CD - "Works by Tuli Kupferberg" by Jeffrey Lewis & The Deposit Returners

Underground legend Tuli Kupferberg (1923-2010) was always the oldest man in rock and roll, co-founding the Fugs in the winter of 1964-1965 when he was already in his early 40s.  Being twice the age of Dylan, Reed, Jagger, et. al, never stopped Tuli from consistently being more outrageous.  Latter-day bohemian torch-bearer Jeffrey Lewis befriended Tuli in the early 2000s, and has personally organized “Tuli-day” memorial tribute concerts every year since Tuli’s passing.  This album documents some of the finer fruits of Jeffrey’s tribute arrangements, drawing from a four-decade range of Tuli’s various creative voices, from poignant 60s classics (“Morning Morning”) to never-recorded lyrics (“Listen to the Mockingbird”), poems set to music (“The And Song”), works that Tuli called parasongs (“I Wanna Hold Your Foot”) and later-period Fugs gems (“Try to Be Joyful”).  Across the board Jeffrey Lewis directs a co-ed band of wild and wooly cohorts, including original Fugs member Peter Stampfel, to bring the same surprising interpretive life to these covers as he brought to his critically-acclaimed “12 Crass Songs” album.  Whether or not you’re a Fugs fan or a Jeffrey Lewis fan, “Works by Tuli Kupferberg” is a rollicking, laughing, tear-jerking, psychedelic ride through a hidden history of New York City folk-punk sub-genius.  Recorded in the free-wheeling spirit of the original 1965 Fugs recordings, this is an album fifty years in the making.

Also available on Bandcamp here.