Page Wilson: Feeding Music to a Hungry Audience

by Charles McGuigan 10.1997

Page Wilson songwriter, announcer, voice talent, performer, entrepreneur - is a force of nature. Almost volcanic in his eruptions about the pure bred American mongrel music he loves, Page spews his lava over the airwaves every Friday night from the studios of WCVE-FM 88.9. His other passions - aside from wife Jude Schlotzhauer and daughter Virginia Blue - are writing songs and performing With Reckless Abandon. And, of course, there’s the Chickahominy - for him an almost mythical place, a state of mind, a gentle link with all good things past and to come, a meandering river that slowly snakes its way to the lower James and out to the Chesapeake Bay. A place of wonder.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The gravel road to his house in Hanover skirts a field of pumpkins, each full as the moon and the color of an autumn dusk. There’s a beat-up pickup in the drive for hauling trash to the county transfer station and then there’s Page’s pale blue van and his wife’s Peugeot wagon.

His wife Jude, a petite woman with dark hair, is a glass artist. Her studio is but one of several buildings that make up the Wilson family compound. She shows me the glass tiles she makes and then gives me a tour of their home which is filled with works of art, much of it glass, much of it created by Jude. There’s a sculpture of a ram, a mixed media piece. Covering an entire wall is this amazing glass panel - painted, multicolored of tree women. Willowy women with roots, it rings of a spiritual animism. It’s a recurring theme in her art.

As Jude returns to her studio, Page says, “Let’s go over to the Swamp.”

The Mystical Chickahominy

The Chickahominy Swamp is part library, part production studio, part office and part sanctum. There are photos and posters on the walls, a fishing citation, and other memorabilia. Several flanks of filing cabinets, boxes stuffed with cassette recordings of Page’s live performances, and two desks and accompanying chairs. Plus a musical library that would put to shame many an AM radio station’s collections. Dominating the room are bookcases that house a thousand or so LPs, 2,500 or more CDs. Everything in the library is completely ordered, alphabetized by performer.

This is the point of origin for “Page Wilson’s Out of the Blue Radio Revue” and it’s just a stone’s heave from the real Chickahominy Swamp.

“When I was a kid growing up in Highland Park,” Page begins, “I’d ride out Meadowbridge Road on my bike out to the three bridges [just south of Ellerson Station]. I’d go fishing and hunting there. It was where I saw my first flying squirrel. It’s where I killed my first duck.”

He leans back in the swivel chair and pushes himself away from the desk, closes his eyes, strokes his beard. “The Chickahominy River is an urban, suburban, rural body of water, an ecosystem,” he says. “I think of the Chickahominy tribe that lived here. My daughter planted some Indian corn this past spring. Indian corn. Chickahominy means ‘people of the corn’.” He pauses for a moment and considers what he has just said, then smiles.

“More than anything, the Chickahominy is a symbol. It’s set right in the middle of an urban area. It’s nature’s own septic system. It’s a water scrubber. It has a function between here and the Bay, it cleans what’s going down. It’s a mystical place. My address is Chickahominy watershed. I’ve been to a lot of places across the country and everywhere I’ve been has a special place like the Chickahominy. I can connect spiritually to these other places on the Chickahominy.”

Page swivels around in his chair, facing the computer now and taps out something on the keyboard. He puts on a pair of wire-rimmed reading glasses like the “granny glasses” of another era. “Here it is,” he says, looking at the monitor. He punches a key and the printer starts up and spits out a sheet of paper.

It’s the lyrics of a song - part of “Suburbia Suite” - that Page wrote several years back when the yellow earth movers and backhoes scooped out the red clay of the Chickahominy Swamp to make way for the construction of I-295. “I just pulled off the side of the road on Three Oh One and started writing,” he says. The song is simply titled “Chickahominy”.

It goes, in part, like this:

They’re digging Chickahominy,

down deep into your soul

Progress comes a calling Ole

swamp for your control

If only when the rains come and

make your waters strong

You could wash away all traces 

and the deer could come back 

home

You could wash away all traces 

and the deer could come back 

home.

