VA - Calypso Breakaway (1990, Rounder)

Have a happy new year!

This disc centers on some of the best Decca calypsos of the late ‘30s. Here are the songs and singers that sparked the calypso boom in the United States. They include Beginner, Lion, Radio, Invader, Caresser, Tiger, and Atilla. The notes are not very informative, but the transcriptions are good.

"Born out of the postslavery kalinda songs of stick-fighting competitions, Calypso has evolved into today's techno-tinted soca, with several major shifts along the way. These 20 songs are representative of an extremely musically sophisticated period in the evolution, with references from swing jazz and Cuba in abundance. They are transcribed from vintage recordings, and there is plenty of humor, wisdom, and wit inherent in the Calypsonians' lyrics to relate to the human condition in any age. Calypso has always documented politics, weather, and news stories (intermixed with racy double-entendres), and these tunes are no exception, save being from a slower, more naive period of history. Although the instrumentation has changed over the years, much of this classic music swings hard and will stand the test of time long after the overly synthesized treatments of today's "road songs" have been forgotten. Many of these artists performed in cabarets and nightclubs in New York and London at the time, and several went on to great international acclaim. Calypso Breakaway is both a great introduction and a priceless, carefully mastered record for the aficionado, despite uninformative liner notes." --Derek Rath

Tracklist:

1 Keskidee Trio – Don't Le' Me Mother Know 2:58
2 King Radio  –Ma Maria 3:03
3 Felix And His Krazy Kats – Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen 2:44
4 The Growler – An Excursion To Grenada 3:03
5 The Lion –  Tina 2:21
6 Lord Executor – Seven Skeletons Found In The Yard 2:47
7 Al Philip Iere Syncopators – Little Gal, Mother Is Calling You 2:42
8 The Tiger – Maraval Girls 3:01
9 Lord Beginner – Anacaona 2:52
10 Atilla The Hun – Dynamite 2:49
11 Lord Invader – Caro At Point Cumana 2:30
12 Lionel Belasco's Orchestra – Violets-Venezuelan Waltz 2:39
13 The Lion And Atilla The Hun – Guests Of Rudy Vallee 2:49
14 Lord Executor – How I Spent My Time At The Hospital 2:51
15 King Radio – Old Men Come Back Again 2:52
16 Wilmouth Houdini And His Caribbean Orchestra – Johnnie Take My Wife 3:12
17 The Caresser – The More They Try To Do Me Bad 2:49
18 The Lion – Love Thy Neighbor 2:51
19 Codallo's Top Hatters Orchestra – Tropical Heat-Paseo 2:55
20 The Tiger – The Whe Whe Banker Wedding 3:05

VA - Calypso Breakaway (1990, Rounder)

(320 kbps, cover art included)

Mike Bloomfield - Initial Shock - Live Between 1977 And 1979

Michael Bloomfield was one of America's first great white blues guitarists, earning his reputation on the strength of his work in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. His expressive, fluid solo lines and prodigious technique graced many other projects - most notably Bob Dylan's earliest electric forays - and he also pursued a solo career, with variable results. Uncomfortable with the reverential treatment afforded a guitar hero, Bloomfield tended to shy away from the spotlight after spending just a few years in it; he maintained a lower-visibility career during the '70s due to his distaste for fame and his worsening drug problems, which claimed his life in 1981.     
      
Michael Bernard Bloomfield was born July 28, 1943, into a well-off Jewish family on Chicago's North Side. A shy, awkward loner as a child, he became interested in music through the Southern radio stations he was able to pick up at night, which gave him a regular source for rockabilly, R&B, and blues. He received his first guitar at his bar mitzvah and he and his friends began sneaking out to hear electric blues on the South Side's fertile club scene (with the help of their families' maids). The young Bloomfield sometimes jumped on-stage to jam with the musicians and the novelty of such a spectacle soon made him a prominent scenester. Dismayed with the turn his education was taking, his parents sent him to a private boarding school on the East Coast in 1958 and he eventually graduated from a Chicago school for troubled youth. By this time, he'd embraced the beatnik subculture, frequenting hangout spots near the University of Chicago. He got a job managing a folk club and frequently booked veteran acoustic bluesmen; in the meantime, he was also playing guitar as a session man and around the Chicago club scene with several different bands.

In 1964, Bloomfield was discovered through his session work by the legendary John Hammond, who signed him to CBS; however, several recordings from 1964 went unreleased as the label wasn't sure how to market a white American blues guitarist. In early 1965, Bloomfield joined several associates in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, a racially integrated outfit with a storming, rock-tinged take on Chicago's urban electric blues sound. The group's self-titled debut for Elektra, released later that year, made them a sensation in the blues community and helped introduce white audiences to a less watered-down version of the blues. Individually, Bloomfield's lead guitar work was acclaimed as a perfectly logical bridge between Chicago blues and contemporary rock. Later, in 1965, Bloomfield was recruited for Bob Dylan's new electrified backing band; he was a prominent presence on the groundbreaking classic "Highway 61 Revisited" and he was also part of Dylan's epochal plugged-in performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. In the meantime, Bloomfield was developing an interest in Eastern music, particularly the Indian raga form, and his preoccupation exerted a major influence on the next Butterfield album, 1966's "East-West". Driven by Bloomfield's jaw-dropping extended solos on his instrumental title cut, "East-West" merged blues, jazz, world music, and psychedelic rock in an unprecedented fashion. The Butterfield band became a favorite live act on the emerging San Francisco music scene and in 1967, Bloomfield quit the group to permanently relocate there and pursue new projects

Bloomfield quickly formed a new band called the "Electric Flag" with longtime Chicago cohort Nick Gravenites on vocals. "The Electric Flag" was supposed to build on the innovations of "East-West" and accordingly featured an expanded lineup complete with a horn section, which allowed the group to add soul music to their laundry list of influences. The Electric Flag debuted at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and issued a proper debut album, "A Long Time Comin'", in 1968. Critics complimented the group's distinctive, intriguing sound, but found the record itself somewhat uneven. Unfortunately, the band was already disintegrating; rivalries between members and shortsighted management - not to mention heroin abuse - all took their toll. Bloomfield himself left the band he'd formed before their album was even released. He next hooked up with organist Al Kooper, whom he'd played with in the Dylan band, and cut "Super Session", a jam-oriented record that spotlighted his own guitar skills on one half and those of Stephen Stills on the other. Issued in 1968, it received excellent reviews and moreover became the best-selling album of Bloomfield's career. "Super Session"'s success led to a sequel, "The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper", which was recorded over three shows at the Fillmore West in 1968 and released the following year; it featured Bloomfield's on-record singing debut.
              
