Elam McKnight: News

04.19
Billed as "half small town fair, half blues festival," by its organizers, the Juke Joint Festival, run by the Clarksdale Downtown Development Association and staffed entirely by volunteers, was started five years ago to educate and enlighten through a series of performances, exhibits and presentations involving music, art, storytelling, film and children's events. In other words, a great way to celebrate all things Delta while partying with blues fans from all across the globe. The afternoon was filled with pig races, dog shows, parades and a trip through the world famous Delta Blues Museum. But, the true heart of the Juke Joint Festival starts beating as the sun sets on the Sunflower River and the revelry moves inside to the still-thriving juke joints that dot the landscape of downtown Clarksdale. Places like Ground Zero Blues Club, Messenger's Pool Hall, Club 2000 and the venerable Reds Lounge - places that still host real-deal live blues year round, helping to preserve the art in its native form, long after the festival crowds are gone.

Delivered by characters with colorful names like Duck, T-Model, Cadillac, Bilbo and Super Chikan, most of the performers at the Juke Joint Festival had some kind of bond with the city of Clarksdale, either past or present. But, none of the bluesmen at this year's celebration were any more colorful or could claim any longer link to the city than 93-year-old David "Honeyboy" Edwards. One of the last living running buddies of the legendary Robert Johnson, Edwards is still every bit the road warrior he was some seven decades ago when he tramped all across the United States with a guitar strapped to his back. And despite the warm temperatures that engulfed the festival's late afternoon hours, Edwards was still in fine form, turning in a set heavy with numbers from his fourth release on Earwig Music, Roamin' and Ramblin'. Watching Edwards is very much like viewing a Technicolor news reel from an era long ago, an oral history lesson in every single note he coaxes from his acoustic guitar.

David "Honeyboy" Edwards :: 04.19 :: Clarksdale, MS
Though its forefathers are naturally in rapid decline, the blues continue to evolve and press on thanks to a new generation intent on not just rehashing the past but rather on building off the foundation left from those before them. Jimbo Mathus and Knockdown South - Elam McKnight, KM Williams and Washboard Jackson - did yeoman's work at keeping the blues alive and fresh. They all kept joints rockin' well into the Delta night at various spots around town. Just like any event worth its salt, legendary stories have already began to work their way into Juke Joint Festival lore. Like last year when My Brother's Sports Bar was so jam-packed with dancers strutting their stuff that they accidentally shoved guitarist Lightnin' Malcom out the plate glass front window, headfirst onto the sidewalk running along Third Street. But, like any band worth its salt, drummer Cedric Burnside(grandson of the late Hill County patriarch R.L. Burnside) kept four-on-the-floor through it all, while Lightnin' picked himself up, brushed the shards of broken glass out of his hair, climbed back through the remains of the window and onto the bandstand, all seemingly without missing a lick.

While that may not exactly be on par with Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil (which also supposedly happened near Clarksdale), this is how legends are sometimes built, and it's certainly how good times are born.

JamBase | Mississippi
Go See Live Music!

A side note to this article I was present the night Lightning Malcolm fell through the plate glass window. THAT IS ALL TRUE and happened just like it was reported.

Dear Elam,



It’s here. The parcel you've sent me with your newest disc has reached me safe and sound today, thank you very much!



I am so happy that you’ve decided to go back to your “Braid My Hair” type of sound with Mississippi blues played by a small combo as this is the sound I really love. Raw, not polished. Your approach to the blues is so pure, no fancy stuff, just the real Delta sound with some talented cats behind your back. They base they create for you is solid, bringing to mind juke joint cuts of Junior Kimbrough’s band but it is your vocal delivery that works like a cherry on a milkshake. Your singing is strong and your voice’s timbre is plain perfect for this kind of music. It’s not something I say lightly as the voice is always the first thing I focus on. Also, you had a cool idea of incorporating modern sounds into your Delta stew – the closing cut of the CD can well serve as a look into the future of the blues. Thanks to people like you it is going to be a bright future.



As always I’ll be happy to spin your stuff in my shows.



Thank you again Elam for the music you've sent me! Let us stay in touch.


Best wishes,
Przemek Draheim

Many people have asked "Elam when are you going to work on the next album?"
Well here you go:
It has been about a year and me and the boys (Dano and Ringo) are back at it. After touring and releasing Supa Good we decided it was time to get busy recording the next Monstrosity.
It was good to be together again. We tracked about 10 songs and got a good start on our next
Musical adventure. The album has a definite Rock feel already and will probably expand off into
areas uncharted as of yet. It should be interesting. Nonetheless we are happy to begin again.
There is an ancient Zen saying that says "there is no greater step than the first."
So much excitement exists in this act of beginning. You learn so much from the exuberance and
the common bond you feel with musicians who have the same vision.
This album will most likely be a labor of love and our time will be taken in its creation.
We will spit out some rough examples when we are comfortable enough with their "roughness."
Again it is great to be back in the ring. Recording is a great experience and much time and care
will be spent on this puppy
Details to follow soon!
Peace
Love
Namaste
Elam McKnight

