Blues? That’s life. My life. What do you imagine when you hear this term? How to describe the blues music that is played by blacks and whites in America and Europe? What symbolizes the music?A train. The steam engine and the old wooden carriages, the passengers cramped on the benches and the whistle sings its blues a bit differently in each town. The train, that travels incessantly and knocks it’s rhythm on the rails and sleepers. The train that travels by or the train that stops at the station. The train that you have a chance to get on and try something, anything, somewhere else.

Not only the train, also a car. A big solid car like a Cadillac or a Lincoln. You control the wheel or comfortably sit in the back (like B.B.King with Eric Clapton on the cover of one CD), but mainly the car that takes you to another gig where you hope for another opportunity or where you have some business.The symbol of the blues is the city, like New Orleans, where you have your spot on the walkway and there you play. The city you target and where you want to try to live, at least for a little while. Maybe Chicago, Delta, Memphis, Dallas or maybe even Prague.You are traveling by train or in a car, you leave your wife and a child behind in the city (like you did in another city with another wife and another child) and you travel to another place to another women, whom you had promised love on the phone. You try to make her and yourself believe that you are in love. And deep down you wish it were true.

The blues, that’s tears flowing down the cheeks of the women always more than the men. The bowed head, that gave up hope for a better life, but didn’t give up the singing; not yet.The blues is the safety break that stops you from ending up at the doctors` with a script for tablets. The blues that does away with the need for a professional therapist, all that is inside you can scream out, speak out, cry out and sing out in the songs to yourself and to the people that listen to you and understand you, because it’s their life as well.The blues is the eternal dialog and conflict between the man and woman that love

each other but at the same time have to bear so much misery that it’s unbearable to take it. But they carry on and on together for so many years. It’s the dialog of voice and instrument. The voice shouts or talks and the instrument (guitar, harmonica, piano or the whole band) that answers.

Blues is life and who doesn’t have it inside them will never understand what this music means and describes. Blues is hopelessness, not the fake one that is only acted out for the ear and eye of the audience, hysterical, but the real deep hopelessness full of melancholy which is accepting the destiny in the rhythm of the streets. All is a constant repeat – nothing new – all the time the good old blues. Sometimes it’s just a simple three-cord twelve bar, sometimes a wider harmony but all the time it’s like life, sometimes you get carried away and you forget and sometimes it’s just  hard work like any other.

Blues is the experience of the black people. It’s the experience of a black slave in the United States, brought on a boat against their will and for three hundred years bearing the fetter and the train for their freedom didn’t stop for them. And when the freedom finally came, the only thing left to them was usually only the train. They traveled from the South to the North, from the plantation to the city, from the field to the factory and were grateful for every cent. Thousands of extreme situations tried to break them but didn’t. They enjoyed freedom and died in freedom. One generation after another lived in psychological and physical poverty, humbled and without a hope for change.

Slavery was banned in 1863 but racial discrimination has never been banned. Black people could not deal with the fact that they had freedom but were not allowed to live freely. Almost everywhere they went to ask or plead for work they hit the barrier that was caused by the color of their skin. The only

freedom that was left for them was to pack up the few belongings, get on the train and try their luck somewhere else, usually without success and such a

decision was often paid for by giving up the family.The blues that’s the really tragic story, not wanted, denied, but thousands of times a lived experience. You can find it in the songs of old blacks that were created during two generations at the end of nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. They are in fact folk songs of the traveling singers that played and wrote in pubs and on the streets as life went on. Songs about misery, anxiety, longing and a hopeless reality that you can’t possibly step over, like you can’t step over your shadow. They played for themselves, the audience, for comfort and often they played for nothing or just a glass of whiskey. In blues songs you can find loneliness, the wild Mississippi river, catastrophes, disasters, jails, convict troops, empty pockets and various arguments of two people that love each other but at the same time, due to all the consequences that they can not change, are loosing each other.

The blues, its mainly an expression of the feelings, emotions, love and the first suffering. In them you will find life without the polish, a rough description of what is deepest inside you  or what is left inside you. Lots of symbols, hidden meanings, irony, laughter and tears.But you will never find an easy solution for the poverty, you will not find an easy prescription for life and never will you find a moral guide that tells you who has the blues inside them. All of this you could hear in an instance from the independent criminal Leadbelly or from Blind Lemon Jefferson, the first country bluesman who was recording records for a few cents. Or another blind black man Blind Willie Johnson. Sonny Boy Williamson II. was known for carrying everywhere with him dozen harmonicas and a bottle of whiskey. A great musician was also Robert Johnson but he died very young. He wrote a song  Ramblin’ On My Mind. A story itself was Little Walter, a great harmonica player who died at thirty-eight. He was driven to the grave by women, booze, and grass even though at the beginning he only drank Coca Cola. They all had their blues inside them. It helped them to keep a relative balance and to come to terms with reality.

Blues, that’s life. Life that repeats itself. However, todays experience, especially the experience of us – whites, is different. But even we know what it is to smile and not to cry. Even we, on both sides of the Atlantic, know, what is the blues of a beaten up wife or a drunken bloke lying on the walkway, who is happy in the morning that he didn’t choke on his vomit. On TV we can see the blues of the protestors that are being kicked by the cops and blues of the cops that accordingly to their commands take away the arrested ones. Blues is also the life of a humble railway worker, walking to his night shift with some soup, piece of bread and a thermos full of hot tea. Blues is a girl that was abused and abandoned, blues is the longing for change. Blues is an unhappy woman unable to have a child or a woman that has too many children and only waits for her husband who is all the time in his office, in the pub or probably sleeping with another woman. Blues is lived by all those people living in a debt that don’t know how they possibly will be able to pay.

