Yet More of my Rock Music novel: ‘The Blues Muse’ – Los Angeles 1967

Posted on by Opher

The Blues Muse: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781518621147: Books

Los Angeles

The coast road between San Francisco and Los Angeles is a good road to hitch on – four hundred and fifty miles of coast hugging highway with cliffs and distant sea below. We set off with rucksacks and smiles and soon got a lift with an Army lieutenant, a Vietnam Veteran. He was keen on the girl who was hitching with us. Love was in the air and it nearly got us killed. Rounding a bend at speed in his big open-top chevy we found two trucks coming towards us side by side taking up the whole road. Our lieutenant drove onto the narrow strip of sand beside the barrier that separated us from the cliff edge ad a drop of hundreds of feet to the rockls and sea below.

The trucks passed and as a signpost bore down on us he eased back on the road; the wheels gripped and threw us into a spin that ended up with us heading straight for the edge. The chevy buried its nose in a sand dune and the whole car reared up threatening to catapult us out into the void. It hung almost vertical and slumped back down with a crash. We sat stunned as the sandstorm around us abated. Then we got out, inspected the car, pulled it back out of the sand and drove off.

The lieutenant seemed happy enough with his girl snuggled up to him and drove just as fast, still showing off to his girl.

He dropped us off at Big Sur, home of the magnificent Henry Miller, where we walking down to the magical Pfeiffer State Beach just in time for sunset. A line of Freaks were sitting on the beach passing jays and watching the waves crash through the arch of the rock in the bay as the sun turned the sea blue and crimson.

That evening we were sitting around the campfire playing guitar, singing, laughing and sharing, the way it should always be, when the cops arrived, arrested us and dumped us back on the highway.

We lay in our sleeping backs staring up at the sky spread out like salt on a black velvet cloth and listened to the mountain lions roar all around us.

Los Angeles had a different vibe to the laid back feel of San Francisco. There was a tension in the air that was emanating from the huge urban sprawl with its smog, gangs and guns. It was hard to create the same sense of tolerance, peace and love in the middle of a cauldron but Venice was pretty chilled out.

When the sun was long gone we hit the Sunset Strip. Jim Morrison and the Doors were dangerous. This was no Folk tinged acid rock; this was full blooded R&B derived epics of incest, matricide and murder. The music shrieked with power and the air split with poetry. This was Jim in black leather – sinister and political. Lurking in the shadows, sprawling on the stage with nothing held back.

At the London Fog we caught Love in their Punk anger with songs of nuclear holocaust and heroin. The Count Five supplied their heavy chords and the Leaves did their version of ‘Hey Joe’.

My head was spinning. I was still trying to orientate the incredible slide of Kreigers when the Byrds blew me away with their harmonies, Dylan covers and that unique jangley twelve string guitar.

It continued unabated. The Mother’s of Invention were so tight, so orchestrated and so original. Their satirical, cynical compositions were surreal, outrageous and brilliant. By the time I came out I could’ve been a rock.

Out on the streets the Cops were patrolling the Sunset Boulevard. They didn’t like long-hairs. There was violence and tear-gas in the air. The kids were getting angry and fighting back. This was no ‘love-in’ in the park. This was establishment against youth, confrontation and fury.

Inside the Go Go The Buffalo Springfield were laying down with ‘For What it’s Worth’.

Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band came in straight out of the Mojave desert with their driving desert Blues and the Captain’s voice threatened to blow down the walls of the citadel, while their interweaving guitars clawed crazy patterns on my ear drums and lit up the inside of my skull. No more complex, powerful and exciting music had ever been invented.

I loved LA with its tougher vibe. It added a greater range of styles and such great music but it was time to split.

Another slice of my Rock Music novel ‘The Blues Muse’. San Francisco and Acid Rock.

Posted on by Opher

The Blues Muse: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781518621147: Books

This section takes my ‘man with no name’ back to the USA with Dylan, post-accident, and the West Coast Acid Rock scene about to explode.

San Francisco

Bob was OK. He had broken a vertebra or two but nothing too major. It had straightened him out. Lying in the bed in Woodstock recovering, free of pills, obligations, tours, books, recording, song-writing and all the hassles with fanatics, managers, promoters, band members, producers, record labels, A&R men, Press and all the other leeches that wanted a piece of him, had given him time to think.

He told me it was like coming up from deep under water and finally taking a breath of fresh air. He had a wife and young kids that he hardly had time for. He was surrounded with people pushing and demanding and bleeding him dry.

The accident was his way out.

He was free.

I couldn’t argue with that. Nobody could. I’d been doing that all my life. But for me the only thing that was important was the music. I didn’t have no family.

I was back now. I was in the States. It was time to check out what was going down on the West coast that I’d heard such a lot about.

