Story: '57 Les Paul

Subject: Story: '57 Les Paul
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 14 Aug 01 - 02:50 PM

Nashville 1958.

For the boy from Hazard Kentucky, Music City unfolded like a dream as the Greyhound Bus rolled past the city limits. Roscoe Caudill stared out the window as they rolled by the big brick building with the marquee out front....Grand Ole Opry. Beneath the bold letters, it read Tonight! Ernest Tubb, The Stonemans, Porter Wagoner, Minnie Pearl, Grandpa Jones. A drizzling rain had just quit, and the sign and the red brick glimmered in the morning sun, a haze of steam rising off the sidewalk. Roscoe grabbed his guitar case and his Mom's battered leather grip and left the bus at the station, walking through the mingled aromas of diesel exhaust and coffee to the station restaurant.

A heavy-set individual with a red round face sprawled at the lunch counter, cowboy hat on his head, bolo tie with steer-head clasp tight on his broad neck. He smiled at Roscoe and said "Mornin' son! You got to be Rosc Tate."

"Howdy. You're Mister McDaniel," said Roscoe. The older man tipped the glass of Coca Cola back, drained it, and said "yep" through the ice. He jumped off the stool, displaying surprising dexterity for such a portly individual. "Let's get to goin'" said Chuck McDaniel. "Can I take your case?" Chuck said, and without waiting for a reply grabbed the guitar, giving it a shake. "What you got in here?" inquired Chuck. Rosc smiled and said "Harmony. It was Daddy's." Chuck grinned and said "I hear you're greased lightnin' on it." He opened the trunk of a white cadillac convertible and placed the guitar inside. "Don't know that I call myself 'greased lightnin'" said Roscoe. Chuck slammed the lid. "Well, son, if you ain't, you better be by the time we get to Hank's."

****

The skinny fellow played an A on his Guild and turned his dark eye to Rosc. "You know Hey Good Lookin'?" he asked. Roscoe nodded and took a step closer to the guitar microphone. Did he know it? He'd played it several hundred times sitting in the parlor of his Mom's cabin on Coal Creek. Played it until she said "Please, Roscoe! If'n that song's all you know anymore, take it out yonder by the shed and sing it for the chickens!" He'd even worked out a finger-picked lead to complement the fiddle. When they had finished the song the skinny fellow nodded his head and said "I'm So Lonesome." The combo went through the tune, and the skinny fellow yawned and unsnapped the guitar strap. "He'll do," said the man, and turned to the fiddle player. "Get him ready for Saturday night, James. Take him through the songs." He strode up to Roscoe and extended a bony hand. "Welcome to the band," he said. The fellow put on his embroidered jacket, then paused as he opened the studio door to say "one more thing. Get yourself an electric guitar and an amplifier. Don't spend more than a hundred dollars, OK?"

*****

The guitar hung in the window of the Great Western Music store. It had a top of tiger-flame maple, and it shown amber, red, and gold as Roscoe stepped from side to side to view it. "Forget it son," said James. "That guitar alone is a hundred bucks." But Roscoe entered the store, and in minutes the clerk had hooked it up to a Fender amp. James listened to the full, sustained notes that tumbled from the guitar, and he couldn't help thinking that Hank would love the sound. "Best price, Barney" he said to the clerk. "Hundred seventy nine for the guitar and amp. But that includes a hard case, a cable, and a strap."

James shook his head. "Put down the guitar, Roscoe." Rosc ran his finger tips over the top, then handed it to the clerk. They had reached the street before Barney shouted "alright! One fifty!"

"One twenty five," said James.

"Thirty nine," said Barney.

James took a deep breath and sighed. "We can't let fourteen bucks come between us gentlemen, can we?" Barney shrugged his shoulders. "Deal," muttered James, then turned to Roscoe. "Loan," he said. "I get it back after your firstpaycheck son."

