BLUES - 30° ANIVERSARIO

BLUES - 30° ANNIVERSARY (CVLD395)

Author: AA.VV.
Performer: AA.VV.

Available on: LP, HD File

Tracks

• SIDE A – 18:12
  01 – So Long (F.Ranghiero, F.Mazzaron) 7:32 / rec. 03-2008
  Four Fried Fish
  02 – Five Short Minutes (J. Croce) 3:23 / rec. 07-2012
  Barbara Belloni, vocals
  Four Fried Fish
  03 – Tin Roof Blues (L. Roppolo, P. Mares, B. Pollack) 3:14 / rec. 10-2000
  Tiger Dixie Band
  04 – I Ain’t Got Nothin’ But The Blues (D. Ellington) 3:59 / rec. 10-2005
  Cristina Sartori, vocals
  Stefano Lionello, double bass

• SIDE B – 19:33
  - 01 – Rollin’ Stone (Mc Kinley Morganfield) 5:18 / rec. 03-2008
  Four Fried Fish
  - 02 - Freedom (R. Ford) 6:52 / rec. 03-2018
  Michele Giacomazzi, guitar Francesco Giacomelli, electric bass
  Diego Vergari, drums
  - 03 – Come Together (J. Lennon, P. McCartney) 3:36 / rec. 01-2010
  Yasmina and Bad Songs
  - 04 – Cross Road Blues (R. Johnson) 3:46 / rec. 07-2023
  Max Prandi, vocals and guitar
  Enrico Merlin, guitar

1/4" Analog Master created at VLS studio in Naquera (Spain), starting from original analog and digital recordings, the latter made in native high resolution, PCM wav 88.2kHz / 24bit

Production: VELUT LUNA
Executive Producer: Marco Lincetto
Recording Engineer: Marco Lincetto
Mixing and Mastering: Marco Lincetto
Interior Photography: Marco Lincetto
Graphic Design: Maurizio Ciato for Studio L'Image

It was the first of July 2009.
We decided to leave Memphis early, eight, eight-thirty in the morning; because around those parts, at that time, the heat kills you. Humid, so much so that as soon as you step out onto the street you're already soaked in sweat, even if it's early morning.

The first stop was relatively close, Clarksdale, the moral capital of the Mississippi Delta, the moral capital of the Blues. One hundred and twenty-five kilometers all along the legendary Highway 61: yes, the one Bob Dylan also sang about, even if he meant it in the opposite direction to us, from south to north.
On the asphalt in front of our white Ford van, the road, already scorching from the sun, made imaginary images, mirages of reflection, appear on the horizon. And with us there was nothing, no one, only parched fields to the right and left.
Around half past ten we finally saw the arrow indicating the turn-off for Clarksdale, and we took it.

The town seemed deserted, the streets stretched out desolate amidst rows of decidedly run-down wooden houses, with the varied African-American population already exhausted in the scant shade of dilapidated arcades that had certainly seen better days. And my feeling was strange, inscrutable, even if decidedly restless, perhaps also because of those looks, not threatening, but rather astonished, that looked at the decidedly anomalous body that was me and my six friends inside that white Ford van, too clean, modern and untouched, which definitely clashed in that context.

After a while, the little houses ended and we found ourselves, so to speak, "downtown": four or five-story buildings, also somewhat decrepit, stretching within a few squared blocks. And without a single tree, so the sun had free rein to wipe out the few remaining sentiments.
We turned right, then right again, then left: and John Lee Hooker Lane appeared: it's the short street that leads to the Delta Blues Museum, the temple of the Blues.

Now, we Europeans are used to a concept of "museum" that involves austere, polished monumental buildings, with armed guards for access, cameras and all the paraphernalia of control...
There, none of that.
A low, discreetly maintained red brick building, built next to an old abandoned railway line, with rusty tracks, and a canopy with the rusty sign "Delta Blues Museum" underneath it.
In museums you expect a quiet movement of attentive and discreet patrons, perhaps with the classic joyful and somewhat noisy school group: there, again, none of that. Deserted. No one. Just us.

The exhibition was entirely structured within a single large hall, with a ceiling not as high as you would expect. And what was exhibited were common memorabilia: a few "belonging to" instruments, a few trinkets, many photographs, historical and otherwise, very beautiful, I must say.
And little else.
The tour ended quickly, but the previous restlessness, instead of subsiding, increased. There was SOMETHING I couldn't focus on. At one point, I heard the rhythmic sound of drums, like someone practicing a few passages. It came from the entrance area, but distant, from below, perhaps from some obscure cellar. I would never find out who or where it was.
At that point, however, I noticed an old, a really old, African-American man, sitting behind the counter of what looked like a bar; he was distractedly reading a crumpled newspaper, while savoring a noxious cigarette, the smell, the stench, decidedly strong for someone like me, who doesn't smoke.
It immediately and naturally came to me, from deep within, the urge, the need, to ask him a question that had been buzzing in my head for many years, related to one of the most famous legends of the blues, which tells how one fine day in the late 1920s, Robert Johnson, who was a poor cotton picker with no art or skill, in the countryside near Clarksdale met the Devil – yes, that very one – who proposed a pact: he, the Devil, would guarantee him success in exchange for his soul. And Johnson accepted. And the rest of the story is known.

Well, that's when the question came to me, and opening my mouth with an uncertain demeanor, I asked the old man: "Can you tell me where the Devil's Crossroads and Robert Johnson's are?"
The old man didn't bat an eyelid... but he raised it, imperceptibly, while simultaneously lowering his newspaper, sizing me up in silence. A silence that lasted a few eternal seconds, in which time had actually stopped. Then, parting his lips wet with sweat and parched by smoke, he told me: "Hey guy... It's Everywhere...!"
And in that moment, for the first time in my life, I understood what the word "Blues" meant.
And the sense of uneasiness disappeared in the dangerous grin that appeared on the old man's impassive face.

The musicians and I are fortunate people, to have been privileged to experience these emotions that are very difficult to put into words, but which I hope can at least be conveyed a little by the sound tracks left in the grooves of the records. Forever.

Thanks to everyone,
Marco Lincetto

I dedicate this project to that old African-American with the newspaper,
who finally made me understand what the BLUES is.