Musical Mixes
In their great song, "Ex-Girl Collection," the Wrens sing, of an series of affairs, that "it's just how men mark time." I don't do that, instead I make these musical mixes, eventually adding covers and liner notes. ****Hyperlink at top of the liner notes of these mixes will take you to a Spotify playlist
Posts
Phoenix Noir
This is one of my favorite mixes, although some of the more morose songs grate on me now (some say I can be morose - say it ain't so). But Sante Fe is great and don't miss I Was a Lover.
Phoenix Noir liner notes.pdf
As the World Warms, A Word About Whaling
An environmentally themed mix with some Herman Melville thrown in.
Mass/Mid/Mult/Cult
An early one, one or my first ones that I thought was pretty creative. You might see that I was already thinking about intelligent popular culture. The mid-1950s discussion of middle brow culture drew me in. And then I loved the juxtaposition of the world historical field shout (that recently showed up on Spotify, hooray) with the ephemeral Hey Scensters. This was still pre-liner notes but the four front pictures (clockwise from top left) are meant to capture the mass culture me and siblings grew up in, my own multicultural background including much time on a tobacco farm in middle Tennessee, the intelligent, middle brow culture my buddy Gene and I tried to create in the Philosophy, Politics, and the Public program, and finally the cult of democracy I early joined there in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
The Church of the Fallen Angels
I shed a tear rereading this one, a celebration of my mother's 90th birthday. She passed away on Veteran's Day, 2023, no doubt greeted in heaven by her father, a World War I vet.
Age is Wasted on the Old
This is my most recent mix, after a long silence. The liner notes explain the rest.
Thirty Years In...and Nothing to Show for It
Presumably, the cover image reveals that the title is a joke. This about my longtime, wonderful, and sadly late Tyrone Williams, the innovative poet. He and I got together twice a week for beers for nearly 40 years. He's the best friend I ever had. Starting in 2013 I began to record our conversations and so I have many, many hours of recording. Perhaps I will share some on this site. I will share, soon, the two from this mix (Spotify, of course, does not have those cuts!).
Thirty Years in Spotify playlist
thirty years in liner notes 2.pdf
The State of the Jack
Seems like I'm saying about a lot of these mixes that they chronicle a difficult time. But, gee, I've had a charmed life. Honest. And I'm grateful. This one riffs on Memorial Days, present and past.
Mid-Ocean Reconnoiter
My dear and sadly late friend Tyrone Williams used to say, in the wake my separation from my wife, that I'd eventually “come up the other side.” Never could quite believe it and this mix is my response.
Aging Indiscretions
Deux Hommes
This one is a memorial to my father and one of my great friends Gene Beaupre (the fellow I taught with for years). Sometimes I just get the right vibe, the right tone, on this mixes. this one is a mixture of haunting (IMHO) and joyous. I guess I do ruminate on death quite a bit. But friendship too.
Des Plaines
I Partyed (Almost) Every Night I Was on the Planet
A sad boost. Still sort of true but I hardly ever drink at all any more.
Panoramas and Labyrinths
A residue of one of my failed scholarly pursuits - although I would say my treatment of panoramas and labyrinths in the classroom bore some fruit.
Pugilism, or a Puncher's Chance
Johnny's Gonna Live
from before I started doing liner notes; some fun cover art though, perhaps. I lost my digital copies of a bunch of mixes, so this one is recreated from a photo graph. Some good tunes.
Get in Line
There are a series of these, mixes I made for each of my four children when they graduated from high school (and then another two made for my first two grandchildren).
My favorite song on the mix, Cadence by Miranda Sound, is not on spotify. Too bad. Great song. It's the signature song on the mix, in my mind. My son, now a magnificent young man, was struggling in late high school and I wanted him to know that “just ahead, you'll find your cadenence.” And he did.