You wanted to know about those blues nights with Muddy and Wolf and Li'l Walter? Well, first of all, this is how I got the blues!Several years ago I was employed in a lead-bellybutton factory here in The Illinois River valley (Meatskin County, Illinois-It's really HID AWAY!). My job, they kept telling me every day, was to get the lead out. The area around the river is made up of canyons and hills--some'd call 'em bluffs or coulees--even mountains. Hell if Mount Prospect, IL is a mountain then these sure were mountains. Well, I roamed & rambled and followed my footseteps through the sparkling sands of the bizarre area looking for local folklore and songs. What I found amazed me!
Here in the pit of America, where one would expect to find literally tons of songs, I found NONE AT ALL. I did find numerous jokes(Who was that groupie I saw you with?---That was no groupie, that was...--Take my groupie, please!) but nobody in that remote area had ever been able to carry a tune. Whenever anybody began to "sing" for me, the truly unbelievable sounds emitting from their throats caused every moose within earshot to stampede through town. The locals began to get angry with me and blamed me for the moose mess all over the streets. It was definitely time to get to the bottom of the mystery.
I started by asking around town for clues. (Nobody had a clue in that town.)One thing led to another, until, one day, I learned that the area's water supply, a pussy-willow swamp down in Art's Hollow (I named it so I can call it WHATEVER I WANT--OK?) was the culprit. Seems that the fuzzy stuff in the pussy-willows disolved in the water,and quite literally, the entire area was the victim of the effects of the phenomenon known as "cat got your tongue"."As soon as people switched to rain water they could all sing like birds; some like crows and some like chickens, but it was definitely music! The very next week I collected a definitive version of the old ballad and early rock song, "Rock A By, Baby". I was also introduced to a very local native instrument made by stretching 3 rubberbands over a sow's butt called the "swinet". The late Tammy Swinet allegedly, took her name from this unique instrument much in the same way that Elton John took his last name from the colloquial term for toilet. (He's been looking flushed lately.)
In late September of '98 I left Meatskin County (it's really hid away--get it?)behind, and it's a good thing, too. This week the Illinois River flooded and erased Meatkin County (it's really hid away!) and those weird hills from the map. The folks who were kind enough to sing for me (if that's what you want to call it) all were drowned. And you've probably noticesd that there are no more mooses in North-Central Illinois now. Corn now grows where babby pigs once slid happily down rocky hillsides. Sometimes the rocks even fell on the pigs, squashing 'em. And that's why bacon is flat!!! The only legacy we have from those well-meaning, albeit tone-deaf people, are a few terrible songs and tons of lousy jokes! And I've been posting those here for several days now...
Will get back to Muddy & Wolf in a while; but now ya know about our area here---floods and all---and how the blues fit right in!
Art