This is a request, nay a plea for y'all to extend some love. "Blind Mississippi Morris" Cummings is a staple here in Memphis and around the globe in the blues world.A smiling, joyous talented man indeed.
Sunday evening, he and his wife partook in an evening meal at the local Cracker Barrel. When they returned to their car they were stunned to find it had been broken into and a number of items stolen.
The lowlifes who perpetrated this heinous act took a .44-caliber Magnum Ruger and a .45-caliber Springfield; a laptop, with all of its calendar listings, bookings, accounting and music files; and a vintage 1949 microphone Morris had just bought for $1,200. They also took the handicap sticker from the car!
Scary that these two guns, owned and registered by responsible adults are now in the hands of people who exist lower than whale sperm at the bottom of the ocean.
The calendar is the lifeblood of a musician...his accounting records, very important of course; maybe the thieves can be found if they use the parking sticker and an observant officer notices (that is if they even send that information out to the beat cops).
Oh worst of all, ALL 50 of Morris' harps were stolen. He bought a microphone out of pawn for $200.00 and was going to pawn a guitar until his son lent him $100 to buy 4 harmonicas for a booking he had on Tuesday at B.B. Kings here on Beale. Morris played...there were songs he could not perform because he did not have the correct keyed harp.
But he played...and I have talked about this before...the gig netted him $100.00!
So, now a builder of harps has offered to make Morris 8 harps for a deeply discounted price of $640.00 He has a paypal account. Any funds raised will cover the cost of those 8 and any additional funds raised over the $640.00 will result in additional harps being made. Deak is contributing all his labor for free. A generously kind act by a fellow musician...That is what makes these folks so special and why I have so enjoyed spending time and getting to know them better.
The paypal account is deakharp@hughes.net. On your receipt it will have a woman's name (not putting it here - if you want it send me an email please)
Karma is a B**CH and these guys will get theirs...we are hoping Morris is covered in good karma.
Thanks
OH, Morris is one of my guests Monday on Music On The Couch. Come on by and show him some love.
And remember, if you can't be there live, then check out the archives at Music On The Couch Blog. The Monday show is normally up there by Tuesday at noon central. I said normally! You can also subscribe at ITunes and have the show automatically downloaded to your computer. Though I don't get stats for those! So go to one of the two links above and that should do it.
I have to stop rambling now...thank you for your kind attention...
BUT...Not until I tell you that as I was putting this up for posting, we found out that $200.00 was donated by the generous Bobby Joe Owens and Retro Deluxe. Bobby Joe was a guest on Music On The Couch on September 28th. He saw my postings on Facebook and stepped up.
SPECTACULAR!
The news article is HERE
Sunday evening, he and his wife partook in an evening meal at the local Cracker Barrel. When they returned to their car they were stunned to find it had been broken into and a number of items stolen.
The lowlifes who perpetrated this heinous act took a .44-caliber Magnum Ruger and a .45-caliber Springfield; a laptop, with all of its calendar listings, bookings, accounting and music files; and a vintage 1949 microphone Morris had just bought for $1,200. They also took the handicap sticker from the car!
Scary that these two guns, owned and registered by responsible adults are now in the hands of people who exist lower than whale sperm at the bottom of the ocean.
The calendar is the lifeblood of a musician...his accounting records, very important of course; maybe the thieves can be found if they use the parking sticker and an observant officer notices (that is if they even send that information out to the beat cops).
Oh worst of all, ALL 50 of Morris' harps were stolen. He bought a microphone out of pawn for $200.00 and was going to pawn a guitar until his son lent him $100 to buy 4 harmonicas for a booking he had on Tuesday at B.B. Kings here on Beale. Morris played...there were songs he could not perform because he did not have the correct keyed harp.
But he played...and I have talked about this before...the gig netted him $100.00!
So, now a builder of harps has offered to make Morris 8 harps for a deeply discounted price of $640.00 He has a paypal account. Any funds raised will cover the cost of those 8 and any additional funds raised over the $640.00 will result in additional harps being made. Deak is contributing all his labor for free. A generously kind act by a fellow musician...That is what makes these folks so special and why I have so enjoyed spending time and getting to know them better.
The paypal account is deakharp@hughes.net. On your receipt it will have a woman's name (not putting it here - if you want it send me an email please)
Karma is a B**CH and these guys will get theirs...we are hoping Morris is covered in good karma.
Thanks
OH, Morris is one of my guests Monday on Music On The Couch. Come on by and show him some love.
And remember, if you can't be there live, then check out the archives at Music On The Couch Blog. The Monday show is normally up there by Tuesday at noon central. I said normally! You can also subscribe at ITunes and have the show automatically downloaded to your computer. Though I don't get stats for those! So go to one of the two links above and that should do it.
I have to stop rambling now...thank you for your kind attention...
BUT...Not until I tell you that as I was putting this up for posting, we found out that $200.00 was donated by the generous Bobby Joe Owens and Retro Deluxe. Bobby Joe was a guest on Music On The Couch on September 28th. He saw my postings on Facebook and stepped up.
SPECTACULAR!
The news article is HERE
Each week TRAVIS from "Trav's Thoughts" hosts Five On Friday where we get to select five songs of any mix we care....
Check out the other participants by clicking on his link above...and join in!
You can register for free at playlist.com and type in a band name and BAM the song will be there to assist in building your playlist.
Travis lays out some guidelines for this meme and they go like this:
1. Grab the banner, make your post title Five on Friday, and be sure to link back here.
2. Go to Playlist.com to make your play list of five songs. Choose a particular theme to share with us. You can simply post the play list, or you can add a little summary about what you are sharing.
3. I don't know how to make a specific linky, so be sure to leave me a comment to let me know that you participated.
4. No tags, but feel free to invite your friends to play along if they need a post topic on a Friday.
So, this week I did a variation of the iPod Shuffle. Instead of putting the iTouch on shuffle and letting it pick five songs, I flicked my finger on the window and let the artists rotate by and then - without looking - I stopped it and whatever artist was there, I then selected a song from them.
Now, I actually tried to select songs that were not their most popular song, to give a different feel...
So, here they are - ENJOY AND HAVE A GRAND WEEKEND
Check out the other participants by clicking on his link above...and join in!
You can register for free at playlist.com and type in a band name and BAM the song will be there to assist in building your playlist.
Travis lays out some guidelines for this meme and they go like this:
1. Grab the banner, make your post title Five on Friday, and be sure to link back here.
2. Go to Playlist.com to make your play list of five songs. Choose a particular theme to share with us. You can simply post the play list, or you can add a little summary about what you are sharing.
3. I don't know how to make a specific linky, so be sure to leave me a comment to let me know that you participated.
4. No tags, but feel free to invite your friends to play along if they need a post topic on a Friday.
So, this week I did a variation of the iPod Shuffle. Instead of putting the iTouch on shuffle and letting it pick five songs, I flicked my finger on the window and let the artists rotate by and then - without looking - I stopped it and whatever artist was there, I then selected a song from them.
Now, I actually tried to select songs that were not their most popular song, to give a different feel...
So, here they are - ENJOY AND HAVE A GRAND WEEKEND
