Beat Soundtrack #19: Andy Clausen

In which prominent Beat figures, writers and critics, historians and academics, fans and followers, talk about the relationship between that literary community and music

Andy Clausen was born in Wallony, Belgium, and raised in Oakland, California. He is the New York State Beat Poet Laureate. His major books include 49th Century Man: Selected Poems, 1996-1966, Home of the Blues and BEAT: The Latter Days of the Beat Generation. He was praised by both Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso who agreed, of the then-young writers, Clausen would be the poet best suited to carry on the Beat tradition. Ginsberg called him ‘a vox populi of the democratic unconscious’ and wrote that he ‘inherited Neal Cassady’s American Energy Transmission.’

What attracted you to the Beats? When did you first encounter them? Are you drawn to a particular text, novel or poetry?

The first ‘Beat’ text I read was Big Sur. I was told it was how one thinks on acid, which was big in my set at the time. I didn't realise Kerouac was coming off a long strong booze run. I read On the Road & Desolation Angels in which the foreword by Seymour Krim reveals the characters ‘real life’ names.

I went and bought ‘Howl’, The Happy Birthday of Death & Golden Sardine. Ginsberg, Corso, Kaufman. The poetry fascinated me, it was like a religious awakening, like proof there are other dimensions. Me and my buddies would get stoned & drink and read the poems. Whooping, guffawing cheering amazed.

When I was 16, I went on a couple reconnaissance missions across the Bay to North Beach San Fran to see the Beats. I heard the jazz with my first bar beer at the Co-Existence Bagel Shop which was a raucous bar. I was so provincial, I thought a bagel was a bongo drum. The jammed joint was bopping to the strange beats. I wondered if it was really music.

A handsome guy with nappy hair stood on a table and recited the word ‘work’ over and over again while the band played music that bewildered me. Through Kerouac, through the music of his rolling syntax and his analyses of jazz, I developed a love for bop, Charlie Parker, Slim Gaillard, Eric Dolphy, Wardell Gray, Dexter Gordon, Roland Kirk. I could stack a few albums and write to it.

What is the relationship between the Beat writers and music? How do you think that literary scene and musical sound connect(ed)?

Bob Dylan's lyrics a sterling flow of elevated language, song after song of seeming magic, a revisit to what we choose to make important. Ginsberg praised him. Driving in my car I heard ‘Positively 4th Street’ and realised, ‘He wrote it about me. That's how I feel.’

Buffy St. Marie’s cry for justice got to me also and brought tears. She laid the truth out with a voice as beautiful as they come

Mississippi Fred McDowell, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, John Lee Hooker, Son House, the blues! Local bands at the original Fillmore on Fillmore Street where our bands played: the Airplane, the Dead, Great Society, Country Joe & the Fish, Quicksilver, Big Brother & the Holding Company, the Loading Zone, Anonymous Artists of America.

Dylan was huge in connecting music with post-war literature as his lyrics were literature – terrific verse for & with the times. Also Leonard Cohen, Phil Ochs, Ian Tyson, Richard Thompson, later Townes Van Zandt, Tom Waits, Tom Pacheco.

Allen Ginsberg crossed over into pop music. ‘Battle of the Skeletons’ which had McCartney and Beck on it,  was a hit in Australia, ‘Bird Brain’ (the Gluons version is my favourite – they're all good) is classic.

He worked and recorded with Joe Strummer, Marianne Faithfull, Don Cherry, Phil Glass, the False Prophets, Beck, Steven Taylor, Bob Dylan.

He put much Bill Blake to music. Studied and wrote the blues and punk-ish rock. Many criticised his voice but I liked it, like a synthesis of Tibetan monk, Hebrew cantor, jazz, blues voice. One could understand him.

The great bassist composer Charles Mingus performed with K. Patchen, J. Micheline, Joni Mitchell. Don't forget the solid & wonderful Kerouac with Steve Allen on ivories.  

Lyres & flutes often backed BC Greek poetry. In Asian & Semitic tribes, poetic ballads & chants were energised by bagpipes & drums. Before widespread writing, the Aryans, as alphabets were just developing (the Greeks providing vowels to the Phoenician alphabet opening the door to the beauty of the word), the tribal Bard archived the tribe's traditions, mores & history in memorised passed-on epics.

