Then I was addressed again. “I will gladly take a sidecar on some future occasion if I may sir.” He then turned to the waiter. “Stanley, would you please arrange for said libation to be made available to me tomorrow at the usual time?”
There was a slight smile and an accompanying bow. “It would be my pleasure, Mr. Rowley.” Then he turned to me with a gentle smile. “Let me see to that beer for you now, sir, if I may.”
I elected to push my luck at that point. “Thank you, Stanley,” I said in lordly fashion.
Even though I had already provided two people with a small measure of sport, I would clearly have to tip this man excessively.
After Stanley left, we both rose and formally shook hands. He was spry, and fully upright well before me. I told him my name.
“It’s my distinct pleasure to see you once again young man,” he informed me. “I’m Templeton Rowley.”
Then I hesitated. “The pleasure is all mine Mr. Rowley. But I believe I know your name from somewhere.”
His smile was a wicked concoction. “It’s certainly quite possible that you do. Indeed it is. But you look puzzled. So let me help you. Tell me young man, are you a music fan in addition to being a player?”
It was my turn to smile. “You’re being much too kind. I’m truthfully a lot more fan than player, and your gift was far too generous. But I’m sure I’ve heard of you before . . . ” At that point I began to falter.
He waved the last of my words aside before he explained.
“I try to record all manner of the New Orleans street music when I am able. I own a very small label right here in town. Our name is Raleigh Rye. Perhaps you’ve come across some of our From Piety to Desire compilations?"
“I’ve been listening to them.”
He was quite unable to hide his happiness. “Have you indeed? That’s wonderful to hear. May I ask which ones?”
I was required to hesitate. “I don’t actually remember the numbers. I’m sorry. I do remember that Iris Cummings was on one.”
His grin was a sad and knowing one. “A most pure and pleasing voice.”
I had to ask him. “Why do you smile?”
He shook his head. “I really shouldn’t be telling tales,” he said.
I waited for the inevitable tale to be told.
“You would doubtless be shocked to learn that the young lady in question was a veritable wreck of a soul barely able to remain sober long enough to make that single recording for me. Afterwards she managed to be quite ill all over one of the better rugs in my living room.”
“She was at your house?”
“She surely was. I always record at my home. My basement is a large one and over the years I’ve filled it with the barest minimum of sound-dampening technology and far too much old analog recording equipment. I record with a selection of vintage Shure microphones onto my trusty reel-to-reel tape and the results are generally much to my liking. I was once lucky enough to visit Sun Studio in Memphis where Mr. Sam Phillips recorded Elvis and Jerry Lee and Johnny Cash at their wildest and finest. I was shocked to discover how small and primitive his studio setup was. But that pilgrimage would become my working model. I wanted to find a sound that had a little of that famous Memphis slapback to it, not too insulated, and not too sterile.”
“How are the compact discs produced?” I asked him.
He laughed. “I’ll be damned if I know. I send my master tapes away to a collection of tattooed young men in Slidell who convert my recordings to disc and see to the pressings. I’m sorry to say that we don’t press very many. I have a young lady in Mid City to lay out the label and help me with the liner notes. She works with the Slidell boys and I receive not inconsiderable bills from them both. The recordings arrive in boxes. I send them to all the independent stores in the state that will agree to carry them for me.”
Templeton Rowley had long thin fingers, and as he spoke he twisted an old black onyx ring on the third finger of his right hand back and forth. The ring was very large and hung loosely between his prominent finger bones.
“Can I ask if you make much money, Mr. Rowley?”
He laughed once again. “Oh dear God, no!”
As he recovered, Stanley arrived with my beer and I took a sip.
“Then can I ask you why you do it, sir?”
“I do it, sir, because it’s wonderful fun, because it’s an efficient way to use up my dear family’s money in a way that they thoroughly despise, and because I’m not altogether certain that this fine city will survive in the bye and bye. Let me try and explain this to you.” He paused and took a deep breath. Then he continued.
“I was already doing this for a long time before the storm came. I started out when I first arrived here in the early part of the eighties. I’m from Baton Rouge originally. I have some of my family money that I mostly didn’t have to help in the earning of. I have a music history degree from an expensive college up north that my father thought was a hilarious waste of both my time and his money. My recordings were more of a pastime for me in the beginning, although my desire was always to preserve the sounds that I heard on the street, sounds that I was quite certain no one else was interested in preserving. My wonderful family was initially mildly amused. But let me say right now that I never was. I am very serious about what I do, especially now in the years since the shadow of the storm.”
I interrupted him at this point. “Are you sure I can’t buy you that drink now, Mr. Rowley?”
He shook his head and smiled. “You may have noticed that I talk plenty with or without a cocktail in my hand young man.”
I nodded and smiled in agreement.
