Keith Briggs, Part Two

My friends in my "second home" of New Orleans made Bro welcome in their lives too; I introduced him to my closest friend there, video documentarian Stevenson Palfi, whose award-winning film "Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together" was one of Bro's all time favorites. Stevenson and Keith liked each other on sight, and soon became hanging buddies in New Orleans, since they could drink and smoke together and go to bars, while I, the non-smoking teetotaller, took Stevenson's young daughter Nell shopping, or visited with other friends to give them some "guy time" together. In later years, when Stevenson was working on his Allen Toussaint documentary, he went over to the UK and press-ganged Keith into acting as his man-on-the-street interviewer. Poor old Keith later told me that he was SO embarrassed at having to walk up to total strangers with a microphone! The British Reserve must have just about plotzed.  I recently found a two-hour videocassette that Stevenson had sent me with excerpts of some of those interviews; it's good, and at the same time hard, to hear their voices again, laughing and joking together on the audio track; and once in a great while as the camera moves back and forth there's a flashing glimpse of Keith, wearing the bright blue "New Orleans: Birthplace of Jazz" t-shirt we had bought together.

           

Postcards from the road: Left, from Stevenson, visiting Keith in the UK; right, from Keith, visiting Yellowstone. I had forgotten till I went through these old cards and letters from him that for quite awhile Keith signed himself Slim.

It's with great sadness that I have to tell you that on December 14, 2005, devastated by the total destruction of his New Orleans home and office by the collapse of the levees and the subsequent flood after Hurricane Katrina, Stevenson took his own life at what was left of his Banks St. home in Mid-City where he and Keith and I had spent so many wonderful hours together. Losing two of my closest friends within months of each other has been a hard road indeed. I like to imagine my dear Stevenson and Keith standing shoulder to shoulder in some celestial pub somewhere, probably still talking (as they so often did in life) about how women drove them nuts!

   
Two portraits with Stevenson Palfi: left, on Stevenson's front porch swing on Banks Street in New Orleans on our last visit there, September 2004; right, on an earlier visit Stevenson picks Bro up in front of the St. Louis Hotel to take him to the airport, October 2002.

Maggie Mortenson, in whose New Orleans home Bro and I once stayed together, also took to him immediately, and they had lots of long talks about - what else? - books, in their case noir novelists. She also shared his great love of old movies. Bill Morgan, Harold Battiste, Scott and Ursula McCraw, Scott Jordan, Jerry Brock, Jeff Hannusch: Bro eventually met most of my New Orleans pals, and we spent a couple of weeks there every year, scheduling our meals with friends around our book and record store visits. Bro grew to love New Orleans as much as I did, and I'm glad he never knew about the devastating hurricanes and flood that destroyed so much of our favorite city in September, 2005 and contributed in part to Stevenson's tragic suicide a few months later.

I got a nice email awhile ago from a good friend of Keith's in the UK, saying that having read through the stories on these pages, it sounded to him as if our time together was "all fun and games, and no reality." And he's quite right. One thing that Keith valued about our friendship was its complete distance, both physical and emotional, from his real life. When he was here he was on vacation, at least until after he retired, so this was his "playtime," and it was good for him to have a close and loving and completely non-demanding relationship with a woman who loved him the way a sister would, with no sexual or emotional melodramas; he already had enough of those in his life! And he didn't have to set an alarm clock and go off to work every morning; he was "free" when he was in America, and this was the grown-up equivalent of his playground. He could roam through book shops in several different cities; he could check LPs (later CDs) and videos (later DVDs) off the list in the little notebook that went everywhere with him in his top shirt pocket; he could ride the Colorado River rapids and portage a boat on top of his head for miles; he could eat and sometimes drink too much (I'll do extra turns on the circuit when I go home to pay for this, he'd say); and he could lean on the bar at a blues club in L.A. or sit on the floor at Preservation Hall in New Orleans and let the music he loved wash over him, knowing that he was somewhere safe, where nothing mattered, and that when he went home it would all disappear till the next time he needed it. It was the best therapy anyone could have had.   

