Blue
I headed to Sydney to see Christone "KINGFISH" Ingram last Wednesday night. Now I hadn't listened to much of his stuff up til then but a mate of mine wanted to go so I said right let's do it.
Point being I didn't expect anything. So out comes Kingfish. Two hours later I'm seriously doubting if I'll ever play a note of blues again. This man is beyond anything that's ever existed before.
Depth quality precise innovative guitar playing vocal excellence meaningful songs. Beyond stunned I headed back up the highway. So the age old question still stands. Can a white man play the blues? Anybody that's worth listening to on the subject says that it's a music for people and pain and loneliness and sadness or joy ecstasies love or happiness are not discriminatory. So yes I guess.
And when I've heard Japanese woman Kanako Machida play trad Irish music on the accordion I've never thought that it wasn't the very best music possible.
I went to New Orleans once on a kind of a pilgrimage from there up through Mississippi to Memphis. Just a homage and trying to go deeper. Connect. I had always turned to blues to express how I felt growing up. My own Irish trad music seemed too attached to Catholicism and puritanical living to channel my emotions.
Anyway, first day in New Orleans and I'm looking for a place to busk and I find some markets and I set up between the stalls to play. The local stall owners were all black and I was absolutely bricking it. Can I play blues here? Am I allowed? Is it disrespectful? Will they ask me to fuck off very far away please and take my Disney white bullshit blues with me?
I plug in. Tune up. Take a breath and start playing. Half way through the song I open my eyes and the first thing I see is the feet of a formidable looking African American lady and one of those feet is tapping along and she's smiling. I had felt the only christening that will ever matter to me on this earth.
Tonight I'm heading for Sydney again to hear Bonnie Raitt. Another one of the finest blues players. Her special guest is to be Mavis Staples and I may never recover. I'm green but I was blue before I was green.