Paul Robeson

Artist: Paul Robeson

LP: Robeson
Song: "Deep River"

[ listen ]

Song: "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child"

[ listen ]

I've been buying records like crazy again lately...crazy, because I still don't have anywhere to put them. I've even been buying some new music on vinyl, which isn't really like me, since, as you have probably noticed, I'm generally stuck in the 1930s and '40s and '50s and '60s and '70s and '80s. Just to prove that point, here's a lovely 1958 Paul Robeson LP I found in the dollar bins at Beats and Bohos about a week ago. 

By the time he was 27, Paul Robeson already had a law degree and was popular as an actor on the stage, but then he sang some "Negro spirituals" in public somewhere, and a whole new career in music was begun. He seems to have been a very well-known artist in the first half of the twentieth century (his "Othello" was legendary) so it's a shame he mostly goes unrecognized by the people of the world today. LP liner notes are included below.

[ Paul Robeson: April 9, 1898 — January 23, 1976 ]

Merit Hemmingson and Her Friends

Artist: Merit Hemmingson and Her Friends

LP: Swedish Modern
Song: "Vindarna Sucka Uti Skogarna"
[ listen ]
Song: "Mandom Mod Och Morske Män"

[ listen ]

Here's some nifty Scandinavian folk music set to a contemporary beat (well, contemporary when this record was released 47 years ago) by Swedish organist, multi-instrumentalist and hummer Merit Hemmingson. You can read all about Ms. Merit in Swedish here, and find an English translation here.

[ Merit Hemmingson ]

Jim & Jean

Artist: Jim & Jean

LP: People World 

Song: "The Planet June"
[ listen ]

Song: "People World"
[ listen ]

Song: "Playground"
[ listen ]

I couldn't think of any better way to spend a grey and rainy Saturday afternoon than to go looking through my LPs to find the sexiest unibrow of all. There was some tough competition, but the winner, by a hair, is Jim Glover of the '60s folk duo Jim & Jean.

[ Jim & Unibrow ]

Not only is Jim smolderingly handsome to start with, and also not wearing any clothes, but when I propped this LP up on my kitchen counter, Jim's eyes seem to follow me all around the room. They even followed me into the bathroom!

Jim & Jean were married to each other when they made this, their third and last, LP in 1968. They didn't stay together much longer, but they were one of those genuine hippie/folk duos that performed together in Greenwich Village as they built a following that led to international stardom. Well, okay; stardom may be too strong a word, but their single "People World" did peak at #94 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Jim went on to release some solo material over the next few decades (and he may have operated a Chevrolet dealership in Tulsa), whereas Jean appeared in plays and then died in the summer of 2007.

Lillebjørn Nilsen

Artist: Lillebjørn Nilsen

LP: Lillebjørn Nilsen's Beste

Song: "Barn av Regnbuen"
[ listen ]

Song: "Regnet er en Venn"
[ listen ]

Everything's been coming up Norway lately. I've been trying to learn Norwegian using the Duolingo app (en skilpadde spiser mot; han leser avisen), then I found this 1978 Norwegian folk LP at Jive Time when I stopped in to look for Christmas music. And now I've begun taking Norwegian language classes at the Nordic Heritage Museum on Thursday evenings, thanks to my dear friend Carrie. 

Then today on the bus I read six pages in my Lonely Planet guidebook that covered the entire history of Norway—from the conquest of the Vikings to discovery of Oil—on my way to see "Demning," a Norwegian film that was screened as part of the Nordic Lights Film Festival. 

 [ "Demning" (2015) — Dir. Paul Tunge ]

Set during the course of a hike in the rugged, mist-covered mountains that loom over Bergen, the film condenses the entire arc of a typical (in my experience) relationship into the span of a few days—from meeting cute, enjoying warm caresses, and hopes of everlasting kjærlighet—to pettiness, unease, disconnection, and then finally the inevitable physical attacks with sharp objects, wanting to shove gravel down each others' throats, and so on. It's a lovely film.

