the blues

model t ford is 85 years old. he has 27 living children. when i found out quite suddenly at 7pm that he was playing at longshot barn this evening in oxford, i walked in to check on when he was going to start his set. model t was sitting with his guitar, ready to go. his drummer had a cleveland indians hat on, and we chatted for a bit (model t announced his age and the amount of children he had, and the drummer said he had no particular affinity for the indians - it was just a hat).

when we came back at 9:30ish, model t was playing what seemed to be a warm-up endless blues progression. he'd start and stop, start and stop, mess with the amp, play for 5 min or so, and either he or his drummer would get up and walk around or have a cigarette. model t walked with a cane and moved rather slowly. eventually - while the indians hat drummer was outside talking to some people - some guy walked up to the drum set and played (rather horribly) a bit of the endless warm up. then, his buddy pushed him off the kit, and played (less horribly) for a bit.

the drummer came back inside, and he and model t went through what was thankfully a different song than the endless warm-up. after this, model t asked if there were any other guitar players in the bar, and handed his guitar to some useless country singing fool while ostensibly going to the bathroom. the country singing fool played one song with the indians hat drummer, and then stopped. the drummer sat there for a while, chatting with a few people. i saw model t at the bar. eventually, the drummer went to the bar, too. an hour or so passed, and it was clear they weren't going to play anymore; they were watching the boxing match on tv.