Allen Ginsberg was no ordinary poet, as the title of Rhino's four-CD box set "Holy Soul Jelly Roll -- Songs and Poems (1949-1993)" makes clear. From a 1954 reading of "The Green Automobile" that has a bebop record playing in the background to Ginsberg's 1981 performance of "Capitol Air" backed by the Clash, the poet's work often went beyond words.
\par \par And just as music influenced his poetry, Ginsberg's poetry inspired such musicians as Bob Dylan, jazz drummer Elvin Jones and classical minimalist Philip Glass to collaborate with him. When Ginsberg found out he was dying of liver cancer, one of his last phone calls was to a friend and collaborator, producer Hal Willner, who was working with the poet on a "Ginsberg Unplugged" special for MTV that was scheduled to be taped in July.
\par \par When Ginsberg died Saturday at the age of 70, he was a man who had managed to remain relevant to youth culture and rock & roll after nearly five decades as an artist.
\par \par Maintaining that relevance wasn't a calculated move, though; it was just Ginsberg's style. At a "Collected Works" performance last fall at St. Mark's Church in New York's East Village, Sonic Youth, the Jazz Passengers and guitarists Lenny Kaye and Marc Ribot were among the musicians who accompanied his readings.
\par \par "Allen absorbed what he could use from the musicians he worked with," says Willner, who produced several recordings and performances for Ginsberg. "The phrasing, the breathing. That recording of 'The Green Automobile' where you can hear the Gerry Mulligan record in the background was made at Neal Cassady's house. To talk to Allen about it, it was just to have something on in the background, and that was just the music of the times, that was what they listened to. But recently, Allen heard Beck's music and really liked it, and they met and became friends."
\par \par To guitarist Ribot, who collaborated with Ginsberg on several recordings and performances, the poet's influence hit early. "I first saw him do a reading when I was 15, at the Y in West Orange, New Jersey. He was reading with his father [Louis Ginsberg], and it was one of the strangest experiences of my life. To see him do that performance, which just ripped my head off -- well, I think that's rock & roll. And that was rock & roll without a drummer. And that's a neat trick."
\par \par Ginsberg hung out with Thelonious Monk and the Beatles, and he toured with Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue for several months in 1975. "As I remember," writes Sam Shepard in the "Rolling Thunder Logbook," "it was Allen himself who started that riff in the papers about Dylan being the first to bring poetry to the jukebox."
\par \par When Dylan and Ginsberg visited Kerouac's grave in Lowell, Mass., Dylan brought his guitar, Ginsberg brought his harmonium (a hand organ from India) and the two sang on Kerouac's grave. As involved as he had been with jazz and bebop, Ginsberg was also part of the rock & roll world -- a musical poet among poetic musicians.
\par \par Patti Smith has cited him as an influence, as has Michael Stipe. Paul\par McCartney and Lenny Kaye backed Ginsberg on last year's "The Ballad of the Skeletons," and the "MTV Unplugged" special was to include appearances by Dylan, Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithfull, Beck, Billy Corgan and Elvin Jones. But Ginsberg himself drew inspiration from the long lyrical breath of William Blake's poetry, and he recorded "Allen Ginsberg/William Blake: Songs of Innocence and Experience" for Verve in the late '60s because he'd heard Blake's voice singing those poems during a peyote-induced vision.
\par \par And at the end, there was the blues. Willner often heard Ginsberg listening to Leadbelly, along with Dylan, Bach and other classical musicians. But the last song Allen Ginsberg heard -- said Peter Orlovsky, Ginsberg's lover for the last four deca