five takes
“If I Had My Way I’d Tear The Building Down,” AKA “If I Had My Way,” “Samson and Delilah”
Blind Willie Johnson, recording, 1927
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Reverend Gary Davis, live (TV show)
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Peter Paul & Mary, live (TV show)
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Grateful Dead, live, New York (Radio City Music Hall), 1980
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Bruce Springsteen, live, Italy (Verona), 2006
One of my favorite live gospel recordings.
Brother Joe May (joined by members of the Sallie Martin Singers), “Move On Up A Little Higher,” live, early 1950s
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lagniappe
radio
Today, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., WKCR-FM (Columbia University), continuing its Bach Festival, features cellist Pablo Casals.
*****
reading table
Poverty kept me from thinking all was well under the sun and in history; the sun taught me that history is not everything.
—Albert Camus (translated from French by Ellen Conroy Kennedy)
two takes
“Strange Man” (D. L. Coates)
Patty Griffin, live, London, 2013
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Dorothy Love Coates (1928-2002; MCOTD Hall of Famer), recording, 1968
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lagniappe
art beat
Helen Levitt (1913-2009), New York, c. 1940
two takes
The Caravans (feat. Cassietta George), “Walk Around Heaven All Day”
Live
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Recording, 1964
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lagniappe
reading table
Interview of Alice Munro, last month
It’s hard to imagine a male writer, having just won the Nobel Prize in Literature, being so direct, so natural, so down to earth.
sounds of Chicago
The Stars of Heaven, live, Chicago, 2012
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lagniappe
art beat
John H. White, Chicago (south side), 1973
another take
Slow, dark, bluesy—this is a world away from the two church performances we heard last Sunday.
Pastor Terry Anderson (and congregation), “Woke Up This Morning with My Mind Stayed on Jesus,” live, Houston (Lilly Grove Missionary Baptist Church), 2010
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lagniappe
reading table
One of Emily Dickinson’s “envelope” poems:
In this short Life that only lasts an hour
How much—how little—is within our power
Here’s a variation, from the 1960s civil rights struggles, on the gospel song we heard Sunday.
SNCC Freedom Singers (AKA The Freedom Singers), “Woke Up This Morning with My Mind on Freedom,” live, Turkey, 2007
We started singing songs at the mass meetings. Songs of the movement gave you energy–a willingness and a wantingness to want to be free. Whenever there was a march to be taken place, there were songs that we would use to motivate the people to get in the line. One such song was “I Woke Up This Morning with My Mind Stayed on Freedom.” Most of the songs from the movement were taken from spirituals, gospel, and rhythm and blues–any type of music. Someone in the audience would start and say, “Come and go with me to that land. Come and go with me to that land.” And the rest would just repeat it.
*****
And here’s another take on the original.
Mavis Staples, “Woke Up This Morning with My Mind on Jesus,” recording (One True Vine), 2013
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lagniappe
art beat
Danny Lyon (1942-), Atlanta (Toddle House), 1963
four takes
“Woke Up this Morning with My Mind on Jesus”
Earl Washington (and congregation), live, Newark Church of Christ, Newark, N.J., 2007
*****
Fred McDowell, live, Como, Miss., 1959
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On the first day of fall, 1959, in Como, Mississippi, a farmer named Fred McDowell emerged from the woods and ambled over to his neighbor Lonnie Young’s front porch with a guitar in hand. Alan Lomax was there recording the Young fife and drum ensemble, as well as the raggy old country dance music of their neighbors, the Pratcher brothers, and he had no idea what to expect from this slight man in overalls. He certainly didn’t expect that Fred would soon become internationally known as one of the most original, talented, and affecting country bluesmen ever recorded.
*****
Blind Roosevelt Graves and Brother, recording, 1936
(This illustration isn’t BRG—it’s Charley Patton.)
*****
Richard Coffey Jr. (and congregation), live, Sweetwater Church of Christ, Jacksonville, Fla., 2012
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lagniappe
art beat
Danny Lyon (1942-), Albany, Ga. (Mt. Zion Baptist Church), 1962
music clip of the day 