BlitzBlog

I usually don’t talk to other guys in the men’s room, but somehow, things in Mississippi felt different. Everyone is just so friggin’ … friendly.

Anyway, I was walking into the Men’s Room behind a tall lanky black man. “How ya’ll doin’?” he asked once we got inside.

“Excellent. Totally excellent.” I replied, a bit boozily.

“That’s great. Where ya’ll from?”

“I’m from New York, and my buddy’s from Baltimore.”

“Really? Wow! How’dja wind up here?”

“Here” was the Men’s Room in a place called Ground Zero, in Clarksdale, Mississippi.  Ground Zero, which unfortunately for most Americans has come to mean the hole in the Earth where the World Trade Center used to stand, but before that, was the name given to the juke joint that my friend Dave “the Blue Frog” McCarty and I had trekked to to experience The Birthplace of American Music.

You see, as legend has it, about 80 years ago, a man by the name of Robert Johnson, was walking along the then very rural Route 49, and when he came to the intersection of 49 and Route 61, he met a man who claimed to be the Devil. He made a deal with the Devil, for which he would give Robert a gift. A gift that he, Robert, would play guitar as no other before. A gift of a kind of music never before heard. A gift that would come to be called The Devil’s Music. A gift that the world would come to know as The Blues. And in exchange for this gift, the man would come to own Robert’s soul.

But back to 2003…..

Anyway, I told the guy (by now we were leaving the Men’s Room) that Dave and I were on a long-planned Blues Cruise. We’d flown in to New Orleans and spent 2 days carousing on Bourbon St. We ate like kings (or pigs) and drank like teenagers. On our first night we stumbled in to a bar called the Funky Pirate, where a 500lb feller named Big Al (of course) was fronting his band called the Bluesmakers. Somehow, during one of the band breaks, one of the musicians stood at the bar next to Dave and struck up conversation.

Now allow me an aside to give you, dear reader, some history. Or should I say, more history. Dave The Blue Frog McCarty spent much of his youth as a drummer in a variety of bands, having played with a then-16-year-old Hiram Bullock. Hiram went on to an extremely successful career, playing guitar for the likes of David Sanborn, Paul Simon, Pete Townsend, Bob James, Sting, Miles Davis, Billy Joel, and Eric Clapton.  Most people probably know him as the barefoot guitarist from Paul Shafer’s Late Night with David Letterman band.  In any case,  Dave also learned to play harmonica and has since evolved into an
enthusiastic and consummate blues harp master.

So in this conversation with said Bluesmaker, Dave gets invited to sit in with the band  during the next set. (BTW- it is rare Dave doesn’t have a harp stashed somewhere in his pockets). He plays so well that a few people mention to us afterward that they swore Dave was “plant” in the audience. That he’d played with the band before, but we set them straight, and Dave received many kudos on his performance. I recall swaggering down Rue Bourbon near 3am, with Dave smiling contentedly, knowing he’d knocked ‘em dead in The Big Easy.

So now, a few nights later, here I was, talking to this perfect stranger about our trip.

I began telling him of our exploits in New Orleans. He asked, ” No BS? Your friend is good?”

“Good? No.” I replied, “My friend is fuckin’ great!”

It turns out this guy is one of the musicians that are playing this evening. He comes over to our table, which happens to be next to ours, and we start gabbing about music and solving all the Great Problems on Earth. After a few minutes, this guy has discerned that Dave can walk the walk, and invites him to sit in on the the next set.

So the band takes its place back up on stage. There I am, video camera at the ready. There are 4 black men up on stage. The drummer is celebrating his 15th birthday this evening. The 40-something bass player is wearing a peach colored 70s-era vest and matching bell
bottoms. I believe he has a touch of palsy or MS by his carriage, but he plays and sings like a black angel. The 2 guitarists are younger, perhaps 25 at most. Big T is on backup guitar. Just plain Earl on lead.

And there joining them, is a white guy from Baltimore, perhaps 275 pounds, wearing an un-tucked short sleeve print shirt, wrinkled khaki shorts, no socks and loafers. On his round goatee’d face, he’s got glasses you could kill ants with, and a beatific smile of a man who knows he about to meet his Destiny.

This is the time when The Blue Frog went down to The Crossroads.

For the next ten minutes, the band whipped it up, like they’d been practicing together for the last year in Dave’s own basement. They traded riffs, from guitar to harp and back seamlessly, and again, people asked me if Dave was a “plant.” While I video taped the show, I was nudged and goaded by one of the other musicians, who was convinced that I too must be a musician. He cajoloed me to find out what instrument I played, telling me I should get up there too,  I never wanted more to be a musician in my life than at that moment, to be able to say, “Well, yeah, I play a little GITar,” but alas, I am only blessed with my dashing good looks, (ack!) but with virtually no musical talent.  I replied that he was fooled by the stubby “beat-patch” under my lip, and that no, I was but a mere dilitentte. He was impressed nonetheless, that I could Talk The Talk, and I went on with my videotaping.

Dave finished his set, and I believe that the light that emanated from him that night- a ray like those cast from angels in Renaisance paintings- still glows to this day. It was the night that The Blue Frog Went Down To The Crossroads, and he was…..Sanctified.