DESCRIPTION:
Don Byron - Tuskegee Experiments (1991-Nonesuch 79280-2)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment

1.while Sydney Bechet was pullin' pistols in Paris, Nurse Rivers, who even
had a car to shuffle her syphilitic children across Macon County, her "bad
blood" cotton pickers, "the joy" of her life, was clearly chosen.
an appointment befitting this darkest century.

2.a Dr. Clarck conviction
a Dr. Wenger conversion
a Dr. Vonderlehr conception
a Dr. Peters spinal puncture
a Dr. Dibble hangin from
his ankles in the town square
the Surgeon General's schwartzegeist rising,
while Tuskegee falls asleep.


3. Bring them to autopsy with ulcerated limbs,
with howling wives, bring them in, one coon corpse at a time.
(says Dr. Dibble,)
"a dollar a year for forty years to watch those shadows rot."
"they didn't receive tratment for syphilis,
but they got so much else.
Medicine is as much art as it is science."

4. a row of crows on a rickety fence.
no book learnin'.
po' as dirt, never heard Monsieur Bechet
play the clarinet.
his esperiment is not a crime,
but a a rite of sacrifice

5 no banana splits on sunday,
no Brooks Brothers,
no color t.v. & waterbed,
no tickets to the country fair.
no treatment! no treatment!
no treatment! no treatment!


Don Byron, clarinet - Joe Berkovitz, piano - Richie Schwarz, marimba - Kenny Davis, electric bass - Pheroah akLaff, drums -
Sadiq, poet.