Doin' the Blues!

Last weekend a bunch of friends and I went to the Monterey Blues Festival...conveniently located within walking distance of my place. We spent the entire afternoon and into the evening on Saturday groovin' to a lot of cool, extremely well played music. Here Johnny Rawls and his band are playin' some fine Mississippi delta blues. Johnny's bass player, Donny, is a friend of mine; he's just to the right of the sax player. Donny's your quintessential bass player...cool and solid! They put on a great show.

Johnny's great at gettin' the audience involved. Here he's singing to an elderly lady who was previously confined to a walker. Johnny said he'd get her out of her chair, and she wound up dancing! I realized the whole vibe at the festival was great...fun loving but not disorderly. That can be a hard condition to achieve, but I reckon the blues gets it done!

Elvin Bishop played a couple of gigs at the festival. He's 66 and still going strong! A role model for me. Y'know, I liked Elvin's overalls-and Johnny's hat. Maybe I should get some gear like dat!


Here Elvin is jammin' with his band and Terry Hanck, master of the alto sax. Terry played his gig just before Bishop's band, and Elvin came on and played with Terry and his band for a while. All good stuff! It occurred to me that if we got those uptight mullahs in Iran, and the dicey folks in North Korea, and, well, everyone to get into the blues, this ol' world would probably have fewer problems! Why I haven't been to the festival before now is beyond me, but I'll be back next year!