Cauleen Smith @ The Kitchen, July 1st, 8pm

Cauleen Smith is one of my favorite filmmakers/visual artists. Seriously, if I had to be stuck on a film set for the rest of my life, I would want to be on her set--I'd always be seeing, hearing, and learning something new. If someone told me she'd made a film about paint drying, I'd be first in line to get a seat. She would undoubtedly communicate something surreal, playful, and surprising in her realization of this commonly tedious reality (pictured right, still from I Want to See My Skirt)

But I don't have to wait for a Twilight Zone/Groundhog Day episode to take over my life, or for someone to commission a film about a blank wall in need of a touch up. Nope. Cauleen Smith is on her way to NYC to premier her latest film, The Fullness of Time, at The Kitchen to be followed by a conversation between herself and the film's executive producer Paul Chan (Waiting for Godot in New Orleans). The screening is part of The Kitchen's The Future As Disruption exhibition of film, sculpture, painting, and photography curated by Rashida Bumbray and Matthew Lyons.

The premise of the film continues Carbonist School co-founder Smith's interest in black futurist postulations and science fictions, with a "sister-from-another-planet" traveling to Earth to study its ways and landing in post-Katrina New Orleans. The film was shot on location in New Orleans and Smith collaborated with New Orleans writer/educator Kalamu ya Salaam and Students At the Center. I'm not going to restate the description from the flyer, so for more information click the image below or check out the The Kitchen's webpage.
Also, check out a clip from the film at the end of this post.


Also, for those hardcore Afrofuturists out there Otolith Group (Anjalika Sagar, Kodwo Eshun, and Richard Couzins) is screening at 7pm.

The Fullness of Time dir. Cauleen Smith
The Future As Disruption
The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street @ 10th Avenue
New York, NY 10011
212-255-5793
Google map
8pm
FREE

Subway & PATH:
• C, E to West 23rd@ 8th Ave, walk over and up to 19th & 10th Ave
• 1 to West 23rd@ 7th Ave or West 18th@ 7th Ave, walk over and up to 19th & 10th Ave
• F,V to West 23rd @ 6th Ave (Ave of the Americas) walk over and up to 19th & 10th Ave
• PATH to West 23rd @ 6th Ave, then same as F, V above

Endnote:
• More on Cauleen Smith from Tribeca Film Institute
• The Cauleen Smith and poet A. Van Jordan (Cave Canem, again!) collaboration, I Want to See My Skirt, inspired by the images of Malian photographer Malik Sidibé, details from Code Z, and a review of the exhibit from Glasstire: Texas visual art online.
• Review of Smith's NTSC in the Austin Chronicle (Smith was previously on faculty in film production at UT/Austin)
• Afrogalactic Postcards, a collaborative online project funded by NBPC (National Black Programming Consortium) on which Smith was one of the producers.
(pictured l-r, the Afrogalactic postcard producers: Smith, Sergio Mata'u Rapu, Naimah Fuller, Dr. Steeve Coupeau (yes with two "e's"))



Clip from the The Fullness of Time



Cauleen Smith's The Green Dress: Chapter I (pictured above the NBPC photo, a still image from this video installation--originally shot on 35mm film)

Pippa Fleming on butch, griot identity, and "living in the mainstream"

KPFA interview with writer/director/choreographer/DJ (etc., etc,) Pippa Fleming, and producer and Endangered Species Project activist Grace Dueñas [sic?] , and cellist Naboko Mizaguchi [sic?], on Fleming's performance project "The Ms. K.I.A Chronicles" a "multimedia exploration of African American butch, griot identity in America" taken from her longer work Living In the Mainstream.

Fleming looks at various aspects of identity taking into account the inter-generational questions of identity in relationship to gender, race, national identity, culture and memory.

A little sample of Fleming's stage presence with her performance of "Bitter Pill," from "The Ms. K.I.A. Chronicles" production at the Museum of the African Diaspora in 2007.

