SO MANY DIFFERENT PEOPLE TO BE
by Kevin Ridgeway
Dad said it was truly the “season of the witch”
as we drove closer to his best friend’s funeral.
He started to tell me about this album called
Super Session with three sidemen named
Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper and Stephen Stills.
He was adamant about the fact that I needed
to hear their cover of the Donovan song
he referenced. I opened what turned out to
be the last gift my father wrapped for me
on the eve of his relapse. The innocent young
bank tellers were terrified when he passed notes
with the threat of his gun and took off with
thousands of dollars to numb a pain he tried
to outrun his entire life, money none of the cops
could find in the dysfunctional rubble of our
broken home during a raid that resulted in
my father’s sentence to life in prison and those
three young musicians looked at me from
the old album sleeve, three midnight headcases
playing endless vibes, the soundtrack to a
sinister revolution my Dad lost himself in–
the brass and keyboard-driven funk that made
everything in between my ears melt over my
chilled spine, the resulting moans inspired by
our existential angst on a moonlit drive into
a violent barrio where his homeboy was laid
out in an open casket, waxen and long gone.
His eyes were sealed and his ears forever unable
to hear the spooky midnight song my father
played for me in the darkest hours of our lives.
*Originally Published in Nerve Cowboy
You can order my latest book here:
https://www.amazon.com/Invasion-Shadow-People-Kevin-Ridgeway/dp/1958182079/ref=sr_1_10?qid=1691439640&refinements=p_27%3AKevin+Ridgeway&s=books&sr=1-10&text=Kevin+Ridgeway
