Tom Russell Band - Blue Wing

The story of Blue Wing is one of master singer/songwriter Tom Russell's greatest achievements. Blue Wing is a fictional down and out fisherman, drinking his way through life, and for a spell sharing a cell with the (real life) blues singer Little Willie John in the Washington State Penitentiary in the town of Walla Walla. Little Willie John eventually died there, but Blue Wing is released and goes on to ruin his life further. In the cell they shared however, Wing and Willie write a song about prison life. It's a sad and at the same time beautiful story where the two men both die. But the story ends at Blue Wing's funeral, where in the coffin he metaphorically wakes back to life, singing the final chorus: "He said, it's dark in here...". This is storytelling at its very best, lifted from Tom Russell Band's second album, 1989's excellent Poor Man's Dream.

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