The Blues Life

I named the picture above ,"These are the Blues"

I responded to an article on Wynton Marsalis posted in "Facebook" by one of my "friends" there. I posted the first paragraph and then went back and deleted it . I realized that I don't know the "friend" very well at all. It occurred to me that I hire the man but he probably isn't really a friend ,especially as he posted an article titled, "Racism and Greed have Put the Blues on the Back Street" ( or back pages ... I don't recall right now and I refuse to post a link to this bullshit) It was an interview with Marsalis in Oct.2009. I start with my would be response :

It is ironic that Marsalis should be commenting on"Racism"much less his pretended authority on the "Blues".The article itself was just another chance at a plug for his current "bad" project where he tries to reunite with "White people" by doing a blues side with Willy Nelson. If there was one thing I got out of the Burns "Jazz" film project , it was that I personally don't want to support Wynton Marsalis any more than I support Willy Nelson.Boy,what a pair.Neither of them swing. The irony and "humor of God" is exhibited here ,yet another "Theo-Funny", not to be confused with the sounds of God,"Theo phony".



Then thoughts on the "Blues Life"



When I think of "Blues" I think of Lightning Hopkins . he played across the lines , that is the bar lines ,out of time ,out of rhyme yet with the essence of the definition of "blues". He lived the blues, as many actual blues players do, their lives a tragedy of mishaps and problems. Maybe this is why the"Blues" are so universal . The struggle of existence is pretty generally the same for everyone with the same conclusion. In between may be peaches and cream or the "Blues" and probably all of the above but the blues singer is naked in his lyric .



One night in Austin Texas about 1965 ,I was watching Lightning Hopkins at a coffee house . He introduced his washboard player as a destitute though I am sure that they had been traveling together playing club after club for years. As the applause died down ,Lightning snuck a taste from the Jack Daniels pint sitting behind his chair on stage before he went into another number. I felt a pinch on my ass and looked around and there was Janice Joplin standing next to me smiling that shit eating grin.she was dressed in a dirty tee shirt and tight jeans , fucked up as usual. I had to laugh at her smiling at me like she had gotten away with something . It didn't bother me but I still wasn't interested in her . We watched the next tune and suddenly two cops went onstage and started talking to Hopkins. It ended up with them putting handcuffs on him and taking him out of the club . He was arrested for drinking in the club and they took him to jail. Janice and me went to a local bar and put down a few more . The entire scene , Lightning introducing his destitute closest friend , Janice grabbing my ass, drunk, the arrest, and the life of "Blues" connected to Lightning Hopkins , is the essence of "Blues".It doesn't need an explanation ,over analyzing,or the acceptance of Wynton Marsalis.It doesn't have to be re-done ,singing ahead of the beat by old hillbillies like Willie Nelson . No amount of hair or pot will ever change Mr. Nelson in my minds eye that can still see him in the early sixties and who he really always was before Johnny Cash and Bobby Dylan started French kissing in 1972.



When I think of Janice and her life of "Blues" , I see her in that club and before ,the night she sat in with the Bob Sardo Trio on his gig at the "Id" , the local Austin College town bar at the time . Janice was so loaded that she was beyond singing ,nearly falling off the stage , loud , and annoying as drunks can get . She was escorted out of the place , thrown out . I was sitting coincidentally sitting in with Bob that night on stringed bass and Janice had remembered me from back then.Her adventures after 1965 have been documented pretty thoroughly and they seemed to be a continuance of her "Blues" life which eventually over took her as she tried to overcome her "Blues".Since 1965 I have seen too many overcome too recently, and too close to me to look back too soon , much too soon .