Slavery by Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon

The full title of the book resulting from the Atlanta-based Wall Street Journal reporter Douglas A. Blackmon's seven years of research is Slavery by Another Name: The Reinslavement of African Americans from the Civil War to World War II (Doubleday, 2008). No that's not a typo, yes as you can see by the image to the right, that is actually the title of the book and the end of


I've just reserved a copy at my public library. In the book Blackmon uses the narrative technique of following one African American man in Alabama describing how after the dismantling of Reconstruction laws were put on the books that "criminalized African American life" including those allowing for the arrest for vagrancy at any time of any African American man who couldn't provide proof of his employ by a white man. So just sitting on a porch, or taking a walk, or walking, or traveling by any means to visit family, or to a place where he might inquire after employment was was dangerous proposition for a black man and his loved ones at that time. After being charged and convicted with vagrancy or another trumped up charge he was given a financial penalty which could amount to a years worth of wages or more and forced to work to pay them off by being leased or sold to a commercial enterprise. The conditions were appalling as detailed by Blackmon, and many men died in enslavement.

Although Blackmon focuses on Alabama in a May 6 interview (you'll need to scroll forward a little to get to the interview) with Michael Slate of KPFK's Beneath the Surface, he noted that this type of re-enslavement practice was occurring across the South. It occurred for the longest period of time and in its most structured form in Alabama. There are 30,000 pages of documentation on the situation comprising numerous complaints all available in the National Archives in Washington D.C. Blackmon talked about the changing national sentiment towards the Civil War and race relations in the wake of emancipation, the legal loopholes that allowed for this practice while it was unconstitutional for a white person to hold a deeds on African Americans as property, there was no federal statute that made it a crime enslave another person. So even though these complaints poured into federal offices it was determined by the government that they didn't have the jurisdiction to investigate or prosecute these cases. What amounted to kidnapping was not considered a federal offense and thus allowed the practice to be exclusively under state and county jurisdiction. Blackmon also commented on the white South's addiction to the economic model of slave labor as well as landowners lack of developed knowledge about their agrarian methods. Further xplaining the background to this reinslavement model he outlined the pre-Civil War development of a new slavery model in which African American men were separated from their families and put to work in industry fields at inhuman paces, "far beyond what any human being could be expected to survive" that resulted in profits that exceeded the loss incurred by that man being effectively worked to death in 4-5 years, and losing out on procreation opportunities--despite the purchase cost of slaves at that time. Some of these same white men were the architects of the new re-enslavement system after the Civil War. The resulting wealth, with the elimination or considerable decrease of the initial purchase cost of a slave, is behind the development of such companies as US Steel and Coca-Cola. (pictured above a U.S. Steel stockade (jail) in Birmingham, Alabama, 1908 © Douglas A. Blackmon) This re-enslavement primarily focused on young African American males, but of course also profoundly impacted African American families and communities, children grandparents, sisters, wives, who experienced the loss of loved ones and the continued violence and terrorism against their basic humanity in the repeated rending through of African American families and communities with this continuation of slavery--how can one recover from a disease that has not ended, but mutated and "metastasized"?

Blackmon's book also has a website with excerpts from the book, interviews, photo gallery, teaching guides, and multimedia resources. The practice the book details only ended in 1942. It was, as Slate and Blackmon deemed, a cynically motivated ending to a horrible injustice and shameful period. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941 and the US's entry into WWII, the Roosevelt administration realized that the existence of both the lynching of African Americans as well as this continuation of basically legal slavery in the South were going to be propaganda nightmares for the country. The legal changes with regards to prosecution for this form of enslavement soon went into effect on December 11, 1941 (lynching laws took much longer to take effect), and the first case was prosecuted in early 1942, a father and daughter who had enslaved a black man for five years. In 1943 they were convicted and sent to prison--an event which Blackmon considers the official endpoint for what he terms "the Age of New Slavery."

Officially the enslavement of African Americans--in all currently known forms--has only been over for 65 years, instead of the heretofore accepted end-date of 1865, or 143 years ago. Many of us have relatives older than 65 years of age.

I'm thinking it's time to add another emancipation day of recognition to Juneteenth. Additionally I want to express my graditute all those people who are responsible for those thousands of complaints that flooded the White House and the Justice Department in Washington D.C. taking what I'm sure was considerable personal risk to issue those statements. Though many of them likely died without redress, the fact that they attempted to be heard and gain justice meant that decades later someone, in this case Blackmon, could find that history and know it wasn't a few isolated cases, that a major chapter of US history was missing and needed to be addressed.

