say, “Take a look through the racks next door. If you can’t find Sea Cruise out there. I’ll give you my copy. “Aw, no,” I say, but he just shoos me into the next room where I find a Popeye Dance Album with Huey Smith. The Greatest 15 Hits On Ace (a fantastic album , unfortunately scratched), and an excellent New Orleans anthology on Teem (the Ace cheapie label?) called Guaranteed to Please. But no Sea Cruise. At which point, Vincent actually pulls out a copy of Let's Take a Sea Cruise With Frankie Ford and gives it to me! I can’t believe it; it’s only the second copy I’ve ever seen. The kid gives ipe a dirty look, but Vincent’s eyes are sparkling. The record has a gorgeous Technicolor covor on which Frankie Ford is snuggling up to two rather plain Italian-looking beauties in late-’50s party dresses in front of a mast and what must be the Mississippi River. Vincent autographs the back, “To my man.” In the end, as I’m moving toward the door, Vincent asks me if I can stick around to help organize a reissue program (he’s still got all his pressing masters). I don’t know what to say. I get the feeling that something is wrong here, but I don’t know what it is. I promise to call from the coast, and he lets me go. “ If you write about us, write something good,” he says, shaking hands twice. I want to tell him how much I love his records, and how, in some important sense, it’s not over yet — the search isn’t over yet. But his phone is ringing, and Susan is waiting in Baton Rouge. Star Potential Some of the time, Steve Jordan plays traditional norteno accordian, but he plays it through a wah-wah pedal. The rest of the time he plays Tex-Mex acid-rock. Austin music writer Joe Nick Patoski (al momenta across the table, drinking a Bud) calls Jordan “the Jimi Hendrix of the squeeze box.” Maybe so, but the Chicano audience here at the Flamingo Club, 15 miles south of Austin, is as traditional as can be — a comfortable mix of old and young, dressed to the nines and circling the dance floor as Jordan rocks through a familiar polka in slightly funkified style. Circling the dance floor is absolutely traditional at a Tex-Mex baile-, the man holds the woman and walks her backward, spinning now and then to check out the couples nearby, and then resumes the walk. It's something like strolling around a Mexican plaza at sunset, and it’s something like a Texas Shuffle with optional spin. It's beautiful to see; it’s even more fun to do. Richard West, senior editor of Texas Monthly (and a big Jordan fan) is here too. “Jordan's got star potential," he keeps saying, “especially if he sticks to rock.” West is probably right, but I'm not sure stardom is all that desirable. 1 hope Jordan stays right where he is — a local draw, individual, fascinating. Anyway, I think his best stuff is traditional material played modern. I like the stylistic tension; it makes for good art. You can learn a lot watching people dance. When Jordan plays polkas, the dance floor fills within 30 seconds. When he plays “Shake Your Booty,” the song is halfway gone before anyone gets up to dance — and then it’s eight couples, all young, all nervous, all dancing no-touchee hippie style. Nor is this an old/young split; the best young couples (i.e., the slickest dancers) sit out the booty-shaking too, waiting for the next cumbia or ranchera. During the break, Patoski takes us out back to meet Jordan — a young- looking man in his mid-’40s. with an eyepatch and a speed-rap as overpowering as Doug Sahm’s. “ 1 don’t like all this old stuff.” he says, “but I have to play if for dances. I’m a jazz player, man.” This the first English he’s spoken all night. Back inside, the entire audience is on its feet and dancing to the intermission band — an enthusiastic, ordinary conjunto (group) that plays half rock and hall polkas. I think I prefer Jordan, contradictions and all. and I know it for sure when he comes back on and blows everyone away with “La March Del Campesino,” his big local hit of last year. It’s a traditional- sounding corrido (ballad), with powerful, political lyrics about the farmworkers' march on Washington. The accordion work is stunning; Jordan builds long, intricate melody lines, and lets them twist through the wah-wah as if they were floating into space. The dance floor is packed, and when the corrido is over, people applaud — an extremely rare occurrence at Tex-Mex dances, where approval is usually shown by a happy burst of talking as the dance floor clears. But then. 1 suspect this audience already feels more distant from Jordan than from performers like Flaco Jiminez or Mingo Saldivar; you applaud a star, but you don't applaud yourself. The next day. I stop by a Mexican record store to pick up a copy of “La March." but when I get it back to San Francisco I'm in for a horrible surprise — Jordan recorded it without the wah-wah! Never forget rule number one: Get it live if you want it. Blues Wouldn’t Let Me Be “We're not goin’ 'til midnight,” says Patoski. “ Blues are fueled with alcohol, and they won't start happening 'til the early hours. Okay?" The Thunderbirds, a white blues band from Austin. Texas, are playing at the Rome Inn. but when we walk in (just after midnight) it sounds like there’s a large, black blues band on stage. Amazingly, there are only four players: Kim Wilson, harp and vocals; Jimmy Vaughn, guitar; Keith Ferguson. bass; Mike Buck, drums. They’re playing flat-out to a half-full house, and they are playing the blues. Their commitment is unmistakeable; the last time I heard anything like this was in Chicago in 1965, and that was Howlin’ Wolf. This music isn't for fun. it's for life and death. The Thunderbirds are down and dirty, making mistakes, losing concentration. a little too drunk to play their best. The vocals are sloppy, but the guitar is finding licks in between the frets like Muddy Waters on a tough night, and the harp is screaming lonely. It's nothing special, just the blues, but it's the blues, played by a white band for a white audience. Most of the material is familiar, but blues were always remade nightly from traditional licks and remembered verses. These are young musicians, but they've got it inside them. They've learned it. Finally. And in a burst of joy (fueled with alcohol) I realize that the blues are not going to die. that white folks can help save them until they catch breath and time and walk back into the country again. 1 never believed that white people could play the blues, but I think they just needed time to learn how. pain to learn why. I've spent too many years moaning about how the blues are dying, about how their context is gone, about how black people are turning their attention elsewhere. I have reservations about George Thorogood, but I like his line about “ I grew up with rock and roll, but the blues wouldn't let me be." Yeah, me too. Hand it over. Reprinted tn permission of Village Voice and Michael Goodwin ' News Group Publications, Inc., 1978. 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