me&clifford 001
Clifford Antone died yesterday at the age of 56 and will be missed by music lovers and humanitarians everywhere.
In 1975 he opened his first namesake nightclub in Austin, Texas so his friends - Kim Wilson, Jimmy Vaughn, Stevie Ray Vaughn and other young blues freaks - would have a place to play.
And wouldn't it be cool if these youngsters could get Muddy Waters to play there? And Albert King and Clifton Chenier and John Lee Hooker? And wouldn't it be even cooler if these kids could meet and hang out and play with their blues heroes?
Clifford Antone not only thought it was a cool idea. He made it his living, breathing, everyday, ass-busting, blues-loving reality. He made it his world. He put his name on it and believed in it until those blues freak kids became blues heroes and legends in their own right.
And in the process, he became a hero himself, perhaps the biggest hero of them all.
Later on, Cliff... I know you are with all your friends, man. You know... all them cats who passed on before you, those hard-livin', hard-drinkin', rainy night howlers and guitar moaners - I know they've been missing you. After all, you were one of the only people on this earth that really and truly understood what they'd been saying all along - that the blues ain't nothin' but a good man or good woman feelin' bad...and a bluesman's job is to make those folks feel better, if only for a while.
And even in death, Clifford - you will always be a bluesman... through and through.
Uploaded by fleabitejr3 on 24 May '06, 1.49pm PDT.