Ray Bremser, authentic jazz poet, was tight friends with the eclectic genius pianist Cecil Taylor. He roomed with the multi-rhythmic percussionist Elvin Jones. At his death he whispered ‘Coltrane’ and they went and got Love Supreme and put it on. Ray loved music from Three Tenors (who he'd sing along with at three AM coat hanger TV) to Willie Nelson & David Amram.

Gregory Corso loved the Russian composers. He'd hear a few notes and could identify the composer. He knew the great Germans, French, the Italians, Pachelbel. He also knew jazz, wrote paeans to ‘Bird’ Parker. I turned him onto Waylon Jennings.

Corso had a suprisingly open mind. He did gripe about rock front men being called great poets. The general public accepts music easier than poetry.

Janine Pommy Vega, who I lived with a dozen years, one day played a tape of a woman doing the old Percy Sledge tune, ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’. It was unearthly good. The artist was her friend, Karen Dalton. Dalton, Dylan wrote in his Chronicle, was the best singer in the village when he got there.

Peter Orlovsky, banjo tunes, chants, wacky lyrics. One had to develop a taste for his ‘rough’ style, much of which was illuminating besides entertaining.

Ira Cohen worked with Angus McLeish, one time drummer for the Velvet Underground making music, film & literature in Kathmandu.

Bob Kaufman wrote many poems based in & about jazz, the Bird of the page. He & Bremser first come to mind when citing ‘jazz poets’.

Neal Cassady rapped with the Grateful Dead, live and with tapes. The Dead were inspired by his cadence; wrote a song about him.

As a poet/writer have you been you shaped or influenced by Beat experiences?

In my early twenties just out of the Marine Corps in SF Bay Area Sixties, music was nearly a lifestyle. I did the lifestyle, many psychedelic trips, many road trips, many moves with family, the three kids, many schools and towns. It seemed like there was always something on the stereo. I have used music in my performances.

I had a terrific bebop drummer Bill Young. If I could keep him from getting too excited, he was the best. I also worked for many years with Big Zee (my amigo of a half century) on keyboards, made a tape called Let It Rip.

Performed all over the Bay Area and a trip East NYC and New Jersey. We opened for McClure & Ray Manzarek of the Doors in Santa Cruz. Manzarek said we were good. McClure said I had a great voice and, yeah, they let me on the subway for free after that. Also recorded terrific version of ‘Gokyo Lake’ with the band the Lemonade.

Which musical artists from whichever era appear to make links with the Beat Generation – and how?

Actually the entire post-war music scene was in a symbiotic relationship with the Beats. First it was bebop jazz then folk music revival & political songs then primal expression rock and roll, the British Invasion, rhythm & blues, rockabilly, acid music, folk-rock, reggae, rap, hip-hop, emo, all of it produced out of the rebellious & liberating sexual & racial aspects freed up by the intrepid writers labelled Beat.

There was a minority movement of the late 60s and 70s that was anti-word, anti-language. Yet the Beatles, the Stones, the Animals, the Kinks, Donovan, the Dead, the Airplane, the Doors, all presented lyrics poetically & that were politically conscious.

Patti Smith, poet-singer-musician, came from the Beat. Ed Sanders & Tuli Kupferberg, who through the Fugs unleashed the most intelligent garage band music. I would try and convince young women that the Fugs were ‘where it's at’!

Music, philosophy, graphic arts, drama, literature, as one are born of poetry. The Beats without immersion in the music of the day would have been less and the music would not have been as popular without the opening of consciousness the Beats brought to centre stage.

Who are your own favourite singers, musicians and bands? Do they represent Beat ideas or attitudes in their lives and art?

I now work with Sylvie Deigez & Wayne Lopes (Cosmic Legends) and by this I am blessed. They have worked with many poets in the New York area.

Sylvie is a classically adept keyboardist, she plays ‘free’ jazz and everything else. She can read free verse and hear in her inner mind the music the words will dance with.

Wayne flies through a vast array of scales & riffs. Jazz, ‘world’, blues, Americana. Sometimes they'll bring a drummer or bass, and the additions are always spot on but the two of them are enough. I have no compunction to keep me from attesting they are the best at what they do.