Day 5 - $5 Ford
{Twofer} On this day in 1914 Henry Ford introduced $5 per day wages to all his Ford Workers. Play a record you picked up for $5 OR play something featuring somebody named Ford.
Here's a record by T-Model Ford. I didn't pay $5 for this record but I've bought a few $5 drinks for T-Model. I reckon that's a fair tradeoff.
I met T-Model later in his career (he started playing at age 57) and we hit it off. He'd let me record his shows when he came thru town and I'd buy him drinks and hang on every word he said. He was a blast - funny, kind, humble, genuine.
T-Model played his last show 9 months before he checked out - a true bluesman til the end. His birth dates are sketchy, but it appears he was somewhere between 90 and 94 years old.
T-Model never learned to read or write, and that makes this signed handbill one of my most treasured musical possessions. Watching T-Model sign his name was borderline excruciating. Think of it this way - you're asked to draw a picture of a rooster. You'd do it very deliberately, methodically, pulling the image of a rooster from your memory and translating that to paper. That's how T-Model signed his name, - he was thinking about what his name looked like and drawing a picture.
Damn, I miss that guy...
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T-Model Ford - Pee-Wee Get My Gun
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T-Model is featured in this outstanding documentary along with RL Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and Cedell Davis. They're all gone. Their bad-ass music will live forever. The movie kicks off with T-Model firing up an amp in his overgrown yard, sitting down on top of an old console TV set and hitting the note.
I can't recommend this film enough...
