[Harp-L] Sugar Blue

[Mick Zaklan]

   Read an interesting Sugar Blue piece in the Chicago Tribune several
months back.  Apparently he and his family were actually in China when the
virus first hit.  His wife, a medical doctor who also doubles as his
bassist, was working in an emergency room.  Blue was researching the
prototype of our modern day harmonica, the sheng.  The family was in the
Shanghai area, which he described as "the Paris of the East" and New York
"on steroids."  When the quarantine hit, they decided to visit family in
Italy.  Blue's smoker's cough got them detained at the airport.  By the
time they got tested and self-quarantined, the virus had taken hold in
Italy.  They fled to the mountains, but the virus exploded in the North of
the country.  His wife took a job as a cruise ship doctor on a ship sailing
without passengers.  The family wound up sailing around the Indian Ocean
repatriating crew members who were being refused by airlines.
   Needless to say, he had a lot of time to practice and write songs.

Mick Zaklan