Shel Silverstein
The Man, Creative Paradox
Born Sheldon Allan "Shel" Silverstein in Chicago - Sept 25, 1930. Died in Key West, FL, May 8 or 9, 1999 of a heart attack.
American poet, singer (in a fashion), songwriter, musician (guitar), composer, cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, and author of children's books.
Shel said he would rather have been a baseball player, or a hit with the girsl, but he was not athletic, and women didn't like him, so he became all of the above.
Hit Read More to learn more about Shel Silverstein, his accomplishments, hear him sing with Johnny Cash, and read the Giving Tree, on You tube.
His Life in Short.
Began drawing at age 12 by copying Al Capp.
Graduated Theodore Roosevelt HS in Chicago, attended Art Institute of Chicago for 1 year..
Served in Korean War, and published cartoons known as the Take Ten Series in the Pacific Stars and Stripes Magazine in 1955.
Back to Chicago after the war, sold hot dogs at Chicago ballparks while submitting cartoons to Look, Sports Illustrated, and This Week magazine.
The Man, Creative Paradox
Born Sheldon Allan "Shel" Silverstein in Chicago - Sept 25, 1930. Died in Key West, FL, May 8 or 9, 1999 of a heart attack.
American poet, singer (in a fashion), songwriter, musician (guitar), composer, cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, and author of children's books.
Shel said he would rather have been a baseball player, or a hit with the girsl, but he was not athletic, and women didn't like him, so he became all of the above.
Hit Read More to learn more about Shel Silverstein, his accomplishments, hear him sing with Johnny Cash, and read the Giving Tree, on You tube.
His Life in Short.
Began drawing at age 12 by copying Al Capp.
Graduated Theodore Roosevelt HS in Chicago, attended Art Institute of Chicago for 1 year..
Served in Korean War, and published cartoons known as the Take Ten Series in the Pacific Stars and Stripes Magazine in 1955.
Back to Chicago after the war, sold hot dogs at Chicago ballparks while submitting cartoons to Look, Sports Illustrated, and This Week magazine.
A photo of Shel while he was in the Korean War. He became known as
somewhat of a rebel and he often got in trouble with his superiors for his
cartoons which made fun of the officers, the food, and the latrines, etc. He
had limits put upon him as to what he could joke about, but he still regarded
his time in the service as a great opportunity. He learned how to write and
live with deadlines. He loved his time working for Stars and Stripes Magazine.
One of his cartoons showed the army food staff serving up some sloppy
food on a slice of toast in the food line. The server is speaking to one young
private in the line who looks agahast.
The food server says: “But you don’t understand. This really is SOS.”
(Shit on a shingle.)
Shel's Playboy Period
In 1957, became a leading Playboy cartoonist
Hugh Hefner hired him to go around the world and do illustrated travel journals, published as Shel Silverstein visits.... New Jersey nudist colony, White Sox training camp, Haight Ashbury, London, Paris, Spain, Africa.
During these years, he maintained no real home. When in the US, he often crashed at the Hugh Hefner mansion, but then he would just up and leave, no one knowing to where. Next thing anyone would know about him was another submission to Playboy.
Eg. In a Swiss village, he drew himself complaining, “I’ll give them 15
more minutes, and if nobody yodels, I’m going back to my hotel.”
His critics saw all sorts of dismal meaning in this cartoon. “ A lot of
people said it was a very pessimistic cartoon, which I don’t think it is at
all,” he said. “There’s a lot of hope even in a hopeless situation. They
analyze it and question it. I did this cartoon because I had an idea about the
funny situation about two guys.”
Musician and Songwriter
Shel played guitar and he sang (sort of) sometimes just spoke or even shouted his lyrics.
He wrote songs for Loretta Lynn, Johhny Cash, Waylon Jennings, the Irish Rovers, Gordon Lightfoot, and Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show.
Your would be surprised at all the famous songs that come from Shel Silverstein.
Silverstein's passion for music was clear early on as he studied
briefly at Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt
University. His musical output included a large catalog of songs; a number
of which were hits for other artists, most notably the rock group Dr.
Hook & The Medicine Show.[6] He wrote Tompall
Glaser's highest-charting solo single "Put Another Log on the
Fire", "One's on the Way" (a hit for Loretta Lynn),
"The Unicorn" (which became the signature piece for the
Irish Rovers in 1968) and "25 Minutes to Go", sung
by Johnny Cash, about a man on Death Row with each line counting
down one minute closer. Silverstein also wrote one of Johnny Cash's best known
whimsical hits, "A Boy Named Sue." Other songs co-written by
Silverstein include "the Taker" by Waylon Jennings and
"On Susan’s Floor” byGordon Lightfoot.
