Touring with T Model is unlike touring in any other circumstances.  I quickly realize that I am both cursed and protected while doing so.  T Model, by his nature as a poor down-n-out Mississippi musician, has complete credibility as a "Blues Man." Well, to everyone reading this, as glamorous and romantic as people may paint it to be, being a true Blues Man is hard living.

T Model hasn't ever really known comfort.  Not like you or me or anyone having a computer can identify comfort.  But he wouldn't say he is uncomfortable.  Far from it.  But it doesn't take long to glance around while in the presence of T Model on his home turf of Greenville MS to know that this is not relaxed living. 

Greenville's poverty as well as its lack of education and resources for its citizenry goes farther back than any 'recession' we may currently know.  Greenville's daily offering of vices and despair appear like a highlight real of "Cops" episodes.  Again, It's hard living.  I only know it as an outsider ... but an outsider who spends a lot of time there.  I see it everywhere.  The paranoia in the affects of both the patrons and the owners of liquor stores.  The nervous laughter & shifting eyes of someone I squeeze by at the "Dollar General" or at the "Kroger."  The suspiciousness of the pharmacy clerk or bank teller.  They probably get unpredictable events with greater regularity than their peers in a larger city.  They likely expect-the-unexpected with a frequency that elevates their pulse slightly at all times, raising their heart rates & their blood pressures a little ... almost unnoticeable except when looking at cumulative stats on heart disease and duration of life in the region.  Sure, eating southern food or, worse, fast food all the time contributes to the physical maladies and assist in shortening one's life span.  But it is undeniable that fear, worry, and mental pressure add to the fatigue and the suffering that can make living unbearable.

So how does T Model do it?  Why is it he often spends hours ... and I mean hours ... peering out a window, watching and waiting for trouble to be on his doorstep.  He waits for trouble.  Yet he keeps on ticking.  He stays alive.  I ask myself: How?

Well, he's got the music.  And that is where he gets the release from the hell, the drama, the suffering of the life around him.  And once his 88 year old fingers get going on the guitar, once his perfect-false-teeth smile opens up, one can forget all the despair.  And that's when the mayhem ensues.  What happens during the in-between times, that is what I cannot describe to you ... not yet at least. 

I try to write what T Model gets away with: the unending sexual compulsion, the magical thinking, the sheer disorganization on guitar at times; and I often find myself coming up short.  Perhaps I haven't come to something yet.  Perhaps I am Way too close to everything right now ... perspective may help me down the road.  But it is incredible.  It draws me in.  It draws so many others in.  T Model says and does things that no one else I know (or have known) would do or say.  More to the point, it is amazing there aren't fights every night and that he's still alive against all odds.

I was hanging out with my bandmates the other night.  The bar we were in was empty, save for one table of 6 people - a mix of males and females.  Kirby said: "Where do you think T Model would be if he were here with us right now?"  We all smiled.  We knew he'd be at that table.  We know he'd be asking the ladies if they were married.  He'd soon be carrying on, telling a story, and toeing a line that most other people would not even try coming close to toeing ... others would either shy away or, in some cases, I'd see people sloppyily & disgracefully stumbling over the line.  But T maintains a sort of poor man's Southern & elderly grace.  Lessons learned by watching him are vivid.  Ok, so this is how it's done in practice ... but DAMN that appears bizarre.

If you get to engage with T Model, be real.  Superficial sucks and, really, T Model doesn't "get it."  Talk to the man.  Go a little deeper than most do in the majority of the conversations.  Challenge yourself.  He's seen challenges and suffering in his nearly ninety years that you could hardly imagine.  Go for it.  And see if you can keep your grace and dignity.  Hard times, fo sho.

-MR
GravelRoad

If you doubt me, check out videos. 
Start here: T Model Ford & GravelRoad in Austin, March 17 2009.