Charles M. Nowell, 94, passed away in the early morning hours of May 27, 2025 at the Orchard, after a long and fruitful life raising a family, sculpting, whittling, carving, replacing shotgun stocks and otherwise indulging his ceaseless urge to create. He was born on November 2, 1930 in Kosciusko, Mississippi. His father said, “We … Continue reading Dad’s Obituary →

We all swam at the YMCA pool on Manhattan Road in my little neighborhood in Mississippi when we were kids. Just saying that conjures an entirely different world for me. I remember riding my red bike to the pool. That means that I could have been as young as 6 or 7. Over 50 years … Continue reading segregated pools in Jackson →

At the end of my last visit home, I got up ungodly early to drive down to the New Orleans airport. Still dark. The sky didn’t start getting light until I reached Lake Pontchartrain three hours later. So it was like I was creeping out in the cover of the night. Street lights were trembling … Continue reading The Long Goodbye →

The first time I understood that people on TV and the radio were real and lived in the same world as me was in the 8th grade when Karen Martello tried to sell me Harvey Jett’s guitar. Harvey Jett was a lead guitarist in Black Oak Arkansas, one of the first Southern rock bands. Many … Continue reading Harvey Jett’s Guitar →

I moved to New York in 1987 and immediately noticed how everyone talked about leaving. You'd walk up to people chatting at a party and hear someone going on about how the art scene in Cleveland was so much more happening. Or how much space you can get for your rent in Baltimore. Almost everyone … Continue reading Slave of New York →

I wrote most the following right after those first videos of Joni Mitchell at the Newport Folk Festival were posted. Of course, she just performed at the Grammys. Looked a little slicker than Newport, but you get the idea. Like a lot of other people, I got very weepy watching the videos of Joni Mitchell … Continue reading What a drag it is getting old →

I’m listening to REM while I write this. “Gardening at Night” at this particular moment. My friend Craig referenced that song title in a story he told me about a guy he knew who tended a large marijuana grove on a secret island in a Mississippi lake. That strikes me as a quintessentially Southern image. … Continue reading REM in the Deep South →

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5kM3iwYVi0&pp=ygUjbGNkIHNvdW5kc3lzdGVtIG5ldyB5b3JrIGkgbG92ZSB5b3U%3D The other day, I visited my friend Hearn who was cat-sitting in Greenpoint. After leaving his place, I took a bike home to Park Slope in the early evening. Dusk. I headed down Driggs through a crowded McCarren Park. We were having a few mild summer days.  Hundreds of people were still barbequing and … Continue reading Missing out on Williamsburg →

A few weeks ago, I rented a car to drive upstate to bring my daughter back to Brooklyn. Hertz gave me a modest Volkswagen four-door. Running errands around the neighborhood before hitting the highway, I discovered that the air conditioner wasn’t working. The temperature that day was approaching 100. So I drove back to Hertz … Continue reading Kali Malone will make you trip →

Back in the 1990s, I met a bass player named Kevin. He played a gig with my friend Cody at a bar on Avenue A called Brownies. Then I invited him to a jam session to work on some of my material. He got really excited about my fingerstyle playing and asked me to come … Continue reading aromatic music →