Scott Appel
How many people do you know who made a record that drew three and a half stars from Rolling Stone and was touted by Billboard as one of the best albums of its year? Probably not many. That’s why it’s important to note the loss of Scott Appel, a quietly brilliant musician who died March 11 in New Jersey after a long battle with heart disease. He was 48.
Scott was a virtuoso guitarist and musicologist, a dedicated musician who followed no other career than the hard life of making music for small, independent labels. Although he used to joke that his musical legacy would be the oddity of having five records on five separate labels, the true significance of that was the brilliance and passion of his musicianship that caused all those different indies to put out his work.
In a world where most records get junked almost as soon as they are released, Scott’s “Nine of Swords” was released twice, by Kicking Mule Records in 1989 and Schoolkids Records in 1995. A third separate release, on One Man Clapping Records, was in the works for 2000 but ultimately didn’t happen.
It was “Swords” that brought Scott the most acclaim, from David Fricke’s three and a half stars review in Rolling Stone, to Dave DiMartino’s glowing “one of the best albums to be released this year” in Billboard, to Anthony deCurtis’ perceptive call of the record as “a moving example of an artist realizing his own vision by honoring the achievement of a master” in the Los Angeles Times. Scott played an essential part in rescuing from oblivion, at least in the United States, the music of British folk guitarist and songwriter Nick Drake, uncovering previously unrecorded songs, deciphering Drake’s often arcane tunings, and writing studious pieces about his work in such publications as Frets magazine and Acoustic Guitar. In return, Drake’s posthumous return to recognition brought Scott attention and contact with musicians and a new generation of Drake fans.
Born in Brooklyn, NY on Aug. 3, 1954, Scott lived most of his life in northern New Jersey, never ranging very far from there although his music would be released in three countries on two continents. After graduation from high school, he studied guitar at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. Years of woodshedding back in New Jersey followed, including stints in acoustic duos and a spell in a Led Zeppelin cover band. Drawn to folk music, Scott became a masterful player in many genres, including the slide guitar, somewhat in the style of Leo Kottke. He was also a devotee of the British folk-rock scene of the late 1960s, especially the music of Fairport Convention, John Martyn, Richard Thompson, Sandy Denny, and an obscure contemporary of theirs, Nick Drake.
Scott began cutting demos at Mixolydian Studios (in Madison and later Boonton, NJ), where in 1975 he started a nearly quarter-century collaboration with engineer Don Sternecker. By the time Scott signed a contract in the mid-1980s with California-based Kicking Mule to produce the music that became his first record, Scott not only had amazing chops as a guitarist but was adept at producing his own music. He and Sternecker made a polished and creative production team.
“Glassfinger” (1985) contains an exuberant, virtuoso display of rollicking slide guitar work and other styles. The all-instrumental record was an eclectic mix of reflections from a capacious musical temperament, including thoughtful examination of Celtic styles, covers of The Beatles and Gordon Lightfoot, and a moody, brilliant tune inspired by an obscure Maya Deren film called “Meshes of the Afternoon.” “Glassfinger” earned respectful reviews and, Scott told me, sold about 5,000 copies, enough to warrant a second record.
Scott’s first label, though, was about to learn what the other ones would as well– his fierce independence. He would rarely deviate from his own vision of his music, and he wouldn’t tour to support his records (although he occasionally did radio shows, especially on WFMU in South Orange, NJ).
By 1987, he was deep into his fascination with Nick Drake’s life and music, at a time when few in the United States had ever heard of him. The first time I met Scott in 1986 it didn’t take him long to ask me if I had ever heard of Nick Drake (I had not). Scott quickly put on the first of several great records he turned me on to over the years, the three-record import Drake compilation “Fruit Tree” (later there would be a four-record set released under the same name).
At first glance it seemed an unlikely match, the Scott/Drake pairing. Scott was the least sentimental man I have ever met, while Drake was and remains a hugely romantic figure. But I caught on right away to Drake’s greatness by listening to the supple guitar, whispery vocals and lush productions of the hypnotic first two records in “Fruit Tree”: “Five Leaves Left” and “Bryter Layter.” I was even more knocked out by the third record, which Drake made in the midst of a withering depression he fell into after the commercial failure of the first two records. “Pink Moon” (packaged with the four last songs Drake recorded, which were of a piece) was a truly brave effort to record, bare and stripped of his previous hypnotic sensuousness, the horrible process of Drake’s own unraveling. Drake’s Keatsian death at the age of 26 in 1974 was another element in his mythos.
I never pressed Scott on “why Drake?” and in general you got along better with him by respecting his sometimes wide boundaries. But Drake’s short life and his stylish, aching music must have found the inner romantic in him. The fact that Scott deciphered the odd tunings of every Drake recording indicates a strong guitarists’ bond. Scott may also have identified with Drake’s doomed struggle to make a living from his talent. He knew something, too, about struggling with depression, along with some of the other common ailments of a musician’s life. I attended some of the “Nine of Swords” sessions in 1987 and 1988 at Mix, and I had a feeling something special was underway. Scott had befriended Drake’s parents, Rodney and Molly Drake, and they had given him access to some of Drake’s work tapes. From these, Scott recovered three sensational songs Drake never recorded, “Bird Flew By,” “Our Season,” and “Blossom,” and recorded somehow ebullient versions of all three. He also stitched other bits and themes from the work tapes into the masterful “Far Leys,” a true collaborative effort between Scott and the long-dead master. The Drake material on “Swords” is at once funereal and joyful, an allegory of death and redemption.
