In closing, in 1998, I looked forward to having the home run race to look back on with excitement and a sense of being part of history.  Now that the time has come to look back...the disappointment I feel is as strong or stronger than any joy I got from it. 

Thanks for the jip Big Mac!

Mike Miller, January 16, 2010, comments to greenfieldohio@gmail.com

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Is the Oasis of the Seas Too Big?

Oasis of the Seas, a brand new, 220,000 ton cruise ship from Royal Caribbean with the capabilities of hosting 6,219 guests is the “World’s Largest Cruise Ship”.  But is it too big?  The predominant comment I have gotten prior to sailing and after sailing, is “Oh, I think that ship would be too big”.  I’d like to use this space to give my opinion on that.

My wife Connie and I, were recently guests aboard the Oasis of the Seas on a promotional sailing from her home port of Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with about 4,000 other travel agents, Royal Caribbean dignitaries and some cast and crew filming live from ABC’s Good Morning America.

Driving up to the pier, you can tell the Oasis from the other ships in port immediately, her stacks and upper floors dominate the landscape.  Much as new Yankee Stadium in New York and Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, the Oasis of the Seas was planned in an era and economy of pretty lavish excess and she doesn’t disappoint.

The “World’s Largest Cruise Ship” begins with what I have to believe is the “World’s Largest Cruise Terminal”.  It’s purpose built for the Oasis, very well done, and, as with the Oasis, everything is very automated, very 21st century.  Large overhead video boards direct guests to the proper place, and embarkation goes very smoothly.  As with everything about the Oasis, it begins with the waiting terminal -- stick with the plan.  Stake out an area and stay with it if you don’t want to be overwhelmed.

Your stateroom is typical Royal Caribbean.  There are very few insides or ocean views.  Most have verandahs that  either traditionally face the ocean, or more contemporarily, overlook Central Park or the Boardwalk/Seaside Theater area.

The Oasis of the Seas has seven neighborhoods that makes this ship very manageable to navigate.  So much of this ship is made up of staterooms, that the public areas, large as they might be, need to be your primary focus for getting around the ship.  There is a flow into and out of them, using your knowledge of fore and aft that you’ll gain rather quickly (Seaside Theater is in the aft, the Opal Theater is in the fore).

Plenty of elevators fore and aft will handle the bulk of the ship’s guests.  At many points, there is an interactive “Compass” listing the events of the day, their place, and a map to the event from where you are.

The Promenade is not the complete length of the ship, rather the middle third.  The shops and small clubs on each side are well appointed.  It will be interesting to see when this ship is full, how the smaller clubs accommodate the more popular events.

One of the striking qualities about Central Park and most of the Boardwalk to me is that they’re in open air, but almost completely shaded because of the six or seven floors of staterooms on each side that look into the neighborhoods.  The sun only for a short time is directly on you.  Makes both of these areas very tolerable.

Some bar areas have definite unique qualities. The Tides Bar rises from the Promenade deck 5 to the 8th deck and Central Park and back down, seemingly as the tide “rises and falls”.  Dazzles overlooks the SeaSide Theater and the stern, and is very large with a couple of decks, but all seats have a terrific view.

Royal Caribbean has incorporated their standard novelty items on this ship, the rock climbing wall, two flowriders, an ice rink, the Crown and Anchor Club and more.  If you’ve cruised Royal Caribbean before, you’ll feel very comfortable with these areas.

So is it too big?  I was expecting to be overwhelmed.  I was expecting not to be able to see the whole ship in a short period of time.  Both of these comments we’ve heard from clients and local Lauderdale residents.  I will say that I was neither overwhelmed, nor did it take an inordinate amount of time to tour the whole ship and enjoy her amenities.

As I mentioned, we were with Travel Agents and Royal Caribbean execs on this sailing.   These were all people who knew and appreciated the Royal Caribbean product.  Two shirts I saw that stuck out to me was one that featured the Voyager of the Seas (entered service in 1999, 138k ton, 3,114 guests) and one that featured the Freedom of the Seas (entered service in 2006, 160k tons, 3,634 guests) Both had the same caption -- “World’s Largest Cruise Ship.”  I do think the Oasis of the Seas will retain her title longer than both of these ships, for a number of reasons -- most of them economical in nature.

