We’ve been having some heavy shows as we descend through Hell with Dante, and so having a cold gave me the excuse to lighten up a bit and re-broadcast a show from the end of 2015, the kind of show that keeps you smiling throughout. With my guests Neil Henry and Andrew Ab, we play around with Professor Longhair, Soupy Sales, “Grizzly Bear”, “Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear”, a sentimental Christmas carol redeemed because we attended to it, Afroman, Fraggle Rock, whistling with a robin, a Yiddish radio commercial from the 1940s, a mock commercial by the Who, Danny Kaye, Shel Silverstein and Dr Hook, the Kinks, and Tommy Cooper. You are invited to attend and join us.
Series Four of Evening under Lamplight is taking us through Dante’s Inferno, bringing to life this great story, this great poem. We start in the middle, and e start lost. You are invited to attend, to jump into the middle of things, and to find yourself lost
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Gobo Fraggle finds the Only Way Home
You are invited to attend this fine episode about Home, picking up the Fraggle theme that “You don’t know where you’ve been until you’re homeward bound”, looking at the way home keeps its hold on us, the way we work out how to get back home again, and the way returning home can, after all, define where we’ve been. Featuring, among others, Robert Frost, Luke, Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Walt Whitman.
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Lamplight 102
I think you’ll like this episode of Evening under Lamplight, featuring a story by Rumi (“The Lost Camel”) and a discussion with Joseph Campbell (“From Camel to Lion to Child”), with the Kinks lost and found, and Fraggle Rock lost and found, and Elizabeth Bishop, Leonard Cohen, and Walt Whitman. You’re invited to attend.
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Lamplight 99
You are invited to attend to this episode about Work and Workers, including blacksmiths, chain gangs, drivers, bored office workers, oh, yes, and Fraggles and Doozers. Music from Joe Tex, Josh White, Sam Cooke, Dolly Parton, the Kinks, and Flatt and Scruggs, and two more sections of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”.
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“Dust and ashes — we hold them up in our open palm and let the wind take them away.”
It’s time for letting go, or even letting yourself go, as you accept our invitation to attend to a show with some lively songs from many regular contributors, poems from Whitman, Elizabeth Bishop, RLS, and thoughts on all of this and more from RLA, your friendly host for this occasion. See you there.
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"My boy was by my side, so slim /And graceful in his rustic dress!"
We invite you attend to children, in their innocence, their playfulness, their horror too. We have as our guests this time Donovan, the Incredible String Band, Anne Sylvestre, Mokey Fraggle, Randy Newman, Kinky Friedman, and Dylan and the Kinks, with readings from Wordsworth and RLS, plus the myth of Niobe.
"Beaver, I believe her, is gone."
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Daphne and Apollo
What relationship develops in that space between the artist and the work of art, between the singer and the song, between the reader and the book? Tone brings it all to life, so we want to open and be attuned to what’s being asked of us in this space. It can happen to us anytime. We invite you to attend, and be attuned, to our show, featuring, among much else, an examination of the Daphne and Apollo story – a mythic retelling of the way the art itself loves the artist. We have on the show the Kinks, and Dylan, and the Fraggles, Leonard Cohen, the Miracles, and also a touch of raga and an ancient Greek hymn, with readings from RLS and Ovid.
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All Friends are invited to attend the latest episode, with (as illustrated) Pogo, Randy Newman, Carol King, Dr Hook, and the Fraggles. Also the great Quaker Friend Willima Penn. And the usual guests: Kinks, Dylan, RLS. And not least, two pieces from my friends, Marc Copland and Emma Chapourian.
Songs of Pogo [Soundtrack] (Walt Kelly, “Man’s Best Friend”)
Toy Story (Randy Newman, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”)
Tapestry (Carole King, “You’ve Got a Friend”)
Completely Hooked – the Best of (Dr Hook, “I Don’t Want to Be Alone Tonight”)
New York Trio Recordings 3: Night Whispers (Marc Copland, “Emily – Take One”)
The Kinks – The Ultimate Collection (Kinks, “See My Friends”)
Down in the Groove (Bob Dylan, “Rank Strangers to Me”)
John Wesley Harding (Bob Dylan, “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest”)
Fraggle Rockin’ a Collection (Fraggle Rock, “Friendship Song”)
Tashi & friend
RLA & Tashi
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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”)
