—David Menconi, Down on Copperline
Brendan Greaves identifies himself as a writer, folklorist and curator on his social-media pages, but that doesn’t even begin to cover what all the Chapel Hill resident does. Greaves is co-founder of a highly idiosyncratic record company, Paradise of Bachelors Records, with which he has released scores of albums since 2010 and even earned a Grammy Award nomination. He plays banjo and lap steel with various folk and old-time ensembles around the area, most recently The New Old Stranger Strangers’ show at The Cave. And he writes — a lot.
Greaves’ latest project is a book, “Truckload of Art: The Life and Work of Terry Allen” (Hachette Books). It tells the story of an artist who is at least as much of a multi-hyphenate as Greaves himself: musician, visual artist, writer, performer and all-around iconoclast Terry Allen. A native of Buddy Holly’s hometown of Lubbock, Texas, Allen is known for creating everything from sprawling musicals set in Mexican border towns to the “Notre Denver” gargoyle sculptures found in Denver International Airport.
Clocking in at over 500 pages, “Truckload of Art” more than lives up to the size implied by its title. It should stand as the definitive biography of the 80-year-old Allen’s life and career, and yet this book is just a fraction of what Greaves originally put down on paper. His first crack at the book came to an astounding 1,300 pages.
“Yeah, it had to be cut by more than half,” Greaves says sheepishly. “A good friend helped me by cutting it down, and the book is definitely better for it. I really lost track. I tend to overwrite anyway.”
Greaves grew up in small-town Massachusetts west of Boston, and he stayed in the area to get an undergraduate art degree from Harvard. After graduation, he spent a number of years working in art galleries while also playing in bands around the Northeast.
That was where Greaves first encountered Allen’s work in the form of a striking pastel drawing from the 1994 musical “Chippy.” He got to know Allen over the phone when he’d call to talk business with Greaves’ gallery-owner boss, and he started writing about Allen’s work when he came to Chapel Hill for graduate work in UNC’s folklore program. Greaves earned a master’s degree at UNC, going on to work as director of public art for the North Carolina Arts Council.
After starting up Paradise of Bachelor Records (which is named for an 1855 Herman Melville story, “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids”), Greaves started working with Allen to bring his music back into print through reissues of his albums. It was Allen’s 2019 LP “Pedal Steal + Four Corners” that earned Greaves a Grammy nomination, for best liner notes. All of that positioned Greaves well at a time when other writers started coming around making inquiries about a Terry Allen biography.
“There was one who wanted to write about just his music,” says Greaves. “Terry has always chafed at the idea of segregating his work by medium, because he thinks of his music, art, theater and writing as intertwined. This was 2018 and I’d already written about him a lot, so I blurted out, ‘I could write a book about more than just the music.’ I’m not sure I even meant it, but he took me up on it immediately: ‘You know, I wish you would.’ It grew from there.”
Writing and now promoting “Truckload of Art” has added to Greaves’ already-busy schedule operating Paradise of Bachelors. The label has put out new music by numerous key local and national acts including Bonnie “Prince” Billy, The Weather Station, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Hiss Golden Messenger and Nathan Bowles. Reissues are also a Paradise of Bachelors specialty, everything from the 1973 queer country landmark “Lavendar Country” to the 1960s garage-rock compilation “Tobacco Au Go Go” – and various works by Terry Allen, of course. Greaves and Allen have become close friends through their various projects, as fellow multi-hyphenates.
“We’re both jacks of all trades,” Greaves says. “It’s definitely part of the basis of our relationship, mutual acknowledgement of our varying interests that meander all over. My relationship with Terry is very intimate and personal. Our families are close, too. I had no interest in ‘objectivity.’ I wanted to tell his story in a way that felt comprehensive.”
- Brendan Greaves will discuss “Truckload of Art” with David Menconi and sign books at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill on its official publication day, March 19.