University of Virginia Library

Cooder Solos

It was only when Cooder soloed
several times, including a fine
number on bottleneck guitar, that
the music was really listenable. (An
additional comment: it is a sad
state (no particular fault of Cooder)
that audiences today get their blues
mostly secondhand from young
whiles, rather than from the
original black artists, many of
whom rarely get a chance to
perform.)

Following Cooder, the Magic
Band came on. The group consisted
of Ed Marimba (formerly Art Tripp
with the Mothers) on marimbas and
drums, who for this show was
wearing a bathrobe, monocle, and
wide-brimmed golf hat; The
Mascara Snake on drums; Zoot
Horn Rollo on guitar, wearing

orange-red plaid pants and hair
down to the middle button of his
dress coat; Rockette Morton on a
double-necked bassius-o-phellius;
and Winged-EelFingerling on guitar.
The band opened the set with a
long and overwhelming
instrumental, which, lacking any
such elements as melody, chords, or
counterpoint, seemed to take the
form of a widening gyro.