Black History Soundtrack

Sparked by outrages on the southern border, The Rev. William Barber will speak in Raleigh, North Carolina tomorrow where he’ll aim to update Frederick Douglass’s most famous speech: “What to the Slave is the Fourth of the July?” Rev. Barber’s address is titled: “What to the Immigrant and People of Color is the Fourth of July?” He’ll be speaking at the Pullen Memorial Baptist Church and the name of that institution reminded me of a hero of black music who grew up in Raleigh’s Baptist community. Don Pullen made blue-black music as profound as Douglass’s testament.

For Rev. Barber (and every citizen), three shots of Pullenspiration…

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Homegoing & Tom DeMott’s Hidden Obit

I gave the following talk and reading from my brother Tom’s prose at his Memorial after we screened Thanksgiving—our sister Joel’s movie (unsynched but fully in the flow) of a DeMott family celebration ca. 1970. I jumped off from the rapturous sequence in the movie where Jo used a great Motown track “Truly Yours” to soundtrack images of little sister Megan dancing and Tom listening/looking like a rock dream—saved (barely) from male model fineness by his broken nose…

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Dreams Fade Into the Everblue: Lori McKenna’s Bygone Humanism

“Here is what I know” is the first line of “A Mother Never Rests,” the opening track off country singer Lori McKenna’s latest LP. “Even when she’s sleeping she’s still dreaming about you”–her voice is weary yet sure of wisdoms both received and earned. McKenna dives into the laundry-list of domestic chores and anxieties expected of a mother in red-state America.

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