He continued. “From the beginning I have established a few stipulations, ground rules that I adhere to. They are as follows. There can only be two songs per artist on each of my recordings. I do this for the variation. I do this so that there are no star turns. I do this for a balanced representation. I don’t try to program my collections. Sometimes the contrasting styles are complimentary. Sometimes they most assuredly are not. I don’t choose or go out of my way to find artists I particularly like. If I did, my collections would be filled with Dr. John and the Neville Brothers, and they certainly don’t need my help to get themselves recorded in this town. No. I’m looking for what I like to call the other New Orleans music. No artists I record will have a recording contract anywhere else or with anyone else at the time I record them. I only want their original work. That is important to me because I want to help creative talent and because it makes it easier for me legally and contractually, not having to deal with copyrights and song permissions and so forth.”
“How many volumes are out there?”
He laughed once more.
“Ah. That’s a fine question. I started out with two a year. That was my grand plan. I was quite dutiful with my numbering system in the early days.”
“What happened?” I asked.
He replied. “Oh that’s easily answered. The storm happened.”
I waited for him to continue.
“In the months after Katrina, I rather lost my mind. I became convinced that the music would all be lost and that the town would never recover. So I made it my mission to save all the songs of the city. I recorded everyone I found. I think I waited less than a month after Katrina struck to put out a new volume, and then I’m afraid the metaphorical flood gates opened. I walked everywhere I could and I found all the people the storm had left behind. I found them still singing and dancing and playing and I brought them to my home. I recorded them all. I paid out far more than I had in the past. I must have released a dozen new discs in the first post-hurricane year alone. These are now some of my favorite recordings. They are far from being my best; I was in a ridiculous hurry. But they are filled with all kinds of the most wonderful, indigenous, threatened music that I was so very grateful and honored to have helped give sanctu
ary to. I believe that this city has always been an innovative music frontier, dating back to the beginnings of jazz. Today we are still vibrantly relevant. Did you know that this city is the bounce capital of the world? I’m happy to say that I’ve recorded several gentlemen and ladies who have become stars in a genre that frankly I find utterly baffling and more than a little lewd. I’m proud to say that there has been bouncing in my basement. My esteemed father would no doubt have pretended to a deep horror.”
“Are you still worried about the city?”
“Of course I am. Look at the slow rate of our rebuilding. The population is less than it was before the storm and the poorer and blacker folks are the ones we have lost. We’ve gotten whiter and we’ve gotten wealthier and I believe that the city leaders are more than happy to encourage this reckless economic redistribution and cultural bleaching. There are places in this city that were all but washed away. They still need so much of our help today. If we were in a wealthy northern city, we would not be relying on church groups with paintbrushes and well-intentioned actors. It would all simply be getting done through the impetus of a solid economy and a collective will. We would be fully rebuilt by this late stage. Of this fact, I’m very truly convinced.”
“You must love this city.”
He looked me squarely in the eye. “That I do, sir. That I truly do.”
I had another question for him. “Why did you give me your money when you heard me play on the street?”
He smiled. “Another of my rules, I’m afraid. I always give my money to music. You were playing on our streets. I applaud your courage and your contribution to the sound of the city. You were playing songs recorded and written by other people. For that reason, I will not seek to record you. But I do commend you, and my money stands as my acknowledgment of that commendation.”
“I was flattered and very surprised. I’m a hopeless beginner. But you must have known that as you heard me play.”
Templeton Rowley said nothing but continued to smile at me.
“Can I admit something to you?” I asked him.
“Of course you may, young man.”
“I gave your money away.”
“I would assume to someone you thought more deserving?”
“I did think so, yes.”
“An artist perhaps?”
“I would say so.”
“Then for what it’s worth you have my approval. You will notice my stipulation of course. When you give away your money you surrender the right to question its use the very second it leaves your hand. I am firm in that belief.”
I thought he was right and I told him so.
I had given Rowley’s money to Mel because I felt ridiculous taking it in the first place, and because I wanted to stop her from taking boys to a bar. It hadn’t made a difference in the end, and I had been wrong to do it.
“By now it must be my turn to ask you a question.”
“Please do,” I told him.
“I did wonder why you had elected to play at that particular location?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“Please humor me.”
“I’m sorry. It is your turn. The reason I was there was because someone I admire had once played there.”
“And who was that?”
“His name was Logan Kind.”
There was a long pause. “I must confess that I don’t know that name.” He sounded disappointed.
“I had hoped that you would.” I must have sounded disappointed too.
Then he hesitated once more.
“Was he a singer?” he asked me.
“He was.”
“And was he a guitar player?”
I answered quickly. “A very good one.”
“And from the same part of the world as you?”
“Yes he was. Very close. Why?”
He continued. “Is it possible that he played under another name?”
Now I was curious. “I suppose so. It it possible. What was the name?”
Templeton Rowley looked at me carefully before he spoke again.