***

Nashville 1959

James stepped to the microphone and said "I can't sing it the way he could. But this is for him." The spotlight came up on an empty patch of stage behind the microphone stand, and James sang the song to this circle of light.

Do you hear that lonesome whipperwill
He sounds too blue to cry

The audience sat in quiet grief until the end, and in silence they left as the band put their instruments away. Chuck counted out cash to the players. He put his hand on Roscoe's shoulder and said "don't look so glum, Rosc. You did him proud. And there's plenty others would jump to get you as a session man."

Roscoe snapped the Les Paul into its case. "No, Chuck," he said. "I'm goin' home. My Mom's not doin' well and ...well, I just ain't cut out for this. I'm a farmer at heart." Chuck shook his hand. "Well, good luck to you Greased Lightnin'".

In the morning, Roscoe loaded the Studebaker up and made one stop before putting it on the road to Hazard. As he pulled out from the curb, Barney was hanging it in the window, with a sign that read "57 Les Paul. Used by Roscoe 'Greased Lightnin' Caudill. $89"

Subject: RE: Story: '57 Les Paul
From: Peter T.
Date: 14 Aug 01 - 04:24 PM

February 1960

Patty came down the street, with everything she had in the world on her back, having waited, as she promised, until her mother died before setting out. The thing was, she wanted to be the next Skeeter Davis, she listened to WSM all the time, and she had this intuition that a Skeeter Davis with a real busting voice could make it. I mean, Debbie Reynolds covering "Am I That Easy To Forget", just because as all the magazines were saying, Eddie Fisher was leaving her for Elizabeth Taylor, I would leave her too, Elizabeth Taylor was just so beautiful, and everyone said she looked like Debbie Reynolds on the farm, and who wants to look like Debbie Reynolds, you get left, you surely do?

She went into the lunch counter, and sat down. The counterman said: "What can I do for you?"

"Well, now," And she had already thought about her supplies, "Could I have a Coke, and can you tell me the way to the Opry, of course?"

"Only if you endorse the place after you become a big star," he said, laughing his head off.

"Why, certainly," she said. "Does that mean it's free?"

He stopped laughing and looked at her.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Chet and Patty were sitting in his office listening to the duet on his safety copy. She said,"I think it needs a third harmony part, like this," and she started in on it. She finished, and Chet picked up the phone. "We've already shipped the master to New York, but I guess we'll get it back. Of course, Skeeter will be mad as all hell."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"You know," she said to Hank Lochlin, as they sat together in the studio, waiting and watching the session man doodling on his '57 Les Paul, "That is one handsome man."

"Oh," said Hank, "he comes from Hazard, near where you came from. Plays like greased lightning. Come on, let me introduce you."

Subject: RE: Story: '57 Les Paul
From: Amos
Date: 15 Aug 01 - 12:42 AM

There is a certain feeling you can get singing; but it has to be with a voice close to your own -- not in pitch, but in the yearnings and delights, in the timbres of love and the fear of dying and the hope to God that you hear in between the notes, and you can get this feeling like you and that other person are right on the damn stairway to heaven together just for those minutes. If you're doing a nice harmony, and you understand those things in him, or her, why, this feeling can come. The world backs off and kinda melts because those notes, and all those meanings that you both are so sure are there in the air between you -- well -- it just happens sometimes and there is no feeling like it in the whole world.

And the first time she sang alongside of Greased Lightning, the boy from Hazard, the one with that amber and gold and red Les Paul, well, that feeling came up between them and Patty felt it just about washed her right down the river, it was clean and good and strong and right. And she knew he felt it too -- he had closed his eyes and was throwing his head back and letting the world hear his heart come right out through his throat singing "Charlottesville" and she was stepping him in third and she thought they both completely walked away from there bodies at that moment and were nothing but a pure pair of notes hanging together in a moment of forever.

And for Patty, that's about how it started.

