well i i'm so glad you you brought that up because that's that's kind of the direction i want to explore with you is is there is that visceral experience that energy exchange that something live will give you And as a writer, how

do you create that or can you? I mean, it's something I'm always trying to figure out a better way of doing.

So I can't say, well, this is what I do.

It's worked.

I'm going to keep doing it like this.

But, you know, obviously if I'm going there and I know I'm going to be writing about this performance, I'll take notes.

And if I'm going just to go, I won't take notes because I'm not going to work for many concerts, but yeah, I mean, um, you know, if there's joy, if there's anger, if there's happiness, if there's, you know, what's this, you know, communication between, you know, are these, you know, songs that are, you know, meaningful, um, or not meaningful.

When you were writing in this field, that aspect with the deadline, what kind of deadline are we

But still, this is a very... a type of music that just comes out of the earth here,

it seems.

Eddie Thomas, also for those who don't know, Eddie was probably best known as Curtis Mayfield's manager, business manager.

Curtown Records was a combination of Curtis and Eddie Thomas.

That's how Eddie Thomas was most known in terms of Chicago soul music.

He also had his own label.

and um also another eddie tom i'll get for your question in a sec but no yeah because i just love talking about it yeah no it's great it's a wonderful wonderful guy and um you know hi if to his uh berlin berlin thomas's widow um but eddie thomas was also um when uh robert stig wanted to promote the soundtrack to saturday night fever and eddie thomas was his point man because uh the stigwood didn't think that he would get it played on black radio so eddie thomas was you know his entree into that world of course sarah knight fever was so huge that right it just blew up but anyway he had to when i go to his home there would be the platinum record that they gave him in honor of his promotional efforts on behalf of starry night fevers it's another eddie thomas thing i want to just mention that because i could talk a lot about eddie thomas But to answer your question, I think one of the things that came through throughout my talking to the musicians, who are mostly African American, but not all, not all, and a sense of striving for some kind of empowerment.

Now, here's where you actually have to work with the guy,