(SOLD): GINSBERG, Allen. First Blues.

(New York, NY): John Hammond Records, 1982. First edition. Double LP album. Allen Ginsberg’s recorded opus: it contains studio-recorded performances of songs he’d written and performed and finally taped between 1971 and 1983. Ginsberg’s charm as a songwriter is the same one he holds as a poet. This example is inscribed by Ginsberg on the cover to Simon Vinkenoog. Vinkenoog was was European Beat personified, poet, activist, lifelong hippy, and [not incidentally] cannabis connoisseur par excellence. He enjoyed a close relationship with Ginsberg who dedicated his White Shroud: Poems 1980-1985 to Vinkenoog. The two poets met as early as 1957 and during Ginsberg’s visits to The Netherlands in the 70s and 80s Vinkenoog served as his translator. He also published the first, and still the only, substantial Dutch translation of Ginsberg’s poems, “Proef m’n tong in je oor” (Taste my mouth in your ear), (1966), he also published the book-length collection, “Me and my peepee” (translations of Allen) in 2001. In 1982 Vinkenoog famously accompanied Ginsberg to Arthur Rimbaud’s birthplace in Charleville. A very good example complete with the The Ginsberg Gallimaufry also inscribed by Ginsberg to Vinkenoog. A superb association, linking these two close friends, the Kings of American and European Beat poetry.