Right now, as we’re typing these words, we’re listening to the music that is streamed from the website of blues musician and London Underground busker Stephen Dale Petit.
Normally, we would venture an opinion that despite Mr Petit’s obvious musical proficiency (Eric Clapton apparently thinks his music is “lovely”), this type of music isn’t entirely our beverage of choice. Usually we might suggest that this genre may be better aligned to our parents’ tastes.
However in the case of Mr Petit’s music, to voice this opinion would apparently identify us as members of ‘the sometimes historically ignorant musical youth of today’, according to the musician’s website. And frankly we don’t want to risk being on the wrong end of that sort of telling.
So, if we’re steering clear of criticising his music, can we still comment on the biography on his website? There’s some pretty self-important stuff there, such as:
In a life consistently and mysteriously touched by proximity to the Blues, Stephen Dale Petit was born near the village of Joshua Tree (with its Byrds, Stones, Gram Parsons, Donovan and U2 associations), on the edge of the California Desert. In delivery, the very first hands to touch the emerging baby’s body belonged to a passing black man – who happened to be both a Doctor and enthusiastic Blues musician.
Remarkable.
Still, we probably shouldn’t make too much fun of his online biography. It probably wasn’t even written by him anyway. And it seems that Mr Petit’s motivations are moderately selfless – following his musically-inspired salvation from alcoholism, he’s been busking on the underground to evangelise the restorative power of blues music to the masses. Good for him.
So, if you stumble across a rather good blues guitarist busking on the underground, give him a smile and maybe some cash. And if you really like his music, you can buy his appallingly titled CD ‘Guitararama’ (shudder) from http://www.guitararama.co.uk/ for a mere tenner (plus P&P). Bargain!
