A couple of Bukowskis

"The gods wait to delight in you"

John Martyn's Solid Air - For Nick Drake

John Martyn's Solid Air (written for Nick Drake) - 1978

Solid Air

You've been taking your time

And you've been living on solid air

You've been walking the line

And You've been living on solid air

Don't know what's going wrong inside

And I can tell you that it's hard to hide when you're living on

Solid air.

You've been painting it blue

And you've been looking through solid air

You've been seeing it through

And you've been looking through solid air

Don't know what's going wrong in your mind,

And I can tell you don't like what you find,

When you're moving through

Solid air.

I know you, I love you

And I could be your friend

I could follow you, anywhere

Even through solid air.

You've been stoning it cold

You've been living on solid air

You've been finding that gold

You've been living on solid air

I don't know what's going on inside

I can tell you that it's hard to hide

When you're living on

Solid air, solid air.

You've been getting too deep

You've been living on solid air

You've been missing your sleep

And you've been moving through solid air

I don't know what's going on in your mind

But I know you don't like what you find

When you're moving through

Solid air, solid air.

I know you, I love you

I'll be your friend

I could follow you, anywhere

Even through solid air.

You've been walking your line

You've been walking on solid air

You've been taking your time

But you've been walking on solid air

Don't know what's going wrong inside

But I can tell you that it's hard to hide

When you're living on

Solid air, solid air.

You've been painting it blue,

You've been living on solid air

You've been seeing it through

And you've been living on solid air

I don't know what's going on in your mind

But I can tell you don't like what you find

When your living on

Solid air, solid air.

I know you, I love you

And I'll be your friend

I could follow you, anywhere

Even through solid air.

Ice blue solid air

Nice blue solid air

Van Morrison turns off the charm and delivers the goods

"If you shut your mouths and keep quiet you may get what you want. Otherwise, you're just boring me to death..." Van Morrison 

Streets of Arklow

Ballerina

These Dreams of You

Just Like a Woman

Into the Mystic 

I Just Wanna Make Love to You/Cypress Avenue

Angelou

Moondance

Wonderful Remark

Warm Love

Caravan

Cyprus Avenue

Here Comes the Night

Gloria

Listen to the Lion

Cassandra Wilson samples Van Morrison's Tupelo Honey

Cassandra Wilson samples Van Morrison's Tupelo Honey

Leonard Cohen in performance 1970

Most great songwriters are not too bad poets. Leonard Cohen is much better than that. 

Suzanne

Sonny Rollins On Green Dolphin Street - 1968

Sonny Rollins Strolls On Green Dolphin Street 

w/Kenny Drew (p) Niels Orsted Pedersen (b) Albert (Tootie) Heath (d)

Europe 1968

John Coltrane On Green Dolphin Street - 1960

John Coltrane strolls on Green Dolphin Street 

w/ Wynton Kelly (p), Paul Chambers (b) and Jimmy Cobb (d)

Dusseldorf, West Germany 1958

Duke Ellington and his Orchestra 1942

Duke Ellington and  the fellas perform C-Jam Blues until a very suave Duke scoops the gals and  makes his get away. MTV had nothing on these guys.

It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing

Take the A Train

And if I should survive to a hundred and five ...

Well, what d’ya know? Another 365 days come and gone. That means I get to recycle my favorite birthday mantra. It goes like this: For every year that I get older, I vow to act another year younger. I still haven’t done the math, but the way I figure it, if I should survive to 105, think of all I’ll derive by arriving at 5! And this is the best part; I’ve got a head start! Penny tax, touching green, no changies!

Poem on his Birthday - by Dylan Thomas

Poem on his Birthday by Dylan Thomas

In the mustardseed sun,

By full tilt river and switchback sea

Where the cormorants scud,

In his house on stilts high among beaks

And palavers of birds

This sandgrain day in the bent bay's grave

He celebrates and spurns

His driftwood thirty-fifth wind turned age;

Herons spire and spear.

Under and round him go

Flounders, gulls, on their cold, dying trails,

Doing what they are told,

Curlews aloud in the congered waves

Work at their ways to death,

And the rhymer in the long tongued room,

Who tolls his birthday bell,

Toesl towards the ambush of his wounds;

Herons, stepple stemmed, bless.

In the thistledown fall,

He sings towards anguish; finches fly

In the claw tracks of hawks

On a seizing sky; small fishes glide

Through wynds and shells of drowned

Ship towns to pastures of otters. He

In his slant, racking house

And the hewn coils of his trade perceives

Herons walk in their shroud,

The livelong river's robe

Of minnows wreathing around their prayer;

And far at sea he knows,

Who slaves to his crouched, eternal end

Under a serpent cloud,

Dolphins dyive in their turnturtle dust,

The rippled seals streak down

To kill and their own tide daubing blood

Slides good in the sleek mouth.

In a cavernous, swung

Wave's silence, wept white angelus knells.

Thirty-five bells sing struck

On skull and scar where his lovews lie wrecked,

Steered by the falling stars.

And to-morrow weeps in a blind cage

Terror will rage apart

Before chains break to a hammer flame

And love unbolts the dark

And freely he goes lost

In the unknown, famous light of great

And fabulous, dear God.

