journeyman’s road

Reviews - Books 

Journeyman’s Road by Adam Gussow, pt 2

Elwood 16 Comments , , , , ,

Journeyman's RoadIgnoring the politics of blues music is like ignoring the crocodile swimming in your Coco Pops. Elwood the Apprentice looks at Gussow’s essays on how to position yourself within the blues tradition.

“He was wearing a pink tuxedo and patent leather shoes. He towered over me… Suddenly he was quivering with anger, his finger in my face. “You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know where I’ve been.” – Whose Blues?, Adam Gussow.

Note: This is a long post, so I’m going to reward those who read to the bottom by revealing the identity of the man in the pink tuxedo who challenges Adam Gussow backstage in the late 1990s. (more…)

Apprenticeship Series Reviews - Books 

Journeyman’s Road by Adam Gussow (Part 1)

Elwood 2 Comments , , , ,

Elwood the Apprentice seeks wisdom in the holy scriptures (of blues harmonica)

[UPDATE: Part 2 of the review is now live.]

Well, as I was saying – it’s the end of a Gussow era but not the end of the Gussow era. There’ll be no more free YouTube lessons, but there’s more Gussow wisdom to be harvested for the apprentice blues player – assuming you’ve not yet read Journeyman’s Road: Modern Blues Lives from Faulkner’s Mississippi to Post-9/11 New York.

“In the skilled blue-collar trades,” writes Gussow, “a journeyman is a way station and job category: no longer an apprentice, not yet a master.”

Well, there you have it. This delightful patchwork of essays, scatter shot and rapid-fire in their wisdom, chronicles Gussow’s journey to becoming a master – and he’s crammed in every titbit of wisdom accrued along the way. It’s like a little street manual on how to graduate from your apprenticeship and start the sometimes weary trudge towards mastery. There are threads on blues culture, threads on jam session etiquette and ‘sitting in’, threads on blues history and blues future. And the result is a palimpsest which, when held up to the light, might just give us new ways to understand ourselves. (more…)

Announcements Apprenticeship Series 

Gussow Calls It Quits?

Elwood 2 Comments , , ,

Adam GussowSo long and thanks for all the chops. Elwood the Apprentice pays tribute to the end of an era.

All good things come to an end. That’s what Adam Gussow said when he finally, officially called it quits on his YouTube tutelage last week (Jason Ricci retires with him, but in this case even JR’s teaching is dwarfed by the sheer volume of Gussow’s output since he decided, February 22 2007, to “give it all away“).

As a blues pup, having suckled at the digital teat of Gussow’s YouTube channel for a good 18 months, I couldn’t help but feel wistful to see Gussow move on — like I was losing a little piece of myself. (more…)