It’s officially Memorial Day weekend, AKA the unofficial start of summer, and I am feeling very much like I should be sipping a fruity drink on a hot porch somewhere, listening to sunny earworms and tanning my feet, as somewhere in the distance, a dog barks neon light flashes GOOD VIBES ONLY. (Okay, that got fairly millennial there, sorry, but you get the drift.)

To encourage (or satisfy) this kind of summer mood, might I recommend this short clip of Maya Angelou performing the song “Run Joe”? It’s technically not a live performance, but was recorded as part of the 1957 movie musical Calypso Heat Wave. Still, this is the only video recording of Angelou performing calypso that I have been able to uncover—and boy do I wish there were more. (That extremely white guy clapping his face off at the end is cringe, but I sort of can’t blame him.) Happy summer, all.

Emily Temple

Emily Temple

Emily Temple is the managing editor at Lit Hub. Her first novel, The Lightness, was published by William Morrow/HarperCollins in June 2020. You can buy it here.