Marcus Uzilevsky

Marcus Uzilevsky
Born	Marcus Uzilevsky 1937 Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.
💀Died	5 December 2015(2015-12-05) (aged 77–78) Woodacre, California, U.S.5 December 2015(2015-12-05) (aged 77–78)
🏳️ Nationality	American
🏫 Education	School of Industrial Art; Pratt Institute
💼 Occupation
Known for	Painting, printmaking, music
Notable work	Linear Landscapes; Music Series; Folk Symphony for Sara (1988)
Movement	Pointillism, Psychedelic art

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Marcus Uzilevsky (1937 – December 5, 2015) was an American visual artist and musician based in Marin County, California. He was known for his linear-landscape and music-series paintings, which are held in the permanent collections of several American museums and the World Bank art collection. As a musician he recorded under several names from the late 1950s through the 2010s, including Rusty Evans, a folk singer in the Greenwich Village folk revival scene who later led the studio psychedelic-rock projects The Deep and The Freak Scene, and as Uzca, under which he released world-music recordings in the 1990s. He co-wrote "I'm Five Years Ahead of My Time", the 1967 single by The Third Bardo later anthologised on Rhino's Nuggets compilation.

Early life and education

Uzilevsky was born in 1937 in Brooklyn, New York, to Russian and Polish immigrant parents, Chiam Uzilevsky and Sara Zucker. The household spoke Yiddish. He showed an early aptitude for drawing and was formally trained as an illustrator at the School of Industrial Art in Manhattan and at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. After graduating he worked in commercial illustration, including a job illustrating automobile accessories for newspaper advertising. Finding the work creatively unsatisfying, he taught himself guitar and began performing in folk and rockabilly clubs in New York City.

Music career

Folk and rockabilly (late 1950s – mid-1960s)

Uzilevsky began recording in the late 1950s under the stage name Rusty Evans, initially as a rockabilly singer. By the early 1960s he was a fixture of the Greenwich Village folk revival scene, sharing stages with Bob Dylan, David Crosby, Fred Neil and Dino Valenti at venues including Café Rafio. Evans recorded three folk albums for Mount Vernon Music in the early 1960s, including Songs of Our Land and ¡Let-'Er-Roll! Ballads of the Railroads. Around 1966 he joined The New Christy Minstrels.

The Deep (1966)

In 1966 Evans, inspired by the San Francisco sound and its psychedelic poster art, approached songwriter and producer Mark Barkan with the idea of making an album centred on the psychedelic experience. They formed the studio group The Deep, which included guitarist David Bromberg, and signed to Cameo-Parkway Records. The resulting album, Psychedelic Moods (1966), was recorded at Cameo-Parkway Studios in Philadelphia over two days on a $1,200 budget. It is widely cited as one of the earliest albums to use the word "psychedelic" in its title.

The Freak Scene (1967)

Evans reconvened The Deep's nucleus in 1967 as The Freak Scene and signed to Columbia Records. The group's sole album, Psychedelic Psoul (1967), incorporated tape manipulation, fuzz guitar and Middle Eastern–influenced melodies. The album is often noted as the earliest record to use the term "psychedelic soul".

The Third Bardo (1967)

Also in 1967, Evans co-wrote "I'm Five Years Ahead of My Time" with Vicky Pike. The song was recorded by the New York psychedelic band The Third Bardo, whom the record's producer Teddy Randazzo had brought to the studio, and released on Roulette Records. The single received some radio play before being pulled for perceived drug references. It was rediscovered as a garage rock classic in the 1980s and 1990s through its inclusion in compilations such as Pebbles, Volume 1 and Rhino's Nuggets.

Solo as Marcus (1969–1981)

After moving from New York to San Francisco in 1967, Uzilevsky began recording under his birth name. The self-titled album Marcus (Kinetic Records, 1969–1970) was recorded in the Haight-Ashbury district and described by AllMusic as "a minor classic of richly orchestrated psych-folk." A two-CD reissue with thirty-two bonus tracks was later released by Bomp! Records. In 1979 and 1980 he recorded two gospel albums for Folkways Records, Life's Railway to Heaven and A Pilgrim Son. In 1981 he released Linear Mode I — Ambience on his own Oak Springs Impressions label, an audio-visual concept LP in which some pressings included a signed lithograph from an edition of 900.

Uzca (1990s)

In the 1990s, under the name Uzca, Uzilevsky recorded two albums of what he described as "Nouveau Klezmer" — Gypsy Dreams (1997) and Slice of Light (2000) — combining gypsy guitar, klezmer violin and clarinet, Middle Eastern percussion and West African talking drums.