Bloomfield, however, was wary of his commercial success and growing disenchanted with fame. He was also tired of touring and after recording the second album with Kooper, he effectively retired for a while, at least from high-profile activities. He did, however, continue to work as a session guitarist and producer, and also began writing and playing on movie soundtracks (including some pornographic films by the Mitchell Brothers). He played locally and occasionally toured with Bloomfield and Friends, which included Nick Gravenites and ex-Butterfield mate Mark Naftalin. Additionally, he returned to the studio in 1973 for a session with John Hammond and New Orleans pianist Dr. John; the result, "Triumvirate", was released on Columbia, but didn't make much of a splash. Neither did Bloomfield's 1974 reunion with Electric Flag and neither did KGB, a short-lived supergroup with Barry Goldberg, Rik Grech (Traffic), and Carmine Appice that recorded for MCA in 1976. During the late '70s, Bloomfield recorded for several smaller labels (including Takoma), usually in predominantly acoustic settings; through Guitar Player magazine, he also put out an instructional album with a vast array of blues guitar styles, titled "If You Love These Blues, Play 'Em as You Please".

Unfortunately, Bloomfield was also plagued by alcoholism and heroin addiction for much of the '70s, which made him an unreliable concert presence and slowly cost him some of his longtime musical associations (as well as his marriage). By 1980, he had seemingly recovered enough to tour in Europe; that November, he also appeared on-stage in San Francisco with Bob Dylan for a rendition of "Like a Rolling Stone." However, on February 15, 1981, Bloomfield was found dead in his car of a drug overdose; he was only 37.

Tracklist:
1) Eyesight to the Blind
2) Women Lovin' Each Other
3) Linda Lou
4) Kansas City
5) Blues in B-Flat
6) Medley: Darktown Strutter's Ball / Mop Mop / Call Me a Dog
7) I'm Glad I'm Jewish
8) Jockey Blues
9) Between the Hard Place and the Ground
10) Don't Lie to Me
11) Cherry Red
12) Uncle Bob's Barrelhouse Blues
13) Wee Wee Hours
14) Vamp in C
15) One of These Days

Mike Bloomfield - Initial Shock - Live Between 1977 And 1979
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Heiner Müller liest Heiner Müller

Heiner Müller died 28 years ago. He´s missing.

"Wenn die Diskotheken verlassen und die Akademien verödet sind, wird das Schweigen des Theaters wieder gehört werden, das der Grund seiner Sprache ist."

- Heiner Müller


The german dramatist and playwright Heiner Müller was born in 1929 and died in 1995. Living in East Germany (GDR), he worked as managing, literary and artistic director at the Maxim-Gorki-Theatre (from 1958 on) and the Berliner Ensemble (from 1970 on), often staging his own productions.

Müller showed strong socialist leanings and worked in the tradition of Brechtian theatre. His initial agreement with the East German regime began to dwindle in 1960s when severals plays of his were censored and banned. He then began to work with West German theatres and ensembles and succeeded with pieces such as "Hamletmaschine" (1979), earning him worldwide fame. Müller was also renowned for his prose and poetry ("Das Ende der Handschrift. Gedichte") and publications on the theory of drama.

Before the collapse of the German Democratic Republic, Heiner Müller was widely regarded, internationally and in both German states, as “the most important German dramatist since Brecht”. Subsequently, like other “heroes” of the GDR semi-dissident scene, he was the target of a concerted campaign accusing him, among other things, of collaboration with the Stasi (Staats-Sicherheitsdienst, the GDR political police) and crypto-Stalinist tendencies. His reputation, despite a short-term eclipse, will survive these inanities; the extended public wake held upon his death on 30 December 1995 gave expression to a deep sense of loss in the vibrant East Berlin cultural scene of which he was the most brilliant protagonist.

Born in Eppendorf, Saxony, on 9 January 1929, his conscious life-span mirrors that of the GDR – from the bloody end of World War II through the difficult years of socialist reconstruction to the profound disillusionment of the “years of stagnation” and the ultimate implosion of the GDR, which he survived by only five depressive years of black clownery.

After the fall of the Wall, Müller became president of the East German Academy of the Arts for a short time in 1990 before its inclusion in the West German Akademie. In 1992, he was invited to join the directorate of the Berliner Ensemble, Brecht's former company at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, as one of its five members along with Peter Zadek, Peter Palitzsch, Fritz Marquardt and Matthias Langhoff. In 1995, shortly before his death, Müller was appointed as the theatre’s sole artistic director.
During the last five years of his life, Müller continued to live in Berlin and work all over Germany and Europe, mostly directing productions of his own works. He wrote few new dramatic texts in this time, though, like Brecht, he did produce much poetry in his final years.

Müller died in Berlin of cancer in 1995, acknowledged as one of the greatest living German authors and the most important German language dramatists since Bertolt Brecht.

Here´s his reading of some poems and prose at his 60s birthday, January 9, 1989, at the "Academy Of The Arts" in Berlin.

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Heiner Müller - Heiner Müller liest Heiner Müller

(192 kbps, front cover included)

Alfredo Zitarossa - Canta Zitarossa (1966)

Alfredo Zitarrosa (March 10, 1936 – January 17, 1989) was a Uruguayan singer-songwriter, poet and journalist. He specialized in Uruguayan and Argentinean folk genres such as zamba and milonga, and he became a chief figure in the nueva canción movement in his country. A staunch supporter of Communist ideals, he lived in exile between 1976 and 1984. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential singer-songwriters of Latin America.

From the beginning, he was established as one of the great voices of Latin American popular song, with clear leftist and folkloric roots. He cultivated a contemptuous and manly style, and his thick voice and a typical accompaniment of guitars gave his hallmark.

"Canta Zitarossa" was his first album, released in 1966.


Tracklist:

Milonga De Ojos Dorados
La Coyunda
Coplas Al Compadre Juan Miguel
De No Olvidar
Milonga Para Una Niña
Por Prudencio Correa
Del Que Se Ausenta
La Vuelta De Obligado
Recordándote
Si Te Vas
No Me Esperes
Zamba Por Vos
Cueca Del Regresso
Gato De Las Cuchillas

Alfredo Zitarossa - Canta Zitarossa (1966)

(192 kbps, cover art included)

Maria Farantouri - Lieder der Welt (1979)

A well-known Greek vocalist and political activist, Maria Farantouri is considered one of the foremost interpreters of Greek music, especially the work of composer Mikis Theodorakis. A contralto singer with a deep, resonant voice, Farantouri is sometimes referred to as the Joan Baez of Greece, and over the years has moved from traditional and folk styles to more jazz, classical, and avant-garde works.

