Hal Willner - Spoken Word Recordings

Spoken Word Recordings

With the increasing prevalence of tribute albums in the late 1980s (such as Red Hot + Blue), Willner decided to turn his attention to spoken word recordings.

  • Dead City Radio (1990) by William Burroughs has musical backing by Sonic Youth, Donald Fagen, John Cale and others.
  • Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales (1996) by William Burroughs with music by The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy.
  • The Lion for Real by Allen Ginsberg features musical accompaniment by Bill Frisell, Philip Glass, Paul McCartney and others.
  • Closed on Account of Rabies (1997) consists of readings of Edgar Allan Poe poems and tales by Iggy Pop and others. As Willner's only "spoken word" tribute album, it fits in the context of his other music-based tributes.
  • In with the Out Crowd (1998) by poet Bob Holman.
  • Let the Buyer Beware (2004) is an authoritative six CD box set of historic recordings by the comedian Lenny Bruce.

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Famous quotes containing the words spoken word, spoken, word and/or recordings:

    “First it must be known that only a spoken word or a conventional sign is an equivocal or univocal term; therefore a mental content or concept is, strictly speaking, neither equivocal nor univocal.”
    —William of Occam (c. 1285–1349)

    “...and all the people answered with one voice, and said, “All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do.””
    —Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 24:2.

    “We have good reason to believe that memories of early childhood do not persist in consciousness because of the absence or fragmentary character of language covering this period. Words serve as fixatives for mental images. . . . Even at the end of the second year of life when word tags exist for a number of objects in the child’s life, these words are discrete and do not yet bind together the parts of an experience or organize them in a way that can produce a coherent memory.”
    —Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)

    “All radio is dead. Which means that these tape recordings I’m making are for the sake of future history. If any.”
    —Barré Lyndon (1896–1972)