{"id":30340,"date":"2016-01-09T14:00:57","date_gmt":"2016-01-09T19:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=30340"},"modified":"2016-01-07T18:02:52","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T23:02:52","slug":"marc-ribot-way-down-south-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/marc-ribot-way-down-south-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Marc Ribot, Way Down South: Part One"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"marc<\/a>Marc Ribot<\/strong>, the well-traveled guitarist best known for his work with Tom Waits<\/strong> and the Lounge Lizards<\/strong>, laments that he has yet to play a gig in Mississippi<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA terrible oversight,\u201d he said backstage at an East Baltimore movie theater in early December 2015 before providing music for Chaplin\u2019s silent film The Kid<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you have not seen The Kid<\/em> \u2013 a 1921 gem of love and anguish and good humor \u2013 you must. Released the same year Mamie \u201cCrazy Blues\u201d Smith discovered Coleman Hawkins playing saxophone in an orchestra pit, The Kid<\/em> is the blues as only a tramp on the hustle knows them.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you have not heard the music of Marc Ribot \u2013 delicate and haunting when not harsh and unnerving \u2013 you have yet to find a treasure map to the musical heart of America, a muscle of love and regret in conflict with itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBoth melodic and atonal,\u201d said hot jazz guitarist Michael Joseph Harris<\/strong> of the band Ultrafaux<\/strong>. \u201cHe keeps the momentum going as he plays while maintaining tension and release in the music.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are stark moments that are almost uncomfortable just before fluid moments of childlike imagination.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Occasions stark and uncomfortable followed by flashes of unexpected joy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is that not Mississippi?<\/span><\/p>\n

Some 30 years ago, about the time Ribot helped define the fecund Waits LP Rain Dogs<\/em>, he took a classic Memphis<\/strong> to New Orleans<\/strong> road trip in a car that had belonged to the deceased father of an ex-girlfriend (a woman who didn\u2019t drive.) It may have been a late 70s Pontiac<\/strong>, an unreliable one.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe trip began in [Washington] D.C. after a Lounge Lizards gig at the [old] 9:30 Club,\u201d said Ribot, an early member of John Lurie<\/strong>\u2019s legendary band for which he played guitar and trumpet.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hugging the eastern shore of the Great Muddy, Ribot began his Highway 61<\/strong> rite-of-passage with a visit to Rufus Thomas<\/strong>, born in Cayce, Mississippi in 1917, dying 84 years later in Memphis.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy band the Realtones<\/strong> [soul\/punk, \u201984-to-\u201889] had backed up Rufus at an R&B revival series at Tramps<\/strong> in New York<\/strong>,\u201d said Ribot. \u201cI figured if we were going down to Memphis, I may as well say hello to Rufus.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

If the simple courtesy call to the man who showed us how to \u201cwalk the dog\u201d wasn\u2019t sacrament enough to launch a Deep South voyage, Ribot recalled that \u201cRufus showed me pictures of himself leading a very young Elvis<\/strong> out on stage.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Adios Rufus, hello Great Magnolia State<\/span><\/p>\n

Ribot \u2013 who performs a near baleful, electric interpretation of Blind Willie Johnson<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cDark Was the Night\/Cold was the Ground\u201d \u2013 drove down into the Delta with his friend, the Pontiac sputtering on the way.<\/span><\/p>\n

On down to the Crescent City where they visited another of Ribot\u2019s friends \u2013 a female singer \u2013 in the midst of a ferocious argument with a one-footed boyfriend.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh baby,\u201d moaned Muddy Waters, \u201cyou got me standin’ around crying\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA real knockdown drag out, Streetcar Named Desire<\/em> fight\u201d said Ribot. \u201cThey were going at each other while she was trying to serve us tea in the other room.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Tea, apparently, was served without the assistance of police officers.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then it was back into the Delta on an eastward slant across lower Mississippi for home in Gotham City, where the Newark, New Jersey<\/strong> born Ribot still lives, \u201cand we happened upon an outdoor barbecue and crawfish party for a local candidate during election time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe joined the crowd and had a great time. That\u2019s what I like about the South<\/strong>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marc Ribot, the well-traveled guitarist best known for his work with Tom Waits and the Lounge Lizards, laments<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":249,"featured_media":30400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,1],"tags":[3112,7578,3110],"class_list":["post-30340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative-writing","category-uncategorized","tag-alvarez","tag-marc-ribot","tag-rafael"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/2016-01-07-MarcRibot-1.jpg?fit=600%2C323&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/249"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}