Summary.
David Peel (born David Rosario) was one of the most militant
and underground folk-singers in the age of the student riots.
He was a modern minstrel of the white lumperproletariat, who terrorized
the Lower East Side with live performances at street corners, accompanied
by random street musicians. This political bum was obviously mimicking
street preachers, except that his religion was the marijuana, his Bible
was rock'n'roll, and his mission was to expose the hipochrisy of
the bourgeoise. His semi-improvised albums (or, better, public
"happenings") followed in the footsteps of the
Fugs' grotesque agit-prop cabaret and of Frank Zappa's satirical operettas.
Peel's hysterical, sarcastic and insolent tone,
and his spartan/spastic combo of guitar, harmonica and tambourine (which mainly
contributed rhythm),
and the naive enthusiasm of everybody involved (responsible for some of the
most hair-rising backing vocals in the history of music),
created a new kind of folk music.
His masterpiece, Have A Marijuana (1968),
a demented sabotage of
protest songs, hillbilly, blues and square dances,
was an epic insult to common-sense.
He played folk music with the emphasis of punk-rock and the
arrangements of "lo-fi" pop.
And he played it with divine recklessness.
As of 2008 (before i published my "History of Rock and Dance Music"),
no major encyclopedia or history of rock music mentioned him.
Full bio
(Translated from my original Italian text by Troy Sherman)
David Peel was one of the most intransigent members of the
funny, militant underground of the 60s and 70s. He was at the core a New York
Folk singer, but it remains difficult to find any similarities between him and
any of the others (especially Bob Dylan).
Peel was a sort of modern white minstrel of the slums, terrorizing the Lower
East Side with street corner performances, ever-accompanied by a small group of
homeless musicians like him.
He was basically one of those crazy preachers who stand in
crowds and shouts at people, but his religion was drugs and his Bible was rock
and roll. He had no qualms about exposing the hypocrisy of a society that
persecuted and massacred pacifist Vietnamese citizens, but then was shocked at
the idea of marijuana at home.
His records, generally improvised in one way or another,
continued the agit-prop saga initiated by the Fugs and the social satire
launched by Frank Zappa.
Peel can be immediately recognized by his psychotic tone and
Spartan accompaniment (guitar, harmonica, bells). His style was inspired by
Appalachian Folk and African music; he was a bluesy and British story-teller,
but it was his distinctive personality as an artist that transcended any
classification.
His lyrics were completely topical and specific, and in no
way universal. But, the tone of Peel’s innocent and enthusiastic screams had
universal value. The worth was not in the writing itself, but in the spirit of
its ideology (the bizarre faith in drugs, specifically marijuana, as a remedy
for all of the world’s ills).
His extravagant musical creations were fun, and his discs
prove that music for him was not a vocation, but rather a coincidental conglomeration
of public happenings. Those discs are notebooks, with notes thrown down in
bulk, without even the slightest claim of an attempt at making revolutionary
sound from a musical standpoint. Politically speaking, Peel’s operation was
perhaps less effective of an attack on culture than that of the Fugs, but
purely by chance it was equally, if not more, brilliant.
Have A Marijuana
Danny Fields of Elektra discovered him in march 1968 and producer Peter Siegel recorded him in june and july (according to his recollections).
(Elektra, 1968), an album recorded live with random street musicians of the
Lower East Side
(actually cut over a period of four summer weeks, supervised by veteran producer Peter Siegel) and released in october 1968 (not december as many sources claim),
is a masterpiece in its own way.
The genuine hysteria portrayed by the singer and the grotesque incompetence of
his accompaniment (who can only produce tribal rhythm and sloppy vocal
accompaniment, using their hands, tambourines, guitars, and drums) contribute
to the chiseled atmosphere of absurdity, which seems only to exist to
systematically contradict all of the clichés of the music industry. Peel stages
a relentless musical for stragglers that winds along psychopathic choruses,
drawn from a precedent set by British and South American folk music and sung
hectically and mitered. The gems of this spastic, vaudevillian asylum epic are Mother Where is My Father?, Happy Mother’s Day, and I Do My Bawling in the Bathroom. His
protest speeches are farcical comedy sketches like I Like Marijuana, sarcastic blues like Here Comes a Cop, or tongue twisters set to the beat of a polka,
like The Alphabet Song. There are
apologies for crime, degraded political slogans (the cha-cha of Up Against the Wall), and miniature
dramas with a coarse laugh that exist to exorcise the desperate and angry cry
of revolt in hope of Dadaist freedom (the genial crooning of Show Me the Way to Get Stoned).Every
song is seasoned with a dementedly acute and unleashed rhythm. The atrocious
skit culminates with the great choral finale of We Love You.
