How To Sing The Blues
Pull up a chair and enjoy a few tunes in Mojo's Roadhouse. The food is always tasty and the music's always hot! Grab a cold drink and you're all set for enjoy the finest in blues. For you aspiring blues performers, Mojo the Blues Cat offers these words of wisdom on singin' the blues.
1. Most blues songs begin with: "I woke up this morning..." For the most part, "I got a good woman" is a bad way to begin the blues unless you stick something else in the next line like "I got a good woman with the meanest face in town."
2. After you get the first line, repeat it, followed by a rhyme: "I got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Yes, I got a good woman with the meanest face in town. She has teeth like a bull dog and she always puts me down.
3. The Blues is not about choice. If you're stuck in a ditch, you're stuck in a ditch. Get used to it.
4. Blues cars are Chevys, Fords, old Cadillacs and broken-down trucks. Blues don't travel in Volvos, BMWs, or SUVs. Most blues travel on a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet aircraft and motor pools aren't even close to the blues. Walking down the road plays a major part in the blues lifestyle.
5. Teenagers can't sing the blues. They're not divorced, pay taxes or getting ready to die. Most adults can sing the blues. In blues, "adulthood" means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.
6. Blues is about being out of your comfort zone. You can get the blues in New York City or Memphis, but not in Hawaii or the Bahamas. Hard times in Minneapolis or Seattle is probably just clinical depression. Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City are still great places to have the blues. Anytime you're sweating, you're likely to get the blues, unless you're sweating in a sauna. You can't have the blues relaxing in an air conditioned room.
7. A man with male pattern baldness isn't a case for the blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg because you were skiing is not the blues. Breaking your leg to keep an alligator chomping on it is.
8. You can't have the blues in a office or a shopping mall. The lighting is all wrong. Go out to the parking lot and sit by the dumpster instead.
9. Good places for the blues include the highway, jailhouse, an empty bed or bottom of a whiskey glass.
10. Bad places for the blues include Target, art gallerys, college campuses and golf courses.
11. You have the right to sing the blues if your older than dirt, blind, have one leg, shot a man in Memphis or can't be satisfied. You do not have the right to sing the blues if you have all of your original teeth, were once blind but now you see, the man you shot in Memphis lived or you have a trust fund.
12. If you ask for water and your sweetheart gives you gasoline, it's the blues. Other acceptable blues beverages are cheap wine, whiskey or bourbon, muddy water or three-day old coffee. Bottled water, Snapple, Slim Fast or anything purchased at Starbucks can not be blues beverages.
13. If death occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's a blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another blues way to die; so are the electric chair and dying lonely on a broken-down sofa. However, you can't have a blues death if you die during a tennis match or while getting a face-lift.
14. Blues names for women are Koko, Bessie, Etta, Little Mama or Big Mama. Girls named Amber, Buffy, Tiffany and Heather can't sing the blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.
15. Blues names for men are Stevie, John, Buddy, Willie, Little Willie or Big Willie.
16. To make your own blues name, do the following:
A. Name of physical challenge (blind, big, tall, etc.)
B. First name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Banana, etc.)
C. Last name of U.S. President (Jefferson, Johnson, Adams, etc.) Examples: Blind Lemon Jefferson, Big Legged Lime Adams, Tall Banana Johnson.
That's all--now you're ready to sing the blues.
"Waiter--poor me a drink and put some blues on that jukebox!"
