In message <[log in to unmask]>, Brian
Donaldson <[log in to unmask]> writes
>Well, it was on October 4, 1970 that the "Pearl" kicked the proverbial
>bucket after an overdose of heroin.

>What else can I say? Another great musical talent bites the dust.

>"Buried alive in the blues" today,

>Brian Donaldson.

A good few years back, I was doing some HP3000 development with a
colleague when she happened to say (for some quite unconnected reason)
"Isn't it amazing?" to which I replied "Shakes you to the bone" - and
then we were off into this, on an unsuspected mutual interest in the
works of Dory Previn, and much to everyone else's bewilderment:


A Stone For Bessie Smith

Isn't it amazing
shakes you to the bone
she bought a stone for Bessie Smith
she bought Bessie Smith a stone
she got it for her gravesite on a temporary loan
but she forgot she had not paid for her own
She forgot she had not paid
she forgot she had not paid
after all the contracts and arrangements have been made
she went to Bessie's grave and marked it with a stone
but she forgot she had not paid for her own

She went home to her class reunion
where a classmate he confessed
she wouldn't want this getting out
but she used to be the best
in school she was a nice girl
as decent as the rest
though she never was conservatively dressed

Isn't it amazing
shakes you to the bone
she bought a stone for Bessie Smith
she bought Bessie Smith a stone
she got it for her gravesite
on a temporary loan
but she forgot she had not paid for her own
she forgot she had not paid
she forgot she had not paid
after all the letters on the deed begun to fade
and her ashes have been scattered
been battered and been blown
but she forgot she had not paid for her own


[a poem on the death of Janis Joplin
who'd paid half the cost for a gravestone
on Bessie Smith's previously unmarked grave]

Dory Previn - A Stone For Bessie Smith
from the album "Mythical Kings and Iguanas"  (Mediarts Records, 1971)
--
Roy Brown        'Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be
Kelmscott Ltd     useful, or believe to be beautiful'  William Morris

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