Today I begin the Alternative Guitar Summit camp up at Big Indian.
So there's not much time to talk about all that happened last week at the inaugural Catskill Crossroads Blues Camp.
But I did want to share this snippet.
Here is Bobby Rush at age 93! The blues he is playing here is what you might call the real deal. It goes back to the earliest forms of the 20th century, as exemplified by people like John Lee Hooker, who learned it from folks like Willie Moore and Blind Lemon Jefferson.
Rush is an incredible storyteller and entertainer, one of the most important blues figures of our lifetime. Hilariously funny, inappropriate in his lyrics, and able to sing, and play the harmonica and the guitar with equal magnetism. He won his first Grammy at age 83. He is valued by rap artists for being a prototype of the form. He was born in 1933 and has over 400 records out.
Being around him was like stepping into another time. Rush allows us a portal into what it was like to be a poor black musician in the late 40s and early 50s in the south. And then what it was like to take off for Chicago and join Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin ’Wolf and the rest. A profound experience, which I will describe more next week.
No matter what American music you may play, there is much to learn from Bobby Rush. It's about taking something small and going very deep. Even to call the material he uses “small” seems inaccurate. Because what he's playing is at the heart of the human experience. It may not be complicated technically, but it sure is complicated emotionally. So actually…it’s huge.
Btw that’s my co-conspirator, Luther Dickinson on stage. A fabulous guitar player himself.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Rush_(musician
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