Re: SPAH convention 1994

[Christian N Michalek <micha018@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Friday was getting pretty tiresome for all of us.  Two to Three hours of
sleep per night is no longer doing the trick.  After going to bed around
3:30am I forced my self to stumble out of bed by seven.  this would leave
me enough time to shower and eat breakfast before I went downstairs to
catch Joe Filisko's seminar on pre-war diatonic playing.

Joe gave an insightful look at the harmonica playing from the 20's and
30's.  Most of what he had to say came from his analysis of Yazoo's
Harmonica Blues from the 20's and 30's.  I have this album but have never
paid much attention to it,  mostly because the music was not very
appealing to me and partly because I thought it was fairly simple playing.
WAS I WRONG!!  I am going to have to take a few more listens to the
record. As Joe pointed out these guys were doing then what Howard Levy is
doing today.  I am curious as why no one else picked up after these guys
when they left. Definately worth a listen.  Joe's seminar was very
informative as well as humorous.

After Joe's seminar everyone headed upstairs to the 11th floor.  For Kim
field's discussion on his book and what it took to make it.  After he had
a signing session.

Around 1:00pm Buzz and I went down to the festival to watch some music and
eat another BBQ pork shoulder sandwich.  As we sat in the SPAH tent
sweating profusely from the extremely HOT BBQ sauce,  a man and his gutair
invited Buzz and I to play with him.  Buzz was first,  I didn't know this
man could sing!  He blew me away with his rendition of I Just Want To Make
Love to You.  The Guitarist loved it too.  After Buzz sang it was my turn,
 and how was I supposed to follow that bit?  When I got up there the
guitarist said he wanted to do some Beetle's "fine" I said.  I don't know
why it is but it seems like I always get these messed up songs with funny
changes.  Again I was not able to play up to my potential.  We were only
able to do one song, for the next group was ready to play.

Mr Drummer and Mr Trail Digger came to do the next set.  As I was eating
my second BBQ pork sandwich Mr Trail Digger kept pointing at me to come
and play.  Again what a disaster!! Mr Trail Digger's music had no form or
stucture.  He wasn't even playing a standard 12 bar blues.  Through out
the couse of a song he would play 9, 13, 15, 13.5 bars. It was never
consistant.  That was the easy part,  the hard part was trying to figure
out what key he was in.  "Oh looks like E to me" he would say.  Yeah it
looked like E to me too came out as E# or Fb somewhere in there. I was
swiching between a Bb harp and an A harp.  After the first song I walked
off the stage to find something to drink,  but then he spotted me again. 
"hey harmonica man,  git up here and make me some blues"  Yeah he was
makin' be the blues!! The second time I got up there I made him tune his
guitar to me.  Everything was fine for about 40 seconds and then he went
right back out of tune.  So I pulled out my Bb harp to play in Fb and made
the best of a bad situation.  The next song he was still looking for
someone to blow harp with him,  I made Buzz go up this time.  I could see in
his eyes he was having as much fun as I had had in the previous song.

On of the things I learned this year at the convention was image. Buzz
told me that I looked like some smart ass college kid and I should change
my image.  "Buy a hat" he said.  Thus begins my quest for image and a hat.
As I was walking down the road to Mister Hats,  the effects of the two
pork sandwiches and the rest of the Memphis food I had eaten all week took
it toll.  I knew it was coming, I walked slowly back to the row of
outdoor toilets.  I didn't make it.  I went in to assess the damage,
but to no avil, another pair of underwear down the Port-a-potty hole. This
was not the type of image I wanted to create for myself.  Off to Mister Hats.

When I got to Mister Hats I saw all sorts of hats.  What a collection.  I
could turn myself in to anything, anybody woth this collection of hats. 
The black leather Ivy League hats were the only one that attacted me and
my wallet.  I had tried several of them on, when the salesman came to
help.  'What do you want it for?' "image" I said.  "I'm a blues man." Mike
the salesman looked at me up and down. He looked at me and smiled 'you're no
blues man' then he continued to laugh  'You're too white,  where are you
from?'  "Minneapolis"  'Heh, a blues man from Minneapolis, Home of the
White Boys, they don't have blues in Minneapolis'  I told him if I played
some blues for him and he liked it, he had to sell the hat to me for half
price.  He told me if he liked it he would give me the hat and my choice
of sunglasses for ten bucks.  I played him some blues and I'm still
wearing my ten dollar hat. 

Later that night Buzz, Jelly Roll, Joe, Winslow, Phil Duncan, Charlie
jr, and myself went over to BB's again.  Mitch Woods and his Rocket 88's
were playing.  As we all walked in the door, the doorman introduced me to
Mitch's sax player.  He invited me up to play and I accepted.  Later when
I was called upon to play I was a bit scared.  50's rock and roll is not
my bag.  I went up and played, but I still feel like I made a fool of
myself. Had I know what kind of music it was I would have declined.

After BB's we all went down to Joyce Cobbs to play. When we got there
Buster Brody was there playing with Joyce. (Luckily Winslow already
covered this 9 yr old child phenom) Harmonica Bob Miner gathered a k`list
of everyone who wanted to play.  Great performances by all.  The standouts
were Winslow, Buzz and Harmonica Bob.  Once again 3:00am came about and it
was time to go.

A review of Saturday tomorrow...

-Chris Michalek