AND YOU KNOW IT DON’T COME EASY<\/p>\n
A bluesy review of Smoketown Red<\/p>\n
by Lisa Carver<\/p>\n
One time Ethan Buckler took me to this old blues guy’s house in Kentucky. Red. Red had seven children but he kept going to jail. He had trouble making a living because though he was this phenomenal guitar player, his heyday came during the whole black power movement and he wasn’t dark enough to be POWERFULLY BLACK up there on stage. So people tended not to have him in their band. Well, now his children were grown and his woman was gone, and all he did all day was look out the window, drink coffee, play guitar and sing. Ethan would go over there a lot and do exactly the same. Within about half-a-minute of meeting me, Red told me to sing over his guitar. An Otis Redding song. I was told in church as a child to not sing, so loud and bad was I. In my twenties, a vocal coach told me to stop wasting my money and never come back to him. I am the only person in the whole world banned from praising god or allowing music teachers to earn a living. Still I love to sing, and do it all the time — but not immediately upon meeting a legend! I said no politely and shyly, and Red ORDERED me to sing! I said, “No!” I would have, maybe, if he’d let me hang out and drink some of his coffee first, but I didn’t like being told to just enmesh myself in another culture right off the bat like that. If he’d come to my house, I wouldn’t force him to feel suicidal yet glad at the same time and jittery and uncomfortable yet destined and start writing a book without so much as one sip of coffee. So then Red said to Ethan, “Tell your woman to sing or she’s gotta go.” Well I wouldn’t, and don’t you know that old goat kicked me right out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
AND YOU KNOW IT DON’T COME EASY A bluesy review of Smoketown Red by Lisa Carver One time Ethan Buckler took me to this old blues guy’s house in Kentucky. Red. Red had seven children but he kept going to jail. He had trouble making a living because though he was this phenomenal guitar player, his heyday came during the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[443],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-smoketown-red"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5,"url":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2009\/04\/07\/cigarbox-guitar\/","url_meta":{"origin":118,"position":0},"title":"Cigarbox Guitar","author":"admin","date":"April 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Keeping The Blues Alive!Video report by Reviewer RobHopefully this is more proof that the blues won't die off. I was in La Jolla today checking the waves at Windansea and saw this guy playing a cigarbox guitar\/banjo contraption he said he made himself. Said his name was Zach and he'd\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "archive"","block_context":{"text":"archive","link":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/category\/archive\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":519,"url":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2008\/09\/30\/happy-rons-new-release-terribly-happy\/","url_meta":{"origin":118,"position":1},"title":"Happy Ron's new release TERRIBLY HAPPY","author":"admin","date":"September 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/www.reviewermagazine.com\/happy-ron [San Diego]HAPPY RON (AND FRIENDS) TO RELEASE TERRIBLY HAPPY IN OCTOBER 2008The Happy Man\u2019s music has been described by Songsalive.com as a cross between Frank Sinatra and South Park. Others describe it as Punk-Blues Comedy Music. The San Diego Union Tribune has described the Happy Man\u2019s music and \u201cact\u201d\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "archive"","block_context":{"text":"archive","link":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/category\/archive\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.reviewermagazine.com\/happy-ron\/happy-ron-terribly-happy-cd.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":52,"url":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2006\/05\/10\/music-reviews-by-geoff-melton\/","url_meta":{"origin":118,"position":2},"title":"Music Reviews by Geoff Melton","author":"admin","date":"May 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Music Reviews by Geoff Melton Grave For The Fireflies \u2013 Bitten Harkening back to the days of bands like Black Flag and Circle Jerks, but with crisp, modern day production, Southern California's Grave For The Fireflies rip through eleven cuts of furious hardcore in just over nineteen minutes on their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "archive"","block_context":{"text":"archive","link":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/category\/archive\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":823,"url":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2009\/06\/18\/hugh-gaskins-and-the-g-string-daddies\/","url_meta":{"origin":118,"position":3},"title":"Hugh Gaskins and the G String Daddies","author":"admin","date":"June 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Fine, fine San Diego BluesHugh Gaskins & The G String Daddies Rock The Housereview by Peter Wacks Fusion. It\u2019s that inescapable moment when two objects are brought together and their inherent energy is released with an explosive reaction. Hugh Gaskins and the G String Daddies have managed to find that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":486,"url":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2008\/06\/19\/tom-waits-tour-opener-in-pheonix-show-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":118,"position":4},"title":"Tom Waits tour opener in Pheonix show review","author":"admin","date":"June 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/reviewermagazine.com\/tom-waits-show-review-page.html[show review]Tom Waits 6-17-08 (Tour\u2019s Opening Night) Orpheum Theatre Phoenix, AZ story and photos by Jim Steinfeldt Band: Tom Waits: Vocals, Guitar, Piano, Megaphone Casey Waits: Drums Seth Ford-Young: Bass Omar Torrez: Guitar, Cigar Box Banjo Patrick Warren: Keyboards Vincent Henry: Sax, Clarinet, Harmonica \u201cWE CAN\u2019T KEEP TALKING LIKE THIS\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "archive"","block_context":{"text":"archive","link":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/category\/archive\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":264,"url":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2007\/03\/15\/peter-ds-nightclub-blues-jam-night-this-wednesday-ad\/","url_meta":{"origin":118,"position":5},"title":"Peter D's Nightclub Blues Jam Night, this Wednesday! ad","author":"admin","date":"March 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Blues musicians, blues jammers and Jump-Swing Blues aficionados: come early to Peter D's Nightclub at 7 pm and have a drink and sign up to jam this Wednesday night, March 21, at 5149 Claremont Mesa Blvd! ~RR Mystery Train of San Diego, a Jump-Swing Blues and Root Rock & Roll\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "archive"","block_context":{"text":"archive","link":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/category\/archive\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}