Showing posts with label Harwood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harwood. Show all posts

Sunday, December 4, 2022

"Dylan-Related-Books" presents, live on stage, "I Went Down to St. James Infirmary"


Poster for the concert
Marco Demel and I have ongoing email exchanges due to his enthusiasm for I Went Down to St. James Infirmary, and my enthusiasm for his DylanHour radio program from Radio Darmstadt, Germany.

Demel also publishes German language Dylan related books. Many of these are translations, such as Louie Kemp's recollections of his long friendship with Dylan: Dylan & Ich: 50 Jahre Abenteuer.

And he has a book of his own, Tempest Under Control subtitled Mit dem Mond im meinem Auge ("With the Moon in my Eye"). Although Dylan is never mentioned, he is obviously the subject of this engaging book, part biography, part fiction, part commentary.

Marco is a busy man! He is also sponsoring a live concert series, starting December 9, 2022, at the HoffArt Theatre in Darmstadt.

The first of these concerts is actually called "I Went Down to St. James Infirmary," featuring musical guests Candyjane and Lesung. There will be readings from my book.

This from Marco a few minutes ago:
Your book will be part of the concerts at all dates of the series. In March, when the series continues, I
will have Winfried Klima with me, who will perform "Blind Willie McTell," or in April with a Darmstadt Quartet, Hot Jazz Company, who will perform "St. James." The leader is in his 70s and has a voice like Louis Armstrong. Then, in May, Roland Heinrich takes the stage with his German Jimmie Rodgers adaptations, and so on.

That's exciting, Marco! I wish I could be there for all of them!!

Friday, May 27, 2016

In Celebration - Another Look Out Mama

I am looking back this evening. Reminiscing.

The final edition of I Went Down to St. James Infirmary was printed in November, 2015, six months ago. A month later Pam and I moved from our acre of land in the village of Val Marie, Saskatchewan, to a three-storey walk-up in the metropolis of Victoria on Vancouver Island.

Once before - at the New Year of 2013 - I ventured away from the principal theme of this blog to post a song by Look out Mama, the trio I belonged to in Val Marie. We held a very occasional gig at the Val Marie Hotel, attended by tens of people (actually, not a bad audience in a village of a hundred souls).

So, in celebration of the second and final edition of I Went Down to St. James Infirmary, and of (approximately) the eighth anniversary of this blog, I am posting another Look Out Mama performance. James Page on lead guitar, Colleen Watson on rhythm guitar, myself on percussion and lead vocal.

As with the song "Look Out Mama" (not to be confused with the name of our trio, Look Out Mama), I wrote this ditty. The lyric is based upon the initial meetings between the philosophers G. I. Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky in 1914 Moscow. In earlier years Ouspensky (Dan) had experimented with drugs like ether (in the lyric, Esther) and hashish (Mary Jane) - but soon abandoned them. Lots of poetic license here, and apologies to the real world for that.

This was our first performance of the song (it became more nuanced in later versions). Many thanks to Pam Woodland for the video, recorded live at the Val Marie Hotel in 2013. (Double-click on the video the get the full image.)



Dan & Van

Dan had been traveling with Esther and Mary Jane
But one day they left him standing out in the rain
Bells were sounding across the river
Through the mists he could see
That all of this time they'd been moving through the same country
               
Where do you want to go, where are you going to stay           
You know it's all the same 
Place you are in, place with a different name

Van once trained tigers in Turkestan
Herded horses in Montana and Saskatchewan
He'd worked on the trains, drove camels across the plains
Picked grapes from the vines
Dug for coal and gold down in the mines

Where do you want to go, where are you going to stay           
You know it's all the same 
Place you are in, place with a different name

Dan met Van in an ice palace in Rome
Dan said to Van I've been searching for my home
Van told Dan, better sit down here
You've no place left to go
Keep your eyes open for the next hundred years or so
Try to your eyes open for the next hundred years or so
Try to keep your eyes open, you've nowhere left  to go
Inquiries into the early years of SJI