He wrote the lyrics and music for most of the Dr. Hook songs, including
"The Cover of the Rolling Stone", "Freakin' at the
Freakers' Ball," "Sylvia's Mother", "The Things I
Didn't Say" and a cautionary song about venereal disease,
"Don't Give a Dose to the One You Love Most".[6] He
wrote many of the songs performed by Bobby Bare, including
"Rosalie's Good Eats Café", "The Mermaid", "The
Winner", "Warm and Free" and "Tequila Sheila". He
co-wrote with Baxter Taylor "Marie Laveau",
for which the songwriters received a 1975 BMI Award. "The Mermaid"
was covered in 2005 by Great Big Sea, which released its version
on The Hard and the Easy album.
Silverstein's "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan", first
recorded by Dr. Hook in 1975, was re-recorded by Marianne Faithfull (1979), Belinda
Carlisle (1996), and Bobby Bare(2005) and later featured
in the films Montenegro and Thelma &
Louise. "Queen of the Silver Dollar" was first recorded by
Dr. Hook on their 1972 album Sloppy Seconds, and later
by Doyle Holly (on his 1973 album Doyle Holly), Barbi
Benton (on her 1974 album Barbi Doll), Emmylou
Harris (on her 1975 album Pieces of the Sky) andDave
& Sugar (on their 1976 album Dave & Sugar).
Silverstein composed original music for several films and displayed a
musical versatility in these projects, playing guitar, piano, saxophone and trombone.
He wrote "In the Hills of Shiloh", a poignant song about the aftermath
of the Civil War, which was recorded by The New Christy Minstrels, Judy
Collins, Bobby Bare and others. The soundtrack of the 1970 film Ned
Kelly features Silverstein songs performed by Waylon
Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and others.[5]
Silverstein had a popular following on Dr. Demento's radio
show. Among his best-known comedy songs were "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
(Would Not Take The Garbage Out)", "The Smoke-Off" (a tale of a
contest to determine who could roll—or smoke—marijuana joints faster), "I
Got Stoned and I Missed It" and "Bury Me in My Shades". He wrote
"The Father of a Boy Named Sue", in which he tells the story from the
original song from the father's point of view, and the 1962 song "Boa
Constrictor", sung by a man who is being swallowed by a snake (recorded by
the folk group Peter, Paul, and Mary) although it is now better
known as a children's playground chant.
A longtime friend of singer-songwriter Pat Dailey, Silverstein
collaborated with him on the posthumously released Underwater Land album
(2002). It contains 17 children's songs written and produced by Silverstein and
sung by Dailey (with Silverstein joining him on a few tracks). The album
features art by Silverstein.
He was a friend of Chicago songwriter Steve Goodman, for
whom he wrote the final verse of "What Have You Done For Me Lately?"
(refusing a songwriting credit for his contribution). Goodman also recorded
Silverstein's "Three-Legged Man", as did Ray Stevens.
In 2010, Bobby Bare and his son Bobby Bare Jr produced a CD
called Twistable, Turnable Man: A Musical Tribute to the Songs of Shel
Silverstein which was
released on Sugar Hill Records. Artists covering Silverstein songs
include Andrew Bird, My Morning Jacket and Bobby
Bare, Jr.[9][10]
Silverstein's "A Boy Named Sue" won a 1970 Grammy.
He was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe for
his song "I'm Checkin' Out" in the film Postcards
from the Edge. He was posthumouslyinducted into the Nashville
Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002.[14]
From Wikipedia.
The boy Named Sue, Johnny Cash, a You tube video.
Playwright
He wrote over 100 one act plays and in 1970-1996, he staged several off Broadway comedies.
1981 "the Lady or the tiger Show" a play on Broadway
Co-wrote with David Mamet, the 1988 filom, "Things Change."
In January 1959, Look, Charlie: A Short History of the Pratfall was
a chaotic off-Broadway comedy staged by Silverstein, Jean Shepherd and Herb
Gardner at New York's Orpheum Theatre on Second
Avenue in the Lower East Side. Silverstein went on to write more than 100
one-act plays. The Devil and Billy Markham, published in Playboy in
1979, was later adapted into a solo one-act play that debuted on a double bill
with Mamet's Bobby Gould in Hell (1989) with Dr.
Hookvocalist Dennis Locorriere narrating. Karen Kohlhaas
directed An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein, produced by New
York's Atlantic Theater Company in September 2001 with a
variety of short sketches:
"One Tennis Shoe"—Harvey claims his wife is becoming a bag
lady.
"Bus Stop"—Irwin stands on a corner with a "bus
stop" sign.
"Going Once"—A woman auctions herself.
"The Best Daddy"—Lisa's daddy shot the pony he got for her
birthday.
"The Lifeboat is Sinking"—Jen and Sherwin play a game of
Who-Would-You-Save-If—the family was drowning.
"Smile"—Bender plans to punish the man responsible for the
phrase "Have a nice day".
"Watch and Dry"—Marianne discovers her laundry hasn't been
cleaned.
"Thinking Up a New Name for the Act"—Pete thinks "meat
and potatoes" is the perfect name for a vaudeville act.
"Buy One, Get One Free"—Hookers offer a golden opportunity.
"Blind Willie and the Talking Dog"—Blind Willie's talking dog
argues they could profit from his talent.
