Compiling digital versions of various records in my collection expressing radical, brilliant, revolutionary thoughts on various issues and in various forms.

Rebellious Knowledge Archives

This is a record that was produced to promote Nina Simone's album "Black Gold." It is mostly an "open ended" interview with Nina Simone, where a radio DJ could read questions from a script on their show, and then Simone would "answer" them via playing the record. Because of this, when you listen you'll only hear Simone's answers. There are also musical snippets throughout the record from the album.

Nina Simone Radio Special

Nina Simone Interview And Music

This record contains statements and interviews with Angela Davis, as well as interviews with her lawyer Margaret Burnham, journalist Gil Noble and Charlene Mitchell, a member of the New York Committee to free Angela Davis.

Folkways Records, 1971.

Angela Davis Speaks

Hard to find interview by journalist and radio host Art Seigner of Lester Jackson, the father of Black political prisoner, prison organizer and author George Jackson, who was murdered by prison guards in 1971. As written, in part, in the liner notes: "The over-all concern and emphasis is on the point of current prison conditions, where the climate seems unfavorable for the lives of Black controversial prisoners. Every American should hear this discussion, and face the unhappy fact - that this happened in an enlightened, democratic America." 

Part of the ongoing Rebellious Knowledge Archives playlist. Please share! - DJ Ian Head

Thoughts and Theories - George Jackson

Knowledge Archives

Thoughts and Theories on Soledad Brother George Jackson (Archival Interview)

Latest addition to the Rebellious Knowledge Archives. A rare interview with John Coltrane, included in a 1970s era box set of his work released in Japan. He's asked various questions by the Japanese interviewer, including his thoughts on the Vietnam war and how he views the music he plays. Coltrane rarely gave interviews so it's a real treat to hear him speak, even if it's brief.

Part of the ongoing Rebellious Knowledge Archives playlist. Please share! - DJ Ian Head

John Coltrane Interview 1966

This is an album of songs and documentary snippets on the radical record label Paredon that was released in 1974. With the current genocide happening in Gaza, I wanted to digitize this fully as an effort to show that what Israel is doing is nothing new, that the apartheid system and genocide against Palestinians has been going on since the Nakba in 1948. Please share!

Palestine Lives! 

Donate for Gaza!

Palestine Lives! Songs from the Struggle of the People of Palestine (Archive Recording)

Several speeches from Dr. King to labor movement leaders and union members.

Speaks to District 65 DWA

Martin Luther King Jr. Speaks to District 65 DWA

RIP the legendary Nikki Giovanni. Here is a great album of her poetry from the 1970s. An excerpt from her liner notes on the back of the cover:

"The reason I like chocolate is when I was in 5th grade 5 cents would buy a Sugar Daddy which would last all day long. It always seemed to me that happy occasions brought forth a chunk of chocolate. I have a fondness also for peppermint but for a different reason.

Some of these poems aren't strictly children's poems but that's because I don't believe children can be strictly categorized. I once gave a birthday party for my son, Tommy, where I served caviar, black bread, salad, and assorted cold meats with a ginger ale punch. 'You know, Nikki,' (all Tommy's friends call me Nikki) a little girl said, 'the reason I like to come to your house is we get grown up food." Maybe. Or maybe she was just saying that the reason she likes chocolate is that it's good."

Nikki Giovanni - the reason I like chocolate (Poetry LP)

I love records. But I love records because I love music. And sometimes, in fact often, great music doesn't get pressed on vinyl. And that's ok! That's why Bandcamp is so great. It's endless in how much great stuff is available there. Here's just a small sampling of the beautiful music I've found that as far as I know, has not been pressed onto vinyl, but is available digitally if you seek it out. 

Tracklist: Jazzbois, Nautilus, Raffy Bushman, Okonski, Soil Pimp Sessions, Chicago Soul Jazz Collective, Sunstrider

Pullin from the Stacks - Digital Jazz

From the collection of records donated by friends of my mother.

This side is a selection of poetry from Judy Grahn.

Section One:
A History of Lesbianism
if you lose your lover
in the place where
The Marilyn Monroe Poem

Section Two:
The Common Woman II. Ella III. Nadine IV. Carol V. Detroit Annie VII. Vera

Section Three:
She Who
partin on the left
the woman in 3 pieces one
She Who Increases
the many minnows
A Geology Lesson
the enemies of
She Who
She Who Continues
the most blonde woman
the woman in 3 pieces three
foam on the rim
i am the wall
the woman whose head is on fire

Section Four:
Plainsong: from an older woman to a younger woman

Where Would I Be Without You

Where Would I Be Without You - Side 2 (Judy Grahn)

From the collection of records donated by friends of my mother.

This side is a selection of poetry from Pat Parker.

Section One:
From cavities of bones
When I was a child
Fuller Brush Day
You can't be sure of anything these days
Tour America!
In English Lit
Brother
Have you ever tried to hide?

Section Two:
Don't let the fascists speak

Section Three:
Pit Stop

Section Four:
My lover is a woman
Poem to Ann #2
Let me come to you naked
For Willyce
A Small Contradiction
For Straight Folks Who Don't mind Gays But Wish They Weren't So Blatant

Section Five:
Womanslaughter

Where Would I Be Without You - Side 1 (Pat Parker)

I bought this for a few dollars, sealed, out of a crate on Franklin Avenue in Brooklyn.

From the liner notes:
"A few weeks before he was struck down by an assassin's bullet in Memphis where he was aiding sanitation workers in their fight for the right to have a union, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. visited with us at Local 1199. He came to address our annual Salute to Freedom rally at Hunter College and in his opening remarks, he said: "I don't consider myself a stranger at Local 1199...I consider myself a fellow 1199er."

