Allen Ginsberg and the concertina

[CheeseNote]

Today, I played as a member of a West Gallery Quire for a Thanksgiving/Harvest celebration service. We all had to sit in front of the altar, didn't play from the back balcony, as we authentically should have.

 

Usually, it's the serpent and the dulcian that get all the attention at these things, but as we were packing up afterwards, a woman who sat in the first pew box right in front of us asked about the concertina, saying her children enjoyed the "little accordion", and what was it really called?

 

When I told her the name she commented, "That's right, Allen Ginsberg played one when he came to give a reading at my school years ago." Oh???!!!

 

A Google search turns up several mentions of Ginsberg accompanying himself on the concertina, but I've found no pictures:

Allen Ginsberg came in looking like a professor out of a 1920s German movie with a little concertina and started a Hare Krishna chant.

 

and

 

Dylan would come over to the house with Allen Ginsberg and we'd all sit around on the floor, chanting with finger cymbals and he had this sort of little concertina that he'd play. He didn't sing very well but he was really into it.

 

Who Knew?? Anybody ever see Ginsberg give a reading with a concertina?

[Leo]

Hi Cheesenote

 

I was in high school at the time he was on the TV show the Firing Line with William Buckley and I remember the chant played with what I later was told was a harmonium. I was told he used it frequently. I don't remember any other instrument.

 

Here is a clip:

 

Now if I can only remember what I did this morning

 

Thanks

Leo

[ceemonster]

it was indeed a harmonium, an instrument sometimes played in india, which may be where he got on to it, and played to great effect on many wonderful recordings of indian dance music and bollywood collections. i was lucky enough to see mr. ginsberg perform live on two consecutive nights in san francisco during the early '90s. it was probably his last performance tour, and this was a special weekend where he read & sang pieces from the first half of his oeuvre on the first night, same with the second half on the second night. you could buy single tickets and just see one, or a twofer. i got to go to both. we closed one night with a harmonium sing-along to a william blake poem that allen had set to music and elongated with extra repetitions of choruses. it was the "nurse's song," .... and he made almost a krishna-esque chant of the final line, which we sang about a hundred times......."and all the hills echo-ed." again...it was the early 90s and not one cell phone went off or was even seen. no one had ever heard of britney spears. i miss allen.

 

here is a link to the ginsberg take on "nurse's song"...this might be a great way to close a session, come to think of it. http://www.litkicks.com/Texts/BlakeHills.html:

[Hooves]

Who Knew?? Anybody ever see Ginsberg give a reading with a concertina?

 

who could see through all that smoke?