A production of "An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein" was
produced by a Hofstra University theater group called,
"The Spectrum Players" which was founded byFrancis Ford Coppola in
1959. The production used a "victorian sailors on shore leave watching a
play" aesthetic and used live rag-time and an MC character
not in the script to transition between pieces. The production was directed by
Richard Traub of Chicago, IL and starred several of Hofstra's
most promising young actors; Nick Pacifico, Amanda Mac, Mike Quattrone, Ross
Greenberg, Chelsea Lando, Allie Rightmeyer, and Paolo Perez as the MC.
In December 2001, Shel's Shorts was produced in
repertory as two separate evenings under the titles Signs of Trouble and Shel
Shocked by the Market Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Signs
of Trouble was directed by Wesley Savick, and Shel Shocked was
directed by Larry Coen.
From Wikipedia
Becoming a children's author:
Shel's editor at Harper and Row, Ursula Nordstrom, encouraged him to write poems for children in about 1970.
He had developed his own style: delightful and concise poems accompanied by equally delightful and sophisticatedly cockeyed illustrations.
Best known for: Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic (182 weeks on the NYTimes Bestseller List) and Falling Up are poem collections.
Then The Giving Tree which we will discuss today.
“I would hope that people, no matter what age, would find something to
identify with in my books, pick up one and experience a personal sense of
discovery. That's great. I think that if you're creative person, you should
just go about your business, do your work and not care about how it's received.
I never read reviews because if you believe the good ones you have to believe
the bad ones too. Not that I don't care about success. I do, but only because
it lets me do what I want. I was always prepared for success but that means
that I have to be prepared for failure too. I have an ego, I have ideas, I want
to be articulate, to communicate but in my own way. People who say they create
only for themselves and don't care if they are published... I hate to hear talk
like that. If it's good, it's too good not to share. That's the way I feel
about my work. So I'll keep on communicating, but only my way. Lots of things I
won't do. I won't go on television because who am I talking to? Johnny
Carson? The camera? Twenty million people I can't see? Uh-uh. And I won't
give any more interviews.”
He has written other book length poems, his Take Ten
Series, and his Playboy travel writings have all been published in book form as
well as several volumes of his cartoons have been published in various books.
Orther book length poems: Lafcadio, the Lion who shot back; A Giraffe
and a Half; Runny Rabit; a Silly Sook; The Missing Piece; The Missing Piece
meets the Big O; Don’t Bump the Glup and other Fantasies; Who Wants a Cheap
Rhinoceros?; and a book for adults only: Uncle Shelby’s ABZ book, a Primer for
Adults Only. In the fall of 2011, Shel’s
niece and nephew gathered some of his unpublished poems and published a new
Children’s silly poetry collection, entitled Everything on It.
A Light in the Attic begins:
If you are a dreamer, come in
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar
A Hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-goldern tales to spin
Come in! Come in!
Personal Life:
Shel was a very creative man with flaws. He had trouble making commitments.
He had a daughter Shoshanna born with Susan Hastings in 1970. Just when Shel was starting to consider marriage, Susan died in 1975.
Shoshanna was raised by her aunt and uncle, but she died of a cerebral aneurysm when 11.
Shel later had a son, Matthew, born in 1983. Dedicated Falling Up to him.
Loss of Susan and of Shoshanna very hard on him.
He was a paradox, a recluse who loved being around people.
Shoshanna means lily or rose in Hebrew. He dedicated Light in the Attic
to her, and put the flower on the cover for her. Dedicated Falling Up to his
son Matthew.
The Giving Tree
Published in 1964
In an interview, Shel told what a difficult time he had getting it published.
Shel's quote to shed light on its meanings:
There remains controversies about the story and what it means. We will discuss.
“ Everybody loved it, they
were touched by it, they would read it and cry and say it was beautiful. But…
one publisher said it was too short…” Some thought it was too sad. Others felt
that the book fell between adult and children’s literature and wouldn’t be
popular. It took Shel four years before Ursula Nordstrom, the legendary editor
at Harper’s Children’s books, decided to publish it. She even let him keep the
sad ending, Shel remembered, “because life, you know, has pretty sad endings.
You don’t have to laugh it up even if most of my stuff is humorous.” Ultimately
both adults and children embraced The Giving Tree. Though there remained
controversies about its meaning. We can discuss.
The Giving Tree
Controversy!
Is this a happy story or a depressing story?
Is the love felt by both characters a moral and good love, or a sick dependent love?
Is the love of the tree for the boy like that of a mother (parent) and is it a sign of being a good parent?
The behavior of the boy as a child is expected, but what of his behavior as he grows older?
Is the tree's giving to the extent of its own extinction divine? And is the boy's behavior good human behavior?
Is this a good story to read to our children really? Children do love it. They just see the selfless love and that is all.
Http://offonatangent.tumblr.com/post/9279976269/shel-silverstein-stars-stripes-interview-1968
http://www.shelsilverstein.com/html/home.html
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