Dark is a way and light is a place,

Heaven that never was

Nor will be ever is alwas true,

And, in that brambled void,

Plenty as blackberries in the woods

The dead grow for His joy.

There he might wander bare

With the spirits of the horseshoe bay

Or the stars' seashore dead,

Marrow of eagles, the roots of whales

And wishbones of wild geese,

With blessed, unborn God and His Ghost,

And every soul His priest,

Gulled and chanter in youg Heaven's fold

Be at cloud quaking peace,

But dark is a long way.

He, on the earth of the night, alone

With all the living, prays,

Who knows the rocketing wind will blow

The bones out of the hills,

And the scythed boulders bleed, and the last

Rage shattered waters kick

Masts and fishes to the still quick stars,

Faithlessly unto Him

Who is the light of old

And air shaped Heaven where souls grow wild

As horses in the foam:

Oh, let me midlife mourn by the shrined

And druid herons' vows

The voyage to ruin I must run,

Dawn ships clouted aground,

Yet, though I cry with tumbledown tongue,

Count my blessings aloud:

Four elements and five

Senses, and man a spirit in love

Thangling through this spun slime

To his nimbus bell cool kingdom come

And the lost, moonshine domes,

And the sea that hides his secret selves

Deep in its black, base bones,

Lulling of spheres in the seashell flesh,

And this last blessing most,

That the closer I move

To death, one man through his sundered hulks,

The louder the sun blooms

And the tusked, ramshackling sea exults;

And every wave of the way

And gale I tackle, the whole world then,

With more triumphant faith

That ever was since the world was said,

Spins its morning of praise,

I hear the bouncing hills

Grow larked and greener at berry brown

Fall and the dew larks sing

Taller this thuderclap spring, and how

More spanned with angles ride

The mansouled fiery islands! Oh,

Holier then their eyes,

And my shining men no more alone

As I sail out to d

Astral Weeks Redux

May 13, 1965 is the date I first heard Van Morrison sing a song. The sun was shining. The fields were filled with blooming mountain laurel. I walked along the railroad tracks with a transistor radio in my hand while the growing, glowing gloaming fell all around me. I do not believe in coincidence.

Astral Weeks - Van Morrison 1969

Astral Weeks - Van Morrison - 2009

Astral Weeks, Beside You, Slim Slo Slider, Sweet Thing

Cypress Avenue

Ballerina

Madame George

Listen to the Lion

Van Morrison takes his band and Tupelo Honey on a visit home to Belfast 1979

Van Morrison takes his band and Tupelo Honey on a visit home to Belfast 1979

Lost Souls Are Found - The Little Willie John Legacy

"My mother told me, if you call yourself  "Little Stevie Wonder" you had better be as good as Little Willie John".  -Stevie Wonder.

Ella in the Summertime

Ella Fitzgerald never needed auto-tune

Softly as in a Morning Sunrise performed by the Modern Jazz Quartet

Softly as in a Morning Sunrise performed by John Lewis, Milt Jackson, Percy Heath and Connie Kay, known collectively as The Modern Jazz Quartet.

Ernest Borgnine was a great one

Ernest Borgnine was so much more than McHale and The Mermaid Man. He was Marty. He was Fatso. He rode with the Wild Bunch. 

Ernest Borgnine was a great one.

Marty.

From Here to Eternity

The Wondrous Sarah Vaughan having Summertime fun on stage - 1973

The Grand Diva, Sarah Vaughan, having Summertime fun on stage - 1973 

Janis Joplin performing Summertime - Stockholm 1969

Janis Joplin in concert Stockholm 1969

I admit that I am not her biggest fan and her legacy has faded with time, but she still won't be surpassed by any marshmallow fluff they try to pawn off as an American Idol. 

Gershwin's Summertime performed by the Modern Jazz Quartet

The Modern Jazz Quartet: John Lewis, Milt Jackson, Percy Heath and Connie Kay perform George Gershwin's Summertime 

Salud, L'Chayim and Happy Trails to Ray Allen

Ray Allen was a class act and consummate pro. It was a pleasure to have him here and we're sorry to see him go. If this story is true, we may not agree, but we respect the decision. Nothing but cheers from this corner.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nba--heat-gave-ray-allen-reason-to-again-feel-wanted.html

Bugs Bunny Rides Again!!

Will there ever be a happy ending as Bugs and Yosemite face off once more in this 1948 western thriller? Warning. Intense violence. May not be suitable for all viewers. 

Another in a continuing series of fantabulous summer songs

Another in a continuing series of fantabulous summer songs, this by yet another one hit wonder who had one great, tuneful idea. 

(Gee, Mungo, I hope you used those royalty checks to buy a razor before the grandkids get a look at those 'burns. 

The People's National Anthem led by Pete Seeger and Bruce

This Land is Your Land!!

The People's Party; The Obama Inauguration 

I know this land was made for you and me because Sharon Jones told me so

Sharon Jones as a true soul survivor who spent decades in obscurity despite possessing one of the great vocal instruments of her time before finally breaking thorough with her band, The Dap Kings in the late '90's.

Ms.Jones success was short lived as she passed away in November, 2016. 

She left us with a worthy legacy of recordings including her version of This Land Is Our Land which does Woody Guthrie and us all, proud.

This Land Is Your Land - Live

This Land Is Your Land - Studio Version