Amy J. Berg's 'Janis: Little Girl Blue' (2015)

Amy J. Berg's Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015), a state of the art documentary biography of Janis Joplin (1943-1970), presents her life in a most compelling, sensitive and soulful manner. My first serious foray into this field was Howard Alk's Janis (1974), which I saw at the Melkweg in Amsterdam when I was twenty-two -- and I loved it, not to mention the audience's raucous response. Now I'd consider Alk's documentary as a complement or supplement to Berg's. There have been other films, and there have been excellent books on Janis, too. As anyone who knows her music can testify, Janis Joplin was intense. Amy J. Berg has done her justice here. 

Today's Rune: Signals. 

Asif Kapadia's 'Amy' (2015)

Amy, Asif Kapadia's 2015 documentary about the rise and demise of the impressive 21st century vocalist and songwriter Amy Winehouse, delivers a film that is, like its subject, both lovely and lively. At 128 minutes, Amy is longer than most such biopics, yet it flows along so gracefully and rapidly that one wants, if anything, more. Fantastic!

Amy Winehouse carried forward the torch of the great blues and jazz diva procession listed, in part, below. Above all, Amy shared with them an edgy realness combined with powerful vocals and catchy songs.

Bessie Smith (1894-1937), 43.
Ma Rainey (1886-1939), 53.
Billie Holiday (1915-1959), 44.
Édith Piaf (1915-1963), 47.
Dinah Washington (1924-1963), 39.
Janis Joplin (1943-1970), 27.
Amy Winehouse (1982-2011), 27.

All of these singers have been characterized as "old souls" at one time or another. In Amy, Tony Bennett quips, "If she had lived, I would have said: 'slow down -- you're too important . . . Life teaches you, really how to live it -- if you could live long enough...'" (See IMDB for a slight variation in punctuation). To them all, a salute!

Today's Rune: Possessions. 

Albert King: "A Big Legged Woman Gonna Carry Me to My Grave"

Albert King (1923-1992), like Wilson Pickett, hit the big time with Stax Records in Memphis. Both musicians, backed by Booker T. & The MG's, took off in the mid-1960s -- Pickett with "In the Midnight Hour" in 1965, King in 1966 with "Laundromat Blues." King's knockout signature song came in 1967 with "Born Under a Bad Sign:"

"If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all."

King was a big guy and a biting, singing guitar player -- like the just passed B. B. King (1925-2015). 

From this 1999 Rhino Records anthology -- The Very Best of Albert King (Blues Masters series), I particularly like:

"Born Under a Bad Sign"
"Cold Feet"
and "Cadillac Assembly Line" 

Thank you, Albert King (and B.B. King, while giving thanks), thanks also to Rhino Records for this anthology. And now, adieu, adieu -- this CD now off to someone new.

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune. 

Harlem Nocturne

Farah Jasmine Griffin's Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists of Progressive Politics During World War II (New York: Basic Civitas, 2013) focuses on three artists in the context of 1940s Harlem: dancer Pearl Primus (1919-1994), writer Ann Petry (1908-1997) and musician Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981).  

Context: the World War II years "provided African Americans a perfect opportunity to challenge every aspect of segregation. Jim Crow laws and practices were seen as the primary challenge to American democracy. . ." (Harlem Nocturne, page 98). The Double V or Double Victory campaign was one of many, this one aiming for Victory over Fascism abroad and over Jim Crowism at home. The US military was still segregated during the course of the war, and in August of 1943 an incident involving white police and a returning black soldier (not unlike the incident that would later spark the 1967 Detroit Riot) began the "Harlem Riot of 1943." Has it ever fully recovered?

Here, individual agents of cultural entertainment -- and change. Mary Lou Williams is flanked by musician-comic actor Imogene Coca and singer Ann Hathaway ("Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea"), in the 1940s. (Photo by William P. Gottlieb, Library of Congress). 

Activism in the 1940s came in many forms, and in all art forms certainly. 

