Got here via Twitter.

Not to get all nitpicky and stuff on New Year's Eve, but isn't that Janis Ian with Steve, not Janis Joplin?

Great, tender remembrance, Roger. Best wishes for 2010!

Surprised to see this on twitter. Thanks. Steve Goodman with the great almost forgotten Jethro Burns. Made my decade you did.

Hi Roger,
WOW! What a great tribute!! I know for sure of at least two dozen Cubs Fans friends of mine whom I will be sharing this with.
T-Tom Best

Thanks so much. It was wonderful to have Steve — and Jethro! — be a part of New Year's Eve again!

25 years later, one would still have to look very, very hard to find a voice as life-affirming as that of Steve Goodman.

To this day my favorite Steve Goodman song is The Lincoln Park Pirates =)

You're right, New Year's Eve without Steve has never been quite right.

One correction, that's Janis Ian not Janis Joplin !

What a wonderful memory. I was at the January 23, 1985 concert. I didn't realize what I was witnessing.

I only casually knew Steve from the Earl. I knew John better as he was my mother's mailman in Westchester.

Years later, I got to know Chuck Koster and heard a lot of stories about Steve's early years.

I recapture my youth and my innocence everytime I hear one of his songs.

I miss you Steve. I look forward to hearing you again.

With love,

Timothy

I'm listening to "City of New Orleans" as I type.

When I was child, I often had the sense in the late 60's and early 70's that something was in the air and moving. Something akin to the passing of unseen travelers on journeys far away, and all felt as a profound awareness of there being something in the air; like a collective "sigh" was rippling over the landscape.

Now that I'm older, I know what it was. It was loss in the wake of change.

The City New Orleans sounds a lot like what I heard. Steve Goodman appears to have caught a moment in time.

P.S. everyone I know is broke after Christmas and thus staying home for a quiet New Years Eve, including me. That's not a complaint though! It's nice when you can relax with a few ciders, and eat some gummy bears and watch The Iron Giant. :)

I believe the above picture is Janis Ian not Janis Joplin.

Ebert: Right. The web site only said "Janis," and I...

Thanks - My dad passed away 25 yrs ago last Nov. He was a Steve Goodman fan (as am I).

I miss my old man every night ...

I believe that is Janis Ian not Joplin
http://www.janisian.com/news-2007june.html

Hi Roger,

My husband tells a story about how the security guy didn't want to let Steve Goodman into Follinger Auditorium...he couldn't possibly be Steve Goodman because he was too short.

Happy New Year.

Thanks for posting this tribute. You have helped make an otherwise humdrum New Year's into a memorable one.

From Stevie's brother.

Thank you

and Peace and Love.

Thanks for the memories! "We'll take a cup of kindness yet for auld lang syne."

Thanks Roger. You should do a similar tribute to Fred Holstein some time.

A wonderful New Years gift. My wife and I were fans of Steve from before he was popular till the end. Happy New Years everyone and Happy Nye Years Steve.

There is a monumental bio of Steve that my friend, Erica Pionke, shared with me. She read it in preparation to write a bio on the Earl himself (btw, Pionke means "drinker" in Polish). In the book there is a photo of Steve Goodman and Hillary Clinton in high school! They were classmates.

This is a wonderful compilation and selection of familiar tunes. Thanks.

I'm surprised you didn't mention John Denver's version of Steve Goodman! Of course, I'm pretty sure Steve wouldn't like that, but it's a good story, and good trivia. I wonder what your take is on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNIfU0SyCw4

"I'll hang around as long as you will let me..."

What a great talent - a body of work that would be the envy of any songwriter of any era.

Caught this via twitter, Roger. There was such wit, such infectious joyousness in Steve Goodman's performances. I listen to him often, and always get choked up. He is missed, and you've put together such a good tribute. Thanks.

I've loved Steve since the first time I heard "The Dutchman", in the middle of the night on the radio I kept playing quietly beside my bed. I saw him in Montreal in, I think, 1975: I was 14, and I've never forgotten the show. I may even still have the ticket stub.

I was lucky enough to see John Prine just a few months ago, and thought of Steve the whole time. I may have wept a bit when John sang "Souvenirs".

