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SINCLAIR TO CELEBRATE 81ST BIRTHDAY WITH FRANTIC WEEK OF ACTIVITY
Poet/journalist/producer/broadcaster John Sinclair will celebrate his 81st birthday (born October 2, 1941) with friends and fellow citizens at the Ralston Center, 19730 Ralston Street in the north end of Detroit, on Sunday, October 2nd from 7:00-11:00 pm.
On the days before and after the birthday party Sinclair will be in Mike Boulan’s recording studio in Hazel Park cutting a duet album with pianist Tom Worrell combining Thelonious Monk songs with Sinciair’s poems based on the songs. Worrell will be coming up from New Orleans, where he works with the Wild Magnolias and many others, and he’s been friends with Sinclair for 30 years since they first collaborated at Professor Longhair Piano Night at Tipitina’s.
At the Ralston Center October Sinclair will celebrate his birthday as usual with a performance, this time in a pair of duets with pianist Tom Worrell, presenting their Monk project, and ace guitarist Jeff Grand, playing blues material from Sinclair’s book Fattening Frogs For Snakes. Grand and Sinclair have been working together since 1988, following their initial collaboration at the Michigan State Fairgrounds.
Following the second day of recording, if all goes well, Sinclair will travel to Lowell Mass. to perform at the Jack Kerouac Centennial Celebration (October 6-10) and join his friends David Amram, the venerable multi-instrumentalist who invented “jazz poetry” with Kerouac in the 1950s, and the great painter from New Orleans called Frenchy, a native of Lowell who has been painting the Kerouac Centennial festivities all year.
Deeply inspired by the work of Jack Kerouac since 1957, Sinclair is preparing for publication a book of his columns called On The Road, written during the noughts after Sinclair had relocated in Amsterdam and was touring Europe and America reading his poetry and performing with first-class musicians of all stripes. The column was commissioned by the Little Rock Free Press and continued in several on-line manifestations.
Sinclair’s records and books are now consolidated under the John Sinclair Foundation and those that are available—including all the albums—may be purchased at the website www.johnsinclair.us.