Born in Athens in 1947, Farantouri first began singing in her youth as a member of the progressive choir of the Society of Greek Music, which worked to support new music based on Greek traditions. By her teens she caught the ear of Theodorakis, who invited her to join his ensemble. This led to a time of great creative and social awakening for Farantouri, who along with Theodorakis' culturally and politically left-leaning work, helped popularize the writing of many important Greek poets.

From 1967 to 1974, Farantouri was forced into exile after a right-wing military junta staged a coup in Greece. During this time, she and Theodorakis made several protest recordings in Europe and expanded their work to included the writing of Bertolt Brecht and Spanish composer Carlos Puebla, as well as many Greek composers including Eleni Karaindrou and Mikalis Bourboulis. 

Also during this period she released the anti-fascist recording "Mauthausen Cycle," a work by Theodorakis featuring the writing of poet Iakovos Kambanellis. Often referred to as a hymn to human rights, the cycle would become one of Farantouri's signature recordings. After returning to Greece in 1974, Farantouri resumed her successful recording career and began to expand her sound in a variety of directions, including jazz.


Tracklist:

A1 Bella Ciao 2:41
A2 Andra Mou Pai 3:23
A3 La Peregrinacion 2:18
A4 Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child 4:34
A5 El Paso Del Ebro 3:10
B1 Gracias A La Vida 3:22
B2 La Plegaria A Un Labrador 3:16
B3 Commandante Che Guevara 3:59
B4 Joe Hill 2:29
B5 Te Recuerdo, Amanda 2:25
B6 Bella Ciao (Instrumental) 2:14

Maria Farantouri - Lieder der Welt (1979)

(320 kbps, cover art included)

Howlin' Wolf‎ – Cadillac Daddy - Memphis Recordings, 1952

You can't possibly fault the material aboard this 12-song collection of Howlin' Wolf's Memphis recordings cut for Sam Phillips. The title track features some truly frightening guitar work from Willie Johnson,and all the material here is loaded with feral energy and a sense that it could fall apart at any second. It's totally intuitive music, with Wolf seemingly making it all up as he went along, which Sam Phillips had the patience to capture as it all went down. These are some of the great moments in blues history...

These are the recordings that prompted Sun Records chief Sam Phillips's oft-repeated assertion: "This is where the soul of a man dies." Phillips oversaw sessions by the likes of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and B.B. King, but the guttural electric blues of Howlin' Wolf captured his fancy like nothing else - and it's not hard to see why. The Wolf of these '52 sessions was just a few years off the farm, having begun to play West Memphis, Arkansas, juke joints, and cat houses following World War II. Working with a small but feral band highlighted by lead guitarist Willie Johnson (called by some the Jimi Hendrix of his day), the already middle-aged singer and harmonica player created a sound in the early '50s that bridged the Mississippi blues that were his roots with the amped Chicago blues that were his destiny. Phillips captured the man born Chester Burnett on the title track, "Drivin' C.V. Wine," and also on the other 10 selections included here, three of which were previously released while all but one of the remaining numbers have never appeared before in North America. Wolf's Chess sides are, of course, landmarks, but this is Wolf untamed and running wild. --Steven Stolder


Tracklist:
                           

A1	Cadillac Daddy (Mr. Highway Man)
A2	Bluebird Blues
A3	My Last Affair (Take 1)
A4	Oh Red! (Take 2)
A5	Come Back Home
A6	Dorothy Mae
B1	Decoration Day Blues
B2	Color And Kind
B3	Drinkin' C.V. Wine
B4	I Got A Woman (Sweet Woman)
B5	Everybody's In The Mood
B6	My Baby Walked Off

Howlin' Wolf‎ – Cadillac Daddy - Memphis Recordings, 1952
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Heiner Goebbels & Alfred Harth - Frankfurt Peking (1984)

The duo Goebbels/Harth (1975–1988), combining German composer, music-theatre director and keyboardist Heiner Goebbels and German composer, multi-media artist and saxophonist Alfred 23 Harth became famous for its adaptation of and departure from European composers, especially Hanns Eisler, implemented in a provocatively fresh manner into structured free improvisations and deploying content from areas beyond music. 

The duo was nicknamed the “Eisler brothers” by music critic W. Liefland. They later also experimented with different genres and sound collages, including electronic devices. The duo played in many international festivals and concerts in cities as diverse as Tel Aviv, Zagreb, West and East Berlin and South America.

In 1981, Berendt together with the duo produced the LP, "Zeit wird knapp" by including love poems and ballads from Bertolt Brecht, for which they recruited vocalists Dagmar Krause and Ernst Stötzner. The duo then artistically shaped the German new wave music/Neue Deutsche Welle in their style with their LPs "Indianer Für Morgn" and "Frankfurt/Peking" by also using synthesizer, electronic devices, and extended instruments. 

Around 1983–84, the creative spirit of the pair diminished. In 1987, Harth had been playing reeds and brass instruments in Goebbels’ performance "Der Mann im Fahrstuhl" at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada (together with Arto Lindsay and Heiner Müller). At the same festival, a final significant Goebbels/Harth event took place through a live recording, which became a kind of synopsis of the duo's entire repertoire over its long history. After a few more duo events and the unreleased last recordings “Duos für Fritz,” Harth disbanded the duo in 1988.

This album was recorded and mixed at Trion Sound Studio Frankfurt in September 1984-


Tracklist:
A1 Die Reise Nach Aschenfeld 5:50
A2 Stell Dir Vor Du Bist Ein Delphin 4:52
A3 Blitze Über Moskau 4:39
A4 Paradies Und Hölle Können Eine Stadt Sein 4:53
B Peking-Oper 15:55


Heiner Goebbels & Alfred Harth - Frankfurt Peking (1984)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Floh De Cologne - Lucky Streik (1973)

"Lucky Streik" is a classic political "krautadelic" album released by Floh De Cologne in 1973 on the "Ohr" label.

Floh De Cologne were well-known for their humorous and satyrical approach (which gained them comparisons with other freak troupes like The Fugs or The Mothers Of Invention ). They deliver a freaky connection of agit-prop satira and madness with relentless no-barriers free jamming: Political agitation meets free-rock...

"Lucky Streik" was live recorded on 25.11.72 in the Stadthalle Gummersbach and remixed at Studio Dierks in Stommeln, Köln.

