Blues a healer, all over the world, all over the world.
It healed me, it can heal you.
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker, 1978
Labor Day Weekend, 1972. It's been about a month since my boyfriend and I broke up. Sorrow is sitting deep inside me, in a place I never go. Instead, I drink and take drugs and I'm not careful about keeping myself safe. But this weekend I'm with a new boyfriend, Pete, who is the best friend of my best friend's husband and so, at least for now I'm with someone I know I can trust.
Pete also happens to be a musician, which is perfect because we both love music. The two of us are sitting on the grassy field dedicated to deceased musician Otis Spann, blissing out on the blues. We're at the 1972 Ann Arbor Jazz and Blue's Festival and the line-up is stellar. Miles Davis, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Bonnie Raitt and Sippie Wallace, Luther Allison, Sun Ra and his Arkestra, Junior Walker and the All Stars and many more. Pete and I are drinking Wild Turkey and the mood is mellow. I drink and listen to the blues and the blues reaches into my heart and eases my pain and gives me enough strength to go on living for a while. The blues saved my life. The blues has that power.
Luther Allison performed that weekend and I'm pretty sure that I didn't let myself remember the first time I saw him because that would have been too painful. It was 1970 and my ex-boyfriend and I were jammed into a tiny venue located down an alley in Ann Arbor. We sat on folding chairs in that shoestring venue, waiting. I can still remember the moment that Luther took the stage and began blasting the blues out into the packed room. My boyfriend and I caught fire. (Maybe that's why some call the Blues the devil's music.) And even though I didn't let myself think about that moment in 1972, I think about it now and I am both sad and thankful. Sad that my boyfriend and I lost so much and broke each other's hearts. Thankful because he and I heard the blues for the first time together.
The First Time I Met the Blues by Buddy Guy.
Mighty Mo Rodgers performing, They Took Away the Drum and Blues is My Wailin' Wall.
What saved your life and kept you going during hard times with grief or trauma?
