I Did It My Way-With Bob Dylan’s Shadows In The Night In Mind

 

 

 

Recently I did a review of Bob Dylan’s latest CD, Shadows In The Night, a tribute to the king of Tin Pan Alley Frank Sinatra. In that review I noted that such an effort was bound to happen if Dylan lived long enough. Strange as it may seem to a generation, the generation of ’68, the AARP generation, okay, baby-boomers who came of age with the clarion call put forth musically by Bob Dylan and others to dramatically break with the music of our parents’ pasts, the music that got them through the Great Depression and slogging through World War II, he has put out an album featuring the work of Mr. Frank Sinatra the king of that era in many our parents’ households. The music of the Broadway shows, Tin Pan Alley, Cole Porter/Irving Berlin/ the Gershwins’ and so on. That proposition though seems less strange if you are not totally mired in the Bob Dylan protest minute of the early 1960s when he, whether he wanted that designation or not, was the “voice of a generation,” catching the new breeze a lot of us felt coming through the land.

What Dylan has been about for the greater part of his career has been as an entertainer, a guy who sings his songs to the crowd and hopes they share his feelings for his songs. Just like Frank when he was in high tide. What Dylan has also been about through it all has been a deep and abiding respect for the American songbook (look on YouTube to a clip from Don’t Look Back  or stuff from the Basement tapes). In the old days that was looking for roots, roots music from the mountains, the desolate oceans, the slave quarters, along the rivers and Dylan’s hero then was Woody Guthrie. But the American songbook is a “big tent” operation and the Tin Pan Alley that he broke from when he became his own songwriter is an important part of the overall tradition and now his hero is Frank Sinatra.

I may long for the old protest songs, the songs from the album pictured above, you know Blowin’ In The Wind, The Times Are A Changin’ stuff like that, the roots music and not just Woody but Hank, Tex-Mex, the Carters, the odd and unusual like Desolation Row or his cover of Lonnie Johnson’s Tomorrow Night but Dylan has sought to entertain and there is room in his tent for the king of Tin Pan Alley (as Billie Holiday was the queen). Having heard Dylan live and in concert over the past several years with his grating lost voice (it was always about the lyrics not the voice) I do wonder though how much production was needed to get the wrinkles out of that voice to sing as smoothly as the “Chairman of the boards.” What goes around comes around.             

***Poet’s Corner- Langston Hughes- I, Too, Sing America 

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

February is Black History Month


I, Too, Sing America

Langston Hughes, 1902 - 1967

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody’ll dare

Say to me,

“Eat in the kitchen,"

Then.

Besides, 

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

 

From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Knopf and Vintage Books. Copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated.

 

…he, black warrior prince proud, sage of the darkened night, spoke, spoke curse and celebration just to keep the record, the historical record straight. He spoke of ancient Spanish conquistador enslavement down in Saint Augustine prison houses. Of ancient Dutchman and Anglo-Saxon slave markets down in fetid Jamestown. Of Middle Passage ocean dumps of human flesh, sold, sold cheap, sold as the overhead price from sweated labors. Of great bustling Atlantic world ports and hectic triangular trade, sugar, rum, slaves, or was it slaves, sugar, and rum, he was not sure of the exact combination but those were the three elements.

He spoke of Cripsus Attucks and Valley Forge fights, black soldierly fights for white freedom all parchment etched, all false, all third-fifths of a man false embedded deep in that founding document. Of compromises, great and small, Missouri 1820, that damn Mex bracero land- eating war against the ghost of those long ago conquistadores, of 1850 compromises, of fugitive slave laws, enforced, enforced and incited. Of Kansas, Kansas for chrissakes, out on the plains all bleeding, and bloody, and no end in sight.

He spoke of righteous push back, of the brothers (and maybe sisters too but they got short shrift in the account books) who made old Mister scream, made him swear in his concubine bed, night. Of brave hard-scrabble Nat Turner, come and gone, old Captain Brown and his brave integrated band (one kin to a future poet) at Harpers Ferry fight, and above all of heroic stand-up Massachusetts 54^th before Fort Wagner fight. Of Father Abraham and those coming 200, 000 strong what were they, contraband, or men. Of fighting back against the old rascal Mister down in Mississippi goddam, Alabama goddam and the other goddams.

He spoke of rascally push back against the democratic night. Of Mister James Crow and nigra sit here, not there, of get on the back of the bus, or better walk, it’s good for you, eat here, not there, drink here, not there, jesus, breath here, not there. Of race riots and other tumults in northern ghetto cities teeming with those who tired of eat heres, drink theres, stand over theres, and charted breathes.

He spoke of that good night, that push back against black stolen dignity. Of struggle, hard struggle against the 1930s Great Depression Mister night. Of no more backing down the minute Mister said, no, thought to say, get back. Of riding with the king, of the simple act of saying no, no more. Of great heroic figures risen from the squatter farms, the share-cropped farms, the janitor and maid cities, the prisons, above all the prisons. Of Malcolm and the “new negro” and the bust up of that old fogey “talented tenth” white man fetch. Of brothers (again sisters short-shrifted from the account book) from North Carolina, from Louisiana, from Oakland who said defend yourselves-by any means necessary -if you want to hold your head up high.

He spoke of ebb and flow, of hope, and of no hope in the benighted  black America land …

Victory To The Fast-Food Workers......Fight For $15 Is Just A Beginning-All Labor Must Support Our Sisters And Brothers- Free All The Striking Fast Food Protesters!

