Click on the headline to link to a "New York Times" entry for the late jazz/blues singer Lena Horne.
Markin comment:
I have hear the classic jazz/blues song "Stormy Weather", a song forever associated with the name of Lena Horne, done by many singers. None, and I mean none, ever had me stop doing what I was doing to listen, and listen again and again like Ms. Horne did. That is tribute enough, I think. Farewell, Lena.
"Stormy Weather" Lyrics
Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
Keeps raining all the time, the time
Life is bare, gloom and misery everywhere
Stormy weather, just can't get my poor self together
It's raining all the time, the time
When you went, you went away, the blues walked in and met me
If he stays away, ol' rocking chair will get me
All I do is pray, the Lord above will let me walk in the sun once more
Can't go on, everything I had is gone
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
It's raining all the time
I walk around, heavy-hearted and sad
Night comes around and I'm still feeling bad
Rain's pouring down, blinding every hope I had
This pitterin pattering, beating and spattering drives Me Mad
Love, Love, Love, this misery's just too much for me
Can't go on, everything I have is gone
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
It's raining all the time, keeps raining all the time
Showing posts with label W.E.B. Dubois. Show all posts
Showing posts with label W.E.B. Dubois. Show all posts
Monday, May 10, 2010
*Songs To While The Class Struggle By- Lena Horne's "Stromy Weather"-With A Tear
Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of the late Lena Horne performing her classic cover of "Stormy Weather" in sunnier days.
Markin comment:
Yes, with a tear.
"Stormy Weather" Lyrics
Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
Keeps raining all the time, the time
Life is bare, gloom and misery everywhere
Stormy weather, just can't get my poor self together
It's raining all the time, the time
When you went, you went away, the blues walked in and met me
If he stays away, ol' rocking chair will get me
All I do is pray, the Lord above will let me walk in the sun once more
Can't go on, everything I had is gone
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
It's raining all the time
I walk around, heavy-hearted and sad
Night comes around and I'm still feeling bad
Rain's pouring down, blinding every hope I had
This pitterin pattering, beating and spattering drives Me Mad
Love, Love, Love, this misery's just too much for me
Can't go on, everything I have is gone
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
It's raining all the time, keeps raining all the time
Markin comment:
Yes, with a tear.
"Stormy Weather" Lyrics
Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
Keeps raining all the time, the time
Life is bare, gloom and misery everywhere
Stormy weather, just can't get my poor self together
It's raining all the time, the time
When you went, you went away, the blues walked in and met me
If he stays away, ol' rocking chair will get me
All I do is pray, the Lord above will let me walk in the sun once more
Can't go on, everything I had is gone
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
It's raining all the time
I walk around, heavy-hearted and sad
Night comes around and I'm still feeling bad
Rain's pouring down, blinding every hope I had
This pitterin pattering, beating and spattering drives Me Mad
Love, Love, Love, this misery's just too much for me
Can't go on, everything I have is gone
Stormy weather since my man and I ain't together
It's raining all the time, keeps raining all the time
Thursday, February 25, 2010
*Black Studies Pioneer Professor John Hope Franklin Passes On- A Belated Tribute
Click on the headline to link to a "The New York Times" obituary, dated March 25, 2009, for the pioneer black studies scholar, Professor John Hope Franklin.
February Is Black History Month
Markin comment:
Somehow I missed the passing of this great black studies academic pioneer last year, a vital source for my knowledge of black history in my youth when this kind of information was not readily available, or had not been "discovered". My missing his passing is strange as well since last February (2009) I reviewed his "Black Reconstruction" as part of Black History Month. I make belated amends here. Hats off to Professor Franklin.
February Is Black History Month
Markin comment:
Somehow I missed the passing of this great black studies academic pioneer last year, a vital source for my knowledge of black history in my youth when this kind of information was not readily available, or had not been "discovered". My missing his passing is strange as well since last February (2009) I reviewed his "Black Reconstruction" as part of Black History Month. I make belated amends here. Hats off to Professor Franklin.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
*Searching For The Roots- August Wilson's "Radio Golf"
Click On Title To Link To August Wilson Homepage.
Play Review
Radio Golf (1997), August Wilson, Theater Communications Group, New York, 2007
Okay, blame it on the recently departed Studs Terkel and his damn interview books. I had just been reading his "The Spectator", a compilation of some of his interviews of various authors, actors and other celebrities from his long-running Chicago radio program when I came across an interview that he had with the playwright under review here, August Wilson. Of course, that interview dealt with things near and dear to their hearts on the cultural front and mine as well. Our mutual love of the blues, our concerns about the history and fate of black people and the other oppressed of capitalist society and our need to express ourselves politically in the best way we can. For Studs it was the incessant interviews, for me it is incessant political activity and for the late August Wilson it was his incessant devotion to his century cycle of ten plays that covered a range of black experiences over the 20th century.
Strangely, although I was familiar with the name of the playwright August Wilson and was aware that he had produced a number of plays that were performed at a college-sponsored repertory theater here in Boston I had not seen or read his plays prior to reading the Terkel interview. Naturally when I read there that one of the plays being discussed was entitled "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" about the legendary female blues singer from the 1920's I ran out to get a copy of the play. That play has been reviewed elsewhere in this space but as is my habit when I read an author who "speaks" to me I grab everything I can by him or her to see where they are going with the work. This is doubly true in the case of Brother Wilson as his work is purposefully structured as an integrated cycle, and as an intensive dramatic look at the black historical experience of the 20th century that has driven a lot of my own above-mentioned political activism.