Thanks for the wonderful tribute, Roger. When they finally invent that damn consumer-grade time machine I've been waiting for, one of my first stops is going to be Chicago in the 60s so I can hang out in Old Town with all of youse for a while.

I plead guilty to loving Michael Smith's song "The Dutchman" -- enough so that I don't sing it! Mike and Steve did such good versions -- better left to them. I have done Mike's very funny song "Last Days of Pompeii" and consider him one of the brightest songwriting lights. I met Mike as a teen working the It's Here coffeehouse about the same time as I bumped into Goodman at Scot's Cellar, another coffeehouse in Morton Grove. Steve and I were high school students playing folk to get girls. (It worked.) I have a fine Jim Polanski photo of "Big John" Stanisha, folk music fan extraordinaire, and Steve Goodman (a physical pairing right out of "Of Mice and Men") in my office and know what you mean about missing Steve's infectious New Year's Eve energy. He instigated the Midnight Special NYE party like no one else.

Followed this link from the John Prine page you just put up. I saw these two greats perform one starlit summer night at Ravinia, in the company of my first real love. "The Dutchman" was our song, though he didn't know it - he thought it was "If We Only Have Love" by Jacques Brel, and I let him think so. But the song about the Dutchman always wrenched my heart and I couldn't hear it without tearing up. Years later, after my sweet friend's untimely death, the lyrics seemed to relay a prophecy of what had come to pass: long ago he used to be a young man, and I remember that of him.

I got here like the last poster via twitter/John Prine who is another of our favorites. The last time we saw him was in a refurbished old theater in Rockford, IL. Steve brings back the 70's for me...driving around downtown trying to find a place to park because we heard Steve would be playing at one bar or another. I think the one song that really wrenched me was Steve's war protest song Penney Evans, I still cry when I hear it. I've been thinking of it often since we are in the mess overseas in Iraq & Afghanistan.

THIS JUST IN:

"CHICAGO (AP) -- Congressman Mike Quigley wants to rename Chicago's Lakeview Post Office after folk musician Steve Goodman, who wrote "City of New Orleans" and "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request."

http://www.wbbm780.com/-City-of-New-Orleans--composer-could-get-post-offi/6595174

Ebert: My congressman! A brilliant statesman!

The train seen out the window at the start of the video is an MBTA commuter train...which means we must be in Boston. I don't know about some of the other shots but it's likely this all is just footage of Amtrak in the Northeast and nothing at all from the actual City of New Orleans train.

In case anyone is interested, the City was a coach train running mostly in daytime. The fancy overnight Pullman (sleeping car) train on the same route was the Panama Limited. In fact originally the super deluxe Panama was all-Pullman with no coaches at all. When the Illinois Central finally caved and put coaches on the Panama they didn't want to tarnish the name so they claimed the coach section was separate train called the Magnolia Star.

When Amtrak took over in 1971 they dropped the Panama and kept the City. But they decided maybe people would prefer an overnight trip with optional sleeping cars so they switched to a night schedule and renamed it the Panama Limited like the old overnight train.

Eventually, between the popularity of this song and too many people wondering what Panama has to do with anything they switched the name back, but still on the old Panama Limited overnight scheduling.

The curious may track updates regarding the Steve Goodmann Post Office here:

H.R.4861 - To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1343 West Irving Park Road in Chicago, Illinois, as the "Steve Goodman Post Office Building".

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h4861/show

So I came down often to the Earl to see Steve and John (and Marco and Rand for that matter!) for years before I actually worked for Earl at Somebody Else's Troubles on Lincoln. I was waiting on tables and on my life to start. New Year's Eve rolled around and I could hardly believe I was invited to the WFMT studios for the NYE broadcast that I had listened to every year. It was, as anyone there will attest, quite a party. Don't know what time it was when I and one of the other girls finally headed out to catch a cab.

Next morning I called Mom to say Happy New Year's and told her that Stevie Goodman had seen us waiting on the deserted street and offered us a ride, which we happily took. I was pretty impressed with myself.

Mom turned around to my younger brothers and sisters sitting at breakfast, and with great pride announced: "You'll never guess who drove Kay home last night! Stevie Wonder!"

