Magic Slim RIP

 

Chicago blues guitarist Magic Slim died yesterday at the age of 75.

Said Bruce Iglauer, founder of Alligator Records, “Magic Slim was a true Chicago bluesman through and through. He gloried in the rough edges of the music. He never tried to make it slick.”

Like generations of Southern bluesmen who migrated to Chicago in the mid-20th century, Mr. Slim lived the hard life he sang about. As a child working the cotton fields of the rural South, he couldn’t afford a guitar, so he made one by taking baling wire from a broom, nailing it to a wall and coaxing a primordial music from it.

He tried the piano, but when he lost the pinkie finger on his right hand in a cotton-gin accident, he focused on guitar, playing gigs when he wasn’t working in the fields.

“Everything they told me was a lie”

 

It is, in the midst of the Second Great Depression and the current presidential campaign, the perfect time for this song. . .

The lyrics are here.

The great migration

 

I’m in the midst of preparations for the great return migration. So, for the next few days, blog posts will be minimal. . .

Etta James RIP

 

Etta James’s obituary

And from Henry Giroux:

Not everyone recognized her talent and President Obama made the dreadful and revealing mistake of having Beyoncé sing Etta’s signature song, “At Last,” at his inauguration. Etta later admitted she was hurt by the gesture. For me, this was not only an insult but also a sad commentary on how a hyper-consuming, talent flattening society had contributed to erasing a musical giant, or even worse, how Etta’s working-class legacy for middle-class politicians had become too dangerous to associate with.

Etta never bought the whitewash, the cleansing of history, life and memory, and it was reflected in every note she sang. No wonder she was rebuked by a president who later turned risk-free civility into a form of cowardice. She was more than a musical icon, she was a pioneer who pushed the boundaries of music and talent into the murky and complicated mix of a society struggling with racism, inequality, and justice, and she found a space in which to remind us what it could mean to be moved to listen, dance and revel in our desires. In this age of electronic noise, talentless posturing and pure spectacle, Etta James stands out as a musical giant and a reminder of what music could be when it was rooted in passion, desire and possibility rather than in the corporate playbook version that has all but killed the kind of sound she produced.

David “Honeyboy” Edwards RIP

obituary