I’m knee deep in work at the moment, mired in a really deep groove. I use the word mired but it’s meant to have a good meaning here. It’s one of those grooves that I hope for, where everything seems to click right off the brush and there’s a rush of excitement as one piece nears completion and the next is already beckoning. The funny thing is that it’s not a manic groove even though I may sound manic in describing it. It’s calm and cool, a sense of clarity with all the fogs of uncertainty blown away. It’s a feeling, a rhythm, that I know and lay in wait for, often for long frustrating periods. But I know that if I struggle forward, it eventually comes. I don’t think I will ever succeed in describing this groove, this rhythm. probably because when I’m mired in it I struggle to write about painting, am lax in communicating anything for fear of upsetting this delicate rhythm. So I will stop here.
Here’s a song, one of my favorites, Killing the Blues. Written by Rowland Salley, I first came across this song many years ago when John Prine did his remarkable cover of it. Since then I have discovered that it has become a standard of sorts, covered by numbers of musicians. Last year, I featured a haunting version here from Allison Krauss and Robert Plant. I found this version from Malcolm Holcolme that I really like. See if you agree.