While dancing, Pearl Primus (pictured here) could leap five feet in the air! Though born in Trinidad, she moved to New York City with her family when she was only two years old. She graduated from Hunter College in 1940 and began graduate school there the next year, then received a scholarship to the integrated, politically progressive New Dance Group program. She began her dance career in earnest in 1943 and almost immediately began performing at Barney Josephson's Café Society Downtown. By then, she was fully launched. 

As Griffin notes, after its 1938 opening in Greenwich Village," Café Society quickly became a gathering place for liberal and leftist socialites, intellectuals, artists and political activists." It was eventually squeezed shut thanks in large part to J. Edgar Hoover's "obsession with [rooting] out Communists" (Harlem Nocturne, pages 44-45), but in the meantime, Josephson opened a second venue, Café Society Uptown. (The fancy name was a bit of a jape or joke, sort of like "Country Bluegrass and Blues" -- CBGB -- down the pike of space and time).         

Mary Lou Williams built on her early talent as a pianist, eventually traveling (such as to the Kansas City scene), performing, composing, and developing a base of operations in Harlem, where she also served as godmother of bebop. All sorts of cool cats congregated in her pad, playing music and regrouping -- anyone from "Miles Davis, [Thelonius] Monk, Mel Tormé, Sarah Vaughan, Tadd Dameron, Bud Powell, and Dizzy Gillespie all found their way to 63 Hamilton Terrace" (Harlem Nocturne, page 160). She completed a first version of The Zodiac Suite by 1945, and near the end of her life, taught at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where she died in 1981. 

Ann Petry lived in Harlem during the war years, writing and absorbing the milieu. The Street (1946), her first novel, sold over one million copies!  But she hated the subsequent limelight and fled to New England for the rest of her life.

In Harlem Nocturne, Griffin notes how the World War II years were productive and in many ways progressive in parts of Harlem, New York City and the USA in general. With the war's end, however, things would backslide to a harsher status quo in terms of liberty, equality and "race relations." Jim Crow persisted, anti-fascism became out of fashion and anti-Communism was in -- including the demented machinations of powerful men of influence such as J. Edgar Hoover and Senator Joe McCarthy. Until the next cycle, and the next after that. In the meantime, a salute to the artists -- and to Harlem Nocturne!

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune. 

Leslie Gourse: Billie Holiday

The first time I heard a Billie Holiday vocal track out somewhere in a public space, I was instantly enthralled. It's been the same ever since. Can't remember whether it was a restaurant or what, but my ears swam toward her sound as fast as they could.

Lately I finished reading a nifty little biography on Holiday (1915-1959) that seemed a bit different. How so? The words are crisp and simple, yet the subject matter remains rich and complex. This works, the tension between delivery mode and content. The book? Leslie Gourse's Billie Holiday: The Tragedy and Triumph of Lady Day (Franklin Watts, 1995). I finally figured out that this particular book ("An Impact Biography") is deliberately written for a grade 7 to 9 reading level. But Gourse doesn't sugarcoat, and so we learn both of music and performance in detail, but also of paternal neglect, her hard-working, sometimes needy mother, mean relatives, societal racism, prostitution, a parade of men of all stripes, heroin, marijuana, police harassment (cruel and unnecessary in all cases), alcohol (nasty doses of gin stick to mind) and death at age 44. Not to despair, we also learn of good friends, supporters, admirers and fellow musicians, too -- and her music that endures.  

About Billie Holiday's vocal delivery, Gourse notes: "The power of her unique storytelling ability came from her feeling and . . . embellishment of the melodies . . . Most of all, her sound [is] earthy, musical and a little strange." (Billie Holiday: The Tragedy and Triumph of Lady Day, page 37).

In another deeply considered meditation on Billie Holiday, Angela Davis observes that:  "With the incomparable instrument of her voice, Holiday could completely divert a song from its composer's original and often sentimental and vapid intent. She was able to set in profound motion deeply disturbing disjunctions between overt statements and their aesthetic meanings. (Angela Y. Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday. New York: Vintage Books, 1999, photo caption between pages 140 and 141).

