"Blues & Race -- Funny, you don’t look Blue-ish" was written in early 1994. I tackled the sensitive subject of Blues and Race and Authenticity. My position is "Pro-Choice," that everyone’s got a right to approve of or dismiss whom they want to (and no right to decide for others whom they "should" like), and I tried to raise some provocative issues. The column raised a debate in the letters section of Blues Revue, was extensively quoted in The New York Times in March, 1995, and helped generate a symposium on the subject at the 1996 W.C. Handy Awards:

...But it is a damn shame that there’s anything at all dividing Blues lovers because one of the greatest things about the Blues is how it brings people together. Go to a Blues festival: Watch the love of this music tear down barriers of Race, Age, Nationality, Politics, Society, and Economics. There’s a world-wide scene in which all kinds of people are nice to each other because they love and are interested in the Blues. That’s a glorious accomplishment, regardless of whose Blues you prefer. Thank God and the Black legends and EVERYONE WHO CARRIES ON THE BLUES for this deep, soulful, powerful music that gives us all so much joy and comfort.

"Blues At The Crossroads" was published in Blues Revue in 1997:

Hey, hey, the blues is alright? Well, what we call "Blues" today sure has come a long way from where it began. People of all races, nationalities, ages, genders, politics, and incomes are brought together by their love of the blues. There’s always a blues festival or a cruise going on somewhere. "Classic" blues is being remastered and reissued on CD, and each month, hundreds of new blues albums are released by legends and youngbloods alike. Blues lovers are giving it to each other in Cyberspace. Talented teen-agers, playing blues, are on VH1. You even hear commercials trying to borrow some down home honesty from harps and slide guitars.

      Having written the above paragraph, it takes me a full half-hour before I start this one. I wish I could stop here, and just feel good about the state of the music I love. I’m very aware that Blues Revue is read by fans who love blues so much that they want to know what’s happening on the world-wide scene. So I’m going to open the subject that dominates the conversations of the "Blues Industry" -- not "suits" -- but all the musicians, club owners, booking agents, record companies, media people, and promoters who bring the blues to you, and try to make a living doing it:

If blues is really thriving, why are so many people in the "Blues Industry" losing money?

"More From Little Walter," also published in 1997, was the result of my frustration with writing ABOUT music, which is never as moving as the music itself. I found satisfaction by writing "Blues Fiction" -- a story which takes place in the Blues World. Riding through Wyoming on tour with my band in my van, I wondered, "What would have happened if Little Walter (all-time greatest blues harp player) had not been killed in ‘68 but had gone on to live and play in the Blues Scene that I’m familiar with, in the ‘70s and beyond?" From that, and my imagination, experiences, and familiarity with the music and characters, a story composed itself in a couple of hours on my new laptop. It eventually became a serial and ten parts were published:

...Walter didn’t appear to have aged much since the ‘60s, but then again hard-living Walter had looked 60 when he was 30. Most of the generation before Walter -- like his mentors Muddy Waters and Sunnyland Slim -- had passed on by 1997, and those who were "youngbloods" in Chicago in the late ‘40s were now the living legends. Who would’ve believed that Walter could survive to be a senior citizen? He almost didn’t. He had been beaten badly in a fight in ‘68 and staggered into one of his girlfriends’ house complaining of an intense headache. He drank himself to sleep and didn’t get up, and when his girlfriend couldn’t rouse him, and couldn’t find a pulse, she did what everyone did when a bluesman met with violence in Chicago: She called Muddy Waters. "'Oh, Muddy, Walter dead!"

Muddy’s ‘70s world-wide popularity had not developed yet, he wasn’t working that much, so he was actually home. He drove the few short blocks in his new Cadillac in just two minutes, and looked down sadly at the still body of his friend -- small and trim like a boy, but with an old man’s face -- already scarred and freshly battered. "Get up, motherfucker," Muddy commanded, and Walter did.

"Writers V. Musicians" was published in Blues Revue in 1999.

...Writers who review live blues performances and albums for blues magazines and blues society newsletters let us know that there’s a wide range of great to terrible music offered to the public. A musician will tell you the same about the writers. They’re both right, of course, but when they conflict it can get ugly, sometimes personally and sometimes in public...

