John Pazdan

Baby boomer bullshit/navel gazing aside..I am from Chicago..and when I was a kid, I lived and breathed Chicago Blues music. While the other kids in my neighborhood were listening to… uhh..I dunnknow… The Association?..I hung out and played music with some older college aged hoodlums who were true fans… One of the best bluesmen in the mid to late 60’s in Chicago was Magic Sam. He was younger than Muddy and the Wolf..and played that beautiful blend of blues and soul that was happening in the late 60’s..you know what it is..it’s Z FAHNK. He played straight blues too..his mentor was Otis Rush..but when he came into being Magic Sam..I cannot begin to explain how good he was. I saw him several times..wore out my West Side Soul record (that’s the one in the pic above)..hitchhiked to the Ann Arbor Blues Festival when I was all of 17 and slept in a field near the stage (and almost got run over in the middle of the night by bikers) just to hear him and the Wolf. I was one happy bluesboy….A few months later, I cut high school class to attend his funeral on the south side of Chicago…

So..here he is..playing Earl Hookers shitty $100 Les Paul copy guitar with the stickers on it..missing a string..playing it with his fingers.. (take that all of you who think spending $5000 on a Jimmy Page Slept Here “repro” has anything to do with ANYTHING) at a festival in Germany.

Make sure you see the 2nd song..and it will all become clear why 99% of what passes for “the blues” these days is a weak-assed, watered down attempt at recreating something that most of the current practitioners have no clue about. I am a little reflective this munin” I guess..March winds howling, snow swirling around, dirty grey snow on the street..hey it’s like a Bergman movie, where’s Van Sydow….but I truly miss some of the bad old times and the music that flowed through them. So here’s to you Sam..and Luther Allison, Little Milton, Jr Wells, Lefty Dizz and my old friend and partner John Duitch..

“all my friends have gone down, and things just ain’t the same”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoXI1zZbGIc]