…SunRay Kelley and his girtlfriend Bonnie are coming by here today in their in-progress Tacoma hybrid biodiesel/electric/solar-powered camper. Watch for pix in the next few days.

…Heard good interview with Keith Richardson by Terry Gross the other night. he talked about using acoustic guitars, later electrified, to get the effects he wanted in some of their best songs. Also, that he writes for Mick, saying,  You know Mick, he’s this outsized personality, kind of across between James Brown and Maria Callas…and I just hope he’ll like the song…

…Which has just caused me to put on “Let It Bleed,” boy what a record, starting out with, ahem, Gimme Shelter. I’ll always associate this album with a brilliant sunny November Thanksgiving feast in 1969 at the renegade Pacific High School in the Santa Cruz mountains. There were about 50 kids and ten teachers and we were building geodesic domes for the kids to live in. I mean, it was a teen-age commune in the middle of the Psychedelic Times, and we putting up our own shelters, feeding everyone, and trying to keep some sense of order. Most people were stoned most of the time. Oh yeah! Anyway, we’d been at for 3 or so months, and on this Thanksgiving day everything came together. Steve the cook prepared the whole turkey lalapalooza, there was great great veggie fare, and we all sat around eating, listening to this album, watching the sun go down over the ridge. I remember listening to the words,

You can’t always get what you want,

but if you try sometimes, 

you might find, 

you get what you need.

and thinking how brilliant this was. No shit, really.

…Music this week: Howlin’ Wolf. I’ve been loving songs by him on radio lately. Also this morning, a great Jimmy Reed song. Plus see next post.

Nice little building complex on outskirts of Sonoma. I love the brick red trim.Took off Monday morning for a 5 day road trip. First up to my brother’s farm in the Napa Valley to watch the olive harvest, then up towards Clear Lake, and Harbin Hot Springs. From there out to see SunRay Kelley’s “man cave,” a 12-sided cob-walled wooden yurt, then over to hang out with my friend Louie at his place on the river.

I love starting on a trip. It’s always an adventure. Rainy drizzly morning, and on my Sirius satellite blues station, Bobby Blue Bland singing, They Call it Rainy Monday, then Paula Nelson (with Willy Nelson) doing Have You Ever Seen the Rain. Over on the “Outlaw” station, Dale Gilmore: I’m a Ramblin Man…

Heading along the back road to Petaluma, it’s misty and the hills are soft and green. God I love California! Ayreshire cows grazing. One of Clover Milk’s billboards shows a cow lying on her side, relaxing in a meadow, with the words: “Amazing Graze.” I still remember “Tip Clo Through the Two Lips.”

Olive harvest: my brother made a deal with the (large) McEvoy Ranch for his (certified organic) olive crop. The McEvoy crew was there, 44 guys, and I shot photos. It was a bumper olive year; my brother resurrected a pretty neglected bunch of olive trees (over 1000) on a ranch he bought 3 years ago. This year they expect to get 12 tons.

Great jug band. I love the tuba! If you go to their website and click on “Music,” you can play their whole album. Such good stuff.

https://tubaskinny.tk/

Got this from boingboing

I had a great day yesterday. Operated-upon knee feeling good, fractured rib just about healed, being able to move through the world without pain be stylin. We’ve been blessed with early rains, and I drove south along the coast through the drizzle, with ocean slate grey1000 feet below. Listening to the radio. Program on NPR on Houdini, who died on Halloween, was said to be a marketing genius and perhaps the first person ever to utilize mass tie-in marketing (see Wikipedia). Houdini had instructed his wife to have a seance on the anniversary of his death, and seances are held on Halloween to this day.

Music yesterday morning:

“Momma loved Daddy,

but Daddy loved trains…”

-Wildfire

“I’m gonna wait till the midnight hour

That’s when my love comes tumbling down…”

-Wilson Picket. I’d forgotten what a great song this was. Boy!

“From the moment I could crawl,

Someone tried to slow me down…

It’s everything or nuthin every day,

I’d rather wear out than rust away…”

Yeah mon!

-Vince Gill and friends, didn’t get song name. It sure resonates, as they say…

Finally some poetry by Albert Collins:

“If you love me like you say,

Why you treat me like you do?”

If you thought Carly Simon’s and James Taylor’s version of Mockingbird was pretty good, listen to the original from 1963. Whew! Inez’s got super-powered pure energy like Tina Turner at her best (when she was backed by Ike). I buy very few CDs these days, what with Sirius radio, but this was one: Charlie and Inez Foxx: Mockingbird, COL-CD 5301, Collectables Record Corp. The title song here is just brilliant singing, nothing quite like it.

I have to admit (sheepishly) to having played the song 5 times just now. Hey, after a week laid up in bed, things are lookin up.  My operated-upon knee feels good. I’m back to working on my tiny house book (wow!). It’s a sunny day, some caffeine, ganja, good rhythm and blues, and stylin is the word.

Everybody, have you heard,

He’s gonna buy me a diamond ring…