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| Name: |
Papa |
| Theme Song: |
Blind Willie McTell - Bob Dylan |
Papa . . . well, that’s about
all most people know about him. Born in the town in
the Depression years, or maybe a little before, he’s
never been out of spitting distance of the Mississippi.
He’s probably only been out of New London a
few times. He grew up a poor boy among many siblings,
and lived in a small house full of small dreams. His
daddy was a storyteller and a man who worked hard
for his money, and his mother liked her house and
her children to be clean and never missed a church
service. He was just another poor black American in
the south. But that meant he got to do an awful lot
of living.
Sometime when he was young, he got the Blues. He played,
he listened, and he sang. As he worked whatever dead-end
job he could get and the world changed around him,
he watched and he learnt and he played where ever
he would get paid and, when that failed, where ever
he wouldn’t get beaten. The Blues, for people
like Papa, isn’t something you do or something
that you are, it’s as much a part of you as
the colour of your skin.
But being black and just wanting a stage to play on
means that most people don’t notice you and
don’t worry about who you might tell what. Even
in New London, there is little that would surprise
Papa, little that he hasn’t seen before. And
people have become used to him, as much a part of
the town as the crumbling old plantation house or
the seeming knack of people to disappear unnoticed.
He spends his days playing the stage at the 12 Bar
when there’s no other band to perform, and playing
whatever stage will have him when there is. Some nights
he’s seen sleeping in the bus station, some
nights he seems to simply disappear only to be seen
on stage at the 12 Bar when it opens.
If anyone wants to hear what the Blues sounded like
before the white men came along, if they want to hear
stories of some distant place filled with all the
people the history books never noticed, or they’ve
got a problem that’s eating them up from the
inside and has gotten complicated, Papa’s bound
to show at the 12 Bar eventually.
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