I’ve been curious about Christopher Small’s Musicking ever since Christgau reviewed the thing back in 2000. (My curiosity was further piqued when Marsh referred to the concept in his 2001 rockcritics.com interview with me) (nb: I have to live with my misspelling of “musicking” in the Marsh interview until I’m properly set up with a home PC again). Small died last week, prompting a recollection by Christgau, as well as an obit by Ben Ratliff in the New York Times.

Tom Hibbert obituary: Journalist known for his softly ruthless interview technique

“At Smash Hits in the mid-80s, he helped invent a cartoon fantasy world in which everyone interviewed seemed to exhibit the same slapstick characteristics. All his subjects — Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Bucks Fizz, John Lydon –– were delightfully over-exaggerated, as mischievous and eccentric as their interrogator.”

10 Years After the White Stripes ‘Saved’ It, Rock Is Again in Crisis, by Eric Been, the Atlantic

My two cents.

Michael Freedberg writes:

Jane Scott was a very personal inspiration to me as a music journalist. I had already reached an age well beyond the average at clubs and concerts when I first heard of her. Though she was based in a city 600 miles away, and I almost never got to read her actual reviews, I could well picture her sitting beside me at a concert or dancing next to me at a club, saying, “what’s age got to do with it? Does the JOB change because?” And of course no, it doesn’t. Jane Scott was there, doing it on the front line, at age 70, 80, and more, doing it because the job needed doing, she loved doing it, took it upon herself to support the best of rock music as she heard it (and saw it). That’s what a critic is supposed to do: tell the reader what happened, was it good or not, and if so, why so. And that the reader needed to know of acts worth knowing. That’s what art critics do all the time; why not rock critics? Well now. I’m a long way from 92, the age at which Jane left us; but I’m older now than most of the venues I go to and older than almost all the acts whose stuff I review. It’s all in me, 55 years of listening and 37 years of reviewing, and I enjoy it as much as Jane did, and because Jane did it. THANK YOU, JANE SCOTT for always being there for me!

(Michael Freedberg has been writing about disco and dance music since before “disco” was a genre. Read more by Freedberg in the rockcritics.com Disco Critics Survey from 2001.)

• “And when we got inside, my sister asked who brought their Grandma to the show. I turned, and there beside me, with her Ticket pinned to her scarf; big red glasses, a bigger purse and the biggest smile I’d ever seen was Jane Scott. I immediately fanboy’ed and professed, as many had before me, that she was required reading every Friday and after every show… whether I was there or not. I introduce her to my sister, who wasn’t quite sure what to make, but slowly realized the cool factor when Jane started rocking out with us. Jane was 71 at the time.”
  - Honesty is Such a Shallow Grave

• “The whole time that we were talking, she was making notes in a notepad and it soon became very clear that it was that notepad that held the key to the magic within her stories, always a hybrid of what was happening on stage, mixed with personal input from the people that were there to see the show. It was an important early lesson to me that sometimes those nuggets for a potential story are right there, all around you.”
  - Addicted to Vinyl

• “Scott always lugged a massive tote bag, one that contained reams of paper, a snack and who knows what else lurking on the bottom. Jimmy Hoffa could have been in there. These were the pre-Internet, pre-cellphone days. A reporter couldn’t whip out a smartphone and Google a song lyric in 1985, and Jane Scott came prepared.”
  - Trib Today

• “She was like Andy Warhol: iconic blond hair set in a most determined pageboy that never moved. That, and red oversized glasses. You couldn’t miss her at shows — be it the Dead Boys, Pearl Jam or Neil Young. Paul McCartney serenaded her; the often prickly Lou Reed adored her, and young people in Cleveland had a better sense of the bands they loved because Jane Scott worked so hard to show stars as human beings.”
  - Los Angeles Times

• “Jane put such recognition from rock stars into perspective for me: These people are not my friends. They are using me to get publicity, just as I am using them to get a story.”
  - Lakewood Patch

Jane Scott, legendary Plain Dealer rock writer, dies at age 92

Sad news about someone who can lay legitimate claim to the title, “world’s first rock critic.”

To wit: “When the Beatles performed Sept. 15, 1964, at Public Hall, Scott was there, reporter’s notebook in hand. ‘I never before saw thousands of 14-year-old girls, all screaming and yelling,’ she recalled later. ‘I realized this was a phenomenon… The whole world changed.’”

I’ll keep my eye out for more stories on this. Great job by the folks at Cleveland, who have compiled a photo gallery as well as a large sampling of Scott’s work right on the site (including a review of the Stones in ’64 and a review of Pere Ubu in ’75!)

Ned Raggett and Geeta Dayal post Martin Rushent obits that say more or less what I would try to say if I were to write one, except that they say it much, much better. Glad to see this fantastic — and sadly under-recognized, at least by critics — producer get his due.