Willie Dixon

....The orphans group thing is such a pale imitation. I'll sit here in the ghost town mumbling to myself. I mean...really....what's the harm, right? The chances are 1 or 2 people may stumble across it....plus the usual gang of suspects...(if a loyal 3 can be counted as a gang.) I stroll though this echoing crypt, not even bothering to call out names any more.  Its sad...nothing is as we would have it...but it rarely is.........".....and somebody points to you and says 'its his'. And you say "what's mine?" and somebody else says "Where what is?"

the answer of course is music....."I have no pleasure in any man who despises music. It is no invention of ours: it is a gift of God. I place it next to theology. Satan hates music: he knows how it drives the evil spirit out of us." Martin Luther

.......Which brings us to Saturday Night Live....with some real Saturday Night music.

...and it doesn't get much better than this....

In any discussion of seminal American musical geniuses...Willie Dixon's name will loom large. As arranger, composer, musician, defacto engineer, discoverer & nurturer of talent he had few equals.  To say that he single-handedly created the "Chicago Blues" sound may be overstating things...but not by much. His pudding deep bass graced more blues sides, credited & not, than i can count.  His collaborations with the Great Muddy Waters still stand as towering achievements, as vital & honest & raw today as they were when they were recorded.

.....with Hubie Sumlin: Guitar)

.....Now...the honorable Spike 1 (say hello, Spike1)said in these very pages not long ago that when someone says "The Blues" his eyes tend to glaze over......and i know what he means.  To far too many people the blues is long masturbatory guitar solos with little pieces of song that serve as intro & exit.  Bore me to tears.  But as President Clinton might say....This is not that.  This is not the music of massive stages & strobe lights. This is not the music of pyrotechnics & razzle-dazzle. No....this is the true music of Saturday Night. The music from the bar in the city.  The music of paychecks & pool tables. The music that sweeps away the back-breaking work week.  The music of release & redemption....

...music that erases today until tomorrow ..."You are the music while the music lasts." T.S. Eliot.. .... .... .....This is the music that connects performer & audience...a shared experience, as much about community..(There's that word again)...as it is about the music...."Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers. You can fill your life up with ideas and still go home lonely. All you really have that really matters are feelings. That's what music is to me." Janis Joplin.

..........and yet....music is far from anti-intellectual.  Indeed, it may well be among the highest forms of the intellect's manifestations. The ability to speak the inarticulate language of the spirit, to express one's self in ways that bypass conscious thought, that relies on the atavistic response..........this ability may well be a gift from another plane.....

.............But none of that matters on a Saturday night. Saturday Night is for the music....the blessed release

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..........and the best part is.....it goes on every Saturday Night...where ever the week weighs heavy on the spirit