Not To Be Missed: Globe Posters

The show: "Globe Poster: Not to be Missed!" at the Creative Alliance, Baltimore, Maryland, runs from April 27 through June 16, 2013.

True to it’s title, it’s not to be missed.

You probably know the posters even if you don’t know the name of the printer. Especially if you were in any of America’s inner cities in the Sixties, Seventies or Eighties. You remember them: they were those bright dayglo cardboard concert posters. They were stapled to plywood walls and wrapped around telephone polls. They were advertising for live concerts. Now they’re a series of graphics illuminating the history of Black music.

A brief digression: in the mid-70’s I ripped a Globe Poster off a wall in Jackson Mississippi. I had no idea it was a Globe Poster. It announced a concert at the Mississippi Coliseum by BB King, Bobby Blue Bland, Albert King, Little Milton, and several others. It promised seven live bands.Admission was $5 in advance. I took the poster from that plywood wall on Farish Street in a moment of clarity: I knew it was an important piece of the American history of art and music. And I wanted it. To my astonishment, I recognized that instantly, without a lot of analysis.

I preserved the poster and framed it. It has become a priceless treasure. Eventually I saw at the bottom that it was made by Globe Posters in Baltimore (at the time they were at 129 Market Place). From time to time I would wonder how I could get my hands on more posters like it.

Imagine my surprise when I read that Globe Posters, the Baltimore printing company, was finally folding, a casualty in 2010 of electronic media and the mainstreaming of rap music, among other things. Would I find all of their remarkable posters lying in a dumpster for me to rescue, to cram into the trunk of my car, or would they be found rotting in a slimy landfill and lost forever? Goddess be praised, neither. Globe’s extensive, iconic collection was purchased by Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and preserved. And now, around the corner from where Globe last manufactured its posters on Bank Street in Highlandtown, there’s a museum show of the posters at Creative Alliance.

Curated by Chloe Helton-Gallagher for her MFA thesis,this remarkable show is as much about the history of African American music and changing tastes as it as it is about the posters themselves. Want to prepare for a visit? I'm recommending James Brown of Spotify.

This show is truly not to be missed.

Remembering J.B. Lenoir

I'm not sure why I remembered this song today. J.B. Lenoir just jumped into my mind. And this recording, I think, was his most powerful. I haven't listened to it for decades. But here it is again. If you've never heard him, or this song, you've been missing something important.

Big Mama Thornton

How strange. I forgot all about Big Mama Thornton for years and years until today when I heard her on WKZE, the rare, local, musically diverse, eclectic FM station. Big Mama suffered from bad business deals, bad production on records, bad back up bands, and as you'll see in the following 1965 video, bad production values and bad packaging (this is how a diva dresses and is video'd?). But she was the person who first recorded Hound Dog, a song made even more famous by Elvis, and for which she probably didn't receive a dime. And she had an incredible voice. Listen to this:

One Kind Favor

You know it's one kind favor, I ask to you
You know it's one kind favor, I ask to you
See that my grave is kept clean.

It's a simple enough blues. It was initially sung, I think, by the legendary Blind Lemon Jefferson in 1927 under a pseudonym. It was so popular that he re-recorded and re-released in 1928.

It's been recorded by BB King, Lightnin' Hopkins, Canned Heat, The Grateful Dead, Mike Bloomfield, Keiji Haino, Diamanda Galás, Meindert Talma & the Negroes, Lou Reed, Furry Lewis, Chrome Cranks, the Dream Syndicate, Thelonious Monster. And, of course, by numerous, numerous others.

It's been in my head for two days. I heard BB King's latest version of the song yesterday on NPR while I was driving home. I can't seem to turn it off. "One kind favor I ask of you/one kind favor I ask of you..."

For me there's something extraordinarily important about this lyric. And haunting. What does it mean, "See that my grave is kept clean?" I wonder about this. It's about respect. It's about preserving the memory of someone who's gone on, it's about the spiritual legacy of the departed. It's not about the estate, the wealth, the works, the physical accomplishments of the departed; it's about spiritual legacy.

Spiritual legacy. What is that? And what, I wonder, if I were to be struck by lightning as I sit here right now, would my spiritual legacy be? If I ran out of time right now and my brain or heart exploded, what would it be? How would I be remembered?

I'm healthy and well, but I find myself this evening in a world of imponderables, incomprehensibility. Have I said what I needed to say? Have I listened to what I needed to hear? Have I loved deeply and well enough? Have I done my personal work? Have I learned enough? Have I inspired enough? Have I fought hard enough? Have I made peace enough? Have I done my work? Have I stood for something important? Have I taught my children well? Have I showed up enough? Have I given enough? Have I prayed enough? Have I had enough gratitude? Have I served well enough? Have I been an adequate steward of things given to me? These and other questions arise. As many questions as there are stars in the Milky Way.

All I can do is invite you, dear reader, to join me in this with your own inquiry. And, if you survive me, to see that my grave is kept clean. Music for your inquiry follows:

Blind Lemon Jefferson:


Bob Dylan:


Mavis Staples:


Lou Reed:


Be well, be safe, be happy, be alive.