Chicago Guitarist

Just like every time we visit, Ben and I spent some good time in the music store.

 Ben got to play a bunch of rarities.

As usual, there was easy conversation with the store's proprietor about music and gear but this time, Alcorn showed up. Alcorn, it appears, is a mechanic in town who helps anyone fix anything. The conversation about music continued and the guys all talked about mutually-known musicians who had moved to Chicago. In between cell phone calls requesting his services, Alcorn told us the story of how a guy with monkeys who ride dogs showed up at last year's Juke Joint Festival and everyone went nuts trying to catch a glimpse of some dog-riding monkeys (I was struggling to make sure I was understanding his drawl, really, dog-riding monkeys?). We shared a few laughs and were on our way.

As Ben and I headed out of town, I realized that we had left our postcard purchases in the music store so we headed back. I remembered the proprietor telling us that his doctor told him he had to walk a mile each day for his health (he had asked us about how hot it had gotten outside) and I was sure that the store would be closed when we got back. Sure enough...it was. So Ben went back into the shop where we purchased the postcards (with me telling him to "do it quickly") and I waited in the air conditioned car. After five minutes, the music store owner walked by and we waved to each other (I could see he was headed back to the store). After another five minutes, I saw the shop door open in the rearview mirror and was hoping to see Ben headed out but instead saw Alcorn! Well, that explained how Ben spent 10 minutes in there. Ben finally came out a few minutes later and I told him about the music shop being open again so we headed back there. In addition to the owner, there were a few musicians who had shown up having heard that a Chicago guitarist was just there. It really seemed that word got out (probably via Alcorn) about a Chicago musician visiting and these folks had nothing better to do than to come over to the music store to talk about it.

They were pretty excited when he showed up out of nowhere! So Ben ended up embroiled in another conversation. Nobody in Clarksdale was in a rush to do anything.