The Last Record Album: A Fictional Biography

By James Porteous

He ain’t no Donovan,’ Bob Dylan said of singer-songwriter Bo Carter.

But would it ever be enough to beat the one-hit-wonder curse?

Carter has spent decades touring, whoring, writing, not-writing and generally running amuck.

And yet, he has toured with his band The Touts, is writing a new song for the latest Robert Altman film and can still draw the attention of occasional female ‘admirers.’ 

Still, should he finally admit defeat and hang up his rock ‘n’ roll shoes?

To quote one of Bo’s lesser songs: ‘Time will tell.’

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clipper Media
• Release date: Feb 5, 2024
• ISBN: 9781738883219

Book preview

The Last Record Album

EARLY REVIEWS

(Amazon)

Wonderful read and a great album!

‘The Last Record Album is a ‘fictional’ account of the life of singer-songwriter Bo Carter. The storytelling flows seamlessly that as a reader, I had to remind myself that this was a work of fiction.’

(Goodreads)

‘This is a great way to get an overview of an important era in musical history while also enjoying a fairly personal recollection of what is clearly a life lived with music at its heart. It’s clearly not fictional. Even without the frank admission by the author, the depth of connection to the story is very clear.’

(Amazon)

The music anthology at the end is worth the price of the book!

‘Even though this is a fictional biography, we know all other characters in the book and we become sure that we must know Bo. The author includes not only this musician’s life story, but his songs with lyrics. The end of the book even includes, in the digital version, bandcamp (a music streaming service) links to Bo’s albums, all music written by the book’s author. AND there is also an incredible anthology of the best songs ever written during my lifetime which is alone worth the price of the book. An interesting multi-generational read especially for music lovers.’

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF BO CARTER

Singer-Songwriter Bo Carter Takes Readers on a Journey Through the Fascinating World of Music and Songwriting in The Last Record Album. Includes Bandcamp links to songs written for the book 

Music fans and aspiring songwriters alike will enjoy The Last Record Album, the fictional biography of Bo Carter.

Singer-songwriter Bo Carter takes readers on a journey through the complex and often challenging process of songwriting while sharing his experiences with writer’s block, lack of confidence, and the intense competition of the music industry.

His story begins in New York’s Greenwich Village during the folk music explosion of the 1960s, just as Bob Dylan was arriving on the scene.

Carter and his band The Touts toured with The Kinks before he embarked on a long solo career.

The book includes lyrics and links to songs written by the author for the book.

The Last Record Album: A fictional biography is a must-read for anyone interested in music, songwriting, or the creative process.

THE LAST RECORD ALBUM

a fictional biography

JAMES PORTEOUS

ClipperMedia

Copyright © 2021 by James Porteous

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 978-1-7388832-1-9

Cover Artwork: James Porteous

Author Photo: Rosalba Paternicó

All other photos, songs, words & music: © 2021 James Porteous

Editor: Angela Irvin

With links to Bandcamp versions of songs featured in the book.

For

David & Emma.

And Bob

CONTENTS

1. The Whitmore Years

2. The Birth of a Band

3. On the Road

4. The Solo Years

5. The Comeback

6. The Soundtrack

Bo Carter: The Music

Bo Carter: The Lyrics

Bo Carter: The Interviews

Bo’s Musical Influences

Bo’s Bob Dylan Song-guide

About the Author

CHAPTER 1

THE WHITMORE YEARS

‘If I had known what the music industry was really like? I don’t think if I would have bothered.’

Bo Carter

Words Fail Me

Words and Music

by

Bo Carter

If I wrote you a love song

I could sing it under the stairs stars

If I wrote you a love song

I would not even care

Who heard me sing it

Or if my voice was out of tune

If I wrote you a love song

I would

Old Man Whitmore returns Bo Carter’s lyrics with the flourish of an actor in an Off-Broadway play.

Surely you understand professional songwriters do not write songs about the art of writing songs. That would be akin to a serious author writing books about an author writing a book. Do I make myself clear?

Crystal, squire, Bo says, hoping for a laugh.

My apologies, dear boy, but does that imply a response in the affirmative or the negative?

Affirmative.

Well, isn’t that wonderful, he says. I could not be more relieved had you informed me that Satan himself had been vanquished.

I wish I could affirm that to be the case.

But?

I fear it might not fall within my purview.

Is that right?

Yes, sir.

My, how I long for the days of yore, Old Man Whitmore says.

Bo Carter’s yore came to fruition last Tuesday when his mother served roast beef with gravy and homemade pumpkin pie. He will never parlay roast beef and pumpkin pie into a song worthy of a notation in OM’s payment ledger.

Bo is a songwriter-for-hire for Whitmore & Sons, a music-publishing company in New York, but his role is more mechanical than artistic. He receives a salary writing catchy pop songs meant to earn Old Man Whitmore enough money to enjoy another lovely summer in The Hamptons.

Bo is as ‘with it’ as any punk kid who has searched for God on a soiled mattress or faced the Devil in a dark alley. But every songwriter in the world is trying to escape the plastic fantastic world of Pat Boone and Perry Como.