Blues is everything.You can find the blues in the Bible. On every page and in every story of every person that is described there. You can start with Adam and end with Jesus who was, on top of everything, also the Son of God. The Bible is a book about life. You read stories about people that lived and had their blues inside them. Look at Abraham – he wanted his first-born son so much, he put all his hope in him, in him he saw the future and in him he had his confidence in God. He was waiting, he believed and it was exhausting. Job – he got poor, he crunched his teeth with pain, he put dust in his infected ulcers, he had to come to terms with the deaths of his own children and with misunderstanding from his wife, he argued with his friends and with God. Was it better for him not to have been born. David – the King, he cried for himself, for his family, he feared the reveal and his own guilt. All life he suffered from the consequences of his uncontrollable sexual desire and the abuses of his position as a King.

Jonah – he tried to run away from God, he tried to hide himself from the truth. It was impossible. He experienced the fear of death when he prayed buried alive and swallowed by the sea. He was not the only one that wished they had rather died than continued to live.Jeremiah – he had to accept that he will never get the wife he had longed for. It’s awful to have to give up his love. He also regretted that his mother gave birth to him.Blues can be found on the cross that Jesus died on. In his deathly horror he cried out the text of an old Psalm : My God, My God, why did you desert me?The blues I have inside me I inherited from my grand parents.

They both came from Bohemia. My grandfather, father of my father was born near Kladno and my mother`s mother from near Horice. One day at the end of the 19th century they both, independently of each other, got on a boat that took them from Europe to the New World, from the poverty to the happiness. It was during the first wave of immigration to America. And it was my grandmother who taught me how to play on the harmonica for Czech folk songs. I can play them to you even now.My grandfather died later in America an alcoholic, the same happened with my father. I would end up like them or even worse if my life was not struck by God. I am certainly happy that AIDS did not exist during my youth. My blues would have killed me.

The blues appealed to me not only because of good music, but also due to the evidence in the lyrics. It had both deepness and magic. Sound – the lead guitar or the sound of a lead saxophone, that sound must grab you. The poetry of the blues – a double verse split in three parts in such way that the first verse repeats itself but usually a bit differently. It is a little bit like the old biblical psalms.  The music and lyrics told me : This is me, this is my life. Blues desribed my feelings more than my thoughts but the lyrics of course described the very reality of my life. Emptiness, that alcohol never fulfills and life in my family where I grew up (my father worked very hard and of course drank a lot) and which I relatively soon left.

 We lived in Lancaster, California, about 75 Miles from Los Angeles. My grandmother not only had tought me how to play a harmonica, she also told me the stories of the saints. I enjoyed it. For instance the story of Saint Franciss of Assissi. My grandmother was a Catholic and I was babtised as a child. I remember that in the deepness of my soul I wished I was a saint as well and even when I was older I remembered it sometimes.In Lancaster I went to the high school. In 1955 I started to practice the piano. By then I played in the school band not only harmonica but also a trumpet and a tuba. At the age of fifteen I had my first performance with a country and western band playing boogie woogie style on the piano that was also recorded for one radio station. The boogie – woogie style appeared sometimes in the 1920’s or 1930’s of the 20th century. Black musicians started it. They succeeded in `bending the tone` of the piano as good as they did some time before with a tone of a guitar and harmonica.

Once I was at school just swifting my fingers on a piano when some boy appeared beside me. He listened for a while and than said that he liked the way I played. That`s how I met with my older schoolmate Frank Zappa. We were good friends. I used to visit Frank in his apartment, we would drink coffee, smoke cigarettes and listen to the blues. He was always a personality. We played together in the school band and later for about another three years in different bands. His musical journey was than different from mine, even though he could never deny his blues roots / irony, sense of humor, skepticism etc. I stayed with the classical blues untill today. I saw Frank for the last time in 1989 when we met over a cup of coffee and spoke about the old times.

I left school at the age of seventeen and started to pay for myself with my own hands. My father was a builder and I used to help him. We used to get into the

car on Monday travel for a hundred or two hundred miles and return for the weekend. We worked on the house frames about a hundred people would work on a

building site like that. I would take my guitar with me. I was sixteen or seventeen and back then you were only allowed to enter the pub when you were over twenty-one. But they would let me in when I was with my dad. I took my opportunity and played a few songs. It was great that they would sometimes even pay me for it. I traveled and worked with my dad for about four years – till I got married for the first time. When you play the blues songs you have an audience (even though it`s only in the pub) and if you are a shy teenage boy you discover that there is a sexual tension. For a little while you are the center of attention, people listen to you, watch you, sometimes your eyes meet a look that promises something more than just that your song is good. The sparkle jumps and then you have the

pleasure to look into those loving eyes from a close distance and for a long time. Music helped me to communicate with girls. Blues gave me the chance to find new friendships, new relationships with girls sleep with them, experience some of the feelings that I sang about – at least for a little while.

In San Diego lived this pretty girl that became my first wife. She was seventeen and she looked like Princess Diana. She also sang. She worked somewhere near the city in a hamburger shop. She was beautiful but she had an accident. She got drunk at a party, a schoolmate abused her and she was expecting a child.

