LIVINGCOLOUR-PG1-2025

•OriginalNoise.Org
the players
 the bridge

Living Colour*
“What A Wonderful World …
1967 — Louis Armstrong*
Ambassadors of Sound
((( >>> )))

 

… Of Living Colour.

“Where can we find light, in this never-ending shade?”

— Amanda Gorman
National Youth Poet Laureate reading at President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ Inauguration, January 20, 2021.

“Cult of Personality”
Living Colour
1988 — Vivid / Biscuits
((( >>> )))

dave.

We’re An American Band
September 24, 2016 — A Civil War Bugle Corp soldier displayed the American Colors at the opening of the Smithsonian Institution’s  National Museum of African American History and Culture. President Barack Obama opened the celebratory day, delivering one of his last speeches, near the end of his second term as leader of the “Free World.” A festive atmosphere enveloped The National Mall. Alongside the familiar monuments were all sorts of socially conscious displays. Art, Music, Dance, and Civil Rights — History and information of the most necessary kind.

Ending the day, Freedom Sounds was a concert at the west end of the National Mall, on a large stage, standing in the late afternoon shadow of the Washington Monument. Stanley Clarke, The Roots, Public Enemy, and Living Colour, all subjects of exhibits inside the museum, played the harmonious day out.

“Imagine?”
There Is No Heaven.
John Lennon 
Corey Glover (1996)
Tell It On The Mountain
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Win McNamee (AP)

Amanda Gorman by David Remnick (The New Yorker)*

 

[FROM THE TOP]

 

“What a Wonderful World”
Louis Armstrong (1967)

“Cult of Personality”
Vivid (1988)

“Imagine” — Corey Glover sang John Lennon’s song for Rhythm of the Games, an album made in support of the Special Olympics. (1996)

We’re An American Band — Living Colour at the opening of the Smithsonian’s Museum of African American History and Culture (September 24, 2016).

Amanda Gorman — The first Youth Poet Laureate of the United States and the author of “The Hill We Climb” wore a protective mask and had a police protection detail as she walked through Harvard Square after an appearance at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell, Harvard Staff)

Living Colour
LiIvViInNgG coOlLoOuUrR
Vernon Reid (G.UITAR)
Corey Glover (V.OCALS)
Will Calhoun (D.RUMS)
Muzz Skillings (1985-1992)
Doug Wimbish (B.ASS)

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD*
THE MOUNTAINS WE  CLIMB
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?*
A BAND GROWS IN BROOKLYN
THE WALLS BETWEEN US*
ALL MUST FALL
SLIPPING INTO DARKNESS*
TRUTH BE TOLD

“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”
Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell  
1967 — United
((( >>> )))

dave.

[FROM THE TOP]

((( Martin Luther King Jr. )))

“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (1967)
Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell [MOTOWN]

Unexpected Punks (1982)
In the beginning, not many Punk Rock bands were black, or from Washington D.C., but the Bad Brains were both. Quickly labeled “Banned in D.C.,” the Brains, like Living Colour, another band breaking Rock N Roll color barriers, made their reputation at CBGB, the Downtown New York City club. Way Downtown, where Punk, Poetry, Metal were colliding explosively.

“Martin Luther King Jr. Mountain Top” (1968)
Harlem Renaissance painter Romare Bearden‘s tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., the Civil Rights leader who was assassinated earlier that year. [“EARTHRISE”]

Hope Of A Different Color (2013) 
A lawn “ornament” near Virginia Beach, Virginia shows that all were not happy with a man named Barack Obama being president of the United States.

Suddenly Last Summer
2016 — Not Yet Banned in D.C.
Corey Glover ended Living Colour’s set at Freedom Sounds,  the concert on the Washington Mall, in the shadow of the Monument, with a fist-in-the-air, celebratory salute. It was the opening of the long-awaited Museum of African American History and Culture.  The day began with Barack Obama’s opening speech, on of his last as president of the United States. Living Colour and other Freedom Sounds performers, Public Enemy, and The Roots, are also subjects of exhibits in the museum. [WHO SHOT YA?]

 

dave.

“Blak Out” — Living Colour at Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival (2016)

“Who Shot Ya?” — Interesting was the confidence in Living Colour making a set list for its performance at EPCOT’s FOOD & WINE FESTIVAL. In 2016, after a summer that saw a dramatic number of shootings that police had perpetrated on un-armed, often black victims. Because of the news, the band chose to release “Who Shot Ya?,” a Biggie Smalls cover, ahead of the release of Shade, the album that would include at least one “Who Shot Ya?” recording. Despite much of Living Colour’s material containing a political and socially conscious message, the tunes were well received by the what-you’d-expect, sterotypical, Disney crowd.