And:

Where once as a boy I wandered 

and did learn 

Lessons just the woods can teach

the ones with eager yearn

Kinda leaves me worrying for the 

children of today

Where’ll they learn those lessons if

we cut the woods away

Where’ll they learn those lessons

just the wild did have to say

They’re digging Chickahominy,

down deep into your soul.

Since he was a kid, lyrics and melodies have tickled the soul of Page Wilson, who is probably first and foremost a songwriter. He’s penned and refined hundreds of them over the years. “Melodies,” says Page, “just swim around in my head. I’m not a session studio guitarist.”

Which is why many of the songs he writes he composes on stage while doing a gig. “I always keep the tape rolling,” he says. “I’ll frequently write a song on stage and they’ll just wait until they know where I’m going. It takes world class players to do that.” These “world class” players are Bill Lux on upright bass, Chris Fuller on mandolin and Jay Gillespie on lead acoustic guitar. They make up Page Wilson With Reckless Abandon and frequently play in the Richmond area. They performed on a recent Saturday at the Texas Wisconsin Border Cafe.

On the Road

Playing bars and clubs has been an important part of Page’s life for the better part of two decades. In the early seventies, fresh out of his teens, Page hit the road with a knapsack, acoustic six-string guitar and a dog. He and a friend thumbed out to Snake River Canyon to watch Evel Kinevel make an aborted jump. A year later, during the bicentennial, he hitched out to Austin with the intention of attending Willie Nelson’s picnic. “We camped out at Hippie Hollow, but I didn’t go to the picnic,” he remembers. “They were charging one dollar for water. One dollar! I only had a dollar to my name. I always kept a dollar in my pocket to avoid vagrancy charges. Now, I always carry two,” he says, letting out a peal of laughter.

Once, thumbing along a back road in West Virginia, a narrow road along which rumbled wide coal trucks, Page simply couldn’t get a ride. He pulled out a piece of cardboard and wrote out in block letters the simple legend: FREE WATER. The next car that passed him hit the brakes and pulled off onto the thin shoulder. Page ran up to the car, knapsack, guitar and a jug of water in hand, his pit bull Jenny running up behind him. The driver asked “Where’s the water?” Wearing a grin broad as a crescent moon, Page indicated the jug of water and the driver, who must have been smiling too, said, “Get in.”

Another time, in New Mexico, the Interstate ramp was lined with hitchhikers. A state police officer stopped at each hitchhiker, moving along the line to where Page stood, right near the Interstate. “I started doing the hitchhiker’s jig,” he says. “Waving my hands, jumping up and down trying to get a ride before the law arrived.”

But before he could catch a ride, the police officer approached him. “He asked me my name, address and so on and then asked me my height, hair color, weight, color of my eyes,” says Page, who thought the police officer was looking for a criminal. “I asked him why he was asking all these questions,” Page says. And he said “We just keep these records so we can identify the bodies.”

It was a freewheeling time with no responsibilities and not a care in the world, the entire country spread out before him like a quilt of many fabrics. And Page wanted to sample every single panel, touch it, feel its unique texture. “I was writing a lot of songs and just enjoying life,” he says fondly. “I played for my dinner. Walked up to a truck stop or a roadhouse and asked if I could play. Usually they’d feed you, give you a couple of beers, maybe even a place to stay. And in all the time I hitchhiked, I never had a bad experience. You never get a bad ride hitchhiking with a dog.”

He kicked around in that manner for a couple of years and finally bought a step van - a home on wheels. “I lived in that thing for a couple of years,” he says. “I wintered in Key West three years in a row. I used to play out on Mallory Pier before it became commercialized. The people would stand out there to watch the sunset every night from about five to nine. All up and down the pier were musicians, each one playing. People would throw you some change, a few dollars. It was bad when the bagpiper came out, though. He wore a kilt and his little thing swinging from his waist and he’d start the thing going. He walked a straight line back and forth playing and you couldn’t hear anyone else’s music. All you could hear was the bagpiper.”

Somewhere in there he traveled to England and actually played at the gates to Canterbury Cathedral. “It was a perfect place to busk,” he says. “Right there where Chaucer’s pilgrims came. Picking for tips. Busking is what the English call it.” Page also played in a Brighton pub on a very special day. “I think I’m probably the only American to have played at a Fourth of July party in England,” he says with one of his customary guffaws.

