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EXCERPT from LONE STAR ICE & FIRE Sonny crouched, shaking, staring at his hands in the moonlight. Daddy Jim's hands. Walker's hands. If Sonny were to place Walker's signet ring on his bare finger, their hands would be twin. Same calluses, same ribbons of vein and specialized gristle that had come from their years playing Texas blues guitar. Sonny didn't dwell much on his gifts, but he knew what he had was real. He had an ear for song, and a lifelong devotion to his instrument. From the first time he had picked up a guitar, he'd had the dogged dedication it took to master the ax, the ability to play the music as he felt it. His music was what made all of life's other bullshit bearable. Didn't matter what his life's work had been. Be you gunfighter, pitcher, steel-driver, guitar player -- there was always that someone somewhere that held the edge. This time, this place, it was Firewalker Blaine. Everyone knew. Reg had talked of it once to Sonny, about what it was like to play with Walker on the same bill. Reg said he had to pretend that Walker didn't exist beforehand, drowning him out with headsets set to anyone else's music. He'd told Sonny, "Otherwise, my ego would melt. I might pack it in for good." And this was from one of the premiere guitarists of their time. Would T-Bone have been so intimidated? Would Hendrix? Sonny knew that they likely would have been. What Walker had was that precious and profane. Sonny was grateful for them all -- T-Bone, Reg, Jimi, Albert, Jeff Beck, B.B., Robert Johnson, the other names lost to time who'd left their licks to build on -- the gifted, innovative cats who had come before. They had laid the groundwork, blazed the trail. Some were cursed -- like Bonnell said of himself, like he had said that he knew Walker was -- some likely blessed. All were geniuses within their art. Without these forefathers, there would be no Icestorm. There would be no Firewalker. But none of those names that were legend had Sonny's blood in their veins, nor had they sprung from the same source. Whatever it was, demon or archangel -- perhaps something so terrible that it had no proper name -- why had it chosen Walker for its sublime vessel? Why had It not chosen Sonny? He'd given his whole life to playing. He'd give everything, anything, to play with Walker's soul-flaying depth. Maybe It didn't think Sonny was ever worth it. Maybe his soul was already fucked from the get-go, never worthy of such a trade. From the Book Jacket THEY CALLED THEM LONE STAR ICE AND FIRE Electric blues guitarist Sonny Blaine was a bona-fide Texas prodigy, a pioneer architect of the Austin Sound. He was a cool-cat bad boy who seemed to have it all -- good looks, a diehard following, and a tone on his Fender that was fatter a longhorn steer. Sonny had a little brother. Shy and plain Walker Blaine wasn't someone you'd look at twice -- until he, too, took up the blues guitar. Though Sonny was a master of the Telecaster, Walker's burning licks raised the playing stakes tenfold. His fretwork possessed black magic hoodoo that shook his audience like a lost soul in a hellhound's jaws. It was said that Walker Blaine might be the greatest that ever laid hands on wire and wood. Some also hinted that Walker could never have come by his extraordinary talent without resorting to dark dealing with sinister forces. Entrenched in all the mojo and mystery that is the essence of great blues music, LONE STAR ICE AND FIRE is the tale of two driven brothers that shared a deep passion for the same music, the same women, the same vices -- and yet are as different as ice and fire. The story is as primal as that of Cain and Abel, as complex as that of Mozart and Salieri. It's a great read that brings the music of Texas -- and our time -- to rich, compelling, can't-put-it-down life. |
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