Dante Gator


Burke Tallage was a Dante Gator fan, a real Dante Gator fan. You know Dante's mid-career output, from Cock-a-Hoop to
Scrawl to Cloudmountaincalling, the albums that brought the inevitable Dylan comparisons down upon his young head. But
Burke knew it all. He knew the whole story as if he had written it. He had followed Dante's career from the first crude
basement recordings with his teenage band, Snit Pitchers, to his first public show at the Goner Records Fest, and on to the
national stage, from whence Dante became the famous but reclusive genius of the post-rock circuit. Post-rock they called it
because all the old names had been used up.

Burke Tallage was Memphis. He was Memphis the way Big Star was, or Shelby Foote, or Bill Eggleston. Except that Burke
was more a moon than a star. He lived off reflected light. Among the Memphis cognoscenti, especially the musically hip
cognoscenti, that is, those who wore their nimbi as if they were porkpie hats, Burke was one of the hipper cats. He was
known in these circles as the first guy to any gig, the first one to discover new bands, the first to declare when a star's star
had reached its apex and was now hurtling toward predestined burnout. And Burke was the first and foremost Dante Gator
fan.

Some said Burke discovered Dante, but that would imply that he somehow pushed his career forward, somehow was
responsible for the meteoric rise of the singer/songwriter. This is not true. Dante Gator was hoisted on his own petard, so
to speak, if a petard can be unearthly guitar skills and a way with words that his namesake would envy. Maybe that's
overstating the case. But Dante's lyrics certainly were the envy of his generation, meatier than Milk Mabry's, more cutting
than Levi Pangborn's, certainly more memorable than either of the songwriters for Neurotic Dorks with New Clothes, or
Chism. Dante wrote from deep wellsprings. His voice, both on the page and in the studio, was a thing to behold, a twister, a
temblor, a natural force.

Ironically, it was Dante Gator's reworking of the standard, "Gallows Pole," which first broke him nationally. His version, with
its Aeolian harp and haunting backwards background singers, owed nothing to Led Zeppelin's, though that battle continues
to this day on the internet, Zep fans notoriously loyal and always spoiling for a fight in defense of their rock god heroes.
This is as it should be. Nevertheless, Gator's version went to number two, an amazing feat for a first time record, and, if
not for Snotgun's "Some New Meanings from Weather," he would have gone straight to number one.  He was suddenly the
hottest new voice in music.

From there Gator proceeded to manufacture both hits and critically acclaimed CD's, culminating in 2001's Fifth Watch Bells,
which contained his biggest hit to-date, the plaintive "Gayla in the Morning." It was "Gayla" that he sang at the Concert for
Climate Control. It was "Gayla" that was covered by everyone from Bad Plus (their de-constructed instrumental version one
of Dante's favorite covers of his work) to Doug Hoekstra to The Art Kane Jazz Mouths. It was "Gayla" that won the
Grammy, and, when it was later used in the film Spondulicks, the Oscar. Quite a trip for one little song.

And most folks agree that it was the success of "Gayla" that drove Dante Gator underground. Not that he was not already
aloof, sequestered, solitary. He shied from the spotlight almost immediately it was shone on him. Yet his reputation still
swelled like a cake rising. And after "Gayla" he all but disappeared, except, that is, to materialize every 10-14 months in a
studio with an A-list of musicians, to record his latest opus. This, in brief, is the story of Dante Gator. Where he is at any
given time is anyone's guess. Attempts, over the years, to locate him for interviews or awards, have proven fruitless. He
once issued a terse press release. It said: All I have to say is in my songs.

But, let's backtrack a little, back to Memphis and Burke's reputation as the principal Dante Gator devotee, the authority
both locally and, after he was interviewed by both Rolling Stone and Rock Paper (it was critic Shlomo Shearsman, who, in
Rock Paper, called Gator's music "post-rock"), nationally. Burke Tallage was to Dante Gator what George Klein was to Elvis,
you know, Presley.