                             
Left, Bro at the Stone House, Manassas, VA, September 2004. Right, Hewson Road, 1994.


            
Left: with Pete Chipperfield and Suzanne Motsinger (of Ken & Suzanne, the friends with whom he sometimes stayed in Flagstaff), at an Arizona rodeo, 1996. Photo by Neil Slaven. At right, with Neil Slaven (standing) and Pete at the Canyon, also 1996. Thanks, Neil!

He was crazy about dogs, which he called "growlers," and every dog he ever met was equally crazy about him. He wouldn't own one,  though he often talked about it; he felt that as long as he was doing so much traveling it wasn't fair to leave a dog locked up in the house, or have to ask someone to look after it when he was away. But every time we went for a walk, no matter where we were, every passing dog went straight to Keith and wagged its tail to be petted.

About that "British Reserve" I mentioned: he absolutely hated anything embarrassing, or public displays of emotion of any kind. (Wherever he is right now, I'm sure he's horrified at the Colorado River of tears I've cried since he left us.) I'm a New York Italian, I talk with my hands, and I'm openly affectionate with those I love, but I learned early on that with Keith, unlike all my other friends, affection was deeply felt but never shown. Oddly enough, once when we were in New Orleans and a young lady on Bourbon Street displayed her, um, attributes, the British Reserve wasn't on parade. He just looked her up and down, and up again, and looked sideways at me and said, "One never knows, do one?" (his favorite Fats Waller quote). We were, so much alike in some ways, so very different in this: my emotions are all on the surface, and Keith's were very, well, reserved; any time anything resembling emotional outbursts threatened to erupt around him, especially in a public place, he immediately froze into his "curmudgeon" persona. People who didn't know him thought he was cranky, or surly, since they rarely saw him smile, but it was just that good old British Reserve. Once you got to know him and he you, the warmth and good feeling was palpable.

    
Left, he was quite proud of the fact that he could still fit into the suit he was married in. I don't know who took this photo; he sent it to me long ago. Right, on a Canyon trek with Glenn Rink, Nancy Coker Helin, and Tom Hartsock, 2000. Neil Slaven sent me this one; thanks, Neil!

I don't know where he got the idea that he could sing, but after enough beers he would occasionally treat me, if you can call it that, to painfully tuneless but enthusiastically rendered versions of old English vaudeville and music hall songs, usually with specially added dirty verses that were hilarious. I eventually had to forbid him to sing in the car (or any other enclosed space) lest I run off the road.

                                                    

Left, a portrait of his alter ego, Uncle Charlie Briggs, the name under which he wrote reviews for Sailor's Delight magazine. Right, one of the earliest photos I have ever seen of Keith, this was sent to me by his friend John, aka Swede; it was taken in 1958 or 1959 at a house party in Dagenham. Since Keith was born in 1943 that would make him fifteen, though he looks much younger. At left is Linda, a distant cousin of Keith's; at right is John, wailing away on the guitar; and Keith stands between them with a very familiar bemused look on his face. John thinks that the photographer may have been Johnny Vincent (no, not THAT Johnny Vincent).

Although he was definitely not gifted for singing, he WAS gifted for art, as you can see by the drawings. A couple of these were reproduced en masse and sent out to several of his friends as that year's Christmas card cover, while others were just meant to be individual "artworks" that illustrated his current letter to me.

            
Left: At Chancellorsville, September, 2004. Bro captioned this photo "One ruin visits another." At right, a Christmas card showing his local pub.