 I loved her and I wanted to help her. We got married and shortly after she gave birth to a girl. I looked after them for five years…or so I thought. All the money I made I would later spend on alcohol and drugs. It was also not certain when a policeman would come and stick me in jail. It must have been terribly stressful for my first wife. We got married when I was about twenty and she left me when I was twenty-four. She took her daughter and disappeared from my life. I think she was relieved. She married again and as far as I know she worked as a hairdresser.

Rough, free and at the same time a divided human life, that’s blues and that was me as well. They say in one song: Eagle flies on Friday, on Saturday I drive out and play, on Sunday I go to church to kneel and pray. During the week you work on a conveyer belt, in the steel works or on a field but on Saturday finally comes the relief, the happiest day of the week. On Sunday people used to go to church. This is how life between the weekday grind, Saturday`s relaxation in the pub where people sang, played, drunk, danced, and Sunday`s religion in the church looked. This is how most black people a hundred years ago, before the war lived. And I lived this life too. Only the path to the church and prayer I was unable to find and grasp completely.

Another fact was also understanding the imbalance of love and misery. At the beginning of the twenteeth century even in New Orleans, the hometown of blues

and jazz, had no night clubs oriented for music. Simply, there were only brothels and that’s where this music was performed. And of course there were the streets.

The change came at the beginning of the sixties when small clubs as we know them now appeared. For instance in Los Angeles I played with a few bands. It was

impossible not to start drinking beer, wine and whiskey. It was a natural part of it. But I used to drink differently than other people, I had no selfcontrol. Some of my friends would have two or three beers, but others would encourage me: come on have another one with us and than another one… At the end of an evening

I would have had five, ten, fifteen. Soon I started to have memory problems and black outs. I was not the type of a drunk that would get drunk, lie down and sleep it off. It’s true that I would go to sleep exhausted, but the day after a friend would tell me: Rex you were mad yesturday, you crushed the car, you beat me up badly, you punched my face. I would listen in disbelief: What, me? I know nothing about it! For almost eleven years I lived with alcohol and drug abuse. Sometimes it was great but sometimes it was terribly empty. I denied among others the conventional common values (marriage, family, faithfulness, life order), but I failed to create a proper alternative and stability in my life. The result was chaos in my head and all around me.

In 1961 I added marihuana and speed to my alcohol habit. Probably most musicians used it. In 1964 a new drug – LSD – was introduced to the U.S.A. It was even

legal for the first two years. It was possible to buy it or order it via post home delivery. LSD is a hallucinogenic substance. It changes humans` senses and after you have used it you feel like you’re in a different world. You can see fantastic pictures full of strange colours and shapes. The drug made me feel great, it brought me to the top, where alcohol and marihuana could not have taken me any more. But from that experience there was only a short stop away to heroin abuse. We would hit up everywhere it was possible. In the dealers` houses or at home with friends. And back stage during the breaks, between the performance we smoked marihuana. Two or three of my friends died from heroin overdoses. In 1966 I came to San Francisco where all the hippies went. We would create communities with friends. I lived among others on houseboats. We were that generation of love, the flower kids, the generation of young Americans that believed at least partly and some honestly that their way of life, with the help of substances like marihuana and LSD, would change the world. People will finally really love each other. We even believed that love enhanced by LSD would end the war in Vietnam!

Here in Europe you will probably never really understand what Vietnam ment for us Americans! At the end of the sixties it was obvious that Vietnam was a mistake, it was a criminal act. Mainly us the young people, felt very sensitively about the political face of Presidents Johnson and then Nixon. They lied to us and they sent young boys to kill or to die. I was completely against the war. I burned my birth certificate as a protest. I was sure that America was fighting in Vietnam not against the communism but for political and economical reasons. I wanted to get out of it and do my own stuff like most of my generation. I was lucky that I had been married and had a small child, because the army recruited mainly the unmarried men. America is traditionally a Christian country; it was built on Christian foundations and values. But the hippies followed Hinduism, Buddhism and values like love and peace. They were disappointed with false Christianity, false morality and superficial behaviour. I personally was not concerned about these difficult tasks. I was allmost constantly under the affects of alcohol and drugs. I was a part of the communities and free love suited me just fine. I must admit that I was only fifty per cent convinced that drugs could save the world, but after about a year I learned that it was different. The feeling of freedom and enjoyment from free love was followed by a worry about death and imprisonment. I was disillusioned.

The Hippie movement soon finished, it disintegrated. A lot of strangers that just used our naivity got among us. There was no more love in the society, there was was no more love among us even though we still practiced free sex. At one point I even lived around a known “Messiash” Charles Manson that was later known for his evil crimes. This small bent man, who lived on a ranch with his family,ruled over all the people that lived with him. They saw Satan or Jesus Christ in him. People from the ranch, following his orders, would blindly murder without any thought and in a very cruel way. The most famous victim was a pregnant actress Sharon Tate that was by many people considered to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Probably her most popular movie was The ball of Vampires. Manson wanted to shock the world and in August 1969 he succeeded. San Francisco and mainly Beverly Hills was ruled by anxiety. He was soon discovered and sentenced to death. Later the Supreme Court changed his sentence to life behind bars.

