Some guys in my high school heard me sing a Gilbert and Sullivan thing and asked me to try out with their rock band, “The Roots Of Evil”. This was 1965.
After a while we fired Bruce, the guitar player, because he looked too young. It was a total asshole thing to do but it is the main reason I got into the blues. Frank joined the band, he almost had a moustache, and his brother was in the top local (Thanet, England) band, The RoJeans. Frank turned us on to John Mayall. The band became “Blind Lemon”. The other guys asked me to please stop singing falsetto trying to imitate John Mayall on “So Many Roads”.
That’s about the sum total of what I knew about the blues, and I was fine with that. I was a Blues Guy.
Now I am an Old Blues Guy. Once I accepted that idea, it grew around me like bark.
It has been dawning upon me that there are many subjects to write sing blues about that few people do in a blues form.
Living is hard. Even for white, privileged Americans like me, things come up. Somehow we manage to shut out war and genocide in Africa, starvation in Asia, global warming… and we worry about the little things, the things right in front of our faces. We get the blues about our refrigerators, our teenagers, the phone bill, what the neighbors think of our furniture…we even get the blues about our lawn. Admit it!
These are good subjects for the blues. You can sing it out and away because you are recognizing it, celebrating it even. It seems like country music has corralled these day-to-day subjects that we all live with. I want to blow a little air up the blues’ skirt.
Whoa~ How'm I gonna follow your act at The Hwy 61 festival? Can't wait to see y'all again. I'll be up on Thursday to camp thru Sunday, ya know, make an adventure of it and all that. See you there then. Patti
B4 I DIED did its debut on Sunday. The first brutal songwriter bash is in the book, bam-bam. I sat in with McSmith and tried my best to play jazz. 4 more this week. If you're in one of the rooms please say hello.
Hi Nigel! Listened from home tonight to Twin Cities Live show from Vera's. You sounded great! Love the song about Katie. With 3 grown children of my own, those words echo true. Would love to have you on "From LA to Mpls", Folk That! Laurie :)
