Reading and Music

Barge Date:  08-17-2019

Summer Reading, Summer Listening

One of the pleasures of being in Europe, in France, and on the boat is the time for reading and listening to music.  Never thought a telephone would be my source for music, and it also fills in as a way to read books when away from the boat and from the iPad.

I have done my usual reading of popular books this summer, many of them from iBooks.  It is a convenient way to get books in a foreign country. And I have taught myself to use the sample option before buying as I have a way of forgetting what I have have read of particularly writers like Grisham and Connelly. They have written so much and I think I have read them all but then there is a title and little description and for sure I think I have not read it; but I have.  Don't need to buy twice.  So sample first.

But I have been sidetracked into reading 2 biographies.  Both by Ron Chernow, both long.  Alexander Hamilton and Grant.  What I did not know.  Blame me or better blame the US educational system.  Why did I have to spend a year doing Ohio history?  Why couldn't we do US history and get a little further than just the Civil War?  Was Hamilton ever more than just a footnote?  I thought of Grant as a fat drunk. These 2 books cover almost all you need to know about the first 100 years of the country. The focus is obviously Hamilton and Grant but then these two men had remarkable impact on how the country came about and how it was held together.

You are talking about 3500 pages, but it all reads so well.  I bought both on iBooks for $1.95 each. Living in the south, it helps to know your history. Grant was more instrumental in the Civil War and the war that followed for the black man in the South than Lincoln. There needs to be a big monument in Washington for him.  As it is, he only has that tomb in NYC.

Last summer, a German I met on the Meuse River pointed me to the music of Mark Knopfler, the front man for Dire Straits and a great guitar man, composer, lyricist and producer. Still listen to him and will complain that iTunes took away the Alchemy Tour music saying it is not available to US customers. Just listen to Sultans of Swing from this album - 10.5 minutes - and you will hear the best rock and roll song of all time.  But I am now into blues harmonica music, and I am taking lessons from a guy I found online.

Kind of an interesting intersection with him because I first read about him 20 years ago. Back then I read the Princeton University daily paper online and remember reading about a Princeton student that had stopped his education (BA from Princeton, MA from Columbia and was admitted to a PhD program at Princeton).  The guy's name is Adam Gussow.  While at Columbia and hearing blues played on the streets of Harlem, he fancied himself as a harmonica player. He took up with a blue guitarist by the name of Sterling Magee and the goal was to see if this Ivy League white boy could make good music with this Harlem black boy. Both were men at the time but boys of the street. Sterling was already a legend.  Adam wanted some of that.  Ended up calling themselves Satan and Adam.

And the rest is history.  They did 12 years together.  Might have done more but for the Princeton PhD thing and other life issues.  But they made great music of a type I really like.  It starts at your toes, then your ankles, then knees, then your hips get going and your body is shaking and your head is bobbing and you are  captured.  Three albums and they are available on iTunes.  And also out this year is a documentary on their collaboration.  Available through iTunes, Netflix and other outlets.

Read about it.

Hear a good one   I Want You

If I could ever play like Adam.