Tracklist:

1. Countdown
2. Schön ist ein Jugendtraum
3. Sozialpartner Blues
4. Kalte Wut
5. Wenn ich einmal Reich bin
6. Die Wirtschaft ist jetzt in Gefahr
7. Der Imker
8. Deine Freiheit
9. Vergleiche
10. Der Löwenthaler
11. Was ein Kommunist trinken darf
12. Wenn es brennt
13. Freie Marktwirtschaft
14. Für die Zukunft sehen wir rot
15. Saurier
16. Wir sind millionenmal so stark

Gerd Wollschon - vocals, text
Dieter Klemm - vocals, percussion
Theo Konig - vocals, sax (tenor) clariner, flute
Markus Schmidt - vocals, guitar, keyboards
Dick Stadtler - bass, guitar, piano
Hansi Frank - vocals, drums

Floh De Cologne - Lucky Streik (1973)
(192 kbps, cover art included)

Chicago - The Blues - Today! Vol. 3

Notes from the original release of "Chicago/The Blues/Today Vol. 3":

Johnny Shines and Walter Horton sit around a table in Johnny’s apartment drinking a little from a fifth of Teacher’s, and after the television set in the next room is shut off the talk goes back to their early years in the blues. “Robert Johnson?” Shines laughs and shakes his head. “I ran with Robert for two years when I was first starting to sing. He was only a year or so older than I was and I was seventeen at that time. When? It must have been in 1933—in Helena, Arkansas.” Walter interrupts, “You couldn’t run with Robert for long; he wouldn’t stay in one place.” Johnny shrugs, “He did run off after we got here to Chicago. We were staying someplace—I don’t remember where it was—and he got up in the middle of the night and left. Just like that! I didn’t see him for five months.” Walter has another drink. “He was that kind of fellow. If anybody said to him ‘let’s go’ it didn’t matter to him where it was they were going, he’d just take off and go. It didn’t matter, either, what time of day or night it was.” Johnny Young leans against the bar where his band works on 47th Street, his broad, worried face perspiring from the last set. “I grew up in Vicksburg so I heard all them guys. Even Charley Patton. Of course he didn’t come to see me, I was too young. He come to see other people, but I was there anyway. The mandolin? I was playing that back in Vicksburg, but I did hear Charlie McCoy play, too. He was a mandolin player living over in Jackson that made some records about that time.”

The poor, hard city life in the Chicago slums has changed the Mississippi, the Alabama and Tennessee blues styles, but the ties between the old country music and the new city blues are still close. For the men in their twenties and thirties, Junior Wells, Otis Rush, Jimmy Cotton, Buddy Guy, it’s less personal—it’s something that they’ve heard other people talking about—but for the men in their late forties and early fifties, Johnny Shines, Walter Horton, Johnny Young, it’s a direct, still living involvement. You sit at a crowded table trying to listen to Johnny Young over the noise of the people around you and the words of the blues could be from Tennessee in the 1930’s. “I asked sweet mama, let me be your kid...” He could have heard it on a Sleepy John Estes record, but it’s as much like the other things he sings as it is like Estes. Johnny stands on the low bandstand, his tie knotted in place and his coat still buttoned, despite the hot, stale air of the club. “I’m stealin’ back to my same old used to be...”

In the early 1950’s Johnny Shines came into a recording studio and did a piece called “Ramblin’” that came closer to the emotionalism and the musical style of Robert Johnson than anything else he has done before or since. He took a moment to remember, then nodded, “‘Ramblin’’ was really picked out of the sky. We got there to the studio and we didn’t have enough time and we didn’t have arrangements for anything; so I just started singing the first thing that came into my mind...” Without arrangements or much time Johnny went back to the first blues style that he’d known, and today he still sometimes puts the guitar in an old Mississippi open tuning and begins to sing with some of Robert’s inflection and phrasing, the style as natural to Johnny as it was to Robert. The open tuning and the bottleneck go back even earlier for him. “I had an older brother, Willie Reed, who played, and I tried to learn from him, but I couldn’t make all the chords that he could...” Johnny grew up in Frazier, Tennessee, just north of Memphis. There’s a shopping center there now, but the rest of the town has become a suburb of Memphis. “...Then one day I ran into Howlin’ Wolf, who was young himself a that time, and I saw how he was playing with the open tuning and the slide. I said to myself, ‘If it’s that easy I can do it too.’ Wolf went away and left his guitar there and when he came back I was playing the same thing that he had just played...” A young man at 51, Johnny’s voice is one of the strongest and most exciting sounds in the Chicago blues today, and his music is a complex intermingling of the country and the city—the Delta melodic lines and the Chicago bass guitar and backbeat drumming—the South Side harmonic structure and the Delta verses, “Mister Boweevil, you done ate up all my cotton and corn...”
“Walter? I’ve known him most of my life.” “...The reason Johnny and I know what each other is going to play is that we started together when we were kids in Memphis.” The casual, drifting life of the early bluesmen kept the men close to each other and they drifted in twos or threes from job to job. Shines and Walter Horton started playing together in Memphis and they stayed together through the ragged years of the Depression, working at occasional jobs and running into each other when they were in the same town. Living not far from each other in Chicago and working with each other’s bands—“...When Johnny did ‘Ramblin’’ and ‘Brutal Hearted Woman’ he was working in my band in a club on West Madison...”—kept the country roots of their music strong and vigorous. A tall, nervous man, his face worn and scarred, Walter Horton, “Big Walter,” “Shakey Walter,” now limits his playing to a few sets with the bands working near his apartment on Indiana Avenue. When he’s feeling well he’s one of the most challenging harp men on the South Side. His health is poor and he works irregularly, but when he’s on the playing is magnificent, his thin body moving unsteadily across the bandstand, his face withdrawn and intent in the dim lights.

The blues backgrounds of Mississippi and Tennessee are woven into the fabric of the music that Johnny Shines and Walter Horton play. It’s in the shifting, restless sound of Johnny Young’s mandolin and in the insistent push of Johnny’s guitar accompaniments, in the verses of his blues and his singing style. The blues has changed in Chicago, but it’s still close to the country background, and it’s a music that has gone beyond the limits of its South Side neighborhoods. Memphis Charlie Musselwhite, who plays two harp duets with Walter Horton, is in his early twenties, and he’s white. He’s from the South and he’s grown up with the blues, so he’s been able to cross over into the South Side blues world. He was already playing when he came to Chicago, but Walter’s helped him, and when Charlie’s working with Johnny Young’s band Walter tries to get down on a Saturday night to do a set with him.

This is the blues in Chicago today—the new virtuosity of men like Junior Wells and Otis Rush, the country sound of J. B. Hutto and Homesick James, the exuberance of Jimmy Cotton and Otis Spann, the deep blues involvement of Johnny Shines. Johnny Young, and Walter Horton, the young men learning the style like Memphis Charlie. A new music has emerged out of the poverty and the anger of the South Side, a living music that has kept its own audience, its own expression, and its own truth. To hear it today all you have to do is take the El down to 40th or 47th Street...walk a few blocks through the empty streets...it’s fifty cents for a bottle of beer and as you sit at a table as close as you can get to the band the music fills the club around you like a sweet, intense voice that won’t stop singing...

