The long essays in the music editions were lessons in quality journalism. How to take your time, set a scene, evoke a place, draw a character, tell a fine story. And the CDs took me to places I’ll never see.
Although he was from Sydney he wasn’t from my part of town. He was wealthy, connected, lived in a suburb where people had tennis courts, and he wore fashionable corduroy, high-waisted flares.
Blues touches the heart and soul. People come along to the Sleepy Hollow Blues Club to be themselves, to be with others who have a similar love of the blues, some who may have lived the blues.
For a long time, I wanted to buy a particular set of classic jazz recordings, Louis Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Sevens, which he recorded with various ensembles from 1925-1929.
The Mighty Reapers did a wonderful version with Continental Robert Susz on vocals and harp. It was very cool.
We mourn the dead, but if they touched us in some way they never really die.
Lazy Lester sang in a compelling, rough-hewn voice and played harmonica, guitar and various percussion devices. Not blues from the delta, not the electric blues of the big cities but blues with a looser feel.
I'm up on top of the house looking at a hole in the roof. A storm is coming. I’m thinking rain, I’m thinking possums, I’m thinking Handyman, wherefore art thou?
In 2014 I applied for a one-month writing residency in Ólafsfjörður, a remote Icelandic fishing village near the Arctic Circle. To my shock, I was accepted within the week.
Mississippi Gabe Carter knows a thing or two about devotion. He’s a deeply religious man, after all. His record label is called Lord And Gabe Records. To borrow one of his album titles, he was born to preach.