My Generation of Sun. 15 & Tue. 17 October: Karen Dalton, Harumi, Che Guevara * [Ed’s Show, 2017-42]

NEW SHOW: Karen Dalton, Harumi, El Che  ** REPEATED: Joe Byrd & The Field Hippies, Ian Siegal  ** [2017-42, 15Oct2017 + Repeated  Tuesday 17 Oct. 1200-2000 hrs] **

**** RADIO 68: ALL THE SOUNDS AND ALL THE VOICES THAT  SHAPED THE SIXTIES *** 

THE PLAYLISTS

1 MY GENERATION (NEW)
SPECIAL: HARUMI (1968) ** FORGOTTEN & OVERLOOKED: THEM, LITTLE JIMMY & SHARKS, UNIT 4+2 ** LONGPLAYING: THE BEAU BRUMMELS: TRANGLE, 1967; PEARLS BEFORE SWINE: ONE NATION UNDERGROUND:  check out our new show LONGPLAYING with more Beau Brummels and more Pearls Before Swine** WORD:   CHE GUEVARA  died 9 Oct 1967: VICTOR JARA + TON STEINE SCHERBEN: Keine Macht Für Niemand **

2 BLUESIDE (NEW) SHOW
SPECIAL KAREN DALTON:  KAREN DALTON from IT’s SO HARD TO TELL WHO’s GOING TO LOVE YOU BEST + OTIS REDDING + JELLY ROLL MORTON +  DEXTER SHAW & THE WOLFTONES + FRED NEIL   ** THE ORIGINATORS  & INSPIRATORS:  GUITAR SLIM, JIMMY ROGERS ALL STARS with Eric Clapton, SON HOUSE **  KEEPERS OF THE BLUES FLAME: THE SEEKERS + ALBERT CASTIGLIA (from “Up All Night’, thanks to Ruf records and V2 Records Belgium) ** AND ALSO TOMMY CASTRO & THE PAINKILLERS (STOMPIN’ GROUND: Soul Shake. Thanks to Alligator Records and V2 Records Belgium) ** WORD: JOAN BAEZ sings about El Che, LIGHTNIN’ HOPKINS.

3 MY GENERATION (repeated): SPECIAL: JOE BYRD & THE FIELD HIPPIES: The American Metaphysical Circus, 1968 + THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA feat. Joe Byrd, 1967  ** FORGOTTEN & OVERLOOKED: THE CREATION (How Does it Feel to Feel, US version from the box “Creation Theory”) + AFTER TEA + TONY JOE WHITE ** LONGPLAYING:  THE ROULETTES + THE GRAHAM BOND ORGANISATION + THE SEEDS + THE AMERICAN BREED ** AND ALSO: THE FOURMOST, ALEXIS KORNER ** WORD & POETRY: HOW TO SPOT A COMMUNIST: US ARMY PROPAGANDA * Ho Chi Minh Dies, 1969 * JOHN BALABAN reads Vietnamese poetry

4 BLUESIDE (repeated) SPECIAL: IAN SIEGAL : IAN SIEGAL BAND: STANDING IN THE MORNING  (2002) * IAN SIEGAL, JULLIVER, GREG ZLAP (2017) ** THE ORIGINATORS  & INSPIRATORS:  JACK ELLIOTT, MABEL SCOTT,  JIMMY REED ** KEEPERS OF THE BLUES FLAME SUNNY ’n’ THE CUT feat. MARTIN H. SAMUEL + MARTIN H. SAMUEL + THE ROLLING STONES

 BACKGROUND * ACHTERGRONDINFORMATIE **

HARUMI, 1968

“’…) When Tom Wilson, noted producer of Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground, and Simon and Garfunkel, pitched Harumi to Verve in 1967, he envisioned the album as an artistic, not a commercial, venture. His idea was to take the tunes of Harumi, a mysterious Japanese songwriter, and douse them in Gary Usher-like orchestration, David Axelrod-inspired grooves, and phaser-heavy psychedelic flourishes. Wilson and Harumi’s project ended up stretching out over two LPs, and its songs ranged from hopelessly frazzled to indulgently saccharine. Given the major label money involved and the degree of artistic freedom granted, this record could have blown minds and paradigms. Instead, it went quickly out of print and faded into obscurity, failing to gather even a significant cult following (…).
“ (…) It grooves throughout, especially when the electric guitars and strings play counterpoint to one another. Simply put, there is nothing at all like this record in the known universe. It has been compared to the adventurousness of the Mothers of Invention, but only insofar as its wide range. The music here, while a huge compendium of sources, is unlike anything you have ever heard when it is put together. Harumi’s self-titled album is simply a classic from the underground brought back into the light”.  By Thom Jurek
http://rockasteria.blogspot.be/2011/03/harumi-harumi-1968-japan-masterpiece.html

