…Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air…

…I saw again the other day a You Tube clip about Joshua Bell, one of the best concert violinists in the world, who played like a busker, for free, for 45 minutes, on a Stradivarius violin worth 3.5 million dollars at a subway station in Washington… over a thousand people passed by Bell, but only seven stopped to listen him play, including a 3-year old boy, and only one person put a dollar bill in his violin case, lying open at his feet… it brings home the truth that so frequently extraordinary beauty appearing in ordinary surroundings is more often as not overlooked… I recall many years ago, when I lived and worked in Manila in the Philippines, a country blessed with tremendous singing and musical talent, listening to an impromptu performance by a young man in a bar in the city… he was a part time bartender in the place, but the resident band asked him come and ‘guest’ with them for a couple of numbers… he strapped on an electric guitar and proceeded to render one of the most spine-tingling versions of blues music I’ve ever been privileged to hear… the guy sang with his heart and soul wrapped into the moment… the entire bar crowd stopped to listen, enthralled… I later learned he was self-taught, and lived in one of the squatter areas near the dockside of Tondo in the city… I never saw or heard of him again, and often wonder if his talent was ever again recognized and appreciated… or has his light gone unnoticed since that episode back then?…  anyway, here’s some Buddy Guy to enjoy in the same vein…

…and he IS acknowledged as a one of the greatest blues and soul musicians… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!

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