We’re at the half year mark and it’s been a pretty strange year so far. The coronavirus pandemic has stopped live music in its tracks – aside from the online variety – and there haven’t been as many album releases as usual. But what we’ve had has been top notch and we’ve chosen 12 of the best.
Dion, Blues with Friends
With liner notes by Bob Dylan and a stellar cast of blues musicians – Van Morrison, Paul Simon, Patti Scialfa and Bruce Springsteen, Joe Bonamassa and Jeff Beck…the list goes on – Dion’s new album is pretty special. His energy and passion for the blues has clearly not diminished even in his 81st year. Every track is a highlight and it’s an album you’ll want to return to again and again. As Dion says, “The blues is a beautiful form of music that God gave to us.” Full review here.
Larkin Poe, Self Made Man
The Lovell sisters’ latest album takes over from 2018’s terrific Venom and Faith. If anything, the rockin’ blues on offer is even more raw and arresting. This is modern blues at its best and you gotta love the fabulous vocals of Rebecca, the glorious harmonies of the two of them and Megan’s sensational lap steel work. We loved God Moves on the Water, which you’d swear was a cover of an old blues song, but this original testifies to Larkin Poe’s authentic feeling for the blues. Exhilarating, invigorating stuff. Check out our interview with Rebecca and Megan here.
Rory Block, Prove it on Me
Acoustic blues master, Rory Block gives us another terrific album celebrating the blues artists of yesteryear. This time she’s focused on women blues artists, and exploring some of the more obscure material. This 10-song set that features Block’s intricate guitar work, and her nicely phrased and bluesy vocals. Full review here.
Sonny Landreth, Blacktop Run
It only takes you to hear a few notes before you recognize that it’s Sonny Landreth. His sixteenth album is exhilarating stuff, with slide playing that is jaw-droppingly good, deadly accurate, sometimes amazingly quick and always with that characteristic Landreth tone. This is a richly textured album from the hugely talented Landreth and his band, which is impressive the first time you hear but repays repeated listens in spades. Full review here.
Lucinda Williams, Good Souls Better Souls
Williams’ raspy, edgy growl adorns a bluesy, gnarly set of apocalyptic songs which explore a world coming apart. Full of punk-rock energy, as Jesse Malin said of it, “It’s like Muddy Waters meets the Stooges. It’s a badass record.” It’s real and it’s raw and Williams takes no prisoners – certainly not Trump who is firmly in her sights in Man Without A Soul. “Help me stay fearless,” she sings towards the end of the album, “Help me stay strong.” Her prayer’s been answered in this album.
Marcus King, El Dorado
First rate set of bluesy, soulful Americana from a man whose guitar chops and richly textured vocals are making a lot of people sit up and take notice. The band graced Eric Clapton’s Crossroads festival last year and this album is sure to enhance its reputation even more. Produced and co-written with the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, there’s a fine balance of approaches here, from powerful blues rock here in The Well to the late-night blues of Wildflowers and Wine to the 70s Southern rock of Sweet Mariona.
Robert Cray Band, That’s What I Heard
Another excellent offering of blues, R&B and soul from the ever-consistent Robert Cray and his band. A 12 track set of both originals and covers of songs you may not know, all delivered with Cray’s sweet vocals and his clean as a whistle guitar tone. There’s a nice dash of gospel as well with Burying Ground.
Eliza Neals, Black Crow Moan
Honest-to-goodness blues rock from the talented Ms Neals, choc full of attitude, sass, top-notch musicianship, and downright good fun. One of the best blues rock albums you’ll hear all year, with Eliza Neals and her group of musicians playing straight out of their hearts and souls. Read our review here.
Albert Cummings, Believe
An album to savour from blues rock guitarist and singer, Albert Cummings. Recorded in Muscle Shoals, with the legendary Jim Gaines producing, we get six originals and five covers, including the delightful cover of Van Morrison’s Crazy Love, delivered with a laid-back bluesy vocal performance backed up with some lovely gospel vocals. There’s also a terrific version of Wolf’s Red Rooster with some muscular guitar work and vocals to match.
Watermelon Slim, Traveling Man
Bill Homans’ rugged, gritty blues in a generous 18 song package of live performances from 2016 in Oklahoma. It’s just Homan and his twangy resonator on a set of originals and old blues covers, including Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. It’s raw, sittin’-on-the-porch blues, all slide guitar and rasping vocals – old school blues.
Victor Wainwright & The Train, Memphis Loud
Raucous boogie-woogie and horns-driven soulish blues from blues award winner and Grammy nominated Wainwright and his band. It’s toe-tapping stuff, never a dull moment, as Wainwright and the Train barrel down through the tracks. Wainwright is a terrific pianist and singer and the band are quite masterful.
A Special Mention to:
Bob Dylan, Rough and Rowdy Ways
I thought long and hard whether to include this in the main list. It’s not a blues album per se – songs like I Contain Multitudes and I’ve Made up My Mind to Give Myself to You are, like the rest of the album, quite brilliant, but definitely not blues songs. On the other hand Black Rider and GoodBye Jimmy Reed are for sure. And then there’s the gothic 17 minute Murder Most Foul which may not be blues in form but in lyrical content pretty much is. As is the rest of the album, really, with its apocalyptic overtones and searching questions like, “Is there light at the end of the tunnel?” In any case, it’s a majestic piece of work from the 79 year-old, something of a masterpiece.
And a couple of live albums worth mentioning, both from Irishmen, both sadly no longer with us. But both albums capture the dazzling talent of each man.
Gary Moore, Live from London
The guitar legend at the top of his game in a small club performance at London’s Islington Academy on December 2nd, 2009, with beloved Moore favourites like Still Got the Blues and Parisienne Walkways.
Rory Gallagher, Check Shirt Wizard
Previously unreleased, this blistering 20-song set is from four shows in England during an early 1977 tour across the UK in support of Rory’s then latest album Calling Card.
Prakash Slim is a country blues musician and educator based in…wait for it…Nepal. His remarkable story is straight out of the history of the blues.
He was born in 1980 during the rainy season in a field in the small village of Lamatar, just south-east of Kathmandu in Nepal. Nepal is a country of 28m people, situated between India to the south and China to the north. It has eight of the world’s highest mountains, including Everest and a very ancient culture.
Prakash’s village saw its first electric bulb in 1983 and its first automobile in 1995. Although Nepal is now one of the fastest growing economies in the world, much of the country remains very poor – around one third of the population lives on under $3.20 a day and the GDP is only around $30bn (compare that to South Korea, with a similarly sized population and a GDP of $1.6tr.)
