Monday morning, Huddie Ledbetter, the great blues and folk singer known as Lead Belly, talks and sings about being thrown out of a whites-only boarding house in Washington DC. The recording is listed as made in 1936.
Thanks to YouTuber Traveler Into The Blue
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We had fun watching these mischievous monkeys invading our Costa Rican hotel, eating an avocado, and playing around with a plastic bottle. The monkeys would sniff the bottle and realize it was some kind of soap, then throw it back on the ground where another monkey would do the same thing. Folks had their cameras out, and had a good time laughing at the antics of the capuchins. Until…
We go back to our hotel room, and Linda calls out from the bathroom–“Did you see the shampoo bottle?”
Me: What shampoo bottle?
L: You know, the little plastic travel bottle I filled with shampoo…
Me: Uh-oh, no, couldn’t be…
L: It’s missing from the bathroom
Then we look in the main room, at the sidetable where we had two avocados sitting ripening. One is missing!
Now things were really getting crazy! Had they come in through the balcony door? No, it was locked. But lo and behold I realized I had left the bathroom window slightly ajar–so they came in through the bathroom window (Thank you, Joe Cocker!) and stole the avocado and shampoo bottle. Then they climbed up the pole right outside the bathroom window to the balcony of the next floor upstairs to where I was snapping photos, oblivious to the fact that their stolen booty belonged to us.
And that’s why we went home with dirty hair…
Manuel Antonio,
Costa Rica
Tom Keough died about a month ago, far too young. He was a brilliant artist, political activist, and community organizer. Tom was also a dear friend, and someone whose life I think Arts Express listeners might like to know more about. So in tribute to Tom, here’s a little bit more about him.
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear my tribute to Tom as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program, as heard on WBAI-FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
Josh Turner (without guitar!) focuses on the singing this time, with Martina DaSilva, Sonny Step, Luke Bob Robinson, and David Linard. Written by Duke Ellington, Johnny Hodges, and Harry James, with lyrics by Don George.
More at Josh Turner Guitar
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They have to be my favorite birds ever, otherworldly in their beauty. The macaws would fly by our hotel room balcony in twos or threes, around twice a day. Fortunately, their raucous call alerts one to drop everything else and pick up a camera.
Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica
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While slipping down the trail, we couldn’t miss this lovely tanager when we looked up! A lifer for me.
Trail to Playa Biesanz, Manuel Antonio,
Costa Rica
“Jesse Welles has got a voice like John Prine, plays guitar like Bob Dylan, and can write a song that’s as topical and clever as the songs of Phil Ochs or Tom Paxton or Woody Guthrie. It turns out, despite his handsome shaggy-haired babyface look, he has been making songs for a long time. In an age where so much music is artificially created with plastic lyrics and digitally manipulated instruments, it is refreshing to hear a protest song on a simple acoustic folk guitar that doesn’t just talk about generalities, but actually names names, and has a political point of view…”
Click on the mp3 link or triangle above to hear the rest of my commentary on Welles, as broadcast this week on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the country.
Herein, Part two of our conversation with Jeremy Braddock, author of the book, Firesign.
Click on the mp3 link or triangle above to hear the interview as broadcast this week on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the country
Note: Our posting lately has been more sporadic than usual–we hope to be back up to speed in a week or two.
If you are of a certain age, growing up as a high school or college kid during the late 60s or early 70s, then odds are that at least one time as you were toking up, the surrealist record LPs of the Firesign Theatre invaded your brain. As the albums brilliantly shifted in and out of tv, film and radio parody, they broke down walls of time, space and authority. Now in a new book about the Firesign Theater, called Firesign, author Jeremy Braddock provides a wonderful non-linear look at the four influential guys who turned the art of radio and recording upside down. I was happy to have as our guest on the show, the author of Firesign, Jeremy Braddock.
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear the interview as heard on the Arts Express radio program broadcast this week on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation
Part Two here:
Monday Morning, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, and Seeger’s grandson, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, belt their song out.
Thanks to YouTuber Evan
What a beautiful magic act! Magician Nikolai Striebel takes a simple premise and keeps expanding on it…
More at Nikolai Striebel
Monday morning, It is what it is. Another Jesse Welles gem. This guy is writing topical songs as fast or faster than Phil Ochs and Tom Paxton used to in the Sing Out! days.
More at Jesse Welles
Above, Part 2 of my interview with the directors of The Strike, JoeBill Munoz and Lucas Guilkey.
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Prospect Park,
Brooklyn, New York
What a voice. You can read about the singer here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavela_Vargas
And the eerie legend of La Llorona:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Llorona
Thanks to YouTuber Milan Music
I’ve watched a lot of film documentaries this year, but none more powerful than The Strike. It’s the story of how the inmates of Pelican Bay prison in California, incarcerated in solitary confinement sometimes for decades, went on a life-threatening hunger strike in order to regain their rights and dignity. I was happy to speak to the the directors of The Strike, JoeBill Muñoz and Lucas Guilkey for Arts Express.
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to listen to the interview as broadcast yesterday on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
And Part 2 is here…
Monday morning, Shut Up and Kiss Me wonder where’re you gonna sleep tonight.
This catchy song was originally a big hit for its singer-songwriter, Scottish Amy Macdonald, who wrote it when she was only 16. The song made its way all through Europe a decade and a half ago, and landed here with this Romanian band.
Thanks to YouTuber Shut Up & Kiss Me!
A posthumous collection of essays by anarchist anthropologist David Graeber, who coined the phrase “We are the 99%,” has just come out, and we look into one of its most interesting pieces.
Click on the triangle above or mp3 link to hear my commentary on the book, as heard on the Arts Express radio program this week, broadcast on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
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Jules Feiffer, 1929-2025
Monday morning, it’s Martin Luther King Day, and Capitalist Class Leader Inauguration Day, but Jesse Welles reminds us how things actually work.
More at Jesse Welles
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Tannery Brook Rd
Woodstock, New York
