With an army sergeant using his inside info on the kidnapping of Maduro to win $400,000, and Donald Trump Jr. on the board of advisers to Polymarket, the world, as Jesse Welles sings here, is one big slot machine
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Jesse Welles, as always, up to the minute, gives some recruiting advice, in lieu of the current budget allocation of 75 billion dollars to reward our national gestapo/paramilitary
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The great Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, King of the 12-string Guitar, one of the most important musicians in American music, is the subject of a recent film documentary, titled Leadbelly: The Man Who Invented Rock and Roll. Perhaps it would be more telling to subtitle the film, The History of Being an Exploited Black Musician in America. What makes this film special is that the producer of the film, Alvin Singh II, is the great-nephew of Leadbelly, and the film includes not only his remembrances of Leadbelly, but also the wonderful on-screen memories of Tiny Robinson, Lead Belly’s niece. And to top it off, we get plenty of first-hand accounts of Leadbelly from interviews with a dazzling array of musicians— Odetta, Pete Seeger, Harry Belafonte, BB King, Oscar Brand and more…
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to listen to my review (and more Lead Belly music!), as broadcast on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
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
“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.
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.
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Monday morning, it’s Martin Luther King Day, and Capitalist Class Leader Inauguration Day, but Jesse Welles reminds us how things actually work.
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Monday morning as we contemplate the omission of Dylan’s greatest love, Sara Lownds, from the recent biopic, we might listen to this epic written by Dylan for her
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And we’ll post tomorrow as we missed yesterday.
And we’ll finish off the week with one more great song from Jesse Welles
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What the heck, let’s make it an all Jesse Welles week. This guy grows on me every day more and more.
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Monday morning, another great song by Jesse Welles. It’s gotta be one of the best anti-war songs I’ve heard in the last fifty years. Take good care of yourself, kid, the world’s going to need you.
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This is the first I’d heard of Jesse Welles, but he’s quite the songwriter.
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Monday morning, some fancy banjo picking by Eliza Mary Doyle on the folk classic Railroad Bill.
Thanks to YouTuber Hayabusa
Monday morning, banjo legend Earl Scruggs pays a visit to Joan Baez’s house in the California hills. It’s 1972, and the courageous Earl Scruggs was the first (and one of the very few) major country western star to have come out against the Vietnam war.
Earl decided he wanted to expand his musical horizons, so he paid a visit to a slew of young singers, including Dylan and Baez. Documentarian David Hoffman got it all on film and turned the footage into an award winning documentary.
Here’s a scene at Baez’s home with Baez singing “Love is Just A Four-Letter Word” and Scruggs playing backup. Baez’s singing voice here is incredible, unearthly almost, just sitting there in her living room with no equipment. Earl’s talented 16 year old son Randy is on the other side of Joan, playing guitar.
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Yet another version of a country favorite by John Hartford. Elle Cordova and Toni Lindgren are the lyrical lasses here.
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Monday morning, madman Steve Poltz pleases the crowd with his song about the travails of a folksinger.
Thanks to YouTuber Brian Gilbert
Monday morning, a haunting song by Jackson C. Frank, a folk singer who was not well known, but was influential. Simon & Garfunkel recorded this song for their Sounds of Silence album, but it didn’t make it into the original release. Years later, it was added as a bonus track to the Sounds of Silence CD. If Jackson Frank’s arrangement sounds very early Paul Simon-ish here, it’s because Paul Simon was the producer of Frank’s only album.
Monday morning, one of my favorite singer/songwriters, John Prine, with a lovely little song. Not sure who the accompanying singer is, but one of the YouTube comment writers thinks it’s Mindy Smith.
This one is particularly nice with headphones.
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Judy Collins, Eric Andersen, Tom Rush, and Arlo Guthrie in 2002 with Andersen’s classic song.
Thanks to YouTuber Beta Hi-Fi Archive
Monday morning, Woody Guthrie lays out his requirements. “Your $2 shoe hurts my feet, Lord, Lord, and I ain’t going to be treated this a-way.”
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