Waterfront Blues Festival, July 4, 2013, After-Hours Allstars at the Marriott

I left the Blues Benefactor reserved seating and headed for the party at the Marriott before the end of the fireworks. From the moment I bought my four-day pass One of my main goals for the day was to get inside that room and enjoy more blues, up close and personal. I figured it would end up packed and I certainly didn't want to get left out. Ended up not being any problem for me, at all. I sat on the front row to the right of the stage and patiently waited for the fun to begin. So fitting that I got this "blue" photo of the drum set while I waited.

Hugh Laurie and the Copper Bottom Band, June 1, 2012, at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, downtown Portland

The marquee connected to the iconic Portland sign says it all. Here's what Laurie's Web site had to say about the tour:

Hugh Laurie will take the music from his critically acclaimed debut album Let Them Talk on the road for a run of select dates on the West Coast. The 10-show tour will kick off on May 22 in San Diego and include stops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Portland before concluding on June 4 in Seattle. 

This marks Laurie’s first U.S. tour, following up on two heralded performances last year at The Mint in Los Angeles and the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco.

Laurie will be on vocals and piano and will be joined onstage by The Copper Bottom Band, featuring a cast of renowned musicians including Jay Bellerose (drums), Kevin Breit (guitars), Vincent Henry (horns), David Piltch (bass), and Patrick Warren (keyboard/accordion).
 

Laurie alternated from playing the piano and singing from there, just playing the piano, or just singing at the mic at center stage. The music performed ranged from "Unchain My Heart" to "St. James Infirmary" to "You Don't Know My Mind" to "Suwannee River" to "Tipitina." Made me wish for younger knees and feet and the opportunity to stand up and dance the night away. The man played and/or sang for a couple of hours without a break, then took a bow and came back to do, I think it was, two more songs for an encore. As far as I'm concerned, Laurie was a great big piece of cake which certainly makes the Copper Bottom Band the perfect icing on said piece of cake.
 

After the show, someone offered to take our photo--that's Sharon in the middle of her twin daughters and me on the left. Smiles all around after a most satisfying evening of entertainment and live music.

B after B after B, Saturday a week ago. Killer Burger on NE Sandy Boulevard at NE 47th

Barq's Root Beer, one fine fountain drink.


Basketball, NCAA basketball, on the TV at the back of the room, sound turned off. Blues blaring, down home blues blaring from the restaurant's speakers. As I ordered at the counter, I mentioned to the young woman taking my order, "Blues, basketball, and burgers. It doesn't get any better." She chuckled and agreed.


Bun, burger, bacon. I forgot to ask that there be no cheese on my Classic Burger, so I ate it--I'm OK if I only eat cheese once in a blue moon. I have two B words for the fries--bountiful and best.


Bites. Burger on bun with bacon going bye-bye, along with cheese, lettuce, tomato and grilled onions. I did remember to ask that there be no Smokey House Sauce and pickle on my Classic Burger.


Busy, busy at the building which houses Killer Burger on the southwest corner of the intersection.


Bus home, the 12 Barbur/Sandy. I left with a bellyful of Bs.

Portlandia's pointing at the door of the Portland Building

Inside the door, to the left at the back of the lobby, there's an alcove where a city arts' organization hangs art each December. This year I was lucky enough to have one piece of mine hung there.


Here it is. "Highway 61 Bottle Blues," 1996, acrylic and found objects. If you open the little box, you read, "Get the juice. Get the blues." One of these days my plan is to have a space to spread out and create again. I've got a stash of paints, papers, frames, and egg cartons patiently waiting.

More Mississippi Memories

After seeing the sign above on the Mississippi segment of "The States" yesterday on The History Channel, I got to thinking about the summer of 2004 when I took part as a middle school librarian in the Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy at Jackson State University.

Teachers came from across the country to attend a workshop entitled "Landmarks of American Democracy: From Freedom Summer to the Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike." By workshop's end, I realized the priceless value in learning the history of those landmarks and then visiting them. The worksho's biggest impact for me came from the words of Freedom Summer workers and a man with Dr. King in Memphis, from seeing the look in their eyes as called forth the truths and memories they knew they must share. They made it real for us and through us, for our students.

I took my photo of The Crossroads from the JSU bus window as we rolled to a stop. We turned right and headed north on Highway 61 to Memphis, but not before we ate lunch at Morgan Freeman's Ground Zero Blues Club, listened to some live blues from Terry "Big T" Williams, then toured the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale. (Lovers of the blues need to get to Clarksdale at some point in their lives.)

Here's my bluesman I painted in the late '90s. Click on the photo for a bigger view, please. Can you guess what structure I used for the eyes? The yellow background started out as a brown paper grocery bag. To raise the bluesman about a quarter inch from the background, I traced him onto the inside of several instant oatmeal boxes which I cut out and glued together. That makes it laminated cardboard, doesn't it? The little box by the bluesman's right foot says "Highway 61 Bottled Blues" on its cover and opens so that you can read "Get the Juice, You'll Get the Blues."

Links you might want to visit:
http://home.earthlink.net/~hamer.institute/PDFs/HHFall04.pdf
http://www.rhodes.edu/155_1814.asp
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3821251
http://www.deltabluesmuseum.org/
http://www.groundzerobluesclub.com/
http://www.clarksdale.com/
http://www.civilrightsmuseum.org/