I’d like to thank Bob Koester and Pete Welding, who have long been involved with the Chicago blues, for their help and their advice during the trips to Chicago that led to these recordings. Bob, on his Delmark label, and Pete, on his Testament label, have recorded a number of South Side bluesmen, and have done important work in bringing the Chicago music of today to a wider audience.

Chicago - The Blues - Today! Vol. 3
(192 kbps, ca. 56 MB)

Jacques Brel - Jacques Brel Et Ses Chansons (1954)

Nine songs spread over ten inches of shellac, Jacques Brel's debut album descended upon the French scene of the mid-'50s like an alien invasion. One moment, the chain-smoking Belgian singer/songwriter was a minor name struggling for survival around the Paris nightclubs, frequently playing his intense little songs at six different venues a night; the next, the gleeful "Il Peut Pleuvoir" and the contrarily sober "Sur la Place" were rewriting the very nature of the chanson. Where once was simple emoting, Brel implanted emotion. Where once was ribaldry, Brel inserted drollness. And where once local music was for squares and their parents, Brel was feted by teenaged rock & rollers.

"Jacques Brel et Ses Chansons", the album which ignited the iconoclasm, is ferociously confident. Although only one of the songs will be immediately familiar to a "rock" audience - Marc Almond covered "Le Diable (Ca Va)" (as "The Devil" on his "Jacques" album) - still there is an instantly recognizable compulsion to the performance. Brel's mellifluous, half-smiling, half-snarling voice gallops across the landscape, paced all the way by the richly textured and deeply imaginative accompaniment of Andre Grassi and his orchestra; the snatch of French accordion which punctuates the dark delivery of "Il Nous Faut Regarder" is both hideously apposite and rudely ironic.

It is not all doom and gloom, of course - indeed, Brel's reputation for morbidity and misery is more the premise of his louder English acolytes than of his own work. "C'est Comme Ca" is insanely jovial, a veritable machine gun of leaping lyric and frolicking instrumentation; "Il Peut Pleuvoir" shares a similar outlook, while "Le Fou Du Roi" apparently stepped out of the court of Marie Antoinette, all sweetly chiming harpsichord and a sweetly lilting nursery rhyme rhythm. The ghost of Prokofiev's "Troika" which hangs around the melody only adds to the experience. It is "Sur la Place" which dominates, however. Recorded at one of his first ever sessions with orchestra leader Francois Rauber, with whom Brel would continue to work for the remainder of his career, the song rides an arrangement which wouldn't be out of place punctuating a gentle ghost story, while Brel's talent for conjuring the spirits of nostalgia and sadness from the passing of time is revealed with a perceptiveness almost unbecoming in a mere 25-year-old. Even compared with all that he would go on to create, "Jacques Brel et Ses Chansons" is no formative, tentative debut offering. Brel sprang into the public consciousness fully formed, with all his gifts and offerings already on public display. All he needed now was for the public to turn and look. Upon release, the album sold a little over 2,000 copies.

Jacques Brel - Jacques Brel Et Ses Chansons (1954)
(256 kbps, front cover included)

Fehlfarben - 33 Tage in Ketten (1981)

In 1979 Die Fehlfarben were formed in Düsseldorf from the ashes of Mittagspause, an influential punk band comprised of Peter Hein (vocals), Franz Bielmeier (guitar), and Markus Oehlen (drums). The trio had previously established themselves in 1977 as Germany's first punk band, Charley's Girls, as documented in the 22-minute documentary film Charley's Girls (2005), which chronicles the burgeoning Düsseldorf punk scene surrounding the club Ratinger Hof circa 1977-1979. When Mittagspause split in 1979, Bielmeier -- already a central figure in the Düsseldorf punk scene, with the first German punk fanzine to his credit, The Ostrich -- went on to form an independent record label, Rondo-Label, which he maintained until 1981. Hein and Oehlen, on the other hand, went on to form Die Fehlfarben, a post-punk band, with some fellow musicians from the Düsseldorf punk scene: Thomas Schwebel (guitar), who had played with Mittagspause for a while, as well as the band S.Y.P.H.; Michael Kemner (bass), formerly of the D.A.F. collective; Frank Fenstermacher (saxophone); and Uwe Bauer (drums), who like Schwebel had also played with Mittagspause for a while.

The idea for the band arose during a November 1979 trip to England, where Hein, Schwebel, Bauer, and Oehlen were greatly inspired by the 2 Tone style of ska-punk that was then taking London by storm. They decided to bring this style of music back with them to Germany.

Die Fehlfarben recorded their second album "33 Tage in Ketten" without Peter Hein in the summer of 1981, and saw it enter the album chart as well. By the end of the year, both Monarchie und Alltag and 33 Tage in Ketten had broken into the Top 40.

Sure, the debut of Fehlfahrben was an absolute bomb. Peter Hein is a charismatic singer and he can write fantastic german lyrics. But this LP is worth hearing and continues their funky-punky non-NDW postpunk style.

Tracklist:

A1 Tanz mit dem Herzen 4:21
A2 Hutschläger 3:16
A3 Ich nicht verstehen 3:54
A4 Söhne und Töchter 3:16
A5 Imitation Of Life 2:47
A6 Schlaflos Nachts 4:50
B1 Die wilde Dreizehn 4:45
B2 Katze zur Maus 2:48
B3 Stunde des Glücks 4:41
B4 Wunderbar 4:09
B5 Der Marsch 6:08

Fehlfarben - 33 Tage in Ketten (1981)

(224 kbps, cover art included)

Kurt Weill - Down In The Valley (1950)

Down in the Valley is a folk-opera in one act by composer Kurt Weill and librettist Arnold Sundgaard, initially composed and conceived for the radio in 1945 then rewritten and produced in 1948. It uses famous American tunes to carry the story (including "Down in the Valley", "The Lonesome Dove", and "Hop Up, My Ladies") and connected by original choral music.

This short opera, originally running only about 20 minutes, was conceived as the first of a series of radio operas by Olin Downes, the music critic of The New York Times, and a businessman named Charles McArthur. The radio idea eventually fell through for lack of a sponsor, although Maurice Abravanel conducted an audition recording that was never broadcast. Hans Heinsheimer, the director of publications at Schirmer, approached Weill with a request for a school opera like "Der Jasager" for production by the opera department of Indiana University School of Music. Weill expanded and simplified Down in the Valley to a 40-minute version, and the revised version had its world premiere at that university in Bloomington, Indiana in 1948, directed by Hans Busch (son of Fritz Busch) and conducted by Ernst Hoffmann. Alan Jay Lerner's wife, Marion Bell, played Jennie. The piece was soon broadcast on NBC radio. In 1950, it was broadcast on NBC television. It was subsequently produced in July 1952 in Provincetown, New York at the Provincetown Playhouse, directed by Tony Randall.
In 1960, the piece was played in German at the Staatstheater in Hannover, directed by Hartmut Goebel and conducted by Walter Born, with "Die sieben Todsünden". In 1984, PBS Television broadcast the piece, directed by Frank Cvitanovich and conducted by Carl Davis. It was filmed in England by the Moving Picture Company. In September 1995, it was presented in Kansas City at the Lyric Opera, directed by Francis Cullinan and conducted by Russell Patterson. The work has also been performed numerous times by amateur forces. It has received a number of recordings.