Off the News Fast Diet

I went on a news fast a couple of years ago after deciding that watching hours of CNN was damaging my mind in some way. Back in the good old “post 9-11 constant state of shock” days it seemed a sensible thing to do because any second the world was going to just, well, blow up. Of course if I bored with CNN I would switch to FOX NEWS to really get my blood pumping because over there the world had already “blown up” and they were describing the chaos. Whew! I get breathy just thinking about it.
So after my two year hiatus from cable news I turned to the TV and just left it on CNN for an hour as I researched a couple of things on GOOGLE. Now bear in mind I still read the news from the Internet. I would feel a total oaf if I did not at least make some attempt to keep up with my world and conceptualize the things going on in it. But as for TV news I tried to keep away from it until the other day.
I will not tell whose program I was watching because I do not think they are to blame for the realization I came to after my hour of being bombarded with the news. It is neither CNN’s fault or anyone else’s. I do not think they have swayed me to this thing that hit me like a pile of stones. I think it only popped something that had been festering in my almost conscious mind and after pulling away from the day’s headlines I sadly realized it; I was a little bit ashamed to be an American.
Before the “well get the H$%^ out of the country” thoughts enter your mind or you think that I have lost some type of love for this thing so dear to me let me first explain. Then, after I have explained, if you, dear reader, are still angered with my personal conclusion then let the slime sling.
I pulled away from the television kind of disappointed in myself for even thinking this thing. But then I held on to the thoughts I was having and let them circle in my mind to see if they resonated or fell about in a clutter, which would mean they were ill thought. The clutter never came and I had to sit with the truth I felt. I was ashamed of being an American and here is why.
One story in particular caught my attention. Our Congress was passing a bill that labeled the actions of the Turkish Ottomans in WWI “genocide” against the Armenians. This insulted the Turkish people to the point that they pulled their ambassador home from the US. Of course Turkey, being our main staging ground for supplies to Iraq, is a big piece in the Bush Administration’s “Puzzle” that is the War in Iraq. So they were busying themselves apologizing and saying to the government of Turkey that they were sorry for this. But then you have this same administration’s insistence to this same government, that whatever they do, they cannot attack the Kurds to their south who routinely attack them and kill their citizens.
Here is where “we” make no sense to the rest of the world. I will not speak to the right or wrong of Congress’ actions because, honestly, I do not know enough about WWI history to make comment. But here is how it plays: we first insult a country then tell them, as we have told them for years, that they cannot, under any circumstances, retaliate on a group, the Kurdish Rebels, that has dogged them since 1984, crossed their borders, and killed their citizens. Current body count is roughly 30,000 Turkish citizens.
Yet we, the United States of America, can say that Iraq had something to do with the killing of 3,000 of our citizens, which they did not, and that they were intent on attacking us with weapons of Mass Destruction, which they were not. We can then travel thousands of miles to this country and make war with it under these, at best, suspicious guises.
I can hear the voices now from my country boy past. “We don’ need no permission from anybody!” “We do what we want to do!” “We the greatest country in the world!” And these sentiments, though they are loud and passion filled, are not what the world needs to hear from our collective mouths. It does not take a great deal of observing and conceptualizing the problem: we are not that popular anymore and many millions of people all over the world are none too happy with us.
We pride ourselves, maybe rightfully in the past, as being a leader in the world, a just one a lot of times. We are a far cry from the old days. And what brought this home to me, when I realized that I was not as proud as I once was to say I was an American, was the one shining example of patriotism I can think of: my grandfather. I went into the other room where he sat, after I shut off the television, and noticed a picture book he had been looking at voraciously for the last couple of weeks: Ken Burn’s The War. It is a quite notable book to him as he served in “the war” and as I have watched him scan those pages, through WWII era black and white photos, I wonder how much these things probably take him back to those times. A time when we were the world’s savior and my grandfather a member of what will always be, IMHO, the greatest generation of Americans to ever walk the earth.
I looked at the book myself and found particular interest in pictures of brave young American boys marching through the streets of France as though they were Greek gods come to life to the Parisians. The dichotomy of then to now, where now we might be ridiculed on site in a foreign land, when we were once lauded and praised as redeemers, by of all people, the French, burned in my mind. It made me think that if my grandfather’s generation and their efforts were an emotional investment. One that could be used by future generations to purchase sympathy and respect from other countries it has sadly been neglected and now, I fear, spent up by the current lackeys we allow to run our government.
It makes me so frustrated when I realize the picture we portray to the world. And I know this picture from talking to others in Europe, face to face. When I traveled there to play music I was actually fearful and anytime I did a radio interview I prefaced it with a warning to not ask me anything political for fear of starting a mess. I must say I was treated graciously by all Europeans that I met and spoke with but was leery of them bringing up anything about my own country’s actions. Then I realized, sadly, why they never brought it up. Many of them think we, as Americans all are 100% in support of everything that our government does. One Italian person told me this and could not believe, when I told him I was quite objectionable to many of my government’s actions. He said he felt this way because all they see there is how we are in total support of everything. It did make me feel better also to hear one girl tell me quite frankly that the Italians love us, American people, but only hate a handful of people.
Again I am coming to terms with this thing called shame, shame in being a member of a club that is doing so many things wrong. We can spend half of a trillion dollars on a war that 70% of our country is not in favor of but we cannot insure the children of America’s working poor. That really sells well. “Give us your children. We will use them to be killed and maimed in a war that most of you do not want and then do not even think to ask us to help you secure the health of these same children we use, guilelessly, in the immediate future.” Anyone who is angered with me for my shame I would ask you to let this sit with you for just a minute. And also realize the oxymoron that is “WORKING POOR!”
Before the preface of Ken Burn’s The War there is a dedication for the 1,000 veterans from WWII who die everyday. This inscription made me think of one of my favorite movies, Gladiator, and the words spoken at its end. If you have not seen this movie stop reading now because it is far better than what I am writing and go watch it because I am going to ruin the ending. When Russell Crowe’s character Maximus dies and the princess speaks of the old glory that once was ROME and asks for assistance to carry away his tragic but heroic body it was easy for me to draw the comparison to both of our dying or dead memories. It is a sad lament to cry for a time when we, as the modern Rome, were the great shining city on the hill. And if we are the modern Romans where is our Marcus Aurelius for I greatly fear that we are beneath a Nero.
It is not necessary for the entire world to like us. Actually I think there will always be a portion that will not like us and they should not because we will never like them, and in fact revile and hate them. Countries and regimes who subjugate women to the level of slave, allow religion, many times an extremist one, to be a form of government, and those that kill its own citizens unjustly and trample on even a basic level of human rights will not and should not ever be respected by our country and its citizens. Any country or organization that disdains the advancement of knowledge and would really rather us live in a state resembling the turn of the millennium, not 2000 A.D but the one that started at 1000 A.D, should never be taken seriously nor respected beyond common courtesy.
We have to give respect before we receive it in kind. I fear that we have a lot of respect to gain back before we can give it again as a country. There was a time, not that long ago, 2001 actually, when the world stood with us proudly in a time of need. What a bountiful and righteous time we held briefly in our hands in those days. We had the world, most of it or at least the parts we cared about, and ready to join us in an honorable fight, one that was unquestionably justified. Why was that opportunity so quickly dispelled? How could we mess something that positive up? Can we ever regain our once vaulted status? Not the one where we all stand around and tell each other how great we are but the real kind of status that lets us look honestly at ourselves and see what we should be: One Nation…(you fill in the rest.)