His songs are sad-sack odes to the one who got away, the love that might have been, or the dreams of tomorrow that may never be realized.

And if there is one truism in the world of songwriting, it would be: Melancholy does not sell records. Or at least not the sort of records Old Man Whitmore wants to sell.

Bo can write songs of merit. Or rather, a song of merit. His Coal Miner’s Blues was a moderate, regional hit for Bobby Keyes, a moderate, regional singer.

That song sprang not from memory or personal experience, but from that vague, distant ‘well of creativity’ thought to be fed by a fickle, mysterious muse.

He does not know where it came from, let alone how to find it again.

He wants to believe his insipid life-experiences will one day allow him to compose ‘real songs’ on a par with the proper writers. 

Or, to employ a lyric Bo may have already used in one of his would-be songs: Time will tell.

You got anything for that? Rudy Baker says.

Sorry?

For that belly of yours. I can hear it from here.

What do you mean, do I have anything?

Jesus. You fell off the pretzel cart, didn’t you? Here, he says, sliding him a pack of Alka-Seltzer. Put this in a glass of water. Let it fizzle. Drink it. Right as rain.

Thanks, Bo says. He has never heard of such a thing. 

Rudy is from New York. Well, he is from New York now, but he was born somewhere else. He is hip and lively and very proud to be the only Negro working in the building, let alone Whitmore & Sons. He talks like a guest on the Jack Parr television program and he knows about love, both lost and found, and can churn out a dozen new songs without lifting his pen from the paper.

Bo likes to think his forte is quality over quantity, but he needs to come up with something on par with Coal Miner’s Blues.

Early lunch?

Deal, Rudy says.

Rudy is always game for an early lunch. Early lunch means Bo is paying.

The food in the deli is not very good, but it is cheap, and they can often score a glass of beer if it is close to noon.

They sit at the counter with the tailor-made businessmen. Rudy and Bo are also wearing suits, but they have off-the-rack suits, and their mothers fixed their ties six months ago, which they slip into place each morning.

Another slice of life not quite ready for a song.

Corned beef and beer, Rudy says.

Same, Bo says.

Don’t know if I can serve you boys a beer, Avi says. It is early. You know the law.

Well, see what you can do, Rudy says. There’s a tip if you can help us out.

Like I’m going to risk going to jail for a ten-cent tip.

Smartass, Rudy says. For that, you only get a nickel.

For that, you only get a juice-glass of beer, Avi says with a laugh.

So, Bo, how was the weekend?

Bo sighs. Rudy loves using words that rhyme with Bo. He might write a So Bo Song.

It was okay.

Okay? What does that mean? Like Ohio okay? Or Chicago?

Just okay.

You are in New York, you know. You could pull a dollar-bill out of your ass and find all the action any young man might desire.

I know, I know, Bo says. I had some household things to take care of.

Yeah, sure. Like washing your socks in the sink, fish sticks for dinner, and one inadvertent wet dream.

Well...

Might be a song in there. Well, maybe not the fish sticks, but the other two.

Imagine handing that to Old Man Whitmore, Bo says. It is a song about a wet dream, sir.

‘A what dream?’

No sir, a wet dream.

‘Well, I don’t know what the hell that means, but I’ve been in this business too long to let it all go by the wayside for something I don’t even understand. Back to the drawing board, young man. Give me something I can actually sell.’

I wish I could give him something he could sell, Bo says. Everything I write is almost falling in love, almost having sex, almost getting married.

It will come, Rudy says. "Stop trying to write about yourself. Write about that Young Turk in the blue suit. He’s begging to have his heart broken. He’s thinking ‘I’m going to find some gal and make her mine, and we’ll have kids and a house in the country.’

"He’s wrong. He’s a schmuck. His mommy loves him and cooks him dinner and buys him new flannel pajamas every six months, and she wants to set him up with Mrs. Oliver’s 26-year-old daughter who has never been out on a date with a man other than her brother.

"His mother cleans up after him and tells him to keep his shoulders straight, and he gets mad sometimes and says ‘back off, why don’t ya’ and she cries and says ‘don’t you dare talk to your mother like that’ and then he remembers he has not had dinner yet and he gets ‘all shucks’ and says, ‘sorry, mommy. We had a big meeting at work today, and Mr. Sullivan picked on me, and I was afraid I was going to lose my job, but then in the end, he laughed and said, ‘Perk up, Simons, just wanted to see if I could make you cry.’

And then she’ll cuddle him and say, ‘oh, it is okay, love, we all have days like that, and I’m here for you, and why don’t we just sit ourselves down and have a nice dinner, and then we can watch some television, and everything will be fine.’

Bo is mesmerized.

Man, he says. You just made that up?

Well, yeah. That’s what we do, Bo. If I wrote about my life, I’d write songs about dinner, taking a dump, going to sleep, drinking a beer, a solo hand-job, taking another dump. So we write about other people. All the things we see or hear.

So I come in here every day and look at that guy and make up something?

