If you're heading north the last week of March, be sure to visit San Felipe for Baja's Biggest Blues Festival, the "Blues and Arts Fiesta". There are
10 world class blues bands, more than 40 artists, food, libation and much, much more.
1. Most Blues begin, "Woke up this morning."
2. "I got a good woman" is a bad way to begin the Blues, 'less you stick
something nasty in the next line, like "I got a good woman, with the meanest
face in town."
3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then
find something that rhymes ... sort of: "Got a good woman - with the meanest
face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher - and she weigh 500 pound."
4. The Blues are not about choice. You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in ditch;
ain't no way out.
5. Blues cars: Chevys and Cadillacs and broken-down trucks. Blues don't
travel in Volvos, BMWs, or Sport Utility Vehicles. Most Blues transportation
is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet aircraft an' state-sponsored
motor pools ain't even in the running. Walkin' plays a major part in the
blues lifestyle. So does fixin' to die.
6. Teenagers can't sing the Blues. They ain't fixin' to die yet. Adults sing
the Blues. In Blues, " adulthood" means being old enough to get the electric
chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.
7. Blues can take place in New York City but not in Hawaii or any place in
Canada. Hard times in St. Paul or Tucson is just depression. Chicago, St
Louis, and Kansas City still the best places to have the Blues. You cannot
have the blues in any place that don't get rain.
8. A man with male pattern baldness ain't the blues. A woman with male
pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg cuz you skiing is not the blues.
Breaking your leg cuz an alligator be chomping on it is.
9. You can't have no Blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is
wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.
10. Good places for the Blues:
a. highway
b. jailhouse
c. empty bed
d. bottom of a whiskey glass
Bad places:
a. Ashrams
b. gallery openings
c. Ivy League institutions
d. golf courses
11. No one will believe it's the Blues if you wear a suit, 'less you happen
to be an old ethnic person, and you slept in it.
12. Do you have the right to sing the Blues? Yes, if:
a you're older than dirt
b. you're blind
c. you shot a man in Memphis
d. you can't be satisfied
No, if:
a. you have all your teeth
b. you were once blind but now can see
c. the man in Memphis lived.
d. you have a retirement plan or trust fund.
13. Blues is not a matter of color. It's a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods
cannot sing the blues. Gary Coleman could. Ugly white people also got a leg
up on the blues.
14. If you ask for water and Baby give you gasoline, it's the Blues. Other
acceptable Blues beverages are:
a. wine
b. whiskey or bourbon
c. muddy water
d. black coffee
The following are NOT Blues beverages:
a. mixed drinks
b. kosher wine
c. Snapple
d. sparkling water
15. If it occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's a Blues death.
Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die. So is
the electric chair, substance abuse, and dying lonely on a broken down cot.
You can't have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or getting
liposuction.
16. Some Blues names for women:
a. Sadie
b. Big Mama
c. Bessie
d. Fat River Dumpling
17. Some Blues names for men:
a. Joe
b. Willie
c. Little Willie
d. Big Willie
18. Persons with names like Sierra, Sequoia, Auburn, and Rainbow can't sing
the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.
19. Make your own Blues name (starter kit):
a. name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.)
b. first name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi, etc.)
c last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.)
For example, Blind Lime Jefferson, or Cripple Kiwi Fillmore, etc. (Well,
maybe not "Kiwi.")
20. I don't care how tragic your life: you own a computer, you cannot sing
the blues. You best destroy it. Fire, a spilled bottle of Mad Dog, or get
out a shotgun. Maybe your big woman just done sat on it. I don't care.
Thanks Manzana
Loretana - 3-4-2010 at 08:42 PM
That is one of the funniest things I've read in a long time.
The Blues
Dave - 3-4-2010 at 08:54 PM
Music played by and for white people that black people don't listen to anymore.
