The Last Of The Mississippi Bluesmen

David "Honeyboy" Edwards died today.

He was the last of the great old Mississippi bluesmen, and you haven't heard the Delta blues played like this, ever. Here he is, in his 90s, still giving it his all:



This is the kind of blues that sits in your belly like a hungry wolfcub, taking bites straight out of your heart. Blues like showers of rain.

Thank you, Mr. Edwards. May your memory and your music live forever.

Lucille Clifton: May She Rest in a Mighty Peace

photographer unknown

I just heard ... just now ... of Lucille Clifton's passing. She passes on to the ancients. Bless her. We earthlings will miss her most intelligent and musical voice.

One of her poems ...

Homage to My Hips

these hips are big hips.
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top


If you'd like to hear her read it herself, go here.

You can read her obituary in the NYTimes here. It's free, but you have to register.

Black Cinima Depicted in U.S. Postage Stamps

Randolph E. Schmid of Associated Press reports that there is a set of five new postage stamps going on sale today. The stamps honor vintage black cinema. (Now I'm going to click on over to Netflix and see if they have them in.)

Note: The image they sent shows only 4 of the set of 5.

Schmid reports: "Ceremonies marking the sale of the stamps will be held at the Newark Museum in New Jersey, which is holding a black film festival."

Posters in the set of 42-cent stamps are:

-- The time is 1935, and Josephine Baker, the St. Louis native who transfixed France and much of Europe with song and dance, stares out from a poster advertising the film "Princess Tam-Tam." Baker starred as a simple African woman presented to Paris society as royalty.

-- Another poster, for a 1921 release, provides a taste of the racial divide that sent the young Baker to Europe to pursue her career. "The Sport of the Gods," the poster proclaims, is based on a book by Paul Laurence Dunbar, "America's greatest race poet," and it adds that the film has "an all-star cast of colored artists."

-- "Black and Tan," a 19-minute film released in 1929 featuring Duke Ellington and his Cotton Club Orchestra.

-- "Caldonia," another short at 18 minutes, which was released in 1945. It showcased singer, saxophonist and bandleader Louis Jordan.

-- "Hallelujah," a 1929 movie released by MGM. It was one of the first films from a major studio to feature an all-black cast. Producer-director King Vidor was nominated for an Academy Award for his attempt to portray rural African American life, especially religious experience.

Schmid adds: "Josephine Baker also earned military honors as an undercover agent for the French Resistance in World War II. Later, she was active in civil rights work and appeared with Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington in 1963."

Ms. Manitoba's quick research shows that Netflix has only "Princess Tam-Tam" and "Hallelujah!".

Princess Tam-Tam -- great drag name.