“In the first month after the storm I came across a gentleman named Willie Mac. He was playing and singing right where you were. Dumaine has always been a favorite street of mine and I walk there often.”
“Are you sure of the name?”
“Of course. I have an excellent memory. Please forgive me. I’m in danger of being coy with you. I should tell you that Willie Mac was the name I wrote on the contract that we both signed after he had come to my house and played for me.”
There was something about the name Willie Mac.
I frantically thought backwards, mentally skimming in reverse through the mountains of Kind trivia I had uploaded and pored over. There was something . . .
And then I remembered: In his youth, Logan had admired a long-dead Scottish poet. The poet was famous and famously awful. His name had been William McGonagall.
It wasn’t too hard to get from William McGonagall to Willie Mac.
“You recorded him?” I was very close to shouting.
He nodded. “He came to my house with his guitar. Two of his songs did end up on one collection. Even I’m not exactly sure which volume it was. Would you care to hear all his songs?”
Was I hearing this right?
“What do you mean all his songs?”
“We recorded that day for a long time and ten songs were completed when he was finished; ten songs that I remember him being happy with. Two went on the disk. The other eight I’ve kept for him since then. He liked my basement studio. He liked the acoustics. I was careful to mike his guitar very carefully. He was an extraordinary player and I think the levels sounded just right to him. I must tell you that I wasn’t much taken with his voice. The overbearing idiosyncrasies of folksingers I can well do without. I told him I would keep his other recordings safe and sound. I would never release them or do anything with them without his consent. He seemed quite happy with this arrangement. I told him I would wait to hear from him. I paid him for the two songs. We talked about his recording with me again. When he was leaving he told me there was another song that was close to being finished that he wasn’t yet satisfied with.
“Would it be possible for me to hear the songs?”
He smiled and nodded.
“Of course. My house is on Robert and is not far from here. Do you like to walk?”
I told him that I did. He seemed very pleased.
* * *
His house was at the intersection of Robert and Baronne Streets, some fifteen blocks from the hotel; a short enough journey at Rowley’s brisk pace.
It was a large two-story house with palm trees outside and ten whitewashed columns of its own, which framed a ground-level porch and supported the exposed balcony on the second floor.
Templeton Rowley liked to walk fast and he liked to talk as he walked fast.
He told me that his family business was chemical manufacturing. Actually they still were in the business. But he wasn’t. He had chosen to cash out early. He had headed south and there had been little opposition from the rest of his relatives.
He spoke about his city immediately after the flood.
“This was one part of town that somehow stayed dry. Oh I’ve heard all the theories about the rich people, about the mysterious explosions blowing the levees up to sacrifice the poor folks in places like the Lower Ninth. I’m not quite that cynical. The French Quarter was also spared but the place was deserted for a spell. The Quarter was dry but the people were all gone. Restaurants had no staff and no food to cook with. People were displaced and if they still had a dry place to work, they didn’t have a dry place in which to live. I walked wherever I could during those days. The streets were blocked off. There were few police around, and by then the stories surrounding them just made you nervous whe
n you saw them. Power was sporadic and garbage pickup equally so. Those were bad times for this city.”
“And Willie Mac was just out there playing on the street?”
“Indeed he was. I saw him on two occasions. He was alone both times. Playing at the corner of two deserted streets.”
I told Rowley that Logan Kind had drowned several months after they had met. I told him that his one previous recording had been much admired, that he had loyal fans, a daughter somewhere, and a sister, who had assumed control of his interests. I told him that Logan had evolved into a lesser cult figure. I didn’t tell him that the songs Logan had recorded might be of some value now.
“Do you suppose he killed himself?” Rowley asked me.
“No one seems to know.”
“But what do you think?” He was insistent.
“I think he wanted to live. He was playing songs again. He was a very good swimmer. And now you tell me he had recorded new songs with you. Let me ask you this. Did he seem happy to you when you were with him?”
“That’s hard to answer. I can’t in all honesty say that he was unhappy when we met.” He allowed this.
I sensed that he wanted to say more, so I encouraged him. “Please tell me what you think.”
“I just wanted to say that it does seem to me that trying to make a distinction between an accidental act of dying and an intentional one in the strange times following Katrina is a highly superfluous undertaking.” He made this observation carefully.
And we arrived.
If I had expected a house full of eccentrically compulsive clutter, I was to be disappointed. The living room was large and sparse and dust-free and luminous, with pale wood floors and red Persian rugs of obvious quality and a soundly sleeping dog and a housekeeper named Anita, who silently delivered a pitcher of iced tea and two tall glasses that no one had asked for. I was assigned a seat next to the large screen door that opened onto the porch and through which a humid breeze tenderly blew.
In no time at all, Templeton Rowley left and reappeared with two discs. One was enigmatically blank. The other was a factory sealed copy of a Piety to Desire compilation. It was labeled volume 42. He handed it to me.
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