A Road Well Trodden

"Little Stevie Wonder"

8th Wonder of the World (Tamla Motown)

The history of the Blues is all about conquering disadvantage. The most disadvantaged blues men and women of all were those who had a disability that reduced their capacity to earn by working in the fields and on the plantations.

The story of the disabled bluesmen was brought home to me when I went as a young medical student and went to see Sonny Terry and Brownie Maggie at LSE in London in the early 70s. Here were 2 blues legends; one crippled musician leading on his blind colleague.

There are many blind musicians in the annals of the Blues and there are probably many more who are now forgotten and unrecorded. Some were great musical geniuses while many would have played on street corners as buskers do now. There are many musicians with the prefix Blind…..  and some of the most well known blind musicians included Blind Blake, Robert Bradley, Bo Carter, Ray Charles, Art Tatum, Cortelia Clark, Reverend Gary Davis, Sleepy John Estes, Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Roosevelt Graves, W. C. Handy, Jeff Healey, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie Johnson, Bryan Lee, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Mississippi Morris, Blind Joe Reynolds, Teddy Darby, Blind Sonny Terry.

The young Stevie Wonder

This Roll of honour includes some of the most influential of all on the Blues Road. Were they musicians because they could not do anything else or was it the absence of one of our most precious senses that gave them that special genius to create music about their lives, loves and hardships. More recently, blind black musicians such as Ray Charles and Art Tatum have been able to scale the heights of 20^th century popular music and become household names.

Many of these issues passed through my mind as I stood at the Pyramid stage in Glastonbury this June to hear one of the most famous all black blind musical entertainers.

At last we were celebrating a blind musician who had made it to the very top, but whose path had been shaped and trodden by the myriad of blind musicians who preceded him. A musician who owes so much to those who passed along Highway 61 before.

Blind Lemon Jefferson

Blind Willie Mctell

Ray Charles, King of Soul

Stevie Wonder, born Stevland Hardaway Judkins  in Saginaw, Michigan(May 13, 1950) is a multitalented instrumentalist, singer song writer, record producer and Human Rights Activists. Stevie became blind soon after his birth due to retinopathy of prematurity. He moved with his mother when he was four to Detroit, where he began singing in a church choir and playing instruments, including piano, harmonica, drums and bass. He was apparently discovered by Gerald White of The Miracles and it was soon after that the artist “Little Stevie Wonder” (The 8^th Wonder of the World) signed with Motown Records and he has stayed loyal to the same label ever since. His subsequent hits include classics such as “Superstition”, “I Wish”, “I just Called to Say I Love You” and many more. One of his first singles, "I Call It Pretty Music, But the Old People Call It the Blues", acknowledged the blues influence on his early music. He has recorded more than thirty U.S. top ten hits and received twenty-two Grammy Awards, the most ever given to a male solo artist. He has won an Academy Award for Best Song and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll and the Songwriters Halls of Fame. American music magazine Rolling Stone named him the ninth greatest singer of all time

He is not so well known for his work on Human Rights and as a political activist. He has never forgotten is hard childhood and has campaigned relentlessly for the downtrodden around the world. It was his campaigning which led to the adoption on Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday as a national holiday in the USA and in 2009 he was named United Nations Messenger of Peace.

Happy Birthday Glastonbury

This was my first Glastonbury and I was ever so fortunate that it was the driest for many years. I saw many great acts but one of the most unforgettable was seeing Little Stevie Wonder who Motown once billed as the 8^th Wonder of the world, fulfilling the aspirations and dreams of all those black blind musicians who came before him!

Hugh caught by the Glastonbury Green Police

One of the other great legends to appear this year was Willie Nelson. A hard living country maestro in the mold of similar giants such as Johnny Cash. He was one of the Alternative Outlaw Country Stars of the 1970s. Time has turned this once hard drinking rebel into one of the old grandees of country music. His music was angry white Blues and his message was that of the poor and underprivileged white country folk. I was so privileged to see him along with Stevie.

The Gem of Glastonbury "No Bones Jones"

A special thanks to my hosts at Glastonbury. Gill and Hugh Jones are very special people and together with their 4 fabulous boys and all their friends operate one of the best culinary gems of the Festival. If ever you come again, don’t forget to call at “No Bones Jones” the best Vegan/Vegetarian food stall EVER! 

