By chance, I had two young poets who are also songwriters in my MFA seminar this past semester, and their interests in the work of other songwriters whose lyrics at the very least overlap with poetry, if not in fact constitute a part of the contemporary canon of poetry, led me to offer them a chance to peruse my personal collection of recordings on vinyl. Shortly after the semester ended, I invited them over to the front porch of the house Linda and I rent and gave them a chance to pick out which records they would most like to own. I haven’t yet decided how many of their choices I will actually be able to bestow on them, but we had a lively, memorable conversation about music and our favorite songwriters.
I hope their choices as well as the list of the records they had to pass on because of budgetary limits serves as a reference tool for other young poet-songwriters. “Put Your Ears On!”
Jacob Belkin (left); John Mroc (right)
JAKE
Pat Methney / Ornette Coleman – Song X
Arthur Blythe – Basic
Memphis Minne – I Ain’t No Bad Girl — $21.00
Holst – The Planets
Sonny Rollins (Featuring Jim Hall) – Quartets
Kenny Neal – Big News From Baton Rouge $60 – $75
Ahmad Jamal – Live at the Montreatl Jazz Featival. — $25.00
The Beatles at Hollywood Bowl
Rolling Stones – Beggars Banquet; Exile on Main Street
David Bowie – Scary Monsters
David Bowe – Double Album (LIVE)
David Bowie – Ziggy Stardust
Dire Straits – “Down to the Waterline”
Simon & Garfunkel – Bookends
XTC – Drums and Wires
Aretha’s Greatest Hits
Harry James – Vol. 2
Pioneers of the New Age
JOHN MROC
The Roots of Rock n Roll – Rockabilly
Round Midnight – Various Artists
Sugarcubes – Life’s Too Good
Joni Mitchell – Miles of Aisles
Cream – Wheels of Fire
Elmore James – Oriinal Folk Blues
Leonard Cohen – The Best Of
John Prine – Sweet Revenge
Pere Ubu – Dub Housing
Talking Heads – Three Albums
The Clash – London Calling
The Clash – Give Em Enough Rope
The Minutemen – Double Nickle on the Dime
Tom Waits – Nighthawsks at the Diner (Douhle Live)
The Blasters
Rolling Stones – Got Live If You Want It! (LIVE)
Sonny Rollins – Way Out West
Patti Smith – Horses
Devo – Are We Not Men
The Zombies
X – Los Angeles
R.E.M./ — Fall on Me
Brian Eno – Ambient 3
Oingo Boing – Dead Man’s Party
The Fall – Telephone Thing
Stevie Rauy Vaugh – A Double Trouble
Bob Dylan – Infidel
X – Live Double Album at the Whiskey
The Screaming Blue Messiashs – Totally Religious
The New Percussion Group of Amserdam
Billy Bragg – Help Save the Youth of America
Green on Red – Down There
LONG LIST OUT OF WHICH THE ABOVE RECORDS WERE SELECTED BY JACOB AND JOHN
Morton Gould – Billy the Kid/ Rodeo
The Teddy Charles Tentet
The Allan Botschinsky Quintet – The Night
PUBLIC ENEMY – What Kind of Power We Got
Danny Gotlieb – Whirlwind
John Kilzer – Memory in the Making
Frank Morgan – Mood Indigo
Hayden – Symphonies No. 88 and 100
Psychedelic Furs – All of This and Nothing
Psychedelic Furs – Should God Forget
Lyle Mays – Highland Aire
Deborah Harry – I Want That Man
Fine Young Cannibals – Suspicious Minds
Was/Not Was – “Walk the Dinosaur”
Herbie Hancock – Vibe Alive
Xymox – Blind Hearts
Witchcraft — The Book of Love
Tiny Lights – Hazel’s Wreath
Anything Box – Living in Oblivion
Brad Eisenberg – Songs that Nice People Won’t Sing
Figures on a Beach – Accidentally Fourth Street
Patti Smith – Easter; Wave
David Sylvan –Holger Cukay – Plight Premonition
Jean-Loup Lognon and His New York Orchestra
Oingo Boingo – Out of Control
Bangles – Different Light
Steve Earle – Three Song EP
Rickie Lee Jones – Chuck E.’s In Love
Joni Mitchell – For the Roses
Rolling Stones – Hollywood RCA Sessions
Phyllis Nelson – 1986 – I LIKE YOU
Judy Tenuta (November 7, 1949 – October 6, 2022)
Laura Nyro –(in concert) Season of Lights
EUGENE CHABOURNE – The President He Is Insane
Stan Ridgeway — Camouflage
Suzanne Vega – Solitude Standing
Jill Sobule – Things Here Are Different
Cheryl Wheeler – Half a Book
Devo – Fredom of Choice
Revenge of the Killer B’s
John Cougar Mellencamp – Scarecrow
Dave Samuels – Living Colors
Lions and Ghosts – Mary Goes Round
George Winston – Winter into Spring
Joan Armatrading – The Shouting Stage
John Welsey Harding – God Made Me Do It
Prefab Sprouts – Two Wheels Good
SPK – Machine Age Voodoo
The Creaturees – Standing There
Stephen Sills – Stephen Stills
Boz Scaggs – Moments
Jon Stewart – Punch the Big Guy
Neil Young – Neil Young
Kim Kashkashian and Robert Levin – Elegies
Timbuk Three – Greetings from Timbuk3
Deborah Iyall — Strange Language
John Hiatt – All of a Sudden
John Hiatt – Two Bit Monsters
Talking Heads – Fear of Music
Talking Heads – Little Creatures
Los Lobos – La Pistola y la corazon
Michael Hedges – Aerial Boundaries; Strings of Steel; Watching My Life Go By; Live on the Double Planet
Breakfast in the Field
WALL OF VOODOO — Dark Continent; Call of the West
Wim Mertens – Maximizing the Audience
Wim Mertens – Struggle for Pleasure
Biko Drum
Arthur Brown – The Crazy World of Arthur Brown; Glactic Zoo Dosier
Keith Richards – Talk Is Cheap
Devo – Duty Now For the Future
B-52s – Wild Planet
It Bites – The Wild Lad in the Winill
Warren Zevon – Bad Luck streak in Dancing School
Red Kross – Teen Babes from Monsanto
Phil Woods Quartet – Warm Woods
Joni Mitchell – Dog Eat Dog
Patti Smith – Dreeam of Life
Laura Nyro – The First Songs
Bob Dylan – Sam Shepard – Brownvsville Girl
Tim Buckley – Blue Afternoon
Gordon Lightfoot – Don Quixote
Gordon Lightfoot – Sundown
Bruce Springateen – Darkness on the Edge of Town; The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle;
Born to Run’ Greetings from Asbury Park; Tunnel of Love; The River
X – Ain’t Love Grand
Brian Eno – Music for Films III
The Alley Cats
John Hiatt – Slow Turning
XTC – Black Sea; White Music; English Settlement
K.D. Lang – Shadowland
K.D. Lang – Angel with a Lariat
The Pretenders
The Steelye Span Story
Paul Simon – Still Crazy After All these Years
Elvis Costello – Trust; Get Happy; Taking Liberties; Imperial Bedroom
About Bill Mohr