Friday, July 20, 2018

Jane Scott

This profile was originally posted on August 24th in 2012, shortly after Ms. Scott's death. When reading her obituary I was reminded of those halcyon days when many of the great stars of 20th century music were still performing or were just becoming established. As I lived equidistant from Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland, and as all of the great acts came through those cities, and as I had either a newspaper or radio station paying for my tickets, I saw as many as I could and was able to witness portions of pop history.  Jane Scott was always there, it seemed, and I always want to look for her shadow whenever I catch a current performer.  She's there, somewhere, I think.


Everything I knew about rock music I learned from this woman, who looked like the world's best grandmother.  Seriously, whenever I would see her I would expect to smell mothballs and homemade apple sauce.  Based on her appearance, it may be hard to believe that Jane Scott was the definitive rock music critic of the Midwest.  It was rather "rock and roll" of her not to look like a popular music critic.

I met Ms. Scott back in the 70's when I was working at an AOR*-formatted radio station, although I'd been reading her column in Cleveland's daily newspaper, The Plain Dealer, since I was 13.  The same year we met I had interviewed Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, Denny Laine of Paul McCartney's band, Wings, and jazz legend Larry Coryell, but she was the one for whom I was in stuttering awe, as she had literally seen and interviewed every single major performer and musician of the apex of the American sound, from Sinatra to Elvis, from Lennon to Rotten.  Jane Scott was a true lady and an old-fashioned reporter, and very patient with what I'm sure were some tedious interview questions from a 20-year-old.

What made her special was an instinct that cannot be learned, as illustrated in this quotation from her obit: "She found her lifework on Sept. 15, 1964, the day four lads from Liverpool came to Cleveland. No one at the paper was interested in covering the Beatles, and Ms. Scott volunteered."  See what I mean?  She knew something special was about to happen and, being a good reporter, she wanted to be there to experience it.  This is not taught in journalism schools and we may see its absence in contemporary media on any given day.

The evening I met Ms. Scott, we were in attendance at a concert in a 200-seat venue in Cleveland's Playhouse Square.  “He looked like a cross between a dockhand and a pirate,” she wrote of the performer in The Plain Dealer in 1975, reviewing the young musician we had both come to see. “He stood on the darkened Allen Theater stage last night in a black greaser jacket, blue jeans, a gray wool cap pulled over an eye and a gold earring in his left ear. ... His name is Bruce Springsteen. He will be the next superstar.” She made this prediction at the age of 56, and was the first to do so, about a musician who had yet to release more than two, mildly received, record albums.  She was right, of course.

When she died last year, her obituary ran in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, New York Times, and, of course, the Cleveland Plain Dealer.  Even before her death, she had become legend.

* AOR = Album-oriented Rock