The Oasis of the Seas is very manageable to navigate, provides wonderful opportunities for a cruise vacation, and underscores the thought of your ship as your destination.  I think she’ll have problems (I thought the Windjammer Cafe was too small, I worry that the Royal will be pushing their “extra charge” restaurants) that will be worked out as they arise -- everything new does.  

From a guest standpoint, she’s a terrific cruise destination.  It will be interesting to see how the coming months and years treat her.  I would recommend a cruise on her in a heartbeat.

Bob Sims, December 15, 2009, comments to greenfieldohio@gmail.com 

About the author:

Bob Sims (mailto:bob@simsfamtrav.com) is a CLIA Accredited Cruise Counselor and co-owner of Sims Family Tours & Travel (http://simsfamtrav.com), a home-based travel agency concentrating on group and individual cruise vacations. Bob is also a former band director at McClain HS in Greenfield, OH.

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Skipping Christmas by John Grisham, a review

Luther and Nora Crank just waved goodbye to their only child, Blair, as she boarded a plane.  Armed with her master’s degree and no job prospects, she joined the Peace Corps for a year and was heading to the jungles of Peru.  For any parent this is a worrisome moment.  Her departure just a few weeks before Christmas nearly sends Nora over the edge. 

Luther launches a scheme to distract Nora and ease her heartbreak.  With figures in hand, he realizes they could take a cruise and skip Christmas altogether, and save money doing so.  He books Christmas day passage through a travel agent and plans his attack on Nora’s vulnerable state.  Nora is accepting, though often shows signs of weakening.  There is pressure from neighbors to conform to the traditions, from community organizations touting their fundraisers, from retailers awaiting the Krank’s typical holiday orders, and from both Nora’s friends and Luther’s co-workers.   This leads to entertaining give-and-take as the couple attempts to avoid conflict with all parties.  

The morning of Christmas Eve Blair calls with news.  She will be arriving that evening – with a guest.  Her plan is to show him the traditions of Christmas her family shares.  Nora refused to tell her of the cruise, and chaos ensues as the couple scramble to try to pull together the traditional party, dinner, decorations and friends.  How to accomplish it may be impossible since they have alienated everyone with their bah-humbug attitude.  

Skipping Christmas is a work of fiction, is lighthearted and humorous, not the standard John Grisham fare.  It is brief, so would fit nicely into a bustling holiday season as a moment to relax.

Linda Fugate, December 11, 2009, comments to greenfieldohio@gmail.com

 

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The Death Artist 

The Death Artist by Jonathan Santlofer HarperCollins, 2002:   Kate McKinnon Rothstein is an art historian and community focused socialite, author of a bestselling art book, and former host of a popular PBS art series. Her primary charitable interest is “Let There Be a Future”, a scholarship foundation for the education of up and coming young artists and performers. Kate’s husband Richard is an attorney who garnered financial affluence in defense of questionable CEO cases. Life was not always so easy for either of them. Richard’s name became household conversation when he defended and won an unpopular civil rights case. Ten years prior, Kate was a former cop, focusing on runaways and missing children. One of the foundation’s graduates is found murdered in her New York apartment. The victim’s friend and fellow graduate, Willie, made the grisly discovery, and Kate arrives in time to summon the police. Much to the disdain of Richard and investigating officers, she is drawn into active duty when the similarity to art works is noted, a second body is found, and images of famous paintings the killer has mimicked appear in her handbag, newspaper and later, in her mail. The trail takes one into Kate’s and Richard’s past and to remote destinations. It soon becomes clear who the killer’s real target is as life – or death – reflects art and Willie’s dreams become reality. Jonathon Santlofer’s thriller is full of intrigue, but not blood and gore. There is some profanity and a few sexual references in the book. The author’s area of expertise is art, with acclaimed exhibitions held internationally. This is his first written work.

Linda Terwilliger Fugate, December 10, 2009, comments to greenfieldohio@gmail.com  

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Playing for Change...The Power of Music

As far as my wife and I are concerned there are no entertainers more enjoyable than street entertainers. Our best vacations have been those where we were able to experience a variety of good street performers and one of the best places for such is the French Quarter of New Orleans.   

I’ve been to NOLA many times and each visit is spent mostly sitting in Jackson Square watching and enjoying the street people. In 1996 my daughter Jennie and I spent a week in New Orleans and we witnessed one of the best acts ever. It consisted of a young man who played blues guitar and sang, accompanied by an elderly gentleman who appeared blind and played the mouth harp and sang vocals.  

