It is what it is until it isn't
Yes indeed. Just the right way.
I was fortunate to play with a guy (white) who had made the blues circuit as a side man (so he said). I believed him. The cat could do what needed doing. And he introduced me to the music of all this cool players I'd never heard of. (I'd mostly listened to Delta stuff, Leadbelly et al) Now it was electric!
I was in a young band rehearsing in a third floor walkup on St. Paul St. in Baltimore, when this guy knocks on the door - I was on bass and had the longest cable so I answered and here was this fellow with very long hair, sunglasses and a big dumb smile on his face - he grinned at me and the band and held up his hand signifying we should keep playing. He pulled out a harp and blew our minds.
We became friends easily. He had virtually anything ever done in blues on record that one could absorb in a lifetime. I ended up playing with him as a sideman which had it's down side. He drank. And when he drank, he started fights. I always had to bail him out since he really wasn't a fighter - just a very aggressive guy.
Talbot