I caught a greyhound that took me up to Canada, around the Great Lakes and down through the Mid West. In Canada I caught the first Fall colours as the trees were on fire with their yellows and reds. Across the plains we crawled as if marooned in an ocean of wheat. A line of huge harvesters crawled endlessly forward eating a gret swathe, discharging into truck after truck as they went. We stopped off at Yellowstone and I hitched through, taking a peek at the geysers, steaming pools and black bear. We halted at Grand Canyon and I stood on the rim, looked across that great striated gorge and then got right back on the bus.

I’d lived on that bus for three days. By the time I got into San Francisco it was dark. I had a name and address Sara had given me but it was too late. I got right on another bus and shipped out to Sequoia to catch some sleep.

I walked through Haight Asbury. It was a different America to the one I’d left. A big black woman gave me a bag of doughnuts. She thought I could use them. I sure could. I walked around in the sunshine and it felt free. Everywhere I looked it was flares, Indian print dresses, kaftans, scarves and colour. There was a revolution going on round here.

Strolling through Golden Gate Park I came upon a hill with hundreds of Freaks sitting, partying, playing music. It had the same vibe I’d felt in St Mark’s Square and Soho. The music was bringing people together. There was a real positive vibe.

By the afternoon I hefted my pack and bedroll on to my back and started heading down Fullerton road searching for the address I’d been given. It didn’t seem to exist. A window went up and a pretty young girl shouted out.

‘Hey. You look lost. Do you need a place to stay’

That was the beginning.

San Francisco was taking off. The Three Day Trips Festival was just the beginning. I don’t think the Longshoreman’s Hall had ever seen anything quite like it. It was a Freak magnet.  Light shows, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters dolling out Kool Aid laced with acid, feedback and long drawn out jams from the Grateful Dead, a harder but equally elongated set of jams from Big Brother and the Holding Company and an audience that seemed to be part of the bands. It was all hair, flowing robes, dresses, colour, and big smiles. This wasn’t so much a show as a gathering.

I soon discovered that it wasn’t a gathering that was limited to concerts. This was no dressing up to go out scene. San Francisco was a mass of small cafes left over from the Beat Poetry of the fifties. That intensity had given way to an expression of joy. Everything about the kids spoke of sharing, openness and positivity. This was a home grown, can do culture. They made their own style, clothes, culture, art and music.

There were no rules.

In the coffee houses they sat around rapping, laughing, reading, playing chess and listening to music.

The Golden Gate Park was a focus for this burgeoning community. I took my guitar and joined the crowd that was always gathered on hippie hill. There was always plenty going on. Along the way Janis was in her tree, strumming her guitar and working out a song.

My new friends Dave and Mal took me in hand. The focus was either the Avalon Ballroom, the Matrix or Bill Graham’s Fillmore. It didn’t seem to matter much who was on. The gathering of the like-minded was the chief aim.

But it was the music that shouted at me loudest. The Jefferson Airplane soared through the smoke and colours of the light-show. Grace’s voice rose and fell hypnotically as the guitars of Marty Balin, Jorma Kaukonen and Paul Kantner weaved patterns in my head. Maybe it was the acid, the jay or the music but everything built into an experience that melded into something transcendental. From its roots in folk, through the strange filter of acid rock a fusion of sound had blended into something approaching perfection.

Country Joe and the Fish came in from Berkley with their outrageous anti-war epics and acid drenched instrumentals that took you off wafting through internal space. Barry Melton’s guitar sounding like nothing I’ve ever heard with those clear lysergic tones while Joe’s beautiful voice sent me into the stratosphere as it wafted through my ears like a soft breeze and lifted my spirits. But then man, they could rock too.

Over the weeks I was engrossed in similar trance-like reveries as Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Charlatans and Sopwith Camel all worked the same magic.

This was music that played in your head, with your head and around your head. It came out of the culture and transmitted the culture until the music was the culture. The sound was a distillation of the philosophy, thought, love and joy of the whole community. The bands were not performers so much as extensions of the people they were spawned from. The concerts were not so much entertainment as sharing and growth. We grooved together.

I could not believe that music as wonderful and complex as this was not being heralded far and wide. It felt like the culmination of all that had gone before.

Yet more from ‘The Blues Muse’ – a novel tracing the history of Rock Music – Soho and the 60s Contemporary Folk Scene.

Posted on by Opher

The Blues Muse: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781518621147: Books

More Soho

I soon learnt from my new friends that the scene had been going for some time. A lot of the American singers who frequented the Greenwich Village had cut their teeth here. Both Bob Dylan and Paul Simon had performed regularly and were educated in their guitar work by the likes of Martyn Carthy. Spider Koerner, Stefan Grossman and John Fahey had passed through the clubs and contributed to the ethos of the scene.

Some of the names passed over my head but I could tell from the reverence in the voices that these were major players.

If my first visit was revelationary then the second was an epiphany. It started with a very young, fresh-faced Al Stewart with tales from the bed-sit land around us and the sexual exploits that went with it.