Elam McKnight Review.....
Written by Don Crow
Thursday, 06 September 2007

SUPA GOOD

ELAM MCKNIGHTElam McKnight

DESERT HIGHWAY RECORDS

DHR-44-1002

DEVIL MINDED WOMAN--LOVE ME--I BURIED A BLACK CAT--KUNG FU POWER--HOLD YOU CLOSER--LONG CURLY HAIR--WAY YOU BEEN LOVING ME--MY BABY DON'T SEE ME--PAM GRIER--YO MOMMA TOLD A TALE--WHAT IN THE WORLD IS WRONG--IF THAT DON'T GET 'EM--PONY THANG--JUNIOR I LOVE YOU--MIGHTY MEN--BIG DADDY'S LAMENT

Just like the flame-shrouded voodoo woman rising out of the mists of a Mississippi cotton field on the album's cover, Elam McKnight's "Supa Good," on Desert Highway Records, is full of music that will reach down and grab your spirit and shake your soul to its foundation. It's been our pleasure to know Elam since his first recording, "Braid My Hair," and his talents have only gotten better. On this smokin' set, he pays homage to those from whom he has learned the meaning of the blues, greats such as R. L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and Othar Turner, among others. Check out "Mighty Men" for his tribute to them. Also, he's backed by a sho' nuff band of rogues named the West Levee Phantoms, and they include Ringo Jukes and Sam Carr on drums, Dano Shaw on bass, Ronnie Godfrey on keys, Kim Morrison on backing vocals, and Elam's recording partner on their acoustic sets and at the IBC, Britain's Keith Carter, on harp.

Elam's maturity as a writer and performer show thru markedly on this disc. He's got that certain swagger that seems to carry these tunes from the Delta juke joints right into your CD player. A good woman that's got "Kung Fu Power" starts off slow, then builds to a searing finish, featuring a fine solo at the bridge. Elam's mandolin takes the lead in the acoustic-themed "Long Curly Hair," with Keith's harp the perfect complement. "Hold You Closer" has a cool, soulful vibe, and with the punchy horn section and backing female chorus, gives this one a STAX feeling. A brilliant slide rolls over Keith's harp as Elam gets down with "What In The World Is Wrong," while everybody has a good time on "Pony Thang," rolling it like a locomotive thru the Clarksdale night.

We had two favorites, too. When a black cat comes after you, the best thing to do is bury it, so, complete with blasts from Elam's Browning 12-gauge (that, sadly, "lack reverb") we have "I Buried a Black Cat." And, Elam professes his intense adoration of Seventies "blaxploitation" film star Pam Grier, noting that "Foxy Brown is the sweetest woman I've ever seen!!" This one is punctuated by some killer "ho' house piano" from Ronnie Godfrey, too!

The very opening line of the CD, from "Devil Minded Woman," has Elam telling us that "a change is gon' come--a music revolution!"--and by the end of "Big Daddy's Lament," that closes the set, this prophecy is brought to fruition. Elam stresses that he's not merely following in the footsteps of the past masters, but looking "to see what they saw" and interpret it in his own way. Young men such as Elam, Richard Johnston, and the surviving members of the Burnside, Kimbrough, and Turner families, have a firm grasp on the meaning of the blues, and, more importantly, what the blues means to them. Elam, we tip our hats to you, young man....."Supa Good" is just that!!! Until next time...Sheryl and Don Crow.

ELAM MCKNIGHT's SUPA GOOD is #16 on the ROOT MUSIC REPORT
ROOTS BLUES CHART this week. Debuting there.
check it out at
www.rootsmusicreport.com

Kurt Vonnegut Dies at 84, Times Reports
By DINITIA SMITH
The New York Times
(April 12) - Kurt Vonnegut, whose dark comic talent and urgent moral vision in novels like “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “Cat’s Cradle” and “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater” caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation, died last night in Manhattan. He was 84 and had homes in Manhattan and in Sagaponack on Long Island.

His death was reported by the publisher Morgan Entrekin, a longtime family friend, who said Mr. Vonnegut suffered brain injuries as a result of a fall several weeks ago.

Mr. Vonnegut wrote plays, essays and short fiction. But it was his novels that became classics of the American counterculture, making him a literary idol, particularly to students in the 1960s and ’70s. Dog-eared paperback copies of his books could be found in the back pockets of blue jeans and in dorm rooms on campuses throughout the United States.

Like Mark Twain, Mr. Vonnegut used humor to tackle the basic questions of human existence: Why are we in this world? Is there a presiding figure to make sense of all this, a god who in the end, despite making people suffer, wishes them well?

He also shared with Twain a profound pessimism. “Mark Twain,” Mr. Vonnegut wrote in his 1991 book, “Fates Worse Than Death: An Autobiographical Collage,” “finally stopped laughing at his own agony and that of those around him. He denounced life on this planet as a crock. He died.”

Not all Mr. Vonnegut’s themes were metaphysical. With a blend of vernacular writing, science fiction, jokes and philosophy, he also wrote about the banalities of consumer culture, for example, or the destruction of the environment.