They were absolutely fantastic and I ask if they had any tapes or CDs. Sadly the answer was no. I never forgot that experience and on each subsequent trip I walked, without success, all over the Quarter looking for them.   

About a year ago I was watching the Bill Moyer’s program on PBS and he did a bit about an organization called Playing for Change. The idea was to produce a documentary about trying to break down the walls of cultural difference by demonstrating that music is a universal language that could help unite us.  

A segment of the documentary presented a performance of the song, Stand by Me, by a group ofstreet musicians from all over the world. Each was taped individually and then edited into a synchronized music video. It was simply breathtaking.   

The piece begins with a street performer in California and shifts to Jackson Square in NOLA. And behold, there was my old blind man playing the harmonica and belting the lyrics in his solid but gravely blues voice. His name is Grandpa Elliot and he’s been performing on the city’s streets for over fifty years.  

To my amazement, the persona is fabricated. He is a gifted and somewhat classically trained musician who is not blind and has never sought a career outside of being a street entertainer in the city he loves. He is easily recognized by his floppy straw hat, full white beard, missing front teeth, red shirt and denim bib overalls. My wife commented that Elliot was a black me which I took as a compliment. I could only hope that in some way I am as talented as he.  

Recently we were watching a segment on Norman Lear and discovered he has become involved in Playing for Change. As part of the segment they showed a new video and it featured a NOLA street performance that included, among others, Grandpa Elliot. Afterwards I got on PforC’s website and discovered that in the past year they have produced a number of similar videos and most can be seen on YouTube or on their website. I enjoyed it so much I decided to purchase the combo CD and DVD which will both sooth my soul and help them a little in turn.   

If any part of what I’ve just written interest you, then you absolutely have to visit the PforC site and check out their artistic creations.

www.playingforchange.com 

P.S. The singer leading out the video of Stand by Me is Rodger Ridley, a street singer in Santa Monica, CA. I was just doing a little reading and discovered that Mr. Ridley passed away in 2005. He did leave behind a CD containing a number of his takes  on songs that will be very familiar to most adults. You can hear snippets of the CD at www.cdbaby.com/cd/rogerridley 

Larry Chapman, October 13, 2009, comments to greenfieldohio@gmail.com    

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The Blues Isn't Just Some Old Dusty Artifact

Last night I was on the phone with a technical support person in Mississippi. While waiting for my satellite system to reset I began questioning this young lady, who had a distinctly black Southern dialect, if she liked blues music. Her reply got me thinking.  

She said, “I know what it is but I don’t really listen to it. My grandparents really like it and get excited about it but I don’t pay much attention to it. We studied it in high school history and we listened to examples but that’s about all I know about blues.”   

I have spent lots of time listening to blues, watching videos of past blues performances, talking about blues, reading about blues, trying to learn how to play blues on the guitar, going to meetings, symposiums and seminars about blues history, driving to Mississippi to feel closer to the birthplace and beginnings of the blues and…! Here is a young person, very bright and delightful personality, who grew up and lives within an hours drive from Clarksdale, MS, and doesn’t know a lot about the very seed of a musical form loved and performed all over the world.    

Muddy Waters sang a song in which he claimed, “The blues had a baby and they named it rock and roll.” Well, while there is truth in that, the blues had several children. One was named rag-time, another swing, one called Dixieland, and one with a cool personality named jazz. Furthermore, there may a few other, not so legitimate, children of the blues.   

Most musical historians agree that few things have affected the development of American musical genres as much as the influences of the blues. I’ve heard it said several times that all American music evolved from the blues. But, it does go back further. The blues didn’t just suddenly appear; it too evolved and can trace its genealogy back to Africa. Along with millions of slaves, those slave ships also brought the traditions of African culture including its music and rhythms.   

I’ve witnessed B.B. King speak, with mixed feelings, about what could have, and may still, happened to the music that made him famous. The early 50s were a heyday for blues musicians. They were getting air play on radio, their records were selling, and their live performances sold out. The bulk of their audience was black but there was a growing audience of whites who were “crossing over.”   

