What happened to you, man? What happened to that passion?
Harvey Cohen, 42-year-old mortgage specialist, teetotaler, New Rochelle commuter, dominated the room. There wasn’t a song he didn’t know, a key he couldn’t transpose. He switched effortlessly between guitar and banjo. Jake Raskinov was a no-show but Elliot Grossman noticed Harvey, how could he not?
LAMPLICKER BY ROBERT MORGAN FISHER 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 35
It all started with an invitation to Elliot Grossman’s party. Harvey knew Elliot peripherally, the strapping standup bass player was well-known in the folk world. To be invited to his annual shindig was a big deal. There would be all kinds of folkies there singing into the wee hours. For Harvey, who resided in New Rochelle and took the train in every morning to work at a failing mortgage firm but who ate, slept, and breathed traditional folk music, it was a major coup. Elliot had joined the latest incarnation of the legendary Lamplighters, an iconic folk group. Recently, Jake Raskinov, the last surviving founding member of the Lamplighters, was rumored to be considering retirement after fifty years on the road.
“Maybe Elliot will ask me to join the Lamplighters,” Harvey said to his wife Beth, as he changed the strings on his pre-war Martin guitar and ‘62 Vega banjo. “This party may be an opportunity.”
“Right,” she said. Beth tolerated Harvey’s preoccupation with folk music. Harvey liked his folk music smart and vital but had a special fondness for old school folk—earnest, cornball, and idealistic. And on that account few groups could compete with The Lamplighters. Harvey had all their albums, including the ones where three, then two, then only one (Jake) of the original trio remained. The first to leave the Lamplighters was Mac Rutherford who went on to a huge career as a solo act in the sixties and seventies, his warbling tenor instantly recognizable on several pop hits. The true leader of the Lamplighters had been Irv Liebling—but he died suddenly a couple of decades back. Jake Raskinov now owned the Lamplighter name and had carried on since then with a revolving cast of replacements. Elliot Grossman on standup bass and Pete Killen on guitar comprised the most recent legs of the Lamplighter three-legged stool. They toured a lot, according to their website.
“Maybe Jake will be at the party,” said Harvey. “Wouldn’t that be great?”
“Sure.”
Harvey kissed Beth goodbye. With guitar and banjo cases in hand, he shouted upstairs to Lev and Zev but they were watching TV and didn’t hear.
“Don’t wait up for me,” he told Beth. “These hootenannies can go till dawn and I’ll probably miss the train home.”
“Right.”
Harvey walked down to the station, whistling 500 Miles.