That’s the title of a track by Eric Clapton, of whose work I’m rather fond. (A couple of years ago I went to see him live at the Albert Hall in London, with one of my sons.) We were listening to him tonight during dinner, when it suddenly occurred to me how odd is his approach to music. Here is a white man from the south-west of England, in the twenty-first century, pretending to be a black man from the southern states of the USA, one hundred years ago. Then it struck me that this is by no means unusual. When I was a kid we used to listen to Lonnie Donegan, who was a working class Scotsman pretending to be somebody from Kentucky, half as century before. Very strange, when you think about it.
Painting isn’t quite the same. OK, there are trends and fashions in painting. There are movements and “isms”. Even so, I don’t recall encountering anybody painting who is trying to do so just like Edward Hopper or Grandma Moses. (That is, unless they are in the business of art forgery!) Why is it, however, that Eric Clapton is lauded for his loving recreations of the music of “Mr. Johnson”, but is anybody were to set out to paint just like Ben Nicholson they would be regarded as a sad case? Strange, isn’t it?
Well: things are looking up here. My little excursion along Stanage Edge the other day is beginning to yield fruit (at least, I hope so.) At least I have something on the easel again. Also today I’ve had a proposal for an exhibition accepted. Life is a bit of a roller-coaster at the moment.
I don’t expect to post over the next couple of days because we are off to Norwich tomorrow for the wedding of my nephew. He and his fiancée are both as crazy as can be so heaven only knows what we should expect.