Expecting Rain

President Obama Hosts a celebration of Blues music in recognition of Black History Month.


http://www.whitehouse.gov/live

Thanks!

Thanks, very cool.... only saw it from the time you posted on..... but very good....

To everybody that missed it and to everybody that didn't miss it.... put this one on the list when it comes on PBS..... gonna be a great show.....

Found this link with the line up:

http://www.pbs.org/inperformanceatthewh ... ormers.php

Just seeing BB King brought me to tears. What a treasure for the world still to have.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhO1DnNK ... re=related

this just awsome

I was lucky enough to see him once, a couple of years ago. Amazing.

Hey that looked like Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes and Susan Tedeschi!
Didn't know they were also in the lineup. Nice!

For all the NET naysayers, take a page out of this notebook. BB is in his 80's and STILL touring. He used to do hundreds of shows a year and is a touring MACHINE. See him if you haven't. One cool dude.

A bluesman as B.B. King is can keep touring till 100. Bluesmen have no age.
Bob is trying hard to do the same. But is not the same. It can't be the same.
If Bob ever really sold his soul, as some people love to tell, it wasn't at midnight on the crossroads. It was at Newport in 1965.
Well, i just want to say that a you can't be the rock star and then become a country star, a blues star... all those things that Bob tried to be.
B.B. King isn't old. And Bob is. At least he was old 4 years ago when i went at his show.

Yes, they were introduced at the beginning of that song.... very cool, wasn't it.... I hope they don't cut too much out when they edit it.....

JAGGER SINGS 'COMMIT A CRIME' TO OBAMA AT WHITE HOUSE

Highlights: P.O.T.U.S. began his speech by wishing the crowd a "Happy Mardi Gras." Turning to the Blues, he said the music has "humble beginnings, roots in slavery and segregation, a society that rarely treated Black Americans with the dignity and respect that they deserved."

POTUS said the Blues helped lay the foundation for Rock n Roll, R&B and hip hop. POTUS said the blues "Speaks to something universal." "No one goes through life without both joy and pain, triumph and sorrow. Blues gets all that sometimes with just one lyric or one note," he said.

The music "teaches us that when we find ourselves at a crossroads, we don't shy away from our problems. We own them. We face up to them. We deal with them. We sing about them. We turn them into art."

Obama then called BB King, whom he called "the King of the Blues" to the stage, helping him up. BB King (wearing a shiny leaf-patterned jacket) and other musicians listed below then led the crowd in a rendition of "Let the Good Times Roll." (For all you Rolling Stones fans, Mick Jagger was not on the stage.)

Holy crap!! Freddie played trumpet in my band for 2 years- 2000 to 2001. Great player, really sweet man, he and I burned the spleef during breaks many times. Go Freddie!! I used to get a kick out of saying I was in a band with Hendrix.

well it's true i can't, but Bob did actually demonstrate that one can. well not a star perhaps, but at least a relevant and important songwriting contributor...speaking of which, bob's contribution to the blues over the years, especially some of his later compositions, I'm sure will be an overlooked missing component to this thoughtful program.

I really don't know how to object to it. We both are looking at the same man and listening to the same songs he's singing. For you, he is alive as you and me, or even more, and it excites your joy. For me, he is dead alive and it hurts me. We would never convince to each other.
Maybe i just went to a failed show... maybe.

I know you're all going to jump on me for this but can I just be the voice of dissent here and point out that, much like Bob, BB King's glory days are so far behind him now that he should have retired years ago. For the past few years he's been dialling in performances that are lacklustre, lazy and just plain disinterested.

No one - least of all me - is denying the man is a legend and yes, he deserves as much praise and honour as we can heap upon him but that doesn't change the fact that just because he is ABLE to tour doesn't mean he should. His advanced age is not a gaurentee of quality in and of itself.

Just saying.

Wow, I had no idea we had such an expert on hand! Then again, the thinking seems to emanate from a blind and deaf individual with a braille enabled keyboard.

Many, many of us have regretfully said au revoir to touring bob with similar stories.

Human beings usually grow old, and then they die. But it's hard to each particular man or woman to accept it. To Bob, to you, to me, to anybody. I think (or hope) that Bob have finally accepted his age and, yes, his mortality. He can face the inevitable. And we... sometimes we just can't. Especialy if it concern of other people.

Bob faces mortality and accepts his age with grace. Decline in physical abilities is natural and there are plenty people who are able to accept this, also, and still find something worthwhile in going to see BB and Bob and those older men still out there touring. I have no need to keep their image in a frozen place in time. Death's honesty will fall upon us all naturally.

I totally disagree .... I've seen Mr. King many times; the last being about 4 years ago. His hands and voice seem to work perfectly fine. He sits during his performances now but I don't think he was really known in his younger days as a performer who did the moonwalk. Could I have missed something? Anyway, he was very engaging with his audience and as far as I could hear, his age has not impacted his performances, especially on guitar, in the slightest.

Sold his soul in Newport, huh? So you think he should have stuck with acoustic 'folk' music forever? Would that have been aging with grace? At least he doesn't jump around like Mick freakin' Jagger. Talk about dignity.

I agree. But for me it is a part of accepting of one's age and mortality. To stop doing things you used to do so well when you was younger, and now you just can't do it the same way. Of course, if you don't want to stop, nobody can force you. And you can have thousands of reasons for not stop. E.g. i know that Cohen is touring just because the crisis ruined him, and he actually doesn't want to. Though Cohen is, may i tell, in better form, i was at his show two years ago.
About "selling the soul" . I just want to tell that when you became a rock'n'roll musician, you can't get back to folk again, you can't become a country musician, you can't become a blues musician - it will remain with you. And the only way to not become a mick jaegger is to stop_it. To fade out. But Bob can't do that for some reasons he does not have to make public.

^^We most definitely disagree, sonia golden hand! But that's just the nature of life, isn't it? It's okay. From my perspective, it's those that think he has nothing to offer, that don't accept aging. Me, I see more wisdom emanating from someone that already laid down some of the greatest truths in song. I supposed Bob could go sit in a rocker on his porch, but that isn't what his job on this earth is. Just my 2 pennies.

B.B. sings from the gut and that seems to have saved his throat. While I like his voice I've heard plenty better blues singers. B.B. almost sings gospel style.

He's a treasure for the guitar style he invented and perfected. OTOH I saw him three decades ago and he was too fat to stand and the show wasn't very good. Performers can be up and down. I saw a couple Dylan shows in 2007 and could barely stay interested due to dismal setlists and hoarse vocals. But three shows I've seen since have been quite a bit more fun.

Mick Jagger belongs because he's one of the greatest promoters blues music ever had. He's quite the scholar with it, and "Commit a Crime" was an interesting song choice. Of course, one fine recording of that song comes from the session he organized for Howlin' Wolf featuring Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, Eric Clapton, and Steve Winwood.

Well, obviously Bob can.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_as_I_Been_to_You
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Gone_Wrong

You write this like it's a fact. You don't even explain why you think so.