Friday, January 14, 2011

HOW SWEET DADDY AND DJZigZag DECIDED TO TAKE ON THE EAST END SOUTHERN MUSIC TOUR 2010 - IT ALL STARTED IN LAS VEGAS with BOBBY "BLUE" BLAND ! !




DJZigZag and Sweet Daddy Fonk were in the city of sin - Lost Wages, Nevada. It was probably 1982 or '83. They were in a rental car along with long-time sports car aficionado and ex-taxi cab driver Shepherd "White Bucks" Wong. Shepherd was driving.
Now, DJZigZag isn't a gambler. Sweet Daddy Fonk had dabble-gambled but at that time even SDF didn't really know Vegas that well - not as well as their craps-loving pal Shepherd. They were both thinking that it seemed like they'd been driving around the downtown core aimlessly when a sudden turn revealed what the boys knew to be "The Golden Mile" - that stretch now known as Old Las Vegas - that shimmering, blinding smash-your-eyes-out-with-neon light area that ZigZag had only seen in movies. A thrill in itself, but there was a life-changing addition to the moment. At precisely the time a film director would have said to his editor, "start the music here", the radio began honking out Bobby "Blue" Bland's #1 Rhythm & Blues hit from 1957 - "Farther Up The Road"!
It was a moment Sunny Sweet Daddy Fonk and DJZigZag would mention to each other for years to come until one day one of them added - "Y'know, we got such a thrill outta that, we should visit the land that gave birth to the music we love - The Southern U.S. of A." (or words to that effect).
In October, 2010 the grown and dusty lads headed to Seattle, WA. and then to Atlanta, GA. where they began a thirteen day cultural driving visit to Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, South Carolina and Alabama.
At least a couple of times during the 2010 trip they laughed, as they'd done in the past, remembering how, on that fateful day in Las Vegas, NV, they had looked up from the scene brightly blaring into their eyes with Mr. Bland's music scoring the moment, turned to each other, made the "Oh, my Gawd!" connection and then looked at their pal Shepherd who was driving into the light totally unencumbered by their epiphany.

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