Play Somethin Perty, Sweet

I spose its about time for a good yarn today.  Some folks consider a yarn to be a tall tale or a made up story.  Well sir, I gots plenty yarn to spin from the onest to goodness true storytellin of my youth.  Lord, I remembers things what would make your hair curl up like Shirley Temple.  I has seen and dunn more in my years than most folks dreams of.  Some I kin repeat and some I spose I best not.  

I recollect I spent some time in Chicago in the early 20s after hoppin trains for a spell.  I took to checkin out the local clubs and speak-easies at night as I had a hankerin for music and a tolerable likin for mash.  I weren't no great shakes as a musician but sometimes theys would let me sit in with the band.  I took a real shine to them fellers and we shore had a fine ol time.  One of them fellers went by the name a Olly.   Olly played horn and I played a tolerable guitar.  Ever once in a while Ol Olly would pull that horn down from his lips, look over at me and say, play somethin perty, Sweet.

Ol Olly and me, we would paint the town when we weren't musican.  We didn't go alookin for trouble you know, but it seem like it sure enuff could find us perty frequent.  That feller were a fine friend and he pulled me out of a scrape or two whiles we was livin on the south side.  I spent nearly three year in Chicago and us two fellers played more music and drank more mash than mos folks does in a lifetime.  When I left town, Ol Olly and me tried to keep in touch for a while but ventually, the letters and Christmas cards quit comin. 
Then one day in 1958 I gets a letter.  This young lady says would I be the B B Sweet what used to play guitar in a place call the Red Diamond in Chicago.  She say her daddy is Oliver Young and is not well.  She tell me that he ask to see me.  Well, I went straight down to that train station and hitched a ride for Chicago the next day.  I spent two weeks with Ol Olly, rememberin and talkin bout the good ol days.  Them last couple days, Olly couldn't talk much no more, but he sit and listen to me go on bout the old days and ever once in a while he would smile.  The last words I hear Ol Olly say were - play somethin perty, Sweet.


Remember folks, tis sweet to remember what was hard to endure.