Thursday: The New Friday

Right, that's it - I'm wrapped for at least a week and it's chocolate and telly and cosy toasts to the goddess Ēostre all the way.

Been listening to a lot of jazzy hip-hop of late.

I'm old skool, I'm dope. 

Cheers.

Eric B. & Rakim - 'Don't Sweat The Technique' (1992)

Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor

I went to the George Bellows exhibition at the Royal Academy this morning - big, tough paintings of a big, tough city at the start of a big, tough century; a teeming New York, still being built.

Made me think forward eighty years, to this...

Manhattan's sinking like a rock
Into the filthy Hudson what a shock
They wrote a book about it
They said it was like ancient Rome

Lou Reed - 'Romeo Had Juliette' (1989)

Course, that was before Starbucks came to Times Square.

Delta Blues

I took a Greyhound bus down by the Mississippi Delta twenty six years ago this Spring.

It was pretty wet there, I recall. 

I kept a journal... 

Sunday 22nd Feb

Managed to sleep pretty well on the bus and woke to grey deluge – in Bay St Louis, running parallel to the Mississippi River through torrential rain and along a road itself flooded several inches deep, spray flung up the sides of the coach, palm trees in murk and monsoon. 


...made New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras.

-----

Dreamt of all this last night, in drizzly London.

Had been listening to Dr. John.

Dr. John And The Lower 911 - 'Wade: Hurricane Suite - Calm In The Storm' (2006) 

(Ellingtonian, this)

Friday Reggae # 38

This was a fave of many delights on those Joe shows for me and is, as the man himself says, Ms White singing over the riddim from (producer) Rupie Edwards' 'Irie Feelings (Skanga)'.

Her vocal take seques into the dub 'version' with the vocal dropped right back after three and a half mins, as is traditional.

Strickly roots - and sadly no, I don't own this on vinyl : (

Joy White - 'Feeling Time + Version (Irie Feelings)' (1974)

This Is Radio (Culture) Clash

Those Joe Strummer World Service programmes ally mentioned in comments last fortnight make great listening, and you might have seen me tweet a link to the original versions a few days back (the ones you can get on iTunes are later 'podcasts' with waffly reminiscences added).

I found this 2007 Don Letts fifth-anniversary-of-Joe's-death tribute show along with them, and packed as it is with classic roots reggae (as well as Strummer and Clash originals, covers and musical homages), I thought it'd make a top post here for tonight, our last Friday Reggae slot having been a while back. 

It's an hour long show - 48MB of file - so I've uploaded it to Mediafire to save my box.net bandwidth for other stuff.

Grab it! You'll love it! (tracklisting in comments).

Don Letts - 'Culture Clash Radio Show (broadcast 22.12.07)'

Thanks to the original taper/uploader.

[btw if you're interested in the whole How Don Letts Met Punk Rockers Uptown thing, I can heartily recommend his book]

The Smiling Hour (Baby Elephant Patter)

Fats Waller & His Rhythm - 'Your Feet's Too Big' (1939)

A davyh gin-joint vinyl rip, for sure.