Prakash’s father passed away at a young age, leaving his mother to provide for three children by working in a neighbour’s field. Food and clothing was scarce and the annual festival was much anticipated by Prakash, when an uncle would gift him a set of new clothes. Life was tough.
So, perhaps it’s no wonder that Prakash has gravitated towards the blues. He’s lived the blues, growing up in a rural village with significant hardships, and the road to the future paved with considerable difficulties.
After becoming an accomplished guitarist and playing in a number of bands in Nepal’s lively rock scene, Prakash has become an acoustic bluesman, with Robert Johnson and Mississippi John Hurt as his guiding lights. He’s now a recognized, internationally affiliated Artist/Performer and Educator of the Blues with the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund in Mississippi.
The recent lockdowns because of the pandemic have enabled Prakash to play in a number of international blues events, so we were delighted at Down at the Crossroads to have the opportunity to chat to him:
Gary: For someone born in rural Nepal to become a blues artist sounds like an amazing story. Tell us briefly how you first started playing the guitar and how did you get started performing.
Prakash: Well, I was raised by a loving, loyal family but we had very limited means. I went to a public school where, instead of desks and benches, we had mats made of straw. When I was young the only ambition I had was survival. Ambition, as far as I was concerned, was a privilege for rich kids.
I was interested in music from a young age. I’d play music by drumming against a water container and sing songs all day. Music drew me in. My most prized possession back then was a bicycle that my sister gave me after she landed a job. Now I wanted to learn and play the guitar but I didn’t have the money to buy one, so I sold my bicycle to buy my first guitar. I told my family that a friend had taken it for a few days! But anyway, I got the guitar and started playing.
For two years, I searched for a mentor who could teach me everything I needed to know about music theory. Finally I found a teacher, and even though he lived 10 kms away from my home, my passion for music was so great that I never missed a lesson. Come storm or rain, I always arrived ahead of time and ready to learn.
I worked hard at my music for a number of years and was able to join my mentor, the legendary C.B. Chhetri’s band and gigged in a circuit of restaurants playing mostly rock music. I kept busy playing lead and rhythm guitar and bass, and doing vocals for various bands throughout Nepal.
Gary: Given your background, growing up with very little, is there a particular resonance for you with the blues, in their original setting in the struggles of black Americans?
Prakash: There are a lot of differences between African Americans and me, but, it’s true, we faced difficulties in life like education, economic depression, and discrimination. So many of the social issues are similar.
Gary: What blues artists did you first encounter, and which ones are important to you?
Prakash: I liked to listen to Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and many other rock blues artists. For over 12 years I played in rock bands and I’ve tried to give the songs I play an urban blues feel. When I first heard B.B. King’s recordings I was eager to learn the magical intervals: sixths, ninths, major and minor thirds. I wanted to learn his bee-sting vibrato technique. Then when I heard the country blues artists like Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, Bukka White, Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Blake, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and many others, I knew this was the style that most spoke to my heart. So, now these country blues legends are the most important to me.
Gary: Has where you live been an advantage or disadvantage in pursing your art?
Prakash: Well, that’s an interesting question! My life experiences, including my hardships and struggles, are reflected in my music. I really want to express my experiences and feelings through the blues. But then, the limited access I have to instruments, equipment, sheet music and online music other than YouTube is a real disadvantage for me.
Gary: What sort of interest in blues music do you find in Nepal? Is there any resistance to it as Western music? Is it confined to Kathmandu?
Prakash: Well, we have a history in Nepal of the blues that goes back three decades, so I don’t think there’s any real resistance to the blues as western music. Some well-known blues bands are still active. People are interested in the blues but most people think that the blues start with B.B. King and Eric Clapton. Very few people know country blues, all the early stuff which is root of the modern music. Blues in Nepal, for sure, is centred in the capital and major cities and really, we have very few platforms and venues for the blues.
Gary: Are you able to make a living with your music?
Prakash: It’s very hard to survive as a musician in Nepal. It’s difficult to convince people how important music is for all ages and walks of life. For musicians of all genres, of course we have some pubs, restaurants and hotels to play. But for me, there is not much of a platform as a country bluesman.
Gary: How did you get your nickname, Prakash Slim? That’s a very cool blues name!
Prakash: Well, when I finished some serious blues research funded by the Mount Zion Memorial Fund in Mississippi, Dr. T. DeWayne Moore gave me the name. Prakash “Slim” Papa Pokharel. But when I got some international platforms, many friends suggested that I go for something shorter so we settled on Prakash Slim – “Prakash” represents Nepal and “Slim” represents the land where the blues began.
Gary: Tell us about your work in promoting blues music in schools.
Prakash: Well, blues is not only the music but also a culture. Without knowing its history, blues would be incomplete. We can empower and educate people through the blues. Knowing about the blues helps race relations and makes aware people of social issues. I’ve been teaching blues in schools here for some time now. My students know very little about black communities in the US and the problems they faced. I teach them that blues is an experience of life. I also teach them to play instruments and how to write song lyrics. I’m very happy that some of the students from grade three and four have now started playing slide as well! This year I did a blues exhibition in one of my schools. So, blues education is very important and I feel proud to be a part of it.
Gary: You recently collaborated with a friend of mine, Fabrizio Poggi in Italy. Tell us about that. [catch our recent chat with Fabrizio here]
Prakash: Well, Fabrizio Poggi is a renown Italian blues harmonica player and Grammy nominee. He and his wife Angelina and I connected as friends when I did an interview for Blues Radio International. Both of them are great human beings!
After talking for few days, Angelina said to me, “Why don’t you and Fabrizio do something together? I really would love to see you playing together. It would be a great message of hope for the world. A musician from Nepal and another from Italy? Why not? The coronavirus won’t let us leave our homes but we can travel all over the world through music.”
So, I was very excited and happy to do play with a legendary blues artist. I asked if we could do a favourite number of mine, a Robert Johnson song. I will always be grateful to Fabrizio and Angelina for this opportunity.
Gary: Prakash, tell us about your ambitions and hopes for the future.
Prakash: I really want to establish myself as an acoustic bluesman. I hope one day to play the blues with a National guitar in Mississippi. I consider that the sacred land of the blues – the blues Mecca. I want to spread blues in every corner of the world.
Gary: How has the coronavirus pandemic affected Nepal and has it affected your music making?