No Bones

P.S. Try the Fritters and Granny Jones’ Bread and Butter Pudding

Gill and Fraser

The City of New Orleans

The City of New Orleans in all its Glory. "The best train song ever"

There is nothing like being stuck on a journey to galvanise me into adding another chapter to my blog. Certain songs leave an evocative trail behind them and seem to encapsulate the experience of a journey not finished or a road still traveled. Traveling entails patience, observation, meditation, contemplation and a balance between activity and being passive. You hand over your care to an airline, a driver or as in this instance a train.

Arlo Guthrie

Arlo Guthrie’s recording of the City of New Orleans (his only chart success) says it all. Contrary to popular belief, Guthrie did not write the song. It was written by the late Steve Goodman who sketched the outline while traveling on the train with his wife in 1970. It was only on returning home and hearing that the passenger service would be discontinued that he refined the song and released it on his first album. Goodman was always grateful to Arlo Guthrie however who recorded it on his biggest hit Album, Hobo’s Lullaby in 1972. So the story goes Goodman played the song to Arlo at the Quiet Knight bar in Chicago who agreed to add it onto his latest album release.

I am due to see Arlo Guthrie in concert in August and as is often the case I began to rummage through my iTunes collection and started to listen to all things Guthrie. Alice’s Restaurant remains one of the anthems of the early 70s. I remember going the Windmill Cinema in Soho with my friend Piers Rowlandson to see this cult film which had captivated anti-Vietnam America. The distributor must have been so nervous about its success in the UK that they screened it in a tiny intimate theater more used to seeing bare breasted beauties rather than long haired American hippies.

His Father Woody

The song is one of those tunes that keeps reverberating in your consciousness but it has also great significance to the Blues Road. It was the train that brought many of the great bluesmen from the Delta into Memphis and ultimately into Chicago. More important even than Highway 61 as a conduit to work and recognition. Illinois Central was their first sight of the great city and close by, the Maxwell Street Market was their first taste of Chicago living. Songs often refer to Maxwell Street and I always believed that the coffee was named after the street (It was actualy named after the Maxwell Hotel in Tennessee) and that the “Spoonfull Blues” refered to the coffee (Sadly not, a song written by Willie Dixon after a blues number by Charlie Patton)

The song is a lyrical, romantic account of a journey and bears no mention of the significance of the journey to the blues story. Guthrie was adamant that he wanted the song to have more of a rock sound about it than Goodman’s flocky version. He recorded the album at Sun West Studios in Hollywood and it was produced by Lenny Waronker. Waronker with a glittering collection of musicians (Ry Cooder, Burritos bassist Chris Ethridge, drummer Jim Keltner and Jim Dickinson on piano) pusuaded Arlo to record it at the end of a long session. The resulting recording was so laid back that they had to tweak the speed and overdub it to get it right.

The song has subsequently been covered by Willie Nelson, John Denver, Jerry Reed, Judy Collins, Chet Atkins and many others. Kris Kistofferson referred to it as “the best train song ever!”

It’s heartening to think that Goodman eventually gained the recognition he deserved and won a posthumous Grammy for the song sadly, soon after his death.

In famous company (Joan Baez, Arlo, Rambling Jack Elliot and Bob)

Arlo Guthrie has made a considerable contribution to American music but his pedigree is unrivaled. He was born into the “First Family” of American folk. His father Woody traveled through the USA writing songs and experiencing difficult and hard times. He had an affinity with the downtrodden, the dispossessed and the exploited and wrote about the hardships of the great depression and the despair felt by the voiceless migrant workers. Woody died of Huntington’s Chorea prematurely but a wealth of his recordings still remain. His book “Bound for Glory” is a must read for American roots fans.

Bob Dylan describes meeting the very young Arlo when he visited Woody on his arrival in New York. As children, the Guthrie kids would have grown up with household names such as Pete Seeger, Cisco Huston, Rambling Jack Elliot, Bob Dylan and many more. What an influence this must have been on the young Arlo Guthrie?

Maxwell Street Market in its Heyday

Arlo's successful album: Hobo's Lullaby

The “City of New Orleans” was not the only famous train that left out of Illinois Central Station. The “Green Emerald” rode to St Louis while the “Miss-Lou” traveled to Jackson Mississippi.

All these trains run by the Illinois Central Railroad had their own livery, splendor and mythologies but this was to change when Amtrak took over the service in 1971. Much of the romance disappeared and the rolling stock gradually deteriorated. The train stopped short of Memphis following Katrina and Arlo and the train joined up to help publicise the damage and collect funds for the victims of the Hurricane.

