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"There was always somebody learning how to make music and eat out of it." –Sam Carr, Delta Blues drummer from Clarksdale, Miss.

I. The Number 6 Local Line Trackside Blues

Carolina Slim play the Society Blues

Maybe four hundred feet beneath the ground.

he like it down there,

where the sun don't shine and you don't never

get rained on neither. Ain't nobody ever get a sunstroke

below the earth, and his guitar, she like it too, no damp.

It like playing for miners, he thinks, though he's never

been to the coalcut Pennsylvania west where James

grew up these many years gone by. Slim from South Carolina

where the muggy heat send the strings out of tune as fast

as a man can turn their keys

and the peaches fall right into your lap,

if you spend twelve hour picking first

then turn your basket upside down. Best thing

Slim ever did was hitch a ride up north

he aim never to hitch one home. He only miss it

once a year, late August when the rains pour down

on New York City and he could be spearing worms

the fish swarming to his hook and the trees dripping down green.

Back in Greenville sometimes he got gigs

once he found out he could play he was looking

all the time. Here Slim don't ever have a gig;

he have a *job*

and it's best to understand that

before you call the number on his sign. Slim

and James, they get themselves a lot of jobs.

James, he play the washboard, skinny white kid

with an ill-fitting suit, two inches above the ankle bone

James ain't Society but he sure can play, he gets that rhythm

that make the change jingle in the subway riders' pockets

it jingle jangle chime in time

with James's washboard, sweet harmony with Slim's guitar

it dance right out of those fancy eight hundred dollar bill

suit pants, and it dance right down to James's old felt hat.

That hat, it sure likes the money, and the money likes it back.

Slim and James, they a team as sure as the quarters keep rolling in.

II. Amsterdam Ave

This is how Slim meet James: Slim have a job,

a street fair up Amsterdam Ave, and he sitting there

minding his own business, playing the guitar and singing

when he takes a thought for it, some time lazy day,

maybe four dollar eighty-something cent in the case. That\'s

OK, it help him get the blues, all right.

Off to the left is some funny looking kid

bad haircut, pants too short, kind of pretty eyes.

When Slim take a quick break, the kid follow him

all the way to the pisser. He waiting at the door when Slim

come out and he follow him back to the corner. What you want,

kid?, Slim say finally. James don't talk much, that's the first thing

Slim learn. He can wait, though. He take out the guitar

start to tune it up again. Little sharp on the E string there.

James fidgeting. He seem to mean to wait

til Slim looks up from the guitar again, so after the E

sound true he tilt the hat back on his head. He may

be black but there no need to take in too much sun.

You play the blues real good, James say.

Well, thank you son, Slim say. James don't leave though.

Well, guess what, he say. He look real good

all of a sudden, he stand up straight and meet Slim's eyes.

Guess what, he say. Guess what, I play the blues too.

III. James and the Blues

Turn out he do. He have his washboard in the pack

over one shoulder, so when Slim say, ok, son,

come on and play the blues, he pull it out and sit right down

and he ready to go. Slim like that in a man, ready to play

at any time. He say, you know the Society Blues?

James shake his head no. Just off the bus, Slim think.

That's fine, he say. Just follow my lead.

He start up a rhythm on the wood of the guitar

then chord by chord he build the blues. James

understand real fast that the Society Blues

ain't no special tune. Just the blues

that make the street start dancing, so much the asphalt

steam from all the moving leather of the shoes and heat

be in the air from all the money moving through it.

James pick up the rhythm and he start to stack

the beat til even Slim be rolling in his seat.

He have the hit of stick on wood down pat, he ease up

and bear down like he be getting children

out of his board one day soon. Slim know that look

that bend of back: no mistaking, James in love.

James and Slim play all day long til the loose money

is all drained from society's pockets. This a good job,

Slim tell James in the bar after. He buy James a beer

and split the take, seventy-thirty. So, he say to James.

So, you play the blues, son. Yeah, James say. He take his hat

off again – Slim made him wear it in the sun today –

and look down at his take. He seem a little shy,

the way Slim still see his son from twenty year ago.

He smiling though. OK, Slim say again. Tomorrow

we have a job at the Fourteenth Street station. 7:00

or you don't get the good money, got to get a move on.

Blues is pretty different here than wherever you from.

You got a place to stay? James say he don't but he be OK.

Yeah, right off the bus. So Slim take him home. They play

the Society Blues til the sun rise up over the East River.

It sparkle on the water like tiny chips of silver, so close

that if you reach down and scoop up enough

to wet your hand, it be like you gathering life

in your palm. Just you wait, Slim say to James that morning

the air off the river smelling just like home,

soon you get the rhythm of the city in your blues

you play what you want, son, play where you want, here

don't matter where you from, here you gon' play the blues all day long

and the people who love to hear it, they gon' come straight to you.