THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
"I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning."-J B Priestley
My friend Luther Dickinson stayed with us for a few days last week in between playing at BottleRock and Las Vegas with his band, The North Mississippi All-Stars. It is always perfect having him here…and a great excuse to eat great food, listen to fantastic music, and record some weirdness on the side…getting the kids involved some of the time with our crazy audio antics.
When Luther unloaded his tour van, he handed me the gift of a 100-ish year old Regal parlor guitar tuned to open B. He handed it to me saying, “You need a guitar that is always tuned to B (since this particular guitar cannot get to D). That is the only way to learn how to play the Hill Country Blues.” Now, I have been playing guitar every night for my kids for the past 10 years…in regular tuning…with a successful concert to my audience of two being if they are sleeping before the first song is done. But that sound…more Velvet Underground to the Delta Blues’ Eric Clapton…that magical sound of RL Boyce (and Burnside), Junior Kimbrough, Fred McDowell…that droney, beautiful Hill Country sound that is so quintessential to that one part of the world…the sound that changes the molecules in the air…slows them to a warble…hits and elevates my being like no other…that is the stuff of mystery.
For the next few days, Luther showed me the beginnings of how to play that style of blues…the hardest simplest picking and rhythm you could ask for. I have been sitting around the house every day since playing with the pattern Luther showed me…one of Otha Turner’s styles (on the rare chance he played the guitar). It is Zen-inducing: trying to hit the strings and laying down the fingers in such a meditative way as to communicate the desired sound and feel…I think I am going to spend the rest of my life blissfully trying to “get it,” to find that perfect groove…and maybe even get the rest of the family to join me in my travels. I will never play like the legends who have inspired me…but it is all about the journey.
And make sure you check out Luther, brother Cody, Cedrick Burnside and Sharde Thomas as they come together for a series of live shows to celebrate the work of Bill Ferris (which is tied to the Grammy-Wining boxset on Bill that Barb did an incredible job designing)
AND IN JUST A FEW HOURS Scott Barretta will be interviewing Bill and Sharde at 11am PST/2pm EST on zoom, open to all, for your pleasure.
Fellow BBQ traveler and Talent Moat maven Anthony Bedard sent me this update on the greatness of Lockhart Texas and the beauty if Kreuz’s and Smitty’s. There was a time that I would lead BBQ tours during SXSW hitting 5-7 places in 4-5 hours timespans, North, South, East and West of Austin, and there was not much that could beat the smoked meat found in these two family feuding beautiful smokey pits. Ahhh to go back again (I did find out that the only thing I agreed with George Bush Jr is that his favorite place…Coopers….is pretty damn great too).
Remembering 'a little star': How a 5-year-old talent show winner became a Phoenix legend
One of the things I love about doing this newsletter is coming upon articles like this one. A totally random search took me to learning about the recently deceased Maxine Jackson and how she was discovered at such a young age at a talent show and went on to perform with the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Diana Ross and Charles Brown. The article even has some embedded youtube videos so you can hear her in her prime….
David Ferguson, Friend to John Prine and Johnny Cash, is the Keeper by of Nashville Secrets
My friend Patrick Clifford turned me onto this beauty. And to be honest…the secrets revealed here are nothing earth shattering, but hearing about Ferguson’s life trip…and the music he played on…is worth the read. Hell, any article is worth a read with the opening line: “When David Ferguson turned 21, he could finally start drinking with Don Everly.”
Sherwood Anderson’s Revolutionary Small Town: How “Winesburg, Ohio” changed American literature.
This incredibly deep, researched lovingly-written article saw print a few years ago celebrating the 100th year of the publication of Anderson’s defining book. As we celebrate his 145th birthday today, I found myself rereading the article, reminding myself that it might be time to reread the actual book. Anderson has such readable pros, as exemplified in one of the stories from the book I do remember called The Untold Lie…just the way he presents himself to the reader…leading you right into his very real fictional town.
The Truth About Honey Bees: Raising nonnatives does not “save the bees”—and may harm them
My daughter Kaya supports the work of the National Wildlife Federation. Thus we get their magazine, which we read together to find out what is going on with the organization. There is always a few great pieces in every issue…and this one really hit us. Yes, it is ok to have honey bee hives…but it is not the “save the bee” action many people think it is. So very interesting (and yes…the article gives examples on how to truly help foster native bee life).