Ralph McTell was a gentle soul with cheery disposition who painted little pictures of sad clowns and disturbed youths.

This was brilliant.

But the best was yet to come. After an interval a reserved character took the stage and delighted everyone with his melodies and voice. Jackson C Frank was another revelation. Those tunes are still in my head to this day.

The last man up was one Roy Harper. I looked hard at him as he set up and tried to figure out what this was going to be. He looked young and eager with long fair hair and dark beard, smiley eyes and easy chuckle. He talked to the audience freely about the things going through his mind and seemed in no hurry to play.

I wanted to hear what he was going to do. Was it more Blues guitar? Instrumental? Or songs like Al and Ralph.

When he was ready he started. From the off you could tell he was no slouch on the guitar but it was not going to be any delicate finger-picking instrument. He was building up a head of steam right from the off.

Then he stopped and looked round at everyone.

‘You know,’ he said. ‘I spend most of my life surrounded by the things I stand against.’

It brought a cheer from the audience.

He resumed with a wry smile. What followed was a twenty minute, heartfelt polemic of a song that ripped into society and the establishment with barbed vitriol and biting lyrics. It blew me back in my seat. Not only was this a musical extravaganza of great worth but the delivery and poetry was right up there with the best that Bob had produced.

I was blown away again.

Somehow all this musical genius had been proliferating under this great stone called Soho.

Over the course of the ensuing weeks I discovered the all-nighters and the delights of Sandy Denny, Jo Ann Kelly, Mike Cooper, John Martyn, Nick Drake and Ron Geesin.

The music flowed like a perpetual river, a waterfall of splendour and power.

Another extract from ‘The Blues Muse’ – Liverpool and the start of Merseybeat

Posted on by Opher

The Blues Muse: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781518621147: Books

A novel tracing the entire history of Rock Music.

Liverpool

I thought that perhaps I had made a mistake. London was pretty glum in its post-war rationing and grey dreariness but Liverpool was worse. I walked alongside the docks with its granite quays splattered with holes from the strafing and shrapnel and looked up at the Liver Birds peering defiantly down from the Liver Building. They seemed to sum it up for me. The German air force had tried to bomb the heart out of the city but it was still there, the people I met were friendly, cheery and welcoming to strangers, even black strangers. Liverpool was a major port. They were used to sailors from all over the world, and many had settled.

I walked the streets where the kids were playing on the bomb-sites. There were games of football, flick cards, hula-hoop, carts, cowboys and indians, hop-scotch and marbles. The streets might be grey, dreary and dismal, with those terraced houses crammed tightly together but it was all a backdrop to kids playing and housewives standing on doorsteps, chatting and keeping an eye open. The pubs were full of men. The docks were in full swing again.

I could feel the energy.

The music was somewhere.

The Skiffle craze was over but it had left its mark. As I wandered down Mathew Street I found what seemed like a hundred little clubs all alive with music. Liverpool was awash with bands. The salesman had been right. This was where it was happening. The merchant seamen were bringing back their treasures from the USA, R&B and R’n’R that the Beeb wasn’t playing. The bands were performing it and mining that rich lodestone. They were bringing the music back to life.

I felt something in me coming alive too.

I couldn’t get a job on the docks; it was a closed shop. I toured the clubs and bars but there was nothing doing. I even contemplated getting my guitar out and joining in but I was not ready for that. In the end I got a job as a warehouseman. I stacked boxes of plastic bowls and airfix kits into stacks fifty feet high. We unloaded lorries, built our stacks to the ceiling, flinging the boxes from hand to hand, and took them down to load back on to other lorries. I started at eight o clock and clocked off at five. If you were five minutes late they docked you half an hour. It was a job and it put cash in my pocket. More importantly it was a mere five minutes away from the Cavern. I could nip out and for a shilling catch the lunch-time session.

What more could you wish for?

That first time I had been reticent. I didn’t know whether I wanted to chance myself again. However the magnet was too strong to fight.

At my very first show I was fortunate enough to catch the best band in Liverpool. It was lunch-time but it was packed. Every lass and lad in Liverpool congregated in the Cavern.

I went down dingy steps into arched brick vaults. At one end they had a stage raised up a little. It couldn’t be any higher because the ceilings were too low. The place was packed with bodies. The heat was overwhelming. It stank and the walls ran with moisture. As the band hit the stage the girls squealed and the lads cheered. When the band kicked in the place erupted and the whole floor heaved as all of them bounced and jigged up and down to the beat. Someone later explained to me that this was known as the Cavern Stomp. There were no fancy moves. We were packed too tightly but that had a movement of its own. It was like everyone was part of some great beast. The place was alive.

I was alive.

I felt the energy pump through me again.

The Big Three had brought me back to life.

I was hooked again.

