This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love- When The Music’s Over-On The Anniversary Of Janis Joplin’s Death
Classic Rock : 1968: Shakin’ All Over, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1989
Scene: Brought to mind by a the cover art on this CD of a Janis Joplin-like female performer belting out some serious blues rock in the heat of the “Generation of ‘68” night.
Josh Breslin (a. k. a. the Prince of Love, although some yellow bus wit made a joke of that moniker calling him the Prince of Lvov, some Podunk town in Poland, or some place like that) was weary, weary as hell, road- weary, drug-weary, Captain Crunch’s now Big Sur–based magical mystery tour, merry prankster, yellow brick road bus-weary, even hanging around with his “papa,” “Far-Out” Phil Larkin who had gotten him through some pretty rough spots weary. Hell, he was girl-weary too, girl weary ever since his latest girlfriend, Gypsy Lady (nee Phyllis McBride), decided that she just had to go back to her junior year of college at Berkeley in order to finish some paper on the zodiac signs and their meaning for the new age rising. Ya, okay Gypsy, do what you have to do. Moreover this summer of 1968, June to be exact, after a year bouncing between summers of love, autumns of drugs, winters of discontent, and springs of political madness what with Johnson’s resignation, Robert Kennedy’s assassination piled on to that of King’s had taken a lot out of him, including his weight, weight loss that his already slim runner’s frame could not afford.
Moreover, now the chickens were coming home to roost. Before he had joined Captain Crunch’s merry prankster crew in San Francisco, got “on the bus,” in the youth nation tribal parlance, last summer he had assumed that he would enter State U in the fall (University of Maine, for those who did not know). After a summer of love with Butterfly Swirl though (his temperature rose every time he thought about her and her cute little tricks to get him going sexually even now) and then a keen interest in a couple of other young women before Gypsy Lady landed on him, some heavy drug experiences that he was still trying to figure out, his start–up friendship with Phil, and the hard fact that he just did not want to go home now that he had found “family” he decided that he needed to “see the world” for a while instead. And he had, at least enough to weary him.
What he did not figure on, or what got blasted into the deep recesses of his brain just a couple of days ago, was a letter from his parents with a draft notice from his local board enclosed. Hell’s bells he had better get back, weary or not, and get some school stuff going real fast, right now fast. There was one thing for sure, one nineteen-year old Joshua Peter Breslin, Olde Saco, Maine High School Class of 1967, was not going with some other class of young men to ‘Nam to be shot at, or to shoot.
Funny, Josh thought, as he mentally prepared himself for the road back to Olde Saco, how the past couple of months had just kind of drifted by and that he really was ready to get serious. The only thing that had kind of perked him up lately was Ruby Red Lips (nee Sandra Kelly), who had just got “on the bus” from someplace down South like Georgia, or Alabama and who had a great collection of blues records that he was seriously getting into (as well as seriously into Ruby although she seemed slow, very slow, to get his message). Josh, throughout high school and even on the bus, was driven by rock ‘n’ roll. Period. He got surprised one day when he heard Ruby playing Shake, Rattle, and Roll. He asked, “Is that Carl Perkins?” Ruby laughed, laughed a laugh that he found appealing and said, “No silly, that's the king of be-bop blues, Big Joe Turner. Want to hear more stuff?” And that was that. Names like Skip James, Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson, Son House, Muddy Waters and Little Walter started to fill his musical universe.
What got him really going though were the women singers, Sippie Wallace, mad Bessie Smith, a whole bunch of other barrelhouse blues-singers named Smith, Memphis Minnie and the one that really, really got to him, “Big Mama” Thornton. The latter belting out a bluesy rendition of Hound Dog that made Elvis' seem kind of punk, and best of all Piece Of My Heart.
Then one night Ruby took him to club over in Monterrey, the Blue Note, a club for young blues talent, mainly, that was a stepping-stone to getting work at the Monterrey Pop Festival each year. There he heard, heard if you can believe this, some freckled, red-headed whiskey-drinking off the hip girl, ya just a wisp of a girl, from Podunk, Texas, or maybe Oklahoma who was singing Big Mama’s Piece of My Heart. And then Ball and Chain, Little School Girl, and Little Red Rooster. Hell, she had the joint jumping until the early hours for just as long as guys kept putting drinks in front of her. What a night, what a blues singer.
Just now though Ruby Red Lips came over to him, kind of perky and kind of with that look in her that he was getting to catch on to when a girl was interested in him and said, “Hey, Janis, that singer from the Blue Note, is going to be at Monterrey Pops next month with a band to back her up, want to go? And, do you want to go to the Blue Note with me tonight?” After answering, yes, yes, to both those questions the Prince of Love (and not some dinky Lvov either) figured he could go back to old life Olde Saco by late August and still be okay but he had better grab Ruby now while he could.
The Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love, 1967- Jim Morrsion- AND AGAIN-WE WANT THE WORLD, AND WE WANT IT NOW! - The Music Of Jim Morrison And The Doors
Zack James comment: My
oldest brother, Alex, who was in the thick of the Summer of Love along with his
corner boys from North Adamsville above all the later Peter Paul Markin who led
them out to the Wild West said that the few times that he/they saw The Doors
either in Golden Gate Park at free, I repeat, free outdoor concerts or at the
Avalon or Fillmore which were a great deal more expensive, say two or three
dollars, I repeat two or three dollars that The Doors when they were on,
meaning when Jim Morrison was in high dungeon, was in a drug-induced trance and
acted the shaman for the audience nobody was better. Having been about a decade
behind and having never seen Morrison in high dungeon or as a drug-induced
shaman but having listened to various Doors compilations I think for once old
Alex was onto something. Listen up.
From American Left History
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
*AND AGAIN-WE WANT THE WORLD, AND WE WANT IT NOW! - The Music Of Jim Morrison And The Doors
CD Review
Waiting For The Sun, Jim Morrison and the Doors, Rhino, 2007
Since my youth I have had an ear for American (and other roots music), whether I was conscious of that fact or not. The origin of that interest first centered on the blues, then early rock and roll and later, with the folk revival of the early 1960’s, folk music. I have often wondered about the source of this interest. I am, and have always been a city boy, and an Eastern city boy at that. Nevertheless, over time I have come to appreciate many more forms of roots music than in my youth. The subject of the following review is an example.
The Doors are roots music? Yes, in the sense that one of the branches of rock and roll derives from early rhythm and blues and in the special case of Jim Morrison, leader of the Doors, the attempt to musically explore the shamanic elements in the Western American Native American culture. Some of that influence is apparent here.
