Many many years ago, I was on a bunch of mushrooms and for some reason decided to turn on the TVā¦ the TV was on PBS and there was an Alesandro Escovedo song **āDeer head on the wallā ** playing. His sound just clickedā¦ it was perfect for my tripā¦ I was immediately a fan, I think heās great
Hard outta likes.
In 1999, I took a History of R&B kind of class through a local community college. It was taught by the great Johnny Otis. Johnny, of course, was one of the originators of Rhythm & Blues, and a hugely influential musician and club owner in his own right. And a serious raconteur.
This is how classes went - Class began at 6pm sharp on Tuesday nights. It was held at Ashkenaz, a local and somewhat legendary live dance and music venue. I think there were about 200 students, and, being Tuesday night, there was work the next day for most of us. Hereafter, all times are approximate. First, Johnny would make some opening remarks about the subject of the evening (15 minutes), then an academic from the college (a modern music history instructor and local musician whose name has escaped me since 1999) would bring the academic side to the eveningās class (30 minutes). Then Johnny would come back up and tell stories from his life with the very people and at the very venues, one of which Johnny had owned, that the academic had just talked about (at least an hour, generally longer). Thenā¦
the band set up! Every class included an amazing show, just for us. As the band was setting up, most of the chairs were being neatly stacked and moved into a storage space so we could dance!
Of course, the reason Iām going on and on about this is because Shuggie played twice over the course of the semester, once leading his own band, the other time behind Sugar Pie DeSanto! Johnny played keyboards for every show, and one show included an after class, home made feast, including dirty rice, jambalaya, hoppinā John and a couple of other dishes! But the show that absolutely killed was the semester closer, Little Milton! The shows generally ended around 10 or a very little after. Miltonās show ended well after midnight and the house was seriously rockinā! OMFG, what a night!
And thatās a true story of what academia is like kids, or at least used to be, so be sure go stay in school. HA! It may have been the most amazing class I ever took! (I did take an Anthropology class where each of us five students had to enroll in a separate Aikido dojo for the semester and then write a team paper on how Aikido principles could be applied to academic teaching. It was a pretty cool class, but not nearly as rockinā as Johnnyās!) 
What a great experience! Thatās an amazing thing to have in your lifeā¦so cool.
Here you go folks
Walkin out the door Jammin!
