HARRY BELAFONTE INTERVIEWED BY JOE HENRY

In the new issue of Mojo, the great Joe Henry interviews the great Harry Belafonte. Joe Henry is an artist who I admire: he has made some really great records, but produced albums from some of my favorite artists, including Solomon Burke and Aimee Mann. Belafonte is often remembered for "Day-O," but his music was much deeper than that, plus he is an actor and a civil rights activist (having marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the '60s). It's a great interview, but the part that struck me was where he was talking about not being accepted by the folk scene, even though he not only sang folk songs, but brought them to a wider audience (which is what folk music is supposed to be about, right?).  He says that he wasn't accepted because "there wasn't a lot of generosity... if you didn't come down a dusty road with a banjo over your shoulder, a piece of hay stuck between your teeth and a plaid work shirt." He even mentioned that Joan Baez referred to him as "Harry Bela-phony" in Time magazine! I guess one thing that never changes is the way people behave within a scene. Anyway, it's a great interview, and it inspired me to order the record pictured here, Belafonte At Carnegie Hall, recorded in 1959.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN TO PLAY INAUGURATION, SUPER BOWL, ETC.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Bruce Springsteen in 2009 will be viewed in a very different way than Bruce Springsteen in 2002 through 2008. During those years, he was the millionaire rock star questioning the government and even (horror of horrors!) the President of the United States of America! Some people just don't like that - although many (like myself) identified with him even more for putting his popularity on the line.

But all of that is moot now: in 2009, Bruce is buddies with President-Elect Barack Obama, he's playing the Super Bowl halftime show, he has a greatest hits album coming out at Walmart, he's playing the Golden Globes, he'll most likely get an Oscar nomination and play that ceremony, and maybe he'll even play at the Grammys since "Girls In Their Summer Clothes" got two nominations. And now it looks like he'll be playing Barack's inauguration. According to the Washington Post's Inauguration Blog, he's going to play a free concert January 18 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Now that's pretty incredible. That's where noted liberal Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his famous "I Have A Dream" speech. It's a great year to be a Bruce Springsteen fan. Hell, it's a great year to be alive. Hopefully Barack will help lead us from the economic turmoil that the current administration has brought us to. But, decades from now, we'll all remember Barack Obama's inauguration as one of the great moments of our lifetime.