We were of one mind about going out to hear live music shows, no matter what city we were in: we weren't kids any more, and if we were going to stay out till all hours to hear a show, it had to be a really good one. We were fortunate enough to have lived in a time when musical giants walked the earth, and neither one of us had much patience for second or third rate imitators. He hated crowds, though, which made attending music festivals kind of a challenge, so I tried to get backstage access for him whenever I could. He enjoyed meeting and talking with musicians, but just as often he'd be perfectly happy to hold up one end of a bar in some club somewhere, nursing a couple of beers through an evening. His reaction to seeing Johnny Copeland raging through a set in a club that only held about 100 people was unprintable but enthusiastic, and getting to sit in the front row at B.B. King's club in L.A. and watch the master from about ten feet away was something he often spoke about afterward. He liked to revisit shows we'd seen, so I know that a blistering set by Otis Rush at an L.A. club in the mid-1980s was on his top ten list. Snooks Eaglin's regular gig at Rock 'N' Bowl in New Orleans was always a favorite of his, and on our visit to Memphis we were lucky enough to get to hear only the second-ever performance outside of their church by the sacred steel group The Campbell Brothers, followed immediately in the same place by a moving set from England's traditional singers The Copper Family.  In later years he often referred to this show as one of the best he'd ever seen.

             
Left: One of Bro's favorite ways to spend a musical evening: Snooks Eaglin holds forth at Rock 'N' Bowl, New Orleans. Right: Stonewall Jackson and Stone Face Briggs.

             
Left, in New Orleans,with Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral in the background. Right, goofing around with Stevenson. Both approximately 1998-1999.

He enjoyed many different kinds of music besides blues, and he often recalled times we were able to see Bill Monroe & the Bluegrass Boys,  D. L. Menard, and Ralph Stanley at shows here in L.A.  But the happiest I ever saw him was at Preservation Hall in New Orleans; he sneered at the idea at first, calling it a tourist trap, but once he walked through the door and sat in the front row, I couldn't get him out of there till the place shut down for the night. No food, no drinks, no tables -in fact, no chairs! - just a few rows of uncomfortable wooden backless benches and standing room behind that, but when the band began to play he just went "legless," as he put it. After that first visit, Preservation Hall went on his permanent "to-do" list in New Orleans, along with visiting book and record stores, incredible lunches and dinners with our friends, the Monday night jam sessions with George and Bob French at Donna's, hanging out at Stevenson's house (where we always got "private screenings" of whatever the work in progress was), and eating sacher tortes and eclairs at La Madeleine on Jackson Square while he addressed numerous postcards on the wooden tabletop. He'd usually only write a sentence on each postcard, sometimes only a word or two, but he never failed to send them. He created a food collage on our last visit there, artistically arranging our daily mid-afternoon snack on the table and insisting that I take a photo of it. He really liked the way it came out, and had me email him a copy of the final result. I don't know how to articulate the reason, but to me this is one of the most startlingly evocative photos of our  friendship, and one of the hardest for me to look at now that he's gone, yet neither one of us is anywhere in the frame.


Every day during our visits to New Orleans Keith and I stopped at La Madeleine on Jackson Square in the French Quarter for a restorative snack between lunch and dinner to "tide us over," as he put it. Sadly, since the levees broke after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, La Madeleine closed and has never reopened.

Bro was sure that all women were crazy (daft as a brush, he described one ex-girlfriend picturesquely) and would often ask me rhetorical questions starting with "why on earth do women do...." whatever, as if I knew any answers! I once tried to point out that I, at least, wasn't daft as a brush, and he threw me an affectionate glance and said, Mary Katherine, you're a whole broom closet unto yourself, but at least you're not as crazy as some. That was his idea of a great compliment, by the way. I know I aggravated him sometimes, as he did me, but with deep affection he put up with my occasional fits of eccentricity, and I did the same with him when he started to put me over the edge about something. And he had the great gift of not taking offence where none was meant, which by itself was enough to stop most arguments before they started.

                      
Left: The Keith Briggs Meal: barbecue and beer. This was taken in Chicago, probably around 1988-1989. Those blue eyes sure confused a lot of women, and I made a sisterly point of buying him blue t-shirts, including the one he's wearing here (from a now-defunct blues club called Blue Chicago), to set them off! The drawing at right was the front of his 1987 Christmas card.

