By Katie Lechler
For the Star City Blog
Perfect experiences must always include the blues somehow. I saw Lincoln blues legend John Walker on Saturday night, and it was a crystalline moment. Walker played at Ember Schrag's house as part of the Clawfoot House Series, accompanied on the washboard and the guitar by Günter Voelker; Schrag and Voelker opened, playing songs from their soon-to-be-released album A Cruel, Cruel Woman.
Schrag, Voelker, and Walker were an ideal musical grouping for the evening; they have a folksy, upbeat sound even as they are singing about mistakes, hard times, or lost love. Schrag's voice was evocative as she sang witty, self-referential lyrics like, "I left you for a lot of reasons; one of them was to write this song." Her songs often refer to biblical imagery such as Jacob's ladder, burnt offerings, prophets, and Philistines. One piece, "Jephthah's Daughter," tells the story of Jephtha's sacrifice rom the point of view of the daughter and her friends. Another of Schrag's songs, "Two Suns," describes being in love with two people at the same time. My favorite line came from this one: "I can pick a guitar but not like I can pick a man."
Walker, the evening's second act, is a former philosophy professor at Nebraska Wesleyan University. He has been playing blues in Lincoln for 30 years. I was excited to ask him about the connection between the (not always separable) lives of academia and art. "Music is complementary to philosophy," he said. "Philosophy involves discipline, a love of language, and logical trains of thought. Music involves some of the same things, but it is more expressive, more emotional." He calls himself an existential pragmatist, and relates to the philosophers William James, Jean Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus. "I like Kant, too, even though he was wrong about everything," he joked.
After chatting with Walker about music and philosophy, I enjoyed his first song, the conversational "Hesitation Blues." His amazing guitar playing and his expressive, sometimes gravelly, sometimes lyrical, voice combined well with Voelker's virtuoso rub-board and guitar solos. Everyone in the room was tapping their feet, nodding their head, and responding to particularly poignant lyrics with a "Yeah," or an "Uh-huh." I'm sure that somewhere, there's got to be a deep existential meaning behind his song, "Happy Like a Dog," inspired by the words of his granddaughter. However, it was more fun to just hum along as Walker sang, "I don't like bein' fat, but I like gettin' fat; I like walkin' round in my Panama hat. Look at me, baby, I'm happy like dog." And everyone joined in when Walker played "You are my Sunshine," in honor of Grace, the youngest person at the concert.
Later I talked to both Schrag and Walker about the Lincoln music scene and the reasons why they've both stayed here. "Lincoln has a great music scene for a small city," Walker said. "There are tons of acoustic venues ranging from coffee shops to bars to house shows." He likes the intimacy of house shows, the fact that the crowd is small enough and close enough to, as he said, "reach out and slap you." Schrag has a passion for the local music scene as well. When I asked her how the Clawfoot House Series started, she said, "I just thought about what I'd like to see in the Lincoln music scene. And then I tried to make it happen." Schrag is working on the Songwriter Power Ranger series in Lincoln as well, and also sponsors the Clawfoot Salon for female musicians at her house once a month. "I wanted to help create the supportive community that I was looking for," she said.
At Clawfoot House, surrounded by people smiling, humming, and chatting, letting the music wash over me, I could have closed my eyes and imagined myself in New Orleans, that great city of blues and jazz. But I kept my eyes open and stayed in Lincoln. I'm already in a great music city.
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