I have been asked several times on this trip "Why the hell are you doing something like ? Are you crazy?" and evenn though I gave the stock answers like "I am in the witness Protection Program" or " My wife thinks I am hunting big game in Africa" or even " I just do not have anything better to do with my life". I have always felt down deep that there was another purpose to all this--some deeper internal calling that led me on I did not quite understand but did it anyway--sort of like those people in the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"
Sometimes I am still kinda unclear myself what the hell I am doing out here on the road on a recumbent bicycle but maybe , just maybe I am starting to see a dim shining light of purpose glimmering through the thick fog in my mind, and that purpose is to find out what happened to the members of Flaming Blues's band so many years ago, and somehow reunite them.
There are so many questions surrounding their disappearance and I am beginning to have my doubts whether they all really did get killed "in that hurricane back east somewhere in the late 60's or some time like that" as Mr. Flaming Blues believes. Somehow, someway I have managed to come across what I believe to be members of FB's band who survived that hurricane and are still walking this earth looking for each other. And I am also beginning to suspect that my job is to locate all these folks and put them back together again for a Rolling Stones type tour.
The closest movie analogy I can come up with is "Field of Dreams" where "if I ride it , they will come"
It all started when I ran into Mr. Flaming Blues (above)on the streets of Walla Walla Washington so many weeks ago. I was drawn to him like a magnet and his compelling story really got to me. How he lost his band when they were "all killed in that hurricane back east somewhere in the late 60's or sometime around then" just as they were ready to make it big in the music world. This was a sad story and at first I did not recognize the significance of it all but as the days went by and I met more floating musicians I saw a pattern and realized that they quite possibly all had really survived that 60's hurricane they were all wandering the country looking for each other and it was taking an old fat guy on a bike to pull them together. My meeting with Mr. Great Tambini on the street in Peru Indiana was just another piece in this puzzle.
This is heavy stuff dude.
The closest movie analogy I can come up with is "Field of Dreams" where "if I ride it , they will come"
It all started when I ran into Mr. Flaming Blues (above)on the streets of Walla Walla Washington so many weeks ago. I was drawn to him like a magnet and his compelling story really got to me. How he lost his band when they were "all killed in that hurricane back east somewhere in the late 60's or sometime around then" just as they were ready to make it big in the music world. This was a sad story and at first I did not recognize the significance of it all but as the days went by and I met more floating musicians I saw a pattern and realized that they quite possibly all had really survived that 60's hurricane they were all wandering the country looking for each other and it was taking an old fat guy on a bike to pull them together. My meeting with Mr. Great Tambini on the street in Peru Indiana was just another piece in this puzzle.
This is heavy stuff dude.
As brotha Elton says it best http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecU-e0XUMd8
Life really is all about the Blues, brotha.
This is the Honkey Tonk Man from Memphis who obviously used his music background to gain fame in the world of professional wrestling after he thought all his band mates had perished. Of course he is in denial and has repressed all his memories of the Flaming Blues band but if you look close you can see the connection.
I did not get this guys name but he obviously fits the profile of a former member of Flaming Blues's band. He ended up in South Dakota fishing and dreaming of what was and might have been. He still wears the Flaming Blues trademark blue shirt and red bandana.
Then there was this guy who walks the roads of Iowa wearing a knee brace singing love songs to the 10,000 Ragbrai bikers every year. Although he has changed music styles the blues still show though.
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Yes this bike journey is all making some sense now and I have the feeling that I will come across more of Flaming Blues's band members and it is an exciting thing. What I have yet to ascertain is how Justin Hemminger fits into the big picture.
I am having my attorney (well known blues man T-bone Lammers) start the paperwork regarding a finders fee deal for putting the band back together as well as the souvenir rights and tour parking/concessions for the comeback of The Blazing .
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