More than one rock critic has argued that at their best the Doors were the best rock and roll band ever created. Those critics will get no argument here. What a reviewer with that opinion has to do is determine whether any particular CD captures the Doors at their best. This reviewer advises that if you want to buy only one Doors CD that would be The Best of the Doors. If you want to trace their evolution other CD’s, like this “Waiting For The Sun” album do an adequate job. Stick outs here include: the anti-war classic "The Unknown Soldier," “Love Street,” and "Spanish Caravan".
A note on Jim Morrison as an icon of the 1960s. He was part of the trinity – Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix who lived fast and died young. The slogan- Drugs, sex, and rock and roll. And we liked that idea. Then. Their deaths were part of the price we felt we had to pay if we were going to be free. And creative. Even the most political, including this writer, among us felt those cultural winds and counted those who espoused this vision as part of the chosen. Those who believed that we could have a far-reaching positive cultural change without a political change proved to be wrong long ago. But, these were still our people.
MARK THIS WELL. Whatever excesses were committed by the generation of ’68, and there were many, were mainly made out of ignorance and foolishness. Our opponents at the time, exemplified by one Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal, spent every day of their lives as a matter of conscious, deliberate policy raining hell down on the peoples of the world, minorities in this country, and anyone else who got in their way. 40 years of ‘cultural wars’ by his protégés in revenge is a heavy price to pay for our youthful errors. Enough.
The Unknown Soldier Lyrics
Wait until the war is over And we're both a little older The unknown soldier
Breakfast where the news is read Television children fed Unborn living, living dead Bullet strikes the helmet's head
And it's all over For the unknown soldier It's all over For the unknown soldier, uh hu-uh
Hut! Hut! Hut ho hee up! Hut! Hut! Hut ho hee up! Hut! Hut! Hut ho hee up! Comp'nee, Halt! Pree-sent arms!
Make a grave for the unknown soldier Nestled in your hollow shoulder The unknown soldier
Breakfast where the news is read Television children fed Bullet strikes the helmet's head
And, it's all over, The war is over. It's all over, war is over. It's all over, baby! All over, baby! All, all over, yeah! Aah, hah-hah. All over, all over, babe! Oh! Oh yeah! All over, all over! Ye-e-e-ah…
The 50th Anniversary O The Summer Of Love- When The Music’s Over-On The Anniversary Of Janis Joplin’s Death-Magical Realism 101
Scene: Brought to mind by the cover art on some fogged memory accompanying CD booklet of a wispy, blue-jeaned, blouse hanging off one shoulder, bare-foot, swirling mass of red hair, down home Janis Joplin-like female performer belting out some serious blues rock in the heat of the “Generation of ‘68” night. In the time of our time. Belting out songs, band backed-up and boozed-up, probably Southern Comfort if it was late and if the package store was short of some good cutting whiskey, but singing from somewhere beyond a no good man, no job, no roof over a head, no pocket dough, no prospects and a ton of busted dreams in some now forgotten barrelhouse, chittlin’ circuit bowling alley complete with barbecued ribs smoking out back or down town “colored” theater. Or the echo of that scene, okay. ******* Josh Breslin (a. k. a. the Prince of Love, although some merry prankster yellow brick road bus wit made a joke of that moniker calling him the Prince of Lvov, some Podunk town in Poland, or some place like that) was weary, weary as hell, road- weary, drug-weary, Captain Crunch’s now Big Sur–based magical mystery tour, merry prankster, yellow brick road bus-weary, weary even of hanging out with his “papa,” “Far-Out” Phil Larkin who had gotten him through some pretty rough spots weary. Hell, he was girl-weary too, girl weary ever since his latest girlfriend, Gypsy Lady (nee Phyllis McBride), decided that she just had to go back to her junior year of college at Berkeley in order to finish up some paper on the zodiac signs and their meaning for the new age rising. Ya, okay Gypsy, do what you have to do, the Prince mused to himself. Chuckled really, term paper stuff was just not his “thing” right then.
Moreover this summer of 1968, June to be exact, after a year bouncing between summers of love, 1967 version to be exact, autumns of drugs, strange brews of hyper-colored experience drugs and high shamanic medicine man aztec druid flame throws, winters of Paseo Robles brown hills discontent, brown rolling hills until he sickened of rolling, the color brown, hills, slopes, plains, everything, and springs of political madness what with Johnson’s resignation, Robert Kennedy’s assassination piled on to that of Martin Luther King’s had taken a lot out of him, including his weight, weight loss that his already slim former high school runner’s frame could not afford.
Now the chickens had come home to roost. Before he had joined Captain Crunch’s merry prankster crew in San Francisco, got “on the bus,” in the youth nation tribal parlance, last summer he had assumed, after graduating from high school, that he would enter State U in the fall (University of Maine, the Prince is nothing but a Mainiac, Olde Saco section, for those who did not know). After a summer of love with Butterfly Swirl though before she went back to her golden-haired surfer boy back down in Carlsbad (his temperature rose even now every time he thought about her and her cute little tricks to get him going sexually) and then a keen interest in a couple of other young women before Gypsy Lady landed on him, some heavy drug experiences that he was still trying to figure out, his start–up friendship with Phil, and the hard fact that he just did not want to go home now that he had found “family” he decided that he needed to “see the world” for a while instead. And he had, at least enough to weary him.
What he did not figure on, or what got blasted into the deep recesses of his brain just a couple of days ago, was a letter from his parents with a draft notice from his local board enclosed. Hell’s bells he had better get back, weary or not, and get some school stuff going real fast, right now fast. There was one thing for sure, one nineteen-year old Joshua Lawrence Breslin, Olde Saco, Maine High School Class of 1967, was not going with some other class of young men to ‘Nam to be shot at, or to shoot.
Funny, Josh thought, as he mentally prepared himself for the road back to Olde Saco, how the past couple of months had just kind of drifted by and that he really was ready to get serious. The only thing that had kind of perked him up lately was Ruby Red Lips (nee Sandra Kelly), who had just got “on the bus” from someplace down South like Georgia, or Alabama and who had a great collection of blues records that he was seriously getting into (as well as seriously into Miss Ruby, as he called her as a little bait, a little come on bait, playing on her somewhere south drawl, although she seemed slow, very slow, to get his message).
Josh, all throughout high school and even on the bus, was driven by rock ‘n’ roll. Period. Guys like Elvis, Chuck, Jerry Lee, even a gal like Wanda Jackson, when they were hungry, and that hunger not only carried them to the stars but slaked some weird post-World War II, red scare, cold war hunger in guys like Josh Breslin although he never, never in a million years would have articulated it that way back then. That was infernal Captain Crunch’s work (Captain is the “owner” of the “bus” and a story all his own but that is for another time) always trying to put things in historical perspective or the exact ranking in some mythical pantheon that he kept creating (and recreating especially after a “dip” of Kool-Aid, LSD for the squares, okay).
