Poem of the Week: Blues For Cisco Houston

BLUES FOR CISCO HOUSTON 
by Thomas McGrath

More than nine hundred miles from home now Cisco --
Poor boy, gone underground to the final proletariat,
Old Blue following possum in the new ground corn
In the blaze of your death, by the light of your incendiary guitar.

Vessel of light, that black gut-box you carried!
Transport of insurrectionary calendars between Spain and Cuba
Bringing to rebels the hot Word, the machine guns of flowers and
    humming birds
Through the money-talking loaves and fishes of the God-blessed
    corporate sea.

In season the moth wing frosts the lamp with incandescent
Mortality. And beyond the frets and freights, half steps,
Stops, changes of time and times -- this train don't carry no
Rustlers, whores nor tin horn hustlers. Gone. Glory train. Blazing
    guitar.

But here was a man come with a miracle in his bindle!
Winter multitudes warmed at the electric bread of your song,
The butterfly slept secure at the center of the Bomb,
And the Revolution caught fire wherever you came to town.

from:

Movie at the End of the World 

(Swallow Press, 1972)

[With all the observances this year of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great Woody Guthrie, it seems fitting to tip the hat to his running buddy, comrade and fellow singer, Cisco Houston, especially this week--he would have been 96 on Saturday, the 18th. I highly recommend the splendid Cisco Houston website, to those who know his work as much as to those new to it, as well as to anyone interested in working class culture in the US. The video features a song from the very first record album I ever bought with my own money.]

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Take Five--Short Live Music Videos

[Take Five. Every once in a while on Friday, Fire on the Mountain picks a category and lists five cool things in it. It's up to you, dear reader, to add your own in the Comments section. Just click on the word "comments" at the bottom of the piece and you're off to the races.]

The most recent piece I posted here, a week ago on the Killer Coke campaign, I introduced with a pop music video speaking unkindly about drinking Coke. On the whole I don't like music videos much--I prefer to listen to listen to my music unmediated by a set of images somebody else has conjured for me to associate with a tune.

But I still love YouTube, which is where I link the bulk of the tunes I post here at FotM from (in fact, it's much easier to embed videos than simple sound files).

One big fat reason is that YouTube gives us the unprecedented ability to see musicians of the past (and present) in live performance. Those who've come up since the vinyl era have no idea how cool this is. Seeing in this instance does provide a better approximation of being there than even a live album like Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club or Got Live If You Want It can give.

So here are five short pieces, designed to showcase the unbelievable wealth of great stuff that not so long ago was available to only a handful of fortunate obsessives. It's all live or quasi-live as far as I can tell, all old or really old (ya wanna see Amy Winehouse live, that means you're young enough to know how to do it without me), all really short (2 minutes or less--NB: this means if it doesn't play smoothly the first time around just wait 'til the end and click on replay and it'll play great), and all exciting as hell!

And being as it's me, there'll be a bit of commentary with each one.



Whew. The video says this is from 1960 but I'd swear that's the Duchess on rhythm and I'm pretty sure she didn't replace Lady Bo until 1962. Play it again and turn it up some this time.



Yep, yer lookin' at Woody Guthrie in one of the only two film clips known to exist of him. And yep, that's Sunny Terry and Brownie McGhee backing him up. History, y'all, our history.



And speaking of Woody, here's his greatest acolyte making the big break. This is Dylan on the legendary 1966 European tour with the Hawks (minus Levon Helm), where the culture clash over his "betrayal" of his acoustic, lefty, folk past made every show a battleground. This is here because it made the less than 2 minute cut, but to really get a sense of the historic moment, at YouTube enter "Dylan 1966" and rummage around. This does have that loose grind-y drive that's my favorite thing in rock and roll (and while you're at it, check out live videos of Them in '65 or the Faces or the Dolls or Slade in the early '70s for other variations).



Ruth Brown tears the Apollo apart in the mid-1950s. Check her tambourine.



Guy who posted this says it's field hands from Augusta, GA in 1929. Some amazing stuff in any event. While "Oh, Mary Don't You Weep" dates back to slavery days, it would later become an anthem we sang during the Civil Rights Movement. Guess the message of Pharaoh's army getting drownded always resonates. Note also that the banjo is still used by African Americans, though it is in the process of a transition that will make this most African of stringed instruments into an almost totally white-identified instrument, used in country, folk and polka, a backlash against blackface...

Okay, folks, now it's to you--post or link to great, live music (preferably at least 40 years old) on YouTube that's less than two minutes long. Beware lip-synchers...

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Take Five: Tom Morello's Favorite Revolutionary Songs

[Take Five. Every Friday, at least in theory, Fire on the Mountain picks a category and lists five cool things in it. It's up to you, dear reader, to add your own in the Comments section. Just click on the word "comments" at the bottom of the piece and you're off to the races.]

Well, I do call it Take Five, but I wasn't actually planning the "Take" to signify outright larceny. This list by Tom Morello (of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave fame, now recording solo as The Nightwatchman) of his five favorite political tunes comes from a worthy general music site called Spinner with the usual combination of news, free downloads and kicky features. One of the latter is called Count Five (which, speaking of larceny, seems to have been inaugurated this month, considerably after Take Five).

TAKE FIVE

1. 'Biko,' Peter Gabriel: I think this might be the greatest song of all time. 'Biko,' which concerns the martyrdom of Steven Biko, who was killed in a South African jail by security forces, is about a specific instance. But it has a timeless quality where hope and anger collide, and how the death of this great man could be the spark to overthrowing that racist regime. That's quite a thing to capture in three and a half minutes of music.

2. 'Imagine,' John Lennon: It's a song couched in such a beautiful melody that people don't realize it's about anarchist revolution. It's a song that, woven into the lyrics, has the hope for a just world of peace and harmony. But implied in the lyrics is that it will take a complete overthrowing of the status quo to get that -- and Lennon spoke of that in some of his writing. That song was often misunderstood.

3. 'This Land Is Your Land,' Woody Guthrie: Another great misunderstood anthem of protest, it's probably the most subversive song ever written. And it is no accident that when you learn the song in third grade they leave out the three class-war verses that make the chorus of that song resonate so true. The song was written as an answer to Irving Berlin's 'God Bless America,' which Guthrie thought was sticky-sweet patriotism and missed the point of what this country should be about.

4. 'White Riot,' The Clash: There are a number of Clash songs I could name, but 'White Riot' was probably the kickoff. There's a stanza I wrote on my refrigerator, and I used to look at it to gut-check myself every day. It was, "Are you taking over, or are you taking orders?/Are you going backwards, or are you going forwards?" The Clash and Joe Strummer -- heart-on-the-sleeve lyrics combined with such ferocity and unapologetic truth that it really felt like anything was possible in music and on the streets.

5. 'Redemption Song,' Bob Marley: Marley would have been a hero to billions whether he was Irish or Jamaican or Japanese. But he happened to be from Jamaica, so reggae music was the conduit for his genius. Yet there is no musical artist in the history of the world who is as important globally as Bob Marley. From frat parties at Stanford to teens in Kenya, 'Redemption Song' is sung, and it is certainly the spiritual content of the lyrics, the uplifting message and ... whatever that guy was channeling it's just true, and it's just beautiful. That guy is number one, and his number-one jam is 'Redemption Song.'

Okay, friends, name your top five!

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