But “Swords” wasn’t only a Drake project. Scott also recorded, with the help of longtime musical associates like Chris McNally (guitar), Ace Toye (drums) and Brian Catanzaro (vocal and string arrangements), a suite of powerful originals that both reflected and refracted the Drake material: “Somnus,” “Blur,” “Nine of Swords,” and “Thanatopsis.” I also saw the easy chemistry between Scott and Don Sternecker at the controls, and how the two masked their productive collaboration and respect for each other under a patina of cheerful obscenity.
“Nine of Swords” came out in 1989 to wonderful reviews but, in an echo of Drake’s career, not much in the way of sales. It didn’t make enough to support a musician who had nothing else in mind to do with his life. If Scott was disappointed, he never said anything much about it, at least to me. He stoically continued to make music, continued to champion Drake, continued his long-term residency at Mr. Muck’s record store in Pompton Plains, NJ, where he honed a musicologist’s breadth of knowledge by constantly listening to new recordings and reading all the music papers.
Scott was a wonderful tout of good music, as everyone who knew him could attest. A trip to visit him at Muck’s would yield recommendations for what turned out to be great, out-of-the-mainstream records. In my case, besides “Fruit Tree,” Scott turned me on to “Hounds of Love” by Kate Bush and “Grace” by Jeff Buckley that I remember, as well as giving me many more I never picked up on.
Although he was now without a contract, Scott was still recording with Don Sternecker at Mixolydian. He placed two originals, “Let All the Clocks Stop Now” and “Winterlight,” on the “Songwriter” compilation put out by the French XIII Bis records, and two covers, “Hazey Jane” and “From the Morning” on “Brittle Days,” a Drake tribute record on the British Imaginary Records. A resurgence of interest in Drake in the 1990s led to a highly unusual re-release of “Nine of Swords” on Ann Arbor, Mich.- based Schoolkids Records in 1995. The reviews were again favorable, the sales again small. But the Drake revival also led to extensive reprinting of all Scott’s writing on Drake (mine as well) in the new Drake fanzines that sprang up.
Scott was encouraged enough in early 1998 to begin work with Sternecker (Mixolydian had moved to Lafayette, NJ) on his final record, “Parhelion.” By then, though, Scott was hampered by a work injury at a local printing company which caused nerve damage in one of his arms, limiting the time he was able to play.
“Parhelion” came out in 1998 on Chicago-based One Man Clapping Records. It is a wide-ranging collection that includes songs done since “Swords,” the songs on the “Songwriter” and “Brittle Days” compilations, and outtakes from “Brittle Days” and “Swords.” It then swings back to “Glassfinger” to get a few of those out-of-print tracks on CD, and nostalgically to his earliest recording sessions. OMC talked about a third re-release for “Swords,” and it was even announced on Scott’s website (still up at http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Coffeehouse/8930/) for spring 2000. But Scott’s first heart attack hampered his ability to contribute and the project was scrapped.
In his final years, Scott returned to live in his hometown of Lincoln Park, NJ, discovered the Internet and developed a small cottage industry selling his music online. Hobbled by his arm injury and heart problems, he took on his newly limited capacity with as much grace and courage as he could muster, helped by the tender care of his fiancee, Vivian Gonzales. As always, he listened constantly to music and had good things to play for you, like early Bryan MacLean or the sessions Jeff Buckley was working on in Memphis at the time of his early death. Scott was an avid fan and collector of the music of Jeff’s father, Tim Buckley, as well as Drake.
Although Scott got a lot of ink as an interpreter of Nick Drake, it’s no mistake that he’s featured on a record called “Songwriter.” He wrote half the songs even on his “Drake” album, and he noted on “Parhelion” “All tracks composed by Scott Appel except those that aren’t.”
I hope his music gets the chance to live on. It should. Not only the Drake-related stuff, but his fine instrumentals on “Glassfinger” (including “Meshes of the Afternoon”) and originals like “Let All the Clocks Stop Now” and “Hideaway.” There is a fine musical intelligence and sensibility throughout Scott’s work, and his virtuosity on the guitar is evident from the get-go. There is greatness in his work.
Stoic, taciturn and unsentimental in person, Scott had a refreshingly blunt honesty about everything and a loyalty to his friends that could last over decades. Uncompromising about most things, to the point of stubborness, his greatness as a person lies in his passionate lifelong involvement with music, his brave determination to create music no matter what the cost, and an understanding that he wasn’t wasting anybody’s time by doing it.
Perhaps the last time he ever played live was with me, at a small 50th birthday celebration for Drake in New York in June of 1998. He played guitar and I sang a few Drake songs. Then he decided not to play on “Northern Sky,” for whatever reason, and handed his guitar to me. And I played and sang that great Drake tune by myself, while he sat behind me and listened. I didn’t ask why he did that, and I still don’t really know why. I think now he was giving me a gift of acknowledgement and appreciation after many years of friendship. Whatever it was, I will remember it for a long time.
So long, maestro. It’s a shittier world without you. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
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