Free sex did not only bring satisfaction but also venereal diseases, syphilis and similar illnesses. Drugs were destroying us morally and financially and we were slowly learning that it wasn’t what we wanted. The war in Vietnam continued and Johnson was still in power. I was very tired of it all, nothing satisfied me. Only the blues remained.

At this period a new psychidelic music, created under the influence of LSD appeared. The inspiration was derived from the experiences, hallucinations and different feelings that the musicians saw, heard and experienced when they enjoed their mystical trips caused by LSD. But this music had no melody, no system and was very loud. The amount of decibels was supposed to reinforce the experience caused by the drug. I had a band with three black guys from Berkley and we played classical blues in clubs and pubs. In 1968 my drummer Jonny “Young Dog” Rigins first calld me RambRough, free and at the same time a divided human life, that’s blues and that was me as well. They say in one song: Eagle flies on Friday, on Saturday I drive out and play, on Sunday I go to church to kneel and pray. During the week you work on a conveyer belt, in the steel works or on a field but on Saturday finally comes the relief, the happiest day of the week. On Sunday people used to go to church. This is how life between the weekday grind, Saturday`s relaxation in the pub where people sang, played, drunk, danced, and Sunday`s religion in the church looked. This is how most black people a hundred years ago, before the war lived. And I lived this life too. Only the path to the church and prayer I was unable to find and grasp completely.

Another fact was also understanding the imbalance of love and misery. At the beginning of the twenteeth century even in New Orleans, the hometown of blues

and jazz, had no night clubs oriented for music. Simply, there were only brothels and that’s where this music was performed. And of course there were the streets.

The change came at the beginning of the sixties when small clubs as we know them now appeared. For instance in Los Angeles I played with a few bands. It was

impossible not to start drinking beer, wine and whiskey. It was a natural part of it. But I used to drink differently than other people, I had no selfcontrol. Some of my friends would have two or three beers, but others would encourage me: come on have another one with us and than another one… At the end of an evening

I would have had five, ten, fifteen. Soon I started to have memory problems and black outs. I was not the type of a drunk that would get drunk, lie down and sleep it off. It’s true that I would go to sleep exhausted, but the day after a friend would tell me: Rex you were mad yesturday, you crushed the car, you beat me up badly, you punched my face. I would listen in disbelief: What, me? I know nothing about it! For almost eleven years I lived with alcohol and drug abuse. Sometimes it was great but sometimes it was terribly empty. I denied among others the conventional common values (marriage, family, faithfulness, life order), but I failed to create a proper alternative and stability in my life. The result was chaos in my head and all around me.

In 1961 I added marihuana and speed to my alcohol habit. Probably most musicians used it. In 1964 a new drug – LSD – was introduced to the U.S.A. It was even

legal for the first two years. It was possible to buy it or order it via post home delivery. LSD is a hallucinogenic substance. It changes humans` senses and after you have used it you feel like you’re in a different world. You can see fantastic pictures full of strange colours and shapes. The drug made me feel great, it brought me to the top, where alcohol and marihuana could not have taken me any more. But from that experience there was only a short stop away to heroin abuse. We would hit up everywhere it was possible. In the dealers` houses or at home with friends. And back stage during the breaks, between the performance we smoked marihuana. Two or three of my friends died from heroin overdoses. In 1966 I came to San Francisco where all the hippies went. We would create communities with friends. I lived among others on houseboats. We were that generation of love, the flower kids, the generation of young Americans that believed at least partly and some honestly that their way of life, with the help of substances like marihuana and LSD, would change the world. People will finally really love each other. We even believed that love enhanced by LSD would end the war in Vietnam!

Here in Europe you will probably never really understand what Vietnam ment for us Americans! At the end of the sixties it was obvious that Vietnam was a mistake, it was a criminal act. Mainly us the young people, felt very sensitively about the political face of Presidents Johnson and then Nixon. They lied to us and they sent young boys to kill or to die. I was completely against the war. I burned my birth certificate as a protest. I was sure that America was fighting in Vietnam not against the communism but for political and economical reasons. I wanted to get out of it and do my own stuff like most of my generation. I was lucky that I had been married and had a small child, because the army recruited mainly the unmarried men. America is traditionally a Christian country; it was built on Christian foundations and values. But the hippies followed Hinduism, Buddhism and values like love and peace. They were disappointed with false Christianity, false morality and superficial behaviour. I personally was not concerned about these difficult tasks. I was allmost constantly under the affects of alcohol and drugs. I was a part of the communities and free love suited me just fine. I must admit that I was only fifty per cent convinced that drugs could save the world, but after about a year I learned that it was different. The feeling of freedom and enjoyment from free love was followed by a worry about death and imprisonment. I was disillusioned.

The Hippie movement soon finished, it disintegrated. A lot of strangers that just used our naivity got among us. There was no more love in the society, there was was no more love among us even though we still practiced free sex. At one point I even lived around a known “Messiash” Charles Manson that was later known for his evil crimes. This small bent man, who lived on a ranch with his family,ruled over all the people that lived with him. They saw Satan or Jesus Christ in him. People from the ranch, following his orders, would blindly murder without any thought and in a very cruel way. The most famous victim was a pregnant actress Sharon Tate that was by many people considered to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Probably her most popular movie was The ball of Vampires. Manson wanted to shock the world and in August 1969 he succeeded. San Francisco and mainly Beverly Hills was ruled by anxiety. He was soon discovered and sentenced to death. Later the Supreme Court changed his sentence to life behind bars.

