“Black Hippie” David Daniels comes back with a tale of “Cancer, Love, Peace and Assorted Realities”
BY DWIGHT HOBBES,tcdailyplanet.net - Retirement ultimately turned out to not be in the cards, something for which his fans, most of them with lifestyles modeled after the flower-power generation, are profoundly grateful. They’ve been intrigued, enlightened, and entertained for years by Daniels’ daring forays into political and social commentary as performance art. For instance, Malcolm X Meet Peter Tosh, Kolorada…a western tale, Black Hippie Chronicles and I, Edgar Hoover. And his CDs, 4:20 Report and Talkin’ Roots. All of which have been marvelously successful, especially considering that, owing to scant mainstream media coverage, word of his performances gets around by word of mouth.
Daniels calls Black Hippie Chronicles “a story of assimilation gone wrong.” Publicity material for a stint at IFCC Theatre (Portland, Oregon), relates, “As the son of a doctor who was the first African American in Hartford, Connecticut to have his own medical practice and a mother who was an educator and Civil Rights activist, David was raised in an environment unknown to many Black families in the 1960s. He claims that in his socially and religiously conservative home there was a strong motivation to become ‘white,’ to assimilate rather than celebrate the cultural differences of their heritage. Daniels turned to counterculture as a response to his upbringing and became a hippie like so many ‘privileged’ young people rebelling from their conservative roots.”
Ages ago, Daniels founded the Reggae Theatre Ensemble with his friend and technical director Mitch Olson. Through Olson’s association with Long Doe Records, Long Doe is producing Daniels’ newest, Cancer, Peace, Love and Assorted Realities. “What happens”, Daniels asks, “to the adult flower child still rooted in the ’60s and early ’70s when he is slapped with a Stage 4 Blood Cancer diagnosis?” This to update his autobiographical tale Black Hippie Chronicles. It’s directed by Philip T. Hunter, who collaborated on the radio drama Scenes from a Reggae Western and directed Black Hippie Chronicles. Read more…
