artists

Wielding Hope and Dreams

~ David Biddle ~ Leave a comment

Back in March, TW Magazine published commentary by me called “Which Way We Going Now?” What I wondered in that piece was how artists of all types were going to respond to changes forced on us by this new administration. 

The last time we had to deal with those same folks, the only significant artistic attempts to consistently address problems they were creating for the country seemed to come from comedians (and cable news talking heads having fun with various eye-rolling group exercise sessions). Now, however, we are living with a 2nd Term version of what some call the most incompetent, venal, and hostile administration in history. I promise not to go into detail about their shenanigans. Anything I attempt to describe explicitly from yesterday will be overshadowed by new bizarre travesties tomorrow. 

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Voices Gone Living On

~ David Biddle ~ Leave a comment

I have learned as a reader who happens to be a writer that you never know when you’re going to bump into something new and interesting to influence your work. As examples, in the past week or so I’ve read three different types of document that inspired new thoughts and ideas for the novel I’m working on. One was a Substack memoir series; another a book review; the third a hybrid history-mystery-biography about a blackface minstrel star in the first half of the 20th century.

Many Men Watching

Martha Nichols’ Substack is called “Inside Reader” where she often writes about personal essay journalism, artificial intelligence, and all sorts of new shenanigans in the media world. I’ve known Martha for many years now and have immense respect for her knowledge about writing and her skill in particular as an astute essayist. (She also happens to have been my editor at Talking Writing magazine as well as The Harvard Business Review, among other things).

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Which Way We Going Now?

~ David Biddle ~ Leave a comment

On being an artist in this strange new world

I’ve been wondering about two things ever since the spring of 2016 when Donald Trump began winning primaries and getting all sorts of weird media attention. First off, were the Republican Party and its voters really willing to accept responsibility for the direction that guy wanted to push them? And, secondly, how much would the art world step up as a reaction to what Trump and his ilk seemed to want to do to our country? 

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Joni Mitchell Speaking About Meeting Jimi Hendrix

~ davidbiddle ~ 4 Comments
For the next few months I am going to periodically offer commentary on video clips by famous artists on what it was like to meet Jimi Hendrix and what he meant to them. You can find most of these clips easily enough on YouTube, but there are special ones I want to highlight here at my website because of the special insights they give us into the creative process. Great artists speaking about other great artists provides us with unguarded insights into the life of the creative spirit.
 

Joni Mitchell
Cover of Joni Mitchell

Below is the first clip I want to offer. It starts out with a Joni Mitchell interview and ends with a weird video rendition of “Voodoo Chile.” Note how “Mitch” appears to know Italian. That’s impressive as hell.

Joni and Jimi were both on the rise in the late 1960s when they met. We all know how much Jimi revered the Beatles and Bob Dylan. It’s likely he respected a lot of the other innovators of that era as well. And there were many. Certainly by the time Jimi and Joni met, it was clear that Joni’s ability to mix complex melodies with real poetry (not just lyrics) was worthy of Hendrix’s attention.

Joni says that Jimi recorded her concert using a big reel-to-reel tape recorder and Continue reading →