Black Male Response to R. Kelly Verdict

One of the most constructive response to the potential despair and demoralization rendered by this event and the subsequent jubilant celebrations on the part of some African Americans is this statement and petition from Black Men Against the Exploitation of Black Women. This response is being forwarded by author Jelani Cobb and others

• • • •

Dear Friends:

I am one of the contributors to the anthology Be A Father to Your Child, which focuses on encouraging healthy fatherhood development in the black community. We felt it necessary to issue the following statement and petition in response to the recent verdict in R. Kelly's child pornography trial.

Please read and, if you agree, sign and forward this to your networks.

Sincerely,

Jelani Cobb

Statement of Black Men Against the Exploitation of Black Women



Six years have gone by since we first heard the allegations that R. Kelly had filmed himself having sex with an underage girl. During that time we have seen the videotape being hawked on street corners in Black communities, as if the dehumanization of one of our own was not at stake. We have seen entertainers rally around him and watched his career reach new heights despite the grave possibility that he had molested and urinated on a 13-year old girl. We saw African Americans purchase millions of his records despite the long history of such charges swirling around the singer. Worst of all, we have witnessed the sad vision of Black people cheering his acquittal with a fervor usually reserved for community heroes and shaken our heads at the stunning lack of outrage over the verdict in the broader Black community.

Over these years, justice has been delayed and it has been denied. Perhaps a jury can accept R. Kelly's absurd defense and find "reasonable doubt" despite the fact that the film was shot in his home and featured a man who was identical to him. Perhaps they doubted that the young woman in the courtroom was, in fact, the same person featured in the ten year old video. But there is no doubt about this: some young Black woman was filmed being degraded and exploited by a much older Black man, some daughter of our community was left unprotected, and somewhere another Black woman is being molested, abused or raped and our callous handling of this case will make it that much more difficult for her to come forward and be believed. And each of us is responsible for it.

We have proudly seen the community take to the streets in defense of Black men who have been the victims of police violence or racist attacks, but that righteous outrage only highlights the silence surrounding this verdict.

We believe that our judgment has been clouded by celebrity-worship; we believe that we are a community in crisis and that our addiction to sexism has reached such an extreme that many of us cannot even recognize child molestation when we see it.

We recognize the absolute necessity for Black men to speak in a single, unified voice and state something that should be absolutely obvious: that the women of our community are full human beings, that we cannot and will not tolerate the poisonous hatred of women that has already damaged our families, relationships and culture.

We believe that our daughters are precious and they deserve our protection. We believe that Black men must take responsibility for our contributions to this terrible state of affairs and make an effort to change our lives and our communities.

This is about more than R. Kelly's claims to innocence. It is about our survival as a community. Until we believe that our daughters, sisters, mothers, wives and friends are worthy of justice, until we believe that rape, domestic violence and the casual sexism that permeates our culture are absolutely unacceptable, until we recognize that the first priority of any community is the protection of its young, we will remain in this tragic dead-end.

We ask that you:

o Sign your name if you are a Black male who supports this statement:

http://www.petitiononline.com/rkelly/petition.html

o Forward this statement to your entire network and ask other Black males to sign as well

o Make a personal pledge to never support R. Kelly again in any form or fashion, unless he publicly apologizes for his behavior and gets help for his long-standing sexual conduct, in his private life and in his music

o Make a commitment in your own life to never to hit, beat, molest, rape, or exploit Black females in any way and, if you have, to take ownership for your behavior, seek emotional and spiritual help, and, over time, become a voice against all forms of Black female exploitation

o Challenge other Black males, no matter their age, class or educational background, or status in life, if they engage in behavior and language that is exploitative and or disrespectful to Black females in any way. If you say nothing, you become just as guilty.

o Learn to listen to the voices, concerns, needs, criticisms, and challenges of Black females, because they are our equals, and because in listening we will learn a new and different kind of Black manhood




We support the work of scholars, activists and organizations that are helping to redefine Black manhood in healthy ways. Additional resources are listed below.

