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Photos courtesy of Carol Boss.
On Friday, I got a phone call from artist Carol Boss, who just finished painting bluesman Big George Brock's touring bus. Big George wanted something extra special for his upcoming tour, because he's going back to his hometown to play. Per a press release from Cat Head Blues & Folk Art:
"'I may be 77 years old, but I ain't dead yet,' joked Brock. 'I've got Big George fans older than I am here in St. Louis, so I'm taking some of them back home with me. We're going to have a wang dang doodle down there in Mississippi.'
As part of his blues homecoming celebration, Brock is bringing his new blues bus down to the old Hopson Plantation in Clarksdale, Mississippi -- just south of Memphis. He'll be performing a concert there on Saturday, August 8th (10pm) during Clarksdale's Sunflower River Blues Festival weekend."
Boss says Brock had taken a liking to a portrait she'd painted of him, and though she's accustomed to working on smaller canvases, agreed to take on the bus project when he asked her to do it. Transferring the image (based on a photograph by another big Big George Fan, Joseph Rosen) onto the side of a vehicle took support, she says, from "friends, family and C.R.E.W. Construction of St. Louis." Still, the artistry is hers; proof of nailing the assignment is below, in a portrait of the artists with a portrait of the artist!
You can keep up on Big George's shows on the Cat Head website, and note that even if you can't follow the blues bus in a few weeks, BIg George will be playing BB's Jazz, Blues & Soups on August 30 and the Big Muddy Blues Festival on the Landing on September 5. --Stefene Russell
