Who is LW?

It is a week since I blogged. Sharmila took ill. And I just didn’t feel like it.

Several days ago friends had come over from work. Lindsay insisted that I play Blues for LW. Actually, the philistine said, “Play that McLaughlin track with the vocals on it!” :-) He likes the tabla bols that are exchanged among McLaughlin, Trilok Gurtu and Kai Eckhardt.

But then he more than made up for it later on by playing us assorted tracks from that damned wallet of his. And yes, giving us a break dance demo at 3 am.

Next morning Kay Kay asked me a question? Who is this LW on Blues for LW? It is good to have a musical dud like him around. None of us self-declared music enthusiasts knew the answer.

So I promised Kay Kay that the answer would be in my next post. And it is.

It is… Lech Walesa.

Yes Kay Kay, Lech Walesa, the Nobel Prize winning Polish Solidarity leader.

Remember the introduction to the track on the Live at the Royal Festival Hall album? McLaughlin mumbles something.

So I slipped the CD in and turned up the volume to as loud as my giant stereo can go. And there was the answer flowing from the tower speakers. Here’s a transcript of what I could catch…

‘We are gonna play a special kind of blues that was written a few years ago (for a man named?) Lech Walesa (the man that they’ve put in jail?). And very nice to see things are going his way. We are all very happy for him. (More Recognition?). More Power. And this was written at the time (???) and it is called Blues for LW’

I was thrilled and saddened at once.

Saddened because I must have listened to this track about say 50 times, ever since 1989, I guess, yet I was never curious enough to find out who LW was.

But human, that I am, I began looking for excuses. Here’s one…

I missed the reference to Lech Walesa because I rarely listen to CDs at their correct volume.

Sharmila and I always argue when it comes to deciding on the volume of music. She keeps it at a level where human chatter can be heard over the music. I play it, or should I say would like to play it, at a volume where all human chatter and ambient sounds are drowned.

I think we owe that high volume to the great musicians. We owe it to them that when we listen to them playing we do not listen to anything else. Give me a break; we are talking about gods like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, McLaughlin…

But Sharmila is quite sure that I am going deaf. And that often I am not able to register what people are saying because of that :(

Maybe she’s right!

Also, I found this guy’s post on an online group for Pat Metheny listeners. He calls himself shiveringgoat and says, “I have all McLaughlins (sic) albums, 'Live at the Festival Hall' is special for me as I was there (Its (sic) me that goes WOO! when he mentions Lech Walesa)...”

Now can you believe that!

Incidentally, the full name of the classic album is Live at the Royal Festival Hall, November 27, 1989. In 1989, Walesa had become the third man to address the joint session of the United States Congress. The previous two were Marquis de Lafayette and Winston Churchill.