Books:
Who's Gonna Take the Weight, Kevin Powell
New Black Man, Mark Anthony Neal
Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot, Pearl Cleage
Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality, Rudolph Byrd and Beverly Guy-Sheftall

Films:
I Am A Man: Black Masculinity in America, by Byron Hurt
Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, by Byron Hurt
NO! The Rape Documentary, by Aishah Simmons

Organizations
The 2025 Campaign: www.2025bmb.org
Men Stopping Violence: www.menstoppingviolence.org

Sound Designer Ben Burtt on Pixar's WALL•E

Ah yes, more sound design--'tis the season, summer time with it's plethora of animated and action films. Some films are offering both genres as with director Andrew Stanton's (dir/wr. Finding Nemo; wr. Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life) forthcoming Pixar release, WALL•E. When Stanton was creating his alternate world he imagined only one sound designer with the chops to deliver a whole auditory universe, legendary Academy Award-winning sound and character voice designer Ben Burtt (Star Wars-every single one, Indiana Jones, etc) creator of the voice of R2-D2 among other cultural signifiers.

Check out this video profiling Burtt and the sound design process for WALL•E. Burtt looks like he has one of the best and most fun jobs in the world, right? He constantly gets to be curious, explore, take risks, and some of his failures have probably been huge successes, or least starting points for some interesting discoveries. There's something to be learned from that, for sure.

Endnote:
• Transcript of interview excerpt with Ben Burtt from the Star Wars Trilogy: The Definitive Collection Laserdisc Box Set.
• (Added 6/30/08) Interview with Ben Burtt on NPR from Studio 360.
• (Added 7/1/08) More interviews with Burtt and other goodies at Film Sound Daily and a profile of Burtt in the LA Times.
• (Added 8/15/08) NPR interview with director Andrew Stanton talking about WALL•E including the sound design.


Ben Burtt on creating the Lightsaber sound design for Star Wars. So inspiring, amazing possibilities for sound are everywhere!

Young, Gifted & Black Panel - Congressional Black Caucus 2007

Video of a panel at Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's ALC 2007, hosted by Congresswoman Maxine Waters that included Russell Simmons, Michael Baisden, Hill Harper, Congressman Laura Richardson and artist/poet Taalam Acey. I haven't viewed the entirety of it as of yet. Just wanted to be able to track it down when I have the time. Preliminarily, I noted the self-empowerment and entrepreneurial-capital focus the beginning section, then an audience member brings up the issue of making connections to history (particularly Garvey) and current concerns and efforts.

Sounds & Emotions

From Brussels: sounds and emotions

"experimental music for experimental people", onder die vlag selecteert nico bogaerts wekelijks zijn favoriete audiopareltjes.

Kung Fu Panda Sound Design Team

A behind the scenes look at the sound design for the new animated movie Kung Fu Panda.

Bo Diddley "The Originator" R.I.P.

I'm probably never going to think of Bo Diddley (1928-2008) quite the same after reading Etta James' autobiography. He was an architect of what we know today as rock 'n' roll and created some memorable rhythmic interplay that influenced numerous other musicians, and led to key moments in the rock 'n' roll archives. Rock on, Mr. Diddley.


Classic Bo Diddley "Road Runner" (who are the other musicians?)



Bo Diddley gettin' his serious groove on

The Experiment, featuring Mos Def: "The Message"

The Experiment, a trio headed up by the musical director of Mos Def Big Band, keyboardist Robert Glasper, with Chris Dave on drums, and Jon Jon Web on bass. I believe this group is the heart of the Big Band lineup. Performing "The Message" on December 27, 2007 at the Red Cat in Houston, Texas.

2008 BAM Rhythm & Blues Festival at MetroTech; JVC Jazz Festival New York

Dang, more music, more music, and again it's FREE...OK the BAM fest is free. But the JVC fest has a tribute to Alice Coltrane....

2008 BAM Rhythm & Blues Festival at MetroTech, June 5 - August 7. Um was there a 2007 festival and I missed it? OK, I'm just being a little testy. Note: each of these shows is on a Thursday at 12noon. Really this looks like a solid line-up that includes the fabulous singer/songwriter Alice Smith(!), July 24th, whose shows I keep missing, and Leela James, July 10th, whom I've heard about, but her recorded material hasn't wowed me--however, I've heard her live show is something to behold. The (Legendary) Skatalites are also slated to appear, Thursday, June 19th @ noon. Phoebe Snow, on July 17th, Meshell Ndegeocello on July, 31st, and Richie Havens ends the series with a guest appearance by teenage blues guitarist Marcus Carl Franklin.



Alice Smith performing "Dream" from Lovers, Dreamers, and Me.




TVWireTV Interview with Marcus Carl Miller on his role in the Todd Haynes experimental Bob Dylan bio-pic I'm Not There (2007).