At the time, Peel did not know it, but with the release of Have a Marijuana he had invented
punk-rock: just speed up and amplify the songs and you have the choral chants
of 1977.
Peter Siegel recording Peel's band in the streets of New York (clearly not in december, unlike what many sources claim, as you can see from their clothes)
The second album, American
Revolution (1970), was recorded
between political events (Peel founded the “Rock Liberation Front” and
publically accused Dylan of having betrayed the cause). He takes up the usual
company of amateurs that was found in the first release and repeats his debut’s
formula.
The third record, Pope
Smokes Dope (1972), is the most daring in terms of lyrics and the most
musical of his entire canon. The imbecilic popular song strays as usual, and is
arranged with a set of rich rhythmic equipment. This record more than the
others was created for satire, which goes beyond defamation and contempt and
even contains a hint of coquetry in the accompanying instrumentals. The self
portrait of I Am a Runaway, the
homage to John Lennon of The Ballad of
New York City, the metropolitan Indian war dance of Chicago Conspiracies, and the choral gags of Everybody’s Smoking Marijuana and The Hippie from New York City are all half way between the music of
a village festival, children’s ring-around-the-Rosie, an operetta, and the
spiritual hallucinogenic porn of a blasphemer. With boundless melodic
imagination and two centuries of American civilization and music behind him,
from television commercials to country and westerns, from musicals to doo-wop,
rising again to the moving blues violin and operatic chorus of the profane Birth Control Blues, and culminating the
exuberant collection in a final joke, Peel simply reveals the fact of the
century: The Pope Smokes Dope!
David Peel would
continue recording records through the 1970s, documenting alternative evenings
of the heroic years. He has never, of course, enjoyed the favor of the record
companies or been mentioned in any prominent histories of rock.
Peel died in march 2017 of a heart attack at the age of 73.
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David Peel fu uno degli esponenti piu` intransigenti e buffi dell'underground
militante degli anni '70. Peel era un folksinger di New York, ma sarebbe
difficile trovare qualcosa in comune fra lui e gli altri (in particolare
Bob Dylan). Peel era una sorta di
moderno minstrel dei bassifondi bianchi che terrorizzava il Lower East Side
con esibizioni agli angoli delle strade, accompagnato da uno sparuto gruppo
di barboni come lui.
Era in fondo uno di quei predicatori un po' matti che passano la giornata a
gridare nella folla, ma la sua religione era la droga e la sua Bibbia era
il rock and roll. Peel non aveva remore a smascherare l'ipocrisia di una
societa` che massacrava civili vietnamiti e perseguitava i pacifisti, ma
si scandalizzava poi per qualche spinello.
I suoi dischi, semi-improvvisati per strada, continuavano la saga
dell'agit-prop grottesco avviata dai Fugs
e quella di satira sociale varata da
Frank Zappa.
Peel lo si riconosceva subito per il tono psicotico, sarcastico e oltraggioso,
e per l'accompagnamento spartano al massimo
(una chitarra, un'armonica, sonagli).
Il suo stile si ispirava al folk degli Appalacchi e alla musica africana,
al blues e ai cantastorie britannici, ma era soprattutto uno sfogo cosi`
perrsonale da trascendere qualsiasi genere.
I testi erano d'attualita`, e non avrebbero nulla di universale. Ma il tono
di innocente entusiasmo con cui Peel li urlava, quello si` aveva un valore
universale. E aveva un valore non la lettera, ma lo spirito della sua
ideologia (la bizzarra fede nella droga come rimedio a tutti i mali del mondo).
Il suo stravagante far musica per divertimento e vocazione si tradusse non
in dischi ma in veri e propri happening pubblici. Quei dischi sono quaderni
di appunti, note buttate giu' alla rinfusa, senza alcuna pretesa di farne
anche delle canzoni.