A salute to Billie Holiday and the people who dig her.

Today's Rune: Partnership. 
  

Pilgrimage to Memphis: Buildings and Food

Sun Studio (1950). Recording artists have included Ike Turner, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, B. B. King, Jerry Lee Lewis and so on. 

The Eugene Magevny house (1836) at 198 Adams Avenue, one of the oldest surviving buildings in Memphis. Magevny was Catholic, born in Ireland. Memphis has had a Catholic presence since the beginning. Saint Peter's is to the left. 

The Dominican Order has served continuously at St. Peter since 1846. . .  Construction of the present church began in 1852 around the intact older original sanctuary [dating to 1842-1843] and was completed in 1855. Once built, parts of the original church were dismantled and carried out the doors, piece by piece.  

For more information, here's a link. 

Elsewhere in Memphis, there's a structure that dates back to 1832 -- the Hunt-Phelan House at 533 Beale Street.

Peabody Hotel (1925). Main lobby. Ducks were there, cavorting in the center fountain.

Kress Building (1927).  S. H. Kress & Co. 5-10-25 Cent Store. Around the USA, many such impressive Kress buildings have been sensibly preserved and "repurposed." 

Beale Street at night. Here, fashion statements have devolved into slovenly casual. That's off-the-rack global capitalism at work. Support your local tailors! Compare with the natty attire worn in a 1968 protest march here. 

Today's Rune: Fertility. 

Lucinda Williams in Saxapahaw, North Carolina: Haw River Ballroom

Last night (Thursday, September 19, 2013), Lucinda Williams gave a fine performance fronting a tight band for a second sold out show in Saxapahaw, North Carolina, at the Haw River Ballroom, a 700-maximum venue with, from my vantage point, excellent acoustics. 

Intense, eclectic, smart, tough and memorable -- who could ask for more?

After the Kenneth Brian Band warmed up the crowd, Lucinda played for about two hours, including encore. Some of the songs performed, off the top of my head: "Honey Bee," "Drunken Angel," "Copenhagen," "Unsuffer Me" and "Born to Be Loved." Finale: a crescendo version of Neil Young's "Keep On Rockin' In the Free World."

Saxapahaw posters from June 2013. Cup 22 is a coffee house. The Saxapahaw Genral Store serves Cuban sandwiches, among other goodies. Tibetan Buddhist monks came through, Dexter Romweber & the New Romans, and now Lucinda Williams. Yes!

Today's Rune: Joy.   

     

Tar Heel Nation 3: Maceo Parker

"Pass the Peas!" Maceo Parker (b. February 14, 1943, in Kinston, North Carolina), sax player and all-around cool musician, comes from a family of musicians -- including older brother Kellis Parker (trombone) and younger brother Melvin (drums). All three played in Kinston (Blue Notes, Junior Blue Notes, Mighty Blue Notes) and all three went on to college, the two younger brothers to North Carolina A & T (Agricultural and Technical) in Greensboro in 1961 and 1962 respectively and Kellis via the very first small wave of students to desegregate and begin integrating the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1960. (In case you were wondering, it took nearby Duke University until 1963 to desegregate -- so we're just fifty years on as of this posting).

The younger Parker brothers were hired by James Brown -- a whole story in its own right. 

I came to know about Maceo Parker through listening to James Brown & co. recordings -- records, cassette tapes, eventually CDs, whatever was at hand at the time, beginning in my later teens. Try like I did a long version of "Cold Sweat" (1967) and hear JB rapping in 1960s' style: "Put 'em where it's at now. . . Let 'em have it!  Blow your horn! Blow your horn, Maceo! . . . Get it!" The name Maceo stood out (Spanish-traced name for "gift of God") -- making me want to know more.   