Free sex did not only bring satisfaction but also venereal diseases, syphilis and similar illnesses. Drugs were destroying us morally and financially and we were slowly learning that it wasn’t what we wanted. The war in Vietnam continued and Johnson was still in power. I was very tired of it all, nothing satisfied me. Only the blues remained.

At this period a new psychidelic music, created under the influence of LSD appeared. The inspiration was derived from the experiences, hallucinations and different feelings that the musicians saw, heard and experienced when they enjoed their mystical trips caused by LSD. But this music had no melody, no system and was very loud. The amount of decibels was supposed to reinforce the experience caused by the drug. I had a band with three black guys from Berkley and lin’ Rex.

Alcohol, girls, LSD, heroin, marihuana – life not only in San Francisco…

One evening I was really sick of it. I was sitting with a friend and the band and we had scored heroin but I didn’t want any more. I needed to get away, if not for good, at least for a while. I got into my friends’ car (my own had been crashed a long time before) and went home down highway 101 from San Diego to Los Angeles. Back then it was the most dangerous highway in the U.S.A. It was called blood alley. Every year a great quantity of people would have accidents there and get badly injured or die. I drove the ’57 Chevy, everything looked as usual but suddenly a distress surrounded me from all sides. My head was full of thoughts, what I was leaving, what I had been doing during the past few weeks…The lights of the passing cars and a two lane highway were flashing before my eyes. If something had happened, I would have had no chance to do anything with sand dunes on one side, the sea on the other. It was like a trap. A marine base also watched the area I was driving through. There was no possibility to turn anywhere, it was a non-entry observed area. I also knew that among the drivers that were passing by were surly also drunk army officers.

The pressure did not go away. The anxiety was rising. I was really frightened. I heard somewhere in the back of my mind a deep internal evil voice say : You are

a bad man Rex, an alcoholic, a  drug addict, you destroy your life and the lifes of others, you are a liar, a cheat, a  robber, you deserve death! You will not survive this journey, you can’t survive it! You will die tonight on this highway! I held the stearing wheel very tightly. The fear, anxiety and sweating and I could do nothing. I could not stop or turn… I knew that it was right; I knew that I was really worth nothing. I knew that I was stealing from my friends to have money for drugs, I knew that I was cheating on my parents, I knew that death was suddenly so very near and that I deserved it. I had no argument against it and I had no strengh to defend myself. I did not want to die on that highway! I was really scared. But it did not cross my mind to cry to God for help.

Suddenly the confusion of my black thoughts was entered quite unexpectedly by another voice that was different and peacefull. Don`t worry, I am Jesus, you are my child, I will help you! All those dark temptations, self-accusations and death threats were gone. After fourty minutes I arrived home and for a little while doubted that it was Jesus real and alive that spoke to me, that comforted me, addressed me and helped me.The day after I spoke to my friends about my experience and that Jesus had saved my life. But they thought that I had either had gone mad or had a bad trip. They vere trying to talk me out of it and explained to me that this is how the hallucinagenics work. They had their experiences with LSD! Today, after thirty years they must admit, that it wasn’t nonsence, a little crazyiness and not at all an experience caused by the drugs. It was God’s real touch that changed my life.

Back then at twenty-six, I lost my friends and returned to my parents. I found work and started to read the Bible. I remembered my grandmother and her stories. I felt that I could be like a Saint. I wanted to live differently. I started visiting local churches (a Catholic church, Baptists etc.) and sometimes I played my guitar there.

Blues, that’s the reality of life. The hopeless reality, that has its solution and relief in rhythm and song, so even an unbearable life is possible to live. One can even laugh about it. As a bluesman and a Christian at the same time I know that it is possible to cross the uncrossable laws and limits of life and that even a deep existential hopelessness has it’s way out and it’s clue. The clue is the Gospel. This word has at least two meanings. Gospel means the good news. The good news about God that knows very well what is hidden inside human beings. About God that is not a distant independent observer of what is happening in people`s hearts, thoughts and history. God came to our earth as Jesus of Nazareth; he became a man, one of us. He experienced the blues feelings of hopelessness, loss and denial. He experienced hatred, loneliness, failure and mockery and he also experienced on his own what dying and an undignified death feels like.The good news means that Jesus Christ sacrificed himself on the cross because he loves you as you are. He interferes with your life independently but with no force and he offeres help. He wins with his love, forgiveness and peacefulness over all that dark and evil inside you, as he did with me. He died for us too but was resurrected to offer help to humanity. The force that resurrected him overpowers the lost and tourtured souls on earth. It doesn`t matter if it’s people overcome by drugs or bureaucrats drowning in paper at the government offices. Jesus offers help. The question remains, if the person becomes humble, if they invite Jesus into their life, if they open the door into their hidden thirteenth room and if they enable God to change them with his power they can be renewed. Only the person that experiences God’s help and salvation, who experiences how great God`s love and freedom is, can start singing gospel! Because gospel in it`s basis is Christian blues. The style of the black peoples’ music, that does not express hopelessness any more, but happieness, internal peace, relief and mainly hope. I experienced all this personally. And this is why I sing in my concerts blues and gospel as a legitamate and true experience of life.

