With Ray McNiece and Sean Kelly
This performance and workshop explore lyrics and music as literary expression, showing how themes, styles, and techniques of contemporary songs connect with the history of poetry.
The 50 minute performance covers the varieties of "guitar poetry" that are the roots of rock and roll. From work songs (sea chanties, field hollers) to train songs, from country to blues, from jazz to Broadway show tunes, Ray and Joe demonstrate the styles that created and continue to inform rock And roll.
The workshop shows the links between songs from the performance and the diverse literary and oral traditions that comprise the American experience. "Summertime," from the musical Porgy and Bess, segues into Van Morrison's "Moondance," a love song in the same key. What is a love song? A train song, "Rollin' in my Sweet Baby's Arms," transitions to one of Woody Guthrie's dust bowl ballads and then to Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready." How do these lyrics reflect the respective times when they were composed? What is the influence of William Blake on Jim Morrison of the Doors? How do both poets use symbolism in their work? How did the Beat poets influence Bob Dylan? How does the lyric structure of Scottish Border Ballads compare with Blue's format? How has the African- American folk poetry of "the dozen's'' influenced rap? The workshop will discuss these questions through lecture, demonstration and question and answers The workshop will also include an audience participation finale where students will create the verses and chorus of a song.
The performance and workshop pivot from Steven Smith's LYRICIST REVIEW, and encourage students to compare and contrast the songs they listen to everyday with poems from the curriculum to gain an understanding of the power and beauty of poetry.
Ray McNiece is a published poet, an actor and a folk-rock guitar singer. He is lead vocalist for the poetry music project Tongue-in-Groove. Sean Kelly is a singer-songwriter in the Richie Havens tradition. He and Ray comprise the duo, Soul Surviving Sons.
