We like Jessie . . . . . speaking of guitar players
She’s Gone
Schoolboy Cleve - She’s Gone (1954)
Guess I'm Dumb says "I’ll admit that the reason I listened to this cool blues track was that I liked the name Schoolboy Cleve. But Cleveland White’s harp playing and the groove kept me coming back.
She’s Always In My Hair
One Thing
New additions to our digital archive: Dietrich Wawzyn’s documentaries on American blues and hillbilly music.
In 1963, Chris Strachwitz accompanied German filmmaker Dietrich Wawzyn on a trip throughout the United States to document American roots music. The results of this trip were short documentaries made for German television featuring American blues and country musicians. “50 Sterne in Musik: Blues” includes Willie B. Thomas, Mance Lipscomb, Black Ace Turner, Alexander Moore, Lightnin' Hopkins, Buster Pickens, Barbara Dane, Jesse Fuller, and Lowell Fulson. “50 Sterne in Musik: Hillbilly” includes J.E. Mainer and his Mountaineers, the Hodges Brothers, the Lewis Family, the Willis Brothers, the Goodtime Washboard Three, and Blind James Campbell and his Nashville Street Band. These documentaries are now available on archive.arhoolie.org.In this clip, Jesse Fuller plays “San Francisco Bay Blues” on guitar, harmonica, kazoo, and fotdella (a string bass instrument played with a foot pedal–Fuller’s own invention). From “50 Sterne in Musik: Blues” (1963)
…from The Queen’s Inclosure, Cowplain.
“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity, and by these I shall not regulate my proportions; and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself. As a man is, so he sees”.
[William Blake from his communications with the Reverend John Trusler, 1799]
Sometimes it’s enough just to stand within a woodland and let imagination run wild. To seek out complex structures that depend upon each other to maintain their shape and form. Passageways and footpaths that might lead to familiar places or to other worlds. It’s the imperfect geometry of landscape I look for. The asymmetry of trees; the random intrusions of other flora; the invisible hand of homo sapiens…and the way that sunlight will always seek to create a strange geometry beneath a canopy of chaos.
“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life…”
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What I didn’t realize until doing this series is that the first three shows of Rolling Thunder 1976 were all in essentially the same place. For those who don’t know their Florida geography (guilty), Lakeland, St. Petersburg, and Tampa are all basically in the same metro area. They’re about 45 minutes apart. It’d be like playing shows in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens—they sound like different places, but only barely.
They’d remain in this same area to tape the special in Clearwater (I guess that’s The Bronx in this analogy?) the next day, which we’ll get to tomorrow. These first three shows basically served as local warmups for the TV taping. And then afterwards he stayed in the same area again to play Orlando, right next door.
Out of curiosity, I mapped it out. He’s playing five different cities, including mostly big venues, all in this tiny slice of Florida.
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And all that’s before he heads north to play three more Florida shows. Did Bob decide he never wanted to be on the bus for more than an hour between stops or something?
Perhaps not surprisingly with so many shows in the same small chunk of Florida, the shows didn’t sell that well. Yesterday’s St. Petersburg venue was smaller and sold out quickly, but the other two didn’t move anywhere near as fast as Rolling Thunder 1 famously did. You get a lot of articles like this:
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Today’s third show took place at the Curtis Hixon Hall in Tampa. As it turns out, this giant convention center hosted some notable musical moments in the years before and after Dylan’s show. A few:
1969: Janis Joplin arrested for obscenity onstage. The real story isn’t as wild as that sounds. Police officers were demanding the crowd sit down, and she cursed them out. Good for her! Let the people stand up. Here’s the Tampa mugshot:
1973: The Grateful Dead play a show that, years later, is released as the very first installment of the famous Dick’s Picks series. The series’ titular curator Dick Latvala said at the time, “December 19 had this version of ‘Here Comes Sunshine’ that just kills me. So I was really swayed for that show just to have that in there because when you folks hear it, I’m telling you, it will raise the hair on your arms.” (Learn more about this show in recent correspondent Rob Mitchum’s podcast 36 From the Vault.)
Here Comes Sunshine - Live at Curtis Hixon Convention Center, Tampa, FL, December 19, 1973 Grateful Dead |
1977: Patti Smith falls 15 feet off the stage while opening for Bob Seger and breaks several vertebrae in her neck, ending up in a wheelchair. “I fell during [the song] ‘Ain’t It Strange,’” she told Melody Maker not long after the accident. “Just like the guy at Altamont got shot during ‘Under My Thumb,’ I fell just as I was [singing] ‘hand of God, I feel the finger.’ And I did feel the finger push me right over. It was like, I spend so much time challenging God when I perform and in everything I do…that I feel it was his way of saying, ‘You keep battering against my door and I’m gonna open that door and you’ll fall in.’”
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Here’s her hanging out with Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs a few months later still wearing a neck brace:
Link in bio.Surreal, cinematic worlds shaped by memory, imagination and emotion, this is Inside My Mind.Join us for an intimate evening as Kelly Boesch sits down with W1 Curates to unpack her creative process, exploring how AI becomes a tool to translate her inner landscape into immersive, dreamlike environments. Expect a deep dive into the ideas behind the work, alongside sounds from her new album Fairytale.A rare chance to experience the artist’s world through conversation, sound and story.W1 Curates, London, Oxford StreetDoors: 6PMTalk starts: 6:30PM (last entry: 6:45PM)First come, first served, come down early to secure your spot
. . . great album still and one of the best cover designs in my collection . . . . . (down in the vaults past the dungeon and just turn right by the haha!)
Like many people (even after ten tears or more- sic) I came across this wonderful cover of the Whitney Houston classic remade and remodelled struck in its use in the action fo this brilliant series . . .
. . .another favourite Eno bought when it came out and I played this one to death for an age afterward but not so much recently so it’s good to revisit here . . . . . thanks Tripping Mantra!
Can - Sing Swan Song (1972)
The more gentle side of Can - slow and melancholy. Just mesmerizing
Shaking her shimmer like you buzz
a few severally to wind the day down . . . .
“Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin.
Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in.
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove.
Dance me to the end of love..”
