Timepiece
Copyright© 2015 by Old Man with a Pen
Chapter 5
Timepiece: 5.
"Did ya like it?" Wendy asked.
"I'm in shock," I confessed.
"They're pretty good," she said. "Now, we're going to see the raw side of music."
She set up her watch, grabbed my hand and wound the stem.
We appeared outside a barrelhouse someplace south of Memphis in the Mississippi Delta, that flat flood plain that stretches from just south of Memphis to just past Vicksburg, Mississippi. The area is a warren of dirt roads and crossroads juke joints. She couldn't or wouldn't tell me exactly where we were ... and I'm not sure she knew but the music coming out the door was raw and heartfelt.
Howlin' Wolf - One Night Only read the hand scrawled poster just outside the door. October 15th 1930 was the date and we stepped inside. I believe that was the beginning of the legend that wrote the song, Black Magic Woman in the late Sixties.
We stayed for the night. She paid with a twenty dollar gold piece up front, one round for the house every two hours. Twenty dollars bought a lot of 'shine in 1930.
She tipped Chester Arthur Burnett a five dollar coin when we left ... it was coming up daylight.
"Mr. Burnett," she did, she Mistered him. "You have a rare talent. Chicago would love you."
He was 19 years old.
We walked out the door and she pushed in the stem. Yup... Black Magic Woman hoodooin' the Hoodoo Man.
Plain sight disappearance.
Back in Pentwater ... at the house on Green Street ... she said, "Take me to bed, we have a lot of catching up to do."
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