Currently celebrating the 22nd anniversary of its founding in Saugerties, Inquiring Mind Bookstore & Café will present a special event this Saturday, August 23 at the Orpheum Theatre, titled “I Shall Be Released: a Tribute to Richard Manuel.” It begins at 4 p.m. and admission is free, thanks to underwriting from the Ettinger Foundation as part of the Live from Upstate series. Visit upstatefilms.org for tickets.
The event is part of the book launch for Richard Manuel: His Life and Music, from the Hawks and Bob Dylan to The Band by Stephen T. Lewis, a new release from Schiffer Publishing. Based in Rochester, Lewis is a rock ‘n’ roll archivist, collector and host of the long-running Talk from the Rock Room podcast. The author will be on hand, along with Rob Fraboni, the audio engineer who produced the soundtrack for The Last Waltz, with Peter Aaron leading the discussion. Live performances of some of Manuel’s songs will be provided by Jim Weider, who replaced Robbie Robertson as The Band’s lead guitarist, and Weight Band member Matt Zeiner. Marc Delgado will open with his song, “The Cautionary Tale of Richard Manuel.” There will also be screenings of hitherto unseen film footage from Canadian TV.
The lead singer on more than half of The Band’s songs, Manuel was known for his soulful vocals as well as his piano-playing, his stylings influenced by the gospel, blues, R&B and rockabilly that he listened to in his youth in Stratford, Ontario. Lewis’ new biography traces Manuel’s career from those hometown roots through his success while still in his teens with a local band called the Revols, before being recruited by Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks: the group that would become The Band after Hawkins’ departure.
The Hawks established themselves as a formidable, widely respected roots-rock outfit long before they came onto Bob Dylan’s radar, but it was their stint as his backup band on his first major electric tour that brought them international fame as well as controversy. This biography examines in detail the rollercoaster ride of growing recognition, the temptations of life on the road and the artistic tensions that beset The Band, even as the group’s output earned the admiration of their musical peers and a lasting reputation as the originators of the genre we now know as Americana.
An alcoholic beginning in his teen years, Manuel had a devil-may-care attitude that devolved into heavy drug use, reckless driving, fractured marriages and ultimately to his suicide in 1986 at age 42. Yet he is remembered by many as a laid-back, sweet-natured, self-deprecating man whose essential contributions to the signature sound of The Band at its peak were tragically underappreciated as more contentious egos squabbled for dominance.
Lewis meticulously documents The Band’s trajectory, tour by tour and gig by gig, including full set lists and artistic analyses of performances that have been recorded. The book is a valuable account of the entire group’s career as well as an insightful commemoration of the personal talents and challenges of Richard Manuel as an individual.
For Brian Donaghue, proprietor of Inquiring Mind, this event is precisely the sort of community engagement that he sees as the rightful function of an independent bookstore. Donaghue founded the shop in 2003, originally as a children’s bookstore, and then expanded it when Coliseum Books in New York City closed its doors and he was able to buy up its stock. Ever since then, he has taken the role of being a community hub seriously, cultivating what he calls a “symbiotic relationship” with other cultural entities such as the theatre around the corner, with libraries, schools and literacy organizations. While public gatherings such as the Richard Manuel tribute were put on hold during the COVID pandemic, Inquiring Mind has been revving them up again over the past year, with author readings resumed and a monthly Open Reading Poetry Night with the Bluestone Poets.
“We do a lot of work in conjunction with Upstate Films. Saugerties is becoming an arts hub – a destination of sorts,” Donaghue says. “We kicked off this art renaissance in the village here. It feels good to see the community change that way. There was none of that in the town when we opened 22 years ago.”
Like biographer Stephen T. Lewis, Donaghue is a longtime aficionado of The Band, and he recently got involved with helping to settle the estate of the recently deceased Garth Hudson. “I got to thinking of all of this great history that’s leaving the region,” he says, noting that some of The Band’s memorabilia was shipped off to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, while Bob Dylan’s archives were sold off to the George Kaiser Family Foundation and are now housed in a museum in Tulsa. So he has been giving a lot of thought to the need for some sort of local effort to preserve the rich artistic and musical history that distinguishes the mid-Hudson region and the Catskills.