Then along came Bill Haley, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and other white entertainers selling a “new” sound called rock n’ roll. It really wasn’t anything new and often it was mere covers of standard black blues tunes. Elvis’ first hit, That’s All Right, was written and first performed by blues man, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup while Hound Dog had been a hit by blues woman, Big Mama Thornton. Haley’s Shake Rattle and Roll had been recorded and performed earlier by Big Joe Turner.   

Didn’t matter though, the radio jocks started playing for pay (Payolla) and blacks were out and whites were in. Rock and roll was here to stay and things turned sour for the blues and all who were making their living off it.   

Ironically, though, while it was white teens that had killed the blues, it was white teens who breathed new life into it. Beginning with the folk era of the late 50s and continuing with the British coming ashore in the middle to late 60s the blues was rediscovered. While American teens were going bonkers for Fabian and Frankie Avalon, young Brits, like Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton were spending their last tuppence on American blues records and aping every guitar lick contained therein. The first thing many of the British rock groups wanted to do when they arrived in America on concert tour was to meet their blues heroes and sit in on some sessions.   

The point I want to make from all this background is, it was white musicians who brought black music to the larger white audience. The rock heroes of the 60s and 70s were playing blues and incorporating blues into their own creations. To their credit, they reintroduced their black musical heroes to their white fans and B.B., Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and scores of others found their musical careers rejuvenated.  

Today, the greater audience for the black genres of jazz and blues remains white. And unfortunately, like the young lady I spoke of from Mississippi, some of the most important contributions black culture gave America are now something taught in history class as if it were some old dusty artifact rather than something to be appreciated, enjoyed and made a part of our lives.   

Larry Chapman, October 8, 2009, comments to greenfieldohio@gmail.com   

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Autumn, a Time to Remember my Father

Remembering a really great man and a poem from October 9, 1969…  

The 60’s were quite a time.  A time of hippies, tie-dye, Woodstock, Vietnam, peace, a man on the moon, and a nation seeking its dream.  The Cincinnati Enquirer Newspaper, where my father was head of the copy desk, was abuzz with activity in those years.  Forty years ago, the daily paper was 10 cents and mostly printed in black ink.  The headlines on Thursday, October 9, 1969 were about the Cincinnati Reds ball team “Didn’t Win”…Says Bristol” and “Nixon Sticks With Choice” and a poem on the right hand side of paper with orange leaves in the background entitled simply “…Autumn.”  I have the copy of this paper framed and hanging in my office at home.  You see, my dad was the author of that poem.   

Every year about this time, I pull out this old clipping and re-read this poem.  Forty times now, maybe more.  I find a sort of comfort in my father’s words.  Dad was a simple man himself.  He was a former English teacher at Greenfield McClain HS, who started working at the paper in the summer for a little extra cash.  Dad caught the newspaper bug and when my sister and I were in High School, he went full time at the Enquirer.  He drove sixty miles one way to that job.  But dad didn’t mind so much.  Perhaps it was on one of these drives in the fall, when he pulled over to the side of the road and penned this poem.  

…Autumn 

By William Trutner Of The Enquirer News Desk

You turn onto the gravel road, round a bend and the world you know disappears in a swirl of dust. You stop, get out of the car.  The stillness is overpowering.  

You fill your lungs with the sharp, clean air and look about.  Clusters of orange – red bittersweet cling to the sagging wire fence.  Beyond the fence, heads down, a dozen white-faced cows mow their way on the grassy hillside. And atop the hill a grove of sugar maples blazes scarlet against the blue of the sky.  You lean back against the car, breathe deeply again.  Ecstasy.  You realize that Thoreau had the right idea.  Would that you had a Walden of your own.  

Here’s where it is, Autumn seems to say.  Here’s where you find peace, tranquility, freedom from care. And she’s right.  You sense a sort of earthy nirvana, a feeling of belonging, of being in tune.  

You start and turn at the sudden intrusion of a machine sound.  Below the road, a cornfield stretches as far as your eye can see, its rows tall and straight, its leaves faded yellow, rustling ripe.  The rumbling sound you heard comes from within the field.  It crescendos and a monster corn picker surges into view devouring two rows at a time, snapping off the ears, ripping loose the husks, sending the golden harvest tumbling into a wagon behind.  The farmer smiles, waves a friendly greeting and disappears back into the field.  

Autumn makes her message clear.  Work hard, she says.  But relax too. 

