Rahsaan

05 Raouf.m4a
http://www.box.net/s/3ecy2ni2veshhuc910qx

Roland Kirk - Slightly Latin
(sleeve design by Daniel Czubak)
recorded 1965 at Capitol Studios
Monaural LM 82033, Limelight

Last week I meant to comment on records that you would never find at a thrift store. Those records that you would, without blinking your eye, pay 6 or 7 dollars for if you find a used copy somewhere, and even spent 12 dollars for a brand new release on CD. Records by musicians you esteem so high that it wouldn't even occur to you you'd find them for 50 cents at a Volunteers of America. Captain Beefheart, Pere Ubu, the Velvet Underground, and even Cat Power and Bob Dylan belong to this category. One of the names I included in this list—a rough draft I had already written—is Rahsaan Roland Kirk. By Jove, days later, at a Goodwill store on Route 41, Slightly Latin by Roland Kirk (from before he added the Rahsaan to his name) appeared. I never even saw this record before, I didn't even know it existed, but there it was, in mint shape, with all the colorful pages originally attached to the folding sleeve still intact. I chose the song Raouf for the following reasons:

1. Raouf was composed by Roland Kirk himself.
2. Raouf is the new, self assumed, African inspired, name of one of the singers on Raouf whose original name was Ruth Perkinson. I have the feeling that the photographic portrait on the sleeve, as well as all the other color photographs in the attached book, is of her. Kirk, as well as the photographer Daniel Czubak, must have been infatuated with her. The voices on the record are arranged by one Coleridge Perkinson by the way.
3. It's a great tune.

Slightly Latin is the seventh vinyl record I own of Kirk (I also have several cds) and the first one bought at a thrift store. It brings the Average Kirk price I paid for an album (including cds) to about 6 dollars.