Chattin’ With the IRS

I heard Curtis Mayfield was paralyzed by some sound equipment that fell on him when he was performing in Brooklyn. I heard he suffered from health problems after that and then died out of diabetes. Curtis Mayfield sang in falsetto.

I heard Sam Cooke got shot by a hotel owner when he was wearing a sport jacket and shoes and nothing else. He was looking for a woman. The woman who owned the hotel was packing heat so to speak but she finished the job with a broom stick. Sam Cooke was confused and amazed.

I heard Marvin Gaye sing about the have nots and I heard him sing about set backs and the whole time I heard him singing about sex. I heard Marvin Gaye got shot by his dad and it killed him.

I heard Jimi Hendrix killed hisself with drugs and Billie Holiday wasted away in a hospital. I heard Billie Holiday’s mom was thirteen when she was born and I heard Billie Holiday sang for two dollars a night. I heard something about Jimi Hendrix’s purple jacket and something about the Chelsea Hotel.

I heard Kurtis Blow is still preaching as the pastor of the Hip Hop Church and I heard he made rapping bigger than Barbara Streisand. I heard him say when I was a kid that sometimes things go a certain way, and that’s how it is.

Posted in EssayTagged Singers, Soul