Blue Suit on the quest for Robert Johnson
	Thursday

Thursday night at the Robert Lockwood and friends concert at Cuyahoga Community College was wonderful.  The show opened with Robert playing solo and went on to  include Henry Townsend on both guitar and piano.  Next up was Guy Davis, who played the shit out of Charley Patton's Pony Blues and then did his powerful song Georgia Flood.   The first half of the show ended with  Alvin Youngblood Hart.  After the break Honeyboy Edwards took the stage and played one of the best sets of the night. Rory Block did her percussive Delta style on Son House.  Robert Jr came back out with his band for a  handful of tunes, followed by an ill-concieved trio of Robert, Honeyboy and Henry Townsend.   To top off the evening the city of Cleveland presented Mr. Lockwood with a street sign with his name on it, reprenting the  street in the Flats that had been named for him. Our night was not over however.  We headed down to the Flats to Wilberts to pass out of the blues into psychedelia: David Nelson of the New Riders of the Purple  Sage was fronting a band there.  The crowd was mixed between neo-hippies and the blues crowd, we hung for one good New Riders' tune and a couple space numbers and decided there was more excitement someplace. Which was  completely true, it's just that we couldn't find anyone who knew where Pat's in the Flats was.  Andre Williams, a refugee from the Detroit R&B world of the 1950s was in Cleveland and we were determined to find him.   After walking up and down the west side of the river in the Flats we found a cab driver who hadn't heard of the place and who didn't know where W. 3rd crossed Literary - neither did his dispatcher, but before we consented to get in  his ride they found another cabbie who knew where it was - or so he said.  We crossed the river two or three times on bridges and roads that hadn't been travelled at night for many years, but finally, after the driver admitted  he was lost, we came upon Pat's, a modern day juke joint located next to a smelly oil refinery.

Andre Williams, former Fortune Record signing and the author of the classic "Shake A Tail Feather," was holding court  to a bunch of tatooed, body pierced, future rock and roll fame voters.  Fronting a band that looked like the Shindogs on acid, with the power of the Sex Pistols the two formed an unholy alliance.  Andre cut to  the chase, no time for screwing around, he launched into "Stank Pussy"  and the defiant ghetto ultimatim - BRING ME BACK MY STRIPPED CAR.  How ironic that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame was celebrating  Robert Johnson, well known evil blues singer from the 30s with the flair of a movie opening,

while a few miles away Andre Williams was answering the question on every blues critic's mind: what would be Robert Johnson doing today if he were  alive?  He'd be dressed like a pimp screaming like a man ready to check out of a poker game with Jesus, fronting a band of white punks with 35 dollar Japanese guitars and too many amps.  Talking about blowing a 50 amp  fuse!  Yeah, old Robert was in Cleveland last weekend - I know 'cause we in dropped into Pat's for few moments for a shot whiskey and some of that devil music.  You know, that music the white folks call the blues.