Duane Jarvis, famed guitarist and singer-songwriter, dies of colon cancer
busgal
cancer
By PETER COOPER . Staff Writer, Nashville, Tennessean
April 1, 2009
Duane Jarvis, the amiable singer-songwriter who commanded stages with
what
Rosie Flores called a "Keith Richards flair and a honky-tonk heart,"
died
this morning in his Los Angeles apartment. He was 51, and he battled
colon
cancer for 16 months.
Mr. Jarvis, who recorded five critically acclaimed solo albums, lived
in
Nashville from 1994 until recently. He played guitar on recordings by
Flores, Lucinda Williams, John Prine, Dwight Yoakam, Frank Black, Amy
Rigby,
Giant Sand, Peter Case and many others. He toured with artists
including
Prine, Black and The Divinyls, and his songs were featured in motion
pictures The Horse Whisperer and The Rookie. He was an admirable
conundrum:
a rock 'n' roller known for kindness and gentility, and a shy and
soft-spoken man known for his electrifying stage presence.
"This is what we live for," he sometimes told audiences at a concert's
outset, before striking a chord on his electric guitar and beginning
to sing
one of his self-penned stories.
Mr. Jarvis grew up on the west coast, in Oregon, Washington and
California.
His father - who often played country records around the house - was
in the
U.S. Coast Guard, and his mother was a nurse. He was fascinated by
music
from an early age. As a pre-teen, he lived briefly in Florida, where
he saw
blues legend BB King in concert. At show's end, he moved to the edge
of the
stage, where King saw him and handed him a guitar pick that he kept
throughout his life. As a teenager, Mr. Jarvis joined a blues band and
then
became a member of power pop group The Odds.
"I was very quiet, and music was my big outlet which helped me
communicate
with people," he told interviewer Shuichi Iwami. "I think I would have
been
kind of lost without it."
In the mid-1980s, Mr. Jarvis moved from Oregon to Los Angeles, and he
became
part of an L.A. country scene that included Flores, Yoakam, Williams,
Buddy
Miller, The Blasters and Jim Lauderdale. Mr. Jarvis wrote songs and
worked
in Long Tall Marvin, a band fronted by Lone Justice founder Marvin
Etzioni,
and his session work included playing guitar on Williams' Sweet Old
World
album. He also played club gigs and made demo recordings, and the
recordings
caught the ear of former Replacements manager Peter Jesperson, who ran
Medium Cool Records in Minnesota. Medium Cool released D.J.'s Front
Porch in
1994, the same year that Mr. Jarvis moved to Nashville.
"The careening `Good On Paper' and the wistful `Back of Beyond' sound
like
lost gems that were left off (the Rolling Stones') Let It Bleed,"
wrote Bob
Cannon of Entertainment Weekly in a review of D.J.'s Front Porch.
"Jarvis
seems to spit out these evocative country-soul tunes effortlessly,
indicating that Front Porch is built to last."
For Mr. Jarvis, Nashville offered an opportunity to collaborate with
like-minded, left-of-center talents such as Tim Carroll, Amy Rigby,
Steve
Allen, Joy Lynn White and Dave Coleman. Music City was also a place
for him
to settle into healthier routines.
"Los Angeles was a fast track, and I was the one driving the car," he
told
The Tennessean in 2000. "I'm the eternal optimist. I feel there's a
place
for my songs in Nashville."
One of those songs, a co-write with Williams called "Still I Long For
Your
Kiss," wound up in a movie soundtrack and was recorded by Williams on
her
breakthrough Car Wheels On A Gravel Road album.
He also placed songs on albums by Carroll, White, Greg Trooper,
Pinmonkey,
Peter Case and others. Mr. Jarvis' music was a mash of rock, country,
R&B
and blues, distilled into what is now often called "Americana." As a
staff
songwriter for Lieber and Stoller, he scored no major radio hits, but
his
songs and guitar work were key elements in a street-level movement
that
offered a creatively compelling alternative to the more sanitized
sounds
coming from Music Row.
That movement was synthesized on a Bloodshot Records compilation
called
Nashville: The Other Side of the Alley, an album that featured Mr.
Jarvis'
"Cocktail Napkin" alongside cuts from artists including Carroll, Paul
Burch,
Phil Lee and Jason & The Scorchers.
In Nashville, Mr. Jarvis recorded solo albums Far From Perfect (1998),
Combo
Platter (1999), Certified Miracle (2001) and Delicious (2003). Each
album
found Mr. Jarvis combining hard-won knowledge with his signature
soulful
wit.
"It takes a worried man to sing a worried song/ Had no idea I'd be
singing
for so long," he wrote on "Spread My Soul Too Thin," from 2003's
Delicious.
On Certified Miracle's "Broke Not Busted" Mr. Jarvis sang, "I might
not be
what you bargained for/ I'm a discount bin, not a money drawer."
In 2007, Mr. Jarvis - who by then had moved back to Los Angeles - was
inducted into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame. That same year, he was
diagnosed with colon cancer. He endured multiple surgeries and round
of
chemotherapy, and in March of 2009 he entered hospice care.
Music remained a constant through his final days. Friend Billy Block
said
Mr. Jarvis offered a bed-ridden but note-perfect version of the Ben E
King
hit "Stand By Me" last Thursday.