Life Of An Artist

Here I am on my last day in Natchez. We’ve had the benefit of hot muggy days punctuated by thunder and lightning storms most afternoons. This circumstance has made me a little bit reluctant to get out and set up my equipment for outdoor “on location” recording sessions, so I finally set something up indoors. The result of two days of piddling around and performing dozens of versions of this song: Way Down In The Hole by Tom Waits. There are still possibly a few usable versions “in the can”; but I like this one, the last of four videos I did while in Natchez. I hope to soon finish a short one based on a motorboat trip to the secret backwaters of Bayou Lacombe in Louisiana.

Since I arrived here in Natchez I’ve been learning a lot of new things about the area. A great discovery has been this wildlife refuge, and another has been the history of the original Natchez people who made their home along what we now call St. Catherine Creek. The Natchez were in the area a long, long time into prehistory. and were the last of the mound building people. There are quite a few earthen mounds around but the most spectacular is the Emerald Mound along the Natchez Trace.
Anyway non of this has much to do with this video, except that some of the old stomping grounds of those people must have been at least a little bit like this. The Natchez were pretty much completely killed in wars with the French and those who were not killed were assimilated into other groups such as the Chickasaw and the Creek, who themselves were removed in the “trail of tears” to Oklahoma.