He often talked about his friends in England; although I will probably never meet them in person, I feel as if I know them all from his stories. Eddie Smith, with whom he worked the coin fairs, and Eddie's wife Cindy; Keith was best man at their wedding (they have since divorced). After his death they were incredibly kind and patient with my grief, despite their own. Paul Swinton, the blues buddy with whom he traveled Europe and had planned a trip to New York; at one point Keith had suggested that Paul might join us for one of our New Orleans stays, though that never came true. Patrick "Paddy" Harrison, who shared his love of non-blues music too; Pete Chipperfield, "The Tall One," who came along sometimes on the Colorado River rafting trips; and Neil Slaven, who I *did* meet when he came to L.A. on a long ago visit with Keith, and whose work as a blues writer and discographer I had long admired; Neil also forayed down the Canyon with Keith, and there are photos to prove that they both survived! Oh, look, there's one now.

       
Left: Neil Slaven, Pete Chipperfield, and Bro, after loading out the rafts on the last day of their Canyon adventure,  1996. Thanks, Neil! Right, the note Keith wrote on the back of this drawing says "This is the willow tree in my back garden; I planted it in 1978, and now I can climb it!"

The rest of his U.K. extended family included his "best mate" Tony Foreman, who traveled the world; Helen Byron, the good friend who looked after his place and took in his mail when he was away, until she moved out of Lincoln, and with whom he had once traveled to Canada, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming; "the Chinee," as he called his ex wife from long before I knew him; the whole Hewson Road gang, including Swede, Oor Fanny and The Dwarf; Sailor, through whom I first met him, and who later married an American and moved to this country; Justin Wallace, his wife Ann and their boys; Ken Smith at Red Lick Records; all his mates at the gym, and at Blues & Rhythm Magazine (especially Tony Watson, whose telephone advice and "house calls" of tech help many times saved Keith from throwing his computer down a flight of stairs in frustration); and the handful of women who moved in and out of his life during the years I knew him. With a few notable exceptions (!) his relationships with women generally ended well, and he was able to remain friends with most of them, an astonishing accomplishment for anyone. And finally his own family: his cousin Eddie Bream, with whom he'd shared his early days in Yarmouth, and his wonderful dad, Jim, with whom I had some fascinating phone conversations over the years until he died. Because Keith's mom died of cancer when he was only ten, Keith was raised by his dad and his Aunt Lydia; the two Briggs men always had a specially close bond, and many of Keith's letters are full of references to what his "old man" was up to (usually propping up the bar at their local pub, as he was a notable drinker). In "Jimmie The Kid"'s last years Keith took him into his own home and cared for him devotedly for as long as was possible, until he needed round the clock nursing care and went into the senior citizens home where he passed away. I have to say that the record will show that the two of them put away some serious beer during their lifetimes!
                                                                           

   
Left, Keith's Aunt Lydia, who took him in when he was ten years old at his mother's death from cancer. I don't know who took this photo. Right, visiting his dad, James Briggs, aka Jimmie The Kid, at the senior center shortly before Jim died. The reason it's so fuzzy is that Keith faxed it to me!

         
Keith took his duties very seriously as best man at the wedding of his close friends Eddie Smith and Cindy Legsda on October 18, 1997, Lincoln, England; so seriously that he stayed completely sober until the bride and groom left on their honeymoon! Cindy and Eddie sent me these photos, which were probably taken by their official wedding photographer.

Although I'm definitely not helpless, and no one who knows me would ever consider me a fragile flower, still I always felt completely safe when Bro was around, no matter where our travels took us. On one visit to a music club there was a little bit of trouble; nothing but a shoving and yelling match, really, and most likely due to too many beers, but as soon as it started there was a blur going past me as he put himself between me and harm faster than I had ever seen him move before. Gave me a whole new appreciation for his circuit training; that man could really move when he needed to!