Subject: RE: Story: '57 Les Paul
From: Peter T.
Date: 15 Aug 01 - 06:04 PM

So they are sitting in Tootsie's Orchid, down from the Ryman, and Ernest has been in, and about four of the Hanks, and now it has come down to Harlan, and Willie, and a couple of others, and Patty is there in her Opry dress, and Roscoe drinking far too much as usual, but they are young and way in love, and she has a nice new ring on her finger, and a guitar is going around, and Willie says, what do you think of this for you, Patty? I was thinking it was something you could really milk, or maybe Patsy." And he sings: "Cra --" and swoops down, "zy, crazy dah dah dah, dah dah dah, crazy, crazy for feeling so blue..." and he plays on a bit, and all the time she is thinking, Oh that is me, Oh that is me, Oh what a beautiful song, and then finally she says, "That sure is catchy," and Roscoe leans over smirking and says, "That sure is crazy, stupidest thing I ever heard, diminisheds and all that, she's been Chetified enough, Patty does rock solid country, they'd laugh at her." She looks at Roscoe, drunk, with that beautiful knowing smile on his face, and she holds herself back, she is his now, and then she says quietly, "Maybe he's right, maybe it's better for Patsy."

Willie looks a little crestfallen, the way songwriters do, worrying about their next meal, and the fate of their baby song, but he shrugs it off. "Maybe it's for nobody. I'll see what Owen thinks, and Patsy." Then Harlan says: "Here, what do you think of this," and he starts singing something off his cocktail napkin. Roscoe orders another round of drinks, and the night continues.

Subject: RE: Story: '57 Les Paul
From: Amos
Date: 15 Aug 01 - 06:36 PM

And there's a feeling you get when your tenderest buds of soul inside get stepped on one time too many. You can come back and you can suck it up, and you can grin at the world while your ribs are weeping under your skin, but, by God, there comes a time when someone pushes something down yourthroat one too many times and the rubber snaps and you just right then and there have a change of mind.

For Patty, it started back that night when Willie asked her opinion about "Crazy", but the snap didn't come for years -- years of Greased Lightnin' settling for the regular, the steady and the known, when all around it seemed people were pushing into new stuff, getting their souls blown out with sounds that stretched the world and mad whole new kinds of time appear. She remembered when she had an invitation to spend a month in Chicago opening, a whole new town, a whole new piece to her career. But Chicago wasn't country, and Roscoe ordered her to turn that down. And the time she wanted to cover "Lonely Tonight", excited at bringing the girl's side out into the world, she knew she could do it. And he said no, to that, too. And it wasn't just the music, you know. He was the kind of guy who wanted to tell you know. Even when you didn't have a question.

And so one day Roscoe found himself reading a note in their house on Charlotte Avenue, out by the Baptist Hospital, and he was standing there and it was dark outside, he was in the living room, his coat still on and the old Les Paul with a new hardshell case in his left hand, maybe a few drinks in him, reading that note, the nice solid wood door still open behind him letting in the chill evening breeze of autumn, like it gets in October there.

And he kicked that door harder than anyone would imagine, just split the whole lower panel, scarred up his shoe and nearly broke his big toe, too.

Subject: RE: Story: '57 Les Paul
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 16 Aug 01 - 02:52 AM

Chicago 1964

One girl was pretty, the other one was stage property. They both leaned over, whispering in each other's ear and giggling when Jessie Brown walked into the place. Jessie in a three piece suit and a stetson hat, sharing a joke and a raucous laugh with Irv the owner of the club, slapping someone's back, at last his eyes coming to rest on the two girls, saying "Evening ladies!" and sliding the empty chair back..."may I?" They giggled again, Jessie ordered drinks, a bourbon and splash for him, gin fizz for the girls, and he put his hand on the hand of the pretty one, big diamond glinting in the slim gold ring on his finger and said "where have I seen you before?" She confessed she was a big fan and had seen him at the Roxbury, the Palm Room, and Elmo's, and that he definitely had magic, and he put Muddy and even the Wolf to shame.

