NORTHAMPTON, MASS.-The Iron Horse in Northampton has reopened, but for me it is full of ghosts.
In 1994, I got a job as the third-string music reporter for the Springfield Union-News (now The Republican) in Springfield, Massachusetts. At the time - when newspapers walked the earth like gods - it had a circulation of over 100,000 and covered the small city like a glove.
It was the biggest job I'd ever had as a reporter up to then, and no one was less suitable for it than I was.
Yes, I could write - always my soul-saving grace. But music? I had been out of the country from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, from disco to rap, so a big chunk of popular culture had flown right by me.
Tommy Shea was their main columnist, a big-hearted guy who wrote about the people of western Massachusetts and who loved the same music I did.
The lead music writer, a sweet guy named Kevin O'Hare, covered the major acts that came through and wrote a CD review column every weekend that was syndicated throughout the Newhouse family newspaper chain.
The second guy - music writers were always guys - was a Bruce Springsteen addict named Donnie Moorhouse (his email tag was "Magic Rat") - who wouldn't unclench his grip for anything.
But I, one of only a handful of female music writers in New England, could review what was left.
And that turned out to be a goddamned cornucopia of music.
* * *
Sheryl Hunter was the region's other female music writer. She wrote for the Daily Hampshire Gazette and later for the Hartford Courant. She usually sat next to Kevin in the free seats for reviewers, and he suggested that she meet me.
So she introduced herself to me at a concert - we can't agree on who was playing, but I think it was at the Mullins Center in Amherst - and we started talking.
I told her I had come from Vermont in an untrustworthy old Subaru Justy with a new transmission system that made the car buck, and I wasn't sure I could get home. So she followed me all the way to the state border to make sure I would be safe.
I fell in love with her kindness right there. We've been friends ever since.
The second time we met, it was in Northampton. I happened to have two tickets to a Lord of the Dance show at The Meadows in Hartford. I invited her to come along, and we were off and running.
Both of us got free review tickets, so I would leave my car at the McDonald's in Greenfield, Sheryl would drive, and we would cover music from New Haven to Hartford to Boston to Northampton.
All we had to do was see the show, grab the set list, race back to our respective computers, write the reviews, send them to our respective papers, and grab some sleep. Sometimes it was three or four concerts a week.
We went to everything. We were enchanted by the music and so amazed at our good luck.
* * *
But it was the Iron Horse where the magic happened.
Then, the music hall was still Jordi Herold's baby. In 1979, he and a friend had created it as a stop for performers who were traveling from New York to Boston. They could play the Horse and get a meal, a scotch or two, and a good night's sleep before they went back on the road.
Jordi wrote the words "music alone shall live" on the wall above signed black-and-white pictures of the performers who played there, which by the time I came along was everybody in music who could draw about 170 people.
Northampton's music scene grew up around the Horse, and it became a big music town.
One of the first pictures on the wall was of the great singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt. Foundational were photos of the early California rock band the Blasters, featuring the tough and sexy songwriter and rocker Dave Alvin, and the high lonesome warbler Jimmie Dale Gilmore, of the legendary Flatlanders.
The pictures are the first ghosts. They're all gone now. The last owner took them off the walls before he sold the club.
Dar Williams played there. Beck. Smashing Pumpkins. Tracy Chapman. James McMurtry. John Mayer. Taj Mahal. Aimee Mann. Dr. John and Leon Russell. Norah Jones. Cowboy Junkies. Suzanne Vega. Chick Corea. All the jazz greats.
When the revved-up surf guitarist Dick Dale played, they handed out earplugs at the door. Greg Brown covered "1952 Vincent Black Lightning," and when I asked him after the show who wrote it, he looked at me as if I had grown a second head. Then I learned about the brilliant songwriter and guitarist Richard Thompson, and I've been sitting in his audience for over 30 years.
I remember one time Thompson played the Horse and ended with his catchy "Tear-Stained Letter." The audience got caught up in the chorus and was still singing it 15 minutes later, long after Thompson had retreated to the greenroom.
Sheryl wasn't the only person I took on my adventures. I took my husband, Randy, to the Horse a few times. We saw Mary Chapin Carpenter, who tore me a new one in an interview because I gushed over a song she wrote, "This Shirt," that was the story of my life. I guess she didn't like being adored.
In 1989, we saw C.J. Chenier, son of Zydeco great Clifton Chenier, and we went down to the greenroom after the show to talk a bit. I fell in love with the deep brown color of his chocolate skin and the way his gold chains gleamed on his neck. I wrote about it in my Reformer column and remember getting reamed out by the politically correct crowd in Brattleboro.
* * *
The Horse was small, dark, and dirty. There were two bathrooms in the basement, and sometimes you were standing on line with the performers. Sheryl's friend tells the story of opening one stall and finding the late great bluesman Johnny Clyde Copeland peeing inside. It was a bit awkward.