‘Caravaggio was a major-league asshole’: the long tradition of scandal in art
This seems a good follow up article to last year’s Caravaggio: The Italian Painter Was Also a Notorious Criminal and Murderer and I have to say that I almost did not post this because it seemed almost a little High School gossipy with the title…but it is a fascinating read, not just about Caravaggio but other crazed artists whose legacies in the world we are living in cannot help but get a little tarnished….
An excerpt from Enjolras’ Speech to His Fellow Revolutionaries, June 6th, 1832
By: Victor Hugo (from his novel Les Miserables <The Wretched>)
"Citizens, do you picture the future to yourselves? The streets of cities inundated with light, green branches on the thresholds, nations sisters, men just, old men blessing children, the past loving the present, thinkers entirely at liberty, believers on terms of full equality, for religion heaven, God the direct priest, human conscience become an altar, no more hatreds, the fraternity of the workshop and the school, for sole penalty and recompense fame, work for all, right for all, peace over all, no more bloodshed, no more wars, happy mothers! To conquer matter is the first step; to realize the ideal is the second. Reflect on what progress has already accomplished….Citizens, whatever happens to-day, through our defeat as well as through our victory, it is a revolution that we are about to create. As conflagrations light up a whole city, so revolutions illuminate the whole human race. And what is the revolution that we shall cause? I have just told you, the Revolution of the True. From a political point of view, there is but a single principle; the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty. Where two or three of these sovereignties are combined, the state begins. But in that association there is no abdication. Each sovereignty concedes a certain quantity of itself, for the purpose of forming the common right. This quantity is the same for all of us. This identity of concession which each makes to all, is called Equality. Common right is nothing else than the protection of all beaming on the right of each. This protection of all over each is called Fraternity. The point of intersection of all these assembled sovereignties is called society. This intersection being a junction, this point is a knot. Hence what is called the social bond. Some say social contract; which is the same thing, the word contract being etymologically formed with the idea of a bond. Let us come to an understanding about equality; for, if liberty is the summit, equality is the base. Equality, citizens, is not wholly a surface vegetation, a society of great blades of grass and tiny oaks; a proximity of jealousies which render each other null and void; legally speaking, it is all aptitudes possessed of the same opportunity; politically, it is all votes possessed of the same weight; religiously, it is all consciences possessed of the same right. Equality has an organ: gratuitous and obligatory instruction. The right to the alphabet, that is where the beginning must be made. The primary school imposed on all, the secondary school offered to all, that is the law. From an identical school, an identical society will spring. Yes, instruction! light! light! everything comes from light, and to it everything returns. Citizens, the nineteenth century is great, but the twentieth century will be happy. Then, there will be nothing more like the history of old, we shall no longer, as to-day, have to fear a conquest, an invasion, a usurpation, a rivalry of nations, arms in hand, an interruption of civilization depending on a marriage of kings, on a birth in hereditary tyrannies, a partition of peoples by a congress, a dismemberment because of the failure of a dynasty, a combat of two religions meeting face to face, like two bucks in the dark, on the bridge of the infinite; we shall no longer have to fear famine, farming out, prostitution arising from distress, misery from the failure of work and the scaffold and the sword, and battles and the ruffianism of chance in the forest of events. One might almost say: There will be no more events. We shall be happy. The human race will accomplish its law, as the terrestrial globe accomplishes its law; harmony will be re-established between the soul and the star; the soul will gravitate around the truth, as the planet around the light. Friends, the present hour in which I am addressing you, is a gloomy hour; but these are terrible purchases of the future. A revolution is a toll. Oh! the human race will be delivered, raised up, consoled! We affirm it on this barrier. Whence should proceed that cry of love, if not from the heights of sacrifice? Oh my brothers, this is the point of junction, of those who think and of those who suffer; this barricade is not made of paving-stones, nor of joists, nor of bits of iron; it is made of two heaps, a heap of ideas, and a heap of woes. Here misery meets the ideal. The day embraces the night, and says to it: `I am about to die, and thou shalt be born again with me.' From the embrace of all desolations faith leaps forth. Sufferings bring hither their agony and ideas their immortality. This agony and this immortality are about to join and constitute our death. Brothers, he who dies here dies in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a tomb all flooded with the dawn."
Enjolras paused rather than became silent; his lips continued to move silently, as though he were talking to himself, which caused them all to gaze attentively at him, in the endeavor to hear more. There was no applause; but they whispered together for a long time. Speech being a breath, the rustling of intelligences resembles the rustling of leaves.
That's so awesome that you know Luther - I've long admired him as a player and writer. And a very cool gift indeed! - he is most definitely right about open B tuning - and open tunings in general are like keys to entire musical kingdoms on the guitar. Like painting on an entirely different canvas.