Rock-tober 21, 2017

My late father in law had a substantial collection of tobacco pipes, many of which were gifts to him from his students. I can imagine him puffing on a well worn Dagner while giving his lecture (back when smoking in the classroom was still allowed). He'd punctuate each salient point by jabbing the chalk into the board with one hand and with his pipe hand, make bold, gesticulating smoke trailed images in the air.  Nowhere nearly as acrid as cigarette or cigar smoke, the room note left behind by his favorite tobaccos, Carter Hall and Flying Dutchman, would be as fitting in a lecture hall as well worn leather chairs and the mild, earthy mustiness of old science and biology tomes.

Pipes and certain vocations just go together. Bespectacled college professor is the obvious one, as my late father-in-law demonstrated. A novelist is another. Hemingway, Twain, and Tolkien were well known to be pipe smokers and were easily pictured to be scribbling away at a manuscript, pipe dangling from their mouth. Pipe smokers can be found in the music world, also.

However, only certain acts can pull off a pipe. Clenching a pipe in your teeth while running around the stage would be very difficult. With the possible exception of Bing Crosby, vocalists, would have trouble belting out lyrics and keeping an ember going. Or, you could be Stevie Ray Vaughn who didn't make a habit of prancing around on stage and, for the most part, let his guitar do most of the talking. When a pipe smoking forum was asked who their favorite piper/rocker was, SRV was the overwhelming response.

Vaughn was a major influence in his native state of Texas, winning ten Austin Music awards and induction into the Austin Music Hall of Fame. He also picked up five W. C. Handy awards for his blues influence, six Grammys, and posthumous induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In his relatively short career, he cast a long shadow. Upon hearing of his death, the great John Lee Hooker said, "I never cry, but yesterday, when I heard the news about Stevie’s death, I sat down on my bed and cried like a little baby."