 
Left: This is from a much longer newspaper article Keith sent me that was written about him and his job as manager of the leisure center. At right, on the circuit, with Hailey.

He had still another quality which I valued more than all the rest; he was transparently honest, his word was golden, and anything told to him in confidence was kept in confidence forever. He took to his grave many secrets of mine, as I will some of his, and I know that his closest English friends, like Eddie, Tony, and Paul, trusted him as much as I did.  We shared mutual confidences in the absolute certainty that nothing that was said between the two of us would ever go anywhere else. That kind of true friend is hard to come by in this world.

          
Thought you might like to see where he lived. At left is his house in Skellingthorpe, Lincoln, and at right is part of his collection of books. The two American Indian prints are from a set of four that I bought him at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage during one of our visits there. On the left hand side of the shelf below the books there's a painting or drawing of him.


In June,  2006 I got the following note from Sandy and Terry Rawlins, the folks who bought Keith's house after he died:
**************************************
Mary Katherine: We had a lovely little exchange with our postman yesterday which I thought you might find amusing.
We have just made some alterations to the front porch here, including removing the rather 'outsize' letter box (obviously designed for safe delivery of LP's I guess?). The postman has to knock on the door just now until we get a new one.
Anyway, apparently, Keith's post box had always been held in high esteem by our local posties. It was the biggest in the village, they had all commented on it from time to time, and had rarely failed to deliver anything because of it's really huge dimensions!
The postman asked if he could have it, and took it away with him yesterday. It is  destined for a 'museum' area in the local Post Office sorting area.  Just a small example of how your friend will always be remembered around these parts!!
**************************************


           
Left, in his back yard, celebrating his 60th birthday. Right, he gives his close friend Helen Byron the famous Keith Briggs Glare as she tries to take his cake away to be cut up. Photos by Justin Wallace; thanks, Justin!

              
Left, with Simon, Daniel and Ann Wallace, summer 1988. Photo by Justin Wallace; thanks, Justin! Right, with his friend Justin Wallace; they'd just returned from a pedal around the Suffolk lanes, outside the Wallace home near Bury St. Edmunds, UK, circa 1998. Photo by Ann Wallace.

We talked about death sometimes; he wasn't afraid of it, just wanted it to be "quick and clean," and he didn't believe in any kind of religion or afterlife. When I'm dead, I'm done, he often said. I wanted no part of that, and bargained with him that if it turned out that he was wrong and I was right, whoever died first would, if it was allowed or could possibly be managed, come back in some way with a message. There are a few things that only Keith will know to say to me, and by which I will know absolutely that the message truly comes from him; I'm still waiting. More than once he told me, gruffly, that his exit of choice would be to just drop dead on the circuit some day (an eerie prediction, since that's exactly what happened), and he always said he wanted to go first. I wasn't too thrilled about that concept either, and said so, loudly; but he just said, "you'd handle it better without me than I would without you," which I guess was the British Reserve's way of saying he loved his "sister." But although he had a series of (mostly) good relationships with women, of longer or shorter duration, he had only one real true love in his life, and she died years ago; after we'd known each other awhile he showed me her picture, which he carried everywhere with him: a beautiful English rose, with fair hair and alabaster skin. I hope that now they have found each other again.

 
Left, with Ed Archer. Right, with Ed Archer and Ron Crum. At Mary Katherine's house.

  
Showing Lowell Fulson a copy of Blues & Rhythm Magazine, on my balcony.



       
Left: At lunch in Charlottesville, VA, wearing his "so many books, so little time!" t-shirt, having just visited five bookstores; no wonder he looks tired! Once his hair and beard went entirely grey, one of his girlfriends in England started calling him "The Silver Fox." On the chain around his neck is his most precious treasure, his mother's wedding ring, which never left him. Right: Neil Slaven, Sue Welch (assistant to Dave Shannon, BBC producer of Paul Jones' Radio 2 blues show), and Keith, Bishopstock, 1999. Thanks, Neil!

Go to Part Three