Playing the Blues with Barbara, Part II
When we left off last week, I had been cuckolded by my first wife, tried and failed at reconciliation, and was invited to Point Richmond to play in a bluegrass band, where a background singer was also invited. Her name was Barbara, and she made her entrance the way she always did – with boisterous exuberance, dominating the very air molecules and lighting up the darkest corners of wherever she was.
She auditioned a song, and I said to myself “this is no backup singer, this is a miracle of nature.” She had a quality that I had not heard before, at least live. Sure, there was a little of Janis Joplin in it, but only a hint. Barb was more like Bessie Smith; more melodic, ironic and forceful than Janis. Her voice was sweeter, but you could tell from the whiskey she poured into her songs that her life had been every bit as hard as any other blues singer’s. I was stunned, and instantly in love. It didn’t hurt that she was gorgeous, in a way that was uncommon for the end of the 1970s. She wasn’t rail thin and wispy. Rather, she had all the right curves in all the right places, and she carried herself with a confidence that radiated sexiness without the come-hither nonsense.
After she sang, I excused myself to step outside on the porch for a smoke. She followed, much to my surprise, and sat next to me. She bummed a smoke, which I lit for her, asked me my name, which I told her, then said, “wanna neck?” From that moment on, I was hers. We kissed a little on the porch, then went back inside and sang some more. Then she went home, and I didn’t so much as have her phone number. But I had an agenda.
I pretty much became a stalker from that point on. I found out where she worked (she tended bar), and I became a regular there. I found out she sang at that bar with the Dick Oxtot Golden Age Jazz Band. I became a groupie. I was around her as much as I could figure out how to be. And eventually we started going out. And she changed my life.
Before Barb, blues for me was strictly electric. No one played acoustic blues, at least no one I paid any attention to. But Barb knew all these amazing players, both living and dead, who had no band, but only their guitars. She turned me on to Ramblin’ Jack Eliot, Leon Redbone, Rosalie Sorrels, Memphis Minnie. . . many others, and she loved Leonard Cohen. So I learned to calm down, play acoustic guitar, and redirect all that crazy energy I had from jumping around and acting goofy to focusing it in emotional delivery. It happened almost overnight, and it happened because she sang with me. The two of us together just felt powerful when we sang. I don’t know how it came off – people then told us they thought we were great together, but we never really captured a show, either on tape or video. Those things were much harder to do back then. I do know that I felt a glow, a pulse, run through my veins when Barb and I sang together, and I’ve never felt anything like it since.
I took that energy and started writing serious songs, and they poured out of me. We took our show to the Gulf Coast, and played various venues there. We learned (out of necessity) lots of country classics while we were there, and added that to our blues set. It served us well.
Things didn’t last between us. Barb and I were almost too good of a couple, and we finally flamed out. But we never stopped singing together. And I never stopped cherishing her, though she doesn’t know that. She still has that amazing voice.
All this is my way of saying that this Sunday, August 23, we’re playing together again at the Hotel Mac in Point Richmond, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The address is 50 Washington Avenue in Point Richmond. They serve great food, and have a very nice bar. It’s a classy place, but you don’t have to dress up.
Come by and get some late 70s nostalgia, or at least watch us get ours on. We’d love to see you.
