Long-time Jerome musician Hank Erwin has beaten cancer while on tour, worked as a U.S. Merchant Marine on the Great Lakes and has a plethora of life experiences to draw from when writing his music.
His newest release, “The Copper Album,” includes homages to old friends, references to his time working on iron ore freighters and stories from Jerome, where he still spends much of his time when he’s not in Austin, Texas, or touring with his band.
Erwin began playing music when he was 9 years old.
“I pestered [my parents] for two years,” Erwin said. “I was mesmerized by MTV when I was 7. They were both adamantly opposed to me getting into music. They both had to take music lessons when they were kids and hated it.”
Little did they know, Erwin would soon dedicate his life to writing soul-filled country and blues.
When Erwin was a Merchant Marine he was struck by a ship that had been docked in layup and wasn’t being used anymore.
“It was the last of this specific style of ship that had been built just for Great Lakes shipping and it had been not able to keep up with changing times in the lakes,” Erwin said. “It just inspired me and that’s what inspired the song ‘The Dirge of the Edward L. Ryerson.’”
The SS Edward L. Ryerson freighter can carry up to 34,000 long tons of steel or iron, but due to the downturn in the U.S. steel industry and reduced shipments to and from Canada, the ship has been laid up in port since 2009.
When Erwin was living in Jerome he had some friends visit him from the band Porter and The Blue Bonnet Rattlesnakes. They played some shows together and had planned to take him on tour with them, but decided at the last minute to tour as a three-piece band instead of four.
“That leg of the tour I was supposed to be on there was an accident and they were all killed except for the drummer,” Erwin said of the fatal accident in North Carolina on Oct. 19, 2016. “The name of their bus that they toured on— they toured in an old converted airport shuttle that they named Sally … that song [Sally] was a tribute to them.”
In 2017 when Erwin was living in Jerome, the historic Cuban Queen Bordello collapsed in a windstorm, inspiring him to write “Hail! The Copper Queen.”
“It was kind of an accident,” Erwin said. “While I was writing it — Jerome being a copper town — I was accidentally saying ‘the copper queen’ but I realized at the end that it actually worked better than ‘the Cuban Queen.’ Apparently, according to the book I was reading, she wasn’t even Cuban anyway.”
The Cuban Queen, the bordello’s madam was supposedly from New Orleans and came to Jerome in the 1920s to run an upscale “house of pleasure” the Cuban Queen Bordello. She was also said to have been married to Jelly Roll Morton, the self-proclaimed inventor of jazz.
“Since she was this mysterious person, the song has this kind of dark vibe to it,” Erwin said.
It is the only track on the album to use a synthesizer, which Erwin describes as a “dirty synth.”
Having beat cancer and experienced a certain amount of suffering in his life, Erwin said he does channel some degree of struggle and pain into his art. However, he said he doesn’t necessarily think that it is necessary to create good music.
For more about Hank Erwin, or to purchase his album, visit his website www.hankerwinmusic.com.
Lyrics to “The Dirge of The Edward L. Ryerson (The Last)“
manitowoc #425
began april 20, 1959
and deep in the heart of the following winter
she was launched as the largest lake michigander
and she was the last of the american flagged
new ships build for the great lakes
with fore and aft quarters, built as a steamer
the last straight decker, no self unloader
fast and unique, she could do almost 20
10,000 horsepower pushed her on easy
her quarters were made to take care of her sailors
her lines of design drew crowds of admirers
didn’t take long for her to break records
broke 25,000 loaded in superior
she took it through the soo locks and on down to indy
she was built to haul iron ore and nothing else really
after near 30 years of fast and smooth sailing
i awoke one morning and heard from the captain:
“she’s laying up early, this year things are changing
it’s over my head and under their fingertips
over my head and under their fingers”
and five long years now she sat at the dock
and i sat at home waiting for the call
and i took a dive straight deep in the bottle
tried to convince myself anything is possible
but i know she’ll probably never sail again
she’ll go back to the steel mills, from where she came
some piece of shit barge will drag her to the beaches
and blue flame torches will pull her to pieces
and along with her went the job of the watchmen
some of the old freighters cut off the stern end
pushed in a tugboat, cut the crew in half
so lift up your bottle and drink with me to the last
and down to the water, i stumbled to try
oh i took off my clothes and swam for ontario
and didn’t quite make it, reaching for summer
i felt her grip just before i went under
and the water she quietly closed in around me
she wanted me since the first time she found me
when i was a boy and rode in a boat
testing her will with what she will let float
and when she was done she gave me up for land
body swollen from her loving revenge
no name and no face, no life anymore
just corneas glazed as the eye of a storm
and who will remember the names uncheckered
the fitzgerald foundered where the anderson weathered
even in shelter, their back to the storm
sailors will mainly just dream about shore
