Tuesday, June 03, 2003
From Charles Sawyer's "Blues with a Feeling"
Never Be The Same Again
"Ask a serious music lover what started him/her on a life filled with the particular sounds that move, soothe, excite, incite him/her, and you are likely to hear about an exact moment in life when a new kind of music reached his/her ears for the first time. It might be the sound of a cello playing Bach's Suites For Cello; it might be the mellow sound of a saxophone played by Lester Young or Johnny Hodges, or the keening sound of a sitar, the wail of Bulgarian Baba, or the gentle sighing of a Dobro guitar. Whatever the particular sound the experience is always one of hearing a voice so distinctive and compelling it seems to be meant exclusively for the listener. You feel that this voice is speaking just to you in a language of the soul. Once you hear that voice speaking to you, you are never the same again.
"I remember such a moment with stark clarity. It was a Sunday evening in the winter of 1965/1966. I was driving on the Connecticut Turnpike, returning to Yale University where I was in graduate school. A song with a sound unlike any I had ever heard came on my car radio and put me in a kind of trance. The song was "Born In Chicago," and the sound was an amplified harmonica. The next day I went to the record store and bought the album, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band."
(Charles Sawyer provides his thoughts on the Butterfield Band. Yes, the Butterfield Band were giants in their day and everyone knew it. If you feel an urge, then be submerged in Blues with a Feeling.)
¶ 6/03/2003 12:15:00 AM
Never Be The Same Again
"Ask a serious music lover what started him/her on a life filled with the particular sounds that move, soothe, excite, incite him/her, and you are likely to hear about an exact moment in life when a new kind of music reached his/her ears for the first time. It might be the sound of a cello playing Bach's Suites For Cello; it might be the mellow sound of a saxophone played by Lester Young or Johnny Hodges, or the keening sound of a sitar, the wail of Bulgarian Baba, or the gentle sighing of a Dobro guitar. Whatever the particular sound the experience is always one of hearing a voice so distinctive and compelling it seems to be meant exclusively for the listener. You feel that this voice is speaking just to you in a language of the soul. Once you hear that voice speaking to you, you are never the same again.
"I remember such a moment with stark clarity. It was a Sunday evening in the winter of 1965/1966. I was driving on the Connecticut Turnpike, returning to Yale University where I was in graduate school. A song with a sound unlike any I had ever heard came on my car radio and put me in a kind of trance. The song was "Born In Chicago," and the sound was an amplified harmonica. The next day I went to the record store and bought the album, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band."
(Charles Sawyer provides his thoughts on the Butterfield Band. Yes, the Butterfield Band were giants in their day and everyone knew it. If you feel an urge, then be submerged in Blues with a Feeling.)
¶ 6/03/2003 12:15:00 AM
