Taxman Cometh

Tax time, ain’t nothin’ but a mess
Payin’ Uncle Sam more an’ I’m gettin’ less
Now The po’ stay po’ and the rich stay rich
An’ I’m right here in the middle
ain’t that a…..!

Barely gettin’ by, makes me mean
‘Cause the politicians I’m payin’, are livin’ real clean
Step down Mister Politician, and live like I do
I want you to know, the workin’ man blues

from “Cash Talkin’ (The Working Man Blues) by Albert Collins

Yeah, I spent most of the day on my taxes. I tried every angle, schedule C, schedule A, doesn’t matter, works out about the same whatever I do. I always over pay the state which offsets what I pay the feds. I like to get it out of the way early.

Albert Collins, he was one of a kind, go listen to him. They called him “The Iceman” because of his crystalline Tele tone. He had a big instrumental hit in the late fifties, “Frosty”. He tuned to an Fminor chord and used a capo. I’ve seen Jimmie Vaughan doing this shtick and sound close to Albert, but nobody else really captures it.

Guys used to work really hard on coming up with their own style rather than playing fast or flashy. Albert Collins, Albert King, B.B. King, none of them play fast but you hear two notes and Boom, you know who it is. Those three guys don’t even hardly play chords,mostly single notes that are as unique as a human voice.

I met Peter Case (great singer/songwriter/guitarist) one night a couple of years ago and he told me a story about meeting Willie Dixon. I’m going to paraphrase but, Willie told him, “You gotta have your own style and you’re style should be named after your name, like Bo Diddley, and your best song should be named after your style, like Bo Diddley by Bo Diddley in the Bo Diddley style”.

It makes a lot of sense when you think about it.