Music has always been tough for me.
I have music I’m embarrassed that I like. I have music I should like but don’t. We’re judged by the music we like. We shouldn’t be, but if wishes were horses then beggars would ride. I also judge myself harshly because race comes into play with my go-to genre; The Blues
Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Live At Carnegie Hall was my gateway drug. How I learnt about it is one of those moments that is on the marquee of my memory. I was standing behind the counter at Royal Discount Bookstores (RIP) with Susan. She was a stout middle-aged blonde white lady. She asked one of those innocent questions that introverts dread: What sort of music do you listen to?
Now, I’m only sixteen years old at this point. And my tastes were still my brother’s tastes. I was too embarrassed to answer with one of the many hair bands like Slaughter or Motley Crue that was always blaring in The Butterscotch Mobile; his beige 1979 Ford Fairmont. So I chose a Boston-approved safe choice, Aerosmith. And boy howdy am I glad I did! Since Aerosmith is steeped in The Blues, she figured I’d enjoy the straight-up blues rock that is Stevie Ray. And girl howdy did I!
He’d already shuffled lose his mortal coil by that point. And so it didn’t take me all too long to get, and wear out, all his CDs. (Ah, those pre-streaming woes!) I loved them all. I wanted more. But then something happened. I was already starting to wriggle out from behind colorblind attitude. Skin color shouldn’t matter. But it does. To hide behind the saying “I don’t see skin color” is to try and skip ahead to the finish line. I also think it’s wrong to say there’s been 400+ years of oppression of black people in this country. Because that couches the oppression in the past. And it’s still very much alive and unwell. That opinion is one I’ve held since the mid-90s. Which brings me back Stevie and allows me to introduce Eric.
Since I ran out of Stevie albums sadly all-too-soon, I moved onto Eric. Clapton that is. And his album of Blues covers, From the Cradle is where our story takes a turn. The album had exactly zero originals. I read an article where god said Robert Johnson was the best Bluesman ever. Welp, I thought, if Clapton cites that dude as a heavy influence, I gotta go back to the source. So I picked up his King of the Delta Blues album. Except it wasn’t an album.
Back when he was recording, they weren’t recording albums. Certainly not ones of “race records” as they were called before WWII. They recorded songs and then released them as singles. He recorded a paltry 29 songs between 1937 and 1939. Before he had a chance to record any more he was killed. He became a member of the 27 Club before it was even a thing. He was supposedly 27 when he died, but records for African Americans have always been dubious, when they existed.
But I digress.
Listening to his songs was the first time my hearing thwarted me from doing something I wanted to do. The recording quality was so faint, so scratchy, so antagonistic to someone with hearing troubles that I was crushed. Even turning it up didn’t help. As I would find out many years later with my bionic ears, amplification is all or nothing. Turning it up raised Robert’s voice AND the scratching of the recording needle. I was exactly where I started. I simply couldn’t hear around the scratching and popping of the early 1900s recording technology. I eventually came to terms with his recordings and love the album for its undeniable far-reaching influence. But as far as an album to sit and enjoy? Not so much.
There are sheets of things I could say about how my hearing foiled my musical enjoyment but this post is already pretty long. I don’t want to make it worthy of an Allman Brothers Jam. (Their song Whipping Post from the Live at the Fillmore East Album is 22 minutes long!) I originally started this post thanks to another white performer covering a black performer.
Not too long ago I stumbled across Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa’s cover of Etta James’ I’d Rather Go Blind.
It’s a tear-jerking performance. For many reasons it’s struck a deep sad cord with me. It ripped sobs from my chest and I tore down into one of those unabashed ugly cries. I loved it. So I went out and bought the DVD. I wrote about the power live musical performances have on even my defective ears a couple of years ago. And while the power of performance is turnt down a tad on DVDs it’s still a different, more nuanced, experience than just listening.
But in this case it was a tough experience.
I knew most of the songs, I’m a big fan of both Beth and Joe. Which meant I knew most of the words. Even with the creative license live performances take with the pronunciation of words, I was still able to pick up what Beth was putting down. When I knew the song. Not understanding those songs I didn’t know, and not making out much when there was chatter between songs, left me feeling blue. (Side Note: It reminded me of when I saw B.B. King in his octogenarian years. It was my first time seeing him. He didn’t play a single song all the way through. He’d play some of it, sometimes starting in the middle, and then break into a chat. Not a single chatted word did I understand. The only reason I don’t completely write it off is because I can say I saw that giant of The Blues in-person.)
It’s been so long since I watched a concert. I haven’t watched TV without captions in years. And to have them go MIA was disheartening. But I always try to come up with solutions to problems (even when I shouldn’t and simply say “That sucks, I’m sorry.”) So that’s what I did.
I pulled up the song on Spotify on my phone. I’d pause the DVD, find the song, tap play, tap pause, and bring up the lyrics. Then I’d hit play on the DVD but leave the Spotify song paused. I wanted to hear (as much as I could) the live version. I held my phone out in front of my so that the lyrics were sorta in the corner of the TV screen. And I’d manually scroll through the lyrics as Beth belted out her feelings. Since live performances aren’t the same as the recorded performances, it wasn’t perfect. But it worked. For a song or two. It was kinda ruining the show, having to pause, and then go with the lyrics. Then I remembered I have the Ava app. I pulled that up and set my phone next to the TV speaker. Alas! I was foiled by Joe and the band’s shredding. The instruments overwhelmed the vocals and so Ava didn’t pick up anything.
I watched the 90-minute performance and it pleased me more than it annoyed me. It helped that I didn’t have to pull up the lyrics for every song. After the second encore (Side Note: is it really an encore if bands always do at least one? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?) I put on the behind-the-scenes featurette. The captions were in the same place as a left-handed corkscrew. Nowhere. I had to turn off the DVD.
Before I bought the DVD I looked for someplace to stream it. There was none. I prefer that medium because I can turn on the Live Captions setting in Chrome and at least have a chance. But with DVDs, there’s no option. It makes me sad how often I run into this. I don’t have popular tastes, which means the studio isn’t going to bother with captions. Sometimes this makes me feel like I’m doing deaf wrong. Like I shouldn’t like music. Music is meant to be heard. I have a hard time hearing things. So of course I’m going to have a hard time hearing music. But I can’t deny the power music has to lift me up, to allow me to wallow properly, to fuel me to get in a good workout.
Even simple things aren’t simple when you’re hard of hearing.
Tunes give me The Blues,
for oh-so-many reasons.
So many feelings.
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