From the time of Gator's first appearance at the Goner Fest, introduced by Eric as "the next big thing from Memphis," Burke
was the singer/songwriter's shadow, traveling with him from gig to gig, sometimes carrying equipment, sometimes carrying
a laptop on which he kept track of all Gator's appearances, sometimes carrying the cliché stash. Burke was something
between a roadie and an unofficial manager. Mostly, he was just always there, on the scene, macking the groupies, hanging
with the other musicians and their wives (especially Joan Self Selvidge, but that's another story), getting his share of drugs
and women. He was a rock star without making any music. It was a heady time for Burke and he readily admitted it. "I have
been made by my enthusiasm for and commitment to Dante Gator, and that is alright with me," he told The Lamplighter,
Memphis' hip Midtown neighborhood newspaper.

Now, at this time, Burke had a day job. Though it was said that Dante was generous with his earnings and kept Burke paid
up for his aiding and abetting, Burke managed to also eke out a living with his employment at Cat's Music. There he was an
out-front guy, a salesman who could tell you who played on which Mudboy and the Neutrons CD, which Little Big Town was
their best, what was the connective link between The Monkees and Captain Beefheart, what famous 60s burnout released a
CD under the pseudonym Dark Moon Lilith, and whether Ghostface Killah peaked with Fishscale. He knew his music, Burke
did.

But, mostly, Burke was renowned for regaling any customer who would listen with tales from the Book of Dante Gator. He
spread the gospel of Gator. Sometimes, but rarely, a customer could be seen sidling away from the harangue. But Burke's
passion was most often infectious and it is incalculable how many copies of Cock-a-Hoop or Scrawl or Bethlehem Holiday
Inn he sold with his romances. Cat's was right happy to have him.

Then something went wrong. There are as many conflicting versions of the story as there are storytellers. Something went
wrong between Burke and Dante. The aforementioned Ms. Selvidge told it this way: "Something went wrong between Burke
and Dante. Dante, infamously prickly about his private time, seemed to think Burke was too present. Too into him. At one
live gig—I think it was at Otherlands—Dante said from the stage, 'Burke Tallage is here tonight, ladies and gentlemen, to
update my address book and lick up my spilt milk. Burke, take a bow, you suck-up sycophant.' The expression on Burke's
face was something to behold. It was like a cross between a hurt puppy and that kid in The Omen. Later -- and God knows
why Burke stayed with him after this -- Dante accused him of hitting on his girlfriend of the time, the famous Memphis siren
Amy Fayaway. Amy's story, alone, could fill a book, and her time with Dante was the stuff of local legend. She was all legs
and hair and hunger. I say this with all love and respect. She was a harpy. And Dante was crazy about her. I doubt Burke
could even get in her door, so to speak, but you never know. She was a disreputable pinkpants."

Another version has them falling out over money but this seems unlikely. As previously mentioned, Dante Gator was
generous. He was generous, mainly because he didn't really care about money. He didn't care about fame. He only wanted
to work, to write songs. And, some said, he only recorded his own songs because he thought no one else could do them
justice. Otherwise he would have been happy just writing them, selling them, letting them go like Noah's enthusiastic birds.

Still, another version of the falling-out was that Burke eventually, for his efforts, wanted to actually get credit on Dante's
recordings. Now, it must be said, that Dante should have at least included a thank-you to his number one fan on at least
one of the CD's, but he didn't. For whatever reason, he didn't. But Burke, you understand, wanted a recording credit, a
background singer credit, something, anything. He began to see his life slipping away. He began to sense that moon-quality
aforesaid. This perhaps began to rankle after that ill-famed Otherlands gig. Burke Tallage, for all his love for Dante Gator,
still wanted to be an individual, still wanted to be his own man. He had his pride.

Eric from Goner had this to say: "I was there one night when Dante locked Burke out. Literally, locked him out of his trailer,
that rattle-trap behemoth that they traveled in for a while. He left Burke standing in the rain outside Brownville, Tennessee,
with no way to get home but his thumb. It was not very nice, but, then I don't know what precipitated it. I don't know what
Burke, you know, had done."

