Free Speech * De Gedachten zijn Vrij: Mon. 10, Tue. 11 July: The House of Leather [2017-25]

MONDAYS  & TUESDAYS:  12:00 noon till 16:00 hrs and  16:00 till 20:00 hrs  (CET (Brussels, Berlin)** GMT (London) : 11 a.m.  till 3 p.m. and from 3 p.m. till  7 p.m.  ** FORMAT: Free Speech consists of four 60-minute shows.  A new show is added each week. It is followed by three previous shows.

THE PLAYLISTS

12 noon  and 16:000 hrs CET (11 a.m. and  3 p.m. UK time) NEW SHOW
THE BLACKWOOD APOLOGY: The House of Leather  (entire album)** AND ALSO: THE BANNER THEATRE ** LEEN PERSIJN **

13:00 and 17:00 hrs CET (12 noon  / 4 p.m. UK time) REPEATED   HERHALING
JOAN BAEZ 75th birthday: tracks from “JOAN BAEZ 75th Birthday Collection”, 2cd + DVD out on Razor&Tie,  thanks to V2 Records Belgium ** JOAN BAEZ with David Bromberg, Emmylou Harris, Mavis Staples, Paul Simon ** PAUL SIMON, SIMON & GARFUNKEL, MAVIS STAPLES ** THE LAST POETS,  FRANK ZAPPA & MOTHERS ** Interview  with Joan Baez * Joan Baez from her 60s albums ‘ Joan Baez 5’ and ‘Any Day Now’.    THANKS TO V2 RECORDS BELGIUM

14:00 and 18:00 hrs CET (1 p.m. / 5 p.m. UK time) REPEATED   HERHALING
PLATOON, the complete OST:  The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, The Doors, Smokey Robinson, Merle Haggard, Jefferson Airplane Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Percy Sledge, The Rascals ** Christine Pire & Ronny Roose: Simplement par amour ** AND ALSO: Richard Thompson, John Lennon & Yoko One ‘Bed Peace’, Grace Petrie.

15:00 and 19:00 hrs CET (2 p.m. / 6 p.m. UK time) REPEATED   HERHALING
JUDY COLLINS: In My Life, 1966: We play six tracks from ‘In My Life’, plus other versions of these six songs – some are originals and older versions that inspired Collins, some are much later versions of songs that Collins did first; featuring The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Chris Farlowe, Jacques Brel and Lotte Lenya.

ACHTERGRONDINFO ** MORE INFORMATION

THE BLACKWOOD APOLOGY: The House of Leather (1968)

“The brainchild of 23 year-old writer / guitarist Dale Menten, The House Of Leather is a rock opera set in a bordello during the US Civil War. It was originally released in December 1968, shortly before it was staged as a sell-out rock opera in Minnesota. A fine mixture of acid-tinged pop-rock and ballads, it makes its long-overdue CD debut here – together with liner notes that tell the story of the production’s ill-fated move to New York in 1970. (Rockasteria blogspot)
Although set during the American Civil War, the story can also be read as a statement about current moral values and human rights. Three band members had previous recording experience, notably with The Castaways of ‘Liar Liar’ fame. The band also supported The Grateful Dead at their first concert in Minneapolis. Reissued on  Aurora Records AUCD5015 (EB).
“The story starts “down along the Swanee River”, where we are introduced to a young lady named Sarah Jane who has “got love to send you… straight to heaven where she comes from”. We move on to a reminiscence of the House of Leather, where “the pretty young things all got together” to dance, among other things.  We are then introduced to one Mrs Grim, who appears to be the matronly figure in charge of the House of Leather, and the narrator reminds her of Donny Brooks, a farmer who she used to know in one capacity or another, and obliquely makes mention of the town’s mayor, a man by the name of Ramsey.
A little bit further on, we find out that the House of Leather is a school of some sort, and Sarah Jane appears to be a teacher there (teaching what exactly? – again, we don’t know), who both Donny Brooks and Ramsey have fallen in love with. The outcome of this love triangle is that Sarah Jane ends up with Donny Brooks the farmer, and they settle down on his farm, where she ends up bearing him a child.
Then along comes the US Civil War, in which her husband and child (a boy) are both killed. After the war, Sarah Jane stays on at the farm, which Ramsey, the mayor, now owns. The album concludes with the words “Sarah’s on her knees… building dreams… begging for love”, and “if you’re ever…. way down along the Swanee River… you’re not far from the House of Leather… where I was born….”

