John Glenn died a couple days ago. A lot of you might not know who he is; he was the first American to orbit the earth. Not the first ever, that went to the Russians, but the first American. Before he did it he was a fighter pilot (flying missions with the greatest hitter in the history of baseball,
Ted Williams), and after his career as an astronaut, he was a U.S. Senator. He returned to space for one mission in 1988, at the age of 57. And you have an office job.
The most dominant image I've always had of Glenn was of him in his space threads. When I hear "John Glenn" I think of that silver spaceman. Iconic, Elvis of NASA. I wanted to post a photo of him in his get-up as a sort of tribute to a boyhood hero. The problem was, what song to put with it? No one is going to sing a song about John Glenn, and "Space Oddity" and anything by the Legendary Stardust Cowboy were out of the question, so I didn't bother thinking about it any further.
The next day the jazz station played just the type of song I would have been looking for, had I continued looking. Lightnin' Hopkins. Ho-ly shit. How cool is that? Lightnin' Hopkins singing about John Glenn. That's like baseball, apple pie, hot dogs, Ford and Chevy and all things American all rolled into one. But first, Hopkin's office threads:
~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
Lightnin' Hopkins - Happy Blues For John Glenn (streaming) at YouTube
Lightnin' Hopkins - Lightnin' Strikes One More Time mp3 at Music Like Dirt
Lightnin' Hopkins - Lovin' Arms mp3 at Music Like Dirt
Lightnin' Hopkins - Coffeehouse Blues mp3 at Rock Town Hall
Lightnin' Hopkins - Shake That Thing mp3 at Clayton Counts
Lightnin' Hopkins - 20 more cuts at Internet Archive NOTE: At Internet Archive, in the right column, under "Download options" select "VBR MP3"
Video:
The blues according to Lightnin' Hopkins at YouTube
Lightnin' Hopkins - Playing at a party at YouTube Nice washboard.
