According to Wikipedia, Basho may refer to:
- Bashō, Edo-period Japanese haiku poet
- Basho (crater), a crater on Mercury
- Basho Technologies, a distributed database company
- Bashō, a Noh play by Komparu Zenchiku
- Basho, a concept in Kitaro Nishida‘s philosophy
- Basho, a contest in sumo wrestling, especially one of the honbasho
But nice as it was to fall down that particular Wikipedia rabbit-hole, Glenn Jones‘ Portrait of Basho as a Young Dragon appears to be a tip of the cap to guitarist Robbie Basho, an artist whose back-catalogue Jones has been preserving for over 30 years and who released an album by the name of ‘Portrait of Basho as a Young Dragoon’.
I didn’t know anything about Robbie Basho, nor Basho the Edo-period Japanese Haiku poet or the crater on mercury or any of that stuff, so it’s a good job there’s an internet sometimes.
The Glenn Jones song, the point of this post remember, is lovely.