The opera begins in a jail the night before an execution and is told in flashback form.
Brack Weaver, a teenager, falls in love with a girl, Jennie, after an Appalachian prayer meeting. But her father wants her to go to a dance with his shyster creditor, Thomas Bouché, who the father thinks will bail him out of his money troubles. Jennie disobeys and goes to the dance with Brack.
At the dance, the villain gets drunk and threatens the hero with a knife. The two fight, the villain dies (by his own weapon), and Brack is condemned to be hanged. On the night before his execution, he escapes to spend his last hours with Jennie, before turning himself in to meet his fate.

This recording with Marion Bell (soprano), William McGraw (baritone), Kenneth Smith (bass-baritone), Ray Jacquemot (bass-baritone), Richard Barrows (vocals), Robert Holland (tenor), Roy Johnston (bass), Jeanne Privette (soprano), Carole O'Hara (contralto), Ralph Teferteller (vocals)
RCA Victor Chorus, RCA Victor Orchestra, and Peter Herman Adler (conductor) was released on a 10" on RCA in 1950.

Kurt Weill - Down In The Valley (1950)
(256 kbps, front cover included)

Makwerhu - Somandla (1994)

Makwerhu was formed in 1991 in Cape Town, South Africa, by Mike Makhubele, Wakhile Xhalisa and Morris Mungoy.

From the linernotes:

"Makwerhu means brother and sister in Shangaan. The group sees their music as a part of the fight for a free (South-)Africa with no borders between countries, races or tribes.
Istead of trying to dominate one culture over the other Makwerhu unites them. The result is a magnificial mixture of several traditional styles of the Southern Africa with elements of Highlife, Reggae, Jazz, Afro-Rock and Rumba amon others. The lyrics are written in different languages of the Southern Africa such as shangaan, Xhosa, Zulu, Sotho and as wellin English."

Tracklist:

1	Somandla
2	Zulu Beat
3	Nhongane
4	Mahayeng
5	Mabadi
6	Mzala
7	Shifaki
8	Ahitivi
9	Rito
10	Khale Wa Khaleni

Makwerhu - Somandla (1994)
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Aron Saltiel - Jiddische Lieder (1996)

Aron Saltiel's music embodies the depth of his experiences. His concerts are inspired and heartwarming, always with an ear toward bringing people of diverse backgrounds together. His audience participatory "Niggunim" concerts in Europe paved the way for future generations to adopt his style of gently leading passive listeners into active singing. His concerts intersperse humorous spiritual anecdotes with subtly molded music, and include Sufi, Turkish, Greek, and Bulgarian Sephardic music.

Aron was born in the Ladino-speaking community of Istanbul of descendants of Sephardic Jews who were exiled from Spain in 1492. His first contact with Sephardic and Turkish music was in his home, where he absorbed the singing of his grandmother. Later he learned that many of the songs she sang to him were shared by Turks, Jews and Greeks, which led him to explore the galvanizing potential of music in these languages and cultures. Aron is still acknowledged as one of the world’s experts on Sephardic music, and has served as advisor and radio producer for both Jewish and Islamic music for Austrian national Radio (ORF) and West German Radio (WDR).

In 1971 Aron graduated from vocational school and worked as an immigrant worker in Switzerland and Germany. From 1973-1977 he studied Linguistics and Translation at the University of Graz, Austria, which eventually led to his working as translator for various government and educational institutions. Aron completed his training in psychotherapy in Switzerland and presently works as both a psychotherapist as well as a Breema bodywork practitioner.

His musical interests led him to study voice with Hedda Szamosi in Vienna, following which he founded the group, Alondra with Marie-Thérèse Escribano and Wolfram Märzendorfer. Although the term and precepts of "World Music" would not take hold until the late 1980s, throughout the early 1980s Alondra offered concerts dedicated to the performance of Jewish and Islamic music. Their concerts were seen as path-forging, and brought them invitations to renowned festivals such as the Steierische Herbst Festival, Graz, the Wiener Festwochen, the Semana de Musica Antigua, Burgos, the Festival des Arts Traditionnels, Rennes.

Aron's work in both collecting music and linguistics led to the seminal Sephardic Songbook (C. F. Peters Verlag Frankfurt) in 2001, based on field recordings between 1976 and 1996 in Bat-Yam, Israel, Sarajevo, Thessaloniki and Istanbul.

He has been invited to give solo as well as group concerts throughout Europe and the United States and continues to give workshops and participatory concerts of Hasidic Niggunim. His concerts are considered to be not only fun and exciting, but also uplifting with the power to bring people together.

Tracklist:

1 Dschankoje 2:17
2 Schejn Bin Ich, Schejn 2:04
3 Die Mame Is Gegangen 1:30
4 Margeritkes 2:04
5 Hob Ich Mir A Spann 1:39
6 Ich Lieg Hinter Grattes 2:39
7 Bulbe 1:55
8 Homentaschn 2:10
9 Die Alte Kasche 2:33
10 Amol Is Gewen A Majsse 3:39
11 Dire-Geld 2:17
12 10 Brider 6:25
13 Ojf Die Felder 3:56
14 Scha! Schtill! 1:45
15 As Der Rebbe Elimelech 2:20
16 Muh Asapro 2:15
17 Niggun 3:15

Aron Saltiel - Jiddische Lieder (1996)

(320 kbps, cover art included)

Lotte Lenya sings Berlin Theatre Songs by Kurt Weill (1955)

"Lotte Lenya sings Berlin Theatre Songs by Kurt Weill" is a LP recorded by Lotte Lenya in Germany in 1955, five years after the death of husband and composer, Kurt Weill.

Lotte Lenya is definitly the one to perform these songs. I think this goes far beyond the fact that many of these works were written specifically to be performed by Lenya in Berlin between 1927 and 1933.

 Lotte Lenya recorded "Lotte Lenya singt Kurt Weill" in Hamburg on July 5 - 7, 1955, for Philips (B 07 039); released in the U.S. by Columbia (ML 5056) in November 1955 as "Lotte Lenya Sings Berlin Theater Songs of Kurt Weill".