In the early eighties Page returned to his native Richmond. He recorded his first album - ”Road Tired, Wired and Ready” - in 1982. A few years later he cut another album - “The Best Of The Situation.” Neither was a commercial success, though there are some great tunes on each album.

All during this time, Page was playing regular gigs in Richmond and down on the Outer Banks, out in Lynchburg and up in Ocean City, Maryland, and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Like other musicians he sent a calendar of his performances to fans.

It Came From Out of the Blue

And then in 1984, Page decided to  take this “fanzine” of his and put it in tabloid format. It would contain a calendar of events, photography, and other features along with advertising. He kept it going for five years and never realized a profit. “We wanted it to start paying its phone bills and it couldn’t pay it,” he says. “We couldn’t make it.”

Page remembers how the publication came to be named “I was with Bryan Lucas and told him I couldn’t come up with a name,” he explains. “He said to me, ‘You’ve just got to pick something out of the blue.’” And that’s when Out Of The Blue Review was named. 

It was a medley of art work and poetry, a comical personals column and prose. One of the most popular and memorable portions of this countertop giveaway was a series of anecdotes, bad puns, one liners attributed to the mythical Buck Tode. 

Just then the phone rings and Page picks up the receiver. “Hey, Buddy Roe,” he says. “Jimmy Ray Gilmore’s playing downtown.” He covers the mouthpiece with his palm and says in a near whisper to me, “He’s one hell of a picker and songwriter.” He talks for awhile on the phone and then returns the receiver to its cradle. 

While still producing the publication, Page turned his attention to radio. About ten years ago he started a weekly show on the precursor of K95. “We did thirty-nine weeks there,” he says. “And then moved to WTVR when they went country.” After that stint he moved his “Out Of The Blue Radio Revue” back to K95. “We did Sunday nights for forty-five weeks and then moved to WVGO for about a year and a half.”

This past March, Page brought his radio magic, his theater of the mind, to WCVE-FM where it can be heard live on Friday nights from 8 to 10 p.m. This January the show will move to Saturday in the same time slot, directly following Garrison Keillor’s, “A Prairie Home Companion.”

Theatre of the Mind

“I love Garrison Keillor and what he does,” says Page. “People sometimes comment that our shows are a lot alike, but we’re so different, though we have similar tastes in music.” One of the trademarks of Page’s program is a continuity, a subtle thread that weaves its way through two hours of music. And the fact that Page plays a lot of music. There’s little talk. “We let the music tell the story,” he says.

And then there’s “Around The Kitchen Table” shows where performers come to the studio and play. “And the food we have,” he says. “Ribs and chili. Just about everything. And we sit and eat and play music and sing They love it because musicians live on their stomachs.”

He’s had some impressive names on the show -- everyone from The Clancy Brothers to Mary Chapin Carpenter. “A lot of this comes from my own experience,” says Page. “You’d be crashing at someone’s house and sit and play a little music around the kitchen table or in the living room or wherever. That’s what we try and do with “Around The Kitchen Table.” It’s much more intimate. Some of the best music I’ve ever heard was by someone you never heard before and you’ll never hear again.”

Mary Chapin Carpenter was so impressed by the format that she told Page to call her and she’d help put on a benefit concert so he could expand his own studio and go into national syndication. “But that was before she really hit the star trail,” says Page, without regret. “I’ve tried to contact her and I can’t get through to her. If we’re meant to go national it will happen. Slow, solid steps is kind of my style. I like being where I am but would like to get into syndication.”

As a matter of fact, Page’s program in the past on other stations had been syndicated twice. “When I was at K95 we had eleven stations nationally,” he says.

If syndicated again, Page would like to go through NPR and go national. “All we need is a national sponsor,” he says. “The best things happen when I don’t have my hat in my hand. If it’s meant to happen it will. My job is to produce a radio show.”

On Air with Page Wilson

On Friday night, I meet Page and one of his volunteer producers, Ken McGranahan, at 23 Sesame Street. With  Page’s arrival, a studio at WCVE becomes The Chickahominy Swamp.

