five takes
“Where We’ll Never Grow Old,” AKA “Never Grow Old” (J. Moore, 1914)
Patty Griffin with Buddy Miller, live, 2010
***
The Canton Spirituals, live, c. 1990
***
The Carter Family, recording, 1932
***
Aretha Franklin, live, Detroit, 1996
***
Johnny Cash, recording, 2004
**********
lagniappe
art beat
Helen Levitt (1913-2009), New York
sounds of Chicago
They sounded so good last week—let’s hear some more.
The Staple Singers, “Are You Sure,” live, 1971
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lagniappe
art beat
William Eggleston (1939-)
sounds of Chicago
The Staple Singers, “Sit Down Servant,” live (TV show), 1963
**********
lagniappe
art beat
Helen Levitt (1913-2009), New York, c. 1940
never enough
Dorothy Love Coates (1928-2002), MCOTD Hall of Famer, talking and singing (“He’s Calling Me” [D. Love], The Original Gospel Harmonettes, 1955)
two takes
Bobby McFerrin, “Joshua,” live (studio performances), 2013
WNYC-FM, New York
*****
WFUV-FM, New York
**********
lagniappe
reading table
Novelist Philip Roth on death, getting older, etc.:
‘You think, That’s the end of it when your parents die. After that, you’re done. Nobody’s supposed to die anymore, right?’
—Claudia Roth Pierpont, “The Book of Laughter: Philip Roth and His Friends,” New Yorker, 10/7/13
*****
‘Seventy-five; how sudden.’
***
‘Time runs out at a terrifying speed. It seems that it was just 1943.’
—Patricia Cohen, “Philip Roth, Provacateur, Is Celebrated at 75,” New York Times, 4/12/08
back to church
Rev. Al Green, “The Lord Will Make A Way Somehow,” live, Memphis (Full Gospel Tabernacle Church), 1984
*****
A big birthday shout-out to my son Alex: where would I be without my guys?
Kuumba Singers, “Ride On,” “Hold On” (with Bobby McFerrin), live, Germany (Leipzig), 2002
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Imagine a United States as great, in every way, as its music.
back to church
Heavenly Gospel Singers, “Jesus Traveled On This Road Before”
Live, St. James Missionary Baptist Church, Canton, Miss., 1978
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lagniappe
reading table: more of Seamus Heaney
Reading (New York), 2011
***
Funeral (Dublin), September 2, 2013
two takes
“Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”
Bessie Griffin (with Charles Barnett, piano), live, Switzerland (Montreux Jazz Festival), 1981
*****
Albert Ayler (AA, saxophone; Call Cobbs, piano; Henry Grimes, bass; Sunny Murray, drums), recording, 1964
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lagniappe
reading table
To live is to lose ground.
—E. M. Cioran (1911-1995; translated from French by Richard Howard)
If I were to compile a short list, numbering, say, six or seven, of folks I wish I could’ve heard live, this guy, whom I’ve been listening to for over forty years, would be on it.
Blind Willie Johnson (1897-1945), singer, guitarist
“God Don’t Never Change” (New Orleans, 1929)
*****
“It’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine” (Dallas, 1927)
*****
“Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed” (Dallas, 1927)
*****
“John The Revelator” (Atlanta, 1929; with Willie B. Harris, his wife)
*****
“The Rain Don’t Fall On Me” (Atlanta, 1929; with WBH)
*****
“Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” (Dallas, 1927)
**********
lagniappe
reading table
Seamus Heaney (April 13, 1939-August 30, 2013), “The Given Note,” Paris, 2013
***
On the most westerly Blasket
In a dry-stone hut
He got this air out of the night.Strange noises were heard
By others who followed, bits of a tune
Coming in on loud weatherThough nothing like melody.
He blamed their fingers and ear
As unpractised, their fiddling easyFor he had gone alone into the island
And brought back the whole thing.
The house throbbed like his full violin.So whether he calls it spirit music
Or not, I don’t care. He took it
Out of wind off mid-Atlantic.Still he maintains, from nowhere.
It comes off the bow gravely,
Rephrases itself into the air.
*****
Last October, with my son Alex, I heard him read at the Art Institute of Chicago. Nobel Prize winner, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard—none of that was on display. He seemed not the least self-impressed, nor even much interested in himself. What interested him, it was clear, was language. With each poem, he seemed to be saying: “Come in, sit down. Let’s listen, together.”
music clip of the day 