But back to Ruby love. He got a surprise one day when he heard Ruby playing Shake, Rattle, and Roll. He asked, “Is that Carl Perkins?” Ruby laughed, laughed a laugh that he found appealing and he felt was meant to be a little coquettish and said, “No silly, that's the king of be-bop blues, Big Joe Turner. Want to hear more stuff?” And that was that. Names like Skip James, Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson, Son House, Muddy Waters and Little Walter started to fill his musical universe.
What got him really going though were the women singers, Sippie Wallace that someone, Bonnie Raitt or Maria Muldaur, had found in old age out in some boondock church social or something, mad Bessie Smith squeezed dry, freeze-dried by some no account Saint Louis man and left wailing, empty bed, gin house wailing ever after, a whole bunch of other barrelhouse blues-singers named Smith, Memphis Minnie, the queen of the double entendre, sex version, with her butcher, baker, candlestick-maker men, doing, well doing the do, okay, and the one that really, really got to him, “Big Mama” Thornton. The latter belting out a bluesy rendition of Hound Dog made just for her that made Elvis' seem kind of punk, and best of all a full-blast Piece Of My Heart.
Then one night Ruby took him to club over in Monterrey just up the road from the Big Sur merry prankster yellow bus camp, the Blue Note, a club for young blues talent, mainly, that was a stepping-stone to getting some work at the Monterrey Pop Festival held each year. There he heard, heard if you can believe this, some freckled, red-headed whiskey-drinking off the hip girl (or maybe some cheap gin or rotgut Southern Comfort, cheap and all the in between rage for those saving their dough for serious drugs).
Ya just a wisp of a girl, wearing spattered blue-jeans, some damn moth-eaten tee-shirt, haphazardly tie-dyed by someone on a terminal acid trip, barefoot, from Podunk, Texas, or maybe Oklahoma, (although he had seen a fair share of the breed in Fryeburg Fair Maine) who was singing Big Mama’s Piece of My Heart. And then Ball and Chain, Little School Girl, and Little Red Rooster.
Hell, she had the joint jumping until the early hours for just as long as guys kept putting drinks in front of her. And maybe some sweet sidle promise, who knows in that alcohol blaze around three in the morning. All Josh knew was this woman, almost girlish except for her sharp tongue and that eternal hardship voice, that no good man, no luck except bad luck voice, that spoke of a woman’s sorrow back to primordial times, had that certain something, that something hunger that he recognized in young Elvis and the guys. And that something Josh guessed would take them over the hump into that new day they were trying to create on the bus, and a thousand other buses like it. What a night, what a blues singer.
The next day Ruby Red Lips came over to him, kind of perky and kind of with that just slightly off-hand look in her eye that he was getting to catch on to when a girl was interested in him, and said, “Hey, Janis, that singer from the Blue Note, is going to be at Monterrey Pops next month with a band to back her up, want to go? And, do you want to go to the Blue Note with me tonight?” After answering, yes, yes, to both those questions the Prince of Love (and not some dinky Lvov either, whoever that dull-wit was) figured he could go back to old life Olde Saco by late August, sign up for State U., and still be okay but that he had better grab Ruby now while he could.
The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love, 1967-The “Blues Mama” Of “The Generation Of ‘68”- The Music Of Janis Joplin
Zack James’ comment June, 2017:
Sometimes you just have to follow the bouncing ball like in
those old time sing along cartoons they used to have back in say the 1950s,the
time I remember them from, on Saturday afternoon matinees at the old now long
gone Stand Theater in my growing up town of North Adamsville. Follow me for a
minute here I won’t be long. Earlier this spring my oldest brother, Alex, took
attended a conference in San Francisco which he has done periodically for
years. While there he noticed an advertisement on a bus for something called
the Summer of Love Experience at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. That
ad immediately caught his attention he had been out there that year and had
participated in those events at the urging of his friend Peter Paul Markin who
was something of a holy goof (a Jack Kerouac term of art), a low rent prophet,
and a street criminal all in one. When Alex got back to the East after having
attended the exhibition he got in contact with me to help him, and the still
standing corner boys who also had gone out West at Markin’s urging to put
together a tribute booklet honoring Markin and the whole experience.
After completing that project, or maybe while completing it
I kept on thinking about the late Hunter S. Thompson who at one time was the
driving force behind gonzo journalism and had before his suicide about a decade
ago been something of a muse to me. At first my thoughts were about how
Thompson would have taken the exhibition at the de Young since a lot of what he
wrote about in the 1960s and 1970s was where the various counter-cultural
trends were, or were not, going. But then as the current national political
situation in America in the Trump Age has turned to crap, to craziness and
straight out weirdness I began to think about how Thompson would have handled
the 24/7/365 craziness these days since he had been an unremitting searing
critic of another President of the United States who also had low-life
instincts, one Richard Milhous Nixon.
The intertwining of the two stands came to head recently
over the fired FBI director James Comey hearings where he essentially said that
the emperor had no clothes. So I have been inserting various Thompson-like
comments in an occasional series I am running in various on-line publications-Even The President Of The United States
Sometimes Must Have To Stand Naked-Tales From The White House Bunker. And will
continue to overlap the two-Summer of Love and Age of Trump for as long as it
seems relevant. So there you are caught up. Ifs not then I have included
hopefully for the last time the latest cross-over Thompson idea.
************
Zack James comment, Summer of 2017
Maybe it says something about the times we live in, or maybe
in this instance happenstance or, hell maybe something in the water but certain
things sort of dovetail every now and again. I initially started this
commentary segment after having written a longest piece for my brother and his
friends as part of a small tribute booklet they were putting together about my and
their takes on the Summer of Love, 1967. That event that my brother, Alex, had
been knee deep in had always interested me from afar since I was way too young
to have appreciated what was happening in San Francisco in those Wild West
days. What got him motivated to do the booklet had been an exhibit at the de
Young Art Museum in Golden Gate Park where they were celebrating the 50th
anniversary of the events of that summer with a look at the music, fashion,
photography and exquisite poster art which was created then just as vivid
advertising for concerts and “happenings” but which now is legitimate artful
expression.
That project subsequently got me started thinking about the
late Hunter Thompson, Doctor Gonzo, the driving force behind a new way of
looking at and presenting journalism which was really much closer to the nub of
what real reporting was about. Initially I was interested in some of Thompson’s
reportage on what was what in San Francisco as he touched the elbows of those
times having spent a fair amount of time working on his seminal book on the
Hell’s Angels while all hell was breaking out in Frisco town. Delved into with
all hands and legs the high points and the low, the ebb which he located
somewhere between the Chicago Democratic Convention fiasco of the summer of
1968 and the hellish Rollins Stones Altamont concert of 1969.