The console is sort of like a partners desk. On one side of the console armed with mikes sits Page; on the other side with the compact disc players and turntables and cart machines is Kevin. They can see one another through a Plexiglas divider on which Page has been carefully placing index cards. “Smile,” says one, “All you got to do is act naturally.” Another says “Slow down, Page.” Notes to himself.

As the second hand of the clock reaches 8:01 on the nose, Kevin hits a button on a cart machine that plays an intro and over the music Page goes on the air, live. He notes that on this date and over this weekend Gram Parsons, Hank Williams, Steve Goodman, and other notable songwriters died. He checks his index cards and tells the listening audience that he doesn’t know what year they died, but of the dates he’s certain. Celebrating deceased musicians with their music. It’s a sort of Irish wake of the airwaves.

 “Queen of the Road” by Steve Goodman plays, followed by pieces by Taj Mahal, Riders in the Sky and The Flying Burrito Brothers. Things are starting to cook. The music fades from one cut to another, seamlessly - proof of Kevin McGranahan’s skill as a producer.

Page opens the mike, gives performers’ names and song titles and record companies. And then it’s back to the music.

Kevin is punching buttons, queuing CDs and vinyl LPs. They jaw back and forth when the mike’s off, but as soon as the mike comes on, the studio is quiet. “Music for the mind’s ear,” says Page. “Pure bred American mongrel music.”

When the mike goes off and the next set begins, they talk about good food and drink from last week’s “Around The Kitchen Table.” It’s a recurring theme in their conversation. It’s like the good music that quenches impalpable thirst and sates intangible hunger. “Feed the staff and the artist,” booms Page like a modern day Falstaff. “I’ve been on the road and I know what it’s like. Good home-cooking and a place to stay.”

As Kevin switches on the mike, Page announces tonight’s sponsor - Peaches Music and Video. “A lot of music, a lot of store,” says Page. “Here at home in The Chickahominy. Sweet, sweet dreams Virginia Blue,” he adds, brushing the ears of his red-haired daughter who’s nestled with her mother right near the real Chickahominy Swamp. “I love this planet,” he says when the mike goes off.

He listens to the next set, humming along, singing out loud, rocking in his swivel chair, thumping the floor with his feet. After Hank Williams finishes crooning “Hey Good Lookin” and Lightning Hopkins starts up, Page Wilson smiles broadly and fairly yells out, “Where else on the radio are you going to hear Hank Williams and Lightning Hopkins back to back? Help me, Jesus, help me, Lord, I’m blessed.”

“So are your listeners,” someone says and Page beams.

They round out the second hour with Steve Goodman’s “Don’t Know Where I’m Going But I’m Going Nowhere In A Hurry Blues”, more Gram Parsons, and “Honky Tonk Blues” by Hank Williams. And to fill those last couple of minutes on air, Tony Rice’s “Marguarita.” Final announcement, and an outro. The show’s over.

Topping It Off with Live Music

Crossing the James on the Powhite in Page’s blue van we all look at the moon above the black water, and the adjacent train bridge, the viaduct they call Pier 56. There’s no train crossing and the bridge is silhouetted against the night silvery white as the inverted skeleton of a diplodocus. The rails flicker with moonlight as Page starts singing “Sweet Revenge” by John Prine.

“There was two of everything, but one of me,” he sings and Kevin joins in. And so do I. The words and the music grip you. Signs of life. The human voice. Stories told to music.

We stop by Lucy’s at Colonial and Cary where they have live music every Friday night. Terry Garland’s in there on his six-string, belting out a blues number, his lungs living bellows. We sit out on the sidewalk cafe in the balmy night. Page brings a long-necked Bud to his lips and tips it back. Music spills out of Lucy’s onto the sidewalk. Voices murmur.

“I love this city,” says Page Wilson. “Along with Austin and Nashville, it’s one of the three best music cities in the country. And you know what they have in common? They’re all hilly country. They’re all state capitals. They have arts universities. And they’re all on rivers.”

He cocks his head to Lucy’s open door, listening to the music, then sips from the beer. He lights a cigarette, inhales and the glowing orange ember hangs in the air. He smiles, listening to the music that comes from the bar and to the steady stream of traffic that flows down Cary Street, sounding for all the world like a rain-swollen river heading Chesapeake Bayward.