John Sinclair

NEW NEW NEW


It's All Good: A reader (2008)

Description:
Hailed as the “Last of the Beatnik Warrior Poets” (Mick Farren) and “The Hardest Working Poet in Show Business” (Ben Edmonds), JOHN SINCLAIR is likewise a music journalist widely recognized as one of America’s leading authorities on blues and modern jazz.

IT’S ALL GOOD: A John Sinclair Reader is a sampling of Sinclair’s journalism and verse spannig over forty years. It includes selections from his epic works in verse always know: a book of monk and Fattening Frogs For Snakes: Delta Sound Suite, as well as writings on Jack Kerouac, Iggy Pop, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, John Lennon, Sun Ra, Dr John, Willie King, Irma Thomas, Walter “Wolfman” Washington, Bob “Righteous” Rudnick, Johnnie Bassett, the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans, the White Buffalo Prophesy and the North Mississippi Hill Country Blues.

IT’S ALL GOOD also illuminates Sinclair’s legendary period as a cultural revolutionary and political prisoner, manager of the MC5, Chairman of the White Panther Party, producer of the Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival and director of the Detroit Jazz Center. There’s evidence too of Sinclair’s years at WWOZ Radio in New Orleans, where he was voted the city’s favorite DJ.

Selected by the author, this substantial cache of underground literature was originally published in music magazines, alternative newspapers, liner notes for obscure record labels, foreign editions and out-of-print books of poetry.

Includes 32 iconic photographs from the 1960s & 1970s by by Leni Sinclair.

Exclusive CD

Each copy of the book includes an exclusive thirteen track CD, which features music performances by John Sinclair, Wayne Kramer (MC5) and others.

Contents:

[00] The Blues of John Sinclair by Mark Ritsema vi [01] “John Sinclair” 12 [02] “friday the 13th” 23 [03] Getting Out From Under 25 [04] “Consequences” 32 [05] “I Just Wanna Testify” 33 [06] “blues to you” 61 [07] DKT/MC5: The Truest Possible Testimonial 62 [08] “ain’t nobody’s bizness” 76 [09] The Wild One: The True Story of Iggy Pop 78 [10] “the Screamers” 81 [11] Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth 82 [12] “everything happens to me” 105 [13] Art Ensemble of Chicago: Ancient to the Future 106 [14] “in walked bud” 111 [15] The Prophesy of Jack Kerouac 115 [16] “brilliant corners” 119 [17] Robert Lockwood Jr.: Blues from the Delta 125 [18] “21 Days in Jail” 129 [19] Willie King: The Secret History of the Blues 134 [20] “Fattening Frogs For Snakes” 138 [21] North Mississippi Hill Country Blues 141 [22] “Scuze Me While I Kiss the Sky” 155 [23] The Sounds of New Orleans: WWOZ on CD, Volumes 1-2-3 157 [24] “We Just Change the Beat” 165 [25] Walter “Wolfman” Washington: The Wolfman Is at Your Door 167 [26] “Thank You, Pretty Baby” 188 [27] Irma Thomas: An Audience with the Soul Queen 190 [28] “rhythm-a-ning” 203 [29] Wade in the Water > Dr. John Comes Clean 206 [30] “my melancholy baby” 224 [31] They Call Us Wild: The Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans 226 [32] “spiritual” 236 [33] Invitation to a Ghost Dance 237 [34] “If I Could Be with You” 241 [35] Hastings Street Grease: Detroit Blues is Alive 250 [36] “monk’s dream” 254 [37] Johnnie Bassett: Cadillac Bluesman from the Motor City 257 [38] “My Buddy” 273 [39] Bob Rudnick: Remembering the Righteous One 275 [40] “Hold Your Horn High” 283 [41] Masters of War 285 [42] “Fat Boy” 286 [43] Moving Together 288 [44] It’s All Good 291

