Sunday, 7/28/13
fire
Boyd Rivers & Ruth May Rivers, “Fire in My Bones,” live, Canton, Miss., 1978
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fire
Boyd Rivers & Ruth May Rivers, “Fire in My Bones,” live, Canton, Miss., 1978
making a joyful noise
Evangelist Rosie Haynes (alto saxophone, vocals), “Because He Lives,” live, Milwaukee, 2005
#1
#2
*****
taking a break
I’m taking some time off—back in a while.
This guy played with everyone from The Mighty Clouds of Joy to Al Green to The Canton Spirituals to The Roots to (as we heard Friday) D’Angelo.
Chalmers “Spanky” Alford (1955-2008), guitar, “The Lord’s Prayer”
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lagniappe
reading table
We are never all of a piece . . .
—Marcel Proust (1871-1922), Sodom and Gomorrah (translated from French by John Sturrock)
No piano or organ. No guitar. No bass, no drums. So many things aren’t here. But nothing’s missing.
Heavenly Gospel Singers, “Sit Down Servant and Rest Awhile,” live, St. James Missionary Baptist Church, Canton, Mississippi, 1978
The moment this ends I want to hear it again.
Rev. E. M. Martin and Pearline Johns, “I’m Going Home On The Morning Train,” Clarksdale, Miss. (Nelson Funeral Home), 1942
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lagniappe
reading table
Mortality is fatal
Gentility is fine
Rascality, heroic
Insolvency, sublime—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), #2 (excerpt), 1852
Stevie testifies.
Stevie Wonder, “I Won’t Complain,” Luther Vandross’s funeral, New York (The Riverside Church), 2005
(Originally posted 10/11/09.)
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lagniappe
reading table
I hear new news every day, and those ordinary rumours of war, plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets, spectrums, prodigies, apparitions, of towns taken, cities besieged in France, Germany, Turkey, Persia, Poland, &c., daily musters and preparations, and such like, which these tempestuous times afford, battles fought, so many men slain, monomachies, shipwrecks, piracies and sea-fights; peace, leagues, stratagems, and fresh alarms. A vast confusion of vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, lawsuits, pleas, laws, proclamations, complaints, grievances are daily brought to our ears.
—Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
father and son
Brian Blade (drums) & The Fellowship Band, with Brady L. Blade Sr. (vocals), “Amazing Grace,” live, Savannah, Ga. (2012)
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lagniappe
reading table
Some things endure. When my sons, Alex and Luke, were in grade school, I started a two-person “reading group” with each of them. We would read novels together, maybe one a month, alternating choices, and go out and talk about them over a meal. Alex is now twenty-five. This morning we’re going out for breakfast, where we’ll be talking about a short story by Richard Yates, “Oh, Joseph, I’m So Tired.” Of stories there is no end.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt was President-elect there must have been sculptors all over America who wanted a chance to model his head from life, but my mother had connections.
—Richard Yates (1926-1992), “Oh, Joseph, I’m So Tired” (first sentence)
If God exists, he wants us—this I am sure of—to dance.
Caffey Brothers, “Make Me Over” (Aura Records, Youngstown, Ohio)
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lagniappe
reading table
I know that He exists.
Somewhere – in silence –
He has hid his rare life
From our gross eyes.—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), 365 (excerpt)
sounds of Chicago
“Chicago gospel—a musical snapshot,” Chicago Tribune, 2007
*****
Happy Birthday to my oldest musical companion, my brother Don, with whom I’ve shared more musical experiences, live and on record, than I could possibly remember—the Beatles (Comiskey Park, 1965), the Velvet Underground (Kinetic Playground, 1968 [followed by our arrests, while walking back to the car, for, uh, curfew]), the MC5 (Lincoln Park, 1968 [Democratic Convention]) . . .
Dixie Hummingbirds (feat. Ira Tucker, lead vocals), “Maybe It’s You,” TV show (TV Gospel Time), early 1960s
Talk about longevity. Ira Tucker joined the Dixie Hummingbirds in 1938, when he was 13. He was still with them in 2008, when he died.
music clip of the day 