Burke Tallage walked home that night. He walked all the way from Brownsville in the rain. And when he got home he holed
up in his apartment, with a high-quality case of pneumonia, and he refused to see anyone. Fearing another Johnny Eatman
tragedy (Johnny "Singer" died, you remember, from the flu, alone in his apartment, during the cold winter holidays) some
friends dropped by and attempted to kick their way inside. They got an earful for their efforts. But, at least, they left
assured that Burke was still alive, alive and very, very angry.

Burke took a turn for the worse then. Some said he left town for a while, lived in St. Louis with a leggy writer for St. Louis
Magazine, where his drinking first began to seem dangerous. Some said he never left town, just took to his room and drank
himself into a livid daze every night. Whatever happened during those months and months of wandering in the desert, by
the time Burke reappeared Dante Gator had already moved on, first relocating to Nashville and then from there to the fame
and fortune iterated above. And when Dante went under, when he disappeared from the public radar and only emerged to
record, ironically Burke was remaking himself yet again. It was around this time that Burke picked up an acoustic guitar and
tried to make it as a punk folkie, using Neil Young, the way so many had before him, as a template.

Burke's "career" was short-lived. He recorded one song, a song that had some local airplay on WEVL, a song later covered
by Two Way Radio, the ballad "Thanksgiving on the 13th Floor." He played a couple times in support of Rob Junglkas at
Otherlands, a couple times opened for Lucero at The Hi-Tone. He even, briefly, joined Old People Falling, that loose conglom
of Memphis music mojo that also included, at one time or another, the Dickinson boys, a few ex-Hellcats, Greg Cartwright,
Alicja Trout, Ross Johnson and on and on. But Burke was, by all reports, a dreadful singer and a worse songwriter. He soon
returned to his exile, and to his paramount ally, the bottle. It was sad. Many folks tried to help Burke Tallage return from
the darkness, Memphians being notably supportive of their own, and many had to shrug and walk away before they
themselves were pulled into the whirlpool of his self-destruction. Sad it was.

The news of Dante Gator's first televised performance in a decade was greeted with equal amounts skepticism and joy. This
was after years of being an eremite. A press release emerged from somewhere. It said, simply, "Dante Gator will premiere
his new song, "What is Deepak Chopra?" on the David Letterman Show. Stay tuned." No date was announced which led
some to speculate that it was a jape, possibly emanating from Dante himself.

But a jape it was not. Soon more concrete details emerged. On September 27th. His only fellow guest was going to be Bob
Dylan himself, playing behind Dante. Letterman had at first balked at such demands but recognized, quickly enough, the
enormous publicity that this would engender. His ratings would soar.

As the date approached folks in Memphis buzzed with pride and, as usual, some insouciant, hipster jadedness. "Cool," was
the usual response when asked if you had heard. "Will you be watching?" was asked as often as "Can the Tigers go to #1?"
Some parties were organized around the airing. The Hi-Tone was offering a special night of open mike, followed by a big
screen showing of the broadcast. The hype around this re-emergence was remarkable. It was as if J. D. Salinger had
decided it was time to publish another novel.

That night, on TVs across America, a significant thing happened. At the prescribed hour for the David Letterman show to
begin a message ran across the screen. "The previously scheduled appearance by Dante Gator and Bob Dylan has been
cancelled. A rerun of a previously aired David Letterman show will take its place." A rerun? No Dante Gator?

Some in Memphis sniffed their superiority. There was an I-told-you-so hanging in the air. Dante Gator had goofed America.
This was punk theater. This was rock's ornery side, its stubborn refusal to conform. Theories instantly began to spread like
a contagion.

The devastating truth would come out by morning. And this is the version most of us know.

The afternoon of the broadcast, when the show is taped in front of a live audience, it was rainy and cold in New York City.
The backdoor of NBC studios was barely discernible in the downpour. There was the customary swarm of autograph
seekers, perhaps slightly larger than usual, huddled together like geese. Every car that entered that space was met with a
throng, surrounded the way an oil spill surrounds sea life. Finally, the limousine arrived, pulling up like some dream vehicle,
laggardly like a hearse. There was some jostling for position, some reporters and photographers using their practiced wiles
to elbow closer. When the door of the limo was opened by the beefy driver the small figure that emerged could have been
Dylan or Dante. No one had seen Dante for years and, in the rain, in the murk of Mid-Manhattan mist, who knew?

