Category: Blues

Art, Blues, Music, Suffering4 Comments

Irene, Goodnight…

Gary Furr

For a change, Alabamians were watching anxiously for everyone else’s safety as Irene ripped up the Eastern seaboard.  Alabamians are used to hunkering down in our safe places with flashlights and batteries, bottled water and a weather radio, waiting for the all clear.  So we waited this time, but the memories of April were still with us.  I have a daughter in New York, so I appreciated Mayor Bloomberg’s caution. There is a delicious sweetness in hunkering in the dark during a storm.  Routine stops, you call and gather everyone who matters most to you and let go of a … Continue reading Irene, Goodnight…

Blues, Books, Christianity, Country Music, Culture, Hope, Music

I Was Thinking Tonight About Elvis, Hank, and Gillian

Gary Furr

I was reading about Hank Williams, went to hear Gillian Welch, and wound up thinking about Elvis Presley.  Just finished the late Paul Hemphill’s wonderful biography of Hank Williams, Sr.   This being “the Year of Alabama Music,” I have decided to do a study of some great Alabama musicians.  It’s a pretty great list.  Anyway, sometimes secular musicians, especially in folk, country and blues, are windows into what Stephen J. Nichols calls, “the gospel in a minor key”  I call it, “the rest of creation that never finds its way into church.”  We’re pretty long on the resurrection side of … Continue reading I Was Thinking Tonight About Elvis, Hank, and Gillian