This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
As the owner of San Francisco’s City Lights publishing house and bookstore, Lawrence Ferlinghetti is as responsible as anyone for the success of the Beat movement.
But as a poet and writer, he’s always taken something of a backseat to contemporaries like Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. This release is a somewhat belated paying of dues, featuring Ferlinghetti’s epic, titular poem set to a cornucopia of musical vignettes by composer and Morphine sax player Dana Colley. Read by the author in his warm, woody rasp, it’s a ride through the theme park of his imagination — a bold, bawdy, beautiful trip on the roller-coaster of life, with the occasional stop in the tunnel of love. Well worth the price of admission.
