Sometimes I get lost looking for hope. This is a great reminder that there is a long history of hope that is right in front of us for the picking. Yeah baby! Let’s sing and dance our way there (together)….And don’t let the bastards get ya down!
I remember featuring Bob Dylan's Slow Train Coming album when I was a DJ at my Christian college's radio station. I got so many calls and reprimands from students and the administration - "He's not a Christian!", "You toking Wells?", "Play the Dead", and "Stick to the programming or you'll be reading the news". In response to the outcry I played all of Dylans hits and a few Grateful Dead songs on my last late night show. I was demoted to reading the AP wire. Something was definitely "Blowing in The Wind".
Thanks, Jamie, for another creative and stimulating read. As an expat who moved from the US to Mexico in 2003, I'm often very embarrassed to acknowledge my home country. The one thing I am proud of is it's African American inspired music. I've been playing blues for quite a while as a hobby, and find it very well accepted in Mexico.
You nailed it. Bringing in this amazing message of hope to us so clearly. Thank you my friend I’ve never met….and …Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me is the title of Richard Farina’s book published not long before he died way back in the day. (Note: he was a singer married to Joan Baez’s sister Mimi).
I love this. I read it today, after this morning visiting the Ma Rainey (Mother of the blues) house in Columbus GA as we trek toward the FL panhandle where we will again attend next weeks 30A Songwriter's festival, featuring Americana music. We saw the Dylan biopic on New Year's eve and loved it.
I often tell the story of Muscle Shoals, which is a free documentary available on Youtube and in particular the story of Tey-lah-nay, the wall/shrine built for her by her great-great-grandson, Tom Hendrix, featured in the documentary.
When we visted the shrine two years ago, we ran into a guy from LA visiting it for the 4th time and he told us a story. While he was visiting and speaking with Tom (who had passed away the year before we visited), a car pulled up and two guys got out, one in full Indian Chief head dress. The Chief spent an hour inspecting the shrine. They drove to AL from out west, with the Chief in search of the best appropriate shrine honoring a native-American woman, and he found it there. It is a spiritual place where Tey-lah-nay heard the TN river sing, and spent five years as a 14-19 year old walking back from OK after the trail of tears walk there where she did not hear the rivers sing, and later, a major music studio sprung up "from the mud" using Bono's phrasing.
This all part of the Arcana Americana. Thanks for writing it Jamie.
I love this. Brings sobs to my heart and tears to my eyes! And the sobs are beginnings of deeper breathings and the tears are the soul’s reign…. Thank you!!
Truly epic piece this is. Thank you! My main takeaway from this was something like: To take adversity from the hard journey it is, and into triumphal celebration, is in essence what alchemy does for us. We take the Blues and we turn it into Swing. Though I also love how the article gave me a much deeper appreciation of the Americana culture and diversity.
I haven’t. ( ie seen the Oscar blitz for the film. ) But I’ve seen the movie twice and I love it that you opened with lines from Song for Woody …
song for a world undone. Circa 1961 (déjà vu coming around again). But without the perspective of generations that came online when the memory of the depression in World War II and the civil rights struggles were all very present.
Dylan’s song seems to contain all that and more in its lyrics. And guitar for that matter.
We need storytellers who convey the wisdom of our near ancestors in the clear eye’d context of the present moment
Sometimes I get lost looking for hope. This is a great reminder that there is a long history of hope that is right in front of us for the picking. Yeah baby! Let’s sing and dance our way there (together)….And don’t let the bastards get ya down!
Grazie amico! Loved this one🙏🏼
Hi Lucia! big love from me and Julie wherever fabuloso you are these days!
I remember featuring Bob Dylan's Slow Train Coming album when I was a DJ at my Christian college's radio station. I got so many calls and reprimands from students and the administration - "He's not a Christian!", "You toking Wells?", "Play the Dead", and "Stick to the programming or you'll be reading the news". In response to the outcry I played all of Dylans hits and a few Grateful Dead songs on my last late night show. I was demoted to reading the AP wire. Something was definitely "Blowing in The Wind".
Thanks, Jamie, for another creative and stimulating read. As an expat who moved from the US to Mexico in 2003, I'm often very embarrassed to acknowledge my home country. The one thing I am proud of is it's African American inspired music. I've been playing blues for quite a while as a hobby, and find it very well accepted in Mexico.
Japan too! (and the UK before it). Seems like sometimes you gotta get away from the source to appreciate it
You nailed it. Bringing in this amazing message of hope to us so clearly. Thank you my friend I’ve never met….and …Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me is the title of Richard Farina’s book published not long before he died way back in the day. (Note: he was a singer married to Joan Baez’s sister Mimi).
I love this. I read it today, after this morning visiting the Ma Rainey (Mother of the blues) house in Columbus GA as we trek toward the FL panhandle where we will again attend next weeks 30A Songwriter's festival, featuring Americana music. We saw the Dylan biopic on New Year's eve and loved it.
I often tell the story of Muscle Shoals, which is a free documentary available on Youtube and in particular the story of Tey-lah-nay, the wall/shrine built for her by her great-great-grandson, Tom Hendrix, featured in the documentary.
When we visted the shrine two years ago, we ran into a guy from LA visiting it for the 4th time and he told us a story. While he was visiting and speaking with Tom (who had passed away the year before we visited), a car pulled up and two guys got out, one in full Indian Chief head dress. The Chief spent an hour inspecting the shrine. They drove to AL from out west, with the Chief in search of the best appropriate shrine honoring a native-American woman, and he found it there. It is a spiritual place where Tey-lah-nay heard the TN river sing, and spent five years as a 14-19 year old walking back from OK after the trail of tears walk there where she did not hear the rivers sing, and later, a major music studio sprung up "from the mud" using Bono's phrasing.
This all part of the Arcana Americana. Thanks for writing it Jamie.
https://natcheztracetravel.com/natchez-trace-alabama/florence-tennessee-river/456-wichahpi-stone-wall.html
Love this, I think you're onto something. Music and Song cultivates/channels the McGilchristian right hemisphere in a world off balance to the left.
I love this. Brings sobs to my heart and tears to my eyes! And the sobs are beginnings of deeper breathings and the tears are the soul’s reign…. Thank you!!
Great article!
Didn't the 'going electric' happen to Neil Young as well?
Beautiful, thank you Jamie
Truly epic piece this is. Thank you! My main takeaway from this was something like: To take adversity from the hard journey it is, and into triumphal celebration, is in essence what alchemy does for us. We take the Blues and we turn it into Swing. Though I also love how the article gave me a much deeper appreciation of the Americana culture and diversity.
I haven’t. ( ie seen the Oscar blitz for the film. ) But I’ve seen the movie twice and I love it that you opened with lines from Song for Woody …
song for a world undone. Circa 1961 (déjà vu coming around again). But without the perspective of generations that came online when the memory of the depression in World War II and the civil rights struggles were all very present.
Dylan’s song seems to contain all that and more in its lyrics. And guitar for that matter.
We need storytellers who convey the wisdom of our near ancestors in the clear eye’d context of the present moment