Performing with Poe - A Photojournal

Last weekend on October 27th, I performed a surreal gig that I landed through sheer luck and some chutzpah on my part.  One of my girlfriends is a music promoter and she was organizing a reunion show with Glass Prism.  For those of you who don’t know of them, they were a late 60’s band who nearly made it big, with their melodic album based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe.  Their single The Raven was released as a 45 RPM and the band still has a cult following, over 35 years later.  (As for their sound, think Cream)

Normally I would say “Oh that’s nice” but I am a big fan of Poe and happen to have composed a ghost story of a song based on The Raven called Lenore and as you may have guessed, I wrote it in the voice of the deceased “Maiden”. (You can listen to this song here) So I asked my friend to pass Lenore to Glass Prism and they invited me to open their show in Philadelphia.  The venue was the German Society Theatre on Spring Garden Street in Philadelphia, right across from the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic site.

I arrived for my sound check at a very old large building – the German Society has been established in Philly since the early 1700s. The theatre is fairly big and was there when Poe lived across the street. I was the first performer, nervous as usual as I walked onstage with my dark green Gibson, hoping that the cords underneath my high heels wouldn’t wrap themselves maliciously around my ankles.  I was introduced by a member of the Poe Society who mentioned to the crowd of over 100 Poe fanatics that is was my birthday on Halloween.  I was now accepted with open arms!

My song was short & sweet, 3 minutes and it went well – except for a minor guitar hiccup that only the video camera caught.  It is hard to perform one song, because it takes about three songs to actually warm up my vocal chords and fingers, but that was all they wanted and I was happy to oblige.  I had a nice reception and was able to enjoy the rest of the show which included a fabulous Poe impersonator (and a woman!), a 3 piece band consisting of the Park Rangers (performing in their Ranger uniforms) and the stars of the show Glass Prism, who were really great.  Almost as if they never stopped playing together 35 years ago.

 The sponsor of the show was “Raven Beer” and they were nice enough to give everyone a free beer at the end of the show (I got 2!) which was yummy beer by the way…brewed in Baltimore, another Poe city.

The next day my hubby and I went over to the Poe museum across the street. This is a very unusual site, for it is an old row house with no furniture and walls stripped to the wallboard.  The house is solid but has been unoccupied since the 1930s or 40s and absolutely nothing has been touched or refurbished. This gives it a most peculiar feeling – a feeling that I have never felt in a museum before. 

Our tour started with a short movie and a Park Ranger giving us a personal overview of Poe’s residence in the house.  He lived here for about a year and it is rumored that he wrote Tell Tale Heart, Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Black Cat while in residence.  At the time, he lived with his ill young wife, Virginia (she was slowly dying from TB), her mom, her Aunt, and their cat, Catalina.  The Ranger mentioned that Poe died an alcoholic.  Before he died, he sold all his furniture and therefore, nothing was left that belonged to him except his bed (which now resides at his cottage in the Bronx).  Poe died mysteriously in Baltimore, when a friend found him delirious in the street with clothes on that didn’t belong to him.

The Ranger handed us a laminated tour guide which explained each room along the way.  We were alone on our tour, no one else was there. As we went to the top floor, I went into Virginia’s bedroom and felt a chill as I read a copy of Annabelle Lee which was left there.  Poe supposedly wrote this short poem for her posthumously.  The room across from hers was her mother’s and as I opened the closet and peeked in, I swear I saw a black shadow flutter across the backboard and I closed it quickly, thinking it was a bat!  Who knows?

The tour takes you through the backyard where an enchanting cat came to greet me from the yard next door.  The cat was probably still a kitten, calico and very friendly to me (but wouldn’t go near my hubby who was furiously shooting photographs!) When I later looked at the pictures, I was amazed to note that the cat looked strikingly like Poe – as seen in his photograph – the one taken in 1839, a year before his death.  You can compare for yourself.  For me this nice kitty will forever be referred to as “Edgar”.

After the yard, we re-entered the house and went to the cellar where, it was pointed out, he got his ideas for The Black Cat.  The brick support under the fireplace (it was indoors which is normal for row houses) in the cellar was where he interred his wife (along with the still living black cat) after he mistakenly killed her with an ax.  I closed my eyes and felt Poe there, I swear I did and so would you if you were there. 

The final part of the tour leads you to a reading room furnished as Poe recommended in one of his essays “The Philosophy of Furniture”.  On a table was a scrapbook listing Poe inspired music and a CD player where you could listen to the music.  So as I was chatting with another ranger, I gave her a copy of Lenore and now my song is going into the scrapbook…in the company of works by Lou Reed, Glass Prism, Joan Baez, Alan Parsons Project and many more.

I am thrilled that my CD is sitting there, in that old house. Even if no one listens and it collects dust. I can hardly believe it!