This fall, Maceo Parker will be touring in countries like Argentina and the Czech Republic, but he can also be experienced live in Tar Heel Land. Where and when? Memorial Hall at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (where I saw my first formal jazz performance as a teen) on Friday, September 27, 2013, with George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic. Here's a link formore details. From the promotional:

'It’s hard to tell which came first, Maceo Parker or the funk. Maceo got his start with James Brown, and for over 20 years he has been building a new funk empire, fresh and stylistically diverse. In his blistering solo career, he navigates deftly between Brown’s 1960s soul and George Clinton’s 1970s freaky funk, while also exploring mellow jazz and hip-hop.' 

Can you dig? If all else fails, you can get yourself a brand new bag.

Sources include:

Markus Gruber documentary, My First Name is Maceo (2003, 2004 DVD).

Maceo Parker, 98% Funky Stuff: My Life in Music (Chicago Review Press, 2013), especially pages 41-53. 

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Tar Heel Nation 1: John Coltrane

For the rollout of "Tar Heel Nation" -- a specific new dimension for this website that will suddenly appear out of nowhere or perhaps periodically find its way through here for no apparent reason -- I've chosen one of my favorite musicians of all time in jazz, blues or any other style: John Coltrane (1926-1967). 

Though born in Hamlet, North Carolina (scene of a terrible industrial plant fire in more recent years), John actually grew up in High Point, a city only about fifteen miles away from the bigger city of Greensboro. (High Point's population remained under 40,000 when John lived there, but now has more than 100,000).

"High Point . . . I spent 17 years there -- I went to all the schools, you know, grade school, elementary school and high school . . . My interest in jazz was started in high school. . . My family liked church music, so there was no jazz in the house . . . I didn't hear much jazz until I was 15. . ." (Coltrane on Coltrane, pages 61-62).

Much of his family was associated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In High Point, John's "mother played piano and sang, and his father [a tailor] played violin and ukulele . . . The repertoire Coltrane learned during this time included traditional black sacred music . . . popular music . . . and European concert music, primarily through records and radio . . . But it was black saxophonists that pulled his ear . . . (Brown, John Coltrane, pages 4-5). 

Next stop: Philadelphia and the destiny of sainthood (literally, at least in the African Orthodox Church) -- but that's for another time and another place.

For more on John Coltrane's North Carolina roots, here's a link  to the High Point Museum. Attention to his legacy has been on the upswing. There's now a statue honoring him in High Point. And let's not forget the John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues Festival, linked here.    

Leonard L. Brown, ed., John Coltrane & Black America's Quest for Freedom: Spirituality and the Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

Chris DeVito, ed., Coltrane on Coltrane: The John Coltrane Interviews (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2010). 

Today's Rune: Opening.   

Ramblin' Jack

A very real performance by Ramblin' Jack Elliott at The Live Oak Music Hall & Lounge (1311 Lipscomb Street, just off Magnolia) in Fort Worth, Texas. 

If I can translate notes scrawled in dim light on a tattered napkin and a couple of business cards, details will follow in the next post. Wonderful night, including a Havana (food) and Revolvers (ale). Yes! Tuesdays are rarely this good in life. 

Today's Rune: The Self.    

Rapture of the Deep

Music can quickly induce the rapture of the deep, that feeling caused by an altered state while diving way down below the surface of an ocean or a deep sea. All the more rapturous when such music is drawn out, as on Van Morrison's Saint Dominic's Preview (1972). Wow. Such an altered state can be evoked purely from listening away from "the madding crowd." I get this from Van Morrison, John and Alice Coltrane, from the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. (1972), Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti (1975) -- and many others.

On the manifest production side, writing does this for me, researching, delving, musing, doing anything I'm "really into."  

How about you?

Today's Rune: Wholeness. 

One Year Later: Lightnin' Hopkins Redux

I thoroughly enjoyed Alan Govenar's Lightnin' Hopkins: His Life and Blues (Chicago Review Press, 2010). Govenar scoured city and country to find every bit of information he could; he dug through company records, conducted numerous interviews and sifted through a mountain of liner notes and articles.

Combined with an extended engagement with Hopkins' recorded output -- even a reasonable sampling -- this biographical study will give anyone interested a good feel for the iconic bluesman. 

