Ten years of the National Steel Blues Tour. So it's the X year for this annual, 100 show adventure around North America. Ten provinces, twenty states. Maybe it's the last annual Tour. I don't know. Sometimes it flies so far under the radar that it scrapes me, bleeding, along the pavement. Stuff along the way. Stuff in the cracks between small town America and the Big Time. The stuff that is the mojo of the blues. Stuff that has very little to do with talent contests, award ceremonies, new guitars. Maybe it's the cold beer we buy at the gas station. The smell of oil at the garage selling used tires. The taste of cheap red wine from a coffee cup beside a plywood stage. Maybe, maybe. Maybe it could be different. But, hey– grab a map and ride the blue highway with me one more time. I found these voodoo dolls in dark woods a thousand miles from Clarksdale. Rusty nails and faded, half smiles. An image captured, fleeting, to illustrate this Tour, and to protect us on this path.
Now there's crows in the air, shitting on the car roof. And it needs ball joints. On previous Tours, I checked in here daily. Given the labour of it all, I can no longer hope to do that. I will update the schedules, links, and downloads in the sidebar as often as I can. If you haven't done so before, you can reach back and visit the other Tours. Each one had it's own adventures. It's own lessons, triumphs and sorrows. In the Sidebar now, with all the other stuff. Soon some of these stories will be torn out of the blogs for a book. Meanwhile, I'll write here what can't be said on Facebook. Hard core. What it is. Blues. Healing music. Every song a journey. I left an old recording in the sidebar for you people. Where it started: Hollandale, MS, a long time ago. By September I'll be back in the cotton dust, but first we're rolling west across Canada. Come, follow, let's ride. This Tour will be mobile in just a couple of weeks. Thanks for joining me here, on the Blues Highway.
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