When I started performing and then writing music, country and hillbilly were my prime influences, blues for white people I've always thought of it. As I kept playing and writing my music became less specifically referential and began to incorporate prose writing into song form. Songs became lyrically dense and irregular in structure. Unblues-like.
I have always been in awe of the power the writing in blues and country music achieves quite economically. The ability to express deep human emotions and experiences in a few words, a simple phrase, can ultimately be the most moving and evocative. In 2011, after a period of these dense , irregular songs - like Bouncy Castles which you can find elsewhere on this blog - I became interested in re-examining blues forms.
After a bleakly alienating Halloween party I attended in Chinatown where I had sunk to new depths of drunken dysfunction and suffered the physical and psychic toll, I wrote New Blues #1 - Whiskey Blues, which I recorded with The Euphorians
There are now eight songs in this body of work, some of which will feature on the album I hope to release this spring or early summer titled New Blues.
I believe all the songs in the New Blues series homage the blues in musical form and spirit. From a lyrical standpoint, my propensity for surreal commentary re-asserts itself in some of the compositions. The song featured on this blog is a talking blues, with a nod to hip hop - but didn't hip hop nod at the blues first? The song references the traditional tale of the drifter who encounters an authority figure, as in the Jimmy Rogers' song Waitin' for the Train.
New Blues #5 - Walkin' Talkin' Blues
Well I woke up in the morning and I drank three bottles of wine
started out walking on those telephone lines
Over emerald driving ranges department stores on fire
celebrities politicians hustlers hipsters hookers liars
tracks and shacks and strip malls
baseball diamonds
smoking factories burning black trees a river running brown
just kept walking on those telephone lines right outta skeleton town
I left my head in a laundromat at the edge of town
fuckin thing was a fucking idiot always acting like a clown
left my heart in a box at the side of the road
fuckin think was disobedient wouldn't do what he was told
had to leave my liver in a jar by the river
I'd told him more than once never yell give 'er
beside the cellphone island at the shopping mall
where the queens of high school gather to make important calls
the young bucks primp and preen discuss the gravity of their balls
I had seen the field of green where broken hearts all lie
I had spent one night in the room where losers sit and cry
I'd been walkin above the road that is paved with the hair and bones
of old lovers and old friends a road I thought would never end
I walked one thousand miles decided I should stop
that's when I was accosted by a big ole cop
he said Son I'm gonna arrest you for walkin in the air
I said Officer that ain't fair I was not walkin in the air I was walkin on them telephone lines
he said boy I don't like your attitude you smell like cherry wine
I'm gonna pound your ass so fuckin hard you'll be shittin out your mouth
you're gonna wish that whore your mother never let you out
Now I was not enamoured by this turn of luck
being corn-holed by a good ole boy would suck
I was quivering in my space boots
I was leaking from my meat flute
I was spraying in my diaper
I was praying for a sniper
to make a deadly intervention
just one bullet of prevention
but there was not need to fear
there was an answer to my prayers
You see suddenly from the sky that big ole cop was hit
he exploded like a jam jar his torso totally split
he'd been struck down from the heavens by a deadly drone
launched by King Obama upon his ebony throne
I headed back to town I had to share the news
I got the walkin on the telephone line walkin talkin blues
I headed back to town I had to share the news
I got the walkin on the telephone line walkin talkin blues
I headed back to town I had to share the news
I got the walkin on the telephone line walkin talkin blues
I headed back to town I had to share the news
I got the walkin on the telephone line walkin talkin blues
________________________________________________________
New Blues #1 - Whiskey Blues
I drank so much whiskey I could not walk or speak
I drank so much whiskey I could neither walk or speak
When I woke up in the morning I said
'this is not the path I seek'
I stepped outside my door sun said 'I'm too low to shine'
Stepped outside my door sun said 'I'm too low to shine'
What's a man to do
'bout the storm clouds gathered 'round his mind
When the sun climbed up he was shining angry and bright
When the sun climbed up he was shining angry and bright
My head was on fire
and I was blinded by the light
The night fell black like a great weight from the sky
The night fell black like a great weight from the sky
I felt so all alone
but I was too empty cry
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This is representative of the kind of sound when I saw Muddy.... Nineteen Years Old........take 5 minutes outta your life, put your fucking phone down, roll one up or grab your lover, and check out the slo-o-o-o-ow blues
Hang on to your lover, grab a drink.....Willie Dixon, I Can't Quit You Baby
John Lee Hooker. Live, raw, Hobo Blues.
Okay, I saw Albert King, but I'm generally not a big fan of the 10 minute guitar solo style blues. I understand Albert was a big influence on Stevie Ray Vaughan. But here's a nice little economical number with some tasty guitar work. Fact is, when they fade it out - I want more!
This song may be more associated with Etta James, but my first experience of it was with Koko Taylor. Somewhere I have an autographed pic of her I got at the King Eddy.....with the names of bars I should visit in Chicago written in black felt pen.
Albert Collins was a gifted guitar player with an absolutely unique style, attack, and sound. His nickname was The Iceman. John Zorn composed a thirteen minute piece for him called Two Lane Highway. I had the good fortune of seeing him in a great room in Chicago....with Koko Taylor opening! Sheeeee-yit. These are for all you guitar nerds out there. His signature tune...The Iceman
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