Prakash: We are all living in different and strange times. Nepal was not much affected by the pandemic in April and May, but we now see the number of affected people and deaths starting to go up. So, of course, yes, it has affected my music making badly. Schools and colleges are closed and all the venues are too.
Gary: Thanks, Prakash. We wish you well in your music making and every success in the future. Hopefully we’ll hear a lot more from you!
So, the President of the United States and those surrounding him didn’t know what Juneteenth is. Trump said that “a black Secret Service agent” had to tell him what the day meant. He’s now claiming, because he’s decided to move the date of his campaign rally, that he “made Juneteenth very famous…nobody had ever heard of it.” Utter nonsense, of course.
An incredible show of racial ignorance and insensitivity at the very top of white America, which speaks volumes about the systematic racism that exists.
But on this year’s Juneteenth, more Americans than ever before will be celebrating the day which marks the end of slavery, with many major companies adding it as a paid holiday. Juneteenth celebrates the 19th June, 1865, when Union soldiers read the announcement in Galveston, Texas, that all enslaved African-Americans were free, two months after the South had surrendered in the Civil War, and more than two years after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
It’s widely thought of as African-Americans’ Independence Day and has traditionally been celebrated with barbeques, parades and parties. The struggle for equality, of course, is clearly not over for African-Americans, as demonstrated by recent and on-going events and the racist-fuelled resistance to change at the very top. But perhaps the marking of Juneteenth by more than the black community is some grounds for hope.
Down at the Crossroads celebrates Juneteenth with two songs. The first is Juneteenth Jamboree, first recorded by Gladys Bentley, a Harlem singer, well known in the 1920s and 30s.
There’s no shirking, no-one’s working
Everybody’s stopped
Gums are chompin’, corks are poppin’
Doing the Texas hop
The second song, Uncivil War, has just been released by Shemekia Copeland. It was written by Will Kimbrough and John Hahn, who said in a recent Forbes interview “I didn’t want to write something that added to the divisiveness. I wanted to say ‘come on guys, we’re better than this, we’ve gotta stop fighting.’”
Copeland’s new album isn’t due to be released until August but she wanted to put this song out sooner because of what’s been happening in the United States.
Copeland says she does feel anger at what faces her community, but that she doesn’t “misdirect my anger…that’s why you don’t see me being just angry; I’m more interested in systemic racism. I’m more interested in our system being infiltrated with supremacists like the Senate and Congress and the police force. Those are the types of things that I think about: the system and figuring out how to change it in some way. And those are the things that I get angry about – I’m just not walking through my daily life being p*****d off at people; because I don’t have that kind of hate or anger in my art.”
Here’s her Uncivil War, which is both challenging and hopeful. Happy Juneteenth!
“A rare talent of such sheer genius” Blues in Britain
Not so long ago, Dom Martin was busking in the streets of Belfast. Now he’s just won the Acoustic Act of the Year award at the UK Blues Awards, on the back of a well-acclaimed new album, Spain to Italy, a Radio 2 Blues Show session with Cerys Matthews, and a sell-out UK Tour along with appearances at major Irish/UK Festivals.
Dom is a skillful player of intricate blues-infused finger-picked guitar and is a fine singer in who invites comparisons with Rory Gallagher and John Martyn. Spain to Italy is a top notch album, delivered with passion and considerable musical aplomb by Dom and his band. It consists of mostly original numbers and a couple of blues covers and is a combination of finger-picked blues, blues-rock and just beautiful songs.
He’s an acoustic blues artist whose star is clearly in the ascendancy and Down at the Crossroads was delighted to have the opportunity to chat to Dom, who’s been sheltering in his home these past few weeks during the coronavirus lockdown.
Gary Dom, you’ve just won that Acoustic Blues Act of the Year in the UK Blues Awards. Presumably you’re quite pleased about that.
Dom Well it’s a little bit of recognition. Just even to be nominated – there were three categories I was nominated in, and that to me was above and beyond. I couldn’t believe it. But it gives me great confidence that I’m heading in the right direction with my music. Like, there’s progress being made. To me, that means a lot.
Gary And you’d won a European Blues Award last year as well. Best Acoustic Solo Act?
Dom Yeah. That was a complete shock. Last August I was on tour and was pretty busy when I heard that I’d won something. So when I saw what it was for, I was like, wow, that’s amazing. How did that even happen?
Gary When you think about those awards, those categories. how would you categorize yourself and your music? Acoustic blues might describe it, but then when I’m listening to your album, there’s more than just blues there and there’s more than just acoustic as well.
Dom Yeah, it’s a really difficult question, actually. It’s hard to put a finger on it, but I would say, alternative blues, maybe alternative folk blues. But I really haven’t given it much thought, to be honest. Things just come to me in music, with the strings and the guitar. I just kind of sit down and figure out little bits and pieces and make songs out of them. But I wouldn’t call myself necessarily blues one hundred percent of the time.
I’ve obviously been heavily influenced by the blues. But I love Bob Dylan and all those folk types. John Martin, of course, and Neil Young. But they’ve all dabbled in the blues themselves. So, it’s hard to describe what my music is.
Gary But clearly, blues is a big part of what do you do. The blues have been drawing people in for the last hundred years or more. What is it about the blues that still draws people in, still draws you in?
Dom Well, I think it’s just the feeling I get from either listening to it or playing. The struggle you hear in other people’s songs. I can identify with that. And maybe that sounds strange, because I’m a fairly positive person. I don’t tend to write songs that are depressing or sad. I just like the vibe of it. I like writing songs in in a blues kind of way, but basically I’m a happy person.
Pop music – like Ed Sheeran and stuff like that – it’s kind of happy go lucky. You can dive in and out of it and it’s easy. But the blues, it can be difficult to listen to sometimes, but strangely, I get more a better feeling from listening to blues than I do from listening to happy songs.
Gary That’s the nature of the blues, isn’t it? There are two sides of it. There’s the singing about the difficulty and the hard times. But then it’s almost like the singer sings himself out of it. You know that old blues standard, Trouble in Mind. The singer is really depressed but then manages to say, “sun’s gonna shine in my back yard some day.”
Dom Definitely. But when I say to some people that I play the blues, they kind of shrug – “Oh, you don’t play that, do you? That’s so depressing and sad.”
Gary Now you’ve a couple of nice covers on the album, Leadbelly and Blind Blake, and when I was listening to you on the Green Room show at the weekend, there was a song that you were doing that was a minor key blues, and I thought, there are echoes of Skip James in that one.
