It’s Bad You Know

Posted on April 10, 2021 by Bill Chance

Woke up this morning, feel ’round for my shoes
You know ’bout that babe, had them old walkin’ blues
Woke up this morning, I feel ’round for my shoes
You know ’bout that babe
Lord, I had them old walkin’ blues
Leavin’ this morning, I had to go ride the blinds
I’ve been mistreated, don’t mind dying
This morning, I had to go ride the blinds
I’ve been mistreated
Lord, I don’t mind
People tell me walkin’ blues ain’t bad
Worst old feeling I most ever had
People tell me the old walkin’ blues ain’t bad
Well, it’s the worst old feeling
Lord, I most ever had
—- R.L. Burnside – Walkin’ Blues

Dan Colcer Deep Ellum Art Park Dallas, Texas

Sometimes, when I’m driving my car… and I’m driving more than I like, because of COVID changes it’s impossible for me to ride my bike to work… I listen to podcasts from my phone. That takes too much fiddling and setup though – and I’m late in the morning and lazy in the afternoon. So I listen to a local radio station – KXT91.7 (you can listen online no matter where you live) – it’s a great station: no commercials, the DJs pick their own music and don’t talk (I hate the cackling stupid jokes of regular radio) and they sometimes they play your favorite music. Sometimes, best of all, they play stuff you’ve never heard before.

On my way in to work yesterday I heard some music I had never heard before and thought it was great. At my desk I looked up their playlist and found what I had heard was a North Mississippi blues master R. L. Burnside. The song on the radio was It’s Bad You Know from the album Come On In.

In this album, released in 1998, Burnside’s classic acoustic blues is mixed with modern electronic beats into a sort of hybrid dance music. From the wikipedia notes:

The album was expected to alienate purist fans of blues, but sold strongly, and peaked at number 20 on the Core Radio Chart. In addition to significant airplay, an ensuing music clip was slotted in MTV’s 120 Minutes. By March 1999, it had become Epitaph’s best-selling record, despite the label being, at its core, an outlet for punk rock. Burnside said that fans loved the album, feeling that both it and Ass Pocket “brought more crowds to the blues. They love it.” He reckoned that this was due to “trying to make people dance to the blues again.”

I had never heard of this album or R. L. Burnside… which is not surprising – in 1998 I had a couple of young kids running around the house and was isolated from the real world. I did have at least one song of his – doing Dylan’s Everything is Broken from Tangled Up In Blues but had never really followed down that particular rabbit hole.

Thanks to Spotify I now have ready access to R. L. Burnside and his catalog. Great stuff.

From my comments – check this out – Livin’ the Blues

In A Boy’s Skin

Posted on February 8, 2020 by Bill Chance

“Musically, he was like an old man in a boy’s skin.”
― Eric Clapton

Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

Got Those Deep Ellum Blues

Posted on November 27, 2019 by Bill Chance

If you go down to Deep Elem
Just to have a little fun,
You’d better have your fifteen dollars
When the policeman come.

Chorus:
Oh, sweet mama, daddy’s got the Deep Elem Blues;
Oh, sweet mama, daddy’s got the Deep Elem Blues.

If you go down to Deep Elem,
Keep your money in your shoes;
The women in Deep Elem
Got those Deep Elem blues.

If you go down to Deep Elem,
Take your money in your pants;
The women in Deep Elem
Never give the men a chance.

Now I once knew a preacher,
Preached the Bible through and through,
He went down into Deep Elem,
Now his preaching days are through.

Now I once had a sweet gal,
Lord, she meant the world to me;
She went down into Deep Elem;
She ain’t what she used to be.

Her papa’s a policeman
And her mama walks the street;
Her papa met her mama
When they both were on the beat.

—-Deep Elm Blues (Deep Ellum Blues), Traditional

Jerry Lee Lewis sings the “Deep Elm Blues“. This was an unissued take made in the Sun Studios (lyrics and audio from wikisource).

Deep Ellum Poster, by Brad Albright, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

I saw this poster hanging on telephone poles in Deep Ellum honoring some of that spot’s musical history:

Bessie Smith, Leadbelly, Robert Johnson, and Blind Lemon Jefferson

The poster is by Brad Allbright (website, instagram)

I have a piece of original art by him, bought at the Kettle Art Gallery’s For the Love of Kettle event.

