Ol' Man River, Water of a Thousand Faces

Illustration by Erika Yamashiro 2012  

It's a gloomy Tuesday. Here in the Pacific Northwest, fog has settled, along with impossibly bright beads of rain on the leafless fingertips of Japanese maples. I have been having a hard time keeping warm today, getting chills. There is plenty of coffee or hot tea to be had, and the smell of cedar and pine to reinvigorate resolutions.

However, I was in the mood for blues or jazz, and listened to "Ol' Man River", which is about the opposite sort of never-ending day from this one-- sunstruck and hot, swelling with sweat and whiskey and resignation. It's The Sun Also Rises of the South.

Oh, Ray Charles. That carefully controlled voice had me in chills of the inspired kind, as if it had rolled right down every vein of hardship and out to the sea. Sublime.

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