Bobby “Blue” Bland died a couple of days ago.  He was 83.

I’ve written this post before; a bunch of times, in fact.  I wrote it when John Lee Hooker died in 2001.  When Ray Charles died in 2004.  Robert Lockwood in 2006.  Koko Taylor in 2009.  Etta James, last year.  I’d have written it when Junior Wells died in 1998 if I’d had a blog at the time.  I’ve loved blues music for a long time but it’s getting to the point where everyone who ever mattered in the genre is dead.  BB King is still touring; he’s 87 goddamn years old and the last time I saw him will be the last time I ever see him.  He’ll die on stage one day.  Taj Mahal is 71.  James Cotton (who, Wikipedia tells me, is Bland’s half-brother, and they only just found out about it) is 77.  Buddy Guy is 76.  Blues musicians live a long goddamn time, apparently, but surely most of them will be gone within ten years or so.

I was about to mention Billy Branch as one of the few greats who is still relatively young and then I looked him up.  He’s 61.  Sigh.  Bonnie Raitt’s only 63.  Comparatively they’re young’uns.

I don’t know that I have a lot to say about him, actually, other than I’m tired of RIP posts about blues musicians.  I know that there are younger musicians out there who call themselves blues singers but it’s not the same at all.  I haven’t discovered a “new” blues singer who was worth the title in probably fifteen years.

Do yourself a favor.  Even if you’re not into the blues all that much, track down the two live concerts that Bobby and BB King did together in 1974 and 1976.  The albums are still out there– hell, you can probably download them from Amazon (yep:  here and here) and they’re two of the greatest live concerts I’ve ever heard.  There’s a bit at the end of Together Again… Live where they literally pull a woman named Viola out of the crowd to sing The Thrill is Gone with them and she turns out to be a good enough singer to easily share the stage with the two of them; it’s brilliant.  Together for the First Time has a fourteen-minute medley piece where the two of them are just strumming along and singing bits of different songs, ad-libbing.  I’m listening to it right now. It’s wonderful.  You should check it out.

I made this yesterday, from a recipe on Facebook.  Looks crap, don’t it?  It was actually pretty good: basically you just boil a couple/three chicken breasts (we used three) until they’re cooked through, open up a couple of cans of crescent rolls, and then shred the chicken and stuff a spoon’s worth or so into each of the crescent rolls.  Put ’em into a glass pan and bake them at 350 for about five minutes (I gave it seven; my oven is perenially slower than what recipes call for), just long enough for the rolls to get a little crispy but not enough to have them completely cooked.

Now, since we did three chicken breasts, I had a fair amount of chicken left over.  I put some curry powder on the rest of the chicken (a few shakes; I didn’t measure it) and mixed it in with the two cans of cream of chicken soup that the recipe actually called for.  The whole mess goes on top of the crescent rolls and then back in the oven for another ten minutes or so.  After that, a cup of shredded cheese on top and another ten minutes, then out of the oven and serve.  There’s really no way to make it look like anything other than horror-glop that I’m aware of, but I was surprised at how everything came together– I would have thought that twenty minutes under the cream of chicken soup would reduce the crescent rolls to a soggy mess, but they retained their crispiness and buttery flavor perfectly.

The next time I do this, I think instead of the curry powder (which, btw, wasn’t in the original recipe) I’ll put some taco seasoning in with the chicken and then use a Mexican cheese mix instead of cheddar cheese.  That ought to come out tasting something like crescent roll enchiladas, which sounds pretty damn good.  I had the leftovers for breakfast this morning and threw some sour cream on top just to see what it was like; it worked out pretty nicely.  I can imagine a world where some salsa works, too.  It wouldn’t help with the gloppiness but at least it would add a color that isn’t beige and yellow.

It’s gonna storm all day today.  Good day to listen to the blues.