The greatest poet of the Beat movement and one of the most renowned American writers of the 20th century, Allen Ginsberg transcended literary and intellectual barriers to exert a profound influence on the culture at large. His accomplishments are too numerous and his oeuvre too large for a music reference resource to do them justice; many other... [+] Read More

The greatest poet of the Beat movement and one of the most renowned American writers of the 20th century, Allen Ginsberg transcended literary and intellectual barriers to exert a profound influence on the culture at large. His accomplishments are too numerous and his oeuvre too large for a music reference resource to do them justice; many other sources exist that offer more complete perspectives on his life and work. Ginsberg made sporadic recordings of his work, both formal and otherwise, starting in his heyday of the late '50s and continuing into the '90s. Most of them were poetry readings, naturally, but Ginsberg also experimented with songs, often accompanying his singing on the harmonium.

Irwin Allen Ginsberg was born June 3, 1926, in Newark, NJ, and grew up in nearby Paterson. His father Louis was a published poet, a teacher, and politically a socialist; his mother Naomi was a Communist radical, but unfortunately her bouts with mental illness (mostly severe paranoia) consumed much of Ginsberg's childhood. He began writing in a journal at age 11, around the same time as his mother's suicide attempt, and discovered his major poetic influence Walt Whitman in high school. He enrolled at Columbia University in 1943, originally planning to become a labor lawyer, but soon fell in with a literary crowd that included Jack Kerouac (a fellow student), Neal Cassady, and William S. Burroughs. Ginsberg began writing seriously around 1945, and around the same time he began to experiment with drugs, and had some of his first homosexual experiences. He graduated from Columbia in 1948 and began traveling, visiting Burroughs in Texas; there he was arrested as a reluctant accomplice in his roommates' burglary ring, and voluntarily committed himself to Columbia's mental hospital. He attempted to renounce homosexuality and took a job as a market researcher upon his release, but hearing the poet William Carlos Williams at a reading drew him back into literature, and he gave up trying to fit into mainstream society.

Ginsberg moved to San Francisco in 1954, and that year met artist's model Peter Orlovsky, who became his lover; their relationship, though nonmonogamous and marked by periods of separation, would prove to be lifelong. Though he'd written quite a bit of poetry by this point, very little of it had been published, and he was better known as an advocate of fellow Beat writers like Kerouac and Burroughs. That all changed in October 1955, when Ginsberg read parts of his new epic poem "Howl" at the Six Gallery. An impassioned, defiant critique of American culture that served as something of a Beat manifesto, it was an immediate sensation. The local City Lights bookstore, which had just started its own publishing arm, released Ginsberg's first book, the seminal Howl and Other Poems, in 1956. The following year, City Lights owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti was arrested on obscenity charges for selling copies of the book; authorities objected mostly to its homosexual content. A judge ruled that the book was not obscene, and the attendant publicity helped make Ginsberg a household name. He recorded his first album of poetry readings, also titled Howl and Other Poems, for the Fantasy label in 1959.

Over the next decade, Ginsberg became a leading countercultural figure. He spoke out in favor of the First Amendment and against the Vietnam War; he was turned on to LSD by Timothy Leary and to Buddhism by Kerouac; he traveled a bit with Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters; he traveled all over the world in search of intellectual and spiritual enlightenment; he appeared in the background of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" music video; he took part in the famed antiwar demonstrations in 1968 that resulted in the arrest of the so-called Chicago Seven; he was, unsurprisingly, the subject of a massive FBI dossier. Of course, he also continued to write prolifically. In 1961, he published another lengthy signature poem, "Kaddish," which explored his relationship with his mother (she'd passed away in an institution in 1956). Five years later, Atlantic Records issued a recording of the work titled Allen Ginsberg Reads Kaddish: A 20th Century American Ecstatic Narrative Poem. Ginsberg's next album was William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, which set the works of one of his favorite poets to jazzy musical backing; it was issued by Verve in 1970.

