Shut Up & Listen 2024: Mike Munson

“I got to keep moving’

Blues fallen’ down like hail

and the days keeps on worryin’ me

There’s a hellhound on my trail” - Robert Johnson

We arrive at a storm-whipped Isanti Spirits.

The threat of more violence in the air

and on the ground.

The chickens are unflapped by this

and I see their point of view.

It’s still a beautiful world.

I find Mike Munson setting up in the little cocktail lounge.

The belligerent weather has kept most people away

so Owner Rick Schneider warms up us die hards

for Mike Munson to dazzle us with Bentonia blues

He’s been mentored by the great bluesman Jimmy ”Duck” Holmes

which is akin to learning piano from Mozart.

Bentonia lies on the edge the Mississippi Delta

but Bentonia Blues isn’t Delta blues.

So Robert Johnson’s “Stones In My Passway” becomes

a minor-keyed suspenseful dirty slow burn.

Munson’s voice has a soothing breezy thing.

His guitar has a sneaky stabby thing.

Makes you sway your heavy heart

and lean into feelings generally avoided

because to hear them is a comfort.

After holding the room transfixed

he grumps about a guitar missing some dot markers, and claims that

“any guitarist who says they don’t look at the dots is a goddamned liar!”

“I feel the frets. I feel the FRETS!” Evie retorts. Hillarity ensues.

She of the all hearing inner eye.

Mike thanks her for keeping him accountable

and plays Blind Willie Johnson just for her

followed by Rose Hill, a beautiful instrumental

named after the road his mentor’s mentor lived on

before finishing with a songs by this grandmentor, bluesman Jack Owens

Later we again saw how inconvenient a storm can be on

the road home