May peace be with you Buzz. In Lansing we lost a man, an artist and a smile that shined on us. Robert Busby was murdered in the basement of the building brought and created art in. He knew what it was to be an aritist and he knew how important it was to create opportunity for them. He was the kind of guy who I knew and wanted to know more. When I met him and told him my name was Buzz he told me that was his nickname too. I had been thinking about him quiet a bit the last week. As part of my art I wait on tables at Beggar's Banquett in East Lansing. It's what I do to do what I do. When I tell guests my name is Buzz they will often laugh and say something about "Lightyear." I was Buzz before "Lightyear" and Robert Busby was Buzz before me.
He had a way of saying "Hello Buzz" that was full of respect. His place as a black artist was recently featured in our CityPulse which wrote:
What's going on, he says, is far more depressing than racism or the unasked-for burden of cultural expectations. "All artists in Lansing feel marginalized," he says. "'We don't have places to show, nobody appreciates our work' — that comes from all artists, regardless of race."
In his building I discovered a great part of my own art through a show there. Mark Stuart and Stacey Earle played the Creole Gallery in the fall of 1999. At that show Mark gave a most riviting introduction to his song Lorraine in which he personified the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. That image and personification became part of DeFord's Train, a song I hadn't even started thinking about yet, which contains a mythical conversation between "The Harmonica Wizard" DeFord Bailey and "the sweet girl called Lorraine."
The art of that moment in Busby's gallery was further interpritted the cover art of my disc Long Way to Memphis. There the words "Welcomes DeFord Bailey" were "artistically" put upon the sign of the Lorraine Motel. Robert later told me that he had stayed a night at the Lorraine when he was in the military ... a year or so after Martin Luther King was assassinated there. I always wanted to ask him more about that ... in fact on Monday I was talking about to a friend and artist about Robert staying at the Lorraine.
"It's that mysterious part of life," Busby told the CityPulse. "You never know what's locked in somebody's mind." No you don't Buzz and thank you for giving this Buzz a place to open mine ... I've never felt more like an artist than I do today. From one Buzz to another "Thank you."