Adams was walking out on to the stage.

And he was pissed off.

He opens the show with Dear Thief, a song he wrote that day (not just before the show as he claimed but earlier that afternoon at Jim’s house) about the theft of his Songbook. His abilities as a songwriter are obvious, and perhaps surprisingly the lyric suggests a degree of self-awareness that seems to have deserted him over the subsequent years.

But whether this act of catharsis energised him or if was the day spent relaxing with Jim’s wife and young daughter – listen to his intro to My Winding Wheel (5 years later Beth was a bridesmaid at my wedding) – or whether it was not travelling or perhaps he was simply more up for it on this particular night, but gone is the nervousness and uncertainty of Nottingham. This night he really connects and gives an outstanding performance of much of the Heartbreaker album, but also newer songs not yet then recorded and even stretches back to his Whiskeytown material.

He finished the show with a second and markedly more polished outing of Dear Thief. As far as I’m aware the song was played one more time in Sheffield the following evening and that was it. Never heard again. I suppose if you’re a prolific a songwriter as Adams is there are a great many songs that get taken up, tried out only to be cast by the wayside.

The two shows are both presented here for you – they are to my knowledge unavailable anywhere on the internet other than the first performance of Dear Thief which was posted to YouTube a decade ago by someone. These are taken from the soundboard and other than some minor snipping here and there to excise mumbled and muffled comments, longueurs and tuning they are unexpurgated.

Finally, I can confirm Adams did get his Songbook back. Jim had a fair idea who took it, and the individual didn’t need much persuading to return it. It’s true that some people are so desperate to be there at the start of something big that they’ll do something quite out of character to somehow be a part of it themselves.

And no, if you’re wondering, it wasn’t me.

Dr. D is the pseudonym of a veteran character actor seen in UK TV shows Jerry's Shed, The Pringle Years, and Ooh Missus! (with Thora Hird), before moving to Hollywood for cult movies Rogue Pastor II, Siamese Twincest, and Electronic Jet Robot Patrol (with David Hasselhoff).