Here is what is important today though, about how the dots
get connected out of seemingly random occurrences. Hunter Thompson also made
his mark as a searing no holds barred mano y mano reporter of the rise and
fall, of the worthy demise of one Richard Milhous Nixon at one time President
of the United States and a common low-life criminal of ill-repute. Needless to
say today, the summer of 2107, in the age of one Donald Trump, another
President of the United States and common low-life criminal begs the obvious
question of what the sorely missed Doctor Gonzo would have made of the whole
process of the self-destruction of another American presidency, or a damn good
run at self-destruction. So today and maybe occasionally in the future there
will be some intertwining of commentary about events fifty years ago and today.
Below to catch readers up to speed is the most recent “homage” to Hunter
Thompson. And you too I hope will ask the pertinent question. Hunter where are
you when we need, desperately need, you.
*******
Zack James comment, Summer of 2017
You know it is in a way too bad that “Doctor Gonzo”-Hunter S
Thompson, the late legendary journalist who broke the back, hell broke the
neck, legs, arms of so-called objective journalism in a drug-blazed frenzy back
in the 1970s when he “walked with the king”’ is not with us in these times. (Walking
with the king not about walking with any king or Doctor King but being so high
on drugs, your choice, that commin clay experiences fall by the way side. In
the times of this 50th anniversary commemoration of the Summer of
Love, 1967 which he worked the edges of while he was doing research (live and
in your face research by the way) on the notorious West Coast-based Hell’s
Angels. His “hook” through Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters down in Kesey’s
place in La Honda where many an “acid test” took place, where many walked with
the king, if you prefer, and where for a time the Angels, Hunter in tow, were
welcomed. He had been there in the high tide, when it looked like we had the
night-takers on the run and later as well when he saw the ebb tide of the 1960s
coming a year or so later although that did not stop him from developing the
quintessential “gonzo” journalism fine-tuned with plenty of dope for which he
would become famous before the end, before he took his aging life and left
Johnny Depp and company to fling his ashes over this good green planet. He
would have “dug” the exhibition, maybe smoked a joint for old times’ sake (oh
no, no that is not done in proper society, in high art society these days) at
the de Young Museum at the Golden Gate Park highlighting the events of the
period showing until August 20th of this year.
Better yet he would have had this Trump thug bizarre
weirdness wrapped up and bleeding from all pores just like he regaled us with
the tales from the White House bunker back in the days when Trump’s kindred one
Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal was
running the same low rent trip before he was run out of town by his own like
some rabid rat. He would have gone crazy seeing all the crew deserting the
sinking U.S.S. Trump with guys like fired FBI Director Comey going to Capitol
Hill and saying out loud the emperor has no clothes and would not know the
truth if it grabbed him by the throat. Every day would be a feast day. But
perhaps the road to truth these days, in the days of “alternate facts” and
assorted other bullshit would have been bumpier than in those more “civilized”
times when simple burglaries and silly tape-recorders ruled the roost. Hunter
did not make the Nixon “hit list” (to his everlasting regret for which he could
hardly hold his head up in public) but these days he surely would find himself
in the top echelon. Maybe too though with these thugs who like their forbears
would stop at nothing he might have found himself in some back alley bleeding
from all pores. Hunter Thompson wherever you are –help. Selah. Enough said-for
now
CD REVIEW
Janis Joplin: 18 Essential Songs, Janis Joplin with Big Brother and The Holding Company, Columbia Records, 1995
It is virtually a truism that every generation has its own cultural icons, for better or worst. The 1960’s, the time of this reviewer’s “Generation of ‘68”, was no exception. Although there were no official creeds in the matter, in fact we scorned such thinking, a rough translation of what we thought we were about then could be summed up as follows- live fast, live young and live forever. Other, later generations have put their own imprint on that theme although I sense without our basically naïve and hopeful expectations of that phrase. All this is by way of saying that the artist under review, urban white blues and soul singer Janis Joplin, was one of our icons. That she crashed and burned well before her time, and well before forever, only adds poignancy to her fate.
The role of “blues mama” for a generation is certainly no task for the faint-hearted, as Janis’s life, life style, and fame attest to. That she was able to translate the black blues idiom and style of the likes of her idol “Big Mama” Thornton, of necessity, had to take its toll on that tiny hard scrabble Texas-raised body. But that is the fundamental tragedy (and beauty) of the blues. Not only must you ‘pay your dues’ but this genre cannot be faked. If you have not lived a hard scrabble existence, faced the depths of what society has to offer and come out swinging you flat-out cannot convey that message the way it is suppose to be done. Janis could. Other white women blues singers as fine performers as they are, like Tracey Nelson and Rory Block, approximate that sound but there is just a little too much “refinement” in the voice to pass this test.
So what did Janis (and her fellow musicians of Big Brother and The Holding Company who generally rose to the occasion and created great sounds to go with that Joplin voice) leave us? Well, as contained in this above average CD compilation of her work, most of the essential woman’s blues numbers of the 1960’s that will stand the test of time. Not bad, right? Start off, as always, with ‘Big Mama’s” “Ball and Chain” (that blew them away at the Monterrey Pops Festival). Move on to the classic Gershwin tune “Summertime”. Feast on her own “I Need A Man To Love” and “Kozmic Blues”. And close out with Kris Kristofferson’s 1960’s traveling anthem “Me And Booby McGee”. And in between a dozen more memorable tunes. I defy anyone to find a song in this compilation that is less than above average. And that kind of says it all. Janis Joplin’s star burned out far too quickly and those of us from her generation are now coming to terms with the fact that, despite our youthful beliefs, we will not live forever. Her music, however, will.
Ball And Chain lyrics
Sittin’ down by my window, Honey, lookin’ out at the rain. Oh, Lord, Lord, sittin’ down by my window, Baby, lookin’ out at the rain. Somethin’ came along, grabbed a hold of me, honey, And it felt just like a ball and chain. Honey, that’s exactly what it felt like, Honey, just dragging me down.
And I say, oh, whoa, whoa, now hon’, tell me why, Why does every single little tiny thing I hold on to go wrong ? Yeah it goes wrong, yeah. And I say, oh, whoa, whoa, now babe, tell me why, Does every thing, every thing. Hey, here you gone today, I wanted to love you, I just wanted to hold you, I said, for so long, Yeah! Alright! Hey!