---

Sure the 2008 JVC Jazz Festival/New York June 15 - June 28, has the big corporate identifier at the head of its title, and it has outlets in Cali, Miami, Chicago, The Netherlands, Paris, and Warsaw, but it's not BP or Mobil, etc. JVC actually has some connection to music. Oh dear, I'm still a bit testy. OK, let's move on. So what I'm really excited about, obviously is the Tribute to Alice Coltrane on Tuesday June 17th, with Ravi Coltrane (alto saxophone), Geri Allen (piano), Charlie Haden (bass), Jack DeJohnette (drum), and Brandee Younger (harp). I missed Haden playing with Alice Coltrane in 2006, he was out sick, but Reggie Workman more than ably subbed for him (it sounds weird to even write that Workman "subbed" for anyone, but that was the deal). The show is at the Concert Hall for the New York Society for Ethical Culture, and the tickets are not cheap: $45 - $55. There's also the Charlie Haden Quartet West (NYC Premier); Thursday, June 19th, Lizz Wright; Medeski, Martin, & Wood (but I think they're playing for free at the Lincoln Center Festival) and Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog (which includes 2 Foot Yard bassist Shahzad Ismaily); Bill Frisell Trio--another NY debut; Jill Scott at Carnegie Hall, Friday June 20th (I might just have to get that Live in Paris DVD instead, sorry Ms. Scott, but go on with your bad self!).

Now some highlights that tempt me as much as the Alice Coltrane Tribute: "The Solo Piano" with Cecil Taylor and George Cables, Friday June 20th. Though I might just be having a thing for Cecil Taylor after watching him signify on the must see documentary, All the Notes, even shows his scores--and they are a revelation, no joke. Sunday, June 22th, 50 Years of Bossa Nova with João Gilberto, oh man! Monday June 23rd, Herbie Hancock's River of Possibilities Tour--but I must admit my favorite cuts off of his tribute album to Joni Mitchell were when it was just him doing the instrumental thing. The vocals just invited too much comparison to Mitchell, and few people could go somewhere surprising and new beyond what Mitchell already did (except, surprisingly, Tina Turner). Wednesday, June 25, Ledisi--always good to see an artist who's honed their craft and remained dedicated, getting her/his due. Saturday, June 28th, Mos Def Big Band, with special guest Gil Scott-Heron. I'm curious about Mos Def going the way of the big band. As breath of life, pointed out recently, his solo artist career hasn't really taken off (they suggested more duets with ubiquitous but oft-unheralded vocalist Vinia Mojica, if you check Def and Mojica out on "Climb" from 1999's Black on Both Sides (Rawkus) you'll see why. Do a YouTube search to find all the cuts you may love, but never knew Mojica was sangin' on). I recall Def playing the leader of a big band in 2005's Lackawanna Blues, but hadn't realized he'd taken it further than that. Turns out he's been playing gigs since mid-2007, with an Apollo tribute to James Brown (tracks are floating around the internet) and then a January Dr. Martin Luther King Day Detroit Tribute to producer J Dilla (who passed away in 2005 from complications from Lupus). Of course it would be beautiful to see Scott-Heron performing again. A few other potentially captivating moments: Wednesday, June 18th "Make It Funky" with Maceo Parker (Maceo! Maceo!) Thursday June 26, Soulive with special guest Joshua Redman; Friday, June 27th "The Soul of Jazz" with Al Green and Dianne Reeves (Carnegie Hall) and DeeDee Bridgewater Red Earth: A Malian Journey (The Concert Hall at The New York Society for Ethical Culture). This last one comes from Bridgewater's travels to Mali a few years ago and resulted in an album and now this show. To hear more about it check out this Jazzset with DeeDee Bridgewater, which she regularly hosts on NPR, but Georges Collinet, host of Afropop Worldwide on Public Radio International sit in for her on this date, so she can do her artist-thang. For more background on Bridgewater's Journey, check out this NPR story "Dee Dee Bridgewater Discovers Her 'Red Earth.'"

