BLUES FOR ZOOS

What exactly is the Blues? To a neophyte Blues listener like me, this seems like a legitimate question. When I went to the Blues for Zoos concert at the Franklin Park Zoo last Saturday, I went expecting soulful ballads and tearful, aching, "When I lost my lover" types of songs. What I heard there taught me that the Blues is not just Lady Day crooning in a darkened, smoke-filled, hole-in-the-wall nightclub, although that is a part of it. No, the Blues varies from James Brown to the gospel troup Blind Boys from Alabama. It goes from funk to jazz to rock-n-roll to country. But all of these are not subsets of the Blues. I suppose they are considered to be the Blues if they exhibit, in Robert Earl Keen, Jr.'s words, "that long and lonesome feeling," whatever that may be. The most intriguing part about the Blues, in the end, is that it defies definition. And the full spectrum was shown and heard at Franklin Park.

When my friends and I arrived at the Park, we saw a woman walking across the parking lot who caught everyone's eye. A tall, buxom, Black woman, she walked with a confident gate that oozed sensuality. What caught our attention, though, was her skin tight, flesh-toned body suit and black velvet vest whose fringes cascaded down to her upper thigh. Seen from far away, it looked like she was only wearing the vest. We were relieved, 40 minutes later, to find out this was Angela McClenton and to see her on stage strutting her stuff. "Oh," we sighed, "so she has a reason to be wearing that." When she opened her mouth and let her soul emerge, we all fell silent. This woman can sing. A breathy, deep, honey-rich tone filled the microphone and, I'm sure made the hair on the hyenas' backs stand on end. I don't remember any of the words to the songs she sang, but she and her band started our viewing off with spirit. She gyrates like, and reminds me a great deal, of a young Tina Turner with her flaunted sexiness and bulging muscles.

"Monster" Mike Welch took the stage a little later and showed us another side to Blues. At 15 years of age, and the first artist to be signed to the House of Blues label, this boy and his band bring in the country element to Blues. With supreme guitar picking (a turquoise electrical one, no less), he whined and whimpered and returned to the loud heaviness of metal and would then continue into a more mellow sound. His repertoire was wide and varied. While well on the way to becoming a stalwart of the Blues scene, his future looks golden.

The Blind Boys from Alabama got on stage and showed everyone the solidity, the evenness of tone, the impeccable harmonies which can happen when a group has been together for more than 50 years. They sang soulful hymnals that could convert the heathens and which made my spirit rise up from what seemed like an eternity of drought to relish in the harmonies they produced. These men tell it like it is. They believe in what they sing about, and it comes across here like only the Word can.

Finishing up the concert was the main venue. While I did not know their name, I found I knew many of WAR's songs. For the past thirty years this group has been together, fused with the common mission of equality, racial harmony and peace. They sang their famous, hearty rocking song "Low Rider" and the crowd went wild. I confess that I only knew this song from the movie "Dazed and Confused," and had probably never heard WAR's version of it, but I danced and reveled in it nonetheless. They played many more of their songs which I learned later on from friends have been some of their favorites since they began listening to WAR many years ago. This group coheres, plays antics with one another and the audience and conveys the feeling which you rarely feel these days, that their message is sincere, pure and true. They want peace, and they believe their music can make it happen. The song they sang from their latest album, "Peace Sign," proved this point.

After one afternoon, for the dirt-cheap price of five dollars, I became a Blues fan. I left without knowing exactly what the Blues was. I did learn, though, how much different types of music is intertwined and interconnected. Each genre influences and is influenced by another. In a way, I guess the WAR, with their message of peace and racial harmony, epitomizes the influence that is their music and the influence which