MLK Day

One must go further,
one must go further.

- Kierkegaard
Fear and Trembling

Fachay Book (as in Versace, not my brilliance, thank you Max Rubin) doesn't cut it on MLK Day or 99.4% of the other 365. Music does. You know how on Face Book there's that whatcha doin' thingy? More important--what are you listening to. Me? This:

Image credit to http://www.bluesaccess.com/No_29/butter.html

I bought it in 1965 for $1.98, so I was one of the 200,000 who made this release go viral. I've made a CD so I don't utterly wear it out. Which brings us to tomorrow and the Chicago part. I hadn't known that Paul Butterfield's "Born in Chicago" was what made this release so huge.

http://www.bluesaccess.com/No_29/butter.html

At the end of 1964, on New Year's Eve, Paul Rothchild had taken an excited phone call from Fritz Richmond, a member of the popular Kweskin Jug Band, himself a founder of the Cambridge scene. "We're in Chicago," he said, "and we just heard Paul Butterfield's new band, and it's the greatest thing you've ever heard. Get on a plane right now and get to Chicago." Rothchild took Richmond seriously -- his first record had been with him in 1961 -- and held his musical opinions in high esteem. "So I left the party and flew to Chicago and caught the last set. I walked into Big John's and heard the most amazing thing I'd ever heard in my life. It was the same rush I'd had the first time I heard bluegrass. I said to myself, 'Here is the beginning of another era. This is another turning point in American music's direction.' " ...

Samplers were frequently released by Elektra, usually selling 20,000 to 30,000 copies. But not this one. "This sampler sold 200,000 copies," Rothchild says. "In a three-month period. Jac said, 'What's going on?' And I kept saying to him, 'This tune is going on: "Born in Chicago." Jac, we have a hit band on our hands.' "

So what's Obama spinning for the Inaugural Ball? The Dead.