Listen to BB's "Five Long Years"---simply PURE blues. "I worked five long years for one woman---and she had the NERVE to toss me out!"

When Muddy came to Chicago from Stovall Plantation in Mississippi I do suspect he'd do just about anything at all to keep from going back to Mississippi. He was a superb country blues artist---check out his Library Of Congress recordings he made for Alan Lomax while still in the delta.

But in Chicago the adopted this new-fangled electric guitar so he could be heard over the noise in the bars where he made his living---Teresa's etc.

Sure that led a later generation to take it in their own direction & make rock out of it. We all know the links between Howlin' Wolf and the Rolling Stones--Clapton and Muddy.

BUT IN CHICAGO in the 60s there was MIKE BLOOMFIELD using BB King's high wailing notes at least as well as BB did it. (I still think the best playing Bloomfield ever did was behind Nick The Greek ---Nick Gravenites on Nick's LP for Columbia.)

Still terribly sad that Mike and Butterfield and so many others of my generation of white blues wonders overdosed and died way too young. I'll miss Mike 'til I'm gone too. But so many, like their Afro-American heroes, are still out their making great music: Corky Siegel, Charlie Musselwhite, Jim Schwall, Steve Miller. More power to ya guys! (I saw Siegel-Schwall and Bloomfield and Butterfield and Charlie Musselwhite AUDITION THE SAME NIGHT (I think) for that grand Chicago Wells Street blues bar called BIG JOHNS!!) What fantastic stuff was goin' down in Chicago in those days. Muddy & Wolf & Little Walter--James Cotton (with Muddy), Hubert Sumlin (with Wolf)---all of 'em had their own nights at Big Johns!!

Twas sure a great place to be! The only place to be then!

Sure do seem to be an amazing parade! Change is inevitable. The more things change the more they get different! Steve Gillette calls the Mississippi River THE LAZY MANS PARADE! Let's just sit back & listen to it as it passes us by! And it will pass us by. That's OK. 'Caus that's life.

Art Thieme