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Steven Benjamin Goodman (July 25, 1948 – September 20, 1984) was an American folk music and Country music singer-songwriter from Chicago. He wrote the song "City of New Orleans", which was recorded by artists including Arlo Guthrie, John Denver, The Highwaymen, and Judy Collins. In 1985, Goodman received the Grammy songwriter award for best country song. Goodman co-wrote "You Never Even Called Me by My Name", which became the best-selling song of country musician David Allan Coe. A lifelong Chicago Cubs fan, Goodman wrote "Go Cubs Go." Goodman died of leukemia in September 1984.
Returning to Chicago, he intended to restart his education. In 1968 Goodman began performing at the Earl of Old Town and The Dangling Conversation coffeehouse and attracted a following. By 1969, Goodman was a regular performer in Chicago, while attending Lake Forest College. During this time Goodman supported himself by singing advertising jingles. It was during this time he discovered the cause of his continuous fatigue was actually leukemia. This led him to drop out of school again to pursue his music full time.
In September 1969 he met Nancy Pruter (sister of R&B writer Robert Pruter), who was attending college and working as a waitress. They were married in February 1970. Though he experienced periods of remission, Goodman never felt that he was living on anything other than borrowed time, and some critics, listeners and friends have said that his music reflects this sentiment. His wife, writing in the liner notes to the posthumous collection No Big Surprise, characterized him this way:
Basically, Steve was exactly who he appeared to be: an ambitious, well-adjusted man from a loving, middle-class Jewish home in the Chicago suburbs, whose life and talent were directed by the physical pain and time constraints of a fatal disease which he kept at bay, at times, seemingly by willpower alone.... Steve wanted to live as normal a life as possible, only he had to live it as fast as he could.... He extracted meaning from the mundane.
Later in 1971, Goodman was playing at a Chicago bar called the Quiet Knight as the opening act for Kris Kristofferson. Impressed with Goodman, Kristofferson introduced him to Paul Anka, who brought Goodman to New York to record some demos. This resulted in Goodman signing a contract with Buddah Records.
All this time, Goodman had been busy writing many of his most enduring songs, and this avid songwriting would lead to an important break for him. While at the Quiet Knight, Goodman saw Arlo Guthrie and asked him to let him play a song for him. Guthrie grudgingly agreed on the condition that Goodman buy him a beer first; Guthrie would then listen to Goodman for as long as it took Guthrie to drink the beer. Goodman played "City of New Orleans", which Guthrie liked enough that he asked to record it.
Guthrie's version of Goodman's song, about the Illinois Central's City of New Orleans train, became a Top 20 hit in 1972 and provided Goodman with enough financial and artistic success to make music a full-time career. The song would become an American standard, covered by such musicians as Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, Chet Atkins, Lynn Anderson, and Willie Nelson, whose recorded version earned Goodman a posthumous Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 1985. A French translation of the song, "Salut Les Amoureux", was recorded by Joe Dassin in 1973.
A Dutch singer, Gerard Cox, heard the French version while on holiday and translated it into Dutch, titled "'t Is Weer Voorbij Die Mooie Zomer" ("And again that beautiful summer has come to an end"). It reached number one on the Dutch Top 40 in December 1973 and has become a classic which is still played on Dutch radio. Inspired by this version Rudi Carrell, a Dutch TV host and entertainer who was also very successful in Germany, covered the song with German lyrics ("Wann wird's mal wieder richtig Sommer?") in 1975. It peaked #18 in the Top 40 and has become a radio classic which gains airplay in rainy summers. A Hebrew version of the song "Shalom Lach Eretz Nehederet" was sung by famous Israeli singer Yehoram Gaon in 1977 and became an immediate hit. Lyrically, the French, Dutch, German and Hebrew versions bear no resemblance to Goodman's original lyrics.
According to Goodman, the song was inspired by a train trip he and his wife took from Chicago to Mattoon, Illinois. According to the liner notes on the Steve Goodman anthology No Big Surprise, "City of New Orleans" was written while on the campaign trail with Senator Edmund Muskie.
In 1974, singer David Allan Coe achieved considerable success on the country charts with Goodman's and John Prine's "You Never Even Called Me by My Name", a song which good-naturedly spoofed stereotypical country music lyrics. Prine refused to take a songwriter's credit for the song, although Goodman bought Prine a jukebox as a gift from his publishing royalties. Goodman's name is mentioned in Coe's recording of the song, in a spoken epilogue in which Goodman and Coe discuss the merits of "the perfect country and western song".
Goodman's success as a recording artist was more limited. Although he was known in folk circles as an excellent and influential songwriter, his albums received more critical than commercial success. One of Goodman's biggest hits was a song he didn't write: "The Dutchman", written by Michael Peter Smith. He reached a wider audience as the opening act for Steve Martin while Martin was at the height of his stand-up popularity.
