THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
"The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering."-Ben Okri
What happens when you are 8 years old at a church picnic and you meet and befriend Blind Lemon Jefferson? Well…one thing we know: you become Lightnin’ Hopkins. This Texas bluesman went on to recorded thousands of albums (ok….maybe a slight hyperbole…but he made A LOT of records) with soooo many being just excellent. There are blues zealots from all over who will say that one era is better than the next…the early ALADDIN YEARS: NOTHING BETTER…YOU ONLY NEED THE GOLD STAR SESSIONS….or “LIVE” AT THE BIRD LOUNGE: that is his pinnacle…and on and on. But the truth is: there are SO many Hopkins records to like.
And what makes this bluesman so damn consistently great? His laid back guitar playing style matched with his velvety low hanging vocals? His incredible breath of songs and his intimate approach to them? Magic just drips threw the air when the needle hits one of his records, and the world just gets nicer…lazier…deeper. And if you think you have heard everything, there is always more to discover. Just listen to Needed Time, his ghostly number that frames the film Sounder, or the ever-suave Come Back Baby from his glorious Prestige years…there is so much goodness. The guy even grooved with the 13th Floor Elevators. Oh yeah.
Happy 103rd birthday Lightnin’ Hopkins!
***AND BOBBY RUSH and LAWRENCE AZARAD both won Grammys. OH YEAH.
Incredible found footage of Karen Dalton :: Casino de Montreux Golden Rose Pop Festival (5-1-1971)
Another one of those videos that has been e-mailed around lately…and for good reason. The great Aquarium Drunkard posted it today. Karen Dalton died too you and is still not completely understood…partially because she left behind so little in the way of recordings and footage. This recently (I think) unearthed live concert is jaw-dropping and goes a long way in cementing her already legendary if not mysterious legacy.
“What the World Gives to Me”: The Correspondence of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz
“When (Georgia O’Keeffe’s husband), the art impresario and gallery director Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), made photographs portraying details of O’Keeffe’s nude body as abstract studies and exhibited them as fine art in New York, they caused a sensation…”
Former poet laureate, others to receive humanities awards
Former state and national poet laureate Natasha Trethewey is among those being honored by the Mississippi Humanities Council
Paul Anthony Smith Reanimates the Dead In Resonant New Series of Photographs
In Paul Anthony Smith’s work, people of Caribbean descent congregate against shimmering surfaces. Deploying his signature picotage technique, which involves distressing his photographs’ prints so that they shine, the figures in his photographs seem both present and not, almost like ghostly specters.
The Awakening Age
By Ben Okri
O ye who travel the meridian line,
May the vision of a new world within you shine.
May eyes that have lived with poverty's rage,
See through to the glory of the awakening age.
For we are all richly linked in hope,
Woven in history, like a mountain rope.
Together we can ascend to a new height,
Guided by our heart's clearest light.
When perceptions are changed there's much to gain,
A flowering of truth instead of pain.
There's more to a people than their poverty;
There's their work, wisdom, and creativity.
Along the line may our lives rhyme,
To make a loving harvest of space and time.
CORRECTION: In Friday’s newsletter I incorrectly said that EVE OF DESTRUCTION was written by Barry McGuire. It was NOT. It was written by PF Sloan. As Bob Merlis pointed out, “sources also credit Steve Barri as co-writer.” Thanks to both Bob and Joel Selvin for pointing out my error!