I love Chicago. It’s sort of the quintessential American city to me. Home of the electric blues (and the Blues Brothers). I built a huge model of the Sears Tower when I was 12. And Chicago is where I met my wife.

Eric & I played a house concert there on Friday night. It was basically a party with a bonus concert attached, and it turned into a fantastic night despite a few setbacks…

Eric’s flight couldn’t land because of a lightning storm, so I had to plan out a solo show in case he didn’t make it at all. It was billed as a social justice-themed concert, and I was relying on the material Eric & I do together from the Civil Rights era, which didn’t really appeal to me to do on my own. So I dug into the catalog a bit and tried to come up with some last-minute solo arrangements of songs from my past, including ‘One of These days’ and ‘(Who Discovered) America’, both of which were written to be played for Santana and Ozomatli – bands with about 10 guys on stage – so these weren’t exactly solo-guitar-guy friendly songs. Or so I thought.

It turned out to be a nudge in a good direction for me. I held the fort for a half hour or so with all this old material, and had such a blast playing it, I’m going to record it just like that, ‘unplugged’.

Just when I started to hit the end of my impromptu solo programme, in walked Eric. I had prepped everyone to do a lot of loud singing, so Eric and I were almost drowned out by the audience during our set (which is just how we like it). What a great vibe. It was a warm night out and all the windows were open, so when the rain stopped, a lot of the neighbors sat out on their stoops and listened to the show.

We’ll be back…

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Well, it’s raining in Portland, but it’s great to be back with my family. I look forward to bringing them down South to meet all the good people that made Eric and I feel so welcome and cared for over the last week… and I do believe we’ll be timing that trip in winter, to conveniently skip some of this gloomy Northwestern weather.

And now for my List of Highlights.

(1.) Most amazing culinary experience
Dumplings, by Eric’s aunt Faye. I don’t know what they’re made of, and I definitely don’t know what the sauce was (it made the most decadent Alfredo in Little Italy look like watered-down rice milk), and it’s probably best if I don’t know. All I do know is that it brought me close to weeping tears of joy. And it was very probably the first time in that kitchen that a white boy did a George Jefferson dance in front of the stove.

(2.) Second most amazing culinary experience
Sonny’s BBQ in Chattanooga, which was recommended in reverent tones by Eric’s cousin Veronica. You can’t see it from the road, so someone needs to tell you about it. Unfortunately when we went, the place was closed, no cars parked anywhere… in fact we wondered if they’d gone out of business. But Eric’s Mom was on the phone, and she said, “Just Knock. He’s there.” We looked at each other and knocked. Sure enough, the door opened and a scent wafted out into the dirt parking lot, pulling us inside. Sonny was indeed there, in a BBQ-smeared apron, and he said ‘Whatcha want?” Well, I got what I wanted: sweet Southern BBQ that I had envisioned since before we left for the trip, and as Eric and I sat by the Tennessee River and pigged out, it was so good I had to offer some to the old men sitting at a picnic table nearby.

(3.) Most ridiculous moment
At the last show, at a coffee house in Durham NC, I gave into an instinct to do a fake harmonica solo in the middle of ‘Mornin’ Train’. Some people thought it was a real harmonica for a minute, but it devolved quickly into a scream-fest tempered only by the wah-wah effect of my hand over my mouth. I’m starting to feel I owe these moments to Eric, where his very ideas of propriety and dignity are tested and new (low) benchmarks are set. Of course there was a real blues aficionado in the house, a radio DJ, who still managed to like our set but was visibly relieved when I told him that I’d be bringing a real harp next time.

(4.) Brush with the law
Eric did most of the driving on the tour because he knows his way around the region. All was going well. Then I took the wheel for all of FIVE MINUTES and we were pulled over by NC’s finest. “What’s the trouble, officer?” “Tail gating, sir.” Tail gating?? The truck in front of me was going about 35 in a 60mph zone, and I went around him as soon as I mustered up the courage to do it in front of a cop. Oops. So anyways…

(5.) Sound system trauma
Nothing too noteworthy on this trip; nothing like our gig in Texas where a component burned out and they had to evacuate the whole building in the middle of our show. The worst thing on this trip was when I broke a string in the very first song of our Nashville gig, with no backup guitar, and had to play with no low notes in front of 500 people for 40 minutes. But sound-wise, we really didn’t have ‘one for the books’ on this tour.

