:I've seen Musselwhite twice in the past 6 months. He was nothing but the :professional musician and refused to have ANYTHING to drink from the bar :when he was here in Bloomington. If the demon had him once too bad, but I'm :not too sure I'd support that as a reason for a poor SOUNDING performance on :the Letterman show.
I felt compelled to follow up on this thread. Charlie, as he freely admits, is a recovering alcoholic that hasn't touched a drink since the Jessica McClure(sp) thing.(A real moving story if you haven't heard it.) I admit I missed the Letterman performance, so I can't comment on it, but I would suspect his playing that night lies in the ear of the beholder. Since his playing varies from pure raw Delta style harpin' to the stuff he did on the INXS(or whatever their name is, I'm not a rocker and didn't like it) release, I think that he was probably just playing along with the band. As a blues