Last year New Zealand poet Bill Manhire put out a jazz CD album Buddhist Rain (Rattle Records) in collaboration with musician Norman Meehan. It’s a very enjoyable CD.
This year broadsheet asked Bill to contribute to issue 7 (as he was a friend of the featured poet Anthony Rudolf). One of his song lyrics, ‘Crime Scene’, from The Victims of Lightning (VUP, 2010) was chosen.
Bill’s poetry has always had a strong musical element. It shows in his poetry readings and in much of his work published since the early 1970s. So it seems a natural progression to set Bill’s words to music.
broadsheet was pleased to see music critic Simon Sweetman writing about Bill’s collaboration with Norman in Blog on the Tracks.
Here’s a link to a free download of Bill and Norman’s track ‘Pacific Raft’.