Love’s got a hold on me, baby, Feels like a ball and chain. Now, love’s just draggin’ me down, baby, Feels like a ball and chain. I hope there’s someone out there who could tell me Why the man I love wanna leave me in so much pain. Yeah, maybe, maybe you could help me, come on, help me!
And I say, oh, whoa, whoa, now hon’, tell me why, Now tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me why, yeah. And I say, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, when I ask you, When I need to know why, c’mon tell me why, hey hey hey, Here you’ve gone today, I wanted to love you and hold you Till the day I die. I said whoa, whoa, whoa!!
And I say oh, whoa, whoa, no honey It ain’t fair, daddy it ain’t fair what you do, I see what you’re doin’ to me and you know it ain’t fair. And I say oh, whoa whoa now baby It ain’t fair, now, now, now, what you do I said hon’ it ain’t fair what, hon’ it ain’t fair what you do. Oh, here you gone today and all I ever wanted to do Was to love you Honey you can still hear me rock and roll the best, Only it ain’t roll, no, no, no, no, no.
Sittin’ down by my window, Lookin’ out at the rain. Lord, Lord, Lord, sittin’ down by my window, Lookin’ out at the rain, see the rain. Somethin’ came along, grabbed a hold of me, And it felt like a ball and chain. Oh this can’t be in vain And I’m gonna tell you one more time, yeah, yeah!
And I say oh, whoa whoa, now baby This can’t be, no this can’t be in vain, And I say no no no no no no no no, whoa, And I say whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa Now now now now now now now now now no no not in vain Hey, hope there is someone that could tell me Hon’, tell me why love is like Just like a ball Just like a ball Baaaaaaalllll Oh daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy And a chain. Yeah.
Call On Me lyrics
Well, baby, when times are bad, Now call on me, darling, and I’ll come to you. When you’re in trouble and feel so sad, Well, call on me, darling, come on call on me, and I’ll help you. Yeah!
A man and a woman have each other, baby, To find their way in this world. I need you, darling, like the fish needs the sea, Don’t take your sweet, your sweet love from me.
Baby, when you’re down and feel so blue, Well, no, you won’t drown, darling, I’ll be there too. You’re not alone, I’m there too, Whatever your troubles, honey, I don’t care.
A man and a woman have each other, baby, To find their way in this world. I need you, darling, like the fish needs the sea, Don’t take your sweet, sweet love from me!
Please! So baby, when times are bad, Call on me, darling, just call on me.
I Need A Man To Love lyrics
Whoa, I need a man to love me. Don’t you understand me, baby ? Why, I need a man to love. I gotta find him, I gotta have him like the air I breathe. One lovin’ man to understand can’t be too much to need.
You know it Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be this loneliness Baby, surrounding me.
No, no, know it just can’t be No it just can’t be There’s got to be some kind of answer. No it just can’t be And everywhere I look, there’s none around No it just can’t be Whoa, it can’t be No it just can’t be, oh no! Whoa, hear me now.
Whoa, won’t you let me hold you ? Honey, just close your eyes. Whoa, won’t you let me hold you, dear ? I want to just put my arms around ya, like the circles going ‘round the sun. Let me hold you daddy, at least until the morning comes.
Because it Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be this loneliness Baby, surrounding me. No, no, no it just can’t be. No it just can’t be Oh, baby, baby, baby, baby, just can’t be. No, no, no No it just can’t be
And why can’t anyone ever tell me, now ? No it just can’t be I wake up one morning, I realize No it just can’t be Whoa, it can’t be. No it just can’t be Now go!
Whoa, I need a man to love me Oh, maybe you can help me, please. Why, I need a man to love. But I believe that someday and somehow it’s bound to come along Because when all my dreams and all my plans just cannot turn out wrong.
You know it Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be just loneliness Baby, surrounding me
No, no, no, it just can’t be No it just can’t be Oh, baby, baby, baby, baby, it just can’t be No it just can’t be And who could be foolin’ me ? No it just can’t be I’ve got all this happiness No it just can’t be Come, come, come on, come on, come on, and help me now. No it just can’t be Please, can’t you hear my cry ? No it just can’t be Whoa, help ...
The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love, 1967-The “Blues Mama” Of “The Generation Of ‘68”- The Music Of Janis Joplin
Zack James’ comment June, 2017:
Sometimes you just have to follow the bouncing ball like in
those old time sing along cartoons they used to have back in say the 1950s,the
time I remember them from, on Saturday afternoon matinees at the old now long
gone Stand Theater in my growing up town of North Adamsville. Follow me for a
minute here I won’t be long. Earlier this spring my oldest brother, Alex, took
attended a conference in San Francisco which he has done periodically for
years. While there he noticed an advertisement on a bus for something called
the Summer of Love Experience at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. That
ad immediately caught his attention he had been out there that year and had
participated in those events at the urging of his friend Peter Paul Markin who
was something of a holy goof (a Jack Kerouac term of art), a low rent prophet,
and a street criminal all in one. When Alex got back to the East after having
attended the exhibition he got in contact with me to help him, and the still
standing corner boys who also had gone out West at Markin’s urging to put
together a tribute booklet honoring Markin and the whole experience.
After completing that project, or maybe while completing it
I kept on thinking about the late Hunter S. Thompson who at one time was the
driving force behind gonzo journalism and had before his suicide about a decade
ago been something of a muse to me. At first my thoughts were about how
Thompson would have taken the exhibition at the de Young since a lot of what he
wrote about in the 1960s and 1970s was where the various counter-cultural
trends were, or were not, going. But then as the current national political
situation in America in the Trump Age has turned to crap, to craziness and
straight out weirdness I began to think about how Thompson would have handled
the 24/7/365 craziness these days since he had been an unremitting searing
critic of another President of the United States who also had low-life
instincts, one Richard Milhous Nixon.
The intertwining of the two stands came to head recently
over the fired FBI director James Comey hearings where he essentially said that
the emperor had no clothes. So I have been inserting various Thompson-like
comments in an occasional series I am running in various on-line publications-Even The President Of The United States
Sometimes Must Have To Stand Naked-Tales From The White House Bunker. And will
continue to overlap the two-Summer of Love and Age of Trump for as long as it
seems relevant. So there you are caught up. Ifs not then I have included
hopefully for the last time the latest cross-over Thompson idea.
