January 8, 2023
You know Harmonica Shaw?
Yeah, well I used to play with him back in the day. Was in his band for a while, and then played with him in other groups as well. You wanna hear the sound of Detroit blues, you need to check out Shaw.
Anyway, Shaw (some of us call him that for short) did this album called Deep Detroit back in 2020. Another longtime buddy of mine, guitarist Howard Glazer, was featured on the album, which was released in 2000. The music is great, which is no surprise considering Shaw and Howard. But even more than the music, the title of the album was something that just hit me.
Deep Detroit.
Because it says so many things about this city in just those two words. Which is kinda how the blues works if you know anything about it; sounds simple and easy enough until you try it. And that moment of revelation, what you thought versus what is, becomes the time when your eyes get pried open like a Clockwork Orange.
You realize that what you thought you were looking at was just vapor, like steam drifting ghost-like out of a sewer grate. That’s when you squint your eyes and really start to see…
Deep Detroit.
When Dr. Robert McTyre, Cornelius Fortune, and I first started Detroit Stories Quarterly five years ago, it was basically because we’re not first-glance types. We just keep staring at something until it gives up and becomes.
See what I did there?
So here’s the thing (I don’t know why I say that all the time), don’t be afraid to stare. I know your mother probably taught you that it’s rude. Might have even slapped you a couple times or yanked you by the arm when she caught you staring at something because as an adult who (like most adults) has lost the ability to see, she thought you were violating the social contract which most of us never signed in the first damned place. But all you were doing was waiting for whatever it was that caught your attention to become its other.
No, not “other what?” Just other.
My wife always says ‘don’t settle’. I take great pride and joy in the fact that she says one of the big reasons she married me was because she wasn’t willing to settle for any of the lesser males swarming around. OK I added the ‘lesser males’ part, but sounds cool, right?
So (again) here’s the thing; don’t let them make you stop staring. Naw, man. Don’t do it. Don’t you settle. Keep those peepers peepin’ until you see…
Deep Detroit.