A CLASSIC

Sunday, January 15, 2012: A CLASSIC

A singer/songwriter I work with related that the Scotia Bank Giller Prize winning author was a shy student and a close friend during her early public school years.  The author is Esi Edugyan.

A friend gave me her latest fiction novel "Half-Blood Blues" as a gift.  I usually read biographies, however I found this novel to be intriguing - I couldn't put it down.  It's because  I enjoy blues music and during my last few visits to Chicago, I stopped in at Blue Chicago - a club where local Chicago artists play what they do best - rooted Chicago blues.  The club is reminiscent of a blues juke joint - the bar along the closest wall to the entrance and the stage tucked at the far side of the narrow room.  The room's capacity would be a comfortable 100 patrons - yet it's usually jammed with standing room.

Edugyan's novel captures the flavour and the feel of this kind of blues setting.  Author David Chariandy describes Esi Edugyan's work as "a truly beautiful novel with perfect pitch.  Her language is brilliantly in tune with the diction, musicality, suffering and dignity of Black jazz musicians trying to survive in France and Germany during World War Two...."

Her writing evokes a place where the blues live: "the cracked heaters lisping steam, empty bottles rolling all over the warped floor.  Our cigarettes glowed like small holes in the dark ...."

And back to Chicago - I looked for a gift for my friend who enjoys vinyl records.  I was searching for something that represented Chicago and I discovered a re-released 1969 Muddy Waters album - "After the Rain".  Only 1000 were re-released.   A review about the album says that it "has more of Muddy's classic bluesy finish than some of the other Chess blues remodel albums from the time – but it's still got plenty of raw production and great fuzzed out guitar that's totally killer! Hard charging dirty grooves from Muddy Waters that we've always dug ...."

And that's like the novel - a classic.