************
Zack James comment, Summer of 2017
Maybe it says something about the times we live in, or maybe
in this instance happenstance or, hell maybe something in the water but certain
things sort of dovetail every now and again. I initially started this
commentary segment after having written a longest piece for my brother and his
friends as part of a small tribute booklet they were putting together about my and
their takes on the Summer of Love, 1967. That event that my brother, Alex, had
been knee deep in had always interested me from afar since I was way too young
to have appreciated what was happening in San Francisco in those Wild West
days. What got him motivated to do the booklet had been an exhibit at the de
Young Art Museum in Golden Gate Park where they were celebrating the 50th
anniversary of the events of that summer with a look at the music, fashion,
photography and exquisite poster art which was created then just as vivid
advertising for concerts and “happenings” but which now is legitimate artful
expression.
That project subsequently got me started thinking about the
late Hunter Thompson, Doctor Gonzo, the driving force behind a new way of
looking at and presenting journalism which was really much closer to the nub of
what real reporting was about. Initially I was interested in some of Thompson’s
reportage on what was what in San Francisco as he touched the elbows of those
times having spent a fair amount of time working on his seminal book on the
Hell’s Angels while all hell was breaking out in Frisco town. Delved into with
all hands and legs the high points and the low, the ebb which he located
somewhere between the Chicago Democratic Convention fiasco of the summer of
1968 and the hellish Rollins Stones Altamont concert of 1969.
Here is what is important today though, about how the dots
get connected out of seemingly random occurrences. Hunter Thompson also made
his mark as a searing no holds barred mano y mano reporter of the rise and
fall, of the worthy demise of one Richard Milhous Nixon at one time President
of the United States and a common low-life criminal of ill-repute. Needless to
say today, the summer of 2107, in the age of one Donald Trump, another
President of the United States and common low-life criminal begs the obvious
question of what the sorely missed Doctor Gonzo would have made of the whole
process of the self-destruction of another American presidency, or a damn good
run at self-destruction. So today and maybe occasionally in the future there
will be some intertwining of commentary about events fifty years ago and today.
Below to catch readers up to speed is the most recent “homage” to Hunter
Thompson. And you too I hope will ask the pertinent question. Hunter where are
you when we need, desperately need, you.
*******
Zack James comment, Summer of 2017
You know it is in a way too bad that “Doctor Gonzo”-Hunter S
Thompson, the late legendary journalist who broke the back, hell broke the
neck, legs, arms of so-called objective journalism in a drug-blazed frenzy back
in the 1970s when he “walked with the king”’ is not with us in these times. (Walking
with the king not about walking with any king or Doctor King but being so high
on drugs, your choice, that commin clay experiences fall by the way side. In
the times of this 50th anniversary commemoration of the Summer of
Love, 1967 which he worked the edges of while he was doing research (live and
in your face research by the way) on the notorious West Coast-based Hell’s
Angels. His “hook” through Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters down in Kesey’s
place in La Honda where many an “acid test” took place, where many walked with
the king, if you prefer, and where for a time the Angels, Hunter in tow, were
welcomed. He had been there in the high tide, when it looked like we had the
night-takers on the run and later as well when he saw the ebb tide of the 1960s
coming a year or so later although that did not stop him from developing the
quintessential “gonzo” journalism fine-tuned with plenty of dope for which he
would become famous before the end, before he took his aging life and left
Johnny Depp and company to fling his ashes over this good green planet. He
would have “dug” the exhibition, maybe smoked a joint for old times’ sake (oh
no, no that is not done in proper society, in high art society these days) at
the de Young Museum at the Golden Gate Park highlighting the events of the
period showing until August 20th of this year.
Better yet he would have had this Trump thug bizarre
weirdness wrapped up and bleeding from all pores just like he regaled us with
the tales from the White House bunker back in the days when Trump’s kindred one
Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal was
running the same low rent trip before he was run out of town by his own like
some rabid rat. He would have gone crazy seeing all the crew deserting the
sinking U.S.S. Trump with guys like fired FBI Director Comey going to Capitol
Hill and saying out loud the emperor has no clothes and would not know the
truth if it grabbed him by the throat. Every day would be a feast day. But
perhaps the road to truth these days, in the days of “alternate facts” and
assorted other bullshit would have been bumpier than in those more “civilized”
times when simple burglaries and silly tape-recorders ruled the roost. Hunter
did not make the Nixon “hit list” (to his everlasting regret for which he could
hardly hold his head up in public) but these days he surely would find himself
in the top echelon. Maybe too though with these thugs who like their forbears
would stop at nothing he might have found himself in some back alley bleeding
from all pores. Hunter Thompson wherever you are –help. Selah. Enough said-for
now
CD REVIEW Janis Joplin: 18 Essential Songs, Janis Joplin with Big Brother and The Holding Company, Columbia Records, 1995 It is virtually a truism that every generation has its own cultural icons, for better or worst. The 1960’s, the time of this reviewer’s “Generation of ‘68”, was no exception. Although there were no official creeds in the matter, in fact we scorned such thinking, a rough translation of what we thought we were about then could be summed up as follows- live fast, live young and live forever. Other, later generations have put their own imprint on that theme although I sense without our basically naïve and hopeful expectations of that phrase. All this is by way of saying that the artist under review, urban white blues and soul singer Janis Joplin, was one of our icons. That she crashed and burned well before her time, and well before forever, only adds poignancy to her fate. The role of “blues mama” for a generation is certainly no task for the faint-hearted, as Janis’s life, life style, and fame attest to. That she was able to translate the black blues idiom and style of the likes of her idol “Big Mama” Thornton, of necessity, had to take its toll on that tiny hard scrabble Texas-raised body. But that is the fundamental tragedy (and beauty) of the blues. Not only must you ‘pay your dues’ but this genre cannot be faked. If you have not lived a hard scrabble existence, faced the depths of what society has to offer and come out swinging you flat-out cannot convey that message the way it is suppose to be done. Janis could. Other white women blues singers as fine performers as they are, like Tracey Nelson and Rory Block, approximate that sound but there is just a little too much “refinement” in the voice to pass this test. So what did Janis (and her fellow musicians of Big Brother and The Holding Company who generally rose to the occasion and created great sounds to go with that Joplin voice) leave us? Well, as contained in this above average CD compilation of her work, most of the essential woman’s blues numbers of the 1960’s that will stand the test of time. Not bad, right? Start off, as always, with ‘Big Mama’s” “Ball and Chain” (that blew them away at the Monterrey Pops Festival). Move on to the classic Gershwin tune “Summertime”. Feast on her own “I Need A Man To Love” and “Kozmic Blues”. And