Lillebjørn Nilsen was born in December of 1950 and is considered by some to be "the voice of Olso" since he's written so many songs about the city. Right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who murdered 77 people in Norway in 2011 and has never been considered the voice of anywhere, supposedly hates Nilsen's 1973 hit "Barn av Regnbuen (Children of the Rainbow)," co-written by legendary folksinger Pete Seeger, because of its call for acceptance of people from around the globe, who are as varied as the colors of the rainbow. On April 26, 2012, over 40,000 Norwegians gathered in the streets to sing "Barn av Regnbuen" outside Breivik's trial.

[ Lillebjørn Nilsen ]

Odetta

Artist: Odetta

LP: Christmas Spirituals

Song: "Virgin Mary Had One Son"
[ listen ]

Song: "Poor Little Jesus"
[ listen ]

When I traded in three bags of LPs at Everyday Music on Capitol Hill a few weeks ago, this 1960 Odetta Christmas Spirituals record is one of the things I got in trade. Martin Luther King, Jr. called Odetta the queen of American folk music; when Bob Dylan first heard her sing, he immediately traded in his electric guitar for an acoustic one; Rosa Parks was one of Odetta's biggest fans. And I like her too.

[ Odetta: December 31, 1930 — December 2, 2008 ]

Leonard Cohen [1934-2016]

Artist: Leonard Cohen

LP: Songs of Love and Hate

Song: "Avalanche"
[ listen ]

It's been a sad, grueling week. First there was that election thing, where my country swerved so violently and suddenly to the right that I almost fell off. Next I find out Leonard Cohen is dead, and then I learn that my wonderful high school choir/jazz choir teacher, Roger Stansbury, has also passed away. And then Robert Vaughn, one of the Men From U.N.C.L.E., ups and follows the both of them out the stage door. Calgon, take me away!

[ Mr. Stansbury and the 1987 West Valley High School Jazz Choir — Yakima, WA ]

[ Robert Vaughn: November 22, 1932 — November 11, 2016 ]

Leonard Cohen

[ September 21, 1934 — November 10, 2016 ]

We will miss you, Leonard.

Val Stöecklein

Artist: Val Stöecklein

LP: Grey Life

Song: "Say It's Not Over"
[ listen ]

After leaving Record Baron I headed northward to M&B Record Exchange, which is in yet another Buffalo suburb called Tonawanda, just north of Kenmore. The friendly owner, Bob, showed me around the small store, including a preview of some of the new stuff he'd just gotten in. He even offered me a cold can of Pepsi, which I gladly accepted. I can't picture that ever happening in a record store in Seattle. You'll get "cold" here, but it won't be a Pepsi. 

Unlike at Record Baron, Bob has a vinyl listening station at his shop. This 1968 Val Stöecklein folk LP caught my ear; I'm a sucker for the strings. Born in Kansas in 1941, Val was lead singer for The Blue Things before suffering a nervous breakdown while on tour, after which he left the band in 1967. Offered a deal for a solo record by a friend at Dot Records, Val recorded "Grey Life," but then pulled out of an arranged promotional tour at the last minute. The record flopped. He tried jump-starting his musical career a few times after that, both in Kansas and in Nashville, but without success, according to AllMusic here. Val committed suicide in the spring of 1993 at the age of 52. 

Along with Val Stöecklein's sad and lovely record, I also found a few other gems in the bins at M&B Record Exchange that made it worth the northward drive. Bob was on the phone when I put this Syndicate of Sound LP on the player. When he finished his call, he said to me, "I noticed you passed on that Syndicate of Sound record, but you should listen to "Rumors" on side one and crank the volume way up." I did that, and now I have that album too. Thanks, Bob!

[ Val Stöecklein: 1941 — May, 1993 ]

[ Bob at M&B Record Exchange ]

[ M&B Record Exchange — Tonawanda, NY ]