Endnote:
• NPR interview with Lizz Wright about her latest album The Orchard.
• NPR featured track (May 23, 2008) "For Malena" from Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dogs release Party Intellectuals.
• NPR's Jazz Profiles: Herbie Hancock- whew! we almost lost Hancock to a career in electrical engineering, of course he used it later on...
• Fast Focus - Herbie Hancock "River: The Joni Letters"
• JVC Jazz Festival article "Mos Def: Big Band Beats"
• Review of the Mos Def Big Band J Dilla Tribute show
• Ledisi's "In the Morning/Alright" video from her recent Lost and Found. (Verve records disabled embedding). I like the straight up "In the Morning" (also disabled embedding) a bit better.


Medeski, Martin & Wood "Big Time" with Medeski rockin' the Hammond Organ:




(a little taste of) Dianne Reeves at Belleayre Music Festival 2007



Jill Scott's "Hate On Me" video - liberation for real (with a little shot out from Tavis Smiley and Cornel West)...

Lincoln Center Out of Doors - FREE

It's summer, summer, when all you need is a lot of patience to scope out a good location, time to cook up some portable vittles, good strategic thinking for how to lug lawn chairs and coolers in and out of the park and on public transportation. But no one said EASY, they just said FREE.

There will be some great offerings this year at the Lincoln Center Out of Doors 2008 season with multiple afternoons of the 25th Annual Roots of American Music Festival including Charlie Haden and Family, The Knitters with John Doe, Exene Cervenka, Dave Alvin and DJ Bonebreak, and Patti Smith, along with the Campbell Brothers(!), Irma Thomas, and a brass band battle, watch out! There's also a line up of African pop and rock, Toshi Reagon and BIGLovely and Bernice Johnson Reagon, a birthday tribute to Graciela, vocalist for Machito and His Afro-Cubans and the Mario Bauza Orchestra. There's dance and theater as well with Brazilian ensemble Ologundê, and Bonga & The Vodou Drums of Haiti, Armitage Gone! dance company with Lukas Ligeti's Burkina Electric, and Ronald K. Brown's Evidence Dance Company. Legacy is in full effect with a night honoring the record producer Joel Dorn (who passed away in December 2007) with Dr. John, Roberta Flack, Les McCann (!!!), David "Fathead" Newman, Mocean Work (Adam Dorn), and Jane Monheit, and more artists to come, another bill features jazz violinist Regina Carter and Simone (none other the the High Priestess of Soul's daughter) singing with The Rob Stoneback Big Band, plus there's an African tribute to James Brown, and Wordless Music's program 800 Years of Minimalism: The Spiritual Transcendent.

This reminds me, Rhys Chatham is premiering A Crimson Grail (2008) for 200 Electric Guitars (World Premier, a Lincoln Center commissioned reworking of the piece) at the Wordless Music event.

However he still needs 200 electric guitarist, 16 of which have to be bassists.

HOW TO APPLY:
Guitarists must be highly-proficient players, read music, and be able to commit to three evenings of rehearsal, August 12, 13 and 14, as well as the performance on August 15. Those interested in being considered for one of the 200 guitar slots for A Crimson Grail should go to Lincoln Center's website: www.lincolncenter.org/wordlessmusic for complete information and an application form. Applications are due by June 15. Decisions will be announced by July 15. All guitarists will need to use their own guitars and amps, but will play strings generously provided courtesy of D'Addario.

Good Luck!

Celebrate Brooklyn: June 12th - August 9th!

Oh my, did I really forget this music and arts festival? My apologies--to myself, because what a diverse line up they have this year. There's "a lot of depth" on that stage as the sportscasters have grown fond of saying. Beth Orton, Miriam Makeba, Salif Keita, the African Guitar Festival, Mark Morris Dancers, Caroline Chocolate Drops, Dixie Hummingbirds, Crooklyn Dodgers Reunion, Lila Downs, performers from the Latin Alternative Music Conference. And it's all FREE!

(OK Starbucks is footing the bill, so you'll probably end up paying for it with those expensive coffee purchases if you go in for that stuff.)

I could go on, but I won't... except to ask who's kicking off Celebrate Brooklyn this year? He's a complicated man and no one understands him but his woman... Yeah, yeah... but remember all the other records he made? Those arrangements of horns and strings paired with languid Memphis funk to make a whole new sound? Plus of course all that great album cover art, and can't forget those inside photos. CD art just can't compare to what some folks used to do with the surface area of an album cover, as well as the inside goodies (fold out posters!) that sometimes were found after you got it home and ripped off the cellophane.

Oh well, here's a little visual ode to those days.