Speaking of Johnny Clyde, when his heart failed he got a left ventricular assist device (LVAD), a heart pump that allowed him to continue playing, and we became friends with him and his wife, Sandra, who came with him to gigs to keep an eye on his health. After he passed, we became fans of his daughter, Shemekia Copeland, and often saw her shows.
Eric Burdon's plane was late one night for a 7 p.m. show, and management asked the crowd if we wanted to stay or get our money back. We stayed, and most of us ordered in pizza. Burdon arrived after 10 p.m. and sang his heart out for us.
No one loved the music more than John Bodnar. I don't know if I ever knew what he had done in his work life, but he had a fine head of gray hair when I met him. His great passion - his very reason for existing - was the music and the people who made it.
John hung out at the Horse in the afternoons. When the bands arrived in their vans, he helped them unload. He picked up musicians at the airport. He ran errands for them. He made friends with them. When he died in 2023, I'm sure his ghost went back to the Horse to dwell.
A rickety balcony at the Horse had a rickety staircase going up to it, and Sheryl and I staked out the sixth and seventh steps. Perfect view, perfect sound. I always thought that when I retired, they'd put a bronze plaque on my seat: Joyce Marcel sat here. But then a deadly fire happened in a nightclub in Rhode Island, and the Northampton Fire Department put the end to sitting on the steps. I remain desolate.
When he was ready to retire, Jordi sold the precious Horse to two self-described musicians who had a band in Florence. I had interviewed them and believed they wouldn't be equipped to handle such a sophisticated operation. I quoted them accurately in my Union-News column, which did them no favors.
The male half of the couple came after me on opening night. Randy rolled up his sleeves and took a stand beside me. Randy is a very big man. The guy folded. A few months later, so did the Horse.
That was in 1995. Since then, it has been open and closed several times since then, but Covid killed it dead.
In September 2023, The Parlor Room, Inc. of Northampton, leaders of the nonprofit entity that operates the music venue of the same name, announced that they had signed an agreement to acquire The Iron Horse and reopen it.
After renovation, the venue reopened on May 15.
Sheryl is still writing about music. And Dave Alvin, touring with Jimmie Dale Gilmore and a very tight-knit band, was playing at the Horse on Aug. 21.
Of course, we were there.
* * *
The Horse was more disorganized than I expected. But there are now more than enough real toilets, and they're on the main floor. The food, which you have to stand in line to order, was not very good. Our table was right against the stage.
My old friend Tommy Shea was in the house and very glad to see that I was still standing, still coming to concerts, at the advanced age of 82. I told him the ghost of John Bodnar was in the house. He agreed.
Then we had a moment of silence for Kevin O'Hare's ghost. He died way too young at 55. When I told Tommy I was with Sheryl, he almost cried and rushed to greet her.
"So many faces I know are here," he said.
Most of the audience had white hair, as we are aging along with our performers. Believe it or not, we found ourselves sharing our table with a couple from Brattleboro; the woman recognized me from the Colonial Pool.
A joyous two-person group, Dead Rock West, opened. They were splendid, singing Western-slanted music. The woman had a black topcoat with fringe on the sleeves and red sparkly boots.
(She wore a button that said "Unfuck the World." Hell, yeah! After the show, she gave me the name and phone number of the woman who had made the button.)
Sitting so close to the stage, I could really see the performers.
Dave Alvin has had two bouts of cancer since the last time I saw him. He's all dark and dried, looking more like a cartoon character than a man. But he still has that sexy smile, and - oh, my god - can he still shred a guitar! Jimmy Dale looks all wrinkled and wizened, and he's younger than me!
They opened with "We're Still Here." Hell, yeah! Might not be for long, but yes, we're still here. If it can be arranged, I plan to come back as a ghost and haunt the Iron Horse. With Sheryl, when she is ready.
Dave Alvin told the audience about the Golden Age train rides that Charlie Hunter of Bellows Falls used to run, where he put five old-fashioned train cars together and hooked them to Amtrak, filled them with the finest musicians and fans, and traveled all over the West.
"They were some of the happiest times of my life," he said.
Then he talked about how happy he was to be back at the Horse, but how it was a melancholy time as well, because John Bodnar wasn't there. He called John "a friend and an inspiration" and dedicated "Fourth of July" to him.
John would have been so proud. I cried while Dave sang.
* * *
Music is a river. Sometimes, when you pay the right amount in tribute, it can carry you along - for the short time that a concert lasts - with the people who know how to make it.
But the musicians live on the river all of the time, and they are a special breed, and the magic happens because of them.
The concert moved me deeply; strings in my heart that have been untouched for a long while were touched again that night.
Music alone shall live. I have to say, even as a writer: Jordi was right.
I'm so glad the Iron Horse has come back for a new generation, ghosts and all.
Joyce Marcel, an award-winning freelance journalist and columnist, contributes frequently to The Commons.
This Arts column by Joyce Marcel was written for The Commons.