Elvis and Tupelo

Posted on by Opher

Extract from The Blues Muse

The Blues Muse: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781518621147: Books

Tupelo

Tupelo was a small town and like most of them places had two sides to it. One was black and one was white and never the twain shall meet. Ceptin’ that wasn’t strictly true. The truth was that some of those white sharecroppers were worse off than the blacks and certainly lived no better. They lived a hundred to a room in wooden shacks the same as the negroes. They worked the land and hoed weeds just the same, walked the mules, ploughed, sowed and owed the man the same as everybody else. There was no difference. And many of them weren’t too proud to share some music, a bottle or some dice.

Of a night, when the heat was cooling off, we’d sit on the veranda and rock on our chairs with a guitar on our laps and a bottle at our feet. Sometimes someone would strike up a diddy-bow on the side of one of them huts and some of the youngsters would try out some of their moves. Even the old folks would join in. It was kind of spontaneous and neighbourly.

If you wanted the real action you headed for town. The white folks would Honky Tonk but if you wanted something a bit earthier you hit the black side of town where the beat sizzled and the boots hardly hit the floor. The big mamas would jive their asses and shake like jelly. Their bodies shimmied while the guys, dressed to the nines in their dapper suits, ties and loud shirts, shoes shined, hair slicked and a hat tilted at a crazy angle, would strut their stuff and make their moves. Why – I would watch that floor and sometimes it looked like those cats had bones of rubber.

Elvis Presley was one of those real young white cats who liked to hit town and soak up the sounds. He was a rare one, that young kid. He did not fit in with most of his white group. With his long hair slicked back into a ducks-ass DA and combed into a tall pompadour of a crest like Esquerita, side-burns that he could tie under his chin and bright clothes of contrasting colours, he put the coolest black dudes to shame. He was a young skinny kid and had a mind of his own. His black eyes would look right through you and shine with some inner light when he saw something he liked. I guess it was that Cherokee blood set him apart. He was untamed and wild at times and, I declare, if he hadn’t have been so quiet and shy by nature, I’d swear he was pushing the numbers for some gang or other.

Many’s the time we’d sneak into the back of one of those clubs where the lights were so low you couldn’t tell the colour of a man’s skin and we’d watch. Tupelo was small but we’d get all the Blues Guys come through. Elvis’ eyes would pop outa his head when he saw Jimmy Reed, Big Maybelle and Arthur Crudup.

I saw him talking to Arthur after his show. Arthur had come down from Chicago when he was supposed to have lived in a packing case under the station in Chicago Central. If he ever did, he was not doing that now. You could see the man was eating good.

Elvis soaked up Howlin’ Wolf, Roy Brown and Big Mama Thornton. I could see it. His eyes were glowing and he never missed a beat. That sound was driving into his head and swirling round in there with all that Bill Monroes and Hank Williams. I knew it was all going to come bursting out one day.

The Blues Muse – A unique novel that tracks the course of Rock Music – Chapter 1

Posted on by Opher

The Blues Muse

Posted on  by Opher

I wrote this book in 2015. I think it is quite unique. What do you think?

This is Chapter 1

Tutwiler Mississippi

It was a desultory day at the railway station at Tutwiler. The Mississippi August sun was unrelenting and the air thick with moisture. No matter how used I became to the sultry heat, it was draining. The sweat beaded on my skin and refused to evaporate into the over-laden air. My overalls were already sodden and my shirt, with all its many holes, was clinging to my body. My red bandana, tied loosely round my neck, soaked up some of the moisture and stopped the sweat running down my back. It was still early morning and sure to get worse before noon. I was grateful not to be labouring in those fields. My guitar was my passport to an easier life. I wanted free of those plantations and that gruelling work but there were only two ways out that I knew and I had no urge to go into the church.

I set myself down on the bench by the brick wall in the shade of a big tree festooned with Spanish moss. It afforded me some shade and a good view over the station. This was a good spot. When there were enough people gathered I would put on my show. I knew that I would be able to have two shots at it because when the train finally arrived I had a second ready-made audience.

My attention was drawn to the only other person on the station; a gentleman was sitting on the other bench nearer the track. He looked to be around thirty years of age but obviously quite affluent. He too was shaded from the sun but I could see that he was greatly troubled by the heat from the way that he kept mopping his brow with his handkerchief. His over-heated condition was not at all assisted by his attire. He wore a starched shirt and tie with a three-piece suit. Although he had discarded his hat, which rested on the seat beside him, he had kept his long dark frock jacket on despite how uncomfortable that must have been. He was desperate to create an impression. He was here on business.

It did not take much working out that although this man was black-skinned, like me, he was none-the-less a man of some importance and a musician to boot. I could see that from the trumpet case he had laid beside his valise. That was highly unusual for the year of 1903. Most dark-skinned men and women were bought and sold. This one was, from all appearances, a free man. He might be a potential mark. It was worth a try. A man had to make a living.

