A couple of weekends ago Evan and I went to the Blues festival in Clarksdale. I hesitated before going, concerned that I had too much work to do, but was very pleased when I got there.
We saw Honeyboy Edwards, the 90-year-old bluesman who knew Robert Johnson and was present when he died. (I am told that it is his account of Johnson’s death that is widely considered most credible.) He sounded quite like I would have imagined, playing acoustic Blues as a man who played it when all Blues was acoustic.
Then last weekend we all reunited for the first time in Oxford. And what a relief, to decompress with my peers who are experiencing similar trials. Or even to chat over drinks with people my age, somewhat hip and somewhat liberal and somewhat well-educated. It sounds ugly and provincial, maybe (if it isn’t too backwards a use of provincial), and I do not mean it to be derogotary to anyone outside of that description, but what a relief it was, ugly relief or not.