Sunday May 11David James here - This is out of sequence: the wireless connection was so bad I didn't get to post it.
Today's ride:
Tony Ware gave a presentation on King and the garbage workers’ strike in Memphis, we watched coverage of that and MLK’s death on a portion of Eyes on the Prize. Other of these photographs: Cairo is the absolute tip of Illinois and an old river boat town. At the intersections of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers it was a huge "rafter's" town and "wide open." Think: Mike Fink.
My blues set in the bus, southern Illinois (seriously windy, so the bus—very large—was rocking to its own beat)
By way of explanation, Dr. Tetzlaf asked me to do a little presentation on Delta blues. She suggested--oh, that's where trouble begins--I pull the guitar from the luggage compartment—we certainly have enough room on this bus to stash it—and do a live set. I’ve become emboldened on the "bottleneck" style since the World Music Company (Chicago, April 5th) staff concert. We were all asked to do Beatles’ songs, and I pulled out the auld Airline Special from under the bed and did “Come Together” on slide.
For the uninitiated, "slide" guitar means a number of different things.
Today's ride:
Tony Ware gave a presentation on King and the garbage workers’ strike in Memphis, we watched coverage of that and MLK’s death on a portion of Eyes on the Prize. Other of these photographs: Cairo is the absolute tip of Illinois and an old river boat town. At the intersections of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers it was a huge "rafter's" town and "wide open." Think: Mike Fink.
My blues set in the bus, southern Illinois (seriously windy, so the bus—very large—was rocking to its own beat)
By way of explanation, Dr. Tetzlaf asked me to do a little presentation on Delta blues. She suggested--oh, that's where trouble begins--I pull the guitar from the luggage compartment—we certainly have enough room on this bus to stash it—and do a live set. I’ve become emboldened on the "bottleneck" style since the World Music Company (Chicago, April 5th) staff concert. We were all asked to do Beatles’ songs, and I pulled out the auld Airline Special from under the bed and did “Come Together” on slide.
For the uninitiated, "slide" guitar means a number of different things.
1. "Bottleneck" slide, where you tune the guitar to a chord, called "open" tuning, meaning when you strum the guitar without putting any fingers on you get, say, DGDGBD instead of EADGBE, the "regular" tuning for guitar. You put the bottleneck (more about that later) on your third or fourth finger, and that's pretty much all you do: slide that bottleneck up and down the guitar neck to make the music; OR,
2. [Oh, now, here I go getting long posts again!Damn! Will I ever shut up!] Some people put a smaller slide on their pinkie, and fret the guitar as usual but occasionally slide that slide to get "that" sound.
3. Hawaiian "slack key" guitar - this kind of guitar has the strings set high enough above the fingerboard so that you couldn't fret them in the ordinary manner. As a result, this sounds more like a pedal steel--the guitar sound of Country Music--than regular guitar styles. Songs like "Aloha Oe" come to mind, if you've ever heard them. They call it "slack key" because you take the guitar in the regular tuning and "slack off" the tuners down from, say, E to D.
Ask me for more if you want it. That's ENOUGH for now. This ain't about music, it's about Civil Rights!
So it was slide day for me – glass bottleneck segment:
Blues set:
1 John Hurt’s “If I Had My Way” (slide) this was made famous by Mississippi John Hurt at Newport Folk Festivals in the early 60s, and if you think Peter, Paul, and Mary’s cover of it was stirring (including the Mary Travers head shake) listen to John Hurt’s version.
2 Muddy’s ”I’m a Man” (slide) Robert Johnson was wonderful, but Muddy has always been “my man.” All of the aspects of blues sentiment, from “I ain’t got no money or no job,” “my baby done gone,” to “I’m the rooster in the barnyard,” and “she’s long and tall and weeps like a willow tree” are putty in his hands.
3 “Little Red Rooster” and some "Ice Cream Freezer” (slide) 61-year-old white guy with three stents in his heart singing “Little Red Rooster.” O.K. . . but it sure is fun.
4 Muddy’s “Mean Ole Walking Blues” (slide)
I woke up this morning (actually I never got to bed last night)5 “Ain’t Gonna Throw This Away” (standard tuning) Written by Howard “Louie Bluie” Armstrong—Google him if you want to encounter an amazing character. He had a third-grade education in east Tennessee as a Black child in the Depression, yet he could speak, read, and write maybe seven languages, play any damn instrument better than me, and court a woman in her forties with a Ph.D. at the age of 85.
Looked around for my shoes (I had to decide among three pairs; for the first time in my life I own three decent-looking pairs of shoes)
People you know by that I got them mean ole walking blues (I am ready to walk, ain’t nothing mean about this walking, I am walking in the footsteps of GIANTS.)
Kris Robinson gave a report on Cesar Chavez and the grape boycott. Chavez was inspired by MLK and Gandhi’s stands on nonviolence.
Kris's current favorite music cut:
Blackellicious’s “Make You Feel That Way.” Kris said: "Appreciate the small things we get in life – the bad times make you appreciate the good times."
I-57 south trough Cairo IL goes across the Mississippi River into Missouri, then the eastern corner of Arkansas, then we turn left and go over the Mississippi again and we’re in Memphis. So in one day we were in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee. Not bad for a delightful ride. Tony is the driver’s name. He knoweth what he doeth.
In anticipation of tonight some song words from an old W.C. Handy song:
[Later]If Beale Street could talk, if Beale Street could talk,
Married men would have to take their beds and walk,
Except one or two who never drink booze,
And the blind man on the corner singing "Beale Street Blues!"
I'd rather be there than any place I know...
- W.C. Handy/Beale Street Blues
You gotta be amazed when you look at the photographs and read about the Memphis garbage workers’ strike. The absurdity of white National Guardsmen with bayonets thrust out, armored personnel carriers line up on the other side of the line of march, all for poor Black garbage collectors, poor worn men with I Am a Man signs; it would make me laugh if it didn’t make me sick first. The meanest and most un-academic phallic comparisons leap to my mind. I will NOT express them here in print, but the photographs call to mind a RAPE SCENE.
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