Hilarity ensued. He would have loved it.

Thanks, Roger!

From ChicagoBreakingNews.com:

"The U.S. Senate voted unanimously late Wednesday to name a post office near Wrigley Field after the late folk singer and Cubs fan Steve Goodman.

By unanimous consent, the Senate gave the go-ahead to the resolution, which was sponsored by U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley D-Ill. and which passed the U.S. House in April in a 371-0 vote, to rename the Lakeview post office at 1343 W. Irving Park Road the 'Steve Goodman Post Office Building.'

...The resolution now goes to the desk of President Obama, who is expected to sign it."

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/07/go-steve-go-senate-oks-goodman-post-office-near-wrigley.html

I grew up listening to the music of Steve Goodman, and had the privilege and pleasure of seeing him perform live once at Los Angeles' Universal Amphitheater (back when it was a true amphitheater, open to the skies). He was the quintessential entertainer.

Every time the Cubs win a home and 40,000 people start singing "Go, Cubs, Go!" I ask myself, "How many of these people know who Steve Goodman is?" The answer is, sadly, not many.

i still have the old phonemate answering machine tape with steve on it. he was calling me from the sunset marquis motel in L.A. about a tv or radio show i lined up for him. actually fred holstein, studs terkel and others are on that same little cassette...

so many memories from a time that could never be repeated. it makes me think of a line attributed to the weavers -- "wasn't that a time." yes it was.

i remember going into "troubles" one afternoon and steve was there. he was planning to cook "flied lice" (fried rice). just a snippet of a memory.

Roger,

I just found this on the net today, 7 months or so late. Thank you so much for putting this together. Steve Goodman's early passing was a tragedy for us all. I still listen to his music on my ipod when weeding my garden here in sunny New Mexico. Prine and Goodman singing "Souvenirs" together still brings on the tears.

I was lucky enough to live in Chicago in those exciting times of the late sixties and early seventies. John Prine, Steve Goodman, Bonnie Koloc, the Holstein brothers, Larry Rand--it was an amazing time. I remember those Thursday nights when the faculty of Old Town School of Folk Music would gather after class at the Saddle Club. I even remember a Pulitzer Prize winning film critic taking the stage there to sing "Rockabye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody!"

I don't hear a lot of current news here in the mountains of northern New Mexico, but I have heard that you have been having some difficult times. It is my sincere hope that knowing the joy your work has brought to so many people in our society has made your burdens a little easier to bear.

Thank you again for this great tribute and for everything that you have done to make my life more enjoyable.

P.S. I liked your rendition of "Rockabye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody."

Ebert: I wonder how many did? :)

Larry Rand drops by on my blog sometimes.

Thanks for reminding of so many wonderful memories. I have seen hundreds of concerts, but seeing Steve turn a large auditorium in Bellingham, WA into an intimate space in 1974 or 1975 was a high point. His energy, talent, and music were incredible. It's amazing to think of how these songs wind their way into the soundtrack of one's life. Mine is better, because of Steve Goodman.

Roger,

I think everybody in the room liked your performance, even the ones that were throwing bar towels at you.

Re Larry Rand. I would have thought that he would be more famous than God by this time. Funny, witty, and an excellent musician. I'd love to see him perform again, but I guess I feel that way about all those Chicago folk people of that time.

Your journal is addictive to me. I'll probably spend more time reading it than pulling those damned weeds! Your writing talent is amazing.

Blessings

Eric, you sacreligious so-and-so, the check is in the mail (figuratively speaking, of course). I drop by Hogeye Arts' concerts up in Evanston each year to perform, though I don't think I'll make it again until April '11. My main squeeze took a job at the U. of C., whilst I'm still out in California, so life is slightly amok. I do a few gigs in the LA area, too, but haven't been out on the road as an entertainer in many years. Nicole Mendyk and I have a CD, "Deep-dish Folk," that has at least two songs from the Earl of Old Town days; it's available at CD Baby. It's amusing to me that 30 years after his death, Steve Goodman is still stirring up things.

