Posted in "St. James Infirmary", Musical context, Versions on December 28, 2007 | Comments Off
For a while now, bit by bit, I’ve been working my way through “The Folkways Collection,” a 24-part (!) Podcast series about Folkways Records. Today I hit episode nine, “The Blues.” About halfway through, Josh White’s “Free & Equal Blues” came up; the narrator explained the context, which was a protest/satire of the absurd practice [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", Musical context, Versions on December 27, 2007 | Comments Off
My first reaction to this was: Why did it take so long for an “SJI” ringtone to emerge?
But the truth is, I’m a set-the-phone-to-vibrate-only kind of guy, so I don’t know if this is really the first “SJI” ringtone or not.
And of course I’m afraid I won’t be purchasing it. But you can hear the [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", MySpace/YouTube/Etc., Questions (and sometimes answers), Versions on December 13, 2007 | 1 Comment »
In the comments to a recent SJI YouTube roundup, a reader brought to my attention the above video. It’s bit of an a 1993 ice-skating competition; the skaters are Grishuk and Platov. And the music to their program is, of course, “SJI.”
I know nothing about ice-skating, but I thought it was kind of cool.
Anyway, the [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", Lyric deconstruction, Versions on November 29, 2007 | No Comments »
A recent item about Tom Jones going on tour next year mentions in passing his 2004 album with Jools Hollland: “The set finds the Welsh pop idol and the former Squeeze keyboardist … tackling a hodgepodge of classic and not-so-classic material, including ‘St James’ Infirmary Blues’ ….”
A long time ago — in August of 2005, [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", Versions on November 26, 2007 | No Comments »
After shamelessly leaving the news of my podcast guest-host star turn as the lead entry on the site for an entire week, I thought I’d start off this week with — reactions to that podcast.
First up, I got a a nice note from Jennifer Bernard of the Portland-based group The Stolen Sweets, who quite generously [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", 1. St. James (+ Tangents), Announcements, Friends, Letters From New Orleans book, Versions on November 19, 2007 | 2 Comments »
I’m very excited to report that I recently had the opportunity to guest-host my favorite music podcast, The Sounds In My Head, normally hosted by Daniel Dunham. Naturally I took that opportunity, and filled my entire episode with versions of “SJI.” As of Monday November 19, that is available here. Check it out!
If you’re coming [...]
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, [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", MySpace/YouTube/Etc., Versions on November 2, 2007 | 2 Comments »
I never really pictured the protagonist of “SJI” looking like Fred Astaire. But I guess anything is possible. The first three minutes or so of this dance “interpretation” of the song — performed here by Jonah Jones — are pretty dull and didactic, but then the dead lover pops up from her long white table [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", Versions on October 30, 2007 | No Comments »
Offbeat notes that the famous Putumayo Records has a New Orleans Brass compilation out. It apparently includes “Bob French jollying his way through ‘St. James Infirmary Blues,’ a song everyone should hear at least once.” I’m pretty sure I’ve heard it more than once. But I’d like to hear this version just the same, so [...]
Posted in "St. James Infirmary", Versions on October 19, 2007 | 1 Comment »
The Edmonton Journal seems quite taken with a recent disc, Days Like These, from piano player Michael Kaeshammer, who was born in Germany, raised in Canada, and now lives in Brooklyn. I’m not familiar with him but maybe I’ll seek the disc out for its version of “SJI:”
Check out Days Like These and you’ll [...]
[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.