Maybe it looks now that from the moment on the highway from San Diego to Los Angeles everything was O.K. with me. The truth is that it was the breaking point, but it took another eight years, during which I bounced between the blues and the gospel, between the booze, addiction and the valuable mercy of Jesus Christ.The internal eight-year long conflict was not easy to beat. And without the help of other people, impossible! Sometimes I thought that I am completely alright. That was during the moments when I held my life strongly in my hands and I felt that I am able to deal with the problems. I studied the Bible, I went to church, but I only touched the surface. I observed the people that went to the Church. I critically noticed the differences between them and me. I thought that I was better. I compared my Christianity with theirs. I used to put myself into the position of the apostle Paul near Damascis that was also stopped during his journey by Jesus.

And what did they experience? Common church members that did not even properly understand what was sin and what was the help of Jesus. I would tell them that I didn`t have to go to any church, it`s enough to follow Jesus. But I was disobedient. While I was staying with my parents Jesus lead me to get babtised as an adult to confirm what Jesus had done for me and also to join some Christian community. But I said that I would do it my way, that I could form my own community with the musicians that knew what`s going on and that understood me. After two years I was still full of my experience from the highway 101. I was excited about it and I spoke about it to everyone. My faith was based on it. But friends would give me interesting questions: What do you think, Rex, would Jesus smoke a joint of marihuana, would he have a bit of LSD with us? They knew the Bible, at the end Jesus used to meet with people that would invite him and he drank wine with them…I became uncertain. Maybe Jesus would have a smoke of marihuana with us?

It was a trap and I got trapped. I returned to my old habits. Suddenly I was exactly in the same old train of constant dissatisfaction, that was full to the top with discrepancy, stress, uncertainty, wandering, changing of women, that did not last, alcohol and drugs. I sat in the train that was taking me back to the addiction and finally death. I also lived with one woman that was influenced by the hippie way of thinking as well. We said to each other that we didn`t need some paper for marriage. Whats important is that we like each other. I smoked again, drank and used hard drugs. But something remained in me. When I was drunk or stoned and I felt terrible, I cried to Jesus for help. I knew that I didn`t want to live like that, but I was not able to help myself. That situation lasted another six years.

Until I met one man in a University club. He told me that the way of starting again exists, that it is possible to be saved; it was the twelve steps to freedom. The first step is the most important and certain: To admit ones powerlessness over alcohol or other drugs and to admit that your life is unmanageable. Through his speech Jesus spoke to me for the second time. I believed him. I decided that I wouldn`t drink. But you know such decisions. That man asked me if I ever attended some society that helps one to get out of their addiction, if I tried some cure? He told me to visit him when I get the desire to have a drink again. Despite all the good wishes, the temptation was following me and getting to me again. It drove me to the bar, forced me to open the bottle and light a joint. I was not able to resist. But now I knew what to do, what to clinge on to, where to go, who had the experience and the proffesional help. I humbled myself and visited my new friend, I joined the cure and God helped me; through him like most of my friends that were alcoholics did likewise. I have been clean and sober since 1976. Not once was I drunk and I have not once used drugs. Addiction can be developed on anything. If you are not an alcoholic or drug addict, you can be a workoholic that must work all the time, or a gambler, the slave of the slot machines and computer games. You can also be addicted to sex.

That`s when you can`t resist pornography, sex magazines, porn movies and internet sex. It`s when you have to have it no matter what, alone or with some prostitute, you just can`t help it. Back then I was divorced for the second time and then over a period of a year I was sleeping with five different women. It was really difficult to organize so they wouldn’t know about each other. This addiction seemed to me sometimes stronger than the drug one. One student at school asked me if I don`t feel bad to talk about it so openly. But it was my real life. It was my blues. I don`t just want to show off. I had to get rid of it; I had to ask for forgiveness. Jesus forgave me and took the load from me. In 1980 I made a major decision and now it is for more than twenty years that I have lived under a voluntary celibacy.

Would Jesus smoke marihuana because he also drank wine? It’s nonsence and a stupid and silly question despite the fact that some people might mean it honestly and seriously. Jesus was never addicted to alcohol or anything else. It’s true that the religious ones would look at him as a drunk, a glutton, a friend of prostitutes and other lost souls. But he did not join them in their unhappiness. He did not join in with them, he had hope for them. The evangelism, the good news that God loves them, however they were, even on the bottom of society and tolerated as a necessary evil. Marihuana has something magical that stupefies you, excites you, relaxes you, charms you so you want it again. But it doesn’t stay only with marihuana. This strange magic force grabs you and overpowers you, so you easily go for hard drugs. And when you start with drugs, it’s close to stealing and cheating. The fact that HIV is mainly passed on among drug addicts doesn’t have to be even mentioned. A person under the influence of drugs will not care about changing the syringe. A drunken man has no time to think about putting a condom on and checking that he did it correctly…

Why didn`t I know it back than? I probably was a young, disobedient and a spoiled Christian child. A two year old boy also can’t ride a bike or drive a car no matter how much he would like to. That`s why it’s important for the new Christians to join a Christian community, where they will be led, where they will live and other people will help them. I tried to do it myself. It was the mistake. It was pride.

