T-BONES. Enough With the DARN T-BONES. OH YEAH...and the MUSIC SNOBS.

     Your pal Vardzie just can't seem to get down IN there, and muck about with the snobs anymore. At least not with the same alacraty as I ONCE could.  One becomes less pliable as time goes on. Stop laughing at me. 
    Well...the undeniable ability and overwhelming urge to SMACK these eejits, has NOT deserted me .In times past,I had a bit more patience with them, and would try like the dickens to conjure up kindly and generous feelings, regarding their ENTIRELY dumb a**, WRONG-HEADED natures.

     Ahh geez.  So sorry. You may not BE a musician.  I'm talking about MUSIC SNOBS. Course I am. They've been hanging about in abundance for ...gosh, for EONS. 
    There are THREE types of music snobs that I've personally identified  through many years of painstaking, scientific study. They are ALL of the same family...if not species. YOU know.  The snobs. 
    Here's the first type. The annoyingly uppity PURISTS.  You're just not folksy, or rocky, or metally, or irishy, or punky, or bluegrassy, or country'eyish, or hard corey, zydecoey, or jazzy, or bluesy, or polka-ee enough for THEM.  nope. YOU, have in fact been caught commiting the unruly, unforgivable act of CROSSING THE SACRED GENRE LINE. 


    This is apparently a criminal offense in some....ummm MANY ridiculous circles.  You must NOT mix ANY music types. Does this bizarre edict not remind you of being cautioned endlessly as a child....to fer crikes sake...draw or color WITHIN the lines.  We must at all costs...not BLUR. 

      I was once booked into a blues club. This club didn’t want to hear ANYTHING but pure blues. NO MIXING allowed. I agreed to perform nuttin’ but the blues, and DID.  The next day, the booking agent received a call.

     “That Nevard was here last night, and I don’t think she performed the blues in a way that was REVERENT enough.” Uh oh..that word again.

     I called the club owner myself.  I called him greedily. Gosh, how can you pass up a chance to rib the heck out of a snob?

 

     “Hello, Mr. Blues? This is Nevard.  Yes,that’s right. I’m  the Nevard that stepped into your sacred milieu of blues last evening.  I was happy to be there Mr. Blues, and had a good time.  Your patrons seemed to have a jolly time as well.

      My understanding is, that you are not entirely happy with my IRREVERENT handling of the delicate pieces of music I performed for them.  May I with respect ask a few questions Mr. Blues?  I’d like to know where I might have gone wrong in my interpretation of the    BLUES.

      You see, I’ve always thought this was a living art form, and not a dead reconstituted one….you know….just add water, and WOW, here’s Pinetop.  I just need to ask.  Did you in fact KNOW any of the performers that originally practiced this art form?  I’d like to fill you in on what you could have expected if one of THOSE revered musicians were in your club last night. 

     I’m assuming you’d have been in HEAVEN if good old Guitar Slim showed up instead of ME, yes?  Do you THINK Mr. Blues, you could have HANDLED Mr. Slim? Are you quite sure you would have liked his lime green haired, and matching lime green suited self CAREENING through your FRONT PLATE GLASS WINDOW?  Huh. I see.

     Would you Mr. Blues have enjoyed a little Robert Johnson poisoning going on in your establishment?  Ahh…a bit TOO reverent perhaps? Well, we don’t know if that’s true so how about some of those always exciting  Leadbelly STABBINGS happening in your fine establishment? Yes SIR, busy with the KNIFE, he was, and a Blues LEGEND.

     I’m picturing Howlin’ Wolf right now Mr. Blues.  Yes. He was certainly one of the blues greats, wouldn’t you agree?  Yes, I woud TOO.  And I am picturing him accurately, and WITHOUT QUESTION as he WAS Mr. Blues.  I am picturing him as he was the last time I saw him alive.

      Oh YES he was wonderful, but I don’t believe HE would have been appropriate for your BLUES club Sir.  I am picturing him in all his Howlin’ Wolf glory. Yes all three hundred pounds of heavenly JOY in those overalls, with his hand in the trouser part of them, RUBBIN’ HIMSELF like crazy. OH YEAH he was.

       Ahhh he WAS an inspiring sight, and WHILE he was TOUCHING himself in a decidedly not so innocent way, his TONGUE was sticking out and SLURPING at EVERY WOMAN in sight.  EVERY SINGLE ONE. His intent could NOT have been misinterpreted.  NO SIR, Mr. Blues.  I’d just like to say, IF you’d like to make an NON prejudicial comparison, I WOULD BE FREAKIN MARGARET THATCHER compared to those boys. No bodies through your window, no fatal stabbings, and no inappropriate touching of myself.”

      There’s nothing more fun to play with than a purist snob. 
 

      Okay, you alll...I'VE ABOUT HAD IT with the large amount of young musicians who have attached the "T-BONE" label to themselves. They seem to have done it in a willy-nilly fashion.  I have grown up with two actual t-bones. TWO. Count the Mo Fos. 2, Double, TWO.  NOT 3, 4, or 5.

      Let's see...there is indisputably T-BONE BURNETT, who seemed to acquire his t-boney moniker, in 1953, when he was the age of five.  Frankly, I would deem this to be the very last time period in which any new t-bone should have been created. AT ALL.
      And then there is...I'M QUITE SURE...the original T-bone....and that would be the Texas blues guitarist...T-BONE WALKER. I do believe that he was the ORIGINAL T-bone.  That's my theory, and I'm stickin' with it.  Walker's middle name was Thibeaux,  On his first recording...in 1929, when he put out a single for Columbia, he was called Oak  Cliff T-Bone. Oak Cliff was the town he lived in. That 45' had   "Wichita Falls Blues" on side A, and "Trinity River Blues" on side B. 

      HAVE WE GOT THAT CLEARED UP NOW?  LET'S HOPE SO.