This album was released on the classical Columbia Masterworks label and you couldn't ask for a better introduction to the enduring songs of Kurt Weill (and Bertolt Brecht). Lotte Lenya was, in a word, inimitable. That voice, so frail yet so unshakable, gave us the definitive interpretations of Kurt Weill's music. "Lotte Lenya sings Berlin Theatre Songs by Kurt Weill" was recorded as her career saw a revival thanks to a new English-language production of Brecht/Weill's "Threepenny Opera" by Marc Blitzstein at the  Theatre de Lys (co-starring Bea Arthur, Ed Asner and Jerry Stiller). She recorded in Berlin, returning for the first time in twenty years. That environment was likely crucial to the record that resulted.

Tracklist:

Die Dreigroschenoper [The Threepenny Opera]:
1. Moritat [Mack the Knife]
2. Barbara-Song
3. Seeräuber-Jenny [Pirate Jenny]

Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny [The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny]:
4. Havanna-Lied
5. Alabama-Song
6. Wie man sich bettet [As You Make Your Bed]

Happy End:
7. Bilbao-Song
8. Surabaya Johnny
9. Matrosen-Tango [The Sailors' Tango]

Das Berliner Requiem [Berlin Requiem]:
10. Vom ertrunkenen Mädchen [Ballad of the Drowned Girl]

Der Silbersee [The Silverlake]:
11. Lied der Fennimore [I am a Poor Relative]
12. Cäsars Tod [Ballad of Caesar]

Lotte Lenya sings Berlin Theatre Songs by Kurt Weill (1955)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Milva - Singt Brecht (ETERNA, 1982)

Singer and actress Milva reigned for decades among the most popular and far-ranging performers in her native Italy. Born Maria Ilva Biolcati in Goro on July 17, 1939, at 20 she beat out more than 7,000 rivals to claim top honors in an influential talent showcase, and in 1960 cut her debut single, a cover of Édith Piaf's "Milord."

In 1961 Milva earned third place at the influential San Remo Music Festival. A year later she came in second and returned to the competition often in the years to follow despite never earning first prize. In 1962 Milva headlined Paris' legendary Olympia Theatre, performing a set of Piaf songs to rapturous reception.

Soon after, she befriended actor and director Giorgo Strehler, who nurtured her interest in musical theater and encouraged the expansion of her repertoire, recommending works spanning from the Italian resistance movement to Bertold Brecht. Milva would become the first actress outside of Germany to prove successful in Brecht adaptations.

This is a compilation with songs by Bertolt Brecht, released in the GDR on the ETERNA label. It features recordings in Italian language.


Tracklist:

A1 - Jenny Dei Pirati = Seeräuber-Jenny (4:45)
A2 - Barbara-Song (5:10)
A3 - Ballata Della Schiavitù Sessuale = Ballade Von Der Sexuellen Hörigkeit (2:40)
A4 - Surabaya-Jonny (4:40)
A5 - Nel Letto In Cui Siamo Staremo = Wie Man Sich Bettet, So Liegt Man (3:30)
A6 - Ballata Di Maria Sanders = Ballade Von Der Judenhure Marie Sanders (3:05)
B7 - La Leggenda Del Soldato Morto = Legende Vom Toten Soldaten (4:30)
B8 - Sotto Le Querce Di Potsdam = Zu Potsdam Unter Den Eichen (2:20)
B9 - La Canzone Del Bene Stare Al Mondo = Ballade Von Der Billigung Der Welt (3:45)
B10 - Tutti O Nessuno = Keiner Oder Alle (Sklave, Wer Wird Dich Befreien) (1:35)
B11 - Se Fondata È Questa Mahagonny = Gründung Der Stadt Mahagonny (0:55)
B12 - Moon Of Alabama = Alabama-Song (2:45)
B13 - Havanna-Song (Ach, Bedenken Sie, Herr Jakob Schmidt) (1:50)
B14 - La Canzone Della Moldava = Lied Von Der Moldau (2:05)
B15 - Un Cavallo Si Lamenta = Ein Pferd Klagt An (O Falladah, Die Du Hangest !) (4:45)


Tracks B7 to B15: Live-Aufnahme der Aufführung des Piccolo Teatro Mailand 15. und 16. März 1975.
Tracks A1 to A3: aus „Die Dreigroschenoper“
Track A4: aus „Happy End“
Tracks A5, B11 to B13: aus „Der Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny“
Track B8: aus „Berliner Requiem“
Track B14: aus „Schweyk Im Zweiten Weltkrieg“

Milva - Singt Brecht (ETERNA, 1982)

(320 kbps, cover art included)

Alfred Drake - Down In The Valley - Music By Kurt Weill (1950)

Here is one of Kurt Weill's less well-known efforts. It was his last composition, and he was supervising this 1949 recording when he died.

Despite this being a 10-inch record, it contains the complete "ballad opera," which lasted only about 45 minutes. Weill intended it for performance by amateurs. Nonetheless, the lead in this version is Alfred Drake, hardly an beginner. It's a superb performance. All the more odd, then, that this version is not in print and may never have been reissued since its initial publication. However, a performance from a few years later has been out at least twice, including now. It's in my collection, but although I haven't heard it for some years, I don't think it is better than this one.

The story involves an evil, rapacious capitalist who is killed in self-defense by Drake's man of the people, who then is sent off to meet his fate at the hands of the state. A period piece that makes liberal use of familiar tunes like Down in the Valley.

The basic sound here is pretty good, but my pressing must have been owned by either a Weill lover or a stalwart of the Old Left. It's as beaten down as Drake's proletariat character. But it's listenable, although I must apologize for the groove damage near the end of the piece.

Thanks to the original poster on http://big10inchrecord.blogspot.com/.


Tracklist:

01. Down In The Valley Side 1 (Down In The Valley; The Lonseme Dove)

02. Down In The Valley Side 2 (Hop Up; My Ladies; Other)

Alfred Drake - Down In The Valley - Music By Kurt Weill (1950)
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Weavers - Travelling On With The Weavers (1959)

"Traveling on With the Weavers" was recorded during a transitional time when Erik Darling was taking the place of longtime member Pete Seeger. Five of the album's 16 tracks feature Seeger and, tellingly, four of those were the only cuts from the album to be included on the 1987 anthology "The Weavers Classics".

It is tempting to compare Seeger and Darling, but suffice it to say that Seeger's presence is strongly felt where he appears, and his songs are the standouts on the album. "Old Riley" is a variation of Grandpa Jones' signature song "Old Rattler," and "Gotta Travel On" is a variation of the song with which Billy Grammer enjoyed a hit in 1959.

The Weavers go ethnic on side two, where the first four cuts are sung in foreign languages and nearly half of the songs overall are folk standards that would shortly become ubiquitous on commercial folk albums by the Kingston Trio and their imitators. The album is a tentative step in that Darling was only beginning to find his way as a Weaver, but the group's sound and approach is so consistent that casual listeners might not notice that anything unusual is afoot.    

