JERSEY BOOKSHELF: ‘Sensation Blues: A Rock’n’Roll Novel,’ by Bennett Kelly
Sensation Blues: A Rock’n’Roll Novel (2024)
by Bennett Kelly
(Blues In D Books)
McKinley Robinson is a high school student immersed in the sound of the Mississippi Delta, so much so he gets a guitar and all he does is practice practice practice. With an older brother playing college football at Rutgers, he has a lot to live up to. But all he wants to do is listen listen listen. After all, he lives in Clarksdale, Mississippi, a storied city when it comes to Delta Blues. He plays some blues-harp, sings and develops his own style of blues guitar. With the aid of his cool uncle Ira, he learns his craft and studies Charley Patton, learning the pioneering bluesman’s catalog, his chords, his songs, his mysterious ambiance and his history.
Patton [1890-1934] was known as “The Father of the Delta Blues,” maybe the most important American musician of the 20th Century. The son of a slave, he looked almost white. Howlin’ Wolf used to say Patton was Cherokee. It has been said that Jimi Hendrix got the idea of playing guitar behind his back from Patton who would include white hillbilly songs, dance music and the radio hits of the day in his performances. When he died, no one even noticed. No obituaries were published and he didn’t even have a proper gravestone. It took rock star John Fogerty to fund a proper burial site in 1990.
The protagonist of author Kelly’s first novel does a deep-dive into everything Patton. Then he goes on to explore and play the music of Son House. Son House [1902-1988] played a magical slide, but, early on, much preferred gospel to blues. Once fully indoctrinated into the blues, he affected a crazy rhythmic drive like nobody ever before him. Outside of a stint in the infamous Parchman Farm penitentiary, Son House quickly made a name for himself, so much so that Charley Patton invited him on tour. It was Son House who the legendary Robert Johnson listened to for inspiration at the start of his own career. Muddy Waters too. But after recording for the Library Of Congress in 1949, he gave up music completely and moved to Rochester, New York. Alan Wilson, of the blues-rock band Canned Heat, found him there and resurrected his career. It coincided with the ‘60s folk boom on college campuses and Son House found himself a star.
Sensation Blues, by New Brunwick music journalist Kelly, makes you want to listen to these artists from long ago and far away. You can practically hear them as you turn the pages, living with McKinley, despairing at his parents locking up his guitars in punishment after he skips school to explore blues-drenched cities like Memphis and New Orleans, and especially after he stays up all night practicing his guitar in a local graveyard like Robert Johnson did. You can feel the gravitation pull of the blues on this young man’s soul. Sure, he’s constantly getting into trouble for it, but he’s too far gone to ever look back. The first thing I did after reading this was to go listen to some of the music that McKinley Robinson loved. So will you.
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