Posted in "St. James Infirmary", In performance, Versions on April 18, 2008 | No Comments »
A bit more than two years ago, I published on this site a mini-review of a then-new version of “SJI” by Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan. I really didn’t care for it, but of course I know that Campbell and Lanegan have a lot of indie-rockin’ fans. Anyway, Campbell did the singing on that, so [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", In performance, New Orleans on April 17, 2008 | 3 Comments »
I’m pretty late with this news, but those of you who follow things in New Orleans are no doubt aware that Al Copeland passed away recently.
He died of a malignant salivary gland tumor, near Munich German; he was 64. The Times obit failed to explain what he was doing in Germany, but it did provide [...]
Posted in In performance on March 28, 2008 | No Comments »
An item here last November about a Tiger Okoshi performance in Philadelphia noted that the show’s encore included a version of “SJI,” and the “curator” of the performance series, pianist Danilo Pérez, “unable contain himself” came onstage and joined in.
That incident is the lead-in of this recent Philadelphia Inquirer article about Pérez. Apart from just [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", In performance, Versions on February 27, 2008 | No Comments »
Something I did not know: Cab Calloway’s grandson is a working musical performer. His name is C. Calloway Brooks. A New England Conservatory of Music grad, he performed with his grandfather back in the 1980s, and now tours with the seven-piece Cab Jivers. And according to this brief piece about him, “SJI” is (not surprisingly) [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", In performance on February 27, 2008 | No Comments »
A review of a live show in Biloxi by “boogie-woogie stylist” Michael Kaeshammer says the piano player “wowed” the crowd with his playing and a “his dry, Dick Cavett-style humor.”
For instance:
Two songs introduced as romantic, love-filled numbers: “St. James Infirmary” (about a dead lover on an emergency room gurney) and “My Girlfriend is a Kangaroo” [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", In performance, MySpace/YouTube/Etc., Versions on February 25, 2008 | No Comments »
A long time ago I corresponded with, and if I remember right, even spoke to, some folks in Holland putting together a two-part radio show of versions of “SJI.” (Here and here.) During that exchange I was informed that a version of “SJI” performed by Johnny Kendall & The Heralds was a huge hit there, [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", In performance on February 22, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Okay, it’s not breaking news. It happened decades ago: Cab Calloway performed “SJI” on The Ed Sullivan Show.
It so happens that that episode — which I have not seen — is part of a Sullivan DVD collection, and according to this piece, “one of the best” musical performances is “the always-watchable Cab Calloway belting out [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", In performance on December 24, 2007 | No Comments »
This is, I admit, silly, but I can’t resist recording it here. Writing in the Orlando Sentinel, Robert J. Havel describes a performance by an “ensemble compris[ing] eight kazoos and a trumpet player who doubled on kazoo.”
If you ain’t heard six kazoo-tootin’ little old ladies swingin’ and singin’ their way through a seminaughty version of [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", In performance on November 30, 2007 | 3 Comments »
I had not heard of Tiger Okoshi prior to reading a recent performance review in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
He is a trumpeter born in Japan in 1950, who has lived in the U.S. since 1972. Toru Okoshi picked up the nickname “Tiger,” apparently, as a reflection of his hunger for musical learning. He is on the [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", In performance, Versions on November 14, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Know anything about Davy Graham?
Well I’d never heard of him until quite recently, by way of this brief live-performance review in a Manchester newspaper.
Subsequent research — by which I mean Googling — indicates that he’s an important figure in guitar/folk history, largely because of his solo acoustic instrumental piece “Anji,” written in the late 1950s, [...]
[Or: The Point of this Site]
A couple of years ago I did some research into the song "St. James Infirmary," wrote up what I found, emailed that essay to friends and posted it on my web site (as part of a series of "Letters From New Orleans," as I was living in that city at the time). Based on the feedback, I wrote a second version of the essay, and asked for more feedback. Based on that, I wrote a third version.
And now, this site: A place to collect some of the links, leads, thoughts, and suggestions relating to the song that readers (from Finland, The Netherlands, Australia, Spain, England, Sweden, Canada, and all over the U.S.) have sent me. This may lead to a fourth and significantly expanded version of the essay, some day. Also on this site: Plenty of tangents.
Never heard "St. James Infirmary"? Start here.
The most recent version of my "St. James Infirmary" essay is now a few years old. But it's still a fairly decent overview of what I know about the song, and why I'm interested in it. You can read it either in the book Letters from New Orleans (see below), or in the archives of The Gambit, the New Orleans weekly that published the piece as a book excerpt when LfNO came out.
This site is a partial spinoff of the book Letters from New Orleans, published by the unstoppable Garrett County Press. My interest in "St. James Infirmary" is the subject of one essay in the book. All author proceeds from the book still go to post-Katrina relief efforts, so I think it's okay for me to say: You ought to buy it.
