strange things happening every day

Listening to lots of the good Sister recently, she knocks seven bells out of that geetar.

those who have served

farewell Ivor Cutler, Ali Farka Toure, and The Reverend Charlie Jackson - all in the same week.

I once went to see Ali Farka Toure at the Old Vic in Nottingham, on a double bill with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, with a girlfriend whose dad insisted she was home by 11.

I knew I was in for a disappointing evening when AFT came on stage a little after 10, giving me a mere 20 mins or so to enjoy his desert blues before having to turn tail for the suburbs.

Baby, Let Me Lay It On You

Off out tonight to see a blues slide guitar player, called Charlie Parr. Nothing too unusual about that, I have been going out to see blues slide guitar players for the last 20 years. This guy was playing at the Social in Nottingham, a venue which caters predominantly for the younger hipster crowd, more used to modern indie rock stylings, as opposed to pre-war delta blues.

So, the venue was a third full, of people younger than me nodding and bopping away to this bearded geezer doing his best to recreate the sounds of Mississippi Fred McDowell and Blind Willie McTell, amongst others. Couldn't help but feel that if this character had been booked at the Running Horse, there would have been perhaps an equivalent number of old geezers in attendance, collectively thinking 'this boy is OK, but he's no Lightnin Hopkins'. Choice of venue makes a big difference to the fashionable credibility of the performer in question. I never went to a blues gig to meet girls, but my 19 year old self might have done quite well tonight...