Some further musical reflections :-
Thurs 6th pm - Upon driving on the freeway through Chicago the Butterfield Blues Band came on. The opening track was "Born In Chicago" - a tough, gritty, number and such an uplift for me being caught in afternoon traffic after having driven 1,000 miles from Boston. The perfect introduction to the home of electric blues !
Tues 11th am - Watching a film about the history of Country music in the Nashville "Country Music Hall of Fame", a song came on called "Whoever's In New England" by Reba McEntyre. The pain it expresses - marital desolation as experienced by millions of working people - summed up the huge strengths of Country music. It showed how the commercial aspects of Nashville-based Country can speak so eloquently into the lives of ordinary people - and echoed so powerfully the pain and suffering I'm feeling. You don't have to please the music critics to make great art !
Mon 24th pm - I'd been playing 12 CDs of Crosby, Stills, & Nash (and sometimes Young) via my MP3 player since leaving Albuquerque. Then just as I was approaching Pasadena Graham Nash comes on, introducing "America" by Paul Simon. A beautiful rendition, just him solo with acoustic guitar. His version has that quality of sadness so typical of his own greatest songs, and it captured exactly what I'd driven 4,000 miles for. To look for the heart and soul of the US, which for me is looking for my own reality. The line about the cars on the New Jersey turnpike summed it all up - anyone with a heart and imagination born in the fifties onwards in a dying UK has always looked to America for a centre, for vitality, for the drive to move forwards. I had to hold back the tears for fear of unsafe driving.
Mon 24th again - now getting near my hotel on Highway 110, and getting the first sight of the skyscrapers in downtown LA to my left. On came a version of "Turn, Turn, Turn", a keynote song for me in this darkest of seasons. The passion of the harmonies built upon my exhilaration at finallly being in LA after driving 4,200 miles. It also healed an ache in my heart from my previous US jaunt with my (then) wife and family, when we spent a day on Malibu Beach rather than looking round LA. This time I was going to get the proper LA experience, and my arrival there just happened to be marked by a strong rendition of one of my favourite songs by THE greatest LA-based group ever, the Byrds !
Can't wait to be back in the US. England has history but America has freshness, excitement, and honesty.
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