In 1937, on a stifling, hot June day in Dallas, in an upstairs warehouse over a Buick dealership, with fans blowing over ice to cool things down, Johnson recorded his song just before Zeke Williams and his Ramblin' Cowboys. And my road seems dark as night. I have pains in my heart, They have taken my appetite. In 1937, to hear the poetry of the blues, you needn't travel, or engage in any way the community that had, for generations, nurtured that unique form of Southern music. Also, perhaps privacy, which may be the one entirely new challenge of new technology.
Technology makes some things easier, and others harder.
It moves some art forms across the landscape with lightning speed, and stops some dead in their tracks. Some art forms and artists slide smoothly into a new vehicle of communication, while others are left in the dust. Some embrace the possibilities of a new path and push the notion of what is reality and what is virtual to the very edge. Others hold back and become obsolete. Progress is not without pain.