Bryn Fortey and Holly Holt

The British jazz poet Bryn Fortey reminds us how many musicians were born in the 1920s. Above is a picture of some cigar box guitars, the instrument that the subject of Bryn's poem was known for playing.

ELLAS McDANIEL

(1928  -  2008)

Ellas McDaniel would have laughed

At being lumped with the jazzers

He thought himself a rock ‘n’ roller

An entertainer

The man who invented rap

And the psychedelic guitar

The baddest cat alive: Bo Diddley

Rock ‘n’ roll – certainly

R&B – yes

But rooted in the Blues

(And where would Jazz be without them)

With a nod to the field hollers

That preceded it all

Ellas McDaniel: the boy violinist

Who tuned a guitar like a fiddle

And grew up to be Bo Diddley

Bryn Fortey 

Nina Simone was not born in the 1920s, but recently I found a wonderful poem inspired by her "Blackbird." Holly Holt, the co-editor of Walking is Still Honest and the illustrator of Charles Clifford Brooks III's Athena Departs and The Salvation of Cowboy Blue Crawford, has written this poem.  

“betrayed by summer”

inspired by “Blackbird,” Nina Simone

you believed happiness

was the language

the birds spoke

in summer, where heat

mimicked the pulse

of memory

while your ears

gathered the silk

of silence over your soul

we were both born

in stardust, you and I,

but something lonely

crept into you

from the cradle:

an inability to chase

dreams and horizons,

to light candles,

to breathe hopes

and call them home

words, like a pebbled walkway

on days filled with rain,

have contradicted your peace

as the hushed sound of stone

underfoot—a heart’s beat,

sad, alone, and afraid,

muted by this hopeful season

every year, your search

involves only looking back

your beliefs bring the certainty

that happiness betrayed you,

the blackbird whose sad beauty

will never again grace the skies—

and summer can only move on

without you

----------------------------

I also want to add Holly's illustration of a haiku in Miriam Sagan and Michael G. Smith's sequence.  

Let's start off with the video of "Blackbird" that Holly sent me:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CBIuyH7eKA

Nina Simone also sang "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" and "To Love Somebody" (among other songs):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ckv6-yhnIY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jgHOcXTr50

Let's include some Bo Diddley, starting with "Hey Bo Diddley":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFpv1LKrA9s

Here he plays "Who Do You Love" with Ron Wood:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqiHRYjePBk

Or you might prefer him with George Thorogood:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXMgx92muQo