Playin' the blues ain't like dustin' crops, kid (OK, enough Star Wars references - Ed) ... Tallan 'T-Man' Latz. Photograph: Morry Gash/AP
The strange case of censured eight-year-old blues prodigy Tallan Latz raises all kinds of questions. The Wisconsin wunderkind has found himself the victim of an anonymous smear campaign from local authorities and - most likely - a bunch of vengeful grown-up musos who reckon the blues is no suitable pastime for an eight-year-old. They may have a point. But I'm more concerned about how it's even possible. Apparently, even cowgirls get the blues. Can the same be said of children?
Last week, BBC1's The Making Of Me saw former hot-panted teenage violin virtuoso Vanessa Mae go on a journey of self-discovery, trying to define whether her prodigious talent was a result of innate talent or her nightmarish, oppressive mother. She came to a suitably vague conclusion. But this doesn't seem to be about innate talent or child labour. This is about the blues itself.
Wikipedia defines blues as emerging from "an accessible form of self-expression in African-American communities in the United States from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants and rhymed simple narrative ballads."
The altogether funkier UrbanDictionary reckons that "Robert Johnson is The Father; Muddy Waters is The Son; Jimi Hendrix is The Holy Spirit - This is the Holy Trinity of The Blues." But for the connotations that most of us would associate with the blues, we'd go with the sixth definition they list.
Blues might be a technical term, a music originating from Africa, feeding into the genesis of what we know as rock'n'roll. But when we think of the blues (and indeed, when we play, sing, cry or drink to it), we're thinking of a gruff and grizzled subculture, hard won by the trauma of poverty, hardship, plain bad luck or being done wrong by a woman.
So is it even possible for an eight year old to catch the blues? Tallan's precociously talented for sure, and he seems to have a suitably old soul. He might say he enjoys playing the guitar because it "puts smiles on people's faces," but the kid certainly has the chat down. "Because I got more inspiration, I got more sadness in me," he says. "I'm just feelin' it."
So why are the likes of Jennifer Ortiz (Wisconsin Equal Rights Division's spokesperson, who's worried about child labour) and the ageing bluesmen so desperate to keep Tallan from playing his blues? Genuine concern for child welfare? Professional jealousy? Or an altogether darker fear of the secret and mysterious blues serum being leaked to those who cannot understand its true nature?
Is young Tallan meddling with forces he can't yet hope to understand?
(If you want to hear something really troubling, check out Dead Baby Blues by Washington 10-year-old The Human Skab. Yikes.)
