Bless One Tree

This should have come several days ago, but what the hell!
When Chris first told me about the One Tree festival, I was less than enthusiastic, courtesy my pathetically low knowledge of music. But he was thrilled, and his excitement rubbed off on me. Even if it hadn’t I have a feeling he would have dragged me to the festival anyway. Either way, I would be eternally grateful to him.
Thankfully my ignorance does not hamper my ability to appreciate. And that is why I was blown both days, listening to the musical geniuses that are Robert Cray and Jose Feliciano.
Robert Cray has a voice like honey, and is a complete performer. I am told the music he plays is the blues, I couldn’t care less about categorizations and genres. He played the guitar beautifully, and was crooning and whispering to the audience with as much ease as full throated singing. And it was amazing. Chris and his friend Suhel tried to get him to play a number called ‘Don’t you even care’, but he didn’t, possibly we figured, because of a lack of his full band. However to repeated shouts of ‘Don’t you even care’, he replied, ‘Of course I do. I care very much. I’m trying to do my best here.’ The man is such a performer!
Jose Feliciano, who played on the second day, is another whiz with his guitar. He is an interpretative artist, which means he also performs other musicians’ songs. And how! His interpretations, while deriving from the originals, are just so brilliant, some of them sound better than the originals. I knew only a few of the songs that he performed, and I was able to appreciate his genius at reinterpretation for only those. But it made me realize how much I was missing out by not knowing the others. For listening to the ones I did know, performed so differently, blew my mind. His own compositions were good as well, especially the instrumental piece that was inspired by the book ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’, a book that ‘changed his life’.
Maybe I should mention here that Jose is visually impaired, though it’s something that he doesn’t like to play up, so people miss it. Suhel for instance, who knew his music, didn’t know this. Not that it is in the least bit important, he certainly has not let it come in his way.