David "Honeyboy'' Edwards, pictured at right, at the Chicago Blues Festival today. Photo by Dylan Silva
by Mark Silva
How much it feels like an old home, that sweet Chicago, when David "Honeyboy'' Edwards is here to meet us, as he was today, on the closing day of the Chicago Blues Festival, swinging and soaring on a sunny and mild afternooon.
Afficionadoes of the blues and devotees of The Swamp will recall that night a couple years back when we first encountered "Honeyboy," one of the oldest living bluesmen, in an intimate jam at a house on the campus of the University of Chicago.
Today, we saw him on a tented stage in a closed-off section of Columbus Avenue playing a slow-walking "Dust My Broom" and a few other numbers, and we thought of how little has changed, and how much has changed, since the last time we met.
The "star" headliners of years past were not here this year -- no B.B. King, no Johnny Winter -- a sign, perhaps of the leaner budget that the festival had. But that only made it a better venue for one of the oldest bluesmen alive, "Honeyboy." Pinetop Perkins played the festival this weekend, too. The two are in their nineties.
Honeyboy played an encore, "Goin' Down Slow.''
Here's to the next time we meet.
Comments
The intense fella on the left is fingering your basic C chord, or possibly a C Maj 7. Maj. 7s are kind of like democrats though, not really true to the Blues medium, but I suppose anything is possible. Nothing quite like a good, faithful guitar on a hot summer day. I would have had to add a couple of pretty Latinas off to the side, playing a tambourine and keeping the temperature up.
Posted by: Django - N Exile In/Around the 30th Parallel | June 15, 2009 4:38 PM
I wish I to listen to his stories all day and his music all night.
Posted by: dt☢ | June 15, 2009 6:57 PM
The intense fella on the left is Joel Paterson of Devil in the Woodpile, the band that backed Honeyboy.
Honeyboy will be 94 on June 28. Pinetop Perkins will be 96 on July 7.
Posted by: Karen | June 21, 2009 12:27 PM