The blues

Saw B.B. play at Ole Miss a few years back and absolutely love heading to Memphis on a Saturday night to sit in an alley and listen to some locals play. I'm always busy during King's annual free concert in Indianola, though. Gotta make that happen next year -- and I WILL be in Cleveland at Ground Zero for New Year's Eve.

Just bought a Lightnin' Hopkins CD the other day and added another Robert Johnson compilation to the mix. Gotta throw in some love for a Delta guy who plays in Oxford every now and again -- T-Model Ford. Good times.

 

Just about the best times I had in college were at the Mississippi Delta Blues Festival in Greenville. Picture kind of a Woodstock for the blues in late September.

 

Boz Scaggs and Duane Allman "Loan me a Dime." Listened to it outside by the fire tonight. Have to find the Fenton Robinson version. Tremendous song.

 

"Loan Me A Dime" is one of the Duane's finest performances (and probably the best thing Boz Scaggs - whatever happend to him anyway? - ever did.).

Fenton Robinson kicks some ass too.

 

For those who might be interested, Buddy Guy and Robert Cray are playing a few more concerts together. I believe they were in Iowa on Friday night and they have a few more before Cray starts opening for Clapton in mid-September.

Buddy Guy, meanwhile, will be doing some solo dates after that. If you've never seen Guy, it's worth it to see him at least once. He is 70, but he still has fun on stage.

 

I have the Fenton Robinson CD, and it's good, but I am partial to the late J.B. Hutto's version of "Somebody Loan Me a Dime."

 

Stray facts about that fabulous Boz Scaggs cut:
1) Jann Wenner produced the record.
2) The backing band, besides Duane, was the Muscle Shoals crew, which included Patterson Hood's Daddy.
3) The Fenton Robinson original is a letdown, if you hear this one first.
4) The original album also had a tasty cover of Jimmie (The Singing Brakeman) Rodgers' "Waitin' For A Train."

 

I saw Roy Buchanan a couple of months before he died.

It was great, but even then you could feel he was going through the motions ... you know, give the people what they want stuff.

Although his live version of "Down By The River" was amazing.

Just on a random note, the blues is one genre that's always cool. You can be into the blues at 15 or 95 and it'll still be cool. Some genres of music are dated by their time and place (rock and pop of course, but even some forms of jazz too). But the blues is always, and will be always, forever cool.

Motor heads, sluts, dickheads, stoners, jocks, dweeboids, greasers...they all adore it.

 

I'm four out of seven, and I agree!

 

Scaggs failed to give Robinson songwriting credit on the first release in 1969. Robinson filed a lawsuit and won.

 

Agree Space - one thing for sure though - its hard to look cool dancing to the blues

 

as for the blues not being good for dancing...

1. you're right ... probably one person in 10 can pull it off..

2. the people who CAN pull it off, don't give a crap, and do it extremely well.