Description

Allen Ginsberg – The Lion For Real – Cassette

The Lion for Real is an album by the renowned American poet Allen Ginsberg, released in 1989. This album is notable for its unique fusion of Ginsberg’s spoken word poetry with musical accompaniment, blending literary art with a diverse range of musical styles. Ginsberg, a central figure of the Beat Generation, is known for his powerful and provocative poetry, and this album presents a captivating way to experience his work.

The Lion for Real features Ginsberg reciting his poetry over musical backdrops provided by a variety of musicians. The album includes a mix of new compositions and reworkings of some of Ginsberg’s most famous poems. The musical styles range from jazz and blues to rock and experimental sounds, reflecting the eclectic nature of Ginsberg’s influences and interests.

The album blends Ginsberg’s spoken word poetry with various musical genres, creating a rich and diverse auditory experience. The album features contributions from a range of musicians, incorporating styles such as jazz, blues, rock, and experimental music. Ginsberg’s powerful and evocative poetry is brought to life with the support of thoughtfully composed musical backdrops. The album explores a wide array of themes, including spirituality, existentialism, social commentary, and personal reflections.

The Lion for Real received positive reviews for its innovative approach to combining poetry and music. Critics and fans appreciated the album’s ability to bring Ginsberg’s poetry to a new audience and to present his work in a fresh and engaging format. The album is praised for its artistic boldness and the seamless integration of Ginsberg’s words with diverse musical elements

Allen Ginsberg’s The Lion for Real remains a significant work in the realm of spoken word and poetry albums. It stands as a testament to Ginsberg’s enduring influence and his ability to innovate within the literary and musical landscapes. The album continues to inspire both poets and musicians to explore the boundaries of their respective arts.

For those interested in the intersection of poetry and music, The Lion for Real offers a unique and enriching listening experience that highlights the profound impact of Allen Ginsberg’s work and his ability to transcend traditional artistic boundaries.

A long way from the cliched tableau of the coffeehouse beat poet shouting spontaneous verses to the accompaniment of bongos, THE LION FOR REAL pairs one of contemporary poetry’s most iconic figures with some leading lights in experimental and improvisational music. Released in 1989 (eight years before Allen Ginsberg’s death), THE LION FOR REAL highlights the parallels between instrumental and verbal music, framing the sharp, clipped rhythms of Ginsberg’s work via sympathetic and intense jazz accompaniment.

The personnel assembled here are mightily impressive, including Bill Frisell, Arto Lindsay, Marc Ribot, Steve Swallow, and G.E. Smith. These musicians selected poems of Ginsberg’s they felt particularly drawn to, then composed charts to accompany Ginsbergs readings of those poems. The music falls somewhere between avant-jazz and film music, modifying and accentuating the tone and mood of each piece.

Allen Ginsberg’s groundbreaking poem Howl began with the words, ‘I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix…’ As a student at Columbia University in New York in the 1950s, Ginsberg fell in with rebel writers such as Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. He travelled to San Francisco, where his 1955 public reading of Howl launched the poem as a counterculture hit, helped along by the publicity over an obscenity charge against Ginsberg, a homosexual.

During the 1960s Ginsberg became one of the more prominent figures in the American anti-war movement, as he also joined love-ins, took LSD, and generally grabbed every opportunity to harass the authorities. Still, his anger and rebellion were perceived as generally good-natured, and in 1974 he won the National Book Award for The Fall of America: Poems of These States, 1965-1971. in his later years he served as a kind of Grand Old Man of pop counterculture, even appearing in a video for MTV in 1996.

Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic seal

Island Records

Track Listing
1. Scribble
2. Complaint Of The Skeleton To Time
3. Xmas Gift
4. To Aunt Rose
5. Lion For Real, The
6. Refrain
7. Shrouded Stranger, The
8. Gregory Corso’s Story
9. Cleveland, The Flats
10. End, The
11. Stanzas: Written At Night In Radio City
12. Sunset
13. Hum Bom!
14. Kral Majales
15. Guru
16. Ode To Failure
17. C’mon Jack