6 years ago, sometime around October of 2005, there was a show that happened at the Sidecar Pub in Houston. Stoney LaRue and Bleu Edmondson were playing an acoustic songswap, which resulted in some of the most moving stories that I’ve ever heard come out of any show. There was something spiritual in the air that night that changed the course of just about every person in that show. I know this because it’s taken me 6 years to find and talk to everyone that was there to hear their stories.
That show was a marker in time that most people reference like a wedding date or birth of a child. There were people at that show from out of state that moved cross-country, to Texas, because of what happened there. Some people found a new love for music they thought was dead and gone… and some made a career change to become musicians, right there in that room. Story after story has filled my ears about that night and they are all incredible.
In 6 years I’ve never told anyone what I’ve taken away from that show, but tonight as I listened to the bootleg audio, I thought it was time to reveal a little about my story. That night I learned how music can hit you square in the face and not allow you to lie to yourself. It peels back the layers until it’s just you, the song and the truth. No wiggle room and no putting on false faces.
If Bleu Edmondson would have been to afraid to cover one of his heroes, Bruce Springsteen, I don’t know where I’d be. Bleu covered Highway Patrolman off the Nebraska album and it spoke right to my soul. In a single moments time I had set myself on a journey I’m still on today with music… with my life… with my family.
If you have family… Trust me, you want to hear this song. – Bleu Edmondson
This song has become one of my favorite songs on the planet and while I love Bruce’s true original, it’s Bleu’s version that I go to most often. So for me, that night was about discovering what music can do when it connects to you in a very real way… a way that no written words can, or should, ever be able to convey.
So, enjoy the song.
“Highway Patrolman” performed by Bleu Edmondson
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P.S. – I’m not posting the lyrics like I usually do because I think you just need to listen to it.