Leaning back, balancing an office chair

at the far end of House 74,

listening to Michael Luke Francis;

his guitar a six-string rodeo

leaving me immersed, elevated, purified;

lifted unto the loftiest versions of myself;

Luke howlin' Backwater Blues,

driving his acoustic guitar bottleneck style,

like was it a beloved woman, seduced

and seduced again; Backwater Blues,

his voice a maximum dosage of persuasion,

”good to the last drop, just like Maxwell House coffee”

Him in his, perhaps, next to last house

It's autumn 1967 in Uppsala,

and he disappeared sometime in 1978

Backwater Blues!

I worked for these recordings,

traveling around Sweden

to limited people

who kept reel-to-reels

from way-back-when,

which I transferred

to the digital domain

in old, spacious houses,

with the aged, sick

and soon-to-be dead people

who had run into Luke

in late 1960s and early to middle 1970s

and had him sit in front of their microphones

in their earlier houses

I'm full of these treasures,

and sympathies

that won't leave me alone,

for this man with a growl

and a guitar with the force of driving rain

https://soundcloud.com/user-782001904-315487351/luke-francis-in-uppsala-sweden-1967