Live and Local: Marshall Stone

A lifetime ago, I used to work night shift.

I would work from 8 to 8, 12 hour shift, 4 days a week. Wasn’t a bad gig for a young guy. Some built in overtime, lots of quiet hours where I was able to teach myself how to program computers, etc. Back then, if you could code, it was like having an automatic selection of jobs. This was when the internet was just starting to take shape as a concept. Same was true of me, I suppose.  

I’ve never been a good sleeper in the best of circumstances and getting home from work at 9am or so and going right to bed…well, that wasn’t a recipe for success.  Luckily, my grandfather knew everyone, and one of the people that he knew owned a pool hall, called Arne’s place. Arne didn’t open his place till around noon, but he had no life other than running a pool hall, and an astoundingly deep knowledge of fresh water aquariums and their plants.

So, he was always at the pool hall around 830 in the morning, when I would roll through on my commute home. The deal was I’d bring him some dunkin donuts coffee, maybe a donut or a bun, and he’d let me in to shoot pool and talk aquariums for an hour or two,  before I went home to bed.

In the couple of years that went on, I got to be a good enough computer programmer that its kept me fed my whole adult life, and I’ve never once lost my job. And, while my pool playing is certainly rusty now, I got pretty good at that as well.

Because you get good at things in one of three ways. You love it more than anything and you make just doing it the framing of your day, until it becomes part of you…like art, or music, or I suppose for some people, computer programming. Or you go to some lengths to learn about it, take lessons, and practice diligently and you have it as a competency, like learning to cook or garden or fix cars. Finally, maybe you just do it a lot because of a series of accidental circumstances at some point in your life, and you wake up one morning, and you’re better than most, just from putting in the time.

If you’re lucky and smart and have lived a good life, at my age you should have a list with items like all three of those on it. It’s the kind of shit they say about you if you have a byline in a newspaper. “Tom is a local writer, who’s interests include competent cooking, a working knowledge of the English language, and a strange capacity for recalling song lyrics. He lives with a spoiled hound, two ungrateful cats, and a tortoise bent on world domination.”   

Hmm.. I guess I better not die too soon. If that’s my byline, my obituary is definitely going to need some botox.

When it comes to Music, Marshall Stone (much younger than me, and embarrassingly more accomplished), probably came to his musical skill employing all three of the elements above. He clearly loves it, his technical ability with a guitar and also with his vocals implies to me that he’s had some experts weigh in (though I don’t know that; he could be his own product as well), and I have no doubt he’s burned some clock engaging with music both listening AND playing, because his own knowledge is encyclopedic.

I first came to know about him at Rob Leib’s legendary Open Mic (every Wednesday, 6 – 9, at Ploughman Taproom… ask for the Yardbird if you go).  I was struck by his incredible vocal range first. He played a Creedence song and sounded like Fogerty… and by that, I don’t mean he was doing a Fogerty impression… I just mean he was obviously so familiar with the material and had such a range that he sang it in the pitch and style of Fogerty in an almost uncanny way. You didn’t close your eyes and think you were listening to a recording of John singing it… you just heard someone who heard the song a thousand times, loved it, and had the capacity to frame his voice exactly as the song required.

He did the same things with a Johnny Cash song after that…his voice dropping, sonorous but clear…and in this song, I also noticed the detail and cleanliness of his guitar playing, with embellishments, while singing so amazingly and loyal to the material he was covering. Finally, he played “Going to Jackson”, and, I shit you not, he did both the male and female parts of that duet himself and this time, if you closed your eyes a guarantee you would have thought someone came up and sang along with him.  Amazing.

Since then, I’ve seen him a time or  two more at open mic, and then he did a gentle Thursday gig a couple weeks ago. In this set, I got to hear him do some originals…his voice is clear and incredibly strong and distinct, and his playing (he was using a 12 string that night) is clear and clean and his embellishments are all over the map. Tremendous capacity of mind to be able to sing with the plasticity of tone that he does AND also do so much more on his instrument than just working the chords of the rhythm.

In the second half of his set, Ben Wenk style, he just opened up to requests, and his capacious range (which seems to be the theme, whether I’m talking about his musicianship, his vocal scope, or his musical catalog) was amazing. No one stumped him. I, of course, hit him up with Harry Chapin, which he seemed pleased to do, and had the intro riff to Cats in the Cradle right in his front pocket ready to go… it was a wonderful cover.

I imagine Marshall must play almost daily, and has been doing it for a while, based on how honed his skills are, the diversity and refinement of his originals, and the sheer volume of songs he has on tap for requests.

I hope he keeps showing up at open Mic, and that he does some more gigging in town. I recommend you check him out when you get a chance. Try to stump him with a request. I suggest you ask for something form Caroline’s Spine… it’s obscure enough to be fun, but I think it’s in his wheelhouse for a time period.

Meanwhile, I’m going to continue trying to get good enough at something to have it carved on a stone when the time comes. I do make a kickin’ focaccia…hey, you gotta start somewhere.