close out with Kris Kristofferson’s 1960’s traveling anthem “Me And Booby McGee”. And in between a dozen more memorable tunes. I defy anyone to find a song in this compilation that is less than above average. And that kind of says it all. Janis Joplin’s star burned out far too quickly and those of us from her generation are now coming to terms with the fact that, despite our youthful beliefs, we will not live forever. Her music, however, will. Ball And Chain lyrics Sittin’ down by my window, Honey, lookin’ out at the rain. Oh, Lord, Lord, sittin’ down by my window, Baby, lookin’ out at the rain. Somethin’ came along, grabbed a hold of me, honey, And it felt just like a ball and chain. Honey, that’s exactly what it felt like, Honey, just dragging me down. And I say, oh, whoa, whoa, now hon’, tell me why, Why does every single little tiny thing I hold on to go wrong ? Yeah it goes wrong, yeah. And I say, oh, whoa, whoa, now babe, tell me why, Does every thing, every thing. Hey, here you gone today, I wanted to love you, I just wanted to hold you, I said, for so long, Yeah! Alright! Hey! Love’s got a hold on me, baby, Feels like a ball and chain. Now, love’s just draggin’ me down, baby, Feels like a ball and chain. I hope there’s someone out there who could tell me Why the man I love wanna leave me in so much pain. Yeah, maybe, maybe you could help me, come on, help me! And I say, oh, whoa, whoa, now hon’, tell me why, Now tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me why, yeah. And I say, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, when I ask you, When I need to know why, c’mon tell me why, hey hey hey, Here you’ve gone today, I wanted to love you and hold you Till the day I die. I said whoa, whoa, whoa!! And I say oh, whoa, whoa, no honey It ain’t fair, daddy it ain’t fair what you do, I see what you’re doin’ to me and you know it ain’t fair. And I say oh, whoa whoa now baby It ain’t fair, now, now, now, what you do I said hon’ it ain’t fair what, hon’ it ain’t fair what you do. Oh, here you gone today and all I ever wanted to do Was to love you Honey you can still hear me rock and roll the best, Only it ain’t roll, no, no, no, no, no. Sittin’ down by my window, Lookin’ out at the rain. Lord, Lord, Lord, sittin’ down by my window, Lookin’ out at the rain, see the rain. Somethin’ came along, grabbed a hold of me, And it felt like a ball and chain. Oh this can’t be in vain And I’m gonna tell you one more time, yeah, yeah! And I say oh, whoa whoa, now baby This can’t be, no this can’t be in vain, And I say no no no no no no no no, whoa, And I say whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa Now now now now now now now now now no no not in vain Hey, hope there is someone that could tell me Hon’, tell me why love is like Just like a ball Just like a ball Baaaaaaalllll Oh daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy And a chain. Yeah. Call On Me lyrics Well, baby, when times are bad, Now call on me, darling, and I’ll come to you. When you’re in trouble and feel so sad, Well, call on me, darling, come on call on me, and I’ll help you. Yeah! A man and a woman have each other, baby, To find their way in this world. I need you, darling, like the fish needs the sea, Don’t take your sweet, your sweet love from me. Baby, when you’re down and feel so blue, Well, no, you won’t drown, darling, I’ll be there too. You’re not alone, I’m there too, Whatever your troubles, honey, I don’t care. A man and a woman have each other, baby, To find their way in this world. I need you, darling, like the fish needs the sea, Don’t take your sweet, sweet love from me! Please! So baby, when times are bad, Call on me, darling, just call on me. I Need A Man To Love lyrics Whoa, I need a man to love me. Don’t you understand me, baby ? Why, I need a man to love. I gotta find him, I gotta have him like the air I breathe. One lovin’ man to understand can’t be too much to need. You know it Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be this loneliness Baby, surrounding me. No, no, know it just can’t be No it just can’t be There’s got to be some kind of answer. No it just can’t be And everywhere I look, there’s none around No it just can’t be Whoa, it can’t be No it just can’t be, oh no! Whoa, hear me now. Whoa, won’t you let me hold you ? Honey, just close your eyes. Whoa, won’t you let me hold you, dear ? I want to just put my arms around ya, like the circles going ‘round the sun. Let me hold you daddy, at least until the morning comes. Because it Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be this loneliness Baby, surrounding me. No, no, no it just can’t be. No it just can’t be Oh, baby, baby, baby, baby, just can’t be. No, no, no No it just can’t be And why can’t anyone ever tell me, now ? No it just can’t be I wake up one morning, I realize No it just can’t be Whoa, it can’t be. No it just can’t be Now go! Whoa, I need a man to love me Oh, maybe you can help me, please. Why, I need a man to love. But I believe that someday and somehow it’s bound to come along Because when all my dreams and all my plans just cannot turn out wrong. You know it Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be now Oh no Can’t be just loneliness Baby, surrounding me No, no, no, it just can’t be No it just can’t be Oh, baby, baby, baby, baby, it just can’t be No it just can’t be And who could be foolin’ me ? No it just can’t be I’ve got all this happiness No it just can’t be Come, come, come on, come on, come on, and help me now. No it just can’t be Please, can’t you hear my cry ? No it just can’t be Whoa, help ...
Newly Found Photos Show Janis Joplin's Final Concert — 45 Years Ago At Harvard
Peter Warrack’s photo of Janis Joplin performing at Harvard Stadium, Aug. 12, 1970. (House of Roulx)
The evening of Aug. 12, 1970, was a warm one. Harvard Stadium had been transformed into a concert arena with the addition of rows upon rows of seats onto the field. An estimated 40,000 spectators were crammed inside. After it was discovered that some sound equipment had been stolen, the show was delayed. According to several accounts, the crowd was restless, near rioting. They were waiting for Janis Joplin. “Oddly, while we were sitting there—and the crowd was getting into something, it became very smoky and sweet there, let’s put it that way—we could see, straight ahead, the open-scaffolding stage,” says Kevin McElroy, who was seated near the front with his boyfriend, Peter Warrack. “Janis was underneath. And she had a bottle of Southern Comfort, and she was just in a world of her own there. She just was doing what she wanted to do in the moment. After another hour-and-a-half or so—it was really quite a delay—she literally burst onto the stage. It was just electric.”
Peter Warrack’s photo of Janis Joplin performing at Harvard Stadium, Aug. 12, 1970. (House of Roulx)
Two months later, Joplin was dead. That near-disaster concert at Harvard Stadium, it turned out, was her last public performance. It was a special night for Warrack as well. An amateur photographer who liked to photograph celebrities and collect autographs, he shot almost a whole roll of film from down in the front, a telephoto lens aimed upward at the star as she threw herself across the stage. Concerts weren’t documented as thoroughly back then as they are now, thanks to Instagram and Twitter and a camera on every smartphone, so those 24 black-and-white close-ups are, seemingly, some of the few existing relics of the historic concert. The Liverpool-born Warrack died in 2008, but nearly his entire collection of photographs—around 15,000—remained unpublished during his lifetime. Until recently they languished in a vast collection of binders in several closets at McElroy’s residence in Boston’s South End. House of Roulx—a Danvers-based operator of an online boutique selling celebrity photos, reproductions of funny sci-fi art and copies of curious old photos—acquired the entire collection this year. Individual prints as well as a limited edition box set of the Joplin series are available for purchase on the House of Roulx website.