Dom You know, I haven’t listened to a lot of Skip James, although I do have some LPs. I’ve dipped in and out of in a lot of different artists, people like Robert Johnson and Howlin’ Wolf, but Skip James is one that I’ve yet to actually just sit down and really just get a couple of hours and really listen to the music.
But maybe on some kind of subconscious level, all that listening to music in the background does shape what I play and what I come up with. But I do try and be as original as I possibly can, because I don’t like plagiarism or anything like that. If I play somebody else’s song, I always say, this is a Robert Johnson song, or whatever, and make sure people are aware of who wrote it.
Gary Most of the songs on the album, though, are originals. So tell us a bit about writing songs and how long you’ve been doing that.
Dom Well, I started writing very young, but I don’t think it was very good! That said, I sold my first song when I was 13. I sold it to my dad for £13.50! And I’ve still got the contract somewhere! He bought the rights to the song. It was just something he drew up for a laugh.
Gary So you’ve been writing songs for quite a long time. What is the process like, does it come easily to you? Do you knock ’em out or do you have to refine them or what?
Dom That’s a difficult question to answer. I mean, you can’t really just say, OK, today I’m going to write a song. It doesn’t work like that for me. Take Easy Way Out for instance. I wrote it in five minutes when I woke up one morning and I didn’t have to change any of the words or the way it was sung. I wrote all the lyrics in five minutes – done!
And then I didn’t write anything for three or four months after that. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t think of anything, I wasn’t inspired by anything at all. So, it’s kind of like that, it comes and goes, and it’s strange and I don’t understand it and I have no knowledge about it. But one thing I try to avoid with songwriting is making everything rhyme! Sometimes I do it, but I’m very conflicted about it. But sometimes you just have to finish a song!
I’m incredibly hard on myself with songwriting. It typically takes me a very long time. The songs on the album weren’t written for an album. There was no deadline. It was just that I had written a handful of these songs and one day I decided to go to the studio and try and record them. And it was just really inexperienced, rushed, you know? Let’s just record something and see what happens.
Gary You must be pretty pleased with the reception the albums had. A lot of people have made fantastic comments about it.
Dom Yeah, honestly, I’m in shock. I’m in complete and utter shock about what’s been going on over the past two or three years. But I’m really critical of myself. I haven’t actually listened to the album back to front. I think once when it was finished, I listened to the individual songs, but not in any particular order. I’m happy with it, but I’ve moved on from it.
Gary Dom, give us a brief synopsis of your career. Things have obviously taken off over the last couple of years.
Dom So I used to live in Antrim in the north of Ireland. And I knew I could play guitar. I knew I could do gigs and play for four or five hours a night, So that’s what I did and that was all well and good. I met my wife there and we decided after a few years that we’d move to Belfast and I’d try to get some more gigs. So, we moved to the city but after going around to all the bars and festivals in Belfast, I got maybe one more gig. That was it – nobody would give me the time of day, I hadn’t two pennies to rub together – I still don’t! But for years it went on like that. I ended up busking in the city centre for a few quid to get something for the electric and gas.
Then out of the blue, Blast 106, one of the radio stations in Belfast, called. My drummer friend knew the guy who did the show, Big Chris. So we went down and played one of the songs which is now on the album, The Rain Came, and they recorded it. Before we played, it was all dance music, you know, rave music. And all of a sudden, we come on with our little folky blues and it’s just so bizarre.
What then happened was a guy called Ray Alexander heard this and we got a gig at an open mike night in Holywood Golf Club. So my drummer and I went, and we sat with other musicians having a talk and a couple of drinks, and we were due to be on last. But nobody was left when we got up to play – it’s late on a Monday night and everyone’s gone home! But we gave it our all, we don’t care, we’re gonna play some music!
Anyway, Ray recorded some of the stuff we did that night and he phoned Fenton Parsons, who is now my manager, and said, you got to check these guys out. Dom Martin can’t get any gigs. Could you help? So Fenton went and found a video of our performance of The Rain Came from the radio show and he loved it and wanted to meet me and see what he could do for me. The guy’s an absolute legend. He helped me when nobody else would, so I owe him an awful lot. I’m very loyal to that man.
Gary So you’ve been getting a steady amount of gigs over the last year or so?
Dom Yeah. This past year, two years, I’ve been pretty much flat out. And I love it. I play every gig like it’s my last, give it my all.
Gary But I guess things have come to a bit of a standstill at the moment?
Dom Yes, but it’s all just gone online. I’m doing something about once a week and there are little festivals, online gigs and stuff. But apart from that, I’ve just been writing songs and trying to come up with some fresh material. So, whenever this is all over I’ve got something new to play.
Gary Very good. Now, tell me about the guitar work on the album – there’s quite a bit of electric guitar going on there. Is that all you?
Dom Yeah, it is. All the guitar on the album is me, apart from a little tiny bit on Luka I think. That was Richard Brown, who is very, very good. He did a bit on that and maybe one of the other songs, but everything else is me. I got my first electric guitar just four years ago, so I haven’t been playing electric guitar that long. But I don’t find it much different than acoustic. I play them both exactly the same. It doesn’t make a difference to me. It’s just a bit smaller and there’s no hole in the middle of it! And that’s about it.
Gary How did you get started playing the guitar and did you start young?
Dom Oh yeah. When I was born, my father picked me up and he held me over a guitar. And I was just kicking it and scratching it and hitting it, and it’s just been a whole lifelong thing. It’s all I’ve done my entire life.
Gary Is there music in your family then?
Dom My dad played. In fact, he was the best guitar player I’ve ever seen. He was great. He didn’t just play – he was like another thing altogether. It’s hard to explain. He just had this certain charisma about him. The way he played was so articulate and just, you know, perfect. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s impossible to replicate. He was just a one of a kind of talent.
And my dad wrote these songs which I now have. And I’ve been trying to play them, but it’s still too difficult for me. It’s too hard because he’s passed on. And it’s just impossible for me to get into that, to play my dead father’s songs now. But I’ll get there with some of the songs. They’re just beautiful. But I can’t even touch them at the moment, you know?
Gary So sometime down the line, Dom, that could make for an interesting album.
Dom I know. Definitely, whenever I’m ready to do it. I’ve got the lyrics right now here in front of me and I’m just shaking as I look at them. But I believe in these songs, they need to be heard. Because they’re the most beautiful, beautiful things I’ve ever heard. I owe so much to my dad.