Its still possible to ride that famous train which takes 19 hours to reach New Orleans. Listen to the songs below and take a virtual ride through towns with magical names such as Chicago, Carbondale, Cairo, Memphis, Greenwood, Yazoo City, Jackson……..and beyond.

Arlo singing the City of New Orleans

Lyrics: City of New Orleans

Riding on the City of New Orleans,

Illinois Central Monday morning rail

Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders,

Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail.

All along the southbound odyssey

The train pulls out at Kankakee

Rolls along past houses, farms and fields.

Passin' trains that have no names,

Freight yards full of old black men

And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles.

Chorus:

Good morning America how are you?

Don't you know me I'm your native son,

I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,

I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

Dealin' card games with the old men in the club car.

Penny a point ain't no one keepin' score.

Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle

Feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor.

And the sons of Pullman porters

And the sons of engineers

Ride their father's magic carpets made of steel.

Mothers with their babes asleep,

Are rockin' to the gentle beat

And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel.

Chorus

Nighttime on The City of New Orleans,

Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee.

Half way home, we'll be there by morning

Through the Mississippi darkness

Rolling down to the sea.

But all the towns and people seem

To fade into a bad dream

And the steel rails still ain't heard the news.

The conductor sings his songs again,

The passengers will please refrain

This train's got the disappearing railroad blues.

Good night, America, how are you?

Don't you know me I'm your native son,

I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,

I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

This is for train buffs!

The original by Steve Goodman

Willie Nelson and the Highwaymen

Johnny Cash

John Denver and many more!

Home Sweet Home!

Good to be home

A traveller once wrote, “We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey” This was our spiritual quest for the Blues and its descendants. It is a story of great humanity and the expression of human suffering and hardship.

A great Welcome Home

Down in the Delta, we were often asked whether we loved the blues. It’s strange but they refer to it as a living entity. People would come up to you in Juke Joints and clubs keen to know our relationship to this strange musical genre that became one of the cornerstones for global contemporary music. The music is a relatively simple and repetitive form whilst some of these early musicians playing on poor or homemade instruments were not necessarily virtuoso performers. There is more to it than music, it does have a life of its own, born out of suffering, authenticity, experience, poverty and religion. Most of all, it was the voice of a people, torn out of their homeland and enslaved in a hostile culture and country.

Music fills the hot New Orleans air

You can get anything that you want in New Orleans

Laid back in New Orleans

Beautiful woodland in Louisiana

Its a big old river

I remembered my first experiences of the great Delta musicians such as Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson. There was no clear melody; it was the hard moaning blues that they grew up with, learnt from generations of their forefathers who worked dawn to dusk in hot sun and harsh weather. I immediately recognised that tone when we walked into Reds on Saturday evening in Clarksdale. The 88 year old “T Model Ford” hollered out that same haunting sound while his 12 year old grandson almost drowned his guitar playing on drums. The Blues is an art form in its own right. It is a poetry and an expression of that poetry that grips and captivates us.

Pat Thomas and I under his Fathers Memorial

One of Robert Johnson's three graves. Rat told us that this is the one because he knew the man who dug the grave.

There is also a strange dichotomy about this music. Its about suffering and hardship yet people flock to dance to it and laugh with it. Those sitting in the Juke Joints are smiling and happy. The language and the poetry becomes a confessional to suffering and a way to absolve one of ones unhappiness. A display in the Leland Blues Museum describes how this small town (known as the Hell Hole of the Delta) would see ten thousand revellers descent on the town on a Saturday night to drink, love, dance and listen to the music.

The old stores at Valley where John Hurt often sat outside and played.

He was a kind gentleman

Opulent music

The magnificent Robert "Bilbo" Walker at Reds

Rat at the Riverside Hotel. He grew up with Ike Turner, Muddy Waters etc...

I will take many memories with me home from the Delta and from this trip. Was it life changing?

Probably not, but a learnt a lot and I realised that there was more to life than that small circle that we live in and operate from. We saw all that was great about the USA and all that is awful. One of the most moving experiences was to visit the Human Rights Museum in Memphis. It’s so difficult to believe that the emancipation of the black people happened within my lifetime, in the very recent past. How could a nation be so proud to call itself “The Land of the Free`` and at the same time allow black people to be lynched, beaten, abused and deprived of their liberty. Like most people of my generation, I remember seeing those awful pictures of a dying Dr King on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in 1968 yet it was more of a shock to look out from the hotel room onto that very balcony at the museum in Memphis. Voyeur becomes participant. It was nothing to do with me, I was only passing by!

