"Well you dont have to go searchin
Pretend to put on airs
Cause the blues are gonna find you someday, somewhere"*

I remember when I was a kid learning to play the guitar, I got into the blues in a big way. Sitting around trying to learn that bluesy intro to Led Zeppelin's version of Bring It On Home. Cracking the code on the loping rhythm pattern was a big day in my life.

Subconsciously, all by myself I had figured out how to roll the tone pot back and mute the strings down by the bridge with the edge of my 14 year old palm, then...WATCH OUT...W-W-WATCH OUT!!

I never bothered learning the middle part of that song. The intro and outro, the part they ripped off from Sonny Boy Williamson was all I was interested in. Subconsciously, all by myself I had become a blues snob.

It was hard to be a blues snob in Fresno, CA in 1972. No Tower Records, no nothing except the record rack at the library and a florescent orange shack on Blackstone Ave. called Kaleidoscope. They sold posters and black lights and bongs, but more importantly they sold Zap Comix and gave away all kinds of subversive newsletters from people like Chris Strachwitz, the founder of Arhoolie Records.

It was hard being a blues snob because I had a pretty good life back then. My parents made a great life for me and my brothers and sister, I had money coming out my ears from the biggest, most lucrative paper route in Fresno.

About the only thing I ever really worried about was Vietnam. I wasn't concerned about US imperialism or the domino theory or anything like that. I was simply concerned that the war would drag on long enough for me to get drafted and killed by some spikey booby trap like that Peter-Sahn guy in The Green Berets. All in all though, life was just too darn sweet and mundane to genuniely have the blues.

Damn.

It all seems so silly now but I wasnt alone. A few years earlier Emmylou Harris had gone through the same type of crisis. Poor thing, there she was in suburban Virginia trying to be a folksinger but she felt her life experience wasnt sufficient to let her pull it off with any authority. She was so concerned she wrote a letter to Pete Seeger

"I would listen to WAMU from 7 p.m. till midnight every night, it was folk music. And I had a guitar and I would teach myself songs. I mean I learned everything off of every Joan Baez, Buffy Saint-Marie, Judy Collins, and Ian & Sylvia record. And Pete Seeger was my hero. I also wrote a letter to Pete Seeger. I was getting into this thing about finding music, but being the conscientious person that I was, I thought, Well I dont have the right to sing these songs about people having tragedy because my life is perfect. And so I wrote to Pete about this concern that Id never suffered. He wrote back and said basically, 'Don't worry, it'll happen'.''

No I wasn't alone at all, ever. I was just being a teenager looking to connect with something more...romantic than my own reality. I had my Hoodoo ladies, Hoochie Coochie men, hellhounds and the Mojo Hand. Emmylou had her mining disasters, Hollis Brown slaughtering his family and Matty Groves. They say that Billy Bragg actually ingested a small portion of Joe Hill's ashes and Michelle Shocked is a faithful member of West Angeles Cathedral. Nowadays you just get a tattoo or go to the mall and get soething pierced.

LeRoy says keep on rockin.



* Ashgrove, Dave Alvin (Blue Horn Toad Music, BMI)