The Gardens have Flowers post below reminded me of the curious website, deadbluesguys. That in turn reminded me of an afternoon spent in Memphis Tennessee not so many years ago, with my honey Tuffy P and my pals Candy and Stagg searching for Furry Lewis's grave.
We located the Hollywood Cemetery in South Memphis. It looked abandoned and it looked as if it had suffered a flood. Tombstones were knocked over. Grass had not been cut. We searched for Furry's grave for a long time and could not find it. Perhaps the tombstone had been stolen or moved or vandalized. I understand the cemetery is in better shape now and Furry has a new tombstone. Even though we didn't find his grave, I'm glad we spent an afternoon looking for it, seeing a history of Memphis through this old cemetery.
Here's Furry, singing When I Lay my Burden Down
Furry Lewis was born March 6, 1893 and he died September 14, 1981. In a way Furry had two careers, as the blues revival of the 1960s swept him out of retirement. He even opened a couple times for the Rolling Stones, and played the Tonight Show - big times for this 1920s style Memphis songster. I always think of Furry Lewis when I think of Memphis.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Dead Blues Guys or Searching for Furry's Grave
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2 comments:
The Dead Blues Guys is a very strange website.
The strangest graveyards I've been in include - local to us where witches had been buried, ones in Greece where it is a ritual for eldest sons to dig out parents wash the bones and hang them in the osiary (? something like that) - hence bag of bones.
I did go to a graveyard in Westwood LA that has Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon etc. Sorry back to work.
Best wishes to you and your honey (is that a Toronto expression?)
nope, it's a mister anchovy expression.
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