Houston Music Blog

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I.J. Gosey

​For the past few weeks, local blues scholar and Down In Houston author Dr. Roger Wood has been interviewing several of Houston's leading blues musicians about their experiences in "The Soul of Houston Blues Stories." For Wednesday's concluding program, a conversation with I.J. Gosey and Diunna Greenleaf about spirituality and the blues, we can't imagine a better location than Museum District metaphysical redoubt The Jung Center.

Rocks Off reached out to Dr. Wood Tuesday and got him to tell us a little more about Wednesday's program.

"The program will include a brief intro lecture in which I will trace some of the connections between the old songs called spirituals and the blues, including the evolution from spirituals to gospel music," he says. "My two guests will join me for the heart of the program.

"We will discuss, among other things, their personal experiences as music performers who got started in the context of in the church-house but eventually migrated to the blues stage. We will also talk about the concept of music - in general, but particularly gospel and blues - as medicine for the soul.

"And especially through I.J. Gosey's personal history, [we will] trace the phenomenon of long-standing weekly blues gatherings that are, in many respects, analogous to going to church.

"The series has gone very well," adds Dr. Wood. "The first week my guest was Texas Johnny Brown, and we talked mainly about improvisation in relation to creativity, as well as the emergence of the electric guitar as the dominant instrument in blues and in so much popular music.

"The second week the theme focused on gender, particularly the experience of women in the blues past and present, and my guest was Trudy Lynn."

7:30 p.m. tonight, The Jung Center, 5200 Montrose (near Bissonnet). Free.