As time passed and his lasting impact became clearer, Ginsberg was increasingly accepted by the literary establishment, culminating in his winning a National Book Award for The Fall of America: Poems of These States in 1974. He recorded with John Lennon and Leonard Cohen, and undertook several song-oriented sessions of his own during the course of the '70s, including a collaboration with Bob Dylan. The best results of these efforts were finally released in 1983 as First Blues: 1971-1981 on former Columbia executive John Hammond's own label. Additionally, Ginsberg performed the song-poem "Capitol Air" in concert with punk rockers the Clash, and appeared on the track "Ghetto Defendant" on their hit Combat Rock album. He abandoned singing on his next album, 1989's The Lion for Real, a set of spoken word pieces with musical backing. That same year, he teamed up with composer Philip Glass to transform the antiwar poem "Wichita Vortex Sutra" into a musical theater piece; the collaboration worked well enough that they reteamed for a full album, 1993's Hydrogen Jukebox. In 1994, Rhino Records issued an exhaustive four-CD box set of Ginsberg recordings titled Holy Soul Jelly Roll: Poems and Songs 1949-1993. Sadly, Ginsberg contracted liver cancer as a complication of hepatitis, and passed away at his New York City loft on April 5, 1997. Fantasy reissued Howl and Other Poems on CD the following year, and in 2002 the Locust label assembled the compilation New York Blues: Rags, Ballads and Harmonium Songs. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Jack Kerouac was the major writer of the "Beat" movement in the '50s. His major work was On the Road (1957), an autobiographical novel describing his travels in the company of a unique character named Dean Moriarty (in real life, Neal Cassady). In later novels, Kerouac told other tales of life on the road and also wrote of his childhood and... [+] Read More

Jack Kerouac was the major writer of the "Beat" movement in the '50s. His major work was On the Road (1957), an autobiographical novel describing his travels in the company of a unique character named Dean Moriarty (in real life, Neal Cassady). In later novels, Kerouac told other tales of life on the road and also wrote of his childhood and upbringing in Lowell, MA. Although he was a profound influence on the youth of the '60s (and although Cassady, in contrast, enthusiastically joined in on the hippie movement as part of the Merry Pranksters and as a mentor to the Grateful Dead), Kerouac largely disavowed the hedonism and drug use of the '60s counterculture. His poetry and novels continue to influence young people decades after his death. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Civil rights champion Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, GA, on January 15, 1929; progressing through Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Boston University, he grew increasingly influenced by Mahatma Ghandi's non-violent strategies for social change, completing his Ph.D. in systematic theology in 1955. Rejecting a... [+] Read More

Civil rights champion Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, GA, on January 15, 1929; progressing through Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Boston University, he grew increasingly influenced by Mahatma Ghandi's non-violent strategies for social change, completing his Ph.D. in systematic theology in 1955. Rejecting a series of academic offers, King instead opted to become pastor of Montgomery, AL's Dexter Avenue Baptist Church; on December 5, 1955 -- just five days after Rosa Parks' landmark refusal to conform to the city's segregationist busing policies -- he was named president of the new Montgomery Improvement Association, setting his public career into motion. Spearheading the local African-American community's boycott of the city's bus system, King rose to national renown, even as his house was firebombed and he faced conviction on charges of conspiracy against the bus company. Still, as 1956 drew to a close, Montgomery's buses became integrated and the United States Supreme Court declared Alabama's segregation laws unconstitutional.

In 1957, King joined with other African-American religious leaders to found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; a year later, he published his first book, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. As the 1960s dawned, he was widely regarded as black America's preeminent spokesman, although his policies of non-violence were often in conflict with younger, more militant factions of the civil rights movement; mass demonstrations in communities throughout the U.S. culminated in the August 28, 1963, march on Washington, D.C., where, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, King delivered his celebrated "I have a dream" speech to an audience of over 250,000 protesters. That December he was named Time magazine's Man of the Year, and a year later collected the Nobel Peace Prize. However, internal divisions within the black community threatened to undermine his leadership, as emerging voices like Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael offered a stark counterpoint to King's peaceful methods.

Of course, King encountered his greatest resistance from white leaders -- FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover waged a bitter war of surveillance and harassment, declaring him "the most dangerous man in America, and a moral degenerate." King also lost the support of many white liberals for his criticism of the United States' involvement in the escalating conflict in Vietnam. Still, he forged on, mounting a 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery march which proved pivotal in the passage of the Voting Rights Act later that year. While in Memphis, TN, to speak out on a local sanitation workers' strike, King was assassinated on April 4, 1968; although James Earl Ray was convicted of the murder, the case remains a source of controversy and conjecture even decades after the fact. In the wake of his death, his widow, Coretta Scott King, established the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and in 1986 his birthday was declared a federal holiday. Many of King's most celebrated speeches are available as commercial recordings. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide [-] Hide