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Life Experience Produces Poetry-Blues Union
by David Wildman, The Boston Sunday Globe
October 3, 1999
Poet John Sinclair has been a political activist, a Beat writer, manager of a late-'60s punk band, teacher of blues history, even the subject of a song by John Lennon called "John Sinclair." (Lennon wrote the song to help spring Sinclair from prison where he'd been incarcerated three years for passing two marijuana cigarettes to an undercover policewoman). John Sinclair and The Blues Scholars perform Thursday, October 7th, at Squawk Coffeehouse, in Harvard Square.
Sinclair, 58, who lives in New Orleans, has traveled the country for five years performing his fluid poetry, rich life experience, and expert backing musicians to create vivid portraits of blues and jazz greats such as Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, John Coltrane, and Thelonius Monk.
"I'll perform for anyone; I don't care where it is," says Sinclair. "I've played at art galleries, literary gatherings, coffeehouses, even at the House of Blues." His latest incarnation is as the animated spoken-word frontman of a group he calls The Blues Scholars, which will feature local musician/writer Ted Drozdowski on lead guitar, at Squawk.
Sinclair came to Boston first in the summer of 1995, and met Lee Kidd of Naked City Coffeehouse who considers himself a coffeehouse activist. Kidd had been sparked by a poem by '60s icon Ed Sanders, "Hymn to a Rebel Cafe." Sanders, an old friend of Sinclair, had toured in Boston and performed his poetry at Naked City, which has since been renamed Squawk.
"Ed Sanders was one of their people, and I said that's my people, too," says Sinclair. "He's best known for being an activist from about 30 years ago, and if anything, he's more of an activist now, but they don't have any place for that anymore. You won't see him in Rolling Stone Magazine.
Sinclair, who will be performing at Squawk for the second year in a row, incorporates quotes from greats such as Muddy Waters and Dizzy Gillespie into his poetry, which he spouts over an energetic improvised blues and jazz groove.
"That is what means the most to me, the lives of the great musicians," says Sinclair. "I started incorporating their actual words because the way they talked was like poetry. I started reading them at first without music backing, but found that it was too dry. I found that music made it more attractive to an audience."
He has recorded a number of CDs with different incarnations of backing musicians, which he makes available for purchase at his shows. One CD features guitarist Wayne Kramer, formerly of the Detroit punk band the MC5 that Sinclair managed in the late 1960s.
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- Sinclair Fir Benefit at SQUAWK
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