Reposted March 17,2024
For whatever reason, Steve Goodman’s cover of Michael Smith’s song “The Dutchman” popes into my head this morning. Since the release of his self-titled album in 1971? Steve has been one of my favorite folk artists.
About Steve Goodman
For those of you unfamiliar with Steve Goodman here’s some biographical information from Wikipedia:
Steven Benjamin Goodman[1] (July 25, 1948 – September 20, 1984) was an American folk music singer-songwriter from Chicago. He wrote the song “City of New Orleans,” which was recorded by Arlo Guthrie and many others including Joan Baez, John Denver, The Highwaymen, and Judy Collins; in 1985, it received a Grammy award for best country song, as performed by Willie Nelson. Goodman had a small but dedicated group of fans for his albums and concerts during his lifetime, and is generally considered a musician’s musician. His most frequently sung song is the Chicago Cubs anthem, “Go Cubs Go”. Goodman died of leukemia in September 1984. Read More
Like many folk musicians, Steve had the ability to make you laugh with songs like “Veg-O-Matic”, or “Talk Backwards” and then turn around and tug at your heartstrings with songs like “Old Smoothies” or the aforementioned “The Dutchman”
Ive read that more people have been discovering Steve’s music following the success of his often times writing partner John Prine. John is also one of my all time favorites. Like Steve I have been listening to his music since the early 1970s!
Here is a short post I wrote on Steve’s birthday (July 25th) several years ago. I included in that post a video of one of my favorite Steve Goodman songs “Would You Like to Learn to Dance” from his self-titled debut album.
About “The Dutchman”
But back to “The Dutchman”. The song first appeared on Goodman’s second album Somebody Else’s Troubles. From Wikipedia..
The song is about an elderly couple living in Amsterdam, Margaret and the title character. The unnamed Dutchman is senile, and Margaret cares for him with a sadness over what has happened to him over the years. It is a story of unconditional love. Read More
Here’s a great post at Comparative Video 101 Peter Smith, Steve Goodman And More – “The Dutchman” Check It Out!
Well let’s end this post with a video of Steve performing the song accompanied by the great Jethro Burns. Enjoy I did!