Appreciate beauty where you find it.  Love life.  And, when you feel the walls closing in, come ride with me.  

Dad passed away four years ago on October 5, 2005.  I shared this poem with the hundreds gathered in the church during his memorial; former students, our neighbors, several newspaper men, many friends and family all sharing memories.  Dad’s poem standing the test of time, a man remembered and loved by many, and a season he dearly loved.  As I re-read yet again this poem, I am reminded of my dad and his gentle way of viewing the world.  While much as changed since the sixties, I would like to think that dad is right.  Work hard, appreciate life.  But sometimes, you have to pull over and get out of the car. And, when you take the time and listen with your heart, you’ll be sure to find a Walden of your own.  

Written by William Everett Trutner of Leesburg, Ohio Published in the Cincinnati Enquirer Newspaper on October 9, 1969 Submitted by his daughter... 

Ann (Trutner) Anderst of Snohomish, Washington, October 7, 2009, comments to greenfieldohio@gmail.com

 

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Highway 61...The Blues Highway

Highway 61 begins in New Orleans, LA and never strays too far from the Mississippi River winding its way north to Wyoming, MN. Ask most people what they know about Highway 61 and they may tell you it had something to do with one of Bob Dylan's albums. While Dylan may have put Highway 61 into the lexicon of America the highway's history and importance predates Dylan by many decades. 

Before the Interstate System,  Highway 61 was a major north-south blood vessel serving the travel and commercial needs of millions who inhabited middle America. It is considered to be an iconic roadway because of the multitude of events and persons associated with it. 

In Louisiana some call it the Airline Highway and claim that one time Governor Huey Long ordered it built so he could get to the bars and pleasure houses of New Orleans faster. Move ahead a few decades and the highway's Sugar Bowl Court Motel witnessed Jimmy Swaggart in the arms of a prostitute. 

In the history of blues music 61 is devoutly referred to as the Blues Highway. Blues is the product of Mississippi's delta region and Highway 61 runs smack dab up the middle of the delta. It was on the large cotton plantations and the small cotton towns that blues was born, nurtured and matured. 

One of these communities was/is Clarksdale, MS and if any town deserves being called the birthplace of the blues, it is Clarksdale. Get a map of Mississippi and draw a twenty-five mile circle around Clarksdale. Then begin reading biographies of the most famous performers of early blues music and you'll quickly discover that the cream were either born, raised, lived, learned, performed, labored or were incarcerated inside that circle. In fact, the work has already been done. Many of the local shops in Clarksdale sell what is know as the Blues Map and it displays exactly what I'm describing.

Near by Clarksdale and Hwy. 61 is Tutwiler, MS and it was in this small town that W.C. Handy first observed a black field hand playing the "weirdest music" he'd ever heard. Handy, who once lived in Clarksdale brought the genre to the world's attention and became famous for his renditions of blues tunes. 

It was Highway 61 that carried Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson II, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy and countless other unknown dirt poor black musicians north to Memphis and Chicago searching for something better than wasting away on some backwater delta plantation choppin' cotton. 

Paralleling Highway 61 is Highway 49, another major north/south artery. The two roads merge in Clarksdale at a place world renowned as The Crossroads. It is claimed, inaccurately, that it was here that the great blues genius Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his amazing talents with the guitar. The notion of a crossroad where strange things occur is deeply rooted in blues mythology. 

It was also these two highways that brought B.B. King north and to becoming the world's most famous and possibly best blues man ever.

Highway 61 carried a lot of poor folks to the promised land "up north" but many never achieved the freedom and equality they hoped existed there. It was both the road of dreams come true and dreams broken. The great blues singer Bessie Smith was but one of those who's dreams ended on the road. In 1937 she was involved in a car accident and eventually bleed in a segregated Clarksdale hospital.  

Memphis, TN is another stop along the Blues Highway. Memphis was the point of destination for many blacks seeking a better life. The Beale Street area became a favorite neighborhood for blues musicians plying their trade and seeking out a living in the clubs, bars, brothels and out in the street.  

Legendary blues and soul musician Rufus Thomas once said about Beale Street, "If a white man could be black for just one Saturday night on Beale Street, he'd never want to go back to being white." 

Memphis is where Riley B. King ended up playing in talent shows and running errands for a local radio station. The job got him a job as an announcer and on-air talent and earned him the nickname Blues Boy; later shortened to B.B.