Blues appeared at the break of the 19th and 20th century, gospel a bit later. Gospel has the same basis. Racial discrimination divided people of different colours. And it did not stop even in the church. Then there were different churches for whites and different churches for black people. No wonder the culture and religion developed differently, even though it sometimes joined. The experience of the black slaves and the way out of the misery was expressed in the black spiritual songs. It was not just an empty escape from reality, when the black slaves were looking for help from heaven and supported each other with songs like: He will give strengh to the weak, so they could walk further, he relieves every pain and turns sorrow into happieness. Or: Nobody knows my misery, maybe only Jesus knows.

The slave experience was followed by the blues experience, the experience of hopeless discrimination. Not for all of them, but some found their way out from hopelessness in gospel. Like Georgia Tom who you can read about in many books, the piano player, composer and great musician. He played his real blues and he knew how to get carried away. He had sense of humor, he could appreciate a good-looking woman and all that such a girl should have. But then he distanced himself from his songs, became a Christian and later reverend Thomas A. Dorsey. He crossed the border between blues and gospel, the border, that a desparate human being consideres to be uncrossable.

A good respectable black person that had a strong position in the church would reject the blues as absolutely unsuitable worldly music that was performed only on the steets and in brothels. The choral singing of spirituals, usually describing the stories of biblical characters and would describe well and truefully the experience of the people. It also suited the African mentality and way of enjoying the music. But black Christians also longed to express themselves in different ways, somewhat raw and spontaneous. Blues was influenced by the train and it was the same with gospel. The black people listened to the rhythm of rails and sleepers and in their minds was the very real feeling that they must wait for the second coming of Jesus Christ. In their gospels they would imagine that he would come by train. The old black Christian music started to have a different face. In my concerts I sing blues and gospel. As I said blues is life, blues is the story of a person that has it hard and complicated, a person that has made it bad for himself even if others were involved. Gospel is also life, but new life. The guilt, anxiety and pain are also realistic, but in it all exists hope and a way out. The hope is in Jesus Christ that took on himself our guilt and illnesses. I will just remind you of a few songs that I like to sing and that are my story as well.

Amazing Grace  – Probably the most well-known gospel song A traditional. Before a self-confident black slave trader one personally felt the horror of hopelessness. He became a nobody. They must have experienced anxiety and worry. He felt deeply what the blues was, but Jesus shed grace in his life and enabled him to wake up, he took the heavy load of guilt from him, he saved him. Nobody who did not experience the terror of sin will experience what is this precious grace. It‘s Gonna Change  – The world is changing, but not for the better. The evil in society, among the nations and different ethnic groups is growing into great dimensions. Jesus is a rock, he is strong, he doesn’t change. Entrust Jesus with your life and you will stand on a rock, whatever the political, climatic, ecological or economical collapses and changes that may come. Put your life in Christ’s hands and you will experience the transformation that I also experienced.

It‘s Gonna Rain – And no umbrella will help you! It didn’t help a long time ago during the time of the great flood when Noah’s ark was the only rescue. Back then people also didn`t believe that everything would be destroyed and that they will lose everything. And they don’t believe it even today. And no umbrella of various insurances will help. Next time not water but fires will sweep the Earth. The only rescue is in Jesus Christ, in his boat, where there is still enough room! Meeting In The Building  – Many people think that church is a building or a stone construction. That`s why they probably think that to be saved is enough to go to church. It’s not true. When you read the Bible you discover that Jesus never spoke about a building, but about people. It is nice when we meet in church, but Jesus is present everywhere, where people meet in his name.

For instance on the park bench or in the apartment of one of your friends. Meetings in buildings that were built by people and mayby consecrated will end one day. We are looking for the time when we all will meet before our Father in heaven, in his temple. 24/33 – A song inspired by the words of Lord Jesus Christ, that are captured in the Gospel of Matthew, in the 24th chapter, verse 33: “So as you, when you see all this, will know that the time is close by.” It is a prophet’s song. Jesus will return to this world it will not be long. His return will be announced by signals. And those of us who believe in him, we are Christ`s arms, legs, eyes, ears in short Christ’s body. We are responsible for this world and we should be united, because we need each other. As a leg needs an arm and an ear needs an eye. Last mile – When somebody becomes a Christian, they do not follow only what the brain says, but also listen to the voice of Jesus Christ. He taught us that we have to think about our end. A person’s life is a journey, a journey that will end. It is not right to live only in the present or in the past. The last mile is in front of us and maybe somebody is cutting the last meters off.

Mighty Rock – Blues expresses love, but even more the feeling of anxiety, depression, hopelessness, melancholy and sadness. On the other hand gospel releases the feelings of relief, happieness, enthusiasm and hope. It’s not possible to say what is better or truer from a musical point of view. It both expresses an authentic feeling of loneliness, loss, unsatisfied desire, unbearable load and guilt. But gospel is an authentic experience of a person that was in Jesus Christ given the mercy, the experience of finding a solid point, a solid rock, a hope and confidence that they will never be alone in their problems! Saved – Before I lied, stole, cheated, smoked, boozed but when Christ entered my life, it changed dramatically. Even though it was in my case a slow process and not only a sudden and instant change. We are not able to change ourselves with our own power it’s the Holy Spirit that has the power. That is my autobiography, my story. In this song you can find out how to become a Christian. Not that you go to church, but when Jesus addresses you it’s necessary to listen to him, believe him and ask for mercy.  