One also glimpses how the music show business worked from the 1940s into the 1980s, in the studio and on the road. Some keen observations by Ed Pearl, owner of Ash Grove, a West Coast oasis for live performances at 8162 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles that ran from 1958 to 1973: "He [Hopkins] knew his limitations . . . and he was happy to be part of his community, but he knew there was a bigger world out there. He thought people should be equal and he thought . . . poor people should have more. And everyone is a child of God. He was against the Vietnam war" (page 194, from 2008 Govenar interview). 

Another noteworthy aspect of Lightnin' Hopkins' life: his thirty-five year relationship, until his death, with Antoinette Charles. She was a love of his life, and strong, if not the only one; given that she was married to someone else for the same duration, with kids, it was the same for her.

 














As Govenar points out emphatically, not all of the bluesman's recorded output is of equal quality. Delving into his discography (and there's a comprehensive one included), it's a good idea to choose carefully. The most recent collection I've been listening to features him on electric guitar (Hopkins' preferred style): Lightnin' Hopkins, Rainy Day In Houston (2000), recordings from 1955, 1961 and 1968. This one has three of my favorite of his topical tracks: "War Is Starting Again," "The World's In A Tangle" and "Vietnam War."

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

Bob Dylan: Tempest

I rarely buy CDs anymore, because albums hardly seem to exist as such these days with iTunes and other downloadable formats making individual favorite tracks available.  However, I wanted to hear Bob Dylan's new Tempest album the tradional way, from start to finish. And here's my response after a couple of spins -- subject to change after further listening.

First of all, a salute to Dylan for fifty years of album-making, without resting on the laurels of a sack full of early hits. Second, special recognition for his combination of lyrical and musical exploration -- carrying the torch for a variety of traditional musical styles while keeping a sharp edge as he looks to the past yet forges ahead. Finally, his singing voice is as gravelly as ever as befits a prophet of primal myth and fragile human fate.

With Tempest, we have  a variety of musical styles blended seamlessly around intense lyrics. As always happens to me when beginning to consider for the first time some film by an avant garde director like Jean-Luc Godard, the visceral question is: can I get all the way through this in one setting? This is awful! When first considering Dylan's Tempest, as with a Godard work, it was only after about ten or fifteen minutes of paying attention that I was hooked. By the time I made it to "Narrow Way," the third track on Tempest, something clicked. I was in for a penny, in for a pound. This was something weird and cool, crazy and tight. By the end of the album, sheer amazement had kicked in -- by God, he did it again!

Some decades ago now, Ian Curtis, the gloomy lead singer of Joy Division, was watching Werner Herzog's gloomy film Stroszek (1977) while listening to Iggy Pop's gloomy album The Idiot (1977) -- whereupon he hanged himself. I thought of this today while Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York (2008) played in the background just as Dylan rounded out Tempest with a thoroughly heartrending fourteen minute chronicle of the sinking of the RMS Titanic one hundred years ago -- followed by a sendoff for John Lennon in which early in the song Dylan notes:

He turned around and he slowly walked away
They shot him in the back and down he went. ("Roll on John")

Tempest is a strong pot of coffee, an epic chronicle, so fair warning to those with fragile psyches like Ian Curtis -- you might better stick with humming "Don't Worry, Be Happy" or something along those lines. Seriously. 

For most Dylan fans, though, Tempest will be yet another masterful album to absorb and enjoy, for sure.

The watchman he lay dreaming
Of all the things that can be
He dreamed the Titanic was sinking
Into the deep blue sea.   ("Tempest")

Today's Rune: Fertility.

Chuck Berry: Movin' Through the Traffic Like a Mounted Cavalier

Starting just before 9 p.m. local time, Chuck Berry and his band began a gloriously ragged show -- sometimes sounding off scale and courting disaster, sometimes interweaving near-perfect doses of raw guitar power -- and even finely wrought beauty during "You Never Can Tell." Coming just two nights after Clint Eastwood's "Empty Chair" act, Chuck Berry's performance was often just as wild, but delivered with more grace. Wonderful. I was imagining Johnny Thunders, Sid Vicious and Keith Richards playing along with him in spirit. This was the real thing, uncorked.