"Martin Luther King, Jr. belonged to us, to our members, to the poor, to the ghetto-dweller, to the black people, the Puerto Rican people and poor whites. He spoke to us at our meetings. He walked with us in our demonstrations and picket lines. He encouraged us and guided us. He was proud of his honorary membership in our union and he identified with our struggles just as we did with his."

"The bullet that took his life was aimed at all Americans who work to put an end to injustice in our society. We will build no stone monuments to commemorate him. We will pass to pious resolutions. But we will build our  union in his image. We will raise high the banner of struggle in the fight against poverty, discrimination, ignorance, hatred and war."

"Martin Luther King, Jr. will live as long as we, and others like us, dedicate ourselves to carry out his ideals. It is in that spirit that we are making these recorded highlights from some of his speeches available to our members." - Leon J. Davis, President, Local 1199

Tracklist:

I've Been to the Mountain Top - April 3, 1968
Dr. King Talks About Local 1199 - March 10, 1968
Song: Everybody's Got a Right to Live
Labor and the War in Vietnam - November 11, 1967
Dr. King's Own Eulogy - February 4, 1968
Leon Davis Speaks
Address to Local 1199 Freedom Salture - March 10, 1968
I've Been to the Mountain  Top - April 3, 1968

"All proceeds will go to the Local 1199 Brotherhood Fund to promote those causes to which Dr. King devoted his life."

MLK at Local 1199

Martin Luther King, Jt. at Local 1199

I don't remember where I found this, but it's a great piece of oral history. Mary Lou Williams plays a number of her own compositions and in-between narrates not just a history of so-called "jazz" music but her views on where and who the music comes from, where she thinks it's going, and more. 

From the liner notes: "Mary Lou Williams recorded this narration and this music tracing the history of Jazz in her apartment in New York City in late 1970. She wrote the narration and recorded herself using her Tandberg tape recorder. She then turned to her Hamilton piano and delineated the various unfolding eras in the development of Jazz through which she herself has played. The apartment and the piano are famous in the history of Jazz. It was this apartment that functioned as a kind of salon for the musicians of the Bop Era. They gathered there nightly during the forties and played through the dawn well into the next day. Almost every important Jazz Pianist has played on this piano at one time or another and it was on this particular piano that Monk and Bud Powell explored almost daily in the presence of Mary Lou Williams."

Copyright Folkways Music.

The History of Jazz

Mary Lou Williams: The History of Jazz

This was in my Uncle Bill's small collection of records that I found in his apartment after he passed. 

Introductory Poem by Don L. Lee

From A STREET IN BRONZEVILLE:
Kitchenette Building
Obituary for a Living Lady
Sadie and Maud
Matthew Cole
The Vacant Lot
Queen of the Blues
The Mother
The Sundays of Satin-Legs Smith

From ANNIE ALLEN:
The Parents: People Like Our Marriage Max and Andrew
Do Not Be Afraid of No
"Pygmies Are Pygmies Still, Though Percht on Alps"
The Rites for Cousin Vit
Leaves From a Loose-leaf War Diary
The Children of the Poor

From THE BEAN EATERS:
My Little Bout-town Gal
The Bean Eaters
Old Mary
The Lovers of the Poor
A Man of the Middle Class
Kid Bruin
The Ghost at the Quincy Club

From SELECTED POEMS:
Garbageman: The Man with the Orderly Mind
Weaponed Woman

From BLACK EXPRESSION Vol I, No I:
Riot

From IN THE MECCA:
Gang Girls
The Wall
The Sermon on the Warpland

Gwendolyn Brooks Reading Her Poetry

Found this a couple years ago in Portland. 

Here Baldwin reads one excerpt from "Giovanni's Room" - "Joey" (Part 2) and two excerpts from "Another Country" - first "Rufus Suicide" and then "Rev. Foster's Eulogy."

Copyright CMS Records.

Reading from Giovanni's Room and Another Country

James Baldwin Reads from Giovanni's Room and Another Country

Found this a couple years ago in Portland. 

Here Baldwin reads two excerpts from "Giovanni's Room" - first, "Giovanni and Guillaume" and then "Joey" (Part 1)

Copyright CMS Records.

James Baldwin Reads Giovanni's Room

This record was from the collection generously donated to me by friends of my mom's.

From the record cover:

Joan Larkin reads:
Stop
The Open Window
Song (for female voices)
To Kate
The Choice
Blood
Sleeping on the Left
Rhyme of My Inheritance

Adrienne Rich reads:
The Mirror In Which Two Are Seen As One
Power
Phantasia For Elvira Shatayev


Copyright 1977 Out and Out Books

A Sign / I Was Not Alone

A Sign / I Was Not Alone - Joan Larkin and Adrienne Rich

This record was from the collection generously donated to me by friends of my mom's.

From the record cover:

Honor Moore reads:
Polemic #1 from Mourning Pictures*: March 29 - The telephone rings... / May 20 - Ladies and gentlemen... / June 26 - She says she will have dinner... / Labor Day - There's so much I want to tell you about the garden / October 3 - Her dark hair is combed back... *Mourning Pictures is a play in verse about [Moore's] mother's death from cancer in the fall of 1973 from which these poems are excerpted. In the play, the autobiographical character's name is Margaret.

Audre Lorde Reads:
From the House of Yemanje
Harriet
Hanging Fire
Meet

Copyright 1977 Out and Out Books

A Sign / I Was Not Alone - Honor Moore and Audre Lorde

When I'm not at the dayjob, I'm probably at a record store. Pullin from the Stacks podcast most Wednesdays, available here, Apple Pods (please subscribe!) and elsewhere.