CD track listing

01 Friday the 13th with Wayne Kramer (3:39) 02 Consequences > Blues to You with Wayne Kramer & the Blues Scholars (8:17) 03 Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness with Wayne Kramer & the Blues Scholars (3:57) 04 everything happens to me with Jeff Grand & the Motor City Blues Scholars (4:29) 05 in walked bud (5:34) 06 brilliant corners with Mark Ritsema (11:00) 07 Fattening Frogs For Snakes with the New Orleans Blues Scholars (7:17) 08 We Just Change the Beat with the New Orleans Blues Scholars (4:42) 09 Spiritual with Marion Brown (2:27) 10 monk’s dream with Luis Resto (4:08) 11 My Buddy with Jeff Grand & the Blues Scholars (6:10) 12 Fat Boy with Johnny Evans & the Motor City Blues Scholars (6:12) 13 It’s All Good with Langefrans & Baas B (4:39)

Voice & production on all tracks: John Sinclair

Critical Reaction: Motor Cities Burning: Detroit from Motown to the Stooges (BBC4, 2008) MELTDOWN 2008 Royal Festival Hall, performing with MC5 & Primal Scream John Sinclair: 20 To Life documentary (Steve Gebhardt, 2007) The US vs John Lennon (Lionsgate/BBC2, 2006) New Orleans-based preacher of the power of blues and jazz, “his love and knowledge of which form the basis of his wonderful spoken-word performances” — John Strausbaugh, New York Press


GUITAR ARMY

Rock and Revolution with The MC5 and the White Panther Party by John Sinclair
With introduction by Michael Simmons


35th ANNIVERSARY EDITION
* First time in print since 1972
* 40 additional photographs
* Includes 18-track CD with rare recordings

“Guitar Army was our manual for revolt. It’s a rainbow-colored Howl, still resonating today with the singular value of idealism.”
—Michael Simmons

Guitar Army is the incendiary book that proclaimed “Rock and Roll is a Weapon of Cultural Revolution” for young, revved-up readers in 1972. Author John Sinclair spearheaded the leftist revolutionary vanguard White Panther Party and managed the Detroit rock band MC5, leading them from the ferment of the Detroit riots to the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968, where the band played minutes before police clubbed antiwar demonstrators.

In October of 1970, the FBI referred to the White Panthers as “potentially the largest and most dangerous of revolutionary organizations in the United States.” However, just three years earlier, the group’s leaders hosted a “Love-In” on Detroit’s Belle Isle, presided over by Sinclair, whom the Detroit News proclaimed “High Priest of the Detroit hippies.”
In 1970 he was arrested and sentenced to 9 ½ to 10 years for giving an undercover officer two marijuana joints. Sinclair then became the most celebrated political prisoner of the original war on drugs. After 18 months in prison, John Lennon, Allen Ginsberg, Stevie Wonder, Phil Ochs, and others demanded his freedom with a televised benefit concert attended by 15,000 people. Three days later, Sinclair was released.

Guitar Army chronicles these years of revolution through Sinclair’s “street writings” and prison writings, with over 80 photographs, illustrations, concert flyers and comics from the period.
This 35th anniversary edition of Guitar Army includes two dozen previously unpublished period photographs, recent writings from John Sinclair, and an introduction from Michael Simmons that leads the reader through the revolutionary times to Sinclair’s life today. Author John Sinclair is the still-charging embodiment of a dazzlingly optimistic time in which change felt necessary and possible.

A bonus CD contains rare recordings of MC5 and other Detroit-area revolutionary bands, Allen Ginsberg, Black Panther Bobby Seale on the White Panthers, and original White Panther Party meetings.


Va Tutto Bene!/It's All Good!

by John Sinclair

Va tutto bene / It’s all good è un’antologia fatta di storie, articoli, poesie – con tanto di colonna sonora consigliata – che rende omaggio alla leggenda dell’Altra America, quella che ha stregato e conquistato il mondo senza ricorrere ad armi e ricatti economici. Un racconto “a caccia” di quella suprema forma di arte afroamericana, il jazz/blues, che come un virus ha colpito Sinclair sin da bambino, rendendolo incapace di sopportare ingiustizie e discriminazioni. Egli racconta la decadenza della culla dell’industria automobilistica, Motor City, gli splendori e le miserie dell’utopia controculturale e la sempre sorprendente vitalità della cultura nera. Una storia che attraversa le rivolte dei ghetti neri (“rivolte” e non “rivolte razziali” come lui tiene a precisare) e lo scatenamento dionisiaco hippie. Dalla Detroit black e beatnik al periodo psichedelico, dal Delta del Mississippi, culla del blues, all’esilio ad Amsterdam.