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Scent is the most evocative and least rational of all
the human senses. Olfactory impressions can cause cells in the brain to
conjure recollections, remembrances, without the intervention of conscious
thought processes. Western author Wallace Stegner reminds us of this in
his memoir of a Great Plains boyhood, Wolf Willow. It is the wolf willow,
he writes—and specifically the musky scent of its yellowish blossoms—that
brings him home to Eastend, Saskatchewan.
That’s the way it is, too, with Chuck Suchy’s new CD, Evening
in Paris. Now, Chuck is no novice at the presentation of sensuality, which
word I choose for its full meaning, not the prurient. He is the best of
our balladeers, and among the best of our poets, at involving the senses
in order to stir remembrance and conjure the savory experience of life
on the plains.
It’s in his early work—the affectionate caress of a west Dakota
wind, blue flame dancing from the exhaust stack, accordion music wafting
across the prairies, and how about those kolaches and buns in the basement
of the Bohemian Hall? It’s in his middle work, too—June fields
of new-mown hay, ozone of a thunderstorm, dust and exhaust of an Indian
motorcycle.
And is it ever in the title song of the new CD. “Evening in Paris,”
you remember the old five-&-dime perfume. Here the scent not only
evokes, it also incites the other senses, so that before you know it—and
I do mean, before you know it—the stars are winking above, youthful
fumblings are going on below, the car seats are smooth, and tinny top-ten
music percolates from the dashboard, dissipating into the dry, cool, hilltop
air.
On a hilltop just south of town
hardtop Merc’ry windows down
Mohair aroma dimestore perfume
Evening in Paris a prairie moon
I can’t stop thinking about it, which means I’m dating myself.
Nor can I stop singing,
Watching Wyoming rolling by
Watching Wyoming tear in my eye
The song is about adult sisters, and an aging mother, which reminds me
that change, transition, is another big theme in Chuck’s music. He’s
always been a sucker for a sensual remembrance, likewise for a good story,
and then for a while there came the tensions and puzzles of life with
teenagers and young adults and everything they brought home and took away,
and now, blessedly, in the fifth cut of this CD we hear,
I see clearly somehow
I live fearlessly now
Diminishing winds
I think of an evening a few weeks ago, late summer, a knoll and a clearing
in a cornfield, white country church as backdrop. We’re into the
second set, which is always better. The concert began with the crowd sprawled
in the grass, many of them come from curiosity about an event in this
lonesome site, not all of them fully attentive to the music, kids fidgeting,
I thought I could hear in Chuck’s voice the strain of trying to reach
people, it’s good some of them left at intermission. Now the afternoon
gale becomes an evening breeze, there is a drawing in of the remaining
humanity, something like a community coalescing around the phrases hanging
in the air, at the same time we watch the white pelicans sailing into
the lake a mile away and the pink fingers of dusk climbing the shelterbelts
hand over hand. Diminishing winds.
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