Don't think that I ever properly thanked you. I was expecting an old crusty Muddy Waters or BB King album. Instead, you broke out an album that transformed me. Oh, but it didn't transform me until probably two years later. But, I will never forget.
My first thought. White guys can't play the blues. Because, well, they are white.
When I first accepted the invitation by my fellow classmate, Jessica, I was curious. Somebody in Thibodaux shared my curiosity for the blues, a curiousity that could be best described as puppy love. Not knowing what I was getting into, but prepping myself for a passion that would be with me for every second of the rest of my life.
She says that her dad loved the blues. So I rode my bike from St. Bernard to Ridgefield Ave. sometime in the early 90's, i'm guessing. Jessica meets me at the door. I shake hands with her dad, who i've met before. Nervous as to meeting another Thibodaux Blues fan, he serves me a beer. I sit on the couch.
"What kinda Blues you listen to?" Mr. Cassard first asks.
"Well, i've been listening to Muddy Waters and some Buddy Guy. And also a little BB King.", I say.
"Ah good stuff."
"You ever heard the Allman Brothers?" He asks.
"No. What are they rock?" me ask....
"Well yes and no. We should listen to their album Live at Fillmore East. It's an album that will knock your socks off. Early 70's stuff."
I'll end the dialoge there. He plays some of Fillmore East, and then alot of John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. All sounds good, for an above average music fan for my age, but hey, it wasn't the blues.....
A few years later. Rural North Louisiana is where I decided to attend college. Ruston. Great school there, great people, but frickin boring if you decide to stay the weekend, and all of your friends leave to go see their parents.
I'm there. It's a fall Friday night in 1993. You can still buy beer in Louisiana at 18 (wow was that scary!). I head to the QStick liquor store. Buy a six pack of 16 ounce Schlitz tall boys. Head back to the dorm room.
Quick history. I'm an old soul. I brought up an old stereo player, with a record player from Thibodaux. Not sure why. Ruston had a record shop. I made it out there one day after class, amongst the glass weird shaped vases (that I had no clue what they were for, at that time), was a 'Blues' section. Guess what I see. 'The Allman Brothers Band at Fillmore East'. Cost $5, or something like that. I buy.
Several weeks later I find myself back. Friday night, with a six pack of Schlitz, no friends in town. What else is a poor man to do when he is lonely...That's right. Turn off the lights. Turn on the blue light. open a tall boy, and place the needle on a record.
Oh, the crackle of the initial waxy end of the disc was followed by the Blues. The sounds of raw, and unique sounds that I had never realized could transfer me to another world. I felt it. The Blues. It didn't look or sound like Muddy Waters, but I suddenly realized that I was barefoot. Thanks, David Cassard.
