Corey Harris~6.11.04

I had to think a couple seconds and after careful consideration, I agreed to be in attendance. I haven't written a goddammed thing in months and figured mebbe this sorta encounter would break the block. Looks like it might've worked too, as I'm sitting here at the keyboard, tapping on the letters once again.

Friday nite comes around and I'd brought the digi-cam home from work, got cleaned up somewhat and figgered I ought to have something to make a few notes on but came up empty for any notepads except for a couple envelopes so I grabbed them and out the door I went, headed for "J" Street.

Bamboo Room was damned near packed with people. I got there about five minutes before Russell announced Corey, who was going solo tonite. Just him, a chair, a dredbag on his head and his guitar. He started off with something like "Bad Luck and Trouble" (there may be another title for it, but that was the main theme anyhow) and then fell seamlessly into the old standard "Two Trains Runnin" and Charlie Patton's "High Water Everywhere", consciously or sub-consciously, I don't know for sure, taking his listeners onto higher ground, to the Hill Country of Mississippi. His left knee gets to pumping out the beat like it was a rocker arm sliding up and down on a cam. That dredbag on his head even keeps time, so the effect is pretty cool…Guitar strings groaning and moaning, snapping and popping everywhere and that voice of his…..sometimes high like a wind through pine trees…other times lowlowlow, growling deep responses to the rural Panola County breeze. Knee-leg pumping, dredbag jumpin', vocals moaning and the guitar groanin'….Corey sings and plays BLACK music and he does it good. He follows his own self, welding vocals and guitar runs into one melodious stream. It's good stuff.

He takes off into Tommy Johnson's "Big Road Blues", pulling off on that e string "ba-bumpbumpbump ba-bumpbumpbump-bah"and I'm having some fun listening to this and trying to stay outta the waitress' way with my own pumping knees stickin' out in her aisle. The girls there are working hard to keep up with demands. Shelby and Brigitte (who iz and artist of some reknown in her spare time) is flying back and forth with trays loaded with exotic Bamboo refreshments. What other blues bar can a patron order a mojito? I stick with the draft Koenig, which iz about as near to Budweiser as I've found in there. You go in that place enough and you'll have a cold one waiting at the bar for you before you even get to the barstool.

I hear him singing something about Gravel Springs and he's doing an ode to Mr. Otha Turner. (the Late Fife Master and Mentor of the Old Ways to R.L. Boyce, Sharde, Slick, Corey and the rest of us out here who have ears to hear). Two people (me and I'm pretty sure it was Russell way off to the right of me) know something about Otha's legacy and we are heard hooting and hollering approvals from our seats at the bar. Mebbe some of the rest of 'em will dig a little deeper into what and where blues comes from. I sure hope so as it is a treasure trove of pure joy.

He finishes his set with Fred MacDowell's "61 Highway" and then "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning", which is most satisfying to my ears and heart. These days I can't seem to get enough of music that has sprung from the north central region of the Holy Land Where Blues Began. It is real and true. The message is simple, "Live your life, take what comes at you and if it don't kill you, you've had a good day." Corey Harris plays and sings BLACK music. He does it real and true.