We laughed when PK’s wife began to ask questions, as it was a story even she had never heard before. There were a lot of cute moments between PK and his wife, banter back and fourth as they recalled moments from their past – the way the met, how they fell in love, her pride for him, his love for her. I’m a sucker for a good love story and there were a few different “Awww” moments. Having not heard all of the audio that we can use though, I am nervous we may have lost parts of the story. I would rather have more audio than we can use, then to lack something important that would help Stella to more effectively tell the story. Then again, too much stuff and poor Dayna will be spending the rest of her life editing the footage into something manageable. We have been brainstorming different ideas of how to help explain PK’s transformation into a blues man. I thought of the idea of looking at the footage we have of PK’s dog. He has 2, an older small chihuahua and a larger rescue dog. I immediately thought of the idea of teaching an old dog new tricks. It just seemed like a fun metaphor for change.
I have slowly become a blues fan over the years. One of my first experiences of blues was years ago running sound at my high school for a show with Shirley King, daughter of B.B. King. In college the first time around, I used to love listening to “Blues Before Sunrise” on WSIU-Carbondale. After very late nights of closing out the bar I was working at, I would turn on the radio and just listen to the show on my commute home and instantly hear music sometimes dating back nearly a century. Interestingly, PK plays a different style of blues than what is typically considered the blues. His wife coined the term “Acoustic Jump Blues,” which actually makes sense when you listen to the difference between what is considered blues and jump blues which dates back to big band and swing of the 40’s. Still, after hanging out with PK, Carol, and their dogs for the afternoon, I almost see an irony in PK playing the blues. After adversity and struggles, triumph and failures, he is one of the most pleasant and optimistic gentlemen I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing stories from.
