Photo by Bruce Jackson
Music
Christone “Kingfish” Ingram: Straight Out of Clarksdale
Two tracks off Ingram’s 2021 CD, 662:
Act of Imagination (& Larceny)
The groove in the Rolling Stones’ classic cover of “Just My Imagination” (1978) comes straight out of Waylon Jennings’ “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way” (1975). No plaints here. Geniuses steal. Follow the echoes below…
Roller Skating Tuesday
Lana Del Rey is set to release a new CD in July. Last time around she didn’t seem intent on “making the next great American record.” The will to go pop (without compromising) that made her Norman Fucking Rockwell undeniable in 2019 was missing from Chem Trails over the Country Club, which she put out earlier this year. The absence of f-words on Chem Trails may be a sign LDR sensed someone like Olivia Rodrigo would render slack style sub-urban (and all sold-out), but it also hints LDR’s rock ‘n’ roll attitude was on hiatus. OTOH, Chem’s Trails‘ “White Dress” came through, with a little help from the video. That, in turn, sent me back to a roller-skating video posted here last summer. Compare and contrast, or just roll on…B.D.
Late Bouquet: Pansies from “Easily Pleased”
The book’s title, Easily Pleased, comes from an interview with Louie Bashell in Polka Happiness by Charles and Angeliki Keil (Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1992), 141. Bashell muses:
It’s a very melodious music. Simple music and melodious; you don’t have to be a genius to play it, you know, or have good technique, or anything like that. It’s just a flowing music. Polish music has various frills and trills in it, a very distinct flavor, while Slovenian music is plain, simple notes that just move–nothing fancy. I’ve never come across a piece of Slovenian music that was difficult. The Slovenians are so easily pleased. They don’t have to have nothing special.
A View of Resistance from a Detroit Record Shop Life: James Brown (and ’67 Sounds) to Now!
Marsha Music née Battle hears the music of Detroit as the soundtrack of struggle in her hometown and she’s aware (as one of her neighbors once declared) “the city is the black man’s land.”
Thionne Ballago Seck R.I.P.
Thionne Seck—perhaps the purist vocal talent in an extraordinary cohort of male Senegalese singers that includes Youssou N’Dour, Baaba Maal, Omar Pene and Ismael Lo—died on March 14th.
Choosing Sides (A Song for Safe Harbor Day)
You probably might not remember/You really put on a show
You don’t have to surrender/You’ve just got to go
Stanley Crouch Faces the Music
Stanley Crouch died today. We hadn’t been in touch much the past few years. I’d heard he was sick. I don’t know the ailment. I’m sad and shocked. Sad. I always liked him. We got along. I don’t know why. People like you, and you think okay, I like you too.
Stanley Crouch & The All-American Skin Game
Late in his life Amiri Baraka once mused that he knew he was old because he’d begun to feel sad when his enemies died. Their obits reminded him of passionate struggles in his past and made the present seem like a diminished thing. Baraka didn’t outlive Stanley Crouch but I bet he’d’ve felt bummed to know another one of his contras had split. In the case of Crouch, though, Baraka’s sadness might’ve been deepened since Crouch offered him more than an olive branch before both of them departed.
Not that cultural powers-that-be took that in…
On Verra Ca: Balla Sidibe R.I.P. & Orchestra Baobab’s Legacy
Balla Sidibe—one of the original front men of the legendary afro-pop band Orchestra Baobab—has gone to see what’s coming for all of us. You can watch the late Sidibe sing lead (and dance) here as Baobab does a charming version of a song that dates back to the 70s, “On Verra Ca.” 2020 is the 50th anniversary year of the band’s founding.
This next song is another Baobab classic. It’s the track that got me on board their train to heaven.
Paul’s Epistle on “Key West”
Your editor asked Wallace Stevens’ biographer, Paul Mariani, to comment on Bob Dylan’s new song “Key West”…
Notes on Being Down But Not Out with Hip-Hop
The author of this piece wrote it before the killing of George Floyd. (See his postscript on that score below.) Osborne notes “recent real-world events take precedence over bitching about good or bad rappers.” Your editor takes Osborne’s point but his act of imagination isn’t out of time. His refusal to buy into ugly images of black men is, in its sweet way, a contribution to the struggle against real killer cops.
Rip it Up (W.T. Lhamon Jr. on Little Richard)
What follows is an excerpt from W.T. Lhamon Jr.’s Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s (1990). Thanks to the author for giving First permission to reprint his revelatory writing on the lore of Little Richard.