Category: Music

I just got back from a sweet night of the blues fea­tur­ing Robert Lock­wood Junior. Lock­wood is alleged­ly the only per­son to have actu­al­ly learned gui­tar from the king of delta blues, Robert John­son. The blues ensem­ble that played with him was quite good, but it was obvi­ous their style of blues was­n’t the same as Lock­wood’s. They had a Mem­phis blues vibe, more…cosmopolitan than raw. Lock­wood def­i­nite­ly proved that less is more. It almost seemed like the gui­tar was play­ing itself. If he learned from Robert John­son, I can under­stand how peo­ple thought John­son had made a deal with the dev­il to gain his skill. Unearth­ly. He made it hurt and feel good to hurt. The whole band got me into their sets, I was ‘yeah’ing and ‘whoo’ing as the spir­it prompt­ed me.

At the end the alto sax­o­phon­ist came over and chat­ted with us, then Lock­wood him­self came over. I got to shake his hand and tell him how won­der­ful the per­for­mance was and asked him about his life. He said, ‘I nev­er looked up to nobody,’ then paused and con­tin­ued, ‘but I nev­er looked down on nobody either.’

That is a damn good way to live.