"Flattery," he smiled, running his forefinger slowly up her arm,"will get you everywhere. And I got someplace specific in mind, if you know what I mean." She giggled and whispered to her friend, and Jessie looked up at a nappy kid in a second-hand suit who was playing some very sloppy slide licks on a beautiful guitar on the bandstand. When the kid's stint was done, he walked past the table with his guitar, throwing Jessie a timid grin. Jessie pointed at the kid and said "you! Elmore Junior! Get over here and let me buy you a drink!" He stood and pulled the chair out for the kid and said "these are my dear friends Foxy and Tricksie!" and the girls responded with the predictable giggles and whispers, "and I am Jessie Brown." And the kid nodded and said "I know all about you. They saying you got the hottest blues combo in Chicago." Jessie's eyes crinkled and he laughed. "You hear what he say, Foxy? That boy got the down-home accent for damn sure. Where you from, boy?"

"Clarksdale Mississippi, sir," drawled the kid, and Jessie laughed again. "Another Delta roadhouse diddley banger come north to make good! Hell, don't look so glum. I come up from Lundel Arkansas twelve years ago myself. But I got to tell you, that is one fine guitar you got Clarksdale. Wher'd you get it?"

"In Nashville. I saw it and fell in love. I made enough cash in a bar there to buy it, but them was tough jobs. That's a tough town for blues."

"And now you in the Blues Capitol. You strike it rich yet?'

The kid sipped his bourbon and circled his finger in the wet spot on the table." No. Matter of fact, come tomorrow I'm on the street cause I can't pay the rent."

Jessie held his hand over his mouth so the kid wouldn't see him grin and said "damn, I'm sorry to hear that. But maybe I could help you out. How much do you need for that guitar?"

The kid glanced up, his hand pulling the Les Paul closer to him. "Can't sell this. This is my livin'."

"Son, you can buy another guitar and maybe pay the rent too. How bout a hundred for it?"

Now it was the kid's turn to smile. Why not turn a thirty dollar profit on the guitar? Jessie pulled out a money clip and peeled off two fifties and stuck them in the kids pocket, then held out his hand palm up. The kid hoisted the guitar, gazed at it briefly, then passed it to Jessie, who nestled it into his lap, then fingered a complex blues arpeggio which made the kid and the two girls gape. Jessie laughed. "Oh, she's got some country western fire in her. But now she's bound to get a little of the devil in her too." He stood up and took the pretty girl by the arm. "Let's go, baby."

***

Jessie came off the stage, handed his guitar to Sam, and walked out into the alley. He lit a cigarette and felt the October wind bring a chill off Lake Michigan, icing the sweat on his forehead. So what if Camille was gone? She was the wrong kind of woman for a blues man anyway. Didn't suit his style. She'd find out what it was like trying to get by without her sugar daddy, now. He liked women and whiskey and cocaine sure, but that was his nature. Had she ever wanted for anything? Hell no.

"Mr Brown?"

Jessie turned and shook his head. "Ah shit! I aint got time for no guitar lesson tonight."

The tall thin white kid held out the offering of a whiskey on ice. "Shit!" Jessie said again, but he took the whiskey. "Why the hell you doggin' me every night, boy?"

"You know. You're the best. I can learn so much by watching you."

Jessie drained the glass and scattered the ice cubes across the broken alley pavement. "Learn so much. Like how to do time in county for drug possession. Or how to lose your wife."

The kid said "no. The important stuff. How to play guitar like a damn angel."

Jessie laughed, then suddenly spun and threw the empty tumbler against a warehouse wall. "Angel? It aint about angels, boy! It's about cuttin' your way out of a street fight. The god damn guitar is the blade!" Jessie jerked open the club door and turned again to the kid. "Besides," he said. "You're white. White people can't play the blues. Didn't you know that?"

The door slammed. The kid raised his freezing hands and blew softly against them.

***

"Is he awake?" The lanky man stood over Jessie and touched his arm.

"He goes in and out," said Camille.

"What the doctor say?"

