The Bard of Marblehead

Beantown dept.

For a lot of reasons, I always like going to Boston.

There’s Fenway. Candlepin bowling. The Boston harbor. Clam chowder.

Mostly, though, I like playing shows in Boston.

First of all, I get to see, and often play with, the guys from Jane’s Great Dane.

Plaut, Monterisi, Big Lou, Cajolet, Garmel, Cooper, Doug….

Jonathan Plaut of “Jane’s Great Dane”

We’ve done a bunch of touring together, and we made a record that came out in 2024, “Starting Over.”

Serio and Cajolet of “Jane’s Great Dane”

I also get to catch up with my pal Steve Almond, who makes a great plate of scrambled eggs and is a marvelous writer, authoring books like “Candyfreak,” “The Evil BB Chow,” “Against Football,” and many others.

Steve Almond

I often get to see Jim Newett, down from Maine, who has not missed running the Boston Marathon for 30 years, including the one where a bomb went off at the finish line. Fortunately, he is fast, and had finished about 20 minutes earlier.

Jim Newett

Boston is also the home of my friend Mike Viola, the great singer/songwriter. I always think of Mike when I’m in Boston.

Mike Viola

Also growing up near Boston, my friend James O’Brien. He lives in NYC now. The last time I went to Boston from NYC he hopped in my van and spun yarns the whole way there.

James O’Brien

One of the great treats of playing in Boston is that I often get to see Leigh Montville.

Montville is a sportswriter who wrote for the Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated, before he began writing books.

Leigh Montville

He writes gloriously about some of the most outsized characters to pass through the American landscape—Evel Knievel, Ted Williams, Muhammad Ali, Manute Bol, Wilt and Russell, among others. He writes in a way you can never stop reading, writes, as they used to say of Raymond Chandler, like a slumming angel.

Evel Knievel

Ted Williams

The opening section of the Evel Knievel book, about Boise, Idaho, is one of the most vivid passages I have ever read.

The first time I met Montville was after a gig in Marblehead, less than an hour north of Boston.

I mistakenly thought Montville lived in Marblehead, so when I wrote a song about him, I called it “The Bard of Marblehead.”

Later I found out he actually lives in Boston. But Montville was most gracious about it.

I hope to get up to Boston again before too long. Maybe finally have that cup of coffee with Leigh Montville.

And catch up with Jim Newett.

And Steve Almond.

And Jane’s Great Dane.

I’m still a little sore about 2018, when the Red Sox beat the Dodgers.

But you can’t have everything.

—

Here’s “The Bard of Marblehead.”

Here’s “Starting Over,” the title track of my record with Jane’s Great Dan