Ike turner, the backbeat and the devil (in memorium, and against secular fundamentalism)
There are three reasons I want to link to snuh: ike turner, the backbeat and the devil, which I didn't read back in December when Ike Turner passed away (when I posted this).
First, simply because it is a great piece of blogging, taking us from Ike's death, through an excavation of the history of rock 'n' roll, via the Blind Boys of Alabama to the Twilight Zone, Tom Waits and HBO's The Wire, written with great research skills and great erudition.
Second, as a follow up to the post the other day which included Marx's "sigh in a soulless world" quote about religion. The point I want to make, which is illustrated beautifully by the mp3s of Roy Brown, Wynonie Harris and Blind Boys of Alabama songs, that religion may be a sigh in a soulless world, but it is so much more than that too. Although I inhabit the same corner of the blogosphere as some very militant secularists, I strongly believe that the world would be a much, much poorer place without the contribution faith makes.
Finally, reading the post put me in mind of the Megan, a woman who blogged at the wonderful music blog Moistworks, who died tragically young in 2007. I never knew her, but I felt I did a little through her blog posts, which were also perfectly crafted and immensely erudite. She would have turned 37 on Boxing Day, and her colleague Alex plays us Gillian Welch's "I Dream a Highway" in her memory.
Finally, while we're with Moistworks, listen to the Duke Ellington recording "In the Beginning God", posted here, and try and take seriously the inane phrase "clash of fundamentalisms".
First, simply because it is a great piece of blogging, taking us from Ike's death, through an excavation of the history of rock 'n' roll, via the Blind Boys of Alabama to the Twilight Zone, Tom Waits and HBO's The Wire, written with great research skills and great erudition.
Second, as a follow up to the post the other day which included Marx's "sigh in a soulless world" quote about religion. The point I want to make, which is illustrated beautifully by the mp3s of Roy Brown, Wynonie Harris and Blind Boys of Alabama songs, that religion may be a sigh in a soulless world, but it is so much more than that too. Although I inhabit the same corner of the blogosphere as some very militant secularists, I strongly believe that the world would be a much, much poorer place without the contribution faith makes.
Finally, reading the post put me in mind of the Megan, a woman who blogged at the wonderful music blog Moistworks, who died tragically young in 2007. I never knew her, but I felt I did a little through her blog posts, which were also perfectly crafted and immensely erudite. She would have turned 37 on Boxing Day, and her colleague Alex plays us Gillian Welch's "I Dream a Highway" in her memory.
Finally, while we're with Moistworks, listen to the Duke Ellington recording "In the Beginning God", posted here, and try and take seriously the inane phrase "clash of fundamentalisms".
Bob's beats genre keywords: soul, gospel, blues, black music.
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