“Dion McGregor was a songwriting somnambulist. Rare, even for someone who sleepwalks, is that McGregor spoke volubly during his dreams, essentially narrating them as they happened. “”
The Activist Dreamer Dion McGregor
“McGregor habitually spoke in his sleep, usually before dawn. Perhaps Barr (Dion’s roomate) woke before the alarm went off, his sense of time attuned to McGregor’s sleep rhythms. He turned on the tape recorder, not worrying about ambient street noise seeping into the stories, although he kept a pillow in the hallway to stifle his laughter. From around 1960–67, Barr recorded more than five hundred of McGregor’s dreams, always planning to turn them into a movie, a musical, or some other creative venture.”
Fraudulent, perhaps or the chance of a lifetime to experience in realtime, a human dreaming. Whatever the truth of its origins, the spectacularly expressive, often comic, sometimes bawdy (maybe an out of bawdy experience), surrealistic trails weaving in the mind of Mr. McGregor. A novelty record of magnanimous proportions perhaps most appropriately inappropriate. Dialogue that never ends where it begins. But a credibly useful information dump. And if I didn’t know better I’d say here we have somebody who talks in his sleep!
Multi instrumentalist: sax, clarinet, woodwinds and percussion. Helped found Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. A big league avant player!
Note: the birthdate of Dion McGregor is not known. He was included in the hope that there might be western civilization.