I Can Hear the Blues.
Since I was a child, I had a vague feeling that my taste in music was different from everyone else's.
This was because I never felt moved by the popular music or the songs that everyone else loved. But I thought I would be seen as a strange kid if I said that, so I just put on a face that said, "Yeah, it's good, isn't it?"
In junior high school, I got hooked on the Beatles. From there, I started listening to older music.
In high school, I listened to the Rolling Stones and my heart soared. I wondered, "Wait, could this be what I really like?"
I loved RC Succession. When I traced the roots of the music they liked, I arrived at R&B. Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke. I fell in love with them.
While I was in that state, I became friends with a music geek who introduced me to Ukadan. That was truly the blues.
That friend introduced me to Shigeru Izumiya. The Izumiya-san of that time was playing incredible rock music, and he was cool. Once I started going to live shows, there was a time (maybe around 1992?) when I saw "Masaki Ueda and South to South" reunite for the first time in 17 years at the Kyoto University Seibu Kodo, and from there I became completely immersed in 1970s Japanese bluesmen. I started going to live houses in Kyoto and Osaka every week.
When I traced their roots, it was definitely the BLUES, and I listened to it obsessively. B.B. King, Junior Wells, Otis Rush... I met countless bluesmen. I felt like I had finally found music that truly reached my soul.
I was happy, but I was lonely. I wanted to share these feelings with someone. I wanted to listen to music while saying, "This is great, this is great," to each other. If I had played music myself, maybe I could have made friends like that, but no matter what instrument I tried, I couldn't keep it up.
I left home at 26 to live alone. Past 30, with no marriage plans. Just as I was thinking that I had to find a way to survive on my own as a writer, I happened to find a blog by searching for "blues." The title was "Everyday I have the blues."
As I read on with a pounding heart, the first words that jumped out at me were these: "Muddy Waters," "Bar," "Kenzaburo Oe's 'A Personal Matter'."
I thought, "Who is this person?" This person also loves the BLUES, alcohol, and literature that I love so much. That came across in the writing. And it was the writing style I liked, too. The rhythm was incredibly comfortable. On top of that, they worked as a copywriter and played in a blues band as a hobby!
Excited, I couldn't help but leave a comment on the blog. While writing it, I thought, "How wonderful it would be if I could meet someone like this in the real world." Of course, it wasn't a romantic feeling. I thought about how fun it would be to drink together while talking to my heart's content about books and the BLUES. I even thought we might be able to go to live shows together.
If that happened, I wouldn't be lonely anymore.
Just two years later, I never imagined back then that I would be on my honeymoon with that person from the blog, going to the "Chicago Blues Festival," which had been a dream of mine for so long.
In life, you never know what will happen. That's why it's interesting.