Rockasteria http://rockasteria.blogspot.be/2012/06/blackwood-apology-house-of-leather-1969.html

 JOAN BAEZ 75

“A note from Joan:

In relation to the decision to cancel my concerts in Turkey. Of all the times I’ve gone into war zones, countries under dictatorships, or any other civil strife, I’m not sure I’ve seen anything like the immense and unpredictable danger which presents itself in today’s Turkey. Never has the advice of all my risk-taking activist colleagues been so adamant that I do not put myself, and my band and crew, in the heightened danger of the nightmare which is sweeping Turkey.
My heart aches especially for the close friends I’ve had for decades, the new friends and musicians I’ve come to know, and for the Kurdish people who suffer continually and harshly.
I’m singing a Turkish song on my current tour of Europe, Nâzim Hikmet’s Hiroshima child poem, and parts of Kardeş Türküler’s “Tencere Tava Havasi.” The response is huge, as the concern and sympathy for your country are great everywhere we go. With concern, sorrow, and confusion, I wish you strength to continue in this dark battle, and I hope to return when the darkness turns at least to grey. And we can sing together without suffering the barbaric penalties of today.

Sincerely,
Joan Baez” http://www.joanbaez.com/latestnews.html

PLATOON  OST

“In compiling the soundtrack for Oliver Stone’s Academy Award winning 1986 Vietnam War epic Platoon, producer Bud Carr opted to eschew original composition in favor of a collection of songs from the ’60s in an attempt to capture the period. Many of the songs he selected were not even used in the film. The only excerpt from Georges Delerue’s score that made it onto the album was “Barnes Shoots Elias.” The ’80s were not a golden age for sales of original score soundtracks. With only a handful of exceptions (e.g., Vangelis’ Chariots of Fire and a few of John Williams’ blockbuster soundtracks), most of the commercially successful soundtrack albums contained hit singles from pop artists. And as Platoon was one of the few Best Picture winners from the era that failed even to land an Original Score nomination at the Oscars, Carr was probably wise to make that decision. He populated the album with classic rock & roll songs like the Doors’ “Hello, I Love You,” Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” and Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.” But the soundtrack’s best moments are not from the ’60s at all. They are the Delerue-conducted excerpts from Samuel Barber’s haunting “Adagio for Strings,” which served as the theme for the movie and bookend the album as the first and last tracks”.
www.allmusic.com  Review by Evan Cater
RADIO 68 PLAYS THE ENTIRE SOUNDTRACK plus assorted antiwar songs and audio.

CHRISTINE PIRE & RONNY ROOSE: SEULEMENT PAR AMOUR

Bij wijze van contrast, spleen we ook het zonnige, poëtische en soms ook ernstige (maar nooit te lang) werk van Christine Pire en Ronny Roose.  Frans chanson, covers van hun grote idolen en veel eigen nummers in de Franse traditie! RADIO 68 draait verscheidene nummers uit hun cd “SIMPLEMENT PAR AMOUR”
CHRISTINE PIRE: “Christines roots liggen in Oostende.  Samen met haar ex-partner Duc Ducquennoy vormde ze de kern van het theatergezelschap James Ensor. Ze speelde ettelijke beklijvende rollen in ontelbare stukken, van o.a. Claus, Shakespeare, Shepard, Vinterberg en won ook diverse keren de Octaaftrofee, de Oostendse Oscar zeg maar. Zelf regisseerde ze ‘Klaprozen’, waarin live-muziek een belangrijke rol speelde, en ‘Nadien’, waarvoor ze gelauwerd werd met de Octaaf voor Beste Productie.
Zingen deed ze altijd al, en op het podium gebeurde dat uitgebreid in de monoloog ‘Ik speel het zelf wel klaar’, waarin ze op gitaar begeleid werd door een andere Ensorspeler, Ronny Roose”. (…) http://www.simplementparamour.be

JUDY COLLIS: IN MY LIFE, 1966

“’Released in 1966, ‘In My Life’ features songs by artists who didn’t ring a bell – yet. There  are the first appearances of songs by Leonard Cohen on record. And though Randy Newman had been covered by some pop artists, he was yet to release his own album. Jacques Brel had done Carnegie Hall, but could hardly be called a household name in the USA. Peter Brook’s play “Marat/Sade” bore no relation to the popular music business at all, but it was a revolutionary piece of work, also stylistically, and Collins let herself inspire by it.
Whereas this isn’t an album of protest songs, some tunes quite explicitly reflect the values that were soon to define the sixties, such as pacifism (Brel’s ‘La Colombe’), or directly point towards revolutionary lyrics like (Brecht and Weil’s ‘Pirate Jenny’) and even to the French Revolution itself (Marat/Sade, after Peter Brook) “ (© Eddy Bonte)

“In My Life was the album most crucial to Judy Collins’s astonishing evolution from traditional folk singer to an artist not limited to any category. While folk music was certainly an element of this extraordinarily varied set, it was just one ingredient of a record that also drew from classical music, the theater, rock, and more. Some critics did try to classify the sound as “baroque folk” at the time, and if that’s an actual genre, In My Life is certainly the keystone baroque folk album. But the album transcends labels, testifying to her skill at interpreting material by an amazing array of writers in remarkably eclectic musical settings” (…)  (by Richie Unterberger http://www.richieunterberger.com/inmylife.html)