"They can't stop.." she inhaled sharply and closed her eyes. "...the bleeding. And they can't remove the bullet."

Jessie suddenly spoke out. "John Lee! That you man?"

"Yeah man. How you feel, Jess?"

"Like I'm just sinkin'. Sinkin' down. Camille?"

"I'm here, Jessie."

"That white kid still in the waiting room?"

"Yeah, still there."

"Damn. Just can't get rid of that kid. If I don't make it, Camille, give the damn kid my guitar ok? Do me a favor John. Tell that story about ol' RL's coon dog."

"Well, it was one time when RL decided he'd give up the roadhouse life and be a farmer. He had him a worthless ol Coondog name Tad. That ol dog could fart and clear a room in three seconds flat. He used to say "Git, Tad!" when he'd hear Tad rip one and Tad'd leave the kitchen. It got to where RL didn't have to tell him anymore, and Tad would just cut one and leave on his own. Pretty soon, anytime Tad got up to leave, everybody else would make a run for it at the same time." Jessie began laughing, tears falling down his cheeks. "One time ol Tad was nosin around in some blackberry bushes and RL hears him rip one, and pretty soon this skunk comes runnin out." Jessie shook with laughter. "RL always said that was one hell of a fartin' dog could flush a skunk out of a blackberry bush."

Jessie lay quiet at last, the tears still wet on his cheeks, a smile still haunting his mouth.

Subject: RE: Story: '57 Les Paul
From: Peter T.
Date: 16 Aug 01 - 12:09 PM

February-March 1963

Patty and Loretta and Patsy are in a corner, the show is over, and there are trunks everywhere, and Randy Hughes is buzzing around, and there is just girl talk going on, and Patsy says out of nowhere: "You know I've been thinking that we should do an allgirl album, just the three of us, some of the old songs and some of the new. Gospel on one side, new stuff maybe on the other."

Patty says, "Wow, that would be wonderful, what do you think, Loretta?" and Loretta says,"I think it would be the best thing ever."

"Well," says Patsy, "first thing after this Kansas City tour, and the Decca release, and we get a list and we go in to Owen and say, Here, we're going to do this."

"Will they agree?" says Patty.

"Honey, it is time you noticed that when you sell a ton of records around here you get power. And I aim to spread it around some more."

"Well," says Loretta,"You sure enough know how to do that."

They laugh, big and loud. Patsy gets up: "Well, girls, see you in the funny papers." They all embrace, and wish her a safe trip. Ray Walker of the Jordanaires comes up, and says a few things, and then Patsy moves away, and he says "Patsy, honey", and she turns around, and he says "Be careful, baby, we sure love you...". And she starts to go down the stairs at the back entrance of the Ryman, and she turns her head over her shoulder and says: "Honey, I've been into two bad ones... The third one will either be a charm, or it'll kill me".

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

March 6

They are all backstage crying and people are out on the benches in the front crying and praying. There are flowers everywhere, you can barely walk around backstage. The stage manager keeps removing them, and they keep coming back.

"I don't know, Loretta, I don't."

"Come on, you know she would want it like that."

"But it's her song. No one is ever going to sing it again."

"Well, I'm dying here, Patty, but I am going to sing one. "A Poor Man's Roses" You know she loved that."

"I don't think I can even go on, I am so broke up."

But her time comes, and she walks out, and bows her head for a moment, tears pouring down her face, and then she takes a step forward, nods to the band, and she starts: "Cra-zy..." And there is a collective intake of breath, and she does it exactly like Patsy, down to the breaks in the voice, and the audience suddenly becomes frightened, it is uncanny, as if it had all been a mistake, a bad rumour, and there she is, as she was, and Patty shakes like she is possessed, and maybe she is, and she builds it to a climax, and then it is over, and she stands there for a second, in the hush, and when she walks off she never sings that song again.

Subject: RE: Story: '57 Les Paul
From: Amos
Date: 16 Aug 01 - 03:27 PM

[I'm weeping you guys...you goddamn beautiful harp-fingered angels. Hod do you DO that?...damn... A.]

