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Attend to the fools, the jesters and the jokers. Fools in love, idiot winds, and three kinds of professional jesters, including the modern-day Stand-up Comic. Besides regulars Dylan, Ray Davies, and RLS, we have guest appearances from Frankie Lymon, Mothers of Invention, Danny Kaye, the D’Oyly Carte, Jonathan Swift, and a few others. The only way to be cool, is to let yourself first be a fool.
And take a look at our podcast on the Tarot Fool.
Essential Recordings 1955-1961 (Frankie Lymon and the Teenages, “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?”)
Cruising With Ruben & the Jets (Mothers of Invention, “How Could I Be Such a Fool”)
Blood On The Tracks (Bob Dylan, “Idiot Wind”)
The Maladjusted Jester (Danny Kaye, “The Maladjusted Jester”)
Other People S Lives (Ray Davies, “Stand-up Comic”)
Magical Mystery Tour (Beatles, “Fool on the Hill”)
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This our third show on Animals, a topic always good for interesting music and poetry. Several dogs here this evening, including the original “Hound Dog” – not sounding like you thought it sounded – and cats and a rooster (cockerel) and a bumble bee with a stinger as long as my arm, a spider, a tiger, some birds, and, yes, even a dragon. Our usuals – Dylan, Kinks, RLS – plus, well, listen along and you’ll see who else.
The Village Green Preservation Society (Kinks, “Animal Farm”)
Anthology 3 (Beatles, “Octopus’s Garden”)
New Morning (Bob Dylan, “If Dogs Run Free”)
Ulysses (Modern Classics) (James Joyce’s Ulysses, read by Jim Norton)
Songs from a Room (Leonard Cohen, “Bird on a Wire”)
You are invited to attend to Cinderella, and fairy tales and transformations and miracles and all those things we usually don’t dare to think will happen in real life. Yes, we have the Kinks and Dylan and RLS, and others. Tammy Wynette tells us she still believes in fairy tales. Do you?
Debateable Lands (Kathryn
Tickell, “The Return”)
State Of Confusion (Kinks, “Heart of Gold”)
Into the Woods (Sondheim, “On the Steps of the Palace”)
Their Greatest Hits (Hot Chocolate, “You Sexy Thing”)
The Bootleg Series Vol.1-3: Rare & Unreleased 1961-1991 (Bob Dylan, “You Changed My Life”)
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What goes round comes round to our show, featuring the circles we spin in, the ruts we get stuck in, the reciprocal gestures, the circular reasoning, the upward spirals. Dylan, Kinks, RLS, the Band, Guys and Dolls, Kay Starr, and the Choir of the Tuskegee Institute. And a special look at Ralph Ellison’s amazing story “The King of the Bingo Game”. We invite you to attend.
Give The People What They Want (Kinks, “Predictable”)
Music from Big Pink (The Band, “This Wheel’s on Fire”)
ALMANACK (Steeleye Span, “Reels”)
Guys and Dolls (“Luck Be a Lady”)
The Fabulous Kay Starr (“Wheel of Fortune”)
Slow Train Coming (Bob Dylan, “Do Right to Me Baby [Do unto Others]”)
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (40+ works with an active table of contents) (“The Sick Man and the Fireman”)
Flying Home and Other Stories (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) (Ralph Ellison, “The King of the Bingo Game”)
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Our wintertime show features Robert Service’s “Cremation of Sam McGee”, a tall tale from the frozen north, and “The Smoke-Shovelling Song”, a tall tale song from the frozen Edinburgh. Dylan and the Kinks and RLS, of course, and also Leonard Cohen and Randy Newman. But don’t take my word for it – come and attend for yourself.
Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes (Classic Reprint) (RLS)
New Morning (Dylan, “Winterlude”)
The Randy Newman Songbook Vol.1 (Randy Newman, “Lonely at the Top”)
Everybody’s in Show-Biz (Kinks, “Sitting in my Hotel Room”)
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Not one of your typical Christmas shows, of course. The myth speaks of a light shining in the darkest hour, so let’s see what we can do with that theme. It all depends on what we mean by “darkest hour”, of course. John Lennon calling for peace in a time of war? How about Father Christmas being mugged by some kids who want his money? Christmas blues? RLS’s “faithful failures”? John Donne on the year’s darkest day? But be sure not to miss the amazing performance by Dylan Thomas of “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” – a sparkling reading to lighten all our darkness as we listen.
Lennon: Legend – The Very Best of John Lennon (John Lennon, “Happy Christmas [War Is Over]”)
Misfits (Kinks, “Father Christmas”)
Christmas In The Heart (Bob Dylan, “The Christmas Blues”)
A Child’s Christmas in Wales (Dylan Thomas)
The John Rutter Christmas Album (Cambridge Singers, “Silent Night”)
The Love Poems of John Donne: Complete & Unabridged (Richard Burton reading Donne’s “Nocturnall upon St Lucies Day”)
Darkness into the Light (Tavener, “Medie Noctis Tempus Est”)
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All sorts of things come down here: clothing, space aliens, rain – both threatening rain and the Advent coming down of righteous rain. The Kinks and Dylan, of course, and also Lennon, Randy Newman, one of those comic songs of the 50s, a bawdy song, some peaceful Japanese music, a song from Eastmountainsouth and a Gregorian Chant. Readings and reflections on RLS, James Joyce, Dante, Cyrano de Bergerac, and others. Come on down and join us!
Ulysses: Annotated Students’ Edition (Penguin Modern Classics)
A Parcel of Steeleye Span: Their First Five Chrysalis Albums 1972-1975 (“The Ups and Downs”)
Halloween Songs: Thriller, Ghostbusters, Monster MASH, I Put a Spell on You, Halloween, Werewolves of London, Purple People Eater (Sheb Wooley, “The Purple People Eater”)
The Fantasticks (“Soon It’s Gonna Rain”)
The Randy Newman Songbook Vol.1 (“I Think It’s Going to Rain Today”)
Beatles Again (“Rain”)
Preservation Act 1 (Kinks, “There’s a Change in the Weather”)
The Bootleg Series Volume 9 – The Witmark Demos (Dylan, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”)
Dante: Inferno (Penguin Classics)
Restful Music of Japan (Toru Takimitsu, “Rain Tree Sketch”)
Eastmountainsouth (“Rain Come Down”)
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We invite you to attend to our exploration of Mothers of Different Sorts. There are the problems of motherhood, needing little helpers, envying (or perhaps not) those still free to live it up without the drag of children. Then there is the Mother-Son relationship, and the Mother-Daughter relationship – not the same things, of course. And finally the mythic mother and divine Mother. So we’ll hear from the Stones, the Kinks, the Miracles, Randy Newman, Dylan, Dr Hook, and introducing Louis Barabbas and the Bedlam Six, a wonderful group from Manchester with their own problems with Mother. There’s not much reading this time, just a few anecdotes about RLS and his mother. Also songs in Yiddish and, I think, Greek. Lots to ponder on here.
Between The Buttons (UK Version) (Rolling Stones, “Mother’s Little Helper”)
Something Else By The Kinks (Kinks, “Two Sisters”)
12 Songs (Randy Newman, “Mama Told Me Not to Come”)
Bringing It All Back Home (Bob Dylan, “It’s Alright Ma [I’m Only Bleeding]”)
Completely Hooked: the Best of Dr. Hook (Dr Hook, “Sylvia’s Mother”)
the naughty nineties LP (Beatrice Kay, “Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl”)
The Yiddish Radio Project (Barry Sisters, “Oh, Mama, I’m So in Love”)
Song for Athene – Svyati and other Choral Works (Tavener, “Hymn to the Mother of God”)
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Cast your minds back a few days to the pivot of October 31/November 1: All Hallows’ Eve (Hallowe’en) and All Hallows’ Day, or All Saints’ Day. And come attend to some Hallowe’en-spirited songs and reflections, modulating into something closer to a celebration of All Saints and All Souls – that is, everyone, good or bad.