"Readings From Wheeling Motel" is an album that consists of Franz Wright reading his poems coupled with music by Daniel Ahearn and Michael Rozon. I'm linking to one of the releases, "Night Flight Turbulence" in a YouTube video here.
As you'll see, the poem is pretty hard-hitting, but Wright's work melds well with the music and the video in the clip (neither of which are overdone). The bulk of the emphasis still remains on Wright's words, which makes sense, as they can more than carry their own weight.
The album reminds me a lot of "Die on Me," an album of beat poet Gregory Corso that was recorded about a week before his death from cancer. Like Wright's album, it was stark and resonant, but its music was stilted and at times, even a tad embarrassing, sometimes taking away from Corso's (usually fine) work. Wright's album doesn't seem to have that problem at all, so it is strong throughout.
A brief tangent: As far as the Wright clip goes, I was particularly taken by the combination of video and Wright reading in the YouTube clip, as that's still fairly new territory, and one that's being explored all over the web, including on YouTube and in Todd Boss's Motion Poems series. [Here's a Billy Collins poem on YouTube. Here's to hoping Mr. Wright joins Boss's Motionpoem Series.
Tangent over. Back to the album:
In short, if you have a writer on your list, or a spoken word fan, this is an album for them. Get it here: http://www.amazon.com/Readings-From-Wheeling-Motel/dp/B002N8WB2C
Or, you can check out Knopf's page: http://knopf.knopfdoubleday.com/2009/10/22/readings-from-wheeling-motel/
