The bar was warm, smoky and filled to capacity with musicians and friends of musicians come to help one of their own. A donation box was passed frequently and almost everyone left something as they passed it. Guitar players, horn players, keyboard players, harp players ... all changing places on stage with ease and smiles, handshakes and hugs. Some played together regularly, some intermittently, some had never shared the stage before. They came, they took up their instruments, they drank and they left. Perhaps the next day they would all be in competition again but for this night, they united to help make a friend's loss a little easier.
When I was a child, we honored death, it's universal power, it's total control and it's complete lack of discrimination. No one escaped it, no one defeated it. Now, while we still respect it and keep trying to outwit it, we celebrate the lives it takes instead of mourning them. Death has become the next level and while we may not give in easily, we do move past it. And friends gather to comfort, to raise money for the family, to recognize the loss and acknowledge the life taken, to be together.
The bar was loud with music and conversations and laughter. There is a kind of reverence in blues lyrics, respect for all the trials and troubles, lost loves, cheatin' hearts, no good women and do you wrong men that other music can't manage. Opera just can't sell it's soul to the devil...so the blues plays on and it's played in memory of the ones who have left and in tribute to those left behind. The musicians drifted in and out of the smoky haze all night long. In the end, we beat death by the difference we make while we live and we beat the devil with the blues.
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