It was in Memphis in 1968 and just a couple of blocks off of Highway 61 that Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered while trying to help local sanitation workers improve the conditions of their employment. 

Map of the two great Mississippi Blues Highways, routes 49 & 61.

Today, much of what existed of the Blues Highway is beginning to disappear. In recent years cotton in the delta has given way to casinos. The original two-lane road has been paved over or paralleled with a new four-lane artery that witnesses a steady flow of gamblers from middle America headed for the slots and crap tables of Tunica and Vicksburg. 

As the economy shifted away from agriculture and as agriculture became more mechanized cities and towns, such as Clarksdale began to crumble. In recent years there have been some gallant attempts to breath new life into the burgs along Route 61 by renewing their musical heritage and birthright. 

Blues has become a major international art form and each year thousands of foreign

The Mississippi Delta, birthplace of the blues.

 visitors arrive in the delta to search out the birth of their favorite music. They visit the graves of Rice Miller and Robert Johnson, drink canned beer in one of the few remaining Juke Joints while listening to blues men such as T-Model Ford or James "Super Chikan" Johnson. 

A few even book a room at the Riverside Hotel which in a former life was the hospital where Bessie Smith passed. By the way, it has been claimed that it was in the hotel's basement that Ike Turner recorded what many consider the first rock and roll song, Rocket 88. 

 I  suppose a history about any road or highway could be written. Many have been written describing The Mother Road, Route 66 and my children gave me one about US Route 50. It was both those that carried me to California in the 60s and changed my life forever. I didn't discover 61 until many years later but in doing so, my life has been enriched.  

Larry Chapman, August 13, 2009, comments to greenfieldohio@gmail.com

 

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Notes on R.L. Burnside

A few weeks ago Larry posted a couple of videos from recently deceased bluesman R.L. Burnside.  When I mentioned that I had worked with R.L. at a small venue in Mississippi, Larry asked if I would be willing to write about my experiences.  If there’s a positive response to these recollections I’ll write a series of stories recounting some of the places I’ve been and the people I’ve worked with during my life as a theatre artist.

In 1996 I discovered Mississippi.  Sure it had been a state for a couple hundred years, but I tend not to trust maps until I’ve set foot in a place.  I was hired to work at a professional theatre in Jackson, and I stayed there until it all but closed in the economic turmoil after 9/11.  I did a bit of everything during my years at New Stage from electrics to production management and acting to directing.  I never considered Mississippi home, but it was a good place for me and I met a lot of people that are still friends.

In 2000 a local bar owner, Malcolm White, approached the theatre about hosting concerts.  Malcolm was something of a local legend having helped organize the annual Sweet Potato Queen parade and Bacchanalia as well as promoting other concerts in his bar and around the city.  He was interested in New Stage because he wanted to bring in smaller acts that would have a limited audience into a space that could feature the music.  The first concert was guitarist Richard Thompson.  The second was a dual bill of Mississippians Mose Allison and R.L. Burnside.

Because I had worked with Malcolm occasionally when I was the director of a local improv comedy group, he asked if I would run the venue for these concerts.  It wasn’t a big job, basically I’d get the space ready for the rental equipment and serve as contact for the artists and/or their managers. For the first concert I did very little.  Thompson came in late in the afternoon, played his gig very well, nearly killed a sound operator, and left with little more than polite greetings.  He wasn’t rude, but he didn’t have much need for striking up conversations with people he wouldn’t see again after a couple of hours.

The second concert was completely different.  R.L. arrived early in the afternoon, before anyone else and was accompanied by a twenty-something white kid that looked more like a frat boy fan of Hootie’s than a manager for a seventyish year old bluesman.  Even the designation of manager led to a lot of confusion.  Over the course of the afternoon R.L. must have asked me to find his manager a dozen times and each time I would dutifully find the man that had been introduced to me as R.L.’s manager.  At some point, still a few hours before the show, R.L. blew up, yelling at me that he didn’t care where his manager was, he wanted to know where his “manager” was.  You can see my confusion.  It wasn’t until the woman that was R.L.’s personal dressing room guest held up an empty bottle of Jack Daniels that I understood what he meant by manager.  It wouldn’t be the last empty bottle of Jack the woman would hold up.