(6.) Worst decision
No backup guitar. And no electric guitar.

(7.) Best decision
Staying in Bakewell between shows whenever possible, where we ate home-cooked food and walked down country roads at night.

(8.) Unexpected highlight
Eric bought an accordion. An accordion!!!

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Durham, North Carolina. Part of our goal for this trip was to re-connect with Eric’s people down here and explore the possibility of a more in-depth tour in the future. A lot of those people are right here in Durham… this is where Eric went to college (Duke), where he first connected with the Bahá’ís, and where the One Human Family Gospel Choir was born. I attended a rehearsal last night, and you can definitely feel it: they’ve been doing this for a long time.

The response to the shows has been great. We’ve had people singing along with us quite a bit (even when they don’t know the songs), and when we cross into deep Moanin’ Sons territory they ask us if there’s more where that came from.

There’s so much potential in the Moanin’ Sons project it freaks us out a little. It’s almost like it just exists and we’ve stumbled upon it, like when you write a song that comes out so naturally that you can’t really say you ‘wrote’ it.

Part of it is just that there is some cultural work to be done in the States. The well of history and music in this country is so deep, you could spend your whole life delving into it and still only scratch the surface… but somehow in Eric and me connecting, it seems like we go from digging with a shovel to moving large amounts of earth with heavy equipment. And this feeling is intensified threefold whenever we’re in the South.

American roots music, especially in its 20th century African-American forms like blues and soul, was the reason I decided to take music seriously in the first place. I remember being the only kid at my school listening to Sonny Boy Williamson instead of Bon Jovi. But over the years I’ve wondered where that stuff fits into my own work, because during my time in other countries and then Los Angeles, I was immersed in Latin music, Electronica… everything but the blues. Most of all I was caught up in trying to find an expression of my own that didn’t owe too much to any one particular genre.

But with Moanin’ Sons, we both kick into another mode, sort of ethnomusicological reality show on wheels. We connect each other with certain things about music, and its relationship to race, religion and social change in America, that made us fall in love with it in the first place. People catch on to it pretty quick, because we all know there’s something under the surface here that needs to be explored… good, bad & ugly.

After spending a week in that headspace, I’m looking forward to coming back and letting the next step reveal itself. No doubt it will.

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Well, it turns out there really is a place called Bakewell. It’s right outside Chattanooga Tennessee, close to the Georgia state line. It has ceased to be a mythical place (or a Fig Newton of Eric’s imagination) and is now something I can find my way to in a car… well, almost. I just drove here in the middle of the night, and Eric and his cousin Cory went to great pains to freak me out on the road, trying to get me to pull over and turn off the car so I could “experience the darkness,” as though there were no other dark places in the world. Anyway, they were talking so much I missed a turn. They didn’t stop talking though. Needless to say, I didn’t stop and turn the car off.

Anyway! I’m having fried chicken with Eric’s mother, grandma and a bunch of cousins. Outside the air smells different than the Northwest, and the bird and bug sounds are much thicker and more musical than anything I’ve heard outside the jungle. Pretty awesome.

The show in Chattanooga was fun. The place we played had a fantastically clean Hammond B-3 organ and no less than three Leslie speaker cabinets, all looking like they were never moved from that spot since the day they were purchased new. We were wondering if they needed someone to take that rig off their hands…. heh heh.

Tomorrow… Nashville! Now… Grub time.

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Heading off to BBQ country in the morning… Eric and I are doing a mini-tour of his original stomping grounds of Tennessee (I hope to meet his family) and a bit of Georgia and North Carolina. Looking forward to this; it’s been a long time for me. I’ll post when I get a second.

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