May The Blues Be With You

Posted on | April 28, 2009 |

We went to a concert to benefit breast cancer research on Saturday night in honor of our friend Mai Cramer who died five years ago.  Mai hosted a radio show on WGBH on Friday and Saturday nights called Blues After Hours and the photo here is of her interviewing a musician I can’t quite identify.  The concert took place in the Regent Theatre in Arlington and the place was packed—a tribute to Mai and to the blues which never seems to die even though most of the originators are now gone.

I have my own history with the blues which is how I came to know Mai.  My first husband was in Muddy Waters’ band and I often went on the road with them when I was in my twenties.  They were some of the kindest people I’ve known and the most fun.  What’s so great about the music is that it brings you totally into the depth of those put-upon feelings we all have and then gives you a way to release those feelings.  What follows is happiness.  The musicians who first played the blues knew what the music did.  It was their only release from long, hard labor from which there seemed no escape.  Muddy himself had been a cotton picker and didn’t run off to Chicago until he was nearly thirty years old.

I’ll always remember Mai’s gorgeous, warm smile which she lavished on everyone she met.  But I’ll also remember her memorial service which was absolutely packed with people.  One man stood up to speak, someone who’d never met Mai.  He was from Africa and he said that when he first came to Boston he felt so very isolated and alone.  By chance he discovered Mai’s show on the radio and he tuned in every weekend.  Mai’s voice was so soft and gentle, so full of life and joy, that he felt he had a friend and that life would be okay.  And then there was the music.

The show on Saturday night was put on by Mai’s husband, the musician/journalist Peter Ward, who has a dynamite smile himself and a fabulous sense of humor.  He’s now taken up art and is going to have a show soon.  Details to follow.  But what I love about all of this is that even though we lost Mai too soon we know the ways in which her beautiful spirit created happiness and continues to do so.  There was so much good feeling in the theater on Saturday night.  I hope we can all pass a little of it on.

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