Remembering Rainer Ptacek With Arizona Illustrated
By now you’re probably familiar with my love for Rainer Ptacek and his sunbaked folk blues. If not, visit this post, or this post, or this post. I’m not going to give further background information on the amazing singer/songwriter/guitarist here. Instead, enjoy this profile from Arizona Public Media (which actually does a good job profiling the story). Actually, the whole video is 28 minutes, but only the first 15 (or just shy thereof) minutes is about Rainer even if the segments about “healing art” and “Tucson trains” are interesting.
The video profile features interviews with Rainer’s widow Patti Keating, Howe Gelb, and Rainer himself. It includes some overlapping footage with the KUAT profile featured here but also includes some home movie segments which don’t quite feel like we should be privileged to see, adding depth to the music and weight to the loss.
And here’s grainy black and white footage of Rainer playing the song Patti mentions, ‘Don't Know Why ‘ in 1989.