One man in the crowd knew. One man recognized him. He should—he had followed him practically from his infancy. Burke
Tallage stepped forward like an emissary from another planet. His extended hand could have held a keepsake or a rose.

Burke spoke in an undertone. "Hello, Dante," he said. And as Dante raised his cowled face he saw that what was proffered
was neither keepsake nor rose. It was a small, chromium-plated pistol. The report was almost swallowed by the noise of the
crowd rushing forward. Few saw Dante Gator fall. He was caught by the driver and Bob Dylan, who stepped from the car
just as the shot rang out. Someone in the crowd grabbed Burke Tallage, who smiled as if his life had come full circle in that
very moment. He smiled because he knew it was all over. Whatever it was, it was all over.

The death of Dante Gator dominated the news for days. The life of Burke Tallage, now called Burke Myshkin Tallage, was
quickly cobbled together for CNN and E Channel fare. It was the John Lennon story all over again, was the tack of most
reports. A deranged fan. A man haunted by his own demons, his own failed ambitions. Few outside Memphis knew the
story, of course, not that it mattered. Dante Gator was dead. And Burke Tallage was in jail for the rest of his life.

So it briefly seemed.

Then, outside the New York City Centre Street Jail, known affectionately as The Tombs, Burke Tallage met his Jack Ruby.
Some later blamed the police for their nonchalant protection. But, who saw this coming? Her name was Vivien Cecilia
Valerian. Her weapon was a small caliber pistol, whose bang sounded more like a whimper. Her greeting was simple: "Hello,
Burke." She was, according to her diary, Dante Gator's #1 fan.

That Burke Tallage died of such a small hole in his epidermis was an unlucky circumstance. Again, there was blame placed on
the authorities, who didn't get him to a hospital quickly enough. He did bleed an extraordinary amount. A doctor could tell
you what vital interior plumbing the mini-ball had punctured. Whatever it was, whatever it did, Burke Tallage bled to death
before he ever reached the emergency room. He was as dead as Dante Gator, as dead as Elvis, you know, Presley.

Back in Memphis the bad news spread among the Midtown habitués of clubs and record shops. Much insider murmuring,
much hand-wringing, much personal guilt, as if any of this could have been prevented. The funerals of their two fallen sons
were only a few days apart. Dante Gator's memorial service was a must-attend, see-and-be-seen event. Some people still
talk about Jim Dickinson's eulogy for his fallen comrade, orated in that Mississippi growl that many are familiar with. There
wasn't a dry eye, as they say, in the crowd, a crowd, by some estimates, that reached 10,000 mourners. Amy Fayaway,
even though medicated, had to be carried away from the casket, as she tried to climb inside. This all on a balmy, bright
Tuesday afternoon, one of those rare fall days Memphis serves up to remind you why you live in the South rather than, say,
North Dakota. Everyone who is anyone in Memphis filed past the open casket of the once reclusive post-rock star, now a
public figure again at last.

Burke Tallage's funeral was held that following Friday. A small, reverent, silent troop of friends carried him to his rest.
Burke's father, an ex-Memphis Press Scimitar reporter, now a lush who lived at the VA, didn't even shed a tear. Some
wondered whether he really understood what was happening. Eric from Goner Records gave the eulogy. In it he called Burke
Tallage "Memphis' foremost rock fan and a singer-songwriter in his own right." It was a generous appellation, a
compassionate valediction.

So it goes. Few will remember Burke Tallage, while the mourning for Dante Gator will only grow, year by year, like a sea
swell. He will be revered and written about and, on every anniversary of his death, more and more new fans will gather in
Memphis to remember him with songs and flowers and poems and memories, some embellished, some invented. This is
just. And the song they will sing at every gathering will be "Gayla in the Morning." Here, then, to end the tale, perhaps
fittingly, is a snatch of its most famous verse:

          Love has a way
              Of running through your hands
              It's all conjugation
              And ampersands
               And changing lights
              And shifting sands.
           And shifting sands.

Corey Mesler