Apparently the band was a little late coming from the airport, and so in between them and a warm-up performance by Andi Laree & Cory Elrod and crew, some strange old cowboy gave a bizarre standup improv -- he reminded me of Man Mountain Mike, the professional wrestler famous in the 1970s. 

When they did show up, Chuck Berry and crew played for a solid hour and change. This intimate concert was held in the Ballroom of the Fort Worth Convention Center. I'd say there were about 300 Spartans in attendance. Lucky for me! I'd always wanted to see Chuck, and now I have done so.

The backing band included Charles Edward Berry, Jr., on guitar, a keyboardist, harmonica player/backup vocalist, drummer and bass player. Chuck is skinny and was wearing in part a shiny red shirt and Greek fisherman's cap. His thin singing voice sounds the same as it must have sounded fifty plus years ago. And, as he noted: "I'm 85 -- I know what it means to stand." Now when he sings "I didn't know if I was dead or alive," he may mean that literally, upon waking. Still, believe it or not, he managed to do the "Duck Walk" for the finale. At his invitation, a score of women came up to the stage and danced -- security and organizers looked aghast. It was the perfect crescendo ending to a raucous performance. As Chuck said earlier in the show, "When it's over, it's over, Ladies and Gentlemen." 

Some of the songs covered in whole or in part:
"School Days"
"Carol"
"Rock and Roll Music"
"Let It Rock"
"You Never Can Tell"
"Maybellene"
"Honest I Do"
"My Ding-a-Ling"
"Johnny B. Goode"
"Nadine" (opening fragment)
"Reelin' and Rockin'"

Today's Rune: Harvest.  
      

I Heard the Jukebox Playing: Kitty Wells, RIP

It was the end of summer school, and I'd made my way back to the place in London I'd stayed at the beginning, a homey and tatty family-run place called Lindsey House Hotel in Sussex Gardens, £6 per night with one bath per floor. When I arrived, after settling in, the first thing I noticed was the music. Downstairs in the breakfast area just off the kitchen, an AM radio station was playing a forlorn song and it wasn't long before I recognized what it was -- Kitty Wells' "I Heard the Jukebox Playing." Wow. London, England and Kitty Wells, Tennessee. Mournful Country & Western well at home in the great island metropolis. 

And that is the music of Kitty Wells. Songs of heartache and endurance. Songs so pitiful you have to laugh or cry even at some of the titles. These are adult subjects, songs about married people and parents, divorce and treachery, an abundance of alcohol and broken phone calls. Not "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" but "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" (1952). "Cold and Lonely (Is the Forecast Tonight)," "Release Me," and one of the greatest Country songs of all that I've ever heard, "Making Believe" (1954). Let's not forget "Don't Hang Around, He's Married To Me," "Meanwhile, Down at Joe's," and the inevitable "A Woman Half My Age." Dust on the Bible and Kitty's Choice, indeed. Brutal. But brilliant, too, as an English girlfriend might have said. Rest in Peace, Kitty Wells (1919-2012), rest in peace.

Today's Rune: Gateway.       

The Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit: Take I

Just finished Michael Zadoorian's The Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit: Stories (Wayne State University Press, 2009). I thoroughly enjoyed its deft cosmopolitan take on Detroit and its environs. This 200-page book is composed of three parts in three settings: West Side, East Side, Downtown. It's funny, because earlier today I met a guy from Detroit here in Fort Worth, Texas; when he was elaborating a little, he telescoped his former location a little to "West Side." Then "Six Mile." And so on.  

