In 1949, at a B B King performance at Arkansas, a fight broke out between two men. Those days, they use to have a kerosene fired barrel to heat the hall. The fight tipped over the barrel and a fire erupted and people had to be evacuated. Two persons died in that fire. In a moment of thoughtlessness, B B King ran back to rescue his beloved guitar (which cost $30) He later on realized the foolishness of his action The fight was over a woman named Lucille. In order to remind himself never to do anything as foolish as fight over a woman, or run into a burning hall, he named the guitar Lucille The blues style of music has a strong call and response style. It reflected the way the old African slaves used to express their woes. In one corner, a slave farm worker would call out his/her woes... and from another corner, there would be a response back floating over the field ethereally. When Blues music matured, the same form continued --- with one guitar (or vocals) invoking the call followed by another guitar (or another instrument or vocals) returning a response; harking back to the woes of the slaves. The word Blues soon became synonymous with grief and sorrow. And the music, gave an outlet for releasing those sorrows. Blues has been a big influence in many Western music genres such as rock, soft-rock, rock and roll and so on. But why just Western...you would hear similar approaches in some popular Indian music too B B King over time, played on several Lucilles --- and he is known for his classic blues approach -- with a call (usually B B Kingss own raspy vocal) followed by a response by his Lucille. There is a raw earthiness in his music and he has influenced many blues artists -- including Eric Clapton and many others. I too got into Blues, and a raspy way of singing my songs after being enamoured by B B King As usual, there is a lesson here: I have seen people getting very passionate about their projects. The project itself becomes personified and one gets so attached to it, that one forgets that it is just an abstraction -- a piece of work that ideally needs to be kept at a professional distance. When the project fails, one gets disappointed and ruminates over what could have been The best approach is of course to work on another project. Name it Lucille, if you prefer it that way. But take an oath never to fight over it, or walk into a burning hall. The real passion is to be reserved for the upliftment that your work can give to real people. Concentrate there, and the music becomes a lot more relevant. But if one concentrates on inconsequential things like an inanimate object -- then you are doomed. There are many stories of successful projects all over the world. What some people do not realize is that for every successful project a person was known for, the same person would have had a trail of unsuccessful ones -- broken Lucilles, so to speak. One needs to strongly move on from one inanimate, broken guitar and start on another one The same approach applies if a real person who you were attached with becomes inanimate.... just move along, chooglin ! :-) No Lucille is worth the trouble, if she is in a burning house, especially if she influenced or got people to fight over her
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 04:21:23 +0000
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