THIS VERY NEGLECTED SITE HAS 1 "FOLLOWER"!

Hello Darlene Halverson! Sorry this blog has been so unrewardingly immobile for so long. This will change soon, as things warm up towards the US hardback publication of Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes on September 1st. Meanwhile, greetings...

NEW SON HOUSE ALBUM!

Good news! I reprint a very recent e-mail announcement from Dick Waterman:

"There is a new Son House live recording coming on Fuel 2000 in a few months. I know that you probably think you have enough live Son House but this one is different.

It was done in October, 1964, during his first national tour following his rediscovery in June of that year.

The late Pete Welding arranged for Norman Dayron to record three concerts. He brought along good professional equipment including a special microphone to pick up Son's conversation because he would slump back in his chair and speak softly.

These are basically Son's first concerts for white people in his life. His stories are funny and blues fans who know his emotional voice will be surprised that his hands were pretty quick on the guitar in 1964.

Bill Dahl is doing the notes and I'll come forth with some never seen photographs.

I think you will find this to be a more robust and stronger Son House that you have ever heard before." (Dick Waterman, Oxford, MS, www.dickwaterman.com.)

US HARDBACK EDITION - AT LAST!!

I'm delighted to report that a North American edition of Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes: In Search of Blind Willie McTell is to be published in hardback on September 1st, from Chicago Review Press / A Cappella. The cover design for this edition is now the version shown top centre at the start of this blog. The text will be updated right up till the end of next month, so any comments on aspects of the text will be especially welcome in between now and mid-March. The ISBN is 9781556529757. More news will follow. The price will be US$26.95.

WILLIE WAS SURELY AMONG THOSE VINDICATED TODAY

Willie McTell grew up, I believe, modelling himself partly upon the widely-respected black Statesboro GA headmaster William James. As I write in Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes:

"through his own determination and breadth of vision, William James built an institution in Statesboro that offered a far better standard of black education than its pupils could have expected, and received at least some support and encouragement from the rest of the town. What practical alternative route to betterment for blacks in the rural South could James have offered? Revolution? Working-class people have always seen education as a means of rising above their circumstances, and they've been right.

James also inspired by personal example. Everyone knew what he stood for and the dignity he personified. Willie never went to school [until he attended the Georgia Academy for the Blind in Macon as a young adult]... but when we picture the grown-up Willie McTell, whether as a blind man picking his way along Georgia's red-clay dirt roads or as a street singer in the big city, and then ask why he routinely wore the best clothes he could, and always wore a tie and that snazzy hat, isn't the answer the powerful example of William James?"

Just as surely as Rosa Parks, or Martin Luther King, or those who stood before them or behind them, Blind Willie McTell, who never ranted about either disability or race, was surely vindicated today. And would have been moved.

And to mention two other figures of grace and musicality, all hail to Aretha Franklin - another smart person in both senses (and with the best hat of anyone) - and Big Bill Broonzy. Who would have thought that they would hear his song lyrics quoted from the podium at the inauguration of a President of the United States of America?

McTELL EVENT IN CORK PART 2

Further details have been clinched for this March 25th gig now: ticket prices will be just €8, with €6 for concessions, the start time is 8pm, and a write-up is now on the venue's website at http://www.triskelartscentre.ie/. Phone numbers there, from within the Republic of Ireland, are 021 4272022 and 087 9923184.

McTELL EVENT IN CORK, IRELAND, MARCH 25

I'm pleased to say that later this year I'm going to be making my third appearance at the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork. I was last there in April 2004, and it was a great, full crowd. This time I'm delivering In Search of Blind Willie McTell, illustrated with audio and photographs. 8pm, Wednesday March 25th. Details to follow, or from their box office.

Triskel Arts Centre, Tobin Street (off Grand Parade and South Main Street), Cork
tel: 021 427 2022, or from outside the Republic of Ireland +353 21 427 2022.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy 2009... in which at least President Obama will take over from President Bush, and in which it will be 300 years since Alexander Selkirk was found on Juan Fernandez, off the coast of Chile; 200 years since the USA outlawed participation in the slave trade (ha ha); 150 years since the publication of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin; 100 years since Louis Blériot became the first person to fly across the English Channel (Calais-Dover, 37 mins); 50 years since Buddy Holly died in a plane crash in a snow-covered Midwestern field; and 50 years since Blind Willie McTell died in Milledgeville State Hospital, Georgia.