Out front, Corey Glover (vocals) exhibited his seasoned stage presence, and his ability to read (and play) the room. As he stepped off the stage, and into the crowd, he took his slow and entertaining time to sit down next to an elderly woman, sitting on a scooter, in the center aisle. The woman’s face lit up, knowing she was now part of the show, and enjoying Corey rested his head on her shoulder and serenaded her, personally.  She reached into her bag, and handed her phone to a young woman (usher), hoping to capture her special Disney moment, and take it home to Nebraska.

Democracy isn’t about winning. It’s about losing, and accepting the results.”

— Vernon Reid

Living Colour, at Disney World’s Animal Kingdom for Epcot’s Food and Wine Festival, discussing music, politics, and guns with “Changeville’s” Matthew Fowler. Changeville is a music festival in Gainesville, Florida, home of the University of Florida, one hundred miles north of Orlando. Changeville is an event in which all the musical artists actively promote social cause.

“Funky President”
Tack>>Head  
Keith LeBlanc (First Mix)
January 20, 2009
Funky President vs. King Bee (2012)
For the Love of Money  (2014) 
((( >>> )))

—yZ.

Change Was Bound To Come
2020 — “Trump Sucks” by Alex Skolnick. Written in his Brooklyn apartment, one of those days we were all (almost) locked in our Covid-sheltering homes.

CoLors*…
This is a Voyage into Sound.
inst. of change [THE ELECTRIC GUITAR]
the players
INSTRUMENTS OF NOISE.
take it to the bridge
BLUE. The Original Color of Sin

“Politician”
Living Colour 
Vivid (1988)
Same Old Song, And Racist Dance. 
((( >>> )))

Portrait (guitar)
Bill Clark (CQ Roll Call)
ABC (Jimmy Kimmel)

“Up From The Skies”
Jimi Hendrix
Two days before Vernon Reid and Living Colour, at Jimmy Kimmel’s request, played “Cult of Personality” to close out his show that had included Bruce Springsteen and Jeremy Allen White who played Bruce in Deliver Me From Nowhere, the film that had just been released. The show was just days after Kimmel’s return, after ABC had cancelled him, giving in to pressure exerted by Donald Trump, who whined that Kimmel was treating him “unfairly,” in his “unfunny” monologues.

Living Colour
WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD*
THE MOUNTAINS WE  CLIMB
A WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?*
A BAND GROWS IN BROOKLYN
THE WALLS BETWEEN US*
ALL MUST FALL
SLIPPING INTO DARKNESS*
TRUTH BE TOLD

“Funny Vibe”
Living Colour 
Vivid (1988)
Same Old Song, And Racist Dance. 
((( >>> )))

 

Hip-Hop Happens [HIP-HOP RISING]
1979 — THE ORIGINAL SUGAR HILL RHYTHM SECTION
HIP-HOP HISTORY
Skip McDonald (guitar)
Doug Wimbish (bass)
Keith LeBlanc (drums)
Living Colour
Tack>>Head
Little Axe (Skip McDonald)
Bernard Fowler (vocals)
’80s  — A Band Grows In Brooklyn
1980 — Just Say No
1980 (INNOVATION, DISASTER, AND MURDER)
1981 — Just Say Go
JUST SAY GO TO MTV, AND NASA’S RETURN TO SPACE
1982 — Just Say No (Nukes)
SATURDAY IN THE PARK
1983 — BEAT STREET / KLB
YACHT ROCK
MICHAEL McDONALD
KENNY LOGGINS
CHRISTOPHER CROSS
1984 — “NO SELL OUT” (MALCOLM X)
KLB v SUGAR HILL

Contact
Carl Sagan’s Cosmic Message In A Bottle
1985 — World Music
We Are The World
Michael Jackson
Quincy Jones
Lionel Richie …
Live Aid
Bob Geldof
Queen
David Bowie
Mick Jagger w/ Tina Turner
Artists United Against Apartheid
Steven Van Zandt
Arthur Baker
Original Sugar Hill Rhythm Section
Keith LeBlanc
Miles Davis
Herbie Hancock
Miami Vice
w/JAN HAMMER
SHE’S THE BOSS
w/MICK JAGGER
THE BROTHERS OF SODOM
JOE SATRIANI
WE ARE THE WORLD
MICHAEL JACKSON
QUINCY JONES

1986 — Keith LeBlanc
Major Malfunction
Joe Satriani
Not Of This Earth
JAPAN RISING
Carlos Santana
w/ HERBIE HANCOK
BUDDY MILES
JERRY GARCIA
GEORGE BENSON
Jeff Beck
w/JAN HAMMER
STEVE LUKATHER
DOUG WIMBISH
SIMON PHILIPS

1987 — Hail! Hail! Rock N Roll
Chuck Berry