Saturday, March 11, 2006

Happy/sad


stones

YAY! Congratulations to Jackie and Julie – it’s their civil partnership today. OK, so it’s a bit of a clumsy title (civil partnership) and it’s so long overdue, but at least there’s some official recognition that people don’t necessarily want to spend their lives in heterosexual relationships.

Today, I was sad to hear that my favourite Malian singer Ali Farka Toure died last week – music’s been much on my mind lately. I was also reading about Robert Johnson. I missed a trick when I was in San Antonio last year, because this was one of only two places that he recorded his blues. I think he only recorded about 20 tracks in total. But his story is a classic one of “dealing with the devil.” He used to hang around established blues singers (like Son House) and make one hell of a noise – they used to tell him to get lost! Then, the legend goes, he went down to the crossroads in Clarksdale and made a pact with the devil. On his return he was the meanest player around, later known as the King of the Delta Blues. A Faustian tale if ever I heard one! Somehow I connect the sound of Robert Johnson with Ali Farka Toure…maybe musicologists do too, I know Ry Cooder spotted the link on Talking Timbuktu.

1 comment:

Kate said...

These two events were also v. important to me too.
Dr Joolz and I gave Jackie and Julie a pink teapot.
My copy of Talking Timbuctu is scratched and when AFT died I was very sad and decided to go out and buy a new copy.
he was wonderful and it was very sad when he died.