I took up my guitar, took my knife out of my pocket, and began to practice my repertoire. I watched the man. I could see from the name on his suitcase that he was called W C Handy. He looked like he was a young man of means. I plucked the guitar and as soon as my knife connected with the strings I could see from the way his body stilled that I had his attention.

I worked up slowly; setting up the rhythm and making those strings give up their shrill urgency as I applied the blade of my knife, before coming in with the vocal. Some said that it was a voice that was deep and emotive beyond my years. I liked that and strained for every anguished emotion I could summon up from the depths of my short but experienced life. I gave him everything I could. I poured the pain of that heat, the despair of those long days of hoeing, picking and weeding down those endless furrows under that blazing sun, the dust, the scant pleasures and the life in those shacks. The whole of life was in those plaintive songs; not just my life but the life of my people. But I also made sure that I captured the joy and spirit too. Those songs were all my own with their three chord progression, verse and repeated refrain. I had distilled them out of my African roots.

I could see I had his full concentration. He turned towards me and watched intently to see what I was doing, how I had constructed the song, the way I repeated the refrain. I could see he had a trained eye and was taking it all in.

This was my music. I had pulled it up out of the memories of my heritage, from the songs my family had passed on to me and from the white man’s music that I’d heard coming from the mansion in the evening. The local master encouraged us to play western instruments. He would often take a group of us into the house to entertain his guests. We had learnt his melodies.

I blended them into something of my own that sang of my world and experience.

A few more people drifted in to the station and stood around while I played. I put on my full act and by the time the train arrived I had accumulated some copper in my hat. The smart business man was the last to board. He came over to me, dropped silver in on top of the other coins, smiled and nodded his approval. He did not say a word but I could see that he had appreciated my performance from the way he had studied it so intently.

I turned my attention to the people descending from the train. It was time to do it over again.

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If you would like to purchase The Blues Muse, or any of my other books please follow the links:

In the UK:

In the US:

For all other countries please check out your local Amazon outlet.

The Blues Muse – A book on Rock Music like no other – The introduction.

Posted on by Opher

The Blues Muse

Posted on  by Opher

I think this is the most imaginative book I’ve ever written yet it tells the story of Rock Music from its roots in the early twentieth century right up to today. It is a novel.

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Introduction

This is a novel. It is the often repeated story of Blues and Rock Music but like it has never been told before. My character is the man with no name; the muse, the witness, the time traveller. He was there through it all. We see everything through his eyes. My character is fictional and I’ve taken liberties with some of the events, and a few of the timings, but the spirit is as real as the day is long. It’s more real than when it happened.

This is Blues and Rock. I have taken the main characters, the important scenes and stepping stones and brought them to life by painting the picture around them, filling in the background, and embellishing the stories. What we have is not real, not history, not just dry facts. This is more of an impressionist painting than a photograph. But perhaps you can see more reality from an impression than a stark record.

Each scene is a vignette that is self-contained. The timing is by necessity approximate. While my man is a spirit he cannot physically be in two places at once. All I ask is that you suspend your disbelief and give full rein to your imagination. If you do that I will take you there and show you what was really going down. There was a social context, an establishment response, a rebellion and new youth culture that accompanied that rhythm. It meant a huge amount to the people who lived through it. I was one of them. It gave us hope. It gave us a new way of looking, raised our awareness and gave us sight of a different future. Through the excitement there was a fraternity that crossed race, national boundaries and creed.

That music was new and it was ours.

Music is elemental. It was created right back in the dawn of time; it is in the DNA of man. When that first percussion created the initial beat, that first voice found its range, something was released that has never died.

Africa was our home and where that beat was first invented. Maybe as a backdrop to provide substance to a religious ceremony? Maybe as a unifying force to raise the courage for war? But maybe, I like to think, as a celebration, for dancing to, losing yourself in and becoming as free as the wind.

That beat is centred in our body and our mind, built on our heart-beat, generating emotion and excitement, liberating and elevating.

Who knows when the first instruments were invented, the first harmonies, choruses? Certainly a long time ago. Music is in our blood and has permeated our lives.

Back in the early twentieth century music was revitalised and reinvented. The black slaves in America reached back to their roots, pulled out that rhythm and created the Blues, Gospel, Jazz and Soul. They married it to the white country jigs, reels and barn-dance, to the Cajun and Creole, to electricity, and came up with Rock ‘n’ Roll.

The winds of the Blues blew straight out of Africa, straight from our ancestors, to talk to us through our genes. They stir our spirits, our passions and raise up our minds. The young recognise its power and are moved by it.

The world has felt its power and the establishment has been shaken by the hurricanes it releases.