Gary Now, you’ve released a song to support the NHS. Tell us about that,
Dom I wrote a song called Mercy. And when the Corona virus hit, it was like there was no mercy for anybody. I’m not big on doing stuff technically but I felt we had to do something. But what could I do? Well, I do music, and so I thought, if I make a GoFundMe page where people can donate and then they get the song, I’ll just give all the money to the NHS. But at least it’s something, it’s better than just sitting around, even if it’s a small thing.
Gary Good for you, Dom. Brilliant. So have you just been playing your guitar and spending time with your family over the past few weeks?
Dom Yes. I’ve loved just spending time with my kids and my wife. A lot of people were joking at the start of this – you’ll be stuck at home with your family, it’s gonna be awful. But for me, it’s been the complete opposite. It’s just brilliant. It’s just been fantastic.
“I’m tired of posting social media – I got a black husband, a black son. I’m tired of them killing us. This is the civil rights movement and it’s 2020.” Fatima, from Brooklyn
Layla McCalla posted a new version of her Song for a Dark Girl, Langston Hughes’s poem set to music and said,
“When you hear of another innocent black person getting killed by the police, you never get the full picture of them. The narrative always follows along the lines of – They were black, things escalated and they were killed by well-meaning white people. You don’t see or hear about the people that they loved or who loved them.
I’ve been singing this song for years and the words were first published in 1927. It’s interesting how song meanings change and apply to different situations over time. This song breaks my heart but I have to keep singing it.”
Way Down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
Love is a naked shadow
On a gnarled and naked tree.
America is reeling from the death at the hands of the police of George Floyd. Mr Floyd’s death comes hot on the heels of the incident where Ahmaud Arbery, a black man in southeast Georgia, was pursued by three white men and killed, and the fatal shooting by the police in Kentucky of Breonna Taylor a black woman. Layla McCalla’s song traces America’s long history of racism back to the lynchings of the early 20th century. But if course it goes back much further than that.
As far as the blues is concerned, they grew up in the iniquity of the Jim Crow era in the United States and were a visceral response to the suffering and afflictions of the black community. Skip James’s Hard Time Killin’ Floor Blues captures the grim reality of the time for his community:
“Hard times is here
An’ everywhere you go,
Times are harder than ever been before.”
Leadbelly’s 1930 Jim Crow bemoaned the social situation he was in and pleaded, “Please get together, break up this old Jim Crow.” A few years later, in Bourgeois Blues, he takes issue with the idea of America being the “land of the free” and “home of the brave” – for Leadbelly, it was somewhere he was “mistreated” by the “bourgeoisie.” Shortly after that, Josh White gave us Southern Exposure, where he complains he “ain’t treated no better than a mountain goat.”
And Josh White’s Trouble in 1940 says bluntly, “Well, I always been in trouble, ‘cause I’m a black-skinned man.” All he could expect from life was “Trouble, trouble, ever since I was born.”
Clearly there has been change, but racism remains entrenched. Systemic racism is still a problem facing the black community. In a Guardian newspaper article from a while back, Gary Younge defined racism as “a system of discrimination planted by history, nourished by politics and nurtured by economics, in which some groups face endemic disadvantage” and went on to say that, “The reality of modern racism is…the institutional marginalisation of groups performed with the utmost discretion and minimum of fuss by well-mannered and often well-intentioned people working in deeply flawed systems.”
Blavity, a website geared toward black millennials argued that the fires in Minneapolis reflected “the rage of Black protesters fed up seeing the lives of our brothers and sisters robbed by racism…We are fed up because we are forced to fight a pandemic amid a pandemic…We are being disproportionately killed by systemic and overt racism at the same time — and are expected to accept these deadly conditions.”
Despite the evidence that just goes on building up, incredibly you have the national security adviser Robert O’Brien denying in an interview on CNN that systemic racism exists in the US: “No, I don’t think there’s systemic racism…there are some bad cops that are racist and there are cops that maybe don’t have the right training.” The long record of police brutality and the fact that black families need to coach their children in how to appear subservient to law enforcement in order to stay safe tells a different story.
As does the statistic that in Minneapolis more than 2,600 misconduct complaints have been filed by members of the public since 2012 but only 12 have resulted in an officer being disciplined.
A basic starting point for those of us who are white, said New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof, is “to wake from our ongoing mass delusions, to recognize that in practice black lives have not mattered as much as white lives, and that this is an affront to values that we all profess to believe in.”
It’s certainly an affront to Christian faith. The God of the Bible is one who “loves justice” and cares for the poor and oppressed. Just read the Psalms and the Hebrew prophets if you’ve any doubt about that. Here are the prophet Amos’s hard-hitting words:
“I can’t stand your religious meetings. I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making…
Do you know what I want? I want justice—oceans of it. I want fairness—rivers of it. That’s what I want. That’s all I want.”
Jesus declared those blessed who sought after justice and peace. The apostle Paul said that the kingdom of God consisted of “justice, peace and joy.” He also said that equality in Christ trumped all human divisions.
The challenge for us all, and particularly for people of faith, is to understand how black America is feeling right now. The challenge is to share in the anger about systemic racism that has gone on for far too long.
This blog is about the blues – but the blues were forged at a time of deep distress and racial oppression, and they continue to be a howl of protest about the evil of racism.
Josh White speaks the truth in Free and Equal Blues: “Every man, everywhere is the same, when he’s got his skin off…That’s the free and equal blues!”
As the coronavirus pandemic rages on, some of us are still in lockdown, some are beginning to see an easing of restrictions, but all of us can look forward to a near future significantly different to what we’re used to.
So, we’ve been choosing a few songs to reflect on, maybe to lift our spirits a bit as things progress.
This week’s song is Jessie Mae Hemphill’s – Lord, Help the Poor And Needy, first released in 1990, and then covered by Cat Power, Tom Jones and Shemekia Copeland.
Lord Help the Poor and needy
In this land
Oh Lord Help the Poor and needy
In this land.
It’s a good reminder of the suffering that the coronavirus has caused. Some of us have lost loved ones, some of us may have been ill, some of us have been hit financially.
But the people hit worst have been those living in poverty, both on our own doorsteps, but especially in the developing world.
I think of India, where my wife works, helping desperately poor children. Here millions of people make their homes in slum communities, living cheek by jowl, with families crowded into small shacks, and they have no possibility of social distancing.
Migrant labourer, his face contorted with anguish as he sits on the roadside in Delhi speaking to his wife about their sick baby boy,
And poor people who work in the homes of the wealthy now have no means of earning money – we’ve had first hand reports of people on the brink of starvation and who are much more concerned about that than catching the virus. And there are millions of migrant workers who suddenly lost their jobs because of the lockdown who have been stranded, penniless, with no shelter and no way of getting home. (Check out this Guardian story)
The same desperate picture is repeated in many other parts of the world. For many of us, sheltering during the lockdown has been, let’s face it, no real hardship. We’ve decent homes, have plenty to eat, and are spoilt for choice for entertainment. We can manage.