His novels — 14 in all — were alternate universes, filled with topsy-turvy images and populated by races of his own creation, like the Tralfamadorians and the Mercurian Harmoniums. He invented phenomena like chrono-synclastic infundibula (places in the universe where all truths fit neatly together) as well as religions, like the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent and Bokononism (based on the books of a black British Episcopalian from Tobago “filled with bittersweet lies,” a narrator says).

The defining moment of Mr. Vonnegut’s life was the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, by Allied forces in 1945, an event he witnessed firsthand as a young prisoner of war. Thousands of civilians were killed in the raids, many of them burned to death or asphyxiated. “The firebombing of Dresden,” Mr. Vonnegut wrote, “was a work of art.” It was, he added, “a tower of smoke and flame to commemorate the rage and heartbreak of so many who had had their lives warped or ruined by the indescribable greed and vanity and cruelty of Germany.”

His experience in Dresden was the basis of “Slaughterhouse-Five,” which was published in 1969 against the backdrop of war in Vietnam, racial unrest and cultural and social upheaval. The novel, wrote the critic Jerome Klinkowitz, “so perfectly caught America’s transformative mood that its story and structure became best-selling metaphors for the new age.”

To Mr. Vonnegut, the only possible redemption for the madness and apparent meaninglessness of existence was human kindness. The title character in his 1965 novel, “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater,” summed up his philosophy:

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”

Mr. Vonnegut eschewed traditional structure and punctuation. His books were a mixture of fiction and autobiography, prone to one-sentence paragraphs, exclamation points and italics. Graham Greene called him “one of the most able of living American writers.” Some critics said he had invented a new literary type, infusing the science-fiction form with humor and moral relevance and elevating it to serious literature.

He was also accused of repeating himself, of recycling themes and characters. Some readers found his work incoherent. His harshest critics called him no more than a comic book philosopher, a purveyor of empty aphorisms.

With his curly hair askew, deep pouches under his eyes and rumpled clothes, he often looked like an out-of-work philosophy professor, typically chain smoking, his conversation punctuated with coughs and wheezes. But he also maintained a certain celebrity, as a regular on panels and at literary parties in Manhattan and on the East End of Long Island, where he lived near his friend and fellow war veteran Joseph Heller, another darkly comic literary hero of the age.


Mr. Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis in 1922, the youngest of three children. His father, Kurt Sr., was an architect. His mother, Edith, came from a wealthy brewery family. Mr. Vonnegut’s brother, Bernard, who died in 1997, was a physicist and an expert on thunderstorms.

During the Depression, the elder Vonnegut went for long stretches without work, and Mrs. Vonnegut suffered from episodes of mental illness. “When my mother went off her rocker late at night, the hatred and contempt she sprayed on my father, as gentle and innocent a man as ever lived, was without limit and pure, untainted by ideas or information,” Mr. Vonnegut wrote. She committed suicide, an act that haunted her son for the rest of his life.

He had, he said, a lifelong difficulty with women. He remembered an aunt once telling him, “All Vonnegut men are scared to death of women.”

“My theory is that all women have hydrofluoric acid bottled up inside,” he wrote.

Mr. Vonnegut went east to attend Cornell University, but he enlisted in the Army before he could get a degree. The Army initially sent him to the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh and the University of Tennessee to study mechanical engineering.

In 1944 he was shipped to Europe with the 106th Infantry Division and shortly saw combat in the Battle of the Bulge. With his unit nearly destroyed, he wandered behind enemy lines for several days until he was captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp near Dresden, the architectural jewel of Germany.

Assigned by his captors to make vitamin supplements, he was working with other prisoners in an underground meat locker when British and American warplanes started carpet bombing the city, creating a firestorm above him. The work detail saved his life.

Afterward, he and his fellow prisoners were assigned to remove the dead.

“The corpses, most of them in ordinary cellars, were so numerous and represented such a health hazard that they were cremated on huge funeral pyres, or by flamethrowers whose nozzles were thrust into the cellars, without being counted or identified,” he wrote in “Fates Worse Than Death.” When the war ended, Mr. Vonnegut returned to the United States and married his high school sweetheart, Jane Marie Cox. They settled in Chicago in 1945. The couple had three children, Mark, Edith and Nanette. In 1958, Mr. Vonnegut’s sister, Alice, and her husband died within a day of each other, she of cancer and he in a train crash. The Vonneguts adopted their children, Tiger, Jim and Steven.

In Chicago, Mr. Vonnegut worked as a police reporter for the City News Bureau. He also studied for a master’s degree in anthropology at the University of Chicago, writing a thesis on “The Fluctuations Between Good and Evil in Simple Tales.” It was rejected unanimously by the faculty. (The university finally awarded him a degree almost a quarter of a century later, allowing him to use his novel “Cat’s Cradle” as his thesis.)

In 1947, he moved to Schenectady, N.Y., and took a job in public relations for the General Electric Company. Three years later he sold his first short story, “Report on the Barnhouse Effect,” to Collier’s magazine and decided to move his family to Cape Cod, Mass., where he wrote fiction for magazines like Argosy and The Saturday Evening Post. To bolster his income, he taught emotionally disturbed children, worked at an advertising agency and at one point started an auto dealership.

His first novel was “Player Piano,” published in 1952. A satire on corporate life — the meetings, the pep talks, the cultivation of bosses — it also carries echoes of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” It concerns an engineer, Paul Proteus, who is employed by the Ilium Works, a company similar to General Electric. Proteus becomes the leader of a band of revolutionaries who destroy machines that they think are taking over the world.

“Player Piano” was followed in 1959 by “The Sirens of Titan,” a science-fiction novel featuring the Church of God of the Utterly Indifferent. In 1961 he published “Mother Night,” involving an American writer awaiting trial in Israel on charges of war crimes in Nazi Germany. Like Mr. Vonnegut’s other early novels, they were published as paperback originals. And like “Slaughterhouse-Five,” in 1972, and a number of other Vonnegut novels, “Mother Night” was adapted for film, in 1996, starring Nick Nolte .

