Move on Up a Little Higher

This is a failure. I think with blogs that wasn’t ever meant to be much of an issue..as a result, we have oceans of gunk in our information bitstream! Mea culpado!

I was always impressed by Mahalia’s “Move on up A Little Higher” – the words are amazing, I’ve heard a couple of versions. But the enchantment is mostly about her singing of this song.
But, like, say, the Staples’ “Last Month of the Year,” it got into my blood.

“I’m going to move on up a little higher. Feast with the Prophet Daniel. I’m going to move on up a little higher. Meet my loving mother.”

“I’m going to move on up a little higher. Feast of the Rose of Sharon. I’m going to move on up a little higher. And it will be always ‘howdy-howdy’ .. and never good by.”

The description by the poet is of a leaving. Dying. But seen not in the sense of internment. But seen instead in terms of advancement. This is one essence of Black American vision that resonates most especially for me: There has got to be a better world anywhere.

So, maybe not as much as in Mahalia’s “In the Upper Room” – which Preacher Jack nailed in a version that only came out about a year ago – “Move on Up a little Higher” is for me much about Redemption – and Easter.

Anyway this is a failure because it’s just one track. My take. Dealing with this recording stuff is difficult, and I laid on a bunch of tracks – bass, piano, organ, handclaps, background singing – and it weren’t that good but, it was half of something. Yet, because of the different compressions involved with the way I did it, the thing just blew up when I merged it with a vid. At that point it was a candidate for failure, not a graduate. Only reason I merge with vid is because the blog sites will host video..they are less generous with pure audio.

But here it is..as I prepare to attend the Dali Lama’s Influenzapalooza in Foxboro, see Ma and catch the Kentucky Derby, go to church and putz around the house, wing to the western Mormon country and then south to the place Gram Parson called Sin City.. and then, who knows? [The Shadow Do.]

Workers of the world unite!