Peter Warrack’s photo of Janis Joplin performing at Harvard Stadium, Aug. 12, 1970. (House of Roulx)
“This wasn’t just a guy who was celebrity star-struck who snapped pictures, he was actually a really good photographer,” says House of Roulx’s Jared Gendron. “Because there’s a difference between someone who just runs around snapping pictures paparazzi-style in the 1970s, versus somebody who has that artistic eye.” Taken together, Warrack’s photographs of Joplin are like a flip-book of the 27-year-old singer that capture a few fleeting, candid moments onstage. They are portraits, really, set against a black background, zoomed in close enough to count the bracelets on her wrist. In one shot, she holds a finger pensively to her lips. In another, she radiates, smiling as she looks over her shoulder. One photo captures her in motion, a blur of sweat and song. “She was feeling no pain, literally,” says McElroy. “She was interacting with the audience in almost a—well, it wasn’t almost, it was, it was a sexual banter back and forth. They were calling up to her, they wanted her, and she wanted them. At one point in time she says, ‘Yeah, I’ll take you on. One at a time. One at a time.’ That was part of who she was.”
Peter Warrack’s photo of Janis Joplin performing at Harvard Stadium, Aug. 12, 1970. (House of Roulx)
When Joplin died on Oct. 4, 1970, Reuters ran an obituary that spent as much time detailing her boozy, contentious persona as her actual musicianship. In the years since, she has become something of a feminist icon, in addition to a bona fide rock ‘n’ roll legend. Her voice—that gravelly, SoCo-soaked voice—epitomizes the capacity of a rare kind of greatness to translate pain into art. “I think people today might not understand—you know, Janis was young, she was only 20-odd, and she was one of our current rock stars,” says McElroy. “She was just somebody who was touring, and somebody who was good, and somebody you wanted to see. Over the last 45 years, Janis has become something else, in a way most people who die young do become. And I think young people today would look at Janis and not see her in the same light that we did.” In McElroy’s telling, Warrack’s work was driven by a fascination with both the glamour of celebrity as well as the humanity behind it. The photographs of Joplin, he says, show a side of her that has been largely erased by her iconic status and all that she symbolizes now. “I think we see something different when we look back,” says McElroy. “I don’t think we see just Janis herself. [That night] was just Janis, performing. It was wonderful.”
Peter Warrack’s photo of Janis Joplin performing at Harvard Stadium, Aug. 12, 1970. (House of Roulx)
*The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love-AND AGAIN-WE WANT THE WORLD, AND WE WANT IT NOW! - The Music Of Jim Morrison And The Doors
Zack James comment: My
oldest brother, Alex, who was in the thick of the Summer of Love along with his
corner boys from North Adamsville above all the later Peter Paul Markin who led
them out to the Wild West said that the few times that he/they saw The Doors
either in Golden Gate Park at free, I repeat, free outdoor concerts or at the
Avalon or Fillmore which were a great deal more expensive, say two or three
dollars, I repeat two or three dollars that The Doors when they were on,
meaning when Jim Morrison was in high dungeon, was in a drug-induced trance and
acted the shaman for the audience nobody was better. Having been about a decade
behind and having never seen Morrison in high dungeon or as a drug-induced
shaman but having listened to various Doors compilations I think for once old
Alex was on to something. Listen up.
CD Review
Waiting For The Sun, Jim Morrison and the Doors, Rhino, 2007
Since my youth I have had an ear for American (and other roots music), whether I was conscious of that fact or not. The origin of that interest first centered on the blues, then early rock and roll and later, with the folk revival of the early 1960’s, folk music. I have often wondered about the source of this interest. I am, and have always been a city boy, and an Eastern city boy at that. Nevertheless, over time I have come to appreciate many more forms of roots music than in my youth. The subject of the following review is an example.
The Doors are roots music? Yes, in the sense that one of the branches of rock and roll derives from early rhythm and blues and in the special case of Jim Morrison, leader of the Doors, the attempt to musically explore the shamanic elements in the Western American Native American culture. Some of that influence is apparent here.
More than one rock critic has argued that at their best the Doors were the best rock and roll band ever created. Those critics will get no argument here. What a reviewer with that opinion has to do is determine whether any particular CD captures the Doors at their best. This reviewer advises that if you want to buy only one Doors CD that would be The Best of the Doors. If you want to trace their evolution other CD’s, like this “Waiting For The Sun” album do an adequate job. Stick outs here include: the anti-war classic "The Unknown Soldier," “Love Street,” and "Spanish Caravan".
A note on Jim Morrison as an icon of the 1960s. He was part of the trinity – Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix who lived fast and died young. The slogan- Drugs, sex, and rock and roll. And we liked that idea. Then. Their deaths were part of the price we felt we had to pay if we were going to be free. And creative. Even the most political, including this writer, among us felt those cultural winds and counted those who espoused this vision as part of the chosen. Those who believed that we could have a far-reaching positive cultural change without a political change proved to be wrong long ago. But, these were still our people.
MARK THIS WELL. Whatever excesses were committed by the generation of ’68, and there were many, were mainly made out of ignorance and foolishness. Our opponents at the time, exemplified by one Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal, spent every day of their lives as a matter of conscious, deliberate policy raining hell down on the peoples of the world, minorities in this country, and anyone else who got in their way. 40 years of ‘cultural wars’ by his protégés in revenge is a heavy price to pay for our youthful errors. Enough.
The Unknown Soldier Lyrics
Wait until the war is over And we're both a little older The unknown soldier
Breakfast where the news is read Television children fed Unborn living, living dead Bullet strikes the helmet's head
And it's all over For the unknown soldier It's all over For the unknown soldier, uh hu-uh
Hut! Hut! Hut ho hee up! Hut! Hut! Hut ho hee up! Hut! Hut! Hut ho hee up! Comp'nee, Halt! Pree-sent arms!
Make a grave for the unknown soldier Nestled in your hollow shoulder The unknown soldier
Breakfast where the news is read Television children fed Bullet strikes the helmet's head
And, it's all over, The war is over. It's all over, war is over. It's all over, baby! All over, baby! All, all over, yeah! Aah, hah-hah. All over, all over, babe! Oh! Oh yeah! All over, all over! Ye-e-e-ah…
