SOUNDTRACK: JAZMINE SULLIVAN-“Stupid Girls” (Field Recordings, August 12, 2014).
NPR and Jazmine Sullivan were in New Orleans’for the Essence Music Festival.
I’m intrigued that this Field Recording [Jazmine Sullivan Fades A New Orleans Barber Shop] is the second one set in a barbershop (technically, this is the first one as I have been watching them in backwards order).
This barbershop, Claer-Vue, is just a few blocks from the Superdome, just off Canal Street. It has been in business since 1948. It is a men’s barbership and I know that a barbershop is part of the culture but nearly every man waiting to get their hair cut has really short hair already–like closely buzzed. Are they hanging out or do they get it cut daily?
I had never heard of Jazmine, but she was apparently known to at least some of the patrons
When she walked in, patrons and barbers alike were wary. But they knew who she was, from hit songs like “Bust Your Windows” and “Holding You Down (Goin’ in Circles).” And when she began to sing, wearing her powerhouse instrument lightly, everyone ceded her a floor that had been previously occupied by a heated debate about college football.
With just an acoustic guitar accompanying her, she sings her beautiful song. Her voice is clear and pretty and devoid of all the trills and filigree of pop singers.
To a roomful of captivated men, she sang a brand new song, “Stupid Girls,” that warns women to be careful with their hearts.
You can see most of the men nodding along. Most are deferential, with side-eyed glances. There’s polite applause at the end, but Jazmine is pretty pleased with herself–as she should be.
[READ: September 14, 2018] “Cecilia Awakened”
Tessa Hadley continues to make wonderful stories where nothing seems to happen, but there is a lot going on internally.
Like the way this one starts:
Cecilia awakened from her childhood while she was on holiday in Italy, the summer she turned fifteen. It was not a sexual awakening, or not exactly–rather, an intellectual or imaginative one.
Cecilia is described as an odd child, but one who fit in perfectly with the oddity of her parents. Her father worked at a university library and her mother, Angela, wrote historical novels. Most of all they both loved the past. When they had Cecilia–late in their lives–they did not feel any need to conform to society any more than they already did. (more…)