T "Model" Ford keeping the Delta sound alive at 88

The loss of a beautiful guy

That magic moment with Elvis, Jerry Lee, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash

The economic recession has dealt a crushing blow to the poor rural communities of the south. Small towns had their heart ripped out of them with downtown main streets full of empty decaying shops. Many of the well-known blues clubs and Juke Joints published in a recent 2009 guide to the delta were boarded up and abandoned. While the green shoots of recovery were beginning to sprout in the magnificent shopping Cathedrals and Malls of the more prosperous Northern States, I hold little hope for towns such as Belzoni and Hollandale. There is nothing to keep the young men and women there. There will be no one to keep the Delta Blues alive when this generation dies out. That dark fertile soil will still be able to grow cotton (or more likely crops to produce bio fuels) and the rest will be history.

Gram Parsons' Suit from the Flying Burrito Brothers

A reflection on Chicago

To misquote the famous Chinese quote, we have lived through interesting times. Even if Robert Zimmerman had not come along, would there have been a Bob Dylan. Its difficult to tell, but for people my age, his songs and his albums were our time line. Buddy Holly’s Death coincided with Bob’s first performances. He went to university when Kennedy was elected. His move to New York was the same year the Montgomery Race Riots. His first album came out at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and it’s the same year that I went to boarding school. Freewheeling Bob Dylan coincided with the assassination of John F Kennedy and so on……1969 saw Nashville Skyline, Bob’s return to performing live, the landing of men on the Moon and my entrance to medical school. He sang about our lives and our times and he was part of ours.

Bob's guitar at Zimmys in Hibbing

I will feel lost without my journey, my blog and my fellow travellers. We arrive home wiser, wearier and more chilled out!

As David Bowie once said “ The truth of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time”. Our journey never stops and other travellers will take our places journeying up the blues road.

Finally I would like to include a word about my traveling companions. It was fascinating traveling with such knowledgeable and skilled musicians and I learnt a lot about music and musicianship from their company. Their support and comradeship was a source of comfort throughout the trip. They were great guys and we did not have a cross word at any time.

Thanks Guys it was an honour to travel with you. (and thanks for that breakfast!)

Enjoy these last videos. Follow their journey back in time

The young Bob Dylan during the 1963 March on Washington

Robert Bilbo Walker, Roostway Festival, Parma, Italy 2008

The great Mississippi John Hurt. What an honour to stand at your grave.

Charley Patton, Father of the Delta Sound: Pony Blues

End of term at Minneapolis

End of Term in the Twin Cities

Minneapolis in the 1890s

Out on the town in Duluth

Trying hard to be chilled out!

A cool chilled out dude

The Icelandic volcano’s activity seems to have abated somewhat for now and so the prospect for our timely return home looks a lot better. We experienced our coldest and cloudiest day of the trip so far this morning. There was a small skim of ice yesterday morning on the surface but it still was a glorious day. Today is different with a cruel cold wind blowing off the lake. People in Duluth have a healthy respect for the lake. It dominates their lives and their horizons. Storms can blow up in minutes and no ship is immune to the might of its winds (gusting to over 90 miles per hour). Many ships and many lives have been lost on what yesterday appeared to be an innocuous expanse of calm water.

Such a contrast to yesterday on the lake

The power of Lake Superior

Driving to Minneapolis St Paul this morning. Bob would have done this journey but as we learnt yesterday not for long. He did record some of the material that he was playing at the time on a home tape recorder. These songs turn up in bootlegs on a number of occasions. “The Great White Wonder” released as a bootleg in1971 has a mix of these Minneapolis recordings interspersed with songs recorded in 1967 with the Band in upstate New York at the Big Pink. Bob’s guitar work is not great, neither is his voice but the passion and energy is.

It seems strange to be driving Highway 61 in the opposite direction but it was the way that Bob did on the road to stardom. I think that I now understand the meaning of the title of the album “Highway 61 Revised. It was about rebelling and escaping from that comfortable Jewish middle class life and living his dream. My preconceived perception of Duluth and Hibbing were so different to reality. People on the way advised us against going there with “What do you want to go to that dump for” Bob seems to have had a downer on both towns in his writings. We spent 2 pleasant chilled-out days up there with those lovely people from “The North Country Fair”

The Mall of America. Cathedral to shopping!