In 1963, Mr. Vonnegut published “Cat’s Cradle.” Though it initially sold only about 500 copies, it is widely read today in high school English classes. The novel, which takes its title from an Eskimo game in which children try to snare the sun with string, is an autobiographical work about a family named Hoenikker. The narrator, an adherent of the religion Bokononism, is writing a book about the bombing of Hiroshima and comes to witness the destruction of the world by something called Ice-Nine, which, on contact, causes all water to freeze at room temperature.

Mr. Vonnegut shed the label of science-fiction writer with “Slaughterhouse-Five.” It tells the story of Billy Pilgrim, an infantry scout (as Mr. Vonnegut was), who discovers the horror of war. “You know — we’ve had to imagine the war here, and we have imagined that it was being fought by aging men like ourselves,” an English colonel says in the book. “We had forgotten that wars were fought by babies. When I saw those freshly shaved faces, it was a shock. My God, my God — I said to myself, ‘It’s the Children’s Crusade.’ ”

As Mr. Vonnegut was, Billy is captured and assigned to manufacture vitamin supplements in an underground meat locker, where the prisoners take refuge from Allied bombing.

In “Slaughterhouse-Five,” Mr. Vonnegut introduced the recurring character of Kilgore Trout, his fictional alter ego. The novel also featured a signature Vonnegut phrase.

“Robert Kennedy, whose summer home is eight miles from the home I live in all year round,” Mr. Vonnegut wrote at the end of the book, “was shot two nights ago. He died last night. So it goes.

“Martin Luther King was shot a month ago. He died, too. So it goes. And every day my Government gives me a count of corpses created by military science in Vietnam. So it goes.”

One of many Zenlike words and phrases that run through Mr. Vonnegut’s books, “so it goes” became a catchphrase for opponents of the Vietnam war.

“Slaughterhouse-Five” reached No.1 on best-seller lists, making Mr. Vonnegut a cult hero. Some schools and libraries have banned it because of its sexual content, rough language and scenes of violence.

After the book was published, Mr. Vonnegut went into a severe depression and vowed never to write another novel. Suicide was always a temptation, he wrote. In 1984, he tried to take his life with sleeping pills and alcohol.

“The child of a suicide will naturally think of death, the big one, as a logical solution to any problem,” he wrote. His son Mark also suffered a breakdown, in the 1970s, from which he recovered, writing about it in a book, “Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity.”

Forsaking novels, Mr. Vonnegut decided to become a playwright. His first effort, “Happy Birthday, Wanda June,” opened Off Broadway in 1970 to mixed reviews. Around this time he separated from his wife and moved to New York. (She remarried and died in 1986.)

In 1979 Mr. Vonnegut married the photographer Jill Krementz. They had a daughter, Lily. They survive him, as do all his other children.

Mr. Vonnegut returned to novels with “Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday” (1973), calling it a “tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast.” This time his alter ego is Philboyd Sludge, who is writing a book about Dwayne Hoover, a wealthy auto dealer. Hoover has a breakdown after reading a novel written by Kilgore Trout, who reappears in this book, and begins to believe that everyone around him is a robot.

In 1997, Mr. Vonnegut published “Timequake,” a tale of the millennium in which a wrinkle in space-time compels the world to relive the 1990s. The book, based on an earlier failed novel of his, was, in his own words, “a stew” of plot summaries and autobiographical writings. Once again, Kilgore Trout is a character. “If I’d wasted my time creating characters,” Mr. Vonnegut said in defense of his “recycling,” “I would never have gotten around to calling attention to things that really matter.”

Though it was a best seller, it also met with mixed reviews. “Having a novelist’s free hand to write what you will does not mean you are entitled to a free ride,” R. Z. Sheppard wrote in Time. But the novelist Valerie Sayers, in The New York Times Book Review, wrote: “The real pleasure lies in Vonnegut’s transforming his continuing interest in the highly suspicious relationship between fact and fiction into the neatest trick yet played on a publishing world consumed with the furor over novel versus memoir.”

Mr. Vonnegut said in the prologue to “Timequake” that it would be his last novel. And so it was.

His last book, in 2005, was a collection of biographical essays, “A Man Without a Country.” It, too, was a best seller.

In concludes with a poem written by Mr. Vonnegut called “Requiem,” which has these closing lines:

When the last living thing

has died on account of us,

how poetical it would be

if Earth could say,

in a voice floating up

perhaps

from the floor

of the Grand Canyon,

“It is done.”

People did not like it here.


Copyright © 2007 The New York Times Company

Rick Saunders
Blues GURU
Elam Mcnight's music is filled with shoutin' and singin', fat flat foot stompin' and leering dirty preachin' grooves that roll and tumble and crawl their way thru fifty-some years of red dirt, swampy, back porch blues, basement funque, rattle trunk hip-hop haze, deep woods hunch, small town 'tonk n' juke and big city rock and swagger. Mr. Mcknight filters it through well worn rough cotton sugar and grit sacks and tennesee sun and sweat to deliver up a sound that's both familiar, full bodied, refreshing and fine. It's good time any night party music as well as sitting home drinkin' and thinkin' music. Even when Mr. Mcknight gets all goofy and lecherous as on his ode to Pam Grier you'll still raise your cell phone (the new lighter) and rocks glass in agreement and respect. You'll do the same for his tributes to Junior Kimbrough,R.L. Burnside,Othar Turner, and other important mighty men. Mr. Mcknight's thing just gets bigger, hotter, deeper and heavier with each album and this release is far better than the title suggests. Is it perfect? Hell No. Note to Mr. McKnight: The Rap game might not be your forte. But who'd want to listen to perfect anyway? Not me. At 16 tracks it's a full grown-ass big man hungry dinner plate with some lumps in the taters, some burned edges on the meats (but plenty of bacon and salt in the greens!), and xtra greasy gravy plus dessert,baby. Get yrself some extra napkins buddy. It's gonna get on y'all.

