The Seven Line Blues Band (Contest Dupe)

The Seven Line Blues Band (Contest Dupe)

January 22

Names of original characters have been changed from the original story.

Author's Note: This chapter is being entered into the Most Brilliant Chapter Contest. I am entering it because it "brilliantly" sets up the main themes of the story: alone in the world and without his incarcerated brother, Elwood tries to learn more about an obscure singer from an obscure band. But in the process of finding someone else, he learns more about himself and the source of his own loneliness. 

The Seven Line Blues Band

by Jo Z. Pierce

Chapter 2 from "Letters from Elwood: The Liberty of Lies"

***

January 22, 1978

"Twenty bucks?" Elwood blurted out. He wasn't sure whether to laugh or get mad. "You gotta be kidding me!"

"Apparently it's pretty rare."

Lester's record store was a secret gem, filled with unusual and hard to find records and sheet music. Lester always said that the popular junk he also sold was there just to pay the rent. Either way, whenever Elwood came across a little extra cash, he tried to make his way across town to see if anything interesting came in.

Today it looked like there was nothing but crap in the record bins. He was ok with that, since he only had an extra few bucks, anyway.

He looked at the cover of the album, with the words printed in blue, spread across the top of the album jacket. "7 Line Blues." What the hell did that mean? Was that the name of the band, or the name of the album? Or both? He'd never heard of them before. Not even in passing. Still, there was something about the album cover that appealed to him.

The photo on the cover was all too familiar to him. You could just about make out the tracks of an elevated train in the distance. From the look of it, it was almost just like the one that ran outside his room at the Plymouth Hotel. It easily could have been Chicago, but he didn't recognize the streets at all. And Elwood recognized every back street in the whole damn city.

The streetscapes of all downtowns are pretty much the same, he figured. It didn’t matter what city you were in. There's always an elevated train that runs through the worst neighborhoods. No one expects them to be quiet, anyway. And the box buildings of no historical value are made interesting only when covered in graffiti. The cars parked on the street are always on their last legs, many years off the factory floor. Most have rusting out bottoms, if you live in the north. All the salt thrown down onto the icy streets during the harsh northern winters takes a toll on cars, just like the trains and the graffiti took their toll on the people who lived there. And there usually aren’t too many blonds walking down the street, either, if you actually cared to look past the landscape and focus on all the people. Most people never looked at the people, though. In a photo, or in life, they were nothing more than an afterthought.

It could have been Chicago, but it wasn't. It was New York.

"Never heard of 'em. Any good?"

A young, tall man stood behind the countertop, reading a magazine. He seemed uninterested in the conversation. He simply shrugged the question away.

Elwood looked up at the man suspiciously. New kid. Lester must be pretty desperate for help these days.

Sure, New York wasn't Chicago. Or Memphis, St. Louis or New Orleans for that matter. But it had a musical style all it's own, if you knew what to look for. A little more jazz ... maybe. Certainly a different style. Still, that city unleashed its share of music on the world. Even if the music was changing, it didn’t matter. It was changing everywhere.

He flipped the album cover around, and took a look at the credits printed towards the bottom left corner. Nothing but a few names he'd never heard of.

“F. Jones. D. Steves. T. Oliver. R. Price, M. Rogers. N. Haywood.”

They weren’t even full names. Just some anonymous initials and the surnames of families he didn't know. Even the production studio was pretty anonymous. Willets Point Records.

Local talent, indeed.

"Twenty bucks?" Elwood repeated, shaking his head. The cashier just shrugged it off. Elwood continued reading. His eyebrows lifted slightly.

"Recorded Live at The Bottom Line...1975?"

Couldn't be all that bad, if they got a gig like that.