Giorno Poetry Systems was an American artist collective, record label, and non-profit organisation founded by poet and performance artist John Giorno. The label released albums perodically throughout the 1980s. Many of these albums included early recordings by later-prominent performers such as Laurie Anderson and Philip Glass as well as unique performances by Frank Zappa, Diamanda Galás, Allen Ginsberg, John Cage, and Brion Gysin, as well as Giorno and Burroughs.
The Like A Girl, I Want You To Keep Coming collection featured artwork by Robert Williams and, among other tracks, Deborah Harry from Blondie’s version of “Invocation to Papa Legba.”
It is interesting to note that notorious Blondie obsessive Jeffrey Lee Pierce (check the shot of when Jeffy met Debbie) evinced a fascination with Vodoun as well. This was notably manifest in the artwork for his own band, The Gun Club’s “Fire Of Love” debut which included a photo by W.B. Seabrook. Seabrook was connected with avant-filmmaker/dancer Maya Deren who was initiated into a Vodoun house in Haiti while she was studying the religion, especially its use of ritual dance. She document her studies in the book Divine Horsemen and the documentary film of the same name (edited and released posthumously by Mystic Fire video). Interestingly enough the original bass player for Blondie Gary “Valentine” Lachman went on to become a prominent author of a number of mystically themed books.