Subject: RE: Story: '57 Les Paul
From: Amos
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 01:43 AM

He took it back to New York, downcast and unsure of what to do next. Might be Cadillac Joe'd spot him a room. Might be he could play down one of those places around Washington Sqaure a while, make enough to eat. Maybe Leo up at Vanguard would let him back in. Maybe that girl, Dana... whoosie... Yeah. Or Allman. He'd find something. But he knew one thing, he wasn't gonna ask his dad, no matter what happened. He had learned plenty since he set out to be the blues, breath them, own them, and one of them was, it was on your own, man. On your own. They didn't know that at Antioch, they dodn't know it in the Village. Well that Jimi guy knew it, and old Jimmy Reed knew it. Man, those cats were square on. Jimi running off to Europe. And what happened to Robbie? He in the city? Something'd happen, he knew that.

He had the axe, and his fingers were hearing about some kind of magic, every time he started to work it. And the Greyhound kept pulling him north, and it got to that Whitestone Bridge and came down the West side, and he was on the square gray concrete sidewalks, just like last time, walking south from Port Authority, thinking the blues, feeling the Les Paul in its case by his side.... and waiting for his luck to come down the street and knowing it was gonna happen...

Subject: RE: Story: '57 Les Paul
From: Amos
Date: 19 Aug 01 - 12:21 PM

She left her parents' three-story white clapboard house with the impeccable green shutters and the manicured acre in front, slipped out the heavy front door with the giant handle on it and let it slip gently closed. Clean underwear, her favorite cashmere sweater, her long silken brown hair impeccable in a smooth bun, a gray flannel skirt to her ankles, her Goya in its case, her overnight bag, a note left on the long maple kitchen counter, and she fired up her little VW and rolled out on to the sinuus narrow back streets of New Canaan before sunrise on a fall morning.

Crisped leaves danced away in front of her as she wound across the blactop one laners that lead down the hill through the awakening New England town, winding down to the Merritt Parkway and south toward the state line and the Cross Bronx. John was back in town. and all she could think about, sane or not, was the look in his eyes and the gentle touch of his left hand, and the sound of the voice in him when he sang blues. She needed desperately to tell him what she felt, what she thought, what she would do for him if he would only make his mind up and take a stand.

Subject: RE: Story: '57 Les Paul
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 24 Aug 01 - 03:31 PM

It's amazing what you can pack into a VW. John and Dana had a duffle bag full of their clothes, a bean bag chair, two sleeping bags, a carton of LPs, a box of canned goods, a case of 8-track tapes, 3/4 of an ounce of Acapulco Gold,a bear skin rug, a Marshall amplifier, and the 57 Les Paul. They stopped just outside Cleveland to pick up a guy in starsandstripes bellbottoms, and John tied the kid's backpack to the the rear bumper. They camped in a farmer's field somewhere in Southern Illinois, where the kid confessed he was on the run from the Draft Board back in Jersey. "And now you're headed for Boise?" said Dana. The kid grinned, glancing hungrily at the cook pot full of Dinty Moore beef stew.

"Yeah. My cousin's living 25 miles from there in an old farmhouse with some people. No electricity, no running water, no town nearby. No rent." He pulled a cinnamon-paper doobie from his pack and lit it up. "And what's the attraction for you two in San Francisco?"

"John says the music scene there is ready to bloom," Dana replied, her hand falling softly on John's. John hit on the doob and passed it to Dana. "They are re-discovering the blues there," he said. "There's a place called the Avalon Ballroom. Muddy's played there to a 2500 people. John Lee Hooker and Howlin Wolf have played there. And there's a re-defining of the blues into our generation's music. Canned Heat, Johnny Hammond. Even Paul Butterfield had moved out there. I'm ready for San Francisco." Dana scooped stew into three coffee cups. "I hope," she said, "Frisco's ready for you."

