Abduction and into the purple valley

Funny grey spring day today. the tree across the hedge has suddenly turned green and the kowhais are bursting with yellow. The council trimmed the hedge two weeks ago but there is stil some of it left and the rain fills these red flowers up with nectar and the waxeyes go at it. Tuis too.

but they are mainly on the kowhai. one street over has an avenue of kowhais and the air is alive with birdsong.

dig the piccy of Ry Cooders cd 'Into the Purple Valley".

Very hip album. For blues players there is a nifty version of "Denomination Blues"

If you have ever learned "Step It Up and Go" from Happy Traums "Blues Bag" then you can play that over this in the instrumental breaks and it fits like a glove.

Much better than a metronome and you can switch to single note breaks if you please.

Also a great version of Leadbelly's "ON A Monday".

Most of Leadbellys songs do not do what convention says a song should do and you need plenty of wind to come in just when you think you should lea0n back. Watchout!!!!!

The rest of it is pretty slick and full of songs that anyone would be pleased to have in their repertoire.

Went to Greytown yesterday afternoon. We can use their library so I  borrowed 'The History Of The Blues" published in 1995 as a companion to a 3 part series on the blues on American Public Service Broadcasting. N.B. This series has never been shown in New Zealand. They just feed us bullsh*t here and keep us in the dark. Anyway it is a scholarly work I suppose and seems to have been cobbled together from every other book I have ever read on the Blues and the author plays favourites without reference to musicality. Norty. Sometimes it feels like a literary exercise rather than a labour of love.

apology.

I goofed dudes. The History Of The Blues, by Francis Davis, is better than I thought. In fact its very good. 5******. Find it and check it out. Some people say the blues is just a whole lot of fat old men playing something that they are now good at. That may be true but it is a whole lot of fun and the history of the blues is also the history of a part of the U.S.A. and you cant read it without becoming aware of the other so like many things it spreads out in unanticipated ways that broadens the mind and the body. hee hee hee.

Talking of the Blues, Rosemary Mcleod gave the Jive Bomber himself a serve in the rag this morning. Hardly fair Rosemary. We all knew Ricky was a pompous turkey and Cookie dubbed him Excelsior Gloom! Tee hee.  If you know blues then you can tell who Rick is trying to imitate in each song and his bands never had guitar players????????????????? But he never did anyone any harm and muso's need a safe place to score a Jazz ciggy. There is more to culture and music than fat ladies with tangled up tonsils and basso profundo Italians trying to hit low C.

I am going to sign off here and do another column later so hang in.