January Budget 2007

finger puppets: $11.82

All the day long

It doesn't have to be like this. I wait and wait and nothing comes to mind. Nothing but this ringing in my ears and the quiet hum of Adem on my car stereo. Driving in the dark, on a roaring, stale winter night in Birmingham, Alabama, I turn the volume up a bit and stare down at my dashboard and then out to the tail lights and head lights scattered across the horizon. My eyes are burning from hours staring at a glowing computer screen, first at the ER, then at Skybucket. My face is itching with the creeping tingling of exhaustion. I wait. And maybe that's the problem. The hours of rest ahead of me have been whittled away to almost nothing. And it's my own fault.

When I arrive home, I return to my computer, scrolling through pages and pages of words and ideas, listening to Eddie Hinton wail through pain and addiction, brave love and sad desire. His scratched and broken soul scream, I hear it in my sleep at times, driving in the day, staring out of the window at work. I hear the rolling composition of his songs, the power and brass of the horn section, the winding guitar with his signature tone, the years of his ragged working man's heart put into every single lick.

To meet someone who knows of him, I find myself grasping a brother or sister's hand, as if the memory of that primal note on Hard Luck Guy makes us family. But it is so rare, even in this town, to find and that is a shame.



The Legendary Dick Cooper's short bio on his friend Eddie Hinton

I've also posted "Hard Luck Guy" on the seldom updated Chachi Loves Vinyl Myspace


PS - It's ON! Soul Show next Satuday at the Bottletree featuring Roscoe Robinson and DJ John Ciba. More details soon. I promise.