Skinny White Boy from Alabama

Speaking of proud parents, when we were at the Chicago Blues Festival.....hmmmm....about 4 years ago....the 21st annual Chicago Blues Festival...there was a conversation I had there that came to mind the other night from a little snippet on the radio.

Steve and I were travelling down Rt. 13 in Delaware when we heard an old broadcast of R. L. Burnside introducing his grandson, Cedric Burnside. RL is gone now. He was a famous Blues Man and his son, Duwuane played guitar with the North Mississippi All Stars at some point. We saw Duwuane at Penn's Landing years ago. But then we also saw Cedric, the grandson, playing in Chicago. He's a drummer. He and this really Young Kid were the backup musicians for several famous Blues Men on one of the stages there in the Grant Park in Chicago. Anyway, Cedric and the Young Kid who was playing bass, backed up Kenny Brown (who RL considered a son.....who knows how Duwuane felt about that....that could be another story), Paul "Wine" Jones and a REALLY old guy named T Model Ford. Wow, they were so good!!

I noticed that there was something a little odd about the Young Bass Player Kid. I couldn't quite tell what it was. He just didn't look like he quite belonged with this group. He was dressed a little differently than you'd expect from a blues muscian, though I really don't know what proper blues-playing attire is. He had on sneakers and an orange and white striped long-sleeved rugby-looking shirt. A bit odd, but there was something else not quite right....I couldn't put my finger on it.

We were sitting on benches and I noticed just down the row from us was an older couple, grandparenty looking. And they were dressed differently than most Blues Festival attendees. The woman had on red polyester stretch pants with a polyester striped shirt and old-gal sandles. But she and the man, obviously her husband, were head-bopping right along with the music, looking so happy.

At some point during a break, the Young Bass Player Kid came over and was talking to the Older Couple, and then later when Steve went to get a couple of beers, I scooted over so I was next to them. I asked the woman if she knew the Young Kid, and yes, he was her son. She was just beaming with pride as I asked her about him. So cute.

As we were talking, I got the scoop on how Young Bass Player Kid came to be up on stage with all these venerable old Blues Men. As a young kid, he'd been sickly and couldn't play sports and instead took up the guitar and worked and worked at it. At some point, someone hadn't shown up to play a gig and a friend had suggested Young Bass Player Kid could fill in. The Blues Men loved him and so whenever they needed a bass man, they would say, "yeah, get me that Skinny White Boy from Alabama".

But his mom was laughing as she was telling me part of this story. She said she and her husband had come up from Alabama to watch him play at the House of Blues a couple of nights before and she thought it was GREAT that he was doing so well as to be able to play in that venue. And it was GREAT that he was getting recognized by Blues Men as such a good musician. But she said, "Ya know, though, it's a little funny. His regular and usual band is a HEAD-BANGER band. And I don't know, he really doesn't quite have the 'Blues Moves' down yet. He's playing the blues, but still doing 'Head-Banger' moves. Oh well, he'll get those moves down soon." Awww, how sweet is that?! She was loving it, but knew he still had a ways to go in the "moves" department.

But then it all became clear. What wasn't quite right was the MOVES. Oh yes, of course.