R.L. was one of the most unhealthy people I’ve been around.  He was borderline obese, drank epic amounts of straight Jack Daniels, and couldn’t walk without great assistance.  His speech was nearly incoherent, but profanity always seemed to be privileged with his clearest enunciation.  His vaguely defined “woman” that stayed in his dressing room all day served as translator, rickshaw, and bartender.  R.L. had every appearance of a man trying to speed up his inevitable death.  I spent less than twenty minutes total with R.L., but that was enough for me to worry that he wouldn’t be able to perform.

Later in the afternoon Mose and his band arrived and promptly set up and went through a few songs.  Mose was roughly the same age as R.L., but a casual observer would have guessed he was at least twenty years younger.  He was quick, precise in his movements and in command of his music and his band.  Most of all, Mose was smooth.  I can’t define smooth for you, but I know it when I see it.  Mose was at the theatre for maybe an hour before he left for dinner with some friends.  Dinner was at a local diner, The Elite, that most of us Yankees would pronounce E-leet, but Jacksonians pronounced E-light.  It was one way that I always stamped myself as being, “one of them”.

Mose returned with just enough time to get ready before the show started.  He changed clothes into an outfit that looked to me like an exact copy of what he’d been wearing previously, and told tales, seemingly a mix of fact and fiction, about his day s in Mississippi as a child.  He never went into R.L.’s dressing room and R.L. never came out.  When it was time to begin I gave him some water and led him to the stage.  As he was going on he turned to me to ask how long his set was and I told him sixty minutes.

Mose’s music is a mix of Mississippi blues and New York jazz, like a great chef’s take on classic southern cooking.  Most of all the music is smart, not “I know more than you”, but, “If you listen to me I’ll tell you something unexpected.” If you haven’t heard of him, and I suspect most of you haven’t, check out the video link below and look him up on Wikipedia, you might be surprised by his influence.

Mose played without a set list and without a clock.  After a song finished He would call off the next song to his band and they would go immediately into the tune.  He talked a little, but mostly it was a steady stream of uninterrupted music.  When he walked off stage after his encore I checked the clock and he’d finished less than thirty seconds short of one hour.  While R.L.’s manager, the real one, handled the instrument changeover, Mose politely thanked everyone backstage and left.

R.L. had to be escorted onto stage and into a chair by his, “woman” and his manager.  He carried his guitar and a large cup full of straight Jack.  He mumbled something into the mic that I’m not sure anyone understood, and began his set.  For everything that Mose’s music was, R.L.’s was the opposite.  R.L. was rough, with lots of missed notes, and unrefined.  Where Mose was intellectual, R.L. was all passion.  His music was soul food.

He was also scheduled to play for an hour, but his set lasted closer to two.  After every song there was a break for him to drink another half cup or so of whiskey and when his cup was empty he’d hold it up saying, “I’m all out.  There must be a hole in my glass.”  Each time he ran dry his manager would fill him up with his “manager” and he’d say, “Well spank you very much.” As he played his alcoholic fog seemed to clear, his voice became clearer and his playing became cleaner.  At one point he even stood on his own and danced around the stage until he was corralled by his manager and forcibly reseated.  (Who wants their first manager experience to end with your star performer breaking a hip?)

R.L.’s simple, emotional songs lifted the 350 or so people in the theatre out of their seats.  The area between the first row and the stage was crowded with bodies, and I decided to leave the confines of backstage to experience the show with the rest of the crowd.  Security was practically non-existent for a small show like this and more than once people jumped on stage to dance near or on one occasion with R.L.  I don’t remember a single song he played that night, but the experience of being in that space at that moment still sticks with me.  Those of you that know me understand why the intellectual side of Mose’s music would appeal to me, but for as much as I liked Mose and his music, the visceral experience of R.L. is what I most cherish about that night.

Eventually R.L. stopped playing and returned to his dressing room.  By the time I got backstage his Cinderella moment had passed and he had turned back into the stumbling, incoherent drunk I had seen that afternoon.  I helped his manager load up the instruments and he disappeared unannounced with his “woman”.  I locked the theatre and checked in with Malcolm, who said he couldn’t afford to do anymore concerts for such a small audience.  And that was the end of my concert experiences.

 

James Phillips, September 14, 2009, comments togreenfieldohio@gmail.com  

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