During the mid and late seventies, Goodman became a regular guest on Easter on Vin Scelsa's radio show in New York City. Scelsa's personal recordings of these sessions eventually led to an album of selections from these appearances, The Easter Tapes.
In 1977, Goodman performed on Tom Paxton's live album New Songs From the Briarpatch (Vanguard Records), which contained some of Paxton's topical songs of the 1970s, including "Talking Watergate" and "White Bones of Allende", as well as a song dedicated to Mississippi John Hurt entitled "Did You Hear John Hurt?"
During the fall of 1979, Goodman was hired to write and perform a series of topical songs for National Public Radio. Although Goodman and Jethro Burns recorded eleven songs for the series, only five of them, "The Ballad of Flight 191" about a plane crash, "Daley's Gone", "Unemployed", "The Twentieth Century is Almost Over", and "The Election Year Rag", were used on the air before the series was cancelled.Eals, 558–59
Goodman wrote and performed many humorous songs about Chicago, including three about the Chicago Cubs: "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request", "When the Cubs Go Marching In" and "Go, Cubs, Go" (which has frequently been played on Cubs broadcasts and at Wrigley Field after Cubs wins). He wrote "Go, Cubs, Go" out of spite after then GM Dallas Green called "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request" too depressing. The Cubs songs grew out of his fanatical devotion to the team, which included many clubhouse and on-field visits with Cubs players. He wrote other songs about Chicago, including "The Lincoln Park Pirates", about the notorious Lincoln Towing Service, and "Daley's Gone", about Mayor Richard J. Daley. Another comic highlight is "Vegematic", about a man who falls asleep while watching late-night TV and dreams he ordered many products that he saw on infomercials. He could also write serious songs, most notably "My Old Man", a tribute to Goodman's father, Bud Goodman, a used-car salesman and World War II veteran.
Goodman won his second Grammy, for Best Contemporary Folk Album, in 1988 for Unfinished Business, a posthumous album on his Red Pajamas Records label.
Many fans become aware of Goodman's work through other artists such as Jimmy Buffett. Buffett has recorded several of Goodman's songs, including "This Hotel Room", "Banana Republics", and "California Promises", as well as songs co-written with Buffett: "Door Number Three", "Woman Goin' Crazy on Caroline Street", "Frank and Lola", "It's Midnight and I'm not Famous Yet", and "Where's the Party?". Jackie DeShannon covered Goodman's "Would You Like to Learn to Dance" on her 1972 album, Jackie.
Goodman's posthumously released album, Santa Ana Winds, included a tribute to Carl Martin, "You Better Get It While You Can (The Ballad of Carl Martin)", celebrating the joy both found in their music, and a refrain of, "From the cradle to the crypt, Is a mighty short trip. So you better get it while you can".
On October 2, after clinching the National League East division title, the Cubs played their first post-season game since the 1945 World Series. Filling in for Goodman, who had been scheduled to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" before the game, Jimmy Buffett dedicated the song to him. Since the 2000s, at the conclusion of every home game win, the Cubs play "Go, Cubs, Go", written by Goodman.
In April 1988, some of Goodman's ashes were scattered at Wrigley Field, the home of the Cubs.Eals, 725-6.
Goodman was survived by his wife and three daughters.
In 2007 the Chicago Cubs began playing Goodman's 1984 song "Go, Cubs, Go" after each home game win. When the Cubs made it to the playoffs, interest in the song and Goodman resulted in several newspaper articles about him. Illinois Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn declared October 5, 2007, Steve Goodman Day in the state. In 2010, Illinois Representative Mike Quigley introduced a bill renaming the Lakeview post office on Irving Park Road in honor of Goodman. The bill was signed by President Barack Obama on August 3, 2010.
| Various artists including Goodman, Jim Post, Ed Holstein, Fred Holstein, Ginni Clemmens |
| Live |
| First posthumous release |
| Second posthumous release, Grammy award |
| 18 live cuts from WNEW-FM 1970's broadcasts, liner notes by host Vin Scelsa |
| Live at Bayou Theater, early 1980s |
| Live, August 1978 |
| Live, April 1, 1973, Chicago |
| Live, November 10, 1969, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL |
| 20 previously unreleased solo and full band studio demos |
| 2 LP compilation, 20 cuts from Steve Goodman and Somebody Else's Troubles |
| Compilation |
| Compilation |
| Single CD compilation, 19 cuts from Steve Goodman and Somebody Else's Troubles |
| Compilation, 8 cuts from Steve Goodman and Somebody Else's Troubles |
| 2 CD compilation (1 studio, 1 live) |
| Compilation EP with 4 baseball-themed cuts |
| 1977 & 1982 live shows with John Prine and Jethro Burns, plus interviews |
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