Disclosure: Mr. Mcknight gives me a shout out alongside many others on the last track Big Daddy's Lament. I had no idea of this until I heard the album but in no way does that colour my opinion. If it sucked I gar-on-tee you would not be readin' this on account of I do not write about suck.

Former Screamin’ Cheetah Wheelie guitarist featured on Elam McKnight SUPA GOOD CD.

Los Angeles
Rick White (Screamin Cheetah Wheelies) is one of the feature performers on Elam McKnight’s third full-length CD “Supa Good” (released through Desert Highway Records of Los Angeles, CA). White was one half of the guitar force that drove the Screamin Cheetah Wheelies, jam band favorites and touring partners with the likes of ZZ Top, Lynard Skynard, and The Allman Brothers Band.
“We are very excited to have Rick be a part of this very special project. He is among a core of very talented artists Elam enlisted to join him on his latest musical exploration into all things musically real and root oriented,” commented the president of Desert Highway Records.

McKnight is known for his foray into very primitive blues and roots music. He has issues two critically acclaimed albums as an independent artist and has recently embarked on two separate tours of Europe. His new album promises to return to the electric intensity of his debut, Braid My Hair, but also jump much deeper into the sounds of the North Mississippi hill country and his own beloved West Tennessee.
“I wanted to really focus on the region in and around Jackson, TN, where I grew up, and south to the Hill country where there was a great deal of musical exchange from way back in the day. And when I say that I mean 20’ and 30’s way back in the day not last month,” said McKnight.

The album, Supa Good, is dedicated entirely to the memory of Blues Legend R.L. Burnside, who was a huge inspiration to McKnight and whose son and grandson lent their help on his first album. “Yes after Mr. R.L. passed I thought it would be a good idea to offer up any honor I could to the man as his music literally saved not only me as a performer but my mind and soul as a human. I have the deepest love and respect for that man and his memory,” said McKnight about the CD’s dedication.

The album will be released on March 10th 2007 in Jackson, TN and again the following week at the world famous South by Southwest festival and conference in Austin, TX. Elam is very excited to let this thing loose as he spent, literally, more than 1,200 hours working on what he now calls a total labor of love. “Every one just pitched in with all their talent and you can feel the totally positive vibe of just good people making great music. For me to have Rick join us on this journey was just a true blessing. I have been friends with Rick for about 5 years and have wanted him involved in anyway on my next project. It came together like a charm and we hope to get Rick out to some shows. I cut my teeth on some of Rick’s playing and the world deserves to hear a lot more from him. And now, guess what, they can!”

Supa Good will be released on the Desert Highway Records label based in Los Angeles, CA and owned by Ernest Morrell, also a professor of media studies at U.C.L.A. Morrell asserts, “Our mission at Desert Highway is to promote the best of today’s indie roots music to a new generation of listeners. McKnight’s latest release is a throwback to a different era of music production. Where concert halls looked more like wooden shacks and where music came from the soul. We believe that the new iTunes generation is in desperate search of the spirit embodied in roots music and we further believe that Elam stands as the perfect ambassador.”

New Album Update
In the Studio in Nashville to finish the album. It will be entitled SUPA GOOD and will include performances by:

Sam Carr(formerly of the Jelly Roll Kings) Rick White (Screamin Cheetah Wheelies) Ronnie Godfrey (Marshall Tucker)

Keith Carter(Harmonica Extraordinaire) Some killer Backup Singers and a whole bunch of love and care We are working like madmen and women for a March 1st date and the album will be dedicated to the memory of RL Burnside. It has been a true labor of passion and love which also includes the great rythm work of my own group THE WEST LEVEE PHANTOMS : Ringo Jukes(Drums) and Dan "DANO" Shaw (Bass, Percussion)

If

anyone is dissapointed by this one then I do not know what else we gonna do. We gave it our ALL! Love yall

Best

wishes for the new year 2007

Peace

Elam

McKnight

New album is very close to completion. Can't wait for you all to hear it
Peace
Elam

North Mississippi All Stars Lead the Way To WORLD BOOGIE



As usual the Dickinson Brothers lead the fight to spread their WORLD BOOGIE to the masses. I have been down now going on 10 years. I hope this movie "Black Snake Moan" does for Hill Country Boogie Music what O'Brother Where Art Thou did for Roots and Ameircana

Way to Go Craig Brewer and NMAS! Oh they also got Jimbo Mathus on there too!

Elam Mcknight

Read Below:

North Mississippi Allstars: 'World boogie is coming'
WADE TATANGELO
Herald Staff Writer
The North Mississippi Allstars are one the most enthralling live acts in rock 'n' roll. Luther Dickinson sings and delivers searing slide guitars licks while his younger brother, Cody, cracks the drums and big man Chris Chew lays the bass grooves. When the trio performs at the State Theatre in St. Petersburg on Saturday the audience will brim with neo-hippies who discovered NMA via the jam band scene and the blues fans who knew these boys were the real thing when the group's acclaimed debut album "Shake Hands with Shorty" came out in 2000. Thanks to numerous performances across Tampa Bay and support from WMNF (88.5), NMA enjoys a sizable following in these parts.

"Were looking forward to getting back to Florida," Luther said from a tour stop in Philadelphia. "We've always had a lot of support there - and we miss the warm weather."

While NMA plays to packed houses across the country, only its latest album, "Electric Blue Watermelon," has landed on the Billboard 200. The band enjoys an intense cult following but commercial radio airplay and mass appeal have managed to allude the group. All that might be changing, though.

The major motion picture "Black Snake Moan" is scheduled to hit theaters in February. The film is written and directed by Craig Brewer ("Hustle and Flow"). Samuel L. Jackson plays Lazarus, a character based on late Mississippi North Country blues hero and friend of the Dickinsons, R.L. Burnside. Christina Ricci and Justin Timberlake are also in the film.

"I love it," said Luther, who recently attended a screening.

