01 Free Association Blues

Brian J. Kenny

“I got really into Lightning Hopkins in 2001. I used to listen to him when I was bottling olive in the early days at Pacific Sun Olive Oil. I wrote a bunch of songs in my head while I was bottling and labeling and dipping the bottles in the wax dip that I loved, but which made it difficult to open the bottle. There is a lesson there that was very difficult for me to learn. Whatever the case, I had written this song when I worked out on 3rd and 20th in San Francisco. That was during the Shaman Corporation days, where I worked with David Lee Zimmerman and David Serota, and a bunch of other really good people. I never had the nerve to record it until I realized that it is a lot like the kind of thing Lightning would sing. Critics have called Lighting’s music ‘Air Blues’ but I think it is free associative blues. That is what this song, and the whole album is about. I love the lyrics and I can remember writing them when I was walking down 3rd street from the old American Can Company past what is now AT&T Park. It was a thrill to record this one and it opened up everything else on the album. “

Brian J. Kenny - 2012

This song is from Brian J. Kenny’s 2003 album “Free Association Blues”