Yet still you hear people grumbling about their situation. Conspiracy theories are rife, and if only we could get back to the Mall, we could put our dreadfully restricted lockdown lives behind us. (Check out this disturbing piece from the Washington Post).
Compared with the real suffering out there, most of us, I guess are OK. But Jesse Mae Hemphill’s song reminds us of the solidarity we share together, rich and poor:
Lord help the human race
‘Cause we all die together
And we face the morning sun.
In the end we all face the same enemy. We’re all members of the human race, so we need to stand with each other, particularly in these difficult times.
There are plenty of ways to make a contribution. Here’s one:
Saphara Covid-19 response – Help us to help the most vulnerable.
Jimmy Carter is the oldest member of the Blind Boys of Alabama, five-time Grammy winners and Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners. He sang with the original group, including Clarence Fountain back in the 1940s when they were at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind, but was too young to go touring with them at the beginning. After singing with the Dixieland Blind Boys and the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, he eventually officially joined The Blind Boys of Alabama and has been singing with them for forty years.
From the 1980s on, The Blind Boys were able to widen their audience beyond just the black community and have enjoyed tremendous success. After their 2000 Spirit of the Century album which mixed traditional church material with songs by Tom Waits and the Rolling Stones, and which won the first of their Grammy Awards, the group has gone on to stellar success, becoming living legends in the world of gospel and roots music. In many ways, they have defined 21st century gospel.
Over the past 20 years, the Blind Boys of Alabama have worked with the likes of Ben Harper, Robert Randolph, Mavis Staples, Taj Mahal, Ruthie Foster, Bon Iver, Paul Thorn and Marc Cohn. The list goes on. Everybody, it seems, wants to perform and record with them.
Rolling Stone Magazine has called the Blind Boys of Alabama “gospel titans” and The New Yorker simply said they were “legendary.” Few would disagree.
I got the opportunity to chat to Jimmy Carter aka The Jimster for Down at the Crossroads. It was an incredible privilege to talk to a man who has gone through as much as he has, has achieved so much and is one of the most positive, cheerful people you could meet.
I asked him first of all about the Blind Boys’ 2017 album Almost Home, which was originally released by Amazon, but is now being made available to all digital music platforms for the first time in a couple of months’ time. It’s a wonderful album of mostly original songs which chronicle the lives of Clarence Fountain and Jimmy Carter. The song-writing (by the likes of the North Mississippi Allstars, Phil Cook, John Leventhal, Marc Cohn, and Ruthie Foster) is superb, the arrangements terrific and the Blind Boys’ singing characteristically wonderful. It’s an album I return to again and again.
Jimmy told me that the album is about the life he and Clarence had growing up. “Yes,” he said, “it talks about the early times of the Blind Boys. It talks about how we went to school and all that. It’s kinda like a little scene of history, you know.”
Jimmy went on to talk about Let My Mother Live, an incredibly moving and very personal song.
“Yeah, that’s a song that came straight from me. When I went to school, I was only seven years old, and I was blind. So, you can picture a seven-year old boy put in a school where he’d never been before; he knows nobody there. And I used to pray every night, oh God, let my mother live till I get through this. And he let her live until she got a hundred and three years old!
He did that for me and that’s why I love God. Everybody got their own opinion about him, but for me, I’m gonna serve him till I die.”
I asked Jimmy to tell me a bit about what he remembered about growing up as a boy in Alabama. He told me,
“When I went to school, it wasn’t a school that you’d come home every day from. We had to stay there for nine months at a time. We went to school in September and only came home in May, apart from the Christmas holidays.” It was here Jimmy first started singing in choirs.
“Yeah, I went up there and I met all the rest of the Blind Boys, and we started singing together. We had a choir, and a male chorus and we had a quartet. And the rest of it is history, my friend!”
I wondered about his visual impairment and how that has affected him and his music over the years. Jimmy was more concerned to talk about his calling to sing for the Lord.
“Well, you know,” he said, “when we started out, we didn’t sing because we wanted to be well known or famous. We weren’t thinking about that; all we wanted to do was to get out there and sing and tell the world about Jesus Christ. We weren’t thinking about no accolades or nothing like that. Because that’s what God wanted us to do.
“So, we have been blessed, we won five Grammys, we won a national Achievement Award, and God’s been good to us.”
The first song on Almost Home is the joyous Stay On the Gospel Side – “I started singing for the Lord and I ain’t finished yet.” Despite many offers to cross over and record secular songs, The Blind Boys have remained true all these years to their original calling.
“That’s right! There were a lot of them that did not stay on the gospel side. But we did. Because when we started out, we promised the Lord that we would stay on the gospel side, no matter what. And we did that. Although it gets hard sometimes, but, you know, God takes care of his own. We’re alright.”
I said to Jimmy, “Well, tell me this, when you talk about gospel music, some people think gospel music is just all about the music, but in your gospel music, it’s about the message as well, isn’t it?”
Jimmy agreed. “We have a message. Gospel is not just music, it also has a message. Somebody might say, tell me, what is gospel? When they ask me that, I say that gospel is the good news of God. That’s what gospel is.”
Jimmy Carter comes across as an incredibly positive person. My chat with him was punctuated with frequent chuckles and smiles I could hear over the phone. He told me:
“Yeah, well, you know, I’ve had my difficulties, I’ve had my setbacks, I’ve been taken advantage of at times, But it takes all of that for us to go through what we need to go through. People say, you aren’t doing anything but singing, but they just don’t know what we have to go through. We love what we do, that’s what keeps us going so much, because when you love what you do, it keeps you motivated. But it’s not easy, we have to go through a lot of difficulties.
“But by the grace of God, we’ve gone through that, and we’re still going through that, and we’re gonna stick it out until the end!”
What a fantastic attitude. I then wondered about what keeps Jimmy going, what it is about performing that has enabled him to keep on well past the time that a lot of artists might have stopped.
“I just love to go out on that stage and hear the audience respond to the Blind Boys. We go out there and say, well here we are, the Blind Boys of Alabama, and I say, I hope that we can say something or sing something that will lift you up and make you feel good. When you come to a concert of the Blind Boys, we don’t like for you to go the same way you came. We want to give you a message. When you leave us, we want you to feel differently about life.”
