Jonny fascinated me from the first time I saw him lilting into the Daily Caffé in New Haven, hair down to his waist, grey back pack, black Sambas. He often had a guitar case that he laid carefully at his feet. He was a waif with sad eyes and a slow, warm smile.
When Jon walked into the room, my brain was ignited creatively. His very presence made me dream. I was sixteen and writing awful poetry, but I had to. He had no idea that I used to stop in the Daily regularly to see if he was in the window with some beat up, borrowed book and a cup of tea. He rarely was, but I checked often.
I was in love with Jon's brother by default, but I was fascinated by him. Even though we were nearly the same age, he seemed so much wiser. I was drawn to his calm and quiet way. Unassuming. Gentle. And when he played guitar he looked like he was making love.
"I was talking to Jon the other day," Victoria said. Surprised, I asked, "He speaks?"
I was bashful and neurotic in his presence, so I just depended on his brother, the stagewarmer, the dancing all-eyes-on-me center of attention, to break the ice. They performed a few times a week with their band, or the two of them would play acoustic at Bar on Crown Street.
Jon was always wandering -- running around the city, roaming and looking about like each block surprised him. He'd go down to Bineke, the Yale library, and play guitar at the foot of the building where the acoustics were echoing and exaggerated. Sometimes I'd hear him from down the street and go sit quietly and just listen.
Jon didn't have an address for years. He was homeless, but he had a sterling silver guitar. Some mornings I'd go into Dakota J's where he worked making muffins, wondering if he'd even been to bed.
The true magic is in his music. It is spiraling and rollicking and uplifting, simultaneously sad and tender. It was hard to watch Mighty Purple evolve into a successful band, and feel like he was being overshadowed by his more aggressive, ego-driven brother. I don't know if Jon ever felt that way, or if that was my own desire to protect him. To be his cheerleader. I always felt he had some kind of musicianship that those around him lacked.
So today I got Jon's first solo CD. I've been waiting for this project of his to be released forever. It's called The Sound of Birds. I sat immediately and listened to it. I am fully blown away. The album is brilliant and churning. It's full of movement and frustration and elation. It sounds like Jon, but he has grown so much musically over the past few years. And then I stop and say, how long has it been? Ten years since I first heard him play. But listening to the CD instantly takes me back to so many moments that warm my heart.
I remember Jon setting up in an empty room for three months where he built a house of cards seven feet tall, each card hand-painted and covered in poetry. I remember when we went to see R.E.M. in Albany, and he found the grand piano in the lobby of the Omni Hotel and played all night. I remember the Naked Lady mannequin he made out of foam rubber and duct tape. She sat on the piano at the practice space for a long time until I kidnapped her, dressed her in my cap and gown, and propped her up in all my graduation party pictures. I remember the copy of a copy of a copy of a four-track recording that we passed around that Jon recorded one night in the practice space of his own material -- the first time I heard his voice really emerge on its own. The tape featured a 10 minute story about meeting a girl with a nervous tick who didn't talk to him for two days and when she finally did, she said, "You've got one hell of a fanny!"
My favorite Jon song was "I Adore You." He wrote it about a girl he met on tour and fell in love with. It was a fan favorite, and started, "Jenny I have to leave, and they will not understand..." One night Mighty Purple was up from New Haven playing this dive bar in Roxbury. Jon was glowing as he introduced this girl to Victoria and me. "This is Jenny." And we were both like, "Jenny-I-have-to-leave-Jenny?" He nodded. We were in awe. It was like meeting a celebrity. We loved her for him.
He wrote an album commentary on the CDbaby order page, which made me smile upon reading it. His views and musical processes are truly unique. The idea of creating a song through exploration of the moment, recording it, and never playing it again because perfectly represented the moment itself...
I wish I could crawl inside his head for just an afternoon.
It's amazing to me to have the opportunity to watch an artist I admire evolve and grow -- grow to the point where if I heard this CD somewhere else, it would still fill me with ache and I'd still have to buy two copies of it, one to listen to and one to lend out. Even if I hadn't been inspired by him for so long.
Honest and painful writing is like laundering. It cleanses through its difficult process, shows hidden feelings, and brings much dirt to light. But to leave it there would be a crime against ourselves. It is what we do with that information that will either leave us moving forward in baby steps, or mired -- as so many of us are -- and as I so strongly felt that night.
~Jon Rodgers, from the liner notes of The Sound of Birds
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