Luther was the man tapped to teach Jackson how to play guitar. "I was so happy, I'm a huge fan of Samuel.

"That's my guitar on 'Stack-O-Lee,' " he continued. "I did the lead licks and then taught Samuel the licks."

"Stack-O-Lee" is track 14 on the advance copy of the "Black Snake Moan" soundtrack. New West Records plans to release it Jan. 23. Jackson sings on four songs on which he is backed by ace Mississippi music men like the Dickinson brothers and their pal, Jimbo Mathus.

The soundtrack also includes killer cuts by blues and boogie greats The Black Keys, the late Jessie Mae Hemphill and R.L. Burnside himself. The collection ends with the North Mississippi Allstars own "Mean Ol' Wind." The seven-minute-plus jam was taken from their "Electric Watermelon" album and features some of the finest slide guitar playing Luther has ever recorded.

"Craig (Brewer) used everybody from home (on the soundtrack)," Luther said. "It really warmed my heart."

For the past decade the Dickinson brothers have done their best to carry on the Mississippi Hill Country music tradition started by men like Fred McDowell and continued by Burnside, Kimbrough and Otha Turner. Before Burnside passed, NMA brought him on stage, on a throne no less, in front of about 80,000 people on June 11, 2004 at Bonnaroo. His sons and their father, Jim, along with other friends of the family (plus Chris Robinson of the the Black Crowes) joined forces to create the "Hill Country Revue," one the greatest concert albums of the new millennium.

"That was a dream come true," Luther said. "It was the culmination of all the work we've been doing through the years . . . That day came together so beautifully."

NMA's slogan is "World Boogie is coming." It's a quote taken from their father based on a Bukka White song title.

"It's like 'free beer tomorrow,' it's always coming," Luther said with a laugh. "It's always coming 'cause we're always bringing it."

Perhaps the release of "Black Snake Moan" will put boogie music in the national spotlight. Variations of the style have been popularized by bands such as ZZ Top but the authentic Mississippi style heard on the film's soundtrack remains a secret to many. Maybe that will altered.

"It would be amazing," Luther said.

From the Bradenton Herald:
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/entertainment/16013201.htm




Currently listening :
Electric Blue Watermelon
By North Mississippi Allstars
Release date: By 06 September, 2005

Press Release: Big Black Hand Productions
Subject: The Italians are Coming (Elam McKnight hosts Italian Blues group Papa Leg on their first visit to the Southeastern United States)

Blues and recording artist Elam McKnight, West Tennessee native, will host some very special guests this month. Papa Leg, an acoustic blues duo from Italy, will be his guests in Gibson County while they make their first ever visit to the United States. Elam met the group this past summer on his first tour of Italy. The group will also accompany Elam on his next tour of Italy this coming December.
“I am very excited to have Pier Luigi and Marco coming here to the states. I think the local folks will be surprised, first, by how far our music has traveled out into the world and second, how well these two gentlemen play it. We are kind of spoiled because music is just with us and around us all the time, to these guys the South and particularly our area and the Delta is like the holy land in musical terms.”
The two will also be guests of blues documentary filmmaker Steve Greer in Nashville and will record with several established blues artists there. Following their Nashville sojourn they will make their first trip to the Mississippi Delta seeing the homes of the likes of Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson, and many others, all artists that inspire and influence them greatly. Marco, of Papa Leg, states, “we are terribly excited to make journey to America. It is a dream for us truly.”
While in Gibson County the two have scheduled recording sessions with McKnight and local musician Dan Shaw of Dyer, which will be included on their forthcoming Italian release. They will also make a presentation at the Dyer elementary school on Tuesday November the 21st and perform a free show at the Yorkville, TN city hall that night. All are encouraged to attend this event as it will be a great opportunity to meet these fine gentlemen and hear blues music from an Italian perspective.
“Pierluigi is one of the finest Delta style slide players I have ever played with and I think everyone will be blown away by Papa Leg’s true talent.”
In December McKnight will travel to Italy to play 11 shows. His first show will be at the Club La Palma in the heart of Metropolitan Rome. He will tour all the major cities of Northern Italy including Milano, Bologna, Florence, and Venice with Papa Leg. This tour is sponsored and promoted by Desert Highway Records of Los Angeles, CA, who will release McKnight’s new album in May of 2007 on their label.
Label President Dr. Ernest Morrell, also a professor of Cultural Studies at UCLA, states “It’s a very special treat for us to have Papa Leg visit the home of the blues. Music has always been able to transcend borders that people find difficult to cross. The blues is a music that is, at its essence about the human condition; it is music about love and loss and the celebration of a life, which though it can be hard at times, is still a special gift. Through international exchanges such as this one, it is possible to share our cultural gifts with artists from abroad while developing fans of roots music around the world. And no one is better qualified to host than Elam McKnight, our modern blues prophet and guitar-picker-songwriter extraordinaire. McKnight’s music is both a nod to the tradition of Delta blues and a glimpse at the future of the genre. Papa Leg will learn a great deal from so knowledgeable and gracious a guide. And the Italians are in for a definite treat from the Big Black Hand- Desert Highway Records Winter Tour. McKnight brings a sophisticated amalgam of Delta Blues-based roots music tinged with rockabilly and punk that is nothing short of special. McKnight, our most gifted ambassador, promises to reintroduce another generation to the power and passion of the roots blues in the spirit of his predecessors Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin.”

McKnight is very pleased to have the group from Italy be able to come here and see the land where the music they love sprang from. “I know this will be a marvelous opportunity for Papa Leg and us as well. I encourage everyone who can to come out and hear these guy’s wonderful music, take time to ask them questions and show them why we (West Tennesseans) are some of the nicest people on the planet. While I was in Italy I could have not been treated nicer by all her people and I would like to see that favor returned here.”
For more information on Papa Leg you can go to: http://www.myspace.com/papaleg
And more information on Elam McKnight tour of Italy at: http://www.myspace.com/elammcknightitaly
And more info on McKnight’s forthcoming album: http://www.myspace.com/deserthighwayrecords

http://www.savedarfur.org">
Please Visit and Read!

