Friday, September 19, 2008

Guitars!

I just bought tickets for Brenda and I to go to:



A five week long, cross-country tour featuring some of the best known and most respected figures in rock and blues has been set to celebrate the legacy and music of Jimi Hendrix. Presented by Experience Hendrix, L.L.C., the Hendrix family-owned company founded by James A. “Al” Hendrix, Jimi’s father, entrusted with preserving and protecting the legacy of Jimi Hendrix together with musical instrument giant Gibson Guitar, this year’s Experience Hendrix Tour represents a dramatic expansion beyond last year’s seven sold out performances.

Featured artists who will be performing music written by and associated with Jimi Hendrix include blues giant Buddy Guy, contemporary guitar greats Jonny Lang, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Eric Johnson, Cesar Rojas and David Hidalgo of Los Lobos as well as Aerosmith’s Brad Whitford.

Hubert Sumlin, the Mississippi-born guitarist who worked with both Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters as well as the Memphis-based Eric Gales, Mato Nanji of Native American roots band Indigenous are also part of the tour as is Chris Layton, the legendary Double Trouble drummer who rose to fame backing Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Most remarkably, Mitch Mitchell (drums) and Billy Cox (bass), the same Jimi Hendrix Experience rhythm section that played behind Hendrix at such landmark rock festivals as Woodstock and the Isle of Wight will return again to celebrate the guitarist’s enduring legacy.

Experience Hendrix has promised that special guests will also appear throughout the tour. The first artist to be announced is Doors guitarist Robby Krieger who will appear on five of the dates along with other surprise guitarists expected to join during the course of the tour.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Black

One of my favorite songs of all time:

Hey...oooh...
Sheets of empty canvas, untouched sheets of clay
Were laid spread out before me as her body once did
All five horizons revolved around her soul
As the earth to the sun
Now the air I've tasted and breathed has taken a turn
Ooh, and all I taught her was everything
Ooh, I know she gave me all that she wore
And now my bitter hands chafe beneath the clouds
Of what was everything?
Oh, the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything...

I take a walk outside
I'm surrounded by some kids at play
I can feel their laughter, so why do I sear
Oh, and twisted thoughts that spin round my head
I'm spinning, oh, I'm spinning
How quick the sun can drop away
And now my bitter hands cradle broken glass
Of what was everything
All the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything...

All the love gone bad turned my world to black
Tattooed all I see, all that I am, all I will be...yeah...
Uh huh...uh huh...ooh...

I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be a star
In somebody else's sky, but why, why, why
Can't it be, can't it be mine


Just an amazingly profoundly emotional song, especially the "Live On Two Legs" version.

And while you are at it, listen to "Better Man". At times during the first years after this song was released, I wondered how it might apply in my life. I often wondered if Brenda could find a better man. Actually, I often thought she could. I guess it was often because I KNEW I could not find a better woman.

Probably the greatest indicator of a gracious and generous God in my life is that I have the wife I do. Even then to say "I have" is not really appropriate. I don't have anything except that which has been granted to me via the inexplicable grace of God. Why? There are many that are so much more worthy. How? There are many who are so much more substantial. I have to just "punt" and say I am utterly defeated, or utterly stripped of any sense of entitlement, it is 100% God's grace.

Yep. I can't explain it. It is very profoundly emotional. Ineffable.