..."Fairness and Respect" are not laws that blues writers "have to" follow; I’m just saying that I appreciate those attributes in music writing, and suggest that they will in turn win writers more respect from more musicians and readers...

Consider respect. As one who has both played and written, I will tell you it takes infinitely more to deliver a musical performance, live or recorded, than it does to write about music. It takes talent, sacrifice, dedication, and hard work to build a musical career. For a writer to dismiss all that, he just has to write the words (he doesn’t even have to spell, spell-check on the computer takes care of that). A writer may very legitimately dislike a performance, but I can’t see that any writer has a right to disrespect any musician, period.

Most blues writers are very aware of that issue, but sometimes, perhaps through just trying to write cleverly or getting carried away with himself, disrespect surfaces. Immature or thoughtless writers can try to pass off attitude and sarcasm as legitimate criticism. The line is crossed between provocative and provoking, between the honestly and fairly critical and the patronizing, ignorant, arrogant, and insulting. Good blues writing is like good blues playing: deep and soulful and witty -- not self-indulgent masturbation, no matter how cutely presented.

"One Night At The Highland Tap" was published in Blues Revue in 1999. It’s Blues Fiction, and that feels more like songwriting than journalism to me. It’s based loosely on my experiences in 1971 playing at a bar in the band of Luther "Georgia Boy" "Snake" Johnson at The Highland Tap in Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1971. "Jimmy" is a young, white guitar player in Luther’s band...

...On the third set, some neighborhood musicians sat in and Luther gave them the stage and his band while he went to the bar to drink and hit on women. A thirty-ish very dark-skinned man named Sonny, wearing Levi jeans and jacket in contrast to the polyester all over the club, sang "Stand By Me" and the recently-departed Little Junior Parker’s "'Next Time You See Me."' Sonny was a brick mason by day and a Soul Man at night

 A sexy woman named Leola, wearing an overflowing halter top, a huge Afro and hot pants, breasted her way onstage and called off Aretha’s "Dr. Feelgood." The band knew the modified blues changes of the song because six out of seven women sit-in singers had a go with Dr. F. Though she could have the crowd by her looks alone, Leola sang pretty well too. The band’s eyes caressed her every movement as they backed her up. She enjoyed knowing that each was imagining being with her. She had actually been watching Jimmy all night, and she gave him a guitar solo and answered his licks moaning "Feels GOOOD!" while she rubbed up against him as he played. Jimmy tried to be cool, but she felt both soft and firm, and smelled both sweet and funky, and seemed to be laying her sex on him. He sure wasn’t thinking about Janie at home. Still, he was just worldly enough to know that if he tried to pursue the attraction off the bandstand, he’d likely be cut or shot by a husband or boyfriend or both. He might already be in trouble anyway...

"Sittin' In - Tales of Hell and Heaven" was published in Blues Revue in 2004.

In 1972, I did something on a bandstand that I'm ashamed of, and while I can't take it back, I learned a lesson and never repeated it. I was playing at The Ale and Bun in Worcester, Massachusetts with The Boston Blues Band and I could hear someone in the audience playing along on a harmonica. I caught his eye a couple of times and shook my head "no," then mouthed "please" with a smile, but he didn't take the friendly hint. He just kept tweeting, constantly and in the wrong key, obliviously annoying the band and our audience. Eventually, between songs, I announced, "I heard someone playing harp in the audience, there he is, wanna come up onstage?" He quickly obliged. I asked him if he would do us a favor. He held up his little whistle proudly. I requested, "Would you apologize for being such an asshole?"

Well, maybe it's fun to nail an irritating fool, but I soon felt like an 8-year-old who had tricked a 5-year-old. Though the harp guy was thoughtlessly rude, my response was deliberately mean-spirited. I promised myself I'd never do anything like that again.

Still, I was mighty tempted last June...

"Those Same OLD Blues" was published in Blues Revue in 2004.

...In '87, I played at a Blues festival in Peer, Belgium with my friends The Nighthawks. Young Chris Thomas King was throwing down strong Blues-Rock, a few years before his movie career and mixing Blues with Hip-Hop. The legendary Curtis Mayfield made me cry singing "I'm So Proud of You," a few years before a falling light tower at a show left him a paraplegic and hastened his demise. And it was the last time I saw Memphis Slim.

Memphis Slim was a Blues legend living in Paris when I toured there with Muddy's band in the mid-'70s. He was a big man dressed in a sharp suit. He had a white streak in his hair, a Rolls Royce, and a beautiful woman on each arm. When I saw him again in Belgium about 11 years later, he had cancer and was gaunt, weak, and weary. But when he took the stage, his illness and age receded. The gold and diamonds on his fingers and in his teeth flashed as he ran those octave Boogie Woogie bass-patterns and smiled at the young women. He played and sang songs that stoked our lusts and passions. The dying Bluesman was dispensing the spirit of youthful fun. When I said hello and thanked him right after his set, he had already shrunk back into his decline, huddled alone and frail in his tiny dressing room. A few months later, Memphis Slim went "back to Mother Earth," as in one of his most famous songs

Having the blues sucks, but listening to Blues music always made me feel good and playing it made me feel better. From observing, knowing, and playing with some of the greatest players who are more than a generation older, and from having acquired some age myself now, I believe this: Playing and enjoying Blues music raises a brash, defiant middle finger at death and aging. We may as well rock while we can because they're going to get us anyway. But even when they do, the music itself will survive to thrill our children...

"'ROUND AND 'ROUND" was published in BluesWax in 2004.

...When I started playing professionally in the early '70s, blues bands usually played in Blues clubs or occasional concerts if they were well-known enough. Today's world sure is different, and we sometimes find ourselves playing in circumstances that Muddy Waters didn't live long enough to see. In 2000, I did a gig with Muddy's son, Big Bill Morganfield, at a winery in Idaho, an idyllic, pastoral setting. Our audience was mostly affluent families, but they enjoyed the low-down soul in Blues music. We had a long time to play so I dug into some old songs I know, some of Muddy's early slide-guitar masterpieces. I sang Muddy's "Can't Be Satisfied," and closed my eyes as I felt the violent passion in the politically incorrect lyrics from another time,

I feel like slappin' a pistol in your face.
I'm gonna let some graveyard be your restin' place

I opened my eyes to see a toddler chasing a butterfly about 15 feet in front of me. I was very aware and sure in the moment that Muddy had never experienced, nor envisioned his song sung in that setting.

I'm 34 years younger than Muddy, white, and raised near the Charles River, not the Mississippi. I never held a gun on a promoter to get my pay or had one held on me to tell me I wouldn't get it. I was never denied service in restaurants or hotels as Muddy was. My modern-life business problems -- fixing or living the consequences of other people's mistakes, and smiling liars -- are not comparable to Muddy's brutal burdens trying to make a living with his blues in the '40s and '50s. Sometimes, we're treated unfairly and people we have to trust disappoint us. But I learned something important beyond the bandstand from the older, wiser, tougher Muddy and his bandmates: Do the best I can to forsee and fix problems, cope gracefully when things don't go my way, and be able to laugh at myself. Then let it go. I don't always live up to that, but I aim at it...

From "Screwing The Blues", published in BluesWax in 2004:

...In all the years I've traveled all over the world playing Blues, I've observed that while Blues attracts wealthy "patrons of the Arts," its core audience is everyday people who scuffle to survive in a tough world. Most of the players themselves still fit that description. I think that for many Blues fans, if they splurge on two Blues albums and two live shows a month, they may have trouble paying their cost-of-living bills. They do it anyway, finance-foolish but soul-smart, because they love their Blues. I fear that these folks may be left behind in situations where Blues is marketed at very high ticket prices, as for the loser Blues On Tour and the winner Handy Awards. Indeed, ignoring them may be part of why Blues On Tour failed. Yes, Blues needs corporate sponsorship and kind patrons to survive now and it needs to regain its economic independence to thrive in the future. But let's never forget where we came from and who loves the Blues now. The Blues was in the house at the expensive W.C. Handy Awards. It's also in the house at the free Blues jam at your local bar, and it's in your very heart when life is challenging. I pray that Blues in the modern world will never lose it's universal, human Soul. That would really be Screwing the Blues.