Thanks, Olddude and Will.

Here's a little story about me and the blues. When I was a kid, I used to spend time at our dining-room table while my mother ironed clothes. I'd do homework or match socks, and we'd both listen to the radio.

One day they played a record of a woman singing "The Blues in the Night." It must have been a request, because it was not the kind of thing I usually heard.

My mama done told me
when I was in pigtails,
a man is a two-face
a worrisome thing
he'll cause you to sing
the blues in the night...

My mother gave a grunt of disapproval at the language. But then the woman began to sing a new melody in a voice of dark velvet, and I sat transfixed as her music made me picture bleak Chicago landscapes - railroad tracks, wooden water towers, and run-down houses. all dark against a sunset.

We listened silently together, each in our own world. It was beautiful.