Ring of Fire (2000–2015)

In 2000 Uzilevsky resumed the Rusty Evans name and formed Ring of Fire, a Johnny Cash tribute ensemble in which his adopted son Danny Uzilevsky played lead guitar. The group toured the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Europe, performing at performing-arts centres and casinos. Releases under this configuration include the self-titled Rusty Evans & Ring of Fire (2000), I'm Comin' Home (2002), Burning Man (2004) and Rusty Evans & Ring of Fire — Live (2012).

Visual art

Uzilevsky moved to Marin County, California in 1967 and remained there for the rest of his life. In the early 1970s he began applying horizontal lines of coloured ink to paper with a ruling pen and T-square, a technique he developed into a body of work he called Linear Landscapes — pointillist seascapes and hill scenes inspired by the Marin landscape. A San Francisco gallerist described the style as "stretched-out pointillism".

He subsequently developed several other distinct bodies of work: a Music Series of watercolours and prints based on musical notation; an Affiche series of mixed-media works incorporating layered torn advertising posters; a Biblical-period body of work in the late 1970s and 1980s following a born-again Christian conversion; an Homage to Klimt series; an Icon paintings series depicting cultural figures; and a late series of Broken Instruments.

Uzilevsky is represented in the permanent collections of the Greenville Museum of Art (NC), the Huntsville Museum of Art (AL), the Missoula Art Museum (MT), the Alexandria Museum of Art (LA) and the World Bank collection, among others. Saper Galleries in East Lansing, Michigan represented his work continuously from 1984 until his death. Uzilevsky had over fifty one-person exhibitions during his career.

In 1988 his Folk Symphony for Sara — named for his mother — was performed by the Arlington Symphony Orchestra in New York, accompanied by projections of his paintings. The orchestral piece premiered at his solo exhibition at Gallerie Julian in Alexandria, Virginia the same year.

In 1997 director Francis Ford Coppola used Uzilevsky's paintings on screen in his film The Rainmaker.

Personal life

Uzilevsky married twice. He had two children — Boni and Scott — by his first wife, Genie Martini, both in the early 1960s; both were placed with adoptive families in childhood, and Boni later reunited with her father at age 17 and took back the Uzilevsky surname. His second wife, Rachel Uzilevsky, had a son, Danny, whom Marcus adopted as an infant and raised as his own. Danny later played guitar in the Ring of Fire band. At the time of his death Uzilevsky's partner was the musician Buffy Ford, widow of the folk singer John Stewart.

Death

Uzilevsky died at his home in Woodacre, California on December 5, 2015, of complications from heart disease. He was 78. A memorial was held on January 16, 2016, at the San Geronimo Valley Community Center.

Selected discography

As Rusty Evans

• Songs of Our Land (Mount Vernon Music, 1962)
• ¡Let-'Er-Roll! Ballads of the Railroads (Mount Vernon Music, 1964)
• Rusty Evans & Ring of Fire (2000)
• I'm Comin' Home (2002)
• Burning Man (2004)
• Rusty Evans & Ring of Fire — Live (2012)

As The Deep

• Psychedelic Moods (Cameo-Parkway, 1966)

As The Freak Scene

• Psychedelic Psoul (Columbia, 1967)

As Marcus

• Marcus (Kinetic Records, 1969/1970; reissued Bomp!)
• Life's Railway to Heaven (Folkways, 1979)
• A Pilgrim Son (Oaksprings/Folkways, 1980)
• Linear Mode I — Ambience (Oak Springs Impressions, 1981)
• Children of Aquarius (self-released; reissued 2015)

As Uzca

• Gypsy Dreams (1997)
• Slice of Light (2000)

Co-writer on The Third Bardo's 1967 single "I'm Five Years Ahead of My Time" / "Rainbow Life" (Roulette).

External links

• Marcus Uzilevsky at Saper Galleries
• Marcus Uzilevsky at AllMusic
• Marcus Uzilevsky at the Greenville Museum of Art
• Life's Railway to Heaven at Smithsonian Folkways
• Rusty Evans at the Rockabilly Hall of Fame

Category:1937 births Category:2015 deaths Category:American male painters Category:American male singer-songwriters Category:American printmakers Category:American folk singers Category:Singer-songwriters from New York (state) Category:Painters from California Category:Painters from New York City Category:Artists from Marin County, California Category:People from Woodacre, California Category:High School of Art and Design alumni Category:Pratt Institute alumni Category:Psychedelic musicians Category:American Christians Category:Jewish American musicians Category:20th-century American painters Category:21st-century American painters Category:20th-century American male musicians Category:21st-century American male musicians

References

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