“Even if we wanted to keep it, there’s no container for it,” Donaghue points out. He mentions a friend who runs a business taking visitors on rock tours of Woodstock, which “continues to be a Mecca for people looking for musical inspiration…. Arts tourism could be even more of an economic driver than it already is. It’s a vein that we should tap into somehow.” Noting that there’s no central location in our region for the display of Hudson River School artworks, he suggests that the creation of such a place would be “a wonderful use of Winston Farm.”
Making sure that Inquiring Mind plays an active role in encouraging interest in such topics is intrinsic to Donaghue’s personal mission. “We have a huge local history section. History plays a big part of what we do. Did you know that downtown Saugerties was the first historical district in New York State? We pioneered mixed paint. Like any small town, when industrialization disappears, either you remake yourself or you don’t. But we get a fair group of people who come through here looking at the history of the Hudson Valley. We’re so rich, we really are, with this incredible area of history and beauty.”
Donaghue keeps track of where his customers come from via credit card charges, and they’re not all local by any means. “This year I’ve noticed a decrease in our Canadian tourists – about a 25 or 30 percent decline in receipts,” he says, attributing the falloff to the current presidential administration’s unwelcoming attitude toward immigrants and other international visitors, “creating a totally unnecessary hostile situation with your neighbors. But I’m pleased to see some of that loss taken up by tri-state tourism.”
Americans have shortened attention spans these days, due to our addiction to smartphones and social media, and many “come in looking for shorter books,” Donaghue says. Nevertheless, “I think people are reading more. We’ve seen a constant increase in business… We had the big e-books boom a few years ago, but people are acknowledging now that they’re not comfortable with that anymore. They’re turning to books again. That’s one of the few bright spots in our current reality.”
Inquiring Mind Bookstore & Café is a literal bright spot downtown, thanks to the corner building’s 150 linear feet of windows. “I always try to use that to educate people and to confront people,” says the owner. “If there’s any pressing issue, I try to dedicate at least one window to it, to get people talking and thinking. Anything that opens up discussion is a good thing.”
Donaghue’s political statements, expressed in banners atop the façade welcoming marginalized populations and through window displays of books on hot-button issues such as the bombing and starvation in Gaza, have received some pushback from municipal officials and residents, but they have stood the test of challenges. A display of history books comparing the Trump administration’s policies to Weimar Germany provoked death threats, bomb threats and a lawsuit from the Anti-Defamation League, for example, but “they dropped it” when the Committee for Free Expression of American Booksellers’ Association offered the services of “one of the top First Amendment attorneys” if needed. And lately, he says, people are more likely to come in to express their thanks for the messages of acceptance expressed in the banners, which he hopes to replace with more permanent signs in the foreseeable future. “The opposition dissipated… It has become a touchstone for a lot of folks.”
Meanwhile, Donaghue plans to continue making his bookstore available as a place for public discussion as well as cultural events. He’s in the midst of a multiyear project to renovate 2,000 square feet of upstairs space for use for gatherings, talks, performances, classes and screenings. The small section that’s already finished is used for book club meetings; the Inquiring Minds Wild Women’s Writing Circle will hold workshops there on Saturday afternoons from September 20 to October 25. The next book launch event, on Sunday, September 21, will be held across the street at The Local and feature Iranian expat journalist Fatemeh Jamalpour’s For the Sun after Long Nights: The Story of Iran’s Women-Led Uprising.
Inquiring Mind Bookstore & Café is located at 65 Partition Street in Saugerties. The satellite store in New Paltz is located at 6 Church Street. For more information about upcoming events, call (845) 246-5775 or (845) 255-8300, or visit www.inquiringbooks.com.
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