Over in the corner, a very excited, rail-thin Englishman fiddled with glowing knobs and buttons on a equipment rack that towered over him.

I watched him absentmindedly, chewing on a toothpick. After a bit, he seemed to forget I was even there, so I cleared my throat. He turned ‘round, and gave me an overly-wide smile that only the most rarified of the white-boy-glam-rocker-coke-fiends are capable of.

“Right, yeah, man.” He brushed a greasy strand of hair back from his face and sat down on the stool beside me. “Can I just say how much of an honor this is? My old man, he was, like, your biggest fan. This project, it’s like a dream come true for me. Bridging the old and the new, you know?”

From somewhere he produced a wrinkled and worn manuscript book. “Right, so I’ve got some words for songs here. Did you want to -”

I stopped him right there. “Son, you don’t write down the blues. You live it. You let it talk through you.”

He blinked at me.

“Right, man, yeah. Just like Jay-Z.”

I blinked back at him.

“What the hell’s a Jay-Z?”

Memphis Note
Brit-rockers U2 came to town in the late 1980s and cut a few tracks with the legendary BB King at the equally legendary Sun Studios as part of their Rattle and Hum recording/documentary project. I can’t help but wonder what would happen if one of today’s talentless pop artists tried to capture lightning twice. I don’t foresee it ending well.