This was first mentioned by W C Handy in his memoirs. He claims he was sitting on the station in Tutwiler Mississippi, where a black man was playing the Blues using a penknife to create the sound on the guitar strings and singing a plaintive refrain. He said it was the weirdest sound he had ever heard but it stirred his imagination and caused him to change from playing Sousa to performing and popularising the Blues.

Tutwiler is where our story starts.

The wind from the Blues is a spirit that blows through us, in us and out from us into the world. It is transformational.

This is the story of that spirit. It’s a spirit that lives in all of us. This is the story of Blues and Rock told through the eyes of that spirit, that essence. It is there in all of us and was there throughout, witnessing, inspiring and creating energy, change and emotion. It has the power to move mountains and bring down nations.

This is the muse of the Blues, the story of Rock.

It hasn’t stopped blowing yet!

Opher 1.10.2015

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If you would like to purchase The Blues Muse, or any of my other books please follow the links:

In the UK:

In the US:

For all other countries please check out your local Amazon outlet.

The Blues Muse – Belfast – Stiff Little Fingers – Rebellion

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The Blues Muse – Belfast – Stiff Little Fingers – Rebellion

The Blues Muse works his way through Punk in Ireland with rebellion and the troubles.

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Belfast

If ever Punk had been invented for a reason then Ireland was surely it. The ‘Troubles’ had been rumbling on since the turn of the century, had their roots back with Cromwell and even before with William of Orange and then way back to 1609 with the imposition of Protestant Scots into Ireland. In the seventies it had reached the height with bombings, knee-cappings, killings and an insurmountable war waged between the IRA, who wanted a united Ireland under Irish rule, and the British government who wanted British rule for Ulster and the protestant North. As an outsider I looked at it with amazement. It seemed incredible to me that Ireland was suffering such sectarian violence when the people were always so nice and friendly. But then I wasn’t Irish.

I walked through Belfast and it was scary with its barbed wire, bricked off roads, brutal grey despair only brightened by political slogans and defiant gaudy murals celebrating victories, hunger strikes and militia. It looked and felt like a war-zone.

But this was the environment that the kids had grown up in. Segregated, threatened, strip-searched, frisked and with the constant threat of violence and death from all sides.

It was fertile soil for a Punk Band and Ireland had a rich musical history. The wonder is that only two bands really emerged. While the Undertones were good and produced that brilliant ‘Teenage Kicks’ which was one of John Peel’s favourites, they never really dealt with the politics. They left that up to the other of Peelies favourites – Stiff Little Fingers.

I could only imagine the bravery of those young lads as they bellowed their fury at both sides and hit out at the stupid violence, repression and threats that they were subjected to. They made no distinction. Nobody has put it better.

It took guts to stand up to the IRA and tell them they had a suspect device, to harangue the British Army for their disrespect and disdain and to ignore the very real threats and warnings. They literally took their life in their hands for their music and held out for a vision of a better future.

Where the Sex Pistols talked of ‘No Future’ they sang about an ‘Alternative Ulster’. Instead of joining in with the politics of separation and hatred they sang about ‘Barbed Wire Love’ and hit out at racism in ‘White Noise’. This was my kind of music. It hit the heart, head and glands. It had substance, balls and quality. Punk didn’t come much better.

I watched them play in Belfast. They had ignored threats from the IRA, talk of a bust by the Brits and carried on through a bomb threat. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. They were young kids but they played their hearts out and Jake’s voice was hoarse and in ribbons by the end, the young kids in the hall packed it out and threw themselves around with gusto. Stiff Little Fingers were putting all their frustrations and anger into words and power chords. Nobody did it better.

This was what Rock music had always been about – rebellion!

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If you would like to purchase The Blues Muse, or any of my other books please follow the links:

In the UK:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1479943367&sr=1-2-ent

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blues-Muse-Opher-Goodwin/dp/1518621147/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1479943367&sr=1-1&keywords=opher+goodwin

In the US:

https://www.amazon.com/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1479943510&sr=1-2-ent

https://www.amazon.com/Blues-Muse-Opher-Goodwin-ebook/dp/B01HDQEMQ6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1479943567&sr=1-1&keywords=opher+goodwin+blues+muse

https://www.amazon.com/Blues-Muse-Opher-Goodwin/dp/1518621147/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1479943578&sr=1-2&keywords=opher+goodwin+blues+muse

For all other countries please check out your local Amazon outlet.

Featured Book – The Blues Muse – Chapter 2 – Crystal Springs

Posted on by Opher

I spent a bit of time going around Mississippi checking out the places where the old Blues guys performed. They’d do their street busking, sing at taverns or jukes and perform at barbeques. In order to attract a crowd they deployed all the tricks of showmen.

My character started off at Tutwiler station but works his way up from the early acoustic blues through Chicago electric Blues and into Rock ‘n’ Roll. He caught Country ‘n’ Western on the way.

The trick was to get him to cover all of the major events, get across to England, back out to the West and East Coast, the 70s scene, through Punk and on. I had to play around with the times a teeny bit.

