LA Times – Reporting from San Francisco— Warren Hellman, a San Francisco financier, philanthropist and bluegrass enthusiast who lavished his city with a free concert that grew into one of the nation’s largest music festivals, died Sunday of complications from leukemia, his family said. He was 77. (Read the rest)

Hellman’s paper – The Bay Citizen with music

By Panama Red

Amsterdam, December 20, 2001 – - Had it not been for my
brother Del I probably would not have been either afflicted
or blessed, depending on how you look at it, with guitar.
Or with country music, for that matter. Among my earliest
memories are those of Del singing and playing, a strong
baritone doing “Philippino Baby” or “Riding Down the
Canyon”, one melody line and one set of changes that would
later stand me in good stead.

He was, I know my two surviving brothers would agree, the
best one of us. Of us all, he had the most of our mother’s
natural wisdom.

By the age of twelve I had been fooling around with guitars
in one form or another for more than half my life. I had
been abetted in this behaviour by my cousins, the Hazeletts
and by my Aunt Juanita’s brothers the Adkinses, who got me
hooked early with the melody line to “Poison Love”. But
the biggest contributor to my delinquency was my brother,
Del. When he went to Germany he left at my mother’s house
a factory-second Beltone guitar that I sanded and scraped
the finish off and painted with shellac. I still don’t
know why…

(read the rest)

Click on the link to view the video :   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/25/the-sea-is-my-brother_n_1113455.html?1322352493&ncid=webmail8
John Balcomb

AP

Lost Jack Kerouac Novel Goes On Sale

The beatnik author rocketed to fame with his 1957 novel ‘On the Road.’ But almost nobody knew he’d written a book 15 years earlier.

Person who discovered the lost manuscript

http://artistinterviews.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/10-artistic-careers-with-the-brightest-futures-nea-and-bls/

Michael Wilcox

from Panama Red

http://www.panamaredmusic.com/essays/wilcox.html

When I knew Michael he lived a block off of one of the most beautiful beaches on the gulf. He could walk barefoot to the water if the sun wasn’t too high in the sky. Michael was in the habit of swimming every day unless the hammerheads were running. Those days he stayed on shore.
- Mari

My name is Logan and I’m writing to you on behalf of The Doors Music Co. I was browsing through the Beaux Arts website hoping to find some information on Jim Morrison, as he is said to have performed at the gallery sometime between 1960 and 1962. Here is the notation I found on the site:

“1960-1962 Jim Morrison recited poetry at Beaux Arts and was filmed in the garden at Beaux Arts while attending St. Petersburg Jr. College.”

I was hoping someone could tell me more about the film of Jim in the garden, or anything else that might be in the ‘archive’. Also, I’ve attached a couple of images from newspaper scans from 1971 that feature quotations from Tom Reese on the death of Jim Morrison, and an article about a memorial service that was to be held at the gallery in honor of Jim. ( from the Evening Independent September, 1971.)

Thanks for any help you can give me,
Logan

(Logan’s site: http://mildequator.com/filmhistory/private.html)

by Hugh van Skyhawk

About a year and a half ago I found a lame pregnant mare abandoned on the roadside near Islamabad. She had been standing there eating garbage and drinking dirty water for some months. Her time was near and I couldn’t bear the idea of her foal entering this world some two to three meters away from heavy traffic. I am sure you all know that foals stand up and practice running with their long new legs about an hour and a half after birth. So, I couldn’t let the mare stand there and let the inevitable happen, i.e. foal crushed under the wheels of a lorry, mare hit by another heavy vehicle while trying to save foal. (I know all of this is hardly as interesting as the oh so important jet travels of vacuous Hillary, the camera posturings of steely ‘Obomba’ guiding the ship of state through the camera lens of a Seal storm trooper, or the ash-grey deadpan of beady-eyed McMullen looking for someone or something new to attack and destabilize.).

But, every great human conflict has a symbol which evokes its horror, like Sergei Eisenstein’s runaway baby carriage, for example, or the Serbian propaganda films of Ratko Mladic warmly interacting with Bosnian villagers assuring them that their loved ones were only being evacuated for their own safety and not being transported to their deaths a few hours later, or the news snapshot of that ARVN officer blowing out the brains of a Viet Cong suspect with his Colt 44 officers’ pistol, or that screaming Vietnamese child burning with napalm trying to run away from the horror of what is glibly called “collateral damage”.

