Blues Power

My introduction to the pop music scene of the early 60’s was thru my older sister, Dawn. The Beatles, Petula Clark, Dave Clarke Five, Roy Orbinson, Simon and Garfunkle and even that rockin’ mama, The Singing Nun, are just a few of the flood of artists, talented and not so talented, that serenaded me thru childhood. My cousin and next door neighbor Ann Marie and I dug up Jerry Lee Lewis’ Great Balls of Fire out of an attic trunk (remnant of my dad’s youngest brother, Roger) which we played over and over again on my sister’s little blue record player. Man, we rocked.

As I matured so did my tastes; Jim Morrison, Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, Steppenwolf, Cream, Neil Young, Jimi Hendrix, ZZ Top, Bob Dylan (electric), et cetera. , I consider The Stones, Exile on Main Street, my favorite album, especially the double CD put out a few years ago. Within each track you can feel, even smell the wasted decadent strung out condition of the band and their entourage. If you have ever seen the dvd Exile on Main Street you will not only hear but see what I mean. Yet they record a magnificent LP; the instrumentals alone can blow your mind--the horns are amazing! Musicians who are willing and able to bare their souls to their listeners reveal pure genius in my book. Enough of this intro; I will attempt to convey what the blues mean to me.

In eighth grade I received for Christmas the greatest gift ever, a Magnavox hi fi stereo furnished with an AM/FM radio. At this time FM stations were beginning to generate a following for they could play the long versions of songs and entire albums without commercial interruption. While playing with the dial one night I hit upon KUNI out of Cedar Falls, IA. The most haunting, gut wrenching sounds flooded my room, raw guitar licks and harmonica solos that stroked my even then old soul, vocals that reverberated with a pain centuries old. I did not know that I was listening to authentic blues at the time--not the white boy British version, but the real deal. Through Bob Door I was initiated into the Blues Only Program and introduced to such raw genius as Lightnin Hopkins, Muddy Waters, Willy Dixon, Big Mama Thorton, T-Bone Walker, Robert Johnson, Buddy Guy, Koko Taylor, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin’ Wolf, Albert King, BB King, Freddie King, and on and on and praise gawd on and on. Every week night at 9pm Bob would further my education for a half hour and on Saturday nights for a whole magnificent hour and a half. Nothing, not even god almighty and his chorus of angels, ever touched me like this “race” music born of spirituals sung by slaves down in the cotton fields of Dixie. Even to this day I get goosebumps listening to the haunting primitive sounds of Robert Johnson. Koko Taylor can rev me up like no other and Muddy Waters will titillate my soul till the day I die.

I have lived thru my share of shitty times; the last two weeks have been a rough go. But when I feel overwhelmed I put in my earphones and sail away to a state of mind that no drug can imitate. There is a power, to me as powerful as another’s “holy spirit” that can lift me out of the ruts of this life and imbue in me the strength to go on. And if there is anything I am able to understand regarding the plight of the black man and woman in this country, well I know it was their ability to express their pain along with their pleasure thru the music that they were compelled to create to ease their troubled minds, bodies and souls. Long live Blues Power.