The checkers of a musical chess world. Don Alley - 3-4-2010 at 09:19 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by CasaManzana
19. Make your own Blues name....
Blind Limon Don
BornFisher - 3-4-2010 at 10:27 PM
So if you`ve never been to a blues festival, go sometime. It`s not about Robert Johnson blues, it`s about rocking, dancing, moving and joy. This isn`t
boring music, this gets into your feet, your knees, your hips, your toes and even old folks will find themselves out there, dancing until the music
ends. These guys don`t play to make you feel sad, they play to make you feel love and joy and they are great.
Just my 2 cents, if you have a chance, go!
Oh and CasaManzana, feel free to post something original!
Originally posted by Dave
Music played by and for white people that black people don't listen to anymore.
The checkers of a musical chess world.
Having seen live the Beatles, Hendrix, Bernstein, Albert King, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Charlie Mingus, Townes Van Zandt.......I'd hesitate to call
any of them "checkers"...Checkers is a Nixon speech.....Great music is great music. If ya love Baja and love the blues, why NOT head down to San
Felipe!!!!???Dave - 3-5-2010 at 03:19 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by redhilltown
Having seen live the Beatles, Hendrix, Bernstein, Albert King, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Charlie Mingus, Townes Van Zandt.......
Without commenting on your musical tastes, there's one artist above that has a strong Baja connection.
Care to take a guess?capt. mike - 3-5-2010 at 07:33 AM
Jay McShann. one of the best KC bluesmen ever.
still playing at 93.
Sorry Mike,
Dave - 3-5-2010 at 10:59 AM
Jay died in 2006.capt. mike - 3-5-2010 at 04:23 PM
oh man.... i am not current, thx Dave!
i missed his last performance in phx which was about '05 so i believe he toured till the end.
what a guy. he used to play in my home town Hilton hotel in the 60s, came down by bus from KC. i was cooking there then during high school, saw him
and his crew all the time.
when the bar closed at 1:00 they all went up the their rooms and you could smell the weed.....Dave - 3-5-2010 at 06:51 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by capt. mike
he used to play in my home town Hilton hotel in the 60s, came down by bus from KC.
Where was that, Mike?The Sculpin - 3-5-2010 at 09:40 PM
Townes wrote Pancho & Lefty - is that the connection you're referring to? That guy was a wonderful, beautiful, tortured soul. Lucinda Williams
wrote Drunken Angel as a tribute to him. If you're going down that branch of the blues (and I'm not sure I would really say van Zandt is a blues
player), you go right by Graham Parsons - another tortured soul who lost his life trying to keep up with Keef! I love all the blues - from Peety
Wheatstraw; Son House; Guitar Slim; Buddy Guy and Stevie Ray, but IMHO the best kick a$$ rock & roll blues comes from the south - Allman Brothers;
Lynyrd Skynrd; Derek Trucks, and Warren Haynes. Those guys took it in another direction! Separate topic, but anyone ever been to the musical festival
in Los Almos on the mainland? It's in January and I hear its fantastic!redhilltown - 3-6-2010 at 02:17 AM
No idea on the Baja connection here! ( and yeah, I have strange musical tastes) but another good Townes tribute song is "Fort Worth Blues" by Steve
Earle....and I can certainly imagine him boppin around Baja as per the Earle song: "you always said the highway was your home/but we both know that
ain't true/it's just the only place a man can go/when he don't know, where he's traveling to".
So what's da connection? Did the Beatles play at the Mision San Borja British Invasion Festival??? Dave - 3-6-2010 at 10:10 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by redhilltown
So what's da connection?
Charles Mingus spent the last year or so of his life in TJ. Died there.redhilltown - 3-6-2010 at 12:04 PM
Thanks and quite interesting...I wonder the who/what/when/wheres of how he ended up in TJ...maybe a clinic? He wasn't getting around so great when I
saw him at the Lighthouse in Hermosa.Dave - 3-6-2010 at 12:42 PM
Quote:
Originally posted by redhilltown
Thanks and quite interesting...I wonder the who/what/when/wheres of how he ended up in TJ...maybe a clinic? He wasn't getting around so great when I
saw him at the Lighthouse in Hermosa.
He came down for some 'alternative treatment' that Baja snake oil salesmen are famous for.
His son, who is a poet was living in TJ recently. May still be there.
