Blasts from the Past: 40 Overlooked Masters Who Still Stire our Souls

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Eubie Blake (1883?1983)
Joints always jumped when Eubie Blake played, and his buoyant piano rags still roll through our collective consciousness, even if a chap named Joplin gets much of the credit for ragtime. Blake (at right, above) helped pave the way for jazz with his free-spirited playing.
He also brought black culture to Broadway with his revues written with Noble Sissle, and helped fuel th
e Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Blake lived for a full century and never tired of playing or promoting his spirited, syncopated music. (CD: Memories of
You; Biograph, 1990)
?Keith Goetzman

The Pogues (1982?1996)
If Bob Dylan had been born 15 years later somewhere in the vicinity of Ireland and met up with the Clash, his music might have sounded something like the Pogues?. An intoxicating blend of punk energy and Celtic soul, they took London by storm in the mid-1980s, reintroducing folk-rock to a new generation. (CD: If I Should Fall from Grace with God; Phantom, 1997)
?Jay Walljasper

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749?1832)
No writer of any era had a more dynamic view of the interrelationships of all phenomena, from the tiniest microorganism to the sweep of history?or more faith in life?s potential?than Germany?s great 18th-century poet, dramatist, critic, novelist, and scientist. His play Faust may be too complex and crowded for easy staging, but it is a compelling, dreamlike exploration of the energies of existence, and his life and opinions are fascinating. Always ready to redefine himself and stretch his work in new directions, Goethe explored many visions over a long life. (Book: Goethe: A Critical Introduction, by Ronald Gray; Cambridge University Press, 1967)
?Jon Spayde

Lady Murasaki Shikibu (c. 978?1031)
In the hyperrefined imperial court of 11th-century Japan, Murasaki was a wallflower: shy, ill-tempered, and, worst of all for a female, bookish (her unconventional father had let her read the Chinese classics as a girl). What Murasaki was doing all alone in her room was writing the world?s first novel, The Tale of Genji, a brilliant story of love and feminine psychology that anticipates Proust by a thousand years and has become a classic of world literature. Arthur Waley?s sensitive 1920s translation is a gem of English literature, too. (Book: The Tale of Genji, by Murasaki Shikibu; Modern Library/ Random House, 1993)
?Jon Spayde

Dorothea Tanning (1910?)
Born in Illinois, this painter joined the New York circle of ?migr? European artists in the 1930s. In 1942 surrealist legend Max Ernst encountered her self-portrait, Birthday, in which she depicts herself as a somnambulistic wanderer down mysterious corridors, and fell in love with both painting and painter. Refusing to be overshadowed by her partner, Tanning went on making images of occult female power, among the most technically accomplished and haunting paintings in the surrealist tradition. Still active at 92, she now paints gigantic imaginary flowers in dreamlike colors. (Book: Between Lives: An Artist and Her World, by Dorothea Tanning; W.W. Norton, 2001)
?Jon Spayde

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