7/3/08: Brother Curtis Joyner
“I Am A Real American” (c. 1970)That’s not a picture of Brother Curtis Joyner above. It’s Rodd Keith—who, fortunately, is enough of a hero that we can farm out his
amazing story. As a quick synopsis, Keith was the great lost artist who emerged once kitsch fiends began listening to old vinyl collections of song-poems. Those would be the LPs that would-be lyricists could purchase after they sent in their aspiring lyrics to one of those classified ads proclaiming, “WANTED: YOUR POEMS.”
You know the pitch from there. The marks would receive a letter detailing the “real potential” of their lyrics, and the poets would only have to send in a few hundred bucks to get their very own copy of their words set to music. Then the song would be shopped around on a cheaply-printed compilation LP that the lyricists could also purchase. Companies ran the scam right up through the ’80s, as we recall.
Anyway, plenty of recordings from this genre were later salvaged. Most of the credit goes to NRBQ drummer Tom Ardolino and musicologist Irwin Chusid. Not surprisingly, a lot of the music was pretty unspectacular. But then there was Rodd Keith, hacking away under a variety of names and coming up with some amazing (and occasionally beautiful) original music.
Rodd Keith deserves to be recognized—but let’s not forget gullible lyricists like Brother Curtis Joyner. There are a lot of crappy little newspapers whose letter sections will offer patriotic poems this Fourth of July. Those poems will be awful. Nowadays, they’re also often tinged with some aging Commie senility. Let’s still respect the grand tradition of dotty souls writing in their deepest thoughts about our country.
We won’t see many of the plentiful blogs that’ll feature similar heartfelt works. That’s why we’d like to showcase the words of Brother Joyner, who was inadvertently immortalized once his words were handed to Rodd Keith. The musician did a fine job on the tune, mixing classic spoken-word backing with some sappy-but-soulful greatness. As you can see, though, Keith had plenty of inspiration:
First of all, allow me to make myself perfectly clear Dear Lord, help us to love each other instead of fear I believe in the Constitution of the USA I respect the Holy Bible, every word it says I believe in human rights, regardless of color And I will not allow myself to mislead others My utmost aim in life Is to love and respect my wife My family, neighbors—love them all as one For this God gave his only Son I believe utmost in life, Integrity And unity Education and equality With divine obligation For freedom and justice I stand America, I am a real AmericanMake it your own: There are a few Rodd Keith compilations out there. “I Am A Real American” is available on the
I Died Today collection, which is the best display of Keith’s many talents. (That link above is the album’s liner notes, written by Keith’s son.) As noted, the song-poem scene was full of similar patriotic moments.
I Died Today includes both the irreverent “The Senators” and “General Custer’s Story Remains Legend”—which is one of the most defiant statements ever against everybody insisting that Western culture has to go.
