"Blues is what I love, and blues is what I always do."

"Blues is my life. It's a true feeling that comes from the heart, not something that just comes out of my mouth."



We* saw Koko Taylor** at the Blind Pig*** in Ann Arbor circa 1970. Koko seemed pretty old then, but we were young. We're old now, and Koko lived a long time.

RIP, Koko Taylor.

______

* "We" = my then-future, now ex-husband Richard and I.

** The one song I know she sang that night is "Wang Dang Doodle," which, I see now, is a song Willie Dixon wrote for Howlin' Wolf. Neither Dixon nor Wolf liked the song, which Wolf called a "levee camp" song. We had no associations like that, of course. No thoughts of levee camps for us Ann Arbor college kids who filled the basement night club. We just assumed it was about sex — though I don't think anyone (in Ann Arbor) used the word "wang" to mean penis in those Vietnam-and-hippie days. It seemed like she hollered the lyric "all night long" a hundred times.

*** The Blind Pig is still around.