***

Golden Gate Park was full of flower children. The sun shone down on the bandstand where John and his bandmates were finishing their set. Dancers, wearing rainbow colors, some clothed, some unclothed, snaked in a line through the grass in front of the stage. A young girl sat on an indian rug in front of the pa speakers, gently blowing soapbubbles into the sandalwood scented air.The last notes of John's guitar coda faded in the air, and he placed the Les Paul gently in its case. Travis, the lead singer said "very nicely done, man."

"Thanks" said John.

"I was wondering, though. Have you listened to what Jorma's been doing? I mean, he's a blues guy too, but he's got this soaring Indian raga stuff going now. Very psychedelic. I'd like to shoot for a sound like the Airplane has, or Quicksilver."

"Well, I'm a blues man Travis. I can't be Jerry Garcia. Don't want to be."

"What about Clapton, man? He's got the psychedelic sound and the blues merged pretty well."

"Look Travis...maybe I'm just not your guy."

"You need to relax a little man. This ain't New York City." Travis turned sharply and went to sit by the bubble-blowing hippie girl. A small woman in a peasant blouse, long dress, and a wide-brimmed hat stepped up to him. Her freckled, friendly face wore a wide smile, a smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. "Hey Bro," she said "I love your playin'!" John gave her a quick, tense smile. "Glad somebody does." She took a step closer, her face inches from his." You should lose these guys," she said. "Join up with some folks who love the blues. I'm putting a band together. In fact we've got a gig Saturday at the Angel's clubhouse." John laughed. "Since when are the Hell's Angels Blues fans?" She grinned again. "Since I started partying with 'em." She held out a hand, taking his with a fierce grip.

"Name's Janis," she said in her rough voice, surprising from such a petite woman. "You got a girl?"

"Yeah," John said.

"Tough luck for me. Well, gather her up. I want you to meet the boys."

"Wait a minute," said John."I'm not sure I'm ready to join up just yet."

"Oh that's right. You haven't even heard me sing yet." She stepped back a pace, took a deep breath, and sang in a gritty, yet melodic voice, a voice that seemed like a harmony within itself

We gone pitch a wang dang doodle all night long
All night long...all night long!

John turned his head to see everyone within 200 yards staring slack-jawed."OK,OK." he said, and snapped the guitar case shut. "I'm in."

"Tonight. 623 Grace Street." She kissed his cheek, winked, and strolled off into the crowd.

Subject: RE: Story: '57 Les Paul
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 30 Nov 02 - 03:48 AM

Sometimes it was as if time were standing still. When the Les Paul came alive, and he was no longer playing the instrument, no longer coaxing sound from it, but he had the sense of the music emanating from the atmosphere, somehow flowing instantaneously through his body and the guitar. It was magic and transcendence, religion and sex, an exploration of his soul and a joining with those around him. At those times he would feel tears roll down his cheeks, feel his heart swell in his chest as the music carried him forward toward some aching realization. The room resonated with the tones, the figures around him quivered like dream-shapes shimmering in waves of heat, his fingers moved in unconscious elegance. The guitar would sing, or roar like a wind, or hang like the cry of a bird on a cushion of silence, decaying to perfect quiet when he could hear the clicking of the tumblers of some lock that promised the opening of a door that concealed ultimate revelation.

And, with blinking eyes and perspiration beaded on his forehead, he would awaken from this spell to the clamor of applause, the odor of cigarette smoke and beer. He would look down at the Les Paul in wonder, and with mingled disappointment and fear, and it was another long night, in another bar, and the feeling of sanctity and salvation was as lost to him as ever it had been. The girl, the singer, would turn to him and seem to understand, and lay a hand gently on his arm, looking into his eyes. "I know," she said, "it's beauty and pain." She turned from him and looked out at the crowd, laughing in shouted conversations, oblivious. She held a glass to her lips, drank deeply, and a smile illuminated her face, a smile that couldn't touch the despair in her eyes.