Ben, The Paramedic
Ben, the paramedic, who has made previous appearances on this blog, as "Ben, the ambulance driver," (until he informed me of his true title) was in town with a lady friend whose name I've probably only been told a few times.
They were here to see the Eric Clapton concert somewhere in town.
Ben is an excellent guitarist; and the one who single handedly sold me on the "open G" guitar tuning which is used by the likes of Ben, the paramedic; who has played in Nashville, with the likes of Willie Nelson.
I don't know if hanging around the are of The Unique Boutique was part of their strategy for running into me, but we met in front of Wal-Greens on Royal Street (the one that I once thought had been bought out by the R&B artist Al Green. after the "W" burned out).
They took a picture and asked me where I was going to be later, but I couldn't form a clear picture of where I might be at any given time later on that Saturday night.
I did play at the spot on Royal which Tanya and Dorise vacated, but that was not at great length.
Yesterday afternoon, I played on Bourbon Street, across from Barnaby's condo.
Barnaby has just landed a job, he told me.
"I know that feeling; I had it in 2006," I told him.
He is going to work for some organization very similar in scope to Unity; and he is going to "council addicts" among other things.
I had a notion of Unity sending me to Barnaby as part of my evaluation to see if I qualify for an empty house.
I made almost 10 bucks and then took a break; returned about a half hour later as it was getting dark; but didn't make anything in the 45 minutes or so that I played.
So, I went on my way down Royal Street past the guy who plays an electric guitar through a little Roland Cube amp and who used to have a stuffed moose in his guitar case; and who wrote a song called "Mr. Moose" which he sang whenever people asked him what the deal with the stuffed moose was; which they inevitably didl..
Well, Mr. Moose, as soon as he saw me; pointed in the direction of Rouses Market and said: "There ain't no one up there!"
And. he said it with an incredulity as if he thought that some group; of musicians must have taken ill or something or there was a grave misunderstanding of the time allotment and they each thought that the other group; was there.
I walked on and figured, why not sit on that particular coveted spot.
It was actually slow enough to be about as quiet as it gets there.
I played and had a few people stand and listen; as they are prone to do at that location; and brought my money total up; to about 20 bucks for the whole day; which ran about 8 hours.
I caught the ferry; after making a distorted recording on the west bank terminal which had some fleeting moments of good jamming on it.
I am holding myself to the standard of Tanya and Dorise now, and especially after having played at the spot that they have had a hand in making famous for people who like to stand and listen to street performers.
Bens Band
*Ben, the paramedic has a band; and they can be "liked" on Facebook.
"The Ben Jernigan Band from Mobile, Alabama" should be a search term that would put them near the top of the Google results...
I haven't been able to find his music though; except for a Youtube of his band doing "Folsom Prison Blues" live somewhere.
It was a well played version.
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