Such images passed before my mind’s eye as I stood looking at that forlorn, crippled, abandoned, and pregnant mare. So, I took her with me and put her in a posh local stable where she was cared for like a Pakistani Sea Biscuit in training for the Belmont Stakes with brushings, combings, cooling baths, leg massages, and extra rich fodder to get her ready for the birth of her foal.  She adapted to her new role as pampered horse with great dignity, probably thinking that the humans had come to their senses and were finally treating noble equines such as herself as they deserve to be treated. After some weeks, the mare, now named “Beauty”, stopped trying to bite my hand when I fed her and even looked up from grazing when my car entered the parking lot of the stable.

In due course, almost a year ago now, she brought a wonder of creation into this world: a finely proportioned well developed little brown filly. How could this be possible, I wondered, after eating garbage and drinking dirty water for at least four months of her eleven month carrying period? “God is great.”, said one of the stable hands in a matter of fact tone. “Yes, God is great.”, I  replied, and He is always very near in a disaster area, I thought to myself.

One day not so long ago, my wife, Martina, who works with abandoned, abused, and traumatised Pakistani Christian girls, suggested that ‘Beauty’ and the girls, all victims of great cruelty, help each other in coping with their situations. Martina brought a group of twenty-six girls to the stable to meet ‘Beauty’ and her young ‘daughter’, ‘Lucky Lady’ , feed them carrots, pet them, and sit on ‘Beauty’s’ back for a minute or two. The children, the mare, and the filly got on famously and everyone, horses and children, was a little less traumatised at the end of the day.
I am attaching two photos of this therapeutic encounter.

With best wishes and my humble salaam,

Hugh van Skyhawk

I recorded them at Beaux Arts – Phil Larson
Rick Ferriss (26)

If you don’t know about this, surprise. They don;t have your name spelled right. It’s Mari Eliza who travelled with Michael and Richard Leps to NY, then they got that recording contract off the streets. I was back in 2006 to promote a concert at the State Theater in St. Pete. Richard played with Jak Kelly by my request and also Ronnie Elliott and the headliner Bethlehem Asylum (Danny Finley or Panama Red, Buddy Helm, and Charlie Dechant). Lost my ass but had a great reunion and Florida vacation. We did a live hour on wfmt, a little beach bar gig but still only 35 people showed up. Lynn French requested to do an acapella song at the end, that was nice ,, I think she was the first one I heard at Beaux Arts in 1966 or so with her then husband George. I still have some rough cassettes of that boy scout camp ranch festival you put otn. I used to be in the furniture trucking business in Florida and had to repair some booboo’s on the truck.  Tried to learn as much as I could from this old wizard we had a Mangurian’s mega ripoff store. Sounds like a good niche  to combine with music. I currently own a share of a taxi co-op in San Francisco so life is comfortable, lots of musican friends and roommates, do Photography and Video.It’s great to get in touch again. Let me know if you’re coming this way, there’s actually no money out here, too many musicians, people who are good playing for tip jars and dinner! just like the sixties. Let’s get the Arnold’s Boatyard stuff together and do a page or on the Beaux Arts site. Still sounds great to me! PHIL

From David Dawsey – via facebook:
Holy f%#K Phil, You belong to a very elite(I mean small) group of folks who would speak those words “Arnolds Boatyard”. I’m flattered you remember me from 197?.
Recording studio-Berkeley? I lived there a few years before we met.
ilike.com has a small selection of current music under my name.
I have a small service bussiness doing blemish repair on furniture and cabinets(20+years-I’m “the”guy in town)so that I can afford to play music. I’ve been doing a lot of that in the past few years.
I’m surprised and glad to hear from you.
Dave

Performing an impressive list of Southern rock classics, Door’s, Hendrix, Neil Young, Beatles, originals and more… Opening act is The Sensational Rob Edwards Band, Southern Point take the stage at approximately 6:00 pm and play till 10:00. Don’t miss this latest Dance Party and southern barbecue!

Also latest Morrison piece:
Jim Morrison headline article on the upper half of the front page of the 11/28/10 St. Petersburg Times.
http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/jim-morrison-pardon-talk-revives-40-year-old-story/1136599

Regards,

John Balcomb