I really like Zadoorian's sense of culture and history. There's a clear recognition that Detroit, as with all settled places that have been around a while, is like a palimpsest -- traces of the past co-exist with things to come, things already coming into view, even as some of the old is obliterated or on the verge. Everything is provisional, contingent, transitory. Still, treasures of the past do remain for those seeking them out. There are characters of all ages, but Zadoorian shows a particular respect and empathy for people who've been around long enough to have lived through perceptible changes, long enough to remember other ways of seeing. I dig it! 

Today's Rune: Possessions.  

Jazz on a Summer's Day: Newport 1958

In living color, Aram Avakian and Bert Stern's beautifully shot Jazz on a Summer's Day (1960) documents the music and people swirling around the 1958 Newport (Rhode Island) Jazz Festival. It features, often in close-up, a range of heavy-hitters including Louis Armstrong, Thelonius Monk, Mahalia Jackson, Sonny Stitt, Dinah Washington, Chuck Berry and George Shearing, plus a cross-section of the eclectic crowd registering the vibe in measures of pure joy. I can just see this projected onto a wall at a party or other social gathering, with or without the audio. Way ahead of its time in terms of integrated beatitude. Indeed, compared to so many places in the here and now, it's still ahead of our time.

As an aside, seeing George Shearing (1919-2011) perform here, I couldn't help but wonder if he was an early inspiration for Peter Sellers' (1925-1980) creation of the Dr. Strangelove persona in the filming of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) -- seriously. The difference is, Shearing was a talented real life musician who happened to be blind while the fictional Dr. Strangelove character was a complete lunatic who wore shades for added emphasis.

Today's Rune: Journey.

B.B. King at Billy Bob's Texas: February 25, 2012

B.B. King, who just last Tuesday night was jamming with President Obama, Mick Jagger and the White House crew, came on down to Billy Bob's and knocked out a fun show starting at 10:30 p.m. His band is smashing, and King himself is alternately funny and electric. When he sings Baby, when I leave here, I won't be coming back again, you believe it. But you never know: this could be the last time he does come around here to play live, or he may be coming back after all. Either way, a good time and out around midnight.

My intent: see as many veteran artists as possible, especially those 65 and over. 

By the way, Red, White and Blues: In Performance at the White House will debut on PBS Monday night, February 27, 2012, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time:  http://www.pbs.org/inperformanceatthewhitehouse/  

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.

Jagger: Rebel, Rock Star, Rambler, Rogue

A compelling take on elusive, multifaceted Mick Jagger: within the cultural-historical context of the last fifty years and more. That's what Marc Spitz provides in Jagger: Rebel, Rock Star, Rambler, Rogue (New York: Gotham Books, 2011). Jagger the artist and hedonist is much more enjoyable to contemplate than any hypocritical politician or moralist I can think of.

As a band, the Rolling Stones turn fifty in 2012. As Spitz puts it, "Connecting with the the old blues and soul seems to bring out [Jagger's] best and probably keeps him young. Mick and his fellow Rolling Stones have become like the bluesmen they worshipped in their teens . . ." (page 291).

Spitz wisely makes selective choices in this biographical and aesthetic study. It's refreshing. I'll end here with Charlie Watt's quip made upon the occasion of Mick Jagger's knighting, performed by Prince Charles in December of 2003. "Anybody else would be lynched: eighteen wives and twenty children and he's knighted, fantastic!" (page 276).

Today's Rune: Flow. 

Performance: The Movie

What happens when co-directors shoot a film in 1968, it's edited and re-edited and otherwise played with and not released until 1970? With Performance, when the first-time directors are Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg and the primary actors are Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, Michèle Breton and James Fox, well: you are given an interesting and bizarre kaleidoscopic mess that might better be experienced in an altered state.  Seen in an unaltered state, Performance may not appeal to too many contemporary tastes.

Visually, Performance shimmers at times, then alternates with splashes of underworld violence. The contrasts are a bit eerie. The film is embedded with literary, artistic, poetic and religious-philosophical "hyperlinks." The music is cool and the whole shebang influential. But can anyone actually enjoy this?  Probably not in one continuous sitting without some sort of escape plan.

More to consider here -- at some point.

Today's Rune: Journey.