Curation #19 from my Kerouac bookshelf: Kerouac -- kicks joy darkness (CD)

Item #19 in my Kerouac bookshelf curation project is the 1997 CD, Kerouac -- kicks joy darkness. it's a spoken word tribute using Kerouac's own words (with a couple of exceptions: Track #1 and the first part of Track #5) and features a host of famous people (musicians, actors, Beat Generation figures) reading with musical accompaniment. Below is a list of tracks (taken verbatim from Wikipedia). It's pretty accurate.

1. Kerouac (Morphine) - 2:54
2. Bowery Blues (Lydia Lunch) - 1:55
3. My Gang (Michael Stipe) - 2:23
4. Dream: "Us Kids Swim off a Gray Pier..." (Steven Tyler) - 1:34
5. Letter to William S. Burroughs & Ode to Jack Hunter S. Thompson (Hunter S. Thompson) - 1:41
6. Skid Row Wine (Maggie Estep, The Spitters) - 5:51
7. America's New Trinity of Love: Dean, Brando, Presley (Richard Lewis) - 6:06
8. Dream: "On a Sunny Afternoon..." (Lawrence Ferlinghetti & Helium) - 2:04
9. MacDougal Street Blues (Jack Kerouac, Joe Strummer) - 2:48
10. The Brooklyn Bridge Blues (Choruses 1-9) (Allen Ginsberg) - 5:47
11. Hymn (Eddie Vedder, Campbell 2000, Sadie 7) - 3:12
12. Old Western Movies (William S. Burroughs, Tomandandy) - 2:32
13. Silly Goofball Poems (Juliana Hatfield) - 4:02
14. The Moon (John Cale) - 3:01
15. Madroad Driving (Johnny Depp, Come) - 3:28
16. Have You Ever Seen Anyone Like Cody Pomeray? (Robert Hunter) - 3:48
17. Letter to John Clellon Holmes (Lee Ranaldo, Dana Colley) - 2:36
18. Pome on Doctor Sax (Anna Domino) - 1:45
19. Mexico Rooftop (Robert Buck, Danny Chauvin) - 1:25
20. The Last Hotel (Patti Smith, Thurston Moore, Lenny Kaye) - 3:47
21. Running Through-Chinese Poem Song (Warren Zevon, Michael Wolff) - 3:34
22. Woman (Jim Carroll, Lee Ranaldo, Lenny Kaye) - 2:25
23. Loneliness, Mexican (Matt Dillon, Joey Altruda, Joe Gonzalez) - 3:19
24. Angel Mine (Inger Lorre, Jeff Buckley) - 5:24
25. The Brooklyn Bridge Blues (Chorus 10) (Eric Andersen) - 1:59

A lot of the above are from Kerouac's Pomes All Sizes. Several were previously unpublished at the time of the CD's release. My favorites were Jack reading his own "MacDougal Street Blues" (Track #9), Richard Lewis on Track #7 (sounding a lot like Kerouac to my ear), and the inestimable Patti Smith (Track #20). But it's hard to pick favorites. The liner notes include the words to most tracks, some of Kerouac's paintings, and photos by Allen Ginsberg. It's a worthwhile project to own if you are a Kerouac fan and especially if you like the spoken word. I've put a link below for your convenience if you wish to have your own copy.

I don't know the provenance of this item. I suspect I bought it from Amazon or may have received it as a gift for a birthday or Christmas.

Oh, and I am assuming that the title comes from this quote from On The Road (not sure why they mixed up the order of the words):

At lilac evening I walked with every muscle aching among the lights of 27th and Welton in the Denver colored section, wishing I were a Negro, feeling that the best the white world had offered was not enough ecstasy for me, not enough life, joy, kicks, darkness, music, not enough night. (beginning of Part III)

Below is a picture of the top shelf of my Kerouac bookshelf showing the placement of this CD (15th item in the pile) on the day I started curating my collection. Next up: Good Blonde & Others by Jack Kerouac.

The top of my Kerouac bookshelf