Comments of a supporter of the “Fight for $15” action in Downtown Boston on September 4, 2014 as part of a national struggle for economic justice and dignity for the our hard working sisters and brothers:

No question in this wicked old world that those at the bottom are “the forgotten ones.” Here we are talking about working people, people working and working hard for eight, nine, ten dollars an hour. Maybe working two jobs to make ends meet since a lot of times these McJobs, these Wal-Marts jobs do not come with forty hours of work attached but whatever some cost-cutting manager deems right. And lately taking advantage of cover from Obamacare keeping the hours below the threshold necessary to kick in health insurance and other benefits. Yes, the forgotten people.

But let’s do the math here figuring on forty hours and figuring on say ten dollars an hour. That‘s four hundred a week times fifty weeks (okay so I am rounding off for estimate purposes here too since most of these jobs do not have vacation time figured in).That’s twenty thousand a year. Okay so just figure any kind of descent apartment in the Boston area where I am writing this-say one thousand a month. That’s twelve thousand a year. So the other eight thousand is for everything else. No way can that be done. And if you had listened to the young and not so young fast-food workers, the working mothers, the working older brothers taking care of younger siblings, workers trying to go to school to get out of the vicious cycle of poverty you would understand the truth of that statement. And the stories went on and on along that line all during the action. 

Confession: it has been a very long time since I have had to scrimp and scrim to make ends meet, to get the rent in, to keep those damn bill-collectors away from my door, to beg the utility companies to not shut off those necessary services. But I have been there, no question. And I did not like it then and I do not like the idea of it now.  I am here to say even the “Fight for $15” is not enough, but it is a start. And I whole-heartedly support the struggle of my sisters and brothers for a little economic justice in this wicked old world. And any reader who might read this-would you work for slave wages? I think not. So show your solidarity and get out and support the fast-food and Wal-Mart workers in their just struggles. 

Organize Wal-Mart! Organize the fast food workers! Union! Union!  

       http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2014/09/04/boston-fast-food-workers-rally-for-wages-unions/bc1ZqZIgwsVcOw0QHIV74M/story.html         

 

 

Sat, Jan 31, 2015 04:04 PM 3 attachments

Reverend Edward Pinkney, grassroots leader of the Black Autonomy Network Community Organization (BANCO) in Benton Harbor, Michigan, was convicted on Nov 3rd of five felony counts of election law violation and sentenced to an outrageous 2½ to 10 years in prison. He was accused of changing dates on five petitions in a recall campaign against the city’s mayor, a mayor who sides with big business –Whirlpool Corporation is based there – against the people. He was convicted with no supporting evidence by an all-white jury – both violations of justice which amount to legal lynching. Benton Harbor is 96% Black yet there was not one person from Benton Harbor on the jury. After he was sentenced, he spent a month in 23-hour lockdown in a cold cell in Jackson, Michigan in unsanitary and inhumane conditions. He has now been moved to Marquette prison. On February 24, the court will hear his appeal on the grounds of unclean evidence and perjury of a juror (see details below). ·         Please urgently donate to the Pinkney Legal Fund at BANCO’s website www.bhbanco.com ·         Write and send books to Rev. Pinkney at this address – Rev. Edward Pinkney Prisoner # 294671 Marquette Branch Prison 1960 US Highway 41 South Marquette, MI 49855 ·         Send money directly to Rev. Pinkney through JPay (www.jpay.com). (Enter Michigan as the state and his prisoner number, 294671). ·         Sign the Petition to Free Rev. Pinkney. ·         Stay alert for more support actions around Rev. Pinkney’s appeal hearing, scheduled for Feb 24 at 1pm at the Berrien County Courthouse. “I am a political prisoner being held in Marquette Prison and I remain in great spirits despite the racist injustice that has landed me here.  This attack on me and on democracy in Benton Harbor shows that Whirlpool is determined to crush anyone who stands in its way.  It is part of a process underway across the US in various forms.  Let’s confront the corporations that are destroying this country.”    – Rev. Edward Pinkey, from his statement below Circulated by Payday men’s network, 215-848-1120 payday@paydaynet.org             Rev. Pinkney has been moved to the north country – please write to him and/or send reading material:   Rev. Edward Pinkney Prisoner # 294671 Marquette Branch Prison 1960 US Highway 41South Marquette, MI 49855   Warden Robert Napel 906-226-6531   I am paying a debt to society which I do not owe The Berrien County Court system has undermined the respect and confidence of the community in its application of the law and the takeover of the city of Benton Harbor, Michigan. The court system has stolen time from me.  I am paying time with my life, family life, and community.  I’m required to serve a sentence while several issues are being decided in the court — and paying a debt to society that I do not owe. I have already raised substantial issues.  I am entitled to a directed verdict of Not Guilty based on constitutionally insufficient evidence under the Beyond a Reasonable Doubt standard.  I also assert that I am entitled to a directed verdict based on the issue that was resolved in favor of the defendant in People v. Hall (10/23/14).  Under MCL 168.937 and based on due process, statutory construction, and the rule of lenity, a petition circulator cannot be subjected to a felony conviction and penalty when notice and warnings on the petition form, provided by the government, indicate that one may only be subject to a misdemeanor conviction and penalty.  A misdemeanor conviction and penalty may only be imposed under a specific statue, MCL 168.544, specifically proscribed acts of falsifying election petitions.  For this reason, the convictions under MCL 168.937 must be vacated.  Due process also requires this result, as the rule of lenity is mandated by due process. This result is also required by the issue that the jury was not constitutionally adequate, based on the arguments raised in my motion for a new trial relating to juror Gail Freehling concealing information during the jury selection. I am a political prisoner being held in Marquette Prison and I remain in great spirits despite the racist injustice that has landed me here.  This attack on me and on democracy in Benton Harbor shows that Whirlpool is determined to crush anyone who stands in its way.  It is part of a process underway across the US in various forms.  Let’s confront the corporations that are destroying this country.   Rev. Edward Pinkney bhbanco.org           Change email address / Leave mailing list Powered by YMLP