sweet soul music
William Bell, “This Is Where I Live,” “The Three of Me,” “Born Under a Bad Sign,” live, Washington, D.C., 2016
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lagniappe
art beat: other day, Whitney Museum of American Art (New York)
Danny Lyon (1942-), The March on Washington, August 28, 1963 (Message to the Future, through 9/25/16)
Vancouver folkie + iconic Memphis rhythm section.
This should never have worked.
But it does, wonderfully.
Frazey Ford, “September Fields” (Indian Ocean), 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
The climate is pretty.
I wrote everything on it.
That’s the activity where it
gets relatively inauspicious.***
And you were sitting there
in the night of life. It sure was good.
My favorite desserts were there.
And when they invite you, it’s like an important document
goes missing. I’ll give you an example:
a twelve-year struggle upstate, in
the slick atmosphere of the breakfast room.
It might have gotten stuck in her farthingale.Otherwise no reply.
—John Ashbery (1927-), “As Someone Who Likes Travel,” fragments (New Yorker, 5/30/16)
To read Ashbery is to read English as a foreign language—which I mean as a compliment.
sweet soul music
Curtis Mayfield (1942-1999), “Move On Up” (C. Mayfield), live (Master Henry Gibson [1942-2002], hand drums), Netherlands (The Hague), 1987
sweet soul music
Do you feel me?
—Bobby Womack (1944-2014)
Bobby Womack, live, England (Glastonbury Festival), 2013
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lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Chicago (Garfield Park Conservatory)
old school
Re-Vells, Trent town Records (Trenton, N.J.), 1960s
“I Want a New Love”
***
“Do I Love You?”
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lagniappe
art beat
Helen Levitt (1913-2009; MCOTD Hall of Fame), New York, c. 1937
More of the late Otis Clay.
“That’s How It Is (When You’re In Love),” 1967
***
“Trying to Live My Life Without You,” 1972
***
“Precious, Precious,” 1972
***
“The Woman Don’t Live Here No More,” 1974
***
“I Can’t Take It,” 1977
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lagniappe
reading table
. . . life, that storm before the calm.
—Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012, MCOTD Hall of Fame), “Negative” (translated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh)
What better way to start the new year?
Aretha Franklin, “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” (G. Goffin, C. King, J. Wexler), live, Washington, D.C., 2015
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lagniappe
reading table
New Year’s Day—
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), translated from Japanese by Robert Hass
sweet soul music
D’Angelo & The Vanguard, “Ain’t That Easy”
Live, Netherlands (Rotterdam), 2015
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Like music, baseball is the universal language.
timeless
Otis Redding (with Booker T. & the M.G.’s, Sam & Dave), live, 1967
sounds of Detroit
Don Was/Sweet Pea Atkinson, “Slow Down,” recording session, 2007
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lagniappe
art beat: more from the other day at the Art Institute of Chicago
This I never tire of.
Joan Mitchell (1925-1992), City Landscape, 1955
music clip of the day 