Tales of the Seventies: Old Johnny Herald [by Alan Ziegler]

Note: On September 6, John Herald would have turned 76. He died in 2005, apparently a suicide. I spent a few days with him in 1975.

    My roommate Jerry Leichtling (who is—among other things—a music critic for The Village Voice) invites John Herald to stay with us. John was a member of the Greenbriar Boys, one of the authentic folk music groups I’ve worshipped for years. (Bob Dylan opened for them at Folk City.) 

    John is in a fallow stage of his career, with few gigs and no recording contract. His new agent has booked him into a club in California, but he can’t afford to travel cross-country, and he will stay with us while he tries to rustle up the money, partly by singing on the street. John has two suitcases, and one is filled with hardcover books about mushrooms. He talks more about mushrooms and money than he does about music.

    I fantasize bringing a date home and, after talking about folk music, we’ll hear John strumming in the next room and singing “Little Birdie.” She’ll say, “I didn’t know that John Herald recorded a solo version,” and I’ll reply, “Let’s go ask him.”

    One night my ex-girlfriend Alicia visits with her new husband, Steve. I am so busy being a saint despite my aching heart that I forget all about the John Herald card. As we walk down the front steps to go to dinner, John comes bounding up the block and up the steps two at a time, saying, “Hey, Alan,” before disappearing into the brownstone.

    Steve stops in his tracks and does a triple take. “That was John Herald going into your building,” he says.

    “Yeah,” I say and move closer to Alicia.

    Steve starts singing “Little Birdie” and says, “I can’t believe John Herald is going into your building.”

    “Yeah, he’s staying with me,” I say, as casually as possible.

    “Wow,” Steve says. I look for a glimmer of I-blew-it in Alicia’s eyes.

    A few days later I hear John talking to his agent on the phone. He calls her “dear.” She has bought him a bus ticket to California. He packs up his mushroom books and we help load him into a cab right after sunset.

    That night, Jerry Leichtling picks up his guitar and starts improvising a song about John Herald heading across the country. “Old Johnny Herald’s gone away, off to Californ-i-yay,” he sings sweetly, and I really miss Johnny Herald. Not John Herald of the Greenbriar Boys, not John Herald my temporary trophy roommate, but Old Johnny Herald at a crossroads in his life scrunched into a Greyhound seat studying mushrooms.

Comments

[jim c.]

Always enjoy these, Alan. They bring back a lot.

[Alan Ziegler]

Thank you, Jim!

[Kenny Leichtling]

Jerry is my older brother. Strangely, I was searching for something else. John Herald is way too long gone. Jerry is a writer who has lived in LA for a long, long time now, and had a big success in the 80s with his wife on a flick called Peggy Sue Got Married.