So you cleaned at the Newport Festival?
Yes, I did. And quite tidy it was too I might add. In stark contrast to later festivals which became positively squalid. I can’t begin to describe the cleaning required after a festival populated entirely by hippies. If you closely scrutinise the footage recorded at the Woodstock festival you can clearly see me in the background picking up discarded undergarments with a pair of tongs while looking justifiably perturbed. It goes without saying that I don’t approve of public displays of naked flesh but if one does feel the need to shed all clothing and cavort in one’s birthday suit is it too much to ask to fold and store the superfluous garments before commencing a Lady Godiva tribute? But blues fans were quite well behaved generally and knew how to utilise a waste receptacle, for which I was definitely grateful.
And what did you think of the music?
Do you know I became quite the fan of blues music at Newport? I can never pretend I went any way towards understanding it. I find the entire genre to be inherently baffling on every possible level. When you get down to it what is a Hoochie Coochie Man? It sounds like a chap who says silly things to babies and toddlers. And what exactly is a Mojo and how does one return it to an operational state when it has ceased to function? And when Mr Waters, or Muddy as he insisted I call him, claims he has a tiger in his tank then does he mean he’s captured a predatory great cat in a glass-walled container or in an armoured vehicle? I just find the whole thing makes very little sense and I can never understand the concept Mr Waters is attempting to convey through his use of the medium.
I think they’re euphemisms.
For what exactly?
Well… when he says he has a tiger… in his tank… I think he’s suggesting that he’s exceptionally virile.
I see… why couldn’t he just say that? “I have abundant energy and feel possessed of a youthful vim and vigour which is looking for a suitable outlet?”
Is that as catchy as “I’ve got a tiger in my tank?”
Well, it’s not as succinct certainly, but what it lacks in brevity it makes up for in clarity, which I think is something that is often lacking in the genre known as blues music. Mr Waters might very well be a gentleman of the Hoochie Coochie persuasion who is in possession of a fully functioning mojo and a tiger contained in either a glass-walled housing or an armoured vehicle, but that’s all awfully confusing for the listener who is not previously versed in the lingo. I feel that a focus on clarity might assist blues music in reaching a wider audience.
Well, perhaps it will catch on in the future.
We can only hope.
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