Do you know how to recognize a Christian? Some say that they believe in God but they go to the pub where they get drunk, swear, chase women, they cheat in their businesses, but they still say that they believe. They even think they will go to heaven. They are cheating even themselves. Many of them will one day, when they stand in front of the jury say, I also believed, I went to church, but they will hear from the mouth of God – I don`t know you, go away. Christians can be recognized if they believe in Jesus and are truthfull, he knows the bad parts of his life, he admits them and he tries to live with God’s help following Christ’s example. I want you to know that these songs are not only about me. Anyone can find themselves in these songs, they are for all of you that have had enough of their lives like I had back then and they long for a change. Everybody can be saved.

I was driven to Europe. I traveled in the western part of Europe. I played for instance in the Dutch capital Amsterdam. I came to The Czech Republic in 1993. Of course the fact that my ancesters came from this country had a big effect on me but, I also think that God sent me here. In the beginning I played and sang in Prague as a street musician, for instance on the Charles Bridge. I also played in nightclubs. I played by myself with no band. I 1996 I was addressed by Luboš Andršt, probably the best blues guitarist in the Czech Republic. He had just lost his singer and he asked me, if I would be interested in singing with his band. We made a deal and I think that together we do a good job. It`s strange, for thirty-five years I played blues in the whole of the U.S.A., but only here in the Czech Republic I had the opportunity to play with the King of blues – B.B.King. We – the Blues band of Luboš Andršt – played with him twice, once in 1998 in Prague and then two years later during a festival in Zlin.

 Playing with Luboš Andršt Blues Band is my daily bread and butter here in the Czech Republic, but the true meaning of my stay here is to find people that are addicted to drugs or alcohol, and help them to get out of their addiction. Two thousand years after Christ we see that the world is not changing for the better, but worse. There are more and more people with serious problems. On the one hand there are the great acheavements of mans’ soul – great discoveries, inventions, new technologies, but on the other hand people are still selfish, greedy, arrogant, disgracefull, impious, loveless, antagonistic, gossips, nasty, careless and cocky. In other words they love themselves and delight in the fact that they know God. This is what we read in the Bible and this is what we subsist in.

Life like that only leads to terrible dissillusion and suffering. We as Christians cannot tolerate it, we have to do something to save the lost souls, to save the people that live around us and know only the hopeless blues. I call my work “The lost sheep ministry”. Blues used to deliver the sexual contacts, now it gives me the chance to meet with the people that I can help in their misery. One of them was my friend Steve from Texas, an American with Czech ancestors as well. This young man experienced the divorce of his parents at the critical age of adolescence and what’s more his father died soon after. Not many situations affect the life of a young person more than the loss of the security of their family and home. The death of a beloved parent is by children more feared than their own death. Steve learned to drink at high school. And if somebody starts drinking as a teenager thier addiction develops very quickly. His alcohol habit gave him not only headaches and stomach problems, but also the endless feeling of hopelessness. At the end of his scholarship he was tired of life, confused and full of doubt about whether he will be able to function as a normal citizen. Instead of a promising start he just let his life flow around in circles until the current brought him to Prague. There he worked in a pub that was quite prosperous. Then the owner (also an American) and Steve started a bigger pub. They made loads of money, but it didn`t bring him happieness. He needed alcohol more and more. Still he thought that he could control his drinking. He was fooling himself. He considered the people like me that go to alcohol programs as inferior and weaker human beings.

I met Steave right in the pub where he worked. Sometimes we played blues with our band there and Steve was happy that we make a lot of noise. Once during the break he sat at my table and ordered me a drink. I refused alcohol but appreciated coffee. We became friendly and often spoke at one table. He thought I did not have much enjoyment in my life. I spent no money on drinks and smokes and I was not trying to get girls. I had the opportunity to tell him what I see were the real values of life. One day during the break again over a cup of coffee, my friend asked me what I was thinking about. I told him provocatively, but truethfully that I was thinking about what I would do when I die. He was surprised. People do not like to hear and talk about death. They obviously do not want to understand, they start to talk about something else and they go back to their booze. I invited him to a meeting at the YMCA. He refused it was under and below him and his friends. But after some time Steve came. It was after he had a serious health crisis that forced him to go to a doctor. He went to the doctor first and then to me. It’s always like that. Until you get to the bottom, it’s not possible to help you, because you refuse help. Steve touched rock bottom, when he discovered that really nothing in his life functioned and nothing helped. But he was brave enough to admit it to himself and others; he was brave enough to tell the truth! The truth is the key to the rescue. After two years Steve was babtised at a Prague International Babtist Church, where he found people that looked after him and where he put himself in Christ’s hands.

That was a story of one of my lost sheep. Jesus found Steve thousands of kilometers from his home. For Jesus no kilometers or addiction to alcohol, drugs, slot machines or sex are a problem. The only border is the proud, false and too confident human heart. Like God saved Steve and me he can save anybody else. Anybody who is drowning in the blues feelings, of second-rate dissillusionment, emptiness and hopelessness. Everyone that can not deal with their feelings of guilt.

In the song Stranger blues I sing about a stranger that arrives in town and all the locals are suspicious of him, they treat him badly, but this stranger says: Be aware, I can be your friend or even an angel. For me it was the man from the Universtiy club, sent to me by God that was my angel. For Steve it may have been me and for you it can be anybody, somebody that gives you a helping hand, who shows you the real freedom in Jesus Christ. Maybe even you will be an angel for

somebody else…

   Now  History  Gig guide  Ramblin's Blues  Sound bytes    Gallery   Order form and contact    Return to front page