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Western Nebraska, sketches with source photos, April 2024

#nebraska #sketch

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"We’re in a position to demand our fetishes and get them. No one ever complains. People say, ‘If you join their band you’ll be a slave to their whims.’ But what’s so bad about that? We have really good whims, so what’s wrong with being a slave to that?" --Poison Ivy in Guitar World

Photo: Demed L'her

#The Cramps

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“I got a home on high

in another world

in another world

I’m a stranger…" 

- John Lee Hooker, "Don’t Turn Me From Your Door”

Now that I’ve finished touring my first book, Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968, I wanted to drop this breadcrumb trail I followed for awhile, trying to trace the inspiration and timeframe of authorship for the title track, “Astral Weeks.” The Hooker song linked above was either recorded in the 1950′s or early 60′s–it’s hard to tell, the album it came out on contained recordings from 1953 and 1961 (anyone know for sure?). You don’t need me to tell you that some of the lyrics of “Don’t Turn Me From Your Door” are near identical to those found at the end of “Astral Weeks.” These lines are evocative of several hymns that certainly pre-date Hooker’s composition, like “Wayfaring Stranger” and “I Am A Pligrim,” absolutely, but the similarity between the precise phrasing and order of the lyrics here and at the end of “Astral Weeks” is unmistakable. 

This is not an instance where I’m building a case for plagiarism, or even complaining about a to-this-point uncredited homage. What I’d like to do here is present a speculative timeline for how and when these Hooker lyrics ended up in a Van Morrison song. Now, Morrison had certainly already been a fan of John Lee Hooker’s before moving to Boston–he told Happy Traum in 1970 about hearing his records growing up in Belfast and had possibly even seen him live already as well–but in May of 1968, Morrison sees Hooker live and hangs out with him afterwards, right around the same time when I believe he was composing the song “Astral Weeks.” On May 25th, 1968, Morrison watched his new friend Peter Wolf, and his band The Hallucinations, open for Hooker at the Boston Tea Party. 

After the show, Tea Party manager Steve Nelson walked backstage to find Wolf and Van were drunkenly pumping Hooker for stories and asked, “Does anyone need a ride home?”

“While I manned the wheel, the three of them sat together on the back bench seat of the Tea Party’s VW bus and carried on an animated conversation,” Nelson recalled. “Here you had a white kid from the Bronx who was a lover and interpreter of blues and R&B, an Irishman who grew up listening to that same music on records his father brought back from the States, and out of Mississippi and Detroit, one of the true creators of electric blues and boogie.” 

Nelson knew the conversation was important, but for the life of him, he could barely make out a single word. “At the time Peter was known for his ‘Woofa Goofa’ fast-talking hipster patter. Van had a brogue so thick and slurred that even Irish Bostonians could barely make out what he was saying. John Lee spoke softly in a deep Southern drawl, with a stutter.”

Nelson kept his eyes on the road while his ears strained to hear what the trio were going on about as he drove the VW across the bridge to Cambridge. “They understood each other perfectly. It was like a U.N. of the blues, without translators.”

Is it possible that Hooker performed “Don’t Turn Me From Your Door” that night at the Tea Party? Is it possible that the song’s end-refrain captured Morrison’s imagination to the point where it leaked into one of his own new compositions? Morrison had every reason to feel like a stranger at that time; he was quite literally one that moment in Boston with his career on the rocks and his future uncertain. We also know that the confirmed first time Morrison performs “Astral Weeks” is in August of 1968, auditioning for Lewis Merenstein at Ace Recording Studio. The proximity of the Hooker concert and this audition fits a timeline that lends credibility to this idea. 

I’m not arguing that this is definitely what happened. I’m just saying that it makes quite a bit of sense to me as a possibility. It’s a fun bit of conjecture, just something to knock around for a bit. In any case, Hooker’s song is just incredible. Take a listen and dream of your home on high. 

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#steve tibbetts #chöying drolma

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Elite people'll eat people

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#paul thek #eva hesse

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“These are the originators all together in one room.” --YouTube comment                   

#Sly and Robbie #monty alexander #Ernest Ranglin #reggae #ska

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Dianna Frid, SINGING (after Bertolt Brecht), (paper, paint, cloth, embroidery floss, graphite, aluminum foil), 2021-2022 ["And in the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will be singing about the dark times." – Motto [Svendborger Gedichte] by Bertolt Brecht (1936-1938, 1939)] [© Dianna Frid]

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Artist: Group Listening Composer: Laraaji Director: Nic Finch (chameleonic) Helmet sculptures: H. Hawkline

#laraaji #Youtube

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"Music exists only so long as hearing it lasts, just as God exists only so long as ecstasy lasts. The supreme art and the Supreme Being have this in common, that they depend entirely on ourselves." E. M. Cioran

#e. m. cioran #music #quoteoftheday

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Miklós Bánffy, They Were Divided

#Miklos Banffy

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THE SOFT MOON - "Circles"

R.I.P. Luis Vasquez

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Nasal douche Poolside line Soft lit tan What's your sign? Take my hand Just roll in

#goldfrapp #Dawn Shadforth #Youtube

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“If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones.”

Antonello Silverini, 1984, 2022

#george orwell

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A Murder of Quality, 1962

#john le carre #george smiley

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Days and nights pass slowly now Waiting for your call I long to hear your footsteps Walking down the hall

#chris and cosey #Youtube