I found Soul, but Blues made me blue

I took part in a long stretch of Damon Stone Blues Dancing workshops today in London. It is great that the scene is thriving and that lots of dancers are so committed to spreading the Blues Love!

While this genre definitely has its place and can occasionally feel velvety and yummy, on the whole I really went off it. The music in the classes very quickly started to get me down, particularly the depressing and plodding noise of a track that our teacher played not once, not twice, but about ten times back-to-back. Quite frankly, I would have derived more joy from pulling out my own teeth than moving to this, particularly when the horrible hiccups kick in at about 1:10 into the song. Here are the lyrics:

I went down to St. James Infirmary,
Saw my baby there,
Set down on a long white table,
So sweet, so cold, so fair.
Let her go, let her go, God bless her,
Wherever she may be,
She can look this wide world over,
She'll never find a sweet man like me.

God only knows why he didn’t consider that it might actually inspire us more to hear something fresh, particularly after standing, sitting and shuffling through too much teacher-chat and pointless questions or 'funny' remarks from the same two people. Mix it up a bit, for goodness sake! Teachers really should be better at noticing when they’ve 'lost' half the class. It steadily sucked the pleasure out of my dancing. Not good.

What was quite a different kettle of fish, however, was that I discovered my passion for Soul and Funk this weekend. Hats off to the evening DJs. The music seems to speak to me and elicit some really deep-seated joyful responses which burst into sunshine in my tummy and which translate into my movements. Etta James' Hound Dog is one to seek out. I love dancing Solo Soul. You can't fake it. This is unquestionably what I will be doing a whole lot more of.