It’s one thing to be a creative quadruple threat (film actor, stage actor, television actor, musician); it’s another thing entirely to excel as a quadruple threat for the better part of 43 years. From multiple Tony nominations—and wins—to starring roles on Fame and Treme, Michael Cerveris may be best known for his versatility as a thespian, but he proves just as formidable behind the mic on his long-awaited sophomore solo album, Piety. His sonic pedigree is unsurprisingly impressive, having shared the stage with the likes of the Breeders, Bob Mould, Teenage Fanclub and Frank Black. Cerveris will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read his MAGNET Feedback.
Cerveris: Legacy is an elusive thing. Some people spend their lives building theirs, others worry about it like crazy. Still others never give it a thought, yet end up with an enduring one. At the end of the day, though, once you’re gone, you don’t have much control over it. And that’s why I like random little museums.
One of the great things about touring is happening across these little gems in small towns and out-of-the-way parts of the country. In a lot of cases, they may have started when someone—usually a fan or acquaintance or family member—decides the things they’ve been collecting have filled all the closets and shelf space they have and need to be gotten out of the house. Or their wife or husband has decided that for them. In other cases, the collector adopts the mantel of curator to preserve and promote their hero’s memory. In any case, unlike a big, Official Museum, these personal collections are as much about the people who make and maintain them as they are about the thing they celebrate. And in the best cases, while they keep semi-regular hours during optimistically determined “tourist seasons,” they also have a phone number you can call in the off season or anytime it looks closed. Two of my favorite visits involved dialing those numbers, and having the owners answer and come around the corner from their homes to open up and show me around.
In the ’80s, I worked for a while at the Indiana Rep Theater in Indianapolis. I somehow heard that there was a James Dean Memorial Museum in a town not far from where his grave was in the corn fields around Fairmount and decided to make a pilgrimage. David Loehr was the collector who had assembled artifacts and memorabilia from around the world for his tribute to the troubled star. Housed in the fancifully named Gas City, among the foreign movie posters, early screenplay drafts and fan art he’d collected, there was an area of artifacts from the actor himself. A pair of his jeans, some accessories, a watch maybe or sunglasses. I couldn’t help thinking how weird Dean would probably find it that in death, his everyday things would take on the status of sacred relics for the faithful. Like if someone went into your bedroom right now and collected those socks you left on the floor last night and mounted them, labeled, under plexiglass with somber track lighting. The museum closed its doors in 2005 and reopened as the James Dean Gallery And Artifacts in the Fairmount Historical Museum. I hope the fanciness of those titles doesn’t mean they’ve lost that Gas City charm …
But my favorite little museum of all was one I just stumbled across on a drive from New York to New Orleans. I was getting tired on the last leg of the drive, and while I could probably have pushed on, I decided to spend the night in Meridian, Miss. While waiting for the motel night desk clerk to wake up and rent me a room, I started looking at that rack of local attractions that is another favorite thing of mine (“Wild Waters Rafting!” “Crazy Town Amusement Park!” “World’s Largest Ball Of Twine!”). And that’s how I found the Jimmie Rodgers Memorial Museum.
I’m embarrassed to admit how little I knew then about the Singing Brakeman, Blue Yodeler, The Father of Country Music. But I didn’t need much more than the brochure with the pictures of his guitar in a safe, the boxcar outside and the collections of his guitars, railroad clothes and furniture to know that this was where I’d spend the better part of the next day before hitting the road again. And so I did, and from the very kind older woman who answered the phone and came over to open up and show me around and tell me stories of Jimmie and Meridian, I learned how much I had to learn about this pivotal figure in American Music and how much the music and musicians I love and treasure trace their roots back to this singular and deservedly revered yodeling railway man. And I started reading and listening to everything I could find about him, and that was really the beginning of my embracing and reconnecting with the music I’d grown up around but largely ignored as a kid in West Virginia. And I put aside my electric guitar for a while and started getting to know my acoustic again.
And maybe that is the real value of these legacies as preserved in these humble temples to personal heroes. That some weary traveler, just looking for a place to rest or kill a little time, might end up stumbling on a door to the past and a new road to travel.
Video after the jump.