Tracklist:          

A1		Twelve Gates To The City
A2		Erie Canal
A3		I Never Will Marry
A4		Old Riley
A5		Sinner Man
A6		House Of The Rising Sun
A7		The Keeper
A8		You Made Me A Pallet On The Floor
B1		Mi Caballo
B2		Kumbaya
B3		Hopsha-Diri
B4		Si Mi Quieres
B5		State Of Arkansas
B6		Greenland Whale Fisheries
B7		Eddystone Light
B8		Gotta Travel On

The Weavers - Travelling On With The Weavers (1959)
(256 kbps, cover art included)         

Leon Lishner - Out of the Ghetto: Songs of the Jews in America (1959)

Leon Lishner (4 July 1913 – 21 November 1995) was an American operatic bass-baritone. He was particularly associated with the works of Gian Carlo Menotti, having created parts in the world premieres of four of his operas. He performed in many productions with the New York City Opera and the NBC Opera Theatre during the 1950s and early 1960s.

Born in New York City, Lishner was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants to the United States.

Several track titles are written in German on the LP labels and in Yiddish on the jacket rear.

Tracklist:
A1 Der Fisher
A2 Die Wandt
A3 Golus March
A4 Mein Ruheplatz
A5 A Nigun
A6 Yiddish
A7 Mein Yingele
A8 Zog Maran
B1 Viglied
B2 Yamen Roishen
B3 Die Frosh
B4 Elioh Hanovi
B5 Ich will nit Eisen katten
B6 In der Tiefkeit von der Nacht
B7 Schnell laufen der Rader
B8 Mil Chome
B9 A Volachel

Leon Lishner - Out of the Ghetto: Songs of the Jews in America (1959)

(320 kbps, cover art included)

Mississippi John Hurt - Folk Songs and Blues (1963)

After a 35-year absence, Mississippi John Hurt made a return to recording with "Folksongs & Blues", and his gentle, easygoing style of country blues hadn't changed a bit in the intervening years. Hurt croons, and even occasionally whispers, the lyrics, accompanied by the lazy strum of an acoustic guitar and a few touches

of harmonica. He makes the insults in "Salty Dog" actually sound more disappointed than angry, and "Joe Turner Blues" sounds extraordinarily soothing for a song containing the line "He's the man I hate." Hurt is adept at composing lovely melodies (such as "Candy Man Blues") and his gentle, subtle performances do them justice. Still, as laid-back as it can be, it never becomes boring or insubstantial, primarily because the scarred pain in Hurt's voice, as well as the sometimes-dark lyrics, give these songs more weight than is easily apparent.

"Folksongs & Blues" is a great introduction to Mississippi John Hurt's talents, and is a must-have for anyone interested in country blues.

Tracklist:

A1	Avalon Blues
A2	Richland Women Blues
A3	Spike Driver Blues
A4	Salty Dog
A5	Cow Hooking Blues
A6	Spanish Fandang
B1	Casey Jones
B2	Louis Collins
B3	Candy Man Blues
B4	My Creole Belle
B5	Liza Jane - God's Unchanging Hand
B6	Joe Turner Blues

Mississippi John Hurt - Folk Songs and Blues (1963)
(256 kbps, cover art included)

Jack Kerouac - Readings by Jack Kerouac on the Beat Generation (1960)

Readings by Jack Kerouac on the Beat Generation is the third and final spoken word album by the American novelist and poet Jack Kerouac, released in January 1960 on Verve Records. The album was recorded during 1959, prior to the publication of Kerouac's sixth novel, Doctor Sax.

"Readings by Jack Kerouac on the Beat Generation" was the culmination of the author's short-lived recording career, a solo performance that transcends poetry and music -- it's literally spoken jazz, the artist improvising freely on the printed text of his own work in front of him.

Produced by Bill Randle, it was Kerouac's most musical performance, despite the fact that the recording contained only his voice and no accompaniment, using his voice and language the way a saxophonist might improvise on a particular melodic line or riff. He's spellbinding throughout, intense, focused, and even subtly changing voices with the work itself.


Jack Kerouac - Readings by Jack Kerouac on the Beat Generation (1960)
(256 kbps, front cover included)

Paul Robeson ‎– Sings 20 Favourite Songs / Transatlantic Exchange Concert

From the liner notes:

The story of how the tapes of the 20 songs recorded in March of 1954 came to be “re-discovered” is interesting. They were originally given by Paul Robeson to the late Peter Blackman, a man of Barbadian descent who was an active trade unionist and socialist poet in England. He is best remembered for his pamphlet of poems “My song is for all men”, and it is obvious that there was a close affinity between him and Paul Robeson on many counts. On his passing, his son, also named Peter Blackman, found the tapes among his belongings, and loaned them to Mike Lewis a retired BBC engineer who is the brother of Roger Lewis, Secretary of the South Wales Miners’ Eisteddfod. Mike’s connection with the tapes go further, as he was a member of the Treorchy Male Voice Choir which sang at Porthcawl’s Grand Pavilion on October 5th, 1957, when Paul Robeson made his historic and defiant “Transatlantic Exchange” broadcast.

This CD contains the 20 tracks included on those tapes given by Paul Robeson to Peter Blackman, and also a new version of the actual Transatlantic Exchange concert itself. The songs sung by Paul Robeson during that historic event are taken from the tapes recorded during the broadcast in the studio in New York, rather than the version heard over the telephone in the Grand Pavilion, which explains why they are “cleaner” than any version issued before now. We are extremely grateful to Mike Price for the professional work he made on all these tracks, to ensure they can now be enjoyed in optimum conditions.


1 Didn'T My Lord Deliver Daniel?
2 Kevin Barry
3 Ode To Joy
4 There'S A Man Going Round Takin' Names
5 Song Of The Warsaw Ghetto
6 The Volga Boat Song
7 John Brown's Body
8 Madrid
9 The Ballad Of Joe Hill
10 Ol' Man River
11 Crimson Petal
12 Spanish Lullaby
13 Night
14 All Through The Night
15 Oh Mistress Mine
16 Turn Ye To Me
17 The Minstrel Boy
18 Riddle Song
19 What Is America To Me?
20 Danny Boy
21 Introduction
22 Will Paynter
23 Greetings From New York
24 Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel?
25 All Through The Night
26 This Little Light Of Mine
27 Ode To Joy
28 Lullaby
29 Will Paynter
30 Y Delyn Aur
31 Paul Robeson - Thanks
32 Land Of My Fathers
33 We'll Keep A Welcome
34 John Humphrys - End Piece

Paul Robeson ‎– Sings 20 Favourite Songs / Transatlantic Exchange Concert

(320 kbps, front cover included)