Today's SF Chronicle biographs none other than Mr. Mysterious, James Booker, whose piano playing would activate a Richter:

"I had the privilege of seeing Booker perform three times during the 1982 festival, a year before he died. One of the shows, at a divey bar with a laundry in the back called the Maple Leaf, proved to be one of the most incredible musical experiences of my life. Booker was playing a blues, I can't recall which one, maybe "Black Night." With a left hand like a piston with a heart and brain in each finger, Booker more or less hypnotized me. His right hand, fanning runs that didn't seem humanly possible, engendered a feeling I'd never experienced. I can't really explain it, but it was as if he cracked open a portal in my soul and poured all his world of pain and wisdom directly in. I looked around the room, and people were weeping."

And quotes Booker himself on music: "Music is a mysterious art ... and people that's really good at it ... they get a little taste of the mysterious ... sometimes mysticism, too. In fact, all of the time they have mystical, mysterious attributes, but it's whether or not they're aware of it that's important."  ¶ 4/23/2006 06:46:00 AM