KwannyKash...

One thing I really liked about the Jessie Mae Hemphill Festival we attended in Clarksdale, Mississippi was how accessible the performers were. If you didn't introduce yourself to them they usually came and introduced themselves to you. It was that relaxed and casual of an atmosphere. Cathy even got her photo on the facebook page of Spit Cup and the Jukes hanging out with the band. One artist I met and talked to was Kwandarius Anton "KwannyKash" Perry.  

KwannyKash was not a performer but was introduced and had his folk art instruments on display. I was naturally interested because of the cigar box guitars I used to make so I introduced myself and we had a visit.  

KwannyKash told me that he was making instruments, music and writing poems and enjoying himself when one day someone saw him and said, "hey this is folk art." He said, "I did not know this. I was just doing me." His next scheduled gig was an appearance at the Mississippi John Hurt Foundation Homecoming in Avalon, Ms. 

KwannyKash was a nice guy and he gave me a drawing with a story he had written. I am going to use his comment, I was just doing me as inspiration to myself as I seem to have hit some road blocks in  consistent production of my on music. I will aspire to do me more.     

 

 Last night I was at our St. Vincent de Paul meeting and a member brought a mattress as a donation. That's valuable because we consider it a dignity issue to get beds for people clawing the way out of poverty. We made our way to the back of the church property to unload to our storage and in the dark we startled someone from the open air shed beside the locked storage. I called out to the person and they stopped. To appear nonthreatening in the dark (I'm a big hairy guy) I asked if we could help in anyway. The young man stopped and walked back. There has been an old piano stored in the open shed.  It belonged to a parishioner in the neighborhood who moved and supposedly the family was going to take it for restoration. The young man said, "I come by every night and play." I asked him to play for me.

 

 He tinkled the keys in the dark of the open shed. Not a concert pianist by any means but I thought about what KwannyKash said. 

I was just doing me.