Despite his age and his visual impairment, Jimmy Carter frequently comes off the stage during concerts and delights audience by coming to sing right down amongst them. “Oh, I love to do that!” he said laughing.
I asked him about the Blind Boys being invited on several occasions to the White House. “Three times!” Jimmy said proudly. And what was it like singing for President Obama?
“Well, it was kinda special because he was a black president and I thought I would never see that in my lifetime. But I’ve seen it, and I’m grateful for that. We’ve sung for President Obama, for President Clinton and President Bush, and all three of them were extremely nice to us.”
The band played Free At Last at the White House on February 9, 2010.
That made me ask about his experience of the many changes in race relations in America. The Blind Boys of Alabama toured throughout the South during the Jim Crow era of the 1940s and 1950s and were a part of the soundtrack to the Civil Rights movement. And on Almost Home, they cover the North Mississippi Allstars’ Pray for Peace, which laments the changes which still need to come in the United States: “I think our grandmother would be heartbroken / To see their children’s children right back where we started.”
Jimmy said, “You know, when we started out, the South was segregated and we weren’t allowed to sing for nobody but our people. We did not know that the white people wanted the Blind Boys before we got over there. We just wasn’t allowed to give it to them. But they loved our music, and as time went on, and we got a chance to give it to them, they accepted it, they’re still accepting it, and everywhere we go we have people who come up and tell us how they have enjoyed our performances. And that’s what we like to hear!”
I just had to ask him about Amazing Grace, which the Blind Boys sign to the tune of House of the Rising Sun. I’d heard it was his favourite song.
“Yes it is. We sing that song every night. The reason why it’s my favourite song is, if it wasn’t for His amazing grace, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now.”
So how much longer does Jimmy Carter intend to keep on singing for the Lord?
“Oh, well, it won’t be too much longer, because I’m no spring chicken [laughs]. I’m gonna have to think about retiring pretty soon! But there are two or three things I wanna do before I step down!”
He then proceeded to tell me how he intended to come back to Ireland to sing for us. Sing on Jimmy Carter, we’ve loved everything the Blind Boys of Alabama have done, and we never want you to stop.
As the coronavirus pandemic rages on, we’re choosing a few songs to reflect on, maybe to lift our spirits a bit as we go through it.
This week’s song is B B King’s There Must Be A Better World Somewhere. It was on the album of the same name, B B’s twenty seventh studio album released in 1981, and for which he won a Grammy.
Like a lot of blues songs, it bemoans the way things are, the woman who’s breaking hearts, but looks hopefully toward a better future.
Some of us are merely inconvenienced by the lockdowns we’re experiencing – none of our family are sick, we’ve got enough to eat, to drink and to entertain ourselves with – and, really, so what if our movement is curtailed a bit for a while? Others of us have been sick or have lost loved ones. Some of us have lost jobs and have been hit financially. And many people around the world are quite literally starving because of the necessary lockdowns. For a lot of people, it’s been a tough time.
B B’s song reminds us of the old Persian adage: This too will pass. Hang on in there. (And if you can, reach out to someone who needs some help).
If it ain’t here, maybe in the year after
Instead of tears, I’ll learn all about laughter
Meanwhile, I’m stuck out here, Lord knows it just ain’t fair
But I know, yes, I know that there must be a better world somewhere
Fabrizio Poggi is one of Europe’s finest exponents of the blues. Fabrizio has recorded over twenty albums and has shared stages with numerous top blues artists including The Blind Boys of Alabama, Eric Bibb Sonny Landreth, Ruthie Foster and John Hammond. He’s the author of four books on the blues and was nominated for a Grammy a couple of years ago, along with Guy Davis, for their Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee tribute album. He also has a Hohner Lifetime Award, and has been twice a Blues Music Awards nominee.
Fabrizio and his wife, Angelina live in the north of Italy, just south of Milan, where they’ve been sheltering over the past couple of months as Italy as suffered under the onslaught of Coronavirus.
On the 20th February, Italy’s “patient 1,” the first case of domestic transmission of the virus was confirmed and it has gone on to kill nearly 29,000 people. Italy became the first country to enforce a nationwide lockdown in early March, but the country still suffered terribly, with hospitals overwhelmed and the virus spreading to all parts of the country.
After almost two months under lockdown, the longest so far of any European country, Italy is now set to begin slowly easing restrictions. But the economic forecast for the country is bleak, with experts predicting a crisis not seen in decades. And in Italy’s poorer south,Living in people have been running out of food and money, with the Red Cross delivering food parcels.
A few days into lockdown, we saw images of people across Italy singing and playing music from their balconies as they came together to say: “Andrà tutto bene” (Everything will be all right). But the devastation of the virus has changed that and people are saying “Everything will not be all right.”
Down at the Crossroads got the opportunity to talk to Fabrizio and Angelina in their home in north Italy to find out what’s its been like living in Italy these past couple of months, how they’ve been coping and about the music Fabrizio’s been sending out to encourage people.
Gary: How are you and Angelina and your families? You’re living just south of Milan, in the north of Italy, which has been in the thick of the coronavirus outbreak for the past few months. What has it been like for you and Angelina?
Fabrizio: We are fine for now, so far. We have survived through a lot of bad things. We try to go on.
It’s very tough, we are mostly inside all day long. We have the opportunity to communicate with people through technology, but it’s hard. Most of the people we know are sick and we lost many friends.
Angelina: It is a tough time, we lost friends, people we know. We lost a very dear, deep friend who was also our doctor. Her name was Patricia, and it was very, very sad for us. She was always helping people, she was on the front line, and she died giving her life to people. Now we are not in the worst part. But it is still sad, when you go out to the supermarket, the few times you can go, and I can’t wait to come back home.
I only have some relatives, and I’m happy for that, because my parents were very old and I can’t imagine…and Fabrizio’s mother is very old, but fortunately, she’s safe. And we are happy for that.
Fabrizio: People know nothing about the future, which is also tragic, because we can’t see a real future which is in these days why I keep on playing and trying to bring a little light to people. Everything seems very dark.
Gary: What’s the situation in Italy right now? I gather things are a little better.
Fabrizio: Well it is hard to say, because the information…sometimes it’s a real mess up. One day optimistic, one day negative. The terrible thing about this virus is that we don’t know much about it. It’s hard to trust information because you don’t know who has control. So, people are sad about this.
Gary: We saw the videos of people trying to keep their spirits up singing from balcony to balcony. That was incredible.
