James Earl Jones Reads Poe’s The Raven

James Earl Jones did many things during his long career, including acting as Verizon’s pitchman. As part of a 2005 promotion, Jones recited Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven in that amazing rumbly voice of his, reprising his earlier performance on The Simpsons. Here’s the full version on Soundcloud, including his introduction — “he wrote about murder, torture, and being buried alive”:

As part of the same promotion, he also apparently recorded a recitation of the Gettysburg Address, but I cannot locate a copy of that anywhere.¹ However, he did recite part of the Gettysburg Address, along with fragments of other Lincoln speeches, in a performance of Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra:

Jones also read Frederick Douglass’s speech What to the Slave is 4th of July?:

And some Walt Whitman:

And excerpts from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail:

And some Othello at the Obama White House:

1. And in 2000, also on behalf of Verizon, he read Dr. Seuss’ Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? to a group of schoolchildren. I would love to hear that recording.↩

• Abraham Lincoln
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Frederick Douglass
• James Earl Jones
• Martin Luther King
• poetry
• Shakespeare
• video
• Walt Whitman