21-08-2008 om 00:00 geschreven door Wayn  

The good meal combined with the white gin was too much for Juan and soon he felt a-sleep like a new born child in a colourfull hammock, which was a swinging between two walls. He woke up when the sun was allready settin' down. Confused he stumbled outside, took a shower by the waterwell and catched the smell of fried black-beans and fried fish. He walked back inside the cabin and saw the old singer sitting in his chair; this time without hat. His head was bold and just some grey twines were covered up the sides.
 In the shadows of the dancin' candlle lights he looked even more scrawny, a stone throw away from a resemblance of Klaus Kinki's 'Nosferatu the vampire', in the Werner Herzog movie. But it was all romantic, somehow unreal, so it could be only written in a good book.
 Outside Juan heard noises of some men arriving in pick-up trucks; there were five of them, the Sertanejos, the cowboy looking dwellers of the wasteland. Two wearing accordians, one a fiddle and another the Surdo, a big bass-drum. The last one carried a huge curved instrument which makes snoring sounds, which they named Cuica.
'Let's go to the barn,' said the old singer and, leaning on a old walking stick, he stumbled bended down, to the old barn. The barn was transformed like a music-room, a timber floor, a small mixer for voice and instruments, some aged amplifiers and a old piano.
 The little stage was decorated with some mikes and a colorful parrot whom folks over here named 'Jandaia'  flew and produced strange noises around the location.
'Well... this is the place where my amigos are playing our music, music that's touching my soul... the songs of the nordestino, the 'bahiâo' the music of hard times,' and there was a sad look in the old mans eyes. 'You see... music my dear John is a God's gift, something our are born with, a force you'll never get rid off...' The old man took his martin guitar, stepped, curved like a old tree forward to the mike. With tremblin hands he stroke a D and when he started singing there was no doubt in Juan's heart. The sound was fragile, his voice bounced, but clearly recognizable. The song the old man was a moanin' was called 'Honky-tonk blues', and slowly, the accordions joined in, the fiddle was like a cryin' dyin' man out on the street, while the Surdo accompained the rhythm and cuica made strange noises and sounded like a fierce snake. The blues was re-born in the middle of the Brazilian dessert. Juan took his guitar and forgot the world around him, his memories and future. When the song was finished the bass-drum started another beat, a Indian beat and the song told about a wooden Indian whom never bin kissed: Kawliga.
 The old man looked at juan: 'let's sing some together bro...' and he found C major: 'Hear that lonesome whistle blow... It sounds too blue to fly...' Just two guitars, a old Martin & a black Gibson, two voices, two former 'gringo's' in another world, far away from there memories, were succes was just a thing... a dyin' item in a world they would forget, a lonely dusty world, with too many 'messin around' on there minds... Then they sang the 'Lovesick Blues' and Sertanejos joined in and again they played there music in a way, so that no one could deny that music and lonelyness, should be the real synthesis.
 And then when the Sertanejos all ready left in their old truck, the man with the fake name Lucas an de the grey fake gypsy still singing there songs, from 'That's allright Mama' to 'Move it on over', until 'Will the circle be unbroken' make them fall in silence and tears.
The next morning Juan awaked in a hammock and ask itself the question: why this world was so complicated? Mysterious. Because music was more important then fame, the fragility of glamour... and here in the wasteland he found his last episode. Here at this pace he would sing 'till the fatal day! But what could he sing in the future, whart would be his goal? New songs were hard to put on paper? Maybe a new love? A stronger 'Love me tender'?
 The silence was interrupted by the whistling of birds, and faraway he could hear the old man singing 'Weary blues from waitin'', with a voice like a broken chain, a fiddle, a certain melancholic voice with bluesome notes, which made Juan think of negro's on the cottonfields of Mississippi, the labourers at the fields of Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, and the slaves on the Brazilian wasteland.

18-08-2008 om 00:00 geschreven door Wayn