Leaning back, balancing an office chair
at the far end of House 74,
listening to Michael Luke Francis;
his guitar a six-string rodeo
leaving me immersed, elevated, purified;
lifted unto the loftiest versions of myself;
Luke howlin' Backwater Blues,
driving his acoustic guitar bottleneck style,
like was it a beloved woman, seduced
and seduced again; Backwater Blues,
his voice a maximum dosage of persuasion,
”good to the last drop, just like Maxwell House coffee”

Him in his, perhaps, next to last house

It's autumn 1967 in Uppsala,
and he disappeared sometime in 1978

Backwater Blues!

I worked for these recordings,
traveling around Sweden
to limited people
who kept reel-to-reels
from way-back-when,
which I transferred
to the digital domain
in old, spacious houses,
with the aged, sick
and soon-to-be dead people
who had run into Luke
in late 1960s and early to middle 1970s
and had him sit in front of their microphones
in their earlier houses

I'm full of these treasures,
and sympathies
that won't leave me alone,
for this man with a growl
and a guitar with the force of driving rain

https://soundcloud.com/user-782001904-315487351/luke-francis-in-uppsala-sweden-1967