KAREN DALTON

“ ‘Karen’s voice is a voice for the jaded ear; a combination of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Jeannie Ritchie, the Appalachian singer.” The country singer Lacy J Dalton is on the line from Nevada, trying to put into words the voice of Karen Dalton, whose surname she adopted in tribute. “There’s a horn quality to it and her phrasing is exquisite,” she says. “I once heard it described as cornmeal mush, but it’s more than that. When she sang about something, you believed her.”
Dalton is the great lost voice of the New York’s Greenwich Village folk scene in the 1960s. Hers was a voice to make the listener feel sad and lost. At times it was warm and supple, rippling over Something on Your Mind, for example; at others it was twisted and other-worldly, as when wrapped around Katie Cruel. It was a voice that earned her the tag “folk music’s answer to Billie Holiday” – a comparison she loathed, but which was inevitable, Dalton’s voice possessing that same welling, bluesy sadness. “She sure can sing the shit out of the blues,” is how another singer on the Greenwich Village scene, Fred Neil, put it”. (From: The Guardian:  https://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/mar/23/folk

JOE BYRD & THE AMERICAN FIELD HIPPIES: THE AMERICAN METAPHYSICAL CIRCUS (1968)

“New York avant-garde luminary Joe Byrd had been the leader of pioneering ’60s electronica band The United States of  America until given the heave-ho by his own creation. His riposte was to create this in turns beguiling and bizarre album, which if anything is even further out on a limb than his previous band’s sole groundbreaking LP. While obviously a ’60s sounding record, its many unexpected twists and turns along with Byrd’s stunning production leave it sounding undated, existing parallel to its time in its own peculiarly twisted universe, all of which is testament to Byrd’s and his new band-mates’ creativity.

Taking in Jefferson Airplane-tinged psych-pop along with influence from other lysergically-assisted West Coast bands of the time, adding skewed observations of traditional American music such as ragtime and vaudeville, Byrd filters it all through experimental electronica, tape loops and early use of the synthesiser that gives its ’60s groove a decidedly off-kilter feel, as if one is a passive observer of a music hall performance set in a trendy kaleidoscopic discotheque as seen through a hall of mirrors”. (Quoted from: http://theprogressiveaspect.net/blog/2016/04/18/joe-byrd-and-the-field-hippies-the-american-metaphysical-circus)

RADIO 68 PLAYS: “American Bed Music 1 – Four dreams for a Departing President “ and “ Gospel Music for Abraham Ruddell Byrd III”,  from “The American Metaphysical Circus”

IAN SIEGAL

Enkele weken terug, gaf Ian Siegal een onvergetelijk solo-optreden in de Gentse bluesclub Missy Sippy: http://www.backtotheroots.be/confessite/2017/C_Siegal_gent/Siegal_Gent.htm

In 2004 recenseerde ik een plaat van hem voor Back to the Roots magazine:

“Ian Siegal Band: Standing in the Morning. Taxim Records, TX 2077 (distributie Bertus). Ian ‘Siegal’ Berry is tot nu het bekendst als zanger van de Lee Sankey group, maar met deze compleet zelfgepende cd moet daar snel verandering in komen. Hier is namelijk een origineel rootsartiest aan het werk. Bijvoorbeeld: de drie versies van “Beulah Land”, die Keltisch klinken en overgaan over in een losgeslagen “Drunken Sailor”, vormen in wezen één variant van het titelnummer en dàt is een… akoestische vertelling met slide! Ook “Scarecrow” is een vertelling, nu met zijn Tom Waits-achtige stem en een schrille cornet in de hoofdrol. Die stem zet vaker een donkere toon, zoals in het beangstigende “Monday Saw”, over de vele gedaantes van god, de duivel en Maria Magdalena. Dood en verderf komen trouwens regelmatig terug, dikwijls in een bijbelse context. Ian Siegal ontpopt zich hier ook als een sterk tekstschrijver. Hij beheerst talloze stijlen, zoals de kruising van country en soul  op “I Don’t Wanna Be An Angel”. Mede dankzij de National, klinkt “Life Too Short” dan weer als een rollende akoestische blues, met een vette knipoog naar zijn idool Muddy Waters. “This Heart” is een akoestische gospel met slide die recht uit de jaren dertig komt. “Early Grace” en “Queen” klinken te veel als afleggertjes van resp. Tom Waits en Van Morrison. Dit is een zeer origineel werkstuk, met één zwak punt: Ian Siegal kan alles. Als hij een eigen stijl leert puren uit zijn onwaarschijnlijke veelzijdigheid, promoveert hij naar eerste klasse”.  © Eddy Bonte

RADIO 68 draait een selectie uit “Standing in the Morning” uit 2004 en de gloednieuwe cd van Siegal, Julliver & Greg Zlap, Free Soul, 2017.