Painting #1 – by Brad Allbright

A Few Squeaks

Posted on July 2, 2018 by Bill Chance

“I wanted to play saxophone, but all I could get were a few squeaks.”
— Stevie Ray Vaughan

Dots Hop House, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

Texas Flood

Posted on May 30, 2015 by Bill Chance

Well there’s floodin’ down in Texas
All of the telephone lines are down
Well there’s floodin’ down in Texas
All of the telephone lines are down
And I’ve been tryin’ to call my baby
Lord and I can’t get a single sound

Well dark clouds are rollin’ in
Man I’m standin’ out in the rain
Well dark clouds are rollin’ in
Man I’m standin’ out in the rain
Yeah flood water keep a rollin’
Man it’s about to drive poor me insane
—-Texas Flood, Stevie Ray Vaughn

Trinity River,
Dallas, Texas

Dirty French Fry

Posted on December 12, 2014 by Bill Chance

Gold Magnolias
Freret Market
New Orleans

The Gold Magnolias performing Dirty French Fry

Something Like Happiness

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Bill Chance

“I would like to bring to people something like happiness. I would like to discover a method so that if I want it to rain, it will start right away to rain. If one of my friends is ill, I’d like to play a certain song and he will be cured; when he’d be broke, I’d bring out a different song and immediately he’d receive all the money he needed.”
― John Coltrane

The Gold Magnolias
New Orleans, Louisiana

Saxophone player with The Gold Magnolias at a concert at the Freret Market – New Orleans

Jimmy’s Food Store

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Bill Chance

A while back, Candy had this wine at an Italian restaurant in Fort Worth. It was Lacryma de Christi del Vesuvio – which translates as “Tear of Christ.” It’s a type of wine produced on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. We had been looking for the stuff all over the Metroplex and nobody had it. They all said the same thing though, “have you looked at Jimmy’s? If anybody has it, they will.” I looked up Jimmy’s Food Store and found it was on the corner of Fitzhugh and Bryan in East Dallas. Today we had some time and drove down there.

I’m familiar with that area. For years I went through there twice a day on my way to work downtown – either driving or on a bus. It was always a poor area, pretty lively, but not the place you wanted to wander around after dark. Lately, though, a lot of the run down old apartments and crude homes have been torn down and the area is primed for redevelopment and gentrification.

Meat Case - Italian Sausage and more

Do you like Nutella? - here's an eleven pound jar for seventy dollars.

Jimmy’s Food Store is a fantastic place. It’s the motherlode of specialty Italian food and wine. I heard the owner talking – he’s been in the same location for forty-two years. The neighborhood has been through some serious changes over that time, but his store has stayed the same. It was crowded with people buying Italian groceries – about a quarter of them speaking Italian.

The store isn’t very big, but holds a lot of goodness, crammed in as tight as can be. The biggest area is dedicated to wine, a huge selection of Italian wines, arranged by region and type. You can learn a lot about wine simply walking the aisles and reading the little articles they have taped to each variety.

Sure enough, they had a couple Lachryma Christi whites (the one red they carry was sold out). There was a Mastroberardino and a Vini Nobilis. We bought one of each and a couple other bottles of wine. We picked up some pasta (Pastosa – imported from Brooklyn!) some cheese and a couple of sauces to go with the pasta.

A couple of Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio

This is the kind of place you don’t want to go when you are hungry. You will buy too much stuff. In addition to the wine and groceries, back next to the meat counter, is a little place where you can order sandwiches. We bought a Cuban and a Muffaletta, some drinks, and took them out to a little table out by the street. The day had started out crisp, but the Texas sun was warming everything up quickly.

Mufalletta - big enough for about three meals

Cuban Sandwich

Seating out on the street.

It was really nice sitting out there on the street eating sandwiches and enjoying the day. There was even live music – a partly blind man, Vincent Van Buren, playing harmonica and singing the blues (and a lot of old Beatles tunes).

It doesn’t get any better than that.