Crystal Springs

 

Crystal Springs was a typical little Mississippi Town. There were a lot of these towns around the Delta. They were the centres for trade with general stores and places where those with spending money could get a drink, play some cards or find a woman, where the white bosses could meet for business or buy equipment, and where horses, livestock and equipment could get serviced. They were all a bustle. I moseyed into the centre. There was a small square where people sometimes gathered. It was shady which offered some relief from the heat and so it was popular with buskers like me. We’d set up on the street corner and play our hearts out for nickels. I tended to ramble round. It didn’t pay to stay in one place too long. You’d attract attention from the sheriff and he was likely to give you a bed for the night and put you to work for a month or two to pay it off. They didn’t like itinerant ramblers any too much. Besides you had a novelty value and that soon wore off. No – I stayed a day or two and left. Sometimes they’d let me play in one of the taverns and sometimes one of the plantations would take me on. If there was heavy work to be done they liked a musician out there in the fields leading the chant. It raised spirits, put in energy and paid off in productivity. I could do that but it was long and hot all day under that sun. There was nothing easy about that. I avoided it if I could. Besides, there were plenty of guys who had no option. They were blind or crippled and could not work those fields. If they could not play they didn’t eat. I was young and fit; I hated to take food out of their mouths. I was happy to ramble, play the jukes and busk for a living. It suited me just fine.

Crystal Springs was good. I was hopeful that I could add to my few coins that I had gleaned. If I was lucky I would eat well and if I was even luckier I might just attract the eye of one of the pretty things who cast an eye in my direction and then I could end up in a comfy bed for the night.

As soon as I got there I realised I was plum out of luck. The two best places were taken and both had attracted sizeable crowds around them. I left my guitar alone and settled back to watch and learn.

I was new to this trade and had a lot to learn. If I was not going to starve I needed every tip I could possibly get.

The Main Street was dusty. Every time a horse or wagon came through it would kick up quite a cloud. It added to the general discomfort and streamed in with the sweat running down your face. We were used to it.

On Main Street there were boarded walkways for when it rained. When it rained in Mississippi it was like the heavens had simply tipped a lake over on top of you. It came down in such a stream that it was a mystery as to how anyone managed to breathe. The dusty turned to mud that sucked you in, the street became a river and the wagons bogged down in the quagmire. If it wasn’t for those covered boards nobody would get around. All the women in their long dresses would be stranded rats.

On the boards in front of the hitching rail I recognised Tommy Johnson. He was one of my favourites so no wonder that he was pulling everyone in. Tommy knew how to entertain a crowd. He was like a magnet. He’d gather them round and magic the coins out of their pockets. I listened as played the intricate patterns on that guitar and watched his fingers closely. Man, he was good! He was singing some song about canned heat. I could relate to that. Many’s the time I’ve had to doss down in the alleys where the down and outs live. I’d clear the sterno tins away so I could stretch out. Those guys were mean mothers. I had to cuddle my guitar to me all night. They’d steal the shirt off your back to get another tin. They never seemed to sleep. All night long they’d be heating those tins up and getting high on that juice. It rotted their minds and made holes out of their eyes but they were past caring. Tommy sure could sing about reality in that high-pitched falsetto voice of his. Not that this was the only thing about his act that the crowd found entertaining, no sir. There was nothing he could not do with a guitar. He was a crowd pleaser. He would work the crowd by playing that thing behind his head; he’d throw it spinning into the sky and seemingly catch it with hardly a stutter in the playing. It drove the women wild and they’d shriek and squeal with delight and grip their cheeks with eyes wide, while the guys shook their heads in admiration. He’d finish off with a handstand on his guitar while still strumming. It sent shivers through me. I knew I was out of my league. I bet Tommy was never short of a drink or a bed for the night. I had no chance.

But as if that wasn’t bad enough on the other side of the square there was another of the legends of the area – Charley Patton. With his wavy hair and pale, red tinged skin he stood out. He was half Indian but it wasn’t just his looks that were striking. He too was a wizard with the guitar and Tommy’s equal at working a crowd. Whatever Tommy could do in the way of tricks he would do better. Charlie had that crowd shrieking. I watched as he played that old box behind his back and then walked it down the boardwalk playing it between his legs. His deep, rich voice was a contrast to Tommy’s high pitched tones and the crowds were lapping it up. A few years before Tommy had idolised Charley and learnt a lot. Now the pupil was giving the master a run for his money; though I could see that both of them were doing alright.

It was time for me to shut up shop and hit the road. I was not going to get much joy around here while these two were in town. They’d monopolise the jukes and drinking holes. I wouldn’t get a look in.

