Julius Lester

Though he ultimately became even more known for his function in fields apart from music, within the middle-’60s Julius Lester recorded two albums of socially conscious folk-blues materials with heavy debts towards the design of the early-’60s folk revival. Lester shifted to NY from Nashville in 1961, attaining experience being a singer/guitarist for the coffeehouse circuit and in addition contributing some composing to the best folk magazine of that time period, Sing Out! Maynard Solomon of Vanguard Information provided him a documenting deal in middle-1965 after viewing Lester perform in a Weekend hootenanny, his self-titled debut LP developing for the label that season. Although lyrics of his compositions shown topical problems of your day like the civil privileges movement, plus some of his tracks and guitar function shown the American country-blues type, stylistically he was a tiny throwback towards the smoother folk-blues delivery of performers such as for example Josh Light and Sibling John Sellers. Sometimes he recorded expanded tracks which were quite radical long for the period, like his 13-minute edition of “Stagolee” on Julius Lester and, on his 1967 follow-up Departures, “Outfitted Like Independence” and “Very long Hot Summer Times,” both which hovered round the ten-minute tag. Lester’s focus turned from music to composing whenever a piece he’d created for Sing Out! grew right into a 1968 publication, WATCH OUT, Whitey! Dark Power’s Gon’ GET THE Mama! He also worked well as a professional photographer, likely to Vietnam in 1967 in his placement of house professional photographer for the College student nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and relocated in to the field of children’s books, posting several dozen quantities within the genre. He’s been a teacher at the University or college of Massachusetts. Materials from his two Vanguard albums was put together for the 2006 Compact disc Dressed Like Independence.