Man we just completed a session like the old days. 6 songs in about 6 hours. It was Off the Chain.
Me (Elam McKnight), Dano Shaw(Bass), and Ringo Jukes (Drummer). We knocked the proverbial lights out and took a big chunk out of the material for the next album. Get ready cause it be the firey. Thanks to Chris for helping run the board and Ted for his J-Harp Skills.
Peace and Hair Grease
ELAM McKNIGHT

SOME CHANGES COMING IN THIS THANG REAL SOON!
GON BE SOME CHANGES ROUND HERE
BOOOOOOOOOOYEEEEEEEE!
MD

THIS JUST IN FROM JEFF KONKEL OF BROKE AND HUNGRY RECORDS
Well, maybe it's not urgent, but Rev. Peyton, his bride and his brother posted the message below on their myspace site . . . something about a kickass new cd they're releasing (i've heard it . . . it's great). they're looking for maximum sales during the CD's first week . . . so if you're inclined to get it (and you should be), get it now!

so, for a change, i'll help pimp someone else's product:

Big Damn News for Big Damn Fans!

We have some BIG DAMN NEWS! Our new album Big Damn Nation drops in record stores all over the US tomorrow. We are offering a special deal for our myspace friends. $2 off the CD until August 22nd. We suggest you act fast, as you need to have this cd spinning at home or in your car right now. We are very proud of this cd and we really feel like it captures our live sound. Just go to www.bigdamnband.com and click on any of the many links to buy the cd and enter the coupon code 9JG5WF.

If you would rather pick it up at a record store because you cant wait for the mail, stop by your closest and most favorite cd store and pick it up (and if for some reason they dont have it yet, chastise them and request it). We are releasing this album on our new label Family Owned Records and it is Nationally distributed through Nail Distribution (which is very exciting). Sales these first few weeks are very important for many reasons (press, soundscans, and for necessities such as food and gas on the road) so dont delay.

If you are in Indianapolis, this week only Indy CD and Vinyl is running a special when you buy the cd. You can buy it for only $9.97 and then you get $1 off of all other CDs you
buy along with it (in addition to your member discount). Just this week!

You can always pick it up at any live show, so check out our schedule and see when we are near you next (we will be in our home town Indianapolis and Clarksdale, MS this week).

Una nota alla gente italiana! Grazie così tanto per il vostro amore! Honor me poichè grande la gente e sono benedetto per venire al vostro paese. Gradirei ad in primo luogo ringrazio la gente che più fabulous ho avuto mai il piacere occuparsi nella mia vita. Alberto, Luigi, Martino, Stefano ed Andrea (mi sono dimenticato di darvi il vostro presente che ho un CD con il vostro nome su esso lo spedirò per posta a voi). Signori mi avete reso il tatto così nel paese e scaldate. Sono allineare una persona migliore per venire visitare. Ringraziamenti così tanto. So che faremo insieme molte cose grandi in avvenire. Il mio cuore esce a tutti voi. Alla gente grande di Fossacesia: Il mio amore più caldo! Luciano e Danelo "Dan", ringraziamenti per essere tali ospiti grandi in Avenzzano. Era un'esposizione grande e se la ricorderò per il resto di vita. Killian e voi sorella: Grande venirli a contatto entrambi. Mi ricorderò sempre della conversazione grande, del vostro umore, della vostra cura evidente per uno un altro e della luce del giorno che viene in su nel parco. La sig.ra Maria all'hotel Avenzzano ringrazia così tanto per la presa della cura buona di noi. Ringraziamenti a tutta la gente grande che è venuto vederla all'esposizione del lago Trasemino. Particolarmente Roberta e Roberto per drving finora. Era inoltre un piacere grande venire a contatto del vostro amico Martino che della signora è donna grande. Era un buon tempo. Ho tanta gente e se li dimenticassi non è perché ero provando noi letteralmente ho venuto a contatto dei centinaia della gente. Ma se occorreste tempo venire in su e parlarlo allineare l'honored. Ci saranno più da venire ma ho desiderato ottenere questa nota fuori lascio tutto conoscere quanto li apprezzo. Tutti siete nel mio cuore! Postscript di CIAO Elam McKnight: CIAO SABINA!



A note to the Italian People! Thank you so much for your love! You honor me as great people and I am blessed to have come to your country. I would like to first thank the most fabulous people I have ever had the pleasure to deal with in my life. Alberto, Luigi, Martino, Stefano, and Andrea (I forgot to give you your present I have a CD with your name on it I will mail it to you). You gentlemen made me feel so at home and warm. I am truly a better person for coming to visit. Thanks so much. I know we will do many great things together in the future. My heart goes out to all of you. To The great people of Fossacesia: My warmest love! Luciano and Danelo “Dan”, Thanks for being such great hosts in Avenzzano. It was a great show and I will remember it for the rest of life. Killian and you sister: Great to meet you both. I will always remember great conversation, your humor, your obvious care for one another, and the daylight coming up in the park. Mrs. Maria at the Hotel Avenzzano thanks so much for taking good care of us. Thanks to all the great folks that came to see us at Trasemino Lake show. Especially Roberta and Roberto for drving so far. It was also a great pleasure to meet your lady friend Martino she is great woman. It was a good time. I have so many people and if I forgot you it is not because I was trying we literally met hundreds of people. But if you took the time to come up and speak I truly am honored.
There will be more to come but I wanted to get this note out to let everyone know how much I appreciate them. You all are in my heart!
CIAO
Elam McKnight
Postscript: HELLO SABINA!

Congrats to Cedric and Garry Burnside for a Killer album they just released on BC records. It is some kind of good.

BIG NEWS FROM ELAM SOON BUT DO NOT WANT TO LET THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG JUST YET. IT WILL MAKE THE FAMILY REAL HAPPY