With a smile on my lips I watched them for another half hour. They were mesmerising. From where I was sitting the high voice and low growl blended into a perfect sound as their strong voices carried across the square and the guitars blended together. I couldn’t keep my eyes still as they darted from one to the other drinking it in. I was in heaven but there was no way I was going to compete with that. All I could hope was that I didn’t find Blind Lemon in the next place. That would cook my goose.

If you would like to purchase a copy in either paperback or digital please follow the links below.

 

In the UK:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blues-Muse-Opher-Goodwin/dp/1518621147/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1532104422&sr=8-4&keywords=The+Blues+Muse

 

In the USA:

 

 

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Featured Book – The Blues Muse – Chapter 1

Posted on by Opher

The book is made up of a large number of short chapters each of which is focussed on a major scene in the History of Rock. It sets my character in the middle of it and paints the whole scene.

The earliest record of a description of Blues was made by W.C Handy, a black band leader, who wrote about an itinerant singer who he saw while waiting for a train at Tutwiler station. The man sang a repeating refrain while playing the guitar with a penknife. That unknown singer became my main character. He moves through the whole spectrum of Rock Music.

I sat on that station and soaked it up.

Tutwiler Mississippi

 

It was desultory at the railway station at Tutwiler. The Mississippi August sun was unrelenting and the air thick with moisture. No matter how used I became to the sultry heat, it was draining. The sweat beaded on my skin and refused to evaporate into the over-laden air. My overalls were already sodden and my shirt, with all its many holes, was clinging to my body. My red bandana, tied loosely round my neck, soaked up some of the moisture and stopped the sweat running down my back. It was still early morning and sure to get worse before noon. I was grateful not to be labouring in those fields. My guitar was my passport to an easier life. I wanted free of those plantations and that gruelling work but there were only two ways out that I knew and I had no urge to go into the church.

I set myself down on the bench by the brick wall in the shade of a big trees festooned with Spanish moss. It afforded me some shade and a good view over the station. This was a good spot. When there were enough people gathered I would put on my show. I knew that I would be able to have two shots at it because when the train finally arrived I had a second ready-made audience.

My attention was drawn to the only other person on the station; a gentleman was sitting on the other bench nearer the track. He looked to be around thirty years of age but obviously quite affluent. It too was shaded from the sun but I could see that he was greatly troubled by the heat from the way that he kept mopping his brow with his handkerchief. His over-heated condition was not at all assisted by his attire. He wore a starched shirt and tie with a three-piece suit. Although he had discarded his hat, which rested on the seat beside him, he had kept his long dark frock jacket on despite how uncomfortable that must have been. He was desperate to create an impression. He was here on business.

It did not take much working out that although this man was black-skinned, like me, he was none-the-less a man of some importance and a musician to boot. I could see that from the trumpet case he had laid beside his valise. That was highly unusual for the year of 1903. Most dark-skinned men and women were bought and sold. This one was, from all appearances, a free man. He might be a potential mark. It was worth a try. A man had to make a living.

I took up my guitar, took my knife out of my pocket, and began to practice my repertoire. I watched the man. I could see from his suitcase that he was called W C Handy. He looked like he was a young man of means. I plucked the guitar and as soon as my knife connected with the strings I could see from the way his body stilled that I had his attention.

I worked up slowly; setting up the rhythm and making those strings give up their shrill urgency as I applied the blade of my knife, before coming in with the vocal. Some said that it was a voice that was deep and emotive beyond my years. I liked that and strained for every anguished emotion I could summon up from the depths of my short but experienced life. I gave him everything I could. I poured the pain of that heat, the despair of those long days of hoeing, picking and weeding down those endless furrows under that blazing sun, the dust, the scant pleasures and the life in those shacks. The whole of life was in those plaintive songs; not just my life but the life of my people. But I also made sure that I captured the joy and spirit too. Those songs were all my own with their three chord progression, verse and repeated refrain. I had distilled them out of my African roots.

I could see I had his full concentration. He turned towards me and watched intently to see what I was doing, how I had constructed the song, the way I repeated the refrain. I could see he had a trained eye and was taking it all in.

This was my music. I had pulled it up out off the memories of my heritage, from the songs my family had passed on to me and from the white man’s music that I’d heard coming from the mansion in the evening. The local master encouraged us to play western instruments. He would often take in a group of us into the house to entertain his guests. We had learnt his melodies.

I blended them into something of my own that sang of my world and experience.

A few more people drifted in to the station and stood around while I played. I put on my full act and by the time the train arrived I had accumulated some copper in my hat. The smart business man was the last to board. He came over to me, dropped silver in my hat, smiled and nodded his approval. He did not say a word but I could see that he had appreciated my performance from the way he had studied it so intently.

I turned my attention to the people descending from the train. It was time to do it over again.

If you would like to purchase a copy in either paperback or digital please follow the links below.

 

In the UK:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blues-Muse-Opher-Goodwin/dp/1518621147/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1532104422&sr=8-4&keywords=The+Blues+Muse

 

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