You can romanticize all you
want, but the blues has been gentrified. It’s been homogenized and castrated.
Hell, it’s for everybody now. It’s practically Disney in some parts. That is
unless you travel deep, deep into the Delta.
           There’re
cats down there that never got out — at least until the revivalists at Fat
Possum Records took a stab at it. With the help of those visionaries, seminal
blues musicians like Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside, and star attraction
T-Model Ford were afforded fresh new audiences.
           Ford in particular is a cantankerous curmudgeon who plays
some mighty ominous, maniacal blues. He has lived the life of which he sings.
He has never stepped foot in a classroom. He’s not clear on how old he actually
is (rumor has him in his late 70s). He has lived, loved, and killed. T-Model
Ford is a man who should have died a long time ago. T-Model Ford’s a bad man.
           We caught up with Ford in the studio to chat — and
shout — over the wail and squeal of his guitar.
           City:Hello,
Mr. Ford?
           Ford: Who the
fuck is this?
           City:It’s Frank up in Rochester,
New York. How’re you doin’ Mr. Ford?
           Ford: Like an apple on a tree. I’m
hangin’.
           City:I dig
your new record [Bad Man]. It sounds great. You must be pleased.
           Ford: Yeah, it’s hittin’ on hard.
           City:Is “Bad Man” all original
tunes?
           Ford: Yeah, I wrote that. I just
thought about it, it sounded good to me and I just let ’em make an album outta
me. And I love it myself. I’m a bad man.
           City:Bad enough to go to jail,
right?
           Ford: I was on the chain gang for two
years. I had 10.
           City:What happened?
           Ford: I got into this mess in Humboldt,
Tennessee. This black guy cut me in the back — stabbed me. I tried to run; I
couldn’t. I reached in my pocket and opened my knife with my teeth and I
whirled around and I cut his throat. At that time I was a real man, though. You
didn’t grab me if you didn’t know what you’s doin’.
           City:I hear you still carry your
knife.
           Ford: Yeah. Well if you grab me now,
they won’t have too much trouble ’cause those trees done fell on me and I’m
crippled. I don’t have nothin’ like that in me no more. I done settled down. I
wanna be happy with everybody.
           City: Your blues are pretty mean.
Why do you think people like the way you do it?
           Ford: Well, they probably just like my
style, the way I play it, I guess.
           The ladies like it. They love it. They just grab T-Model. I’m an old man now. I wish they
had done that when I was comin’ in my twenties.
           City: So you’re a bad man. Are your
blues bad?
           Ford: Yeah, they trouble-makin’.
           City:How?
           Ford: Well, you can look at it
yourself. You see, I play guitar. I go to these honky-tonks to play the blues.
You watch the ladies — they hoggin’ at you. Some of them got them some of
those mean mens and they wanna fight you after.
           It’s the way she act.
She act likes she loves you and all of that — them blues gettin’ in her
drawers. He thinks she’s givin’ away somethin.’
           City:But sometimes they are, right?
           Ford: Sometimes she is, sometimes she
ain’t. That’s what makes the blues bad.
           City:Do the blues matter today?
           Ford: The blues is what’s happenin’.
The blues’ll put you on your feet and the blues’ll take you off your feet.
           The blues’ll make you think of things comin’ down the
line that you think you oughta do but you oughtn’t to do. Blues is
trouble-makin.’
           City:Your guitar sounds like
trouble. You sound like trouble.
           Ford: I lost my gun but I still got my
knife. I’m a bad man.
n
TheFat Possum Juke Joint Caravan starring T-Model Ford, Paul Jones, Kenny Brown, and Spam,
plays Thursday, March 4, at The Montage Grille, 50 Chestnut Street at 8 p.m.
Tix: $12-$14. 232-8380
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2004.