Bo! For Christ’s sake, you are a punk kid, aren’t you? Listen, you take the subway to work. You eat out sometimes. You see things. Remember them. Steal those ideas. A guy eating dinner alone. A sad woman with a crying baby on the subway. An icy wind hiking up some babe’s skirt. A couple kissing in the rain. Some old farts holding hands on the way out of a World War II movie. An empty wine glass sitting on the curb. Waking up with a hard-on. You got it?

I guess, Bo says.

You guess. Christ. Buy a notebook. Hell, take this one. You see something, write it down. No matter how trivial. The next day, you sit at your desk, you read it, you think about it, and the little idea leads to a bigger idea. That is your song.

Easy as that?

If you got what it takes, it is easy. Coal Miner’s Blues wasn’t bad for a mama’s boy who fell into songwriting.

You think?

You know, Bo, don’t waste your time waiting for people to tell you they love you. Find one who makes you believe it and then say to hell with the rest. In the meantime, you got two hands, a copy of Playboy. What more do you need?

I’m not sure I…

Sleep on it, big boy. Lunch is on you. So is the next beer.

Notebook Entries:

- mother pushing empty stroller in rain

- clown in full costume limping through Central Park

- neon sign still lit after store has closed

- soldier in uniform drinking cup of coffee

- newspaper headline: Wife putts cheating husband to death with nine iron

- guitar heard through open window in summer

- couple arguing, baby crying

- ambulance stuck in traffic with siren on

- priest almost slipping on ice

- tall blonde, tight ass, nice tits, high heels = perfection

- man pissing on a rose bush

- smell of shit on my shoes

- woke up at 3:34 AM yearning for toast

- under-arm stain on shirt

- fly undone on the way home

- Mother called to say ‘I love you’ was long overdue

- smell of fish cooking

- too tired to write any more notes

Coal Miner's Blues

Words and Music

by

Bo Carter

The darkness around him

dust in the air

risking his life

with no one to care

it’s a twelve hour shift

in that still, deadly air

and he’s dying a slow death

that he knows isn’t fair

And his wife sits at home nights

praying she’ll see him again

and the three kids know nothing

about the chances that he takes

‘cause there’s food on the table

and their lives seem all right

they’re just one of the hundreds

who must pay the price

It’s a coal miner’s sad song

and one we know true

down in the mine shaft

hoping to see the day through

and we all say it’s dreadful

the things he must do

but you don’t mind him dying

just as long as it ain’t you.

The darkness around him

dust in the air

risking his life

with no one to care

it’s a twelve hour shift

in that still, deadly air

and he’s dying a slow death

that he knows isn’t fair

Possible follow-up songs:

Black Coal on your Fingers

Black as Night

Beer in the Tunnel

Dark as Hell

Riding the Coal Train

Buddy, Can you Spare some Coal

Do You Want to Ride My Coal Train, Baby

Looking for Sunshine

Clouds of Coal

Coal, Coal, Coal

Too Damn Tired to Write any More Coal Song Titles

Coal Miner’s Blues II

Words & Music

by

Bo Carter

The darkness in the tunnel

dust in her hair

risking his wife

with a Sears credit card

it’s a twelve button shirt

in that shrill, deadly hair

and he’s drinking a cold beer

without a bloody care

Oscar Morris Whitmore is smoking his fourth cigarette since lunch. He cannot live without cigarettes. His wife thinks he has quit. She believes he has quit because he told her so. He couldn’t stand her constant nagging about stinking clothes and nicotine-stained fingers.

Now she complains about his drinking habits, but will never pretend to quit drinking.

He leans back and admires the six framed hit-singles on his wall. The sight is so sweet he can almost convince himself it was worth all the drama and heartbreak.

He had assumed he would be further ahead by now. So did his wife. He has scored two hit singles, but he would need four or five monster hits a year to make this work.

This music business can be easy if you have a team of decent writers capable of churning out new product. Then he would sell those songs to whoever will pay.

It would be a win-win. Well, perhaps not for the songwriters. They could make more money selling their songs to the night janitor. And that guy is cheap.

OM will never pay them another dime. Read your contract, he tells them.

He has three or four writers who keep him in whisky and Mrs. OM in summer dresses, but the rest spend their days complaining about writer’s block and the generation gap. 

Christ. Whatever agency invented that made a fortune. OM once told his writers to give him one generation gap song each, but the clowns had no clue what their peers were listening to on the radio.

These are the same punks who call him Old Man Whitmore. OM will turn 48 next March, so he is not a young man, but nor is he an old man.

His father was an old man. Or at least he was before he put himself and the family out of their misery and then bequeathed the floundering business to his floundering son.

It would solve all of his woes if he could add Coal Miner’s Blues to his money-making arsenal, but his highness Bo Carter is one royal pain in the bottom line. He wants to play in the adult sandbox, but not get his hands dirty. If he gets laid 100 times in the next five years, he might figure out how to survive in this business.

OM is tired of babysitting them. Even the wallpaper Negro has not written one lyric that tops any of the sullen crap Carter hands him. He only