Politicamente parlando, l'operazione di Peel era forse
meno efficace dell'assalto alla cultura dei Fugs, ma altrettanto, se non piu`,
geniale.
Danny Fields of Elektra discovered him in march 1968 and producer Peter Siegel recorded him in june and july (according to his recollections).
Have A Marijuana (Elektra, 1968) e` un album registrato
in presa diretta, in mezzo alla gente del Lower East Side
(ma registrato nel corso di quattro settimane estive con la supervisione del
produttore Peter Siegel, e pubblicato in ottobre), e rimarra` un
capolavoro del canto d'autore, benche' si tratti dell'esatto opposto.
L'isteria genuina del cantante
e l'imperizia grottesca dei collaboratori (che si limitano
a produrre ritmo tribale, usando mani, tamburelli, chitarre, tamburi, e a far
eco in coro)
contribuiscono a cesellare un'atmosfera dell'assurdo, il cui unico fine
sembra di contraddire sistematicamente tutti i luoghi comuni dell'industria
musicale.
Peel mette in scena un incalzante musical per sbandati che si snoda
lungo ritornelli psicopatici, attinti dalla musica folk britannica e
sudamericana e cantati in maniera sgolata e frenetica. Le gemme spastiche
di questo vaudeville del manicomio sono Mother Where Is My Father,
Happy Mother's Day, I Do My Bawling In The Bathroom.
I suoi sketch comici sono
comizi-farsa come I Like Marijuana,
blues sarcastici come Here Comes A Cop,
scioglilingua a ritmo di polka di The Alphabet Song).
Si passa da apologie di reato e slogan politici degradati (il cha-cha di
Up Against The Wall Motherfuckers) a
drammi in miniatura che esorcizzano con una risata grossolana
il disperato rabbioso grido di rivolta e l'anelito dadaista di liberta'
(il crooning gioviale di Show Me The Way To Get Stoned).
Il tutto condito da acuti demenziali e un ritmo scatenato.
L'atroce sceneggiata culmina nel gran corale finale di We Love You,
Peel non lo sapeva, ma aveva appena inventato il punk-rock: basta accelerare
le sue canzonacce di strada e amplificarle al massimo per ottenere le
cantilene corali del 1977.
Il secondo album, American Revolution (1970)
registrato fra un evento politico e l'altro
(Peel ha persino fondato il "Rock Liberation Front" e accusato pubblicamente
Dylan di aver tradito la causa), sfodera la solita compagnia di
dilettanti e ripete la formula d'esordio.
Il terzo Pope Smoke Dopes (1972) e` anche il piu` audace sotto il profilo
dei testi e il piu` musicale dell'intero set.
La canzone popolare randagia
e mentecatta, arrangiata con un nutrito equipaggiamento ritmico, e` piu` che
mai al servizio della satira, che va ben oltre la diffamazione e lo spregio,
ma con un tocco di civetteria strumentale in piu` e finalmente con qualche
accordo indovinato: l'autoritratto di I Am A Runaway, l'omaggio sentito
The Ballad Of New York City a John Lennon, la danza di guerra degli indiani
metropolitani Chicago Conspiracies, le gag corali di Everybody's Smoking
Marijuana e The Hippie From New York City, a meta` strada fra la sagra
paesana, il girotondo per bambini, l'operetta e un blasfemo spiritual
porno-allucinogeno. Con sconfinata fantasia melodica Peel mette a sacco due
secoli di civilta` musicale americana, dai commercial televisivi al country
and western, dal musical al doo-woop, passando ancora per il
commosso blues violinistico con coro operistico di quella profana
rappresentazione che e` Birth Control Blues e culminando nella esilarante
barzelletta finale, la grande esuberante festa collettiva, un ballo paesano d'
altri tempi con tripudio generale, dedicata al fatto del secolo:
The Pope Smokes Dope!
David Peel registrera` ancora un disco nel 1978, che documenta
le serate alternative degli anni eroici.
David Peel non ha mai, ovviamente, mai goduto i favori delle case discografiche.
Peel died in march 2017 of a heart attack at the age of 73.
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