Blues Highway
Thomas Dworzak
Wostok Press
My “A View of the Blues” exhibit represents work done over 10 weeks in 1997.
Because this work is drawn from the history of black people in America, I concentrated on black musicians even though there are many accomplished whites playing blues.
Of those I photographed, many passed away before the year was out: Luther Allison, Johnny “Clyde” Copeland, Jimmy Rogers, Willie James, Ollie Nightingale, Junior Wells, and Mrs. Hill, proprietor of the Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale, Mississippi, home to many bluesmen over the years.
Preview
Although I was raised in a family of musicians, I didn’t grow up with the blues. Unless, of course, you count the tendency towards melancholy I inherited from my Swedish-born father. I entered the world of the blues with a general love of music but not much knowledge of this particular musical form. I came away a year later, intoxicated with a new love affair, the kind you know will go on forever. For sheer pleasure, my weeks of photographing for “Traveling the Blues Highway” were the most enjoyable so far in my 35-year career.
If I brought something of my own to documenting the blues perhaps it was my search and feeling for the light and shadows and colors of where the music is made and listened to.
But of course I had so much help.
While making the pictures in this exhibit, I was listening to wonderful music made by passionate, dedicated artists.
For the generosity of every musician who let me enter his or her space while performing, I owe much gratitude.
Through their artistry and generosity I was able to make my own kind of music from my own view of the blues. You can’t ask for more than that. In the words of Little Milton: “The blues is alright".”
William Albert Allard
