Sep 282009
This post is adapted from my article on Examiner.com…
If you’ve never been to Beale Street in Memphis, it’s worth a trip to experience it. Several blocks of nightclubs with high-quality blues music and some of the best barbecued ribs you ever ate. It’s almost other-worldly because you can practically feel the history pulsing around you.
And if you’re anything like me, the blues riffs stick in your head for days afterward.
When I found out there was a band named “Roadhouse Joe” doing a “blues jam” at a place called Ziggies on Sunday night with no cover charge, I thought I’d go check it out. Honestly, the place looked like a dive on the outside, and no off-street parking (except at a friendly nearby hair salon, I found out afterward). I parked on the street and walked inside just as the fellas were tuning up.
Moments later, I was carried back to Memphis. Sort of.
Not that it wasn’t good; it was. But first of all, it wasn’t really “Memphis” blues; it was more Chicago style, a little less southern fried. Second, there were no ribs. (That wasn’t the band’s fault–it was a bar, not a grill.) Third, the band kind of hum-hawed around between numbers while they tried to decide what to play next.
But when they played, and when the lead vocalist graveled his way through the words …oOOOH, YEAH…
I don’t spend a lot of time listening to blues music, but I must like the blues a lot. Because when I hear them live, it carries me away someplace. So yeah, these guys held their own, and put me right in the mood.
But the forty-minute set was actually just the warm up. It turns out when they say “blues jam”, they mean it. As Roadhouse Joe played, musicians with guitar cases and gear started piling into the small, dark club, signing up on a sheet in the back. And after the set, the band turned the stage (and their gear) over to the crowd, a few at a time, according to who had signed the list. The new musicians tuned up, introduced themselves to one another, shook hands, picked a key…and played and sang the blues, with every bit as much passion (if not as much polish) as Roadhouse Joe had done.
It made the moment much more powerful to realize that what I’d walked into was an actual blues jam session–that these people hadn’t just come to listen to the blues, but to play them, to own them. This was the place where anyone could play the blues.
Lots of people I grew up around don’t care much for the blues–they think it’s depressing, negative, dark, and all that. But for me–and maybe I’m the guy who just doesn’t catch on–the blues make me happy. And apparently, I’m not the only one, because while these people rail on about the girl that done them wrong, the holes in their pockets, and all that sad stuff…they’re smiling. They’re jumping around the stage, losing themselves in the music. The blues may start from a sad place, but when they work their cathartic magic…they seem to take us to a happier place. It’s kind of like venting, I guess. You might spout and scream and hiss and moan, but you feel a lot better afterward. 
As I found out later, Ziggies club actually does two open blues jams per week–every Tuesday and Sunday night–hosted by about four different bands through the course of a month. So if you’re in Denver, if you have it in you and you want to be part of the gig…go down there around 7pm and sign up. Ziggies is at 4923 W. 38th Avenue in Denver.
By the way…the blues stayed in my head all the way home.