Its been a great trip. We have travelled through 9 states and covered nearly 2,500 miles during the 21 days of the vacation. We have listened to many music forms encompassing numerous styles and genres in each. We have experienced Traditional Jazz, Modern Jazz, Cajun Music, Zydeko, Delta and Chicago blues, Rhythm and Blues, Rock and Roll, Country, Ragtime, Gypsy, Folk and the rest. One of the major disappointments was the lack of Jazz in Chicago. At one time the City was known as one of the centres for jazz. Luis Armstrong was based in the city. It’s hard to find any live jazz venues whereas the Chicago Blues scene appears to be vibrant and progressive.

There is an “end of term” feeling now that we have arrived in Minneapolis. I last visited this city over thirty years ago when my sister-in -aw lived here. The climate at this time of year is delightful but it has one of the worst climates in the US with extreme winters and hot humid bug filled summers. We visited the huge Mall of America. This is more a cathedral to consumerism than anything else. Plenty of shops but nothing to buy. Shopping has become the new religion in the 21^st century and it has certainly taken grip in the USA. This consumer opulence is such a contrast to the poverty and boarded up shops that we saw in the Delta.

What a naughty boy!

Last crossing of the Mississippi

Highway 61 Revisited

The end of the road at Zimmy's

I have called this posting after Bob’s great masterpiece “Highway 61 Revisited” Today marks the official end to our journey with our last trip to Hibbing, Bobs home for 12 years before he left for the University of Minnesota, St Paul Minneapolis.

Dawn over Lake Superior. Its so cold that there is ice on the lake this morning!

Iron Ore Carrier, Duluth

Mr D, at what used to be Cripper’s Music Shop told us that he had worked for Mr Cripper at the music shop during the sixties but after Bob left the town. He didn’t know Bob but as he said “I knew the man who sold him his first guitar” Mr D is of Welsh extraction and he tells a tale about 4 friends driving back to Hibbing from the University at the end of the semester. They were discussing what they would do over the vacation. One said he wanted to marry his girlfriend Angel and go work in the mines, which he did. The second wanted to work in the mines and the third wanted to stay in Hibbing too and joint the bank. The fourth, a scrawny young guy called Robert Zimmerman said he wanted to go to New York and become a famous musician! They all laughed at him. The rest is history but as Mr D says he was a very mediocre musician at the time and its seemed well neigh impossible.

Bob's Highschool Hibbing

Hibbing has done more to celebrate its most famous former resident. 7^th Avenue where Bob lived has been named Bob Dylan Avenue, there is a small display in the town library and they hold a successful annual festival despite the fact that they haven’t persuaded Bob to play there as yet.

Hibbing has a great restaurant called Zimmy’s, which is full of Dylan memorabilia. It also features information on Echo Helstrom, Bobs first major love in Hibbing. Echo is believed to be the muse for “Girl from the North Country” We choose this as a fitting place to have our final picture taken. See above.

Bob's House on 2425 7th Avenue East

The side of Bob's House. The the garage door (Blood on the Tracks)

Bob Dylan Drive (7th Avenue)

The site of Bob's Father's shop Zimmerman Electric Bob also worked here

The music shop which was know as Crippers. This is where Bob bought records and his first guitar

Mr D and his colleague at the music shop

The Androy Hotel where Bob had his Bar Mitzvah

Main Street, Hibbing

Thanks to the ladies at the Library for making us so welcome. The Dylan Exhibition

The Bob Dylan Star on the sidewalk

Its time to start reflecting on our journey and what we have seen and I will post these reflections over the next few days. Tim and I mused over the Dylan exhibition at the Library. Bob was certainly in the right place at the right time. He arrived in New York just when the student protest movement was beginning to start and in the next 9 years saw the civil rights movement, the assassination of the Kennedys and Dr King, the start and finish of the Vietnam War and the awakening and expression of a whole generation. This amazingly mirrored our journey through adolescence to adulthood. We talked of key times when we heard certain songs and the many changes of direction that Bob took. Tim remembered that Lay Lady Lay coincided with us both going to medical school, Woodstock and the Moon landings. Quite a lot to happen in one year. We needed beacons such as Bob, Dylan, John Lennon and their like to guide us through those difficult times.

I looked at those awful pictures of the Duluth lynchings last night and I must admit that despite the gloom that pervades the world at the moment we have progressed as a race with the emancipation of women, blacks and minorities. I do believe that the world is a farer place than it used to be. An awful lot to happen in one lifetime. I don’t think that Bob really was a protest singer but a singer with a great sense of right and wrong who riled against injustice.

Zimmy's

Echo Hellsrtom: The Girl from the North Country

Inside Zimmy's

At the end of the road (Bones, No Bones and Timothy Tucker)