Got a call Friday, asking if I was willing to play some music for our soldiers on the night before the ceasefire agreement took effect.
I said sure, and so, on Sunday night, August 13, I drove up the coast about 20km with 3 other local Blues guys: singer and harmonica wiz Dov Hammer, acoustic Blues/Folk artist Yaron Ben Ami, and my good buddy Johnny Mayer, the guy who created Blues For Peace.
We got up to the base, and were told to follow the car that was waiting for us at the gate. We set ourselves up in the middle of a tent area that held reserve unit soldiers,
and a few of the younger soldiers (including some young ladies) also came to hear the show.
I started off with the National steel guitar, pulling out the old Walking Blues with Johnny backing me his custom hand-made Blues For Peace electric guitar.
Then Dov came up and we did some of the duets we've been doing together for years - Key To the Highway, Midnight Rider (Allman Brothers), and then went on to some chicago style standards.
Yaron joined in, and contributed his nice fingerpicking version of Statesboro Blues.
I was actually surprised how well the crowd received all this Blues material, as this isn't the kind of music the general population in Israel listens to ost of the time...
Well, we managed to do a 2 1/2 hour set between all of us, and the guys were pretty appreciative.
It made me feel good that at least before the ceasefire came, I did my part to help support our soldiers...
Eli Dr. Blues Marcus - Blues, Blues, Blues, and some other stuff too...
1 comment:
There's a lot of criticism lately about the popular Israeli music culture and the public's relationship with the Kochav Nolad TV show. It's great to hear that the group of soldiers you played for appreciated your Blues music, and the effort you made to play for them.
I know the feeling about wanting to be able to do your part during a war.
Although I was not able to support the soldiers directly, I spent a lot of time on my Toshav Hozer Blog during the war. Instead of writing about my re-absorption into Israel, I went all out in a pro-Israeli political campaign. I felt that if I couldn't fight physically, at least I could help the hasbara war.
The post that drew the most attention was http://toshav.blogspot.com/2006/08/shitty-little-country.html. I posted an email I had received listing all the positive Israeli achievments, and much to my surprise, there were a number of people who were unable to believe it. The post also initiated a discussion about anti-semitism and anti-zionism.
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