Steve Goodman

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Steve Goodman (July 25, 1948 – September 20, 1984) was a Chicago folk music singer and songwriter.

Born on Chicago's North Side to a middle-class Jewish family, Goodman began writing and performing songs as a teenager, after his family had moved to the near north suburbs. While a student at Maine East High School [1] in Park Ridge, from which he graduated in 1968, Goodman began performing in Old Town and attracted a following[2]. By 1969, after a brief sojourn in New York City's Washington Square, Goodman was a regular performer at the well-known Earl of Old Town folk music club in Chicago, while attending Lake Forest College. During this time Goodman married Nancy Pruter and paid bills by writing advertising jingles.

It was also in 1969 that Goodman was diagnosed with leukemia, the disease that would be present during the entirety of his recording career until his death in 1984. Though he experienced periods of remission, Goodman never felt that he was living on anything other than borrowed time, and some critics, listeners and friends have said that his music reflects this sentiment. His wife, writing in the liner notes to the posthumous collection No Big Surprise, characterized him this way:

“Basically, Steve was exactly who he appeared to be: an ambitious, well-adjusted man from a loving, middle-class Jewish home in the Chicago suburbs, whose life and talent were directed by the physical pain and time constraints of a fatal disease which he kept at bay, at times, seemingly by willpower alone . . . Steve wanted to live as normal a life as possible, only he had to live it as fast as he could . . . He extracted meaning from the mundane.”

Goodman's songs first appeared on a locally-produced record, Gathering at The Earl of Old Town, in 1971. Goodman performed at The Earl dozens of times. He also remained closely involved with Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music, where he met and mentored his good friend, John Prine.

Later in 1971, Goodman was playing at a Chicago bar called the Quiet Knight as the opening act for Kris Kristofferson. Kristofferson, impressed with Goodman, introduced him to Paul Anka, who brought Goodman to New York to record some demos. These resulted in Goodman signing a contract with Buddah Records.

All this time, Goodman had been busy writing many of his most enduring songs, and this avid songwriting would lead to an important break for him. While at the Quiet Knight, Goodman saw Arlo Guthrie, and asked to be allowed to play a song for him. Guthrie grudgingly agreed, on the condition that Goodman buy him a beer first; Guthrie would listen to Goodman for as long as it took Guthrie to drink the beer. Goodman played "City of New Orleans," (original lyrics) which Guthrie liked enough that he asked to record it. Guthrie's version of the song became a hit in 1972, and provided Goodman with enough financial and artistic success to make his music a full-time career. The song would become an American standard, covered by such musicians as Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, and Willie Nelson, whose recording earned Goodman a posthumous Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 1984. For a song that (according to his wife) began as Goodman in his imagination wandered all the way to New Orleans while on a train from Chicago to visit her elderly grandmother in Mattoon, Illinois, it has itself taken quite a ride.

In 1974, singer David Allan Coe achieved considerable success on the country charts with Goodman's "You Never Even Called Me By My Name", a song which good-naturedly spoofed stereotypical country music lyrics.

Goodman's success as a recording artist was more limited. Although known in folk circles as an excellent and influential song writer, his albums received more critical than commercial success. Ironically, one of Goodman's biggest hits was a song he didn't write – The Dutchman, written by Michael Peter Smith.

During the mid- and late-seventies, Goodman became a regular guest on Easter Day on Vin Scelsa’s radio show in New York City. Scelsa’s personal recordings of these sessions eventually led to an album of selections from these appearances, The Easter Tapes.

Goodman wrote and performed many humorous songs about Chicago, including two about the Chicago Cubs: "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request" and "Go, Cubs, Go" (which has frequently been played on Cubs' broadcasts.) The Cubs songs grew out of his fanatical devotion to the team, which included many clubhouse and on-field visits with Cub players. Other songs about Chicago included "The Lincoln Park Pirates", about the notorious Lincoln Towing Company, and "Daley's Gone," about Mayor Richard J. Daley. Another comic highlight is "Vegematic," about a man who falls asleep while watching late-night TV and dreams he ordered several products he saw on infomercials. He could also write serious songs, most notably "My Old Man," a tribute to Goodman's father, Bud Goodman, a used car salesman.

On September 20, 1984, Goodman died at University of Washington Hospital in Seattle, Washington , his life finally taken by the leukemia from which he had anointed himself with the tongue-in-cheek nickname “Cool Hand Leuk” (others included “Chicago Shorty” and “The Little Prince”). He was only 36. Eleven days later, the Chicago Cubs played their first playoff game since 1945. Goodman's ashes are buried under home plate at Wrigley Field, the home of the Chicago Cubs. He is survived by his wife and three daughters. ^[1]