By the time that this review appears I will have already reviewed five of the ten plays in August Wilson’s Century cycle. On the first five I believe that I ran out of fulsome praise for his work and particularly for his tightly woven story and dialogue. Rather than keep following that path for the next five plays I would prefer to concentrate on some of the dialogue that makes Brother Wilson’s work so compelling. For those who want to peek at my general observations you can look at my review of “Gem Of The Ocean” (the first play chronologically in the cycle).
In all previously reviewed plays I noticed some piece of dialogue that seemed to me to sum up the essence of the play. Sometimes that is done by the lead character as was the case with Troy Maxton in “Fences” when he (correctly) stated that there should been “no too early” in regard to the possibilities of black achievement and prospects in America. Other times it is by a secondary character in the form of some handed down black folk wisdom passed on as means to survive in racially-hardened America. In “Radio Golf” this task falls to Roosevelt Hicks, a man who has been a beneficiary of some affirmative action by the white establishment (as always not directly present in the story line as it unfolds), when he candidly and ironically notes that when heading to the golf club with his white associates he has to pass out business cards so that others do not think that he is the caddy.
That says more in a couple of sentences about a central aspect of black experience in America than many manifestos, treatises or sociological/psychological studies. That Wilson can weave that home truth into a play of less than one hundred pages and drive the plot line of a story that deals with the contradiction between black aspirations to “make it in America”, at least for those who fall into W.E.B. Dubois’ “talented tenth”, and that nagging feeling of selling out for a ‘mess of pottage’ to the mainstream white culture. Given the continuing hard fate for most blacks in housing, education and jobs today Brother Wilson is on to something. As I have also noted previously- that, my friends, is still something to consider in the “post-racial” Obamiad. We shall see.
Play Review
Radio Golf (1997), August Wilson, Theater Communications Group, New York, 2007
Okay, blame it on the recently departed Studs Terkel and his damn interview books. I had just been reading his "The Spectator", a compilation of some of his interviews of various authors, actors and other celebrities from his long-running Chicago radio program when I came across an interview that he had with the playwright under review here, August Wilson. Of course, that interview dealt with things near and dear to their hearts on the cultural front and mine as well. Our mutual love of the blues, our concerns about the history and fate of black people and the other oppressed of capitalist society and our need to express ourselves politically in the best way we can. For Studs it was the incessant interviews, for me it is incessant political activity and for the late August Wilson it was his incessant devotion to his century cycle of ten plays that covered a range of black experiences over the 20th century.
Strangely, although I was familiar with the name of the playwright August Wilson and was aware that he had produced a number of plays that were performed at a college-sponsored repertory theater here in Boston I had not seen or read his plays prior to reading the Terkel interview. Naturally when I read there that one of the plays being discussed was entitled "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" about the legendary female blues singer from the 1920's I ran out to get a copy of the play. That play has been reviewed elsewhere in this space but as is my habit when I read an author who "speaks" to me I grab everything I can by him or her to see where they are going with the work. This is doubly true in the case of Brother Wilson as his work is purposefully structured as an integrated cycle, and as an intensive dramatic look at the black historical experience of the 20th century that has driven a lot of my own above-mentioned political activism.
By the time that this review appears I will have already reviewed five of the ten plays in August Wilson’s Century cycle. On the first five I believe that I ran out of fulsome praise for his work and particularly for his tightly woven story and dialogue. Rather than keep following that path for the next five plays I would prefer to concentrate on some of the dialogue that makes Brother Wilson’s work so compelling. For those who want to peek at my general observations you can look at my review of “Gem Of The Ocean” (the first play chronologically in the cycle).
In all previously reviewed plays I noticed some piece of dialogue that seemed to me to sum up the essence of the play. Sometimes that is done by the lead character as was the case with Troy Maxton in “Fences” when he (correctly) stated that there should been “no too early” in regard to the possibilities of black achievement and prospects in America. Other times it is by a secondary character in the form of some handed down black folk wisdom passed on as means to survive in racially-hardened America. In “Radio Golf” this task falls to Roosevelt Hicks, a man who has been a beneficiary of some affirmative action by the white establishment (as always not directly present in the story line as it unfolds), when he candidly and ironically notes that when heading to the golf club with his white associates he has to pass out business cards so that others do not think that he is the caddy.
That says more in a couple of sentences about a central aspect of black experience in America than many manifestos, treatises or sociological/psychological studies. That Wilson can weave that home truth into a play of less than one hundred pages and drive the plot line of a story that deals with the contradiction between black aspirations to “make it in America”, at least for those who fall into W.E.B. Dubois’ “talented tenth”, and that nagging feeling of selling out for a ‘mess of pottage’ to the mainstream white culture. Given the continuing hard fate for most blacks in housing, education and jobs today Brother Wilson is on to something. As I have also noted previously- that, my friends, is still something to consider in the “post-racial” Obamiad. We shall see.
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