Essential Beat Generation LP's
DJ_NevilleC
1,922 Posts
Picked up the three casette copy of Rhino's "The Beat Generation" at a thrift store today and drove around all morning listening to it. Groovy stuff. Shows they were rapping back in the 50's.http://www.music.com/release/the_beat_generation/1/Wondering what y'all think are the essential Beat LP's. Here a few of my faves (got some, need some): 
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Plus these cats get a mention in 'On The Road'
Slim Gaillard..
and the mighty Wardell Gray...
I remember reading about the unsolved circumstances around Wardell Gray's death....found dead in the desert outside of Vegas, possibly murdered because of back gambling debts, but another theory is that he resembled some other guy gigging in town at the time that someone apparently had it out for (can't remember who it was now) and he was the mistaken victim....anyway, yeah, he's def on the list if for no other reason than for Twisted, the source of the classic vocalese by (the also aforementioned above) LH&R....along the same lines I'd put Art Farmer's "Farmer's Market" in there (also namedropped by LH&R elsewhere)....
and yeah, def Slim and Slam....
...Lord Buckley....
....Mose Allison....
The story I heard (which seems most likely) is that Gray - a junkie - got a hot shot and OD'd, and was dumped in the desert by his fellow junkies who didn't need to get caught with a corpse in their pad.
The Chase
The story I heard (which seems most likely) is that Gray - a junkie - got a hot shot and OD'd, and was dumped in the desert by his fellow junkies who didn't need to get caught with a corpse in their pad.
come on larry, you're really bringing me over man.....what a drag man, getting caught with a corpse at your pad.
I like that Rhino "Little shop of horrors" record and would like "Bucket of Blood" to get the same treatment.
Kerouac - King of the Beats by John Antonelli (2003)
Torrent:
http://www.secret-cinema.com/download.php/483/Kerouac.%5Bwww.secret-cinema.com%5D.torrent
come on larry, you're really bringing me over man.....what a drag man, getting caught with a corpse at your pad.
Me, personally...I think a corpse gives a pad character. Junkies on the other hand have no taste whatsoever...
What is on this record, and who is it by?
WB comp from the late 50's. I can't remember who's on it. Nobody too special, but it's got a good, semi-cheesey beatnick vibe.
He is dead.
The birth of Rhiannon.
He is dead.
In the winter of the heart.
He is dead,
In the canyons of death,
They found him dumb at last,
In the blizzard of lies.
He never spoke again.
He died.
He is dead.
In their antiseptic hands,
He is dead.
The little spellbinder of Cader Idris.
He is dead.
The sparrow of Cardiff.
He is dead.
The canary of Swansea.
Who killed him?
Who killed the bright-headed bird?
You did, you son of a bitch.
You drowned him in you cocktail brain.
He fell down and died in your synthetic heart.
You killed him,
Oppenheimer the Million-Killer,
You killed him,
Einstein the Gray Eminence.
You killed him,
Havanahavana, with your Nobel Prize.
You killed him, General,
Through the proper channels.
You strangled him, Le Mouton,
With your mains entendues.
He confessed in open court to a pince-nezed skull.
You shot him in the back of the head
As he stumbled in the last cellar.
You killed him,
Benign Lady on the postage stamp.
He was found dead at a Liberal Weekly luncheon,
He was found dead on the cutting room floor.
He was found dead at a Time policy conference.
Henry Luce killed him with a telegram to the Pope.
Mademoiselle strangled him with a padded brassiere.
Old Possum sprinkled him with a tea ball.
After the wolves were done, the vaticides
Crawled off with his bowels to their classrooms
and quarterlies.
When the news came over the radio
You personally rose up shouting, "Give us Barabbas!"
In your lonely crowd you swept over him.
Your custom build brogans and your ballet slippers
Pummeled him to death in the gritty street.
You hit him with an album of Hindemith.
You stabbed him with stainless steel by Isamu Noguchi,
He is dead.
He is Dead.
Like Ignacio the bullfighter,
At four o'clock in the afternoon.
At precisely four o'clock.
I too do not want to hear it.
I too do not want to know it.
I want to run into the street
Shouting, "Remember Vanzetti!"
I want to pour gasoline down your chimneys.
I want to blow up your galleries.
I want to burn down you editorial offices.
I want to slit the bellies of your frigid women.
I want to sink your sailboats and launches.
I want to strangle your children at their finger paintings.
I want to poison your afghans and poodles.
He is dead, the little drunken cherub.
He is dead,
The effulgent tub thumper,
He is dead.
The ever living birds are not singing
To the head of Bran.
The sea birds are still
Over Bardsey of Ten Thousand Saints,
The underground men are not singing
On their way to work.
There is a smell of blood
In the smell of turf smoke.
They have struck him down,
The son of David ap Gwilym.
They have murdered him,
The baby of Taliessin.
There he lies dead,
By the iceberg of the United Nations.
There he lies sandbagged,
At the foot of the Statue of Liberty.
The Gulf Stream smells of blood
As it breaks on the sand of Iona
And the blue rocks of Canarvon.
And all the birds of the deep sea rise up
Over the luxury liners and scream,
"You killed him! You killed him.
In your god damned Brooks Brothers suit,
You son of a bitch."
This cover is RADD!!!
I used to have both of these on my wall:
The Randy Weston is actually a pretty dope cool jazz LP - the bottom one has value to me for it's cover only...
...altho Rexroth hated being lumped in with the Beats, tho - kinda of an unwilling paternal figure, claimed to never had read most of Kerouac's work and that the whole Beat thing was just an ironic shamming....but who knows, maybe he was bitter as he witnessed all the success of the young bucks who weren't up to his intellectual snuff:
from http://jacketmagazine.com/23/rex-rothbg-antin-iv.html:
" ?? R&A: How about Kerouac? Have you changed your mind about him?
Rexroth: I have no interest in Kerouac whatsoever. I???ve done my stint for him. As far as I???m concerned, Kerouac is what Madison Avenue wants a rebel to be. That isn???t my kind of rebel. I mean I???ve been an anarchist all my life, and I know a lot more about Greek and Latin than Allen Tate."
and....
" ?? R&A: That searching for the path isn???t like Kerouac???s search for God???s face, is it?
Rexroth: Look, that???s all a lot of talk. You don???t become a saint until you lead a good life whether in Tibet or Italy or America. When the hipster picks this up, he cheapens it. I don???t like hipsters. The hipster is a louse on jazz...a mimic of jazz and Negroes who believes the Negro is born with a sax in his mouth and a hypodermic in his arm. That???s despicable. In jazz circles it???s what they call Crow Jimism.
?? R&A: And in religion?
Rexroth: I just don???t know where they drag the saints into this. You can???t become a saint by taking dope, stealing your friends??? typewriters, giving girls chancres, not supporting your wife and children, and then reading St. John of the Cross. All of that, when it???s happened before, has typified the collapse of civilization...and today the social fabric is falling apart so fast, it makes your head swim."
anyway, I always liked these lines:
And today, millions and millions, shut alive
In the coffins of circumstance,
Beat on the buried lids,
Huddle in the cellars of ruins, and quarrel
Over their own fragmented flesh.