A few days ago someone mentioned “Basketball Diaries” to me, as if it was a great discovery. Well, for this person, it was. “Have you ever read this book, “Basketball Diaries?” If you haven’t…” Thinking "STFU," I broke in with, “Yes, I read all his books, and I have his records, and I hung with him. Spent an hour discussing that very book, and his male hustler experiences and other amusing things.” Amusing? Yes, Jim had a wry, deadpan sense of humor. He wasn't "the dark poet" in personality. At least not when we spoke. The opposite of "dark," he was ghostly white, and his voice had a Christopher Walken-type of waver, a weary frailty — very much at odds with what he was doing on stage, which was rap-singing with a great deal of passion and power. “I grip the microphone so tight,” he told me, “sometimes my fingers bleed.”
Lately, in the wake of “Black Lives Matter” and all the violence, animosity, and the oh-so-justifiable looting, I’ve noticed some rage spilling out in social media against all whites, including white rockers. As in: “Whitey stole the black man’s music! Blacks invented rock and roll!” (It's ok to use a racist term like "Whitey" because it's deserved, y'all.)
The world of "boycott this" and "cancel that" may extend to banning Paul McCartney’s Little Richard imitation on "Long Tall Sally," and may lead to stores tossing the music of Keith Richards who stole from Muddy Waters and Eric Clapton who stole from Robert Johnson. Eminem would be shoved under the bus too, for all the years blacks were only on the back of one.
The truth is a bit more complex of course, and we aren't refusing to allow anyone but white Europeans to play and enjoy classical music. When it comes to rap, we just MIGHT be talking about something invented by whites, since American folk music comes mainly from Irish and British and Scottish immigrants. Without a banjo or guitar, some of the poorer ones simply “talked” the lyrics. You can hear Pete Seeger doing it on “The Weavers on Tour” album, “rapping” about an unruly child and horny chickens.
Influenced by the talking folk material, Dylan emerged with “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and Phil Ochs created a variety of raps such as “Talkin’ Vietnam.” Along the way, there was Rex Harrison “talking” his way through “My Fair Lady” and a lot of other variations. Jim Carroll's “People Who Died” is basically RAP. If he wasn't white ("Lily White" blacks could say without fear of being accused of reverse racism) he might've gotten a Pulitzer. But Kendrick Lamar did, and the reason why is...we live in a political world. It's heightened to an explosive and violent degree. Let's just say Kendrick deserved the Pulitzer, and white people have a fucking nerve even playing music, and damn them Gershwins and Leiber & Stoller and Goffin & King for writing "Summertime" and "Hound Dog" and "Natural Woman" when they're not only WHITE but Jewish, and day-yum, y'all, the Jews have never been persecuted, so what do they know of soul? But I digress.
Back to rap; it isn't surprising that Jim isn't singing on some tracks. Quite a few New Wave and punk artists, from Richard Hell to Patti Smith, dabbled in a quasi-mix of poetry reading to music (Rexroth, Ferlinghetti and other beat poets did this too). It took a while before some, such as Patti, or Leonard Cohen of a slightly earlier generation, developed any ability to sing, and some never did. “People Who Died” grabs you on the first listen, chokes you, pounds at your heart, disturbs your brain, and when it’s over, you take a deep breath because you’re still alive. Wish Jim still was, but at 60, he just keeled over at his desk; a rather anti-climactic end for somebody who had lived such a dangerous lifestyle for so long.
Below, a zip file of 13 songs that aren’t on the “Best Of” CD, including one of my favorites, the serio-comic “Three Sisters.” It demonstrates Jim’s wicked-wicked sense of humor and his ability to create desultory near-rhymes WELL before the revolutionary idea of impudent rhyme-refusal was STOLEN by rappers. Before Kendrick and his cronies, here’s Jim rhyming “Miranda” with “can’t stand her” and “Raymond Chandler.” The file also has to include “People Who Died," and it does. Jim Carroll Matters.
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