Blues and food are serious fun

Who knew having the blues was so much fun? This Saturday and Sunday the second annual Reno-Tahoe Blues Fest rocked Rancho San Rafael Regional Park with classic soul and funky rhythms.

Millie Jackson’s performance, sopping with attitude and whit, was one of the many acts that kept the audience from becoming listless under the 91-degree heat. But even Millie couldn’t entirely resist the brutal effects of the sun’s rays in her full-body, rhinestone encrusted denim outfit.

True to Millie’s expletive-heavy style, she swore about the stage lights being on, and complained that she couldn’t perform in her underwear as the heat made her want to.

But even under the blistering heat, Millie appeared to be every inch a powerful black woman who was unafraid to be unconventional and ahead of her time. Her 1973 recording of “If Loving You Is Wrong I Don’t Want to Be Right” was her first gold record. She said at the time the album outraged men because she was “talk’n about how she didn’t want to wash anybody’s funky drawers but her own.”

Now, she said she’d have to change the song for the 90’s to “If Loving Me Is Wrong I Don’t Want to Be Right”

But even though Millie’s attitude piled up higher than her mountains of curls, she was accessible to the audience and seemed to be advising from her sorrows. When one woman boldly asked to shake Millie’s hand, Millie stopped her performance, walked over, blessed her, and chatted briefly with her.

Blues fan Bernadine Waters said, “When somebody gets up on stage you feel like, ‘I’ve been there,’ or ‘I know someone who’s going through that.’”

Waters is a member of the Amigos Blues Social Club of northern California, a group that knows and hobnobs with numerous famous blues musicians. They threw a 69th birthday party for Bobby Rush. On Saturday, Waters was wearing a custom-made shirt featuring pictures of the times she’s spent with blues musician Kenny Hill. Members of the Amigos travel around the world to enjoy blues concerts and often cook soul-food for the musicians because traveling musicians have difficulty getting home-cooked meals.

“It’s like a family, we all take care of each other,” Amigo-member Ronnie Waters said of the more than 45 members and the musicians who befriend them.

He said what the Amigos cook up is true Southern Hospitality. That includes banana pudding, fried chicken, mackerels (fish cakes), greens, black-eyed peas, outta-sight chili, fried okra, and hot water (fried) corn bread.

“Don’t get them started cooking,” Ronnie Waters said laughing, “You’ll hurt yourself eating all that food.”

For the Amigos Blues Social Club, blues and food are serious fun.

“Where ever there’s a festival an Amigo will be there,” Ronnie Waters said.