Well, it's all over but the ribbon-cutting. If a former letter carrier named John Prine cuts the ribbon, even better. On 8/3/2010, President Obama signed Rep. Quigley's bill into law.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2010/08/lakeview_post_office_renamed_f.html

Throughout this fundamental example on how a bill becomes a law, it is gratifying finally to read an article which shows that Steve Goodman was certainly far more than that guy who wrote "Go Cubs Go."

Great appreciation, thank you. I had the pleasure of seeing Steve at Passim in Cambridge and being in the same room with him was indeed a treat. The clip of him & Prine doing the latter's Souvenirs is a complete gem - have two buds ever had so much fun legally?

Mark your calendars. The Steve Goodman Post Office will be officially dedicated on Sunday, October 10, at 3:00 PM.

From The Old Town School of Folk Music [www.oldtownschool.org]:

Steve Goodman Post Office

1343 West Irving Park Road
Public Dedication Sunday, October 10th, 3PM

The Lakeview Post Office is getting a new name!

Singer/Songwriter/Storyteller, Chicago native and former Old Town School student, Steve Goodman was one of the most talented and celebrated songwriters of his generation. We are simply over the moon that the US Postal Service is going to honor him right in the heart of Lakeview, just a stone's throw from Goodman's beloved Wrigley Field.

The new Steve Goodman Post Office Building will have a public dedication ceremony this coming Sunday, October 10th at 3PM. The one and only Ed Holstein will host the event with special guest Representative Mike Quigley and performances by Bonnie Koloc, Steve Levitt, Chris Farrell, Barb Barrow, Harry Waller, Corky Siegel, Michael Smith, Jimmy Tomasello & more!

so appropriate as I travel about of my way to that Irving Park PO because the staff is so kind hearted. Good vibes all around!

Stevie was a remarkable voice, an amazing musician, and one of the world's truly beautiful people. I think of him often, and hear his influence in countless peoples and places, but never more beautiful than by steve himself.

Saw this thread on my Facebook newsfeed by Ken E. The first time I saw Steve was working as AD on "Made in Chicago", the show that became "Soundstage", and Ken produced. To say I was impressed is an understatement. The last time I saw him was at the Quiet Knight as a walk on to a double bill of Billy Joe Shaver and Bonnie Bramlett. Now that was a trio! It was cold winter midweek night, and only about 50 people were in the place. Billy Joe's opening remark was "Well I sure as **** can't blow my career here!" It just got better from there. What a night.

A very sweet and kinda sad afternoon. A friend posted the link on Facebook and, being a Steve Goodman fan, well ... yes, I stopped to listen, read and remember. Now, I'll walk away from this computer with an ache in my soul for those times—the days we all seemed to play with little hint of this every-man-for-himself future that was about to drop on us. It's OK. I refuse to whine. I'm not bleeding from the changeover from thoughtful, intelligent music to whatever we have now. It's just that music is no longer part of the engine that drives our society. I guess I miss that the most. Fare thee well Stevie.

In the mid-70s, Steve was playing one night at Cafe York, a folkie place in Denver. As an Illinois native, I owned a couple of his lps but hadn't seen him perform. So my roommate and I drove down from the mountains of Nederland to catch the show.

Between sets, he liked to visit tables and chat. We ended up telling him about this crazy, back-to-nature life we then had, living in an old A-frame 5 miles north of Nederland. No running water, no electricity, no phone. No neighbors. We had a refrigerator and stove, and a bit of heating, all run off propane but otherwise it was very, very rustic. We hauled our water in and even snowshoed from the highway when the snow was too deep. (And reminded the snowplow driver to please plow our 4th priority road by giving him Jack Daniels at Christmas.)

When I remember that time, I'm AMAZED I did it more than two years!

Steve was fascinated. He came up one afternoon to experience what to a Chicagoan was a pretty exotic lifestyle. Later that year, when he and John Prine had a four night run at Boulder's Tulagi on the Hill, we were lucky to attend all the shows. I remember somebody wrote that "Steve Goodman was the only performer around who seemed to be 4 feet off the stage whenever he played." He was that charismatic.

A special talent and such a sweet man. How wonderful that we still remember him.

No matter what tune I hear from Steve (or see), it brings a big smile! He is still very much alive with this tribute....Thanks, Roger!!!
peace