BRATTLEBORO — Two beloved Guilford artists, jazz and rock musician Patty Carpenter and poet Verandah Porche, have been close friends for more than four decades.
Even though they had toyed with the idea for a long time, it was only after the devastation in Southern Vermont caused by Tropical Storm Irene that the two decided to combine forces to create music.
The result was a song about the impact of the flooding, “Waves in the Wind,” which became not only a meditation on the havoc wreaked on the Vermont landscape, but also a story of resilience and hope.
Since then, Carpenter and Porche have written nearly 70 songs.
Some are so completely polished that they constitute the bulk of Carpenter's latest album, Come Over, with her group The Dysfunctional Family Jazz Band. Others are much more informal, written for special occasions such as a birthday or funeral.
Currently, the collaborators are working on material for a joint CD.
Bringing a band
On Friday, May 5, at 7 p.m., Porche and Carpenter will give a performance of their songs at the newly-renovated Main Room of the Brooks Memorial Library in a special show to benefit the Friends of Brooks Memorial Library.
Backing up Porche and Carpenter will be Jon Weeks, from Brooklyn by way of San Antonio, Texas, who will play flute, saxophone, and percussion; local guitar legend Draa Hobbs; and New York guitarist Wheeler Laird.
“This concert at the library is special because usually it is just me and Verandah in performance,” Carpenter said. “Here, we will be playing with three terrific musicians. This show will travel through Verandah and my lives and friendship - from trying to change the world to us hanging out the laundry, through tears and laughter - using original works of poetry and songs.”
Growing up playing piano and singing, Carpenter started her career as a folksinger performing at coffeehouses, community and peace meetings, and at school events. She then studied jazz at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she worked with jazz legend Archie Shepp.
She has recorded four CDs. Along with Come Over, Carpenter has released three other albums on Epiphany Records: This Time It's Love (1998), Memories of Love's Refrain (2001) and Under My Hat (2002). Her CD's are available on iTunes, Amazon and at pattycarpenter.com.
Porche has published three traditional books of poetry - The Body's Symmetry (Harper and Row, 1974), Glancing Off (See Through Books, 1986), and Sudden Eden (Verdant Books, 2012).
However, she has mostly pursued an “alternative” literary career, creating collaborative writing projects in nontraditional settings such as literacy and crisis centers, hospitals, factories, nursing homes, senior centers, a 200-year-old Vermont tavern, and an urban working-class neighborhood.
She initiated and taught poetry at the Governor's Institute on the Arts for 30 years. Recently, she collaborated with visual artist Kathleen Kolb. Their joint show, Shedding Light on the Working Forest, is showing in various venues around Vermont.
Lifelong collaborators
Carpenter and Porche first met in the late 1960s when each was part of neighboring communes in Guilford.
“I was living on Johnson Pastures in Packer Corners and Patty, who was a mere 16 at the time, was up the road at another community, Total Loss Farm,” Porche explains. “We bonded with each other right away, and became great friends.”
Porche confesses that she suspects women make better friends than men do.
“Women are the best when the chips are down,” she says. “One of the legacies of the commune culture was the virtue of nourishing friendship. I hardly mean to imply that we invented friendship in the Sixties, but rather that we consciously continued the Vermont tradition of helping your neighbor, such as when one farmer gets sick, everyone joins in haying.”
Like Porche, Carpenter was influenced by the thinking that motivated much of the back-to-the-land movement in which she played a part. Her initial foray into vocal music was shaped by the times during which she grew up: the 1960s, during the turmoil created by the Vietnam conflict.
“More than anything else, I think it was our dedication by both of us to our art forms that drew us together,” Porche says.
Carpenter and Porche wrote about their collaboration in the liner notes to Come Over.
“We've carved these songs out of our 40-year friendship. As traveling artists, musician and poet, we have played the hinterlands, listened to stories and savored cadences. Finally, we took the time to write and hone this work. Our songs are deeply collaborative: Some of the best music comes from Verandah and the strongest words, from Patty, except when it's the other way around.”
There is never any issue of which comes first, the words or the music, with this collaboration.
“They both arise together,” Porche says. “Give us a day and we can give you a song.”
The two have learned a lot from each other.
“Verandah has made me pay much more attention to what words mean,” Carpenter says. ”I usually want to grab onto one word and just repeat it over and over.”
“Patty is always telling me that there are too many words and you can't fit it into a melody, so be more concise,” Porche says.
A very special album
Come Over was a very special album for Carpenter and Porche. “The songs on it muse on the ups and downs of lives lived on rural communes and big city communities - from raising children and barns, to losses, lovers, and friends,” they write.
The whole album was a family affair for Carpenter. She was joined on this CD by her daughter, Melissa Shetler, on vocals; her ex-husband, Scott Shetler, on sax, clarinet, and mandolin; and Jill Gross (Scott's second wife), along with cousin Brooke Lundy, on back-up vocals.
Carpenter said she took great care in putting this album together.
She was backed by top notch musicians, including Tony Garnier, Bob Dylan's long-time bass player and musical director; James Wormworth, drummer and percussionist from The Tonight Show; and Brian Mitchell, from the Levon Helm Band, on accordion and organ. The album was mastered by Grammy-winning producer Rob Fraboni, who worked with the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Keith Richards, and Melissa Etheridge.
“I am very proud of this album,” Carpenter says. “It was almost picked up by a big record producer who loved it, but considering the state that record companies are in today, not surprisingly the label folded and the deal did not materialize. That was as close as I came so far to the big time.”
Both Carpenter and Porche are delighted to be able to perform this concert in a benefit for the Brooks Memorial Library.
“I love libraries,” Carpenter says. “I have a thing about libraries. It is a space where you can explore possibilities. When I was little, me and two girl friends hid in the bathroom of our local library until it closed. Then we snuck out to put on a play there. We then just left, and never got caught although, in those days, I doubt if it would have mattered.”
“The library is a good venue for us to do a show,” Porche adds. “Our work is literate, [and] hearing the words is important, so the intimacy of the setting matters. We have some songs that work well at clubs like the Whetstone, but others don't, so we often find ourselves performing in homes or bookstores. We feel that it is really special to be able to perform in the library of record.”