Where I come from, blues music is so familiar, and its practitioners so common, as to be downright contemptible in the eyes of the general public. Certainly not eligible for those sweetheart government art grants (modern “sculpture” seems more pampered). Nevertheless, indulgent reader, believe it or not, the cultural branch of the Mexican federal government once actually lavishly paid yours truly (admittedly a most humble and mediocre follower of the whitebread blues wailer tradition) to sing the blues for el pueblo, as though Sweet Home Chicago, Little Red Rooster and Ramblin’ On My Mind were elements of some exotic art form, right up there with Iberian flamenco and Andean flute music. I’ll bet Leadbelly made less moolah off his Library of Congress recordings, proving once again that life is not fair. How did I get so lucky? For one thing, I have seen many of the departed greats and know the difference between blues and bluesy (Muddy Waters is blues, Joe Cocker is bluesy). And, as fate would have it, a certain well connected quartet from Culiacán invited me to join them, for whatever reasons. I’m not complaining! We played the legendary Teatro Morelos in Aguascalientes, the very site where Francisco Villa met Emiliano Zapata right after the critical battle of Zacatecas. Within these hallowed halls, all the revolutionary representatives gathered to hammer out the precepts to the existing Mexican Constitution. A Diego Rivera mural now graces the entryway. I get shivers just thinking about the history behind it all. The blues revue was free to the public, so the place was packed to the highest balcony with college kids, eager

to hear this rare musical form born of misery and oppression that they’d read about in their history texts. They seemed to like it. At least they made a lot of noise. The following year, my amigos from Culiacán asked me to throw together a Mazatlán blues band to play a festival in Leon, Guanajuato with them and a few other practitioners from around the Republic. Witlessly assuming that this was a government funded venture, I eagerly signed on and rounded up some of the best musicians then in town (one Frenchman, one German and two Mexicans), promising them mucho dinero, all expenses paid. The Mazatlán Blues Society arrived in Leon after a grueling fifteen hour bus ride, and we set up in the magical old Teatro Maria Greever, by the Cathedral in the Plaza Principal. Unfortunately, there was also another concert scheduled for the exact same time that night in Leon: El Tri, the Mexican Rolling Stones, only bluesier. They are easily the most famous electric guitar band in all of Mexico. Their harp player, who appears on all 40 of their albums, has a doctorate in harmonica from UNAM. They were outlaws in the 70s, now presidential candidates want photo ops with the singer/composer. Personally, I’d rather have gone to see El Tri, but a job’s a job. Ticket prices were the same to see them as to see us: 120 pesos. Well, thousands felt as I did and chose to go to the El Tri show, while dozens came to the Blues Festival. After it was all over, the promoter, a shoe salesman, sadly announced that he hadn’t taken in enough to pay for the rent on the hall, and, so, well, he’d make it up to us someday. I guess that’s what the blues is all about.