Fabrizio: Yes, we were all over the news a lot. But probably not so many people were actually singing from balconies! From what we saw on the TV, it seemed like everybody in Italy was on their balcony singing! But that was just the media! We are not so happy as we appear.
Gary: You’ve been posting some nice videos of you singing and playing your harmonica, which have been very touching. How important do you think music can be at a time like this?
Fabrizio: Music is always important. The story of African-American music is that it was music that was born to uplift. Spirituals, blues are two sides of the same coin. Music brings people out of the tunnel, to believe, to hope for a better future.
And I want to try to play that kind of music for the people, because of the meaning inside the songs. So, playing Precious Lord or Amazing Grace or I Want Jesus to Walk With Me, is me trying to reach other people’s souls.
Gary: Some of the songs you’ve been posting are spirituals or hymns, like Amazing Grace. Is faith important right now, Fabrizio?
Fabrizio: Yes, I think that these songs contains a real message. They say, I’ve been there before you when there was no hope, just desperation – take my hand and I will walk with you gives some hope, some light, some hope for a better life some day.
Guy Davis, Katleen Scheir from Belgium and I have just recorded a version of We Shall Overcome. And we’re trying to raise funds for Doctors Without Borders.
Angelina: We choose We Shall Overcome because it has a very important message and we connected Italy, Belgium and the United States. It says that music has no borders. We had borders before the virus and now we have more borders because we have to stay at home. But music can go everywhere, can help people everywhere, all over the world. People are maybe not in the same country, don’t speak the same language, are different – but when they sing and play, they are the same.
Gary: Wonderful. Tell us about some of the music you’ve been listening to over the past couple of months – what has helped?
Fabrizio: Every kind of music that moves me and in some way touches me was welcome these past two months. I listened to everything from blues to old spirituals, from jazz to classical. I just appreciate the music because it is a wonderful gift, a gift of beauty. But all my life I’ve not just listened to blues – my ears are always wide open!
Gary: Now, I remember we met on that wonderful pre-Grammy’s concert in the City Winery in New York City a couple of years ago. Being nominated for a Grammy in 2018 must have been an incredibly proud moment for you, Fabrizio.
Fabrizio: I remember that City Winery evening very well. The best memories! And yes, I was very proud. It was like a dream come true, something I really didn’t expect. Great memories, a lot of people I love were there, and it was a great experience I will cherish in my heart for the rest of my life.
Gary: Did you ever think when you first lifted the harmonica that the road would take you there?
Fabrizio: No, not at all. If a friend of mine had come to me in my little room in the middle of nowhere in Northern Italy and said to me, You know Fabrizio, one day you will challenge the Rolling Stones at Madison Square Gardens in New York for a Grammy, I would have said, my friend, don’t kid with me, it will never happen!
And I owe a lot to the Rolling Stones. Because I discovered the blues from the Rolling Stones, John Mayall, Eric Clapton – as many people of my generation did. At that time, in Italy you couldn’t hear Muddy Waters or John Lee Hooker. So, in a way, I won two times at the Grammys – once to be there, and for me it was a wonderful experience, and secondly, for the victory of the Rolling Stones – in some way, they were like my musical fathers. So, without the Rolling Stones, no Fabrizio at the Grammys!
Gary: You’re very generous, Fabrizio, because I think a lot of people felt that the record you and Guy made was much more of a traditional blues album and should have taken the award.
Fabrizio: I think for most of the journalists there, they felt that the Rolling Stones didn’t win the Grammy just for that album. They had never won a Grammy for an album, just one back in the 80s they had won for a video, but they had never won one for, Exile on Main Street or Let It Bleed, which were historic albums. So the Grammys owed the Rolling Stones an award. And that was the time.
Gary: Did you get to meet any of them?
Fabrizio: The night before at the City Winery in New York at the blues party, which you were at – someone said that Keith Richards is in town. So maybe he’ll show up. But he didn’t! But I had the opportunity to jam with some Rolling Stones musicians!
Gary: As we eventually come out of this terrible situation, what are you hoping for? Can the world be different?
Fabrizio: I hope it will be better. I hope we learn something from this tragedy, but I’m not sure. I’m not really optimistic. Musicians have been very much affected by this tragedy, and I don’t know what the future for music is. Aside from the big stars, what will happen to little clubs, to musicians who don’t have a lot of money? I’m afraid there may be dark times. And I hope that people around the world will understand that now is the time to support musicians. If not, they will not survive any more. Music may change for ever and we will lose something very important.
Too many people take music for granted, think that music is free, that musicians don’t need to pay bills. Now it’s time for us to grow up and understand that music is life. Musicians give us their talent their creativity.
Gary: Presumably, Fabrizio, not being able to perform has had a financial impact on you?
Fabrizio: Well, you know, the most beautiful reward a musician has is the clapping hands, and people who come up to you and tell you your playing was amazing. So this is a very big loss. Playing for people live on stage, connecting with them is something that can’t be done in the same way with technology.
Gary: Eventually we will come out of this. And what about for you and Angelina – what are you looking forward to?
Fabrizio: To go back our old life. And to start again to hug people! Because, yes you can communicate with your eyes, but a hug can communicate something that is hard to communicate with words. So, when some doctor tells me, OK, Fabrizio, go ahead and hug someone, that will be a very bright day!
Gary: Lovely to talk to you both, I hope you stay well. And we are looking forward to seeing some more nice videos from you.
We’re choosing a few songs that have particular resonance at this challenging time. This time, we’re going with Bob Dylan’s Lord Protect My Child, recorded on May 2, 1983. Dylan decided not to include it in his Infidels album, but it appeared eight years’ later on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.
Reviewer Jonathan Lethem called the song “an achingly candid blues-plea which [provides] a rare glimpse of Bob Dylan-the-parent.” It is indeed a great blues song, with Dylan in fine form and you wonder why it didn’t make the cut on Infidels.
Anyway, I got to thinking about this song because my daughter is a doctor, currently caring for Covid-19 patients in an Intensive Care Unit in a hospital in central London. She’s right in the thick of things in this pandemic, and she’s very brave. But, as a parent, you can’t help but be concerned for her, even with all her PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). You pray with Dylan:
No matter what happens to me, no matter what my destiny
Lord, oh Lord, protect my child.
It’s what every parent feels about their children – no matter what happens to you, you just want your children – no matter what age they are – to be safe and to be happy.
I pray the same for you and your families.
Here’s Dylan’s album version and then a great version by Susan Tedsechi, who really does justice to the bluesy tones of the song.
