Posts Tagged Lowell Fulson

Like many internet mixtapes I review, since I listened to it the original link has gone down. But this one has been reposted to WFMU’s Rock ‘n’ Soul Ichiban blog. Seems I can’t be bothered to get around to things in a reasonably timely manner. It’s a personal problem I’m working on. How are you doing?

That’s great, I mean, too bad. Sorry about that. I’m a little distracted. Look, I know this might not be a great time, but I need to talk about this thing I listened to. It’s not important. Well, it’s important to me. Alright, maybe this specific internet mixtape is not that “important” to me even…I enjoyed it. Can’t I…share my enjoyment? It’s better than posting pictures of everything I stuff in my stupid face. Oh stop. No one told you to post those pictures. They did? For real? Well, those people are no friends. Forget about them.

What’s Beat? Is this mix “Beat”? I think it’s “Beat”…but but not Beat. Dig? It’s a fun time, but don’t get any big ideas. There’s maybe a dozen people who were The Beats, then there’s the Jazz guys, then there’s the beatniks (the fans), then there’s not-beatniks, then there’s the not-really-having-anything-to-do-with-anything-just-happened-to-be-theres. And the in-betweeners.

I was not there. I’m 34. But I used to really be obsessed with ‘The Beat Generation’. Still am somewhat, but now I think it’s a mistake to think of it like that. It’s like calling the 90s ‘The Grunge Generation’. It’s just not accurate. This mix is just some holiday-themed fun, but why not completely tear it apart into non-fun atoms? Because there’s better stuff to do, relax. I’m not going that far with it. But we can separate who’s who here.

• Jack Kerouc – ultimate Beat, obvs.
• Lloyd Glenn – legit jazz guy
• Tony Rodelle Larson – Gettin’ suspect. No info on this guy, seems to be a one-off novelty record, but there’s not really jokes in it. Maybe a failed attempt at a crossover career. We get both sides of his only single.
• Lowell Fulson – More of a Blues guy than a Jazz guy
• Jim Backus & Daws Butler – Mr. Magoo vs. Fake Beat, sort of. Funny, sort of.
• Pony Poindexder – Jazz, man. Altho, this is on the far edge of the Beat Era, well into the 60s.
• Jimmy Bowman – Beat version of Night Before Christmas. Another one-off, could have been a minor jazz guy.
• The Mello Moods – Borderline. The Christmas Song is pretty square, but they do their best to jazz it up. It’s not really a Jazz group, it’s transitional into into R&B/Rock.
• Miles Davis & Bob Dorough – I imagine Miles Davis smacking the shit out of anyone calling him a beatnik. Hard to imagine him sharing breathing space with this vocalist, but it happened.
• Hank Crawford – Jazz dude, transitioning into Soul.
• Oscar McLollie – Pretty much early Rock with some Beat lingo.
• Johnny Guarnieri with Slam Stewart – Real jazzbos, joke song. Fun times.
• The Charlie Parker Quintet – Bird, man.
• Babs Gonzales – This guy was a full-time jazz vocalist, no joke. But his style sometimes crosses into of self-parody. Easy to confuse where the line is. Also he apparently considered legit as a poet.
• Marlowe Morris – Jazz-soul…this has to be way into the 60s. Kerouac never heard this stuff.
• Patsy Raye & the Beatniks – This is one knocked out crazy chick. The musicians sound more like part of the lounge scene, a one-off group trying to cash in towards the end of the era. Kinda cool tho.
• The Ronnie Kole Trio – Standard jazz group.
• William S. Burroughs – Burroughs, man. Possibly at his least nihilistic.
• Manfred Mann – Huh?
• The Phil Moore Four – legit jazz dude, kinda pushin’ it.
• Lord Buckley – legit non-jazz non-beatnik, his take on Scrooge is more enjoyable before you realize it’s straight-up minstrelsy. So hopefully you’ve listened to the whole thing before reading this. Pretty great.
• Edd “Kookie” Byrnes – Man, was he beat. NOPE. It’s cool tho, man. Is it? Cool it man, it’s the past.

I went over this a few times (totally Un-Beat), like, “yeah, this guy’s a beatnik, that guy is, real beatnik here, fake beatnik there”, whatever. But NONE of these cats (can I say “cats”?) are beatninks. It’s just another word for hipster. Despite how anyone else uses those words I think there’s a clear and non-necessarily derogatory definition: it’s the type of person that lives the lifestyle of an artist without actually creating anything. Anybody that is creating art, whatever you call them…they made something. (And I don’t think fashion counts as a thing, unless you’re making the clothes from scratch.) Oh, but I’ve gone off on a thing. I’ll let you get back to whatever. Hippy Holidays and such.

Feels good! %