Rob Naylor, Sanity, Bobert: I think we are all on the same page. I can't stand folks that try to categorize music or musicians as "authentic" or "copyists" or whatever. The Blues isn't about how fast you can play, or the gymnastics that you can do on the fingerboard. It's about the feeling and listening/working off each other to make that feeling happen. There are some you tube videos of folks that do some real fast technically awesome slide guitar work around blues progressions. They are so proud of themselves at the end of the video its like they are prancing around the barnyard crowing look at me. It's a 12 bar blues progression. But IT AIN'T THE BLUES.

Now Bobert, or Sidewalk when he's playing. PLays the BLUES. It's like a train going down the track, and there have been moments when I've played with him and I'm laying down the base, and he's sliding away, and harp boy is blowin' and we are all connected and we are all knowing where everyone else is going before they go there. It's transforming, and that's the BLUES.

I listen to the old masters Like BB King, Albert King, Robert Johnson, The Rev. Gary Davies, etc. to learn and admire. Not to
categorize them or get in debates on who was the best slide player or who was more "real".

I go to the Barbershop that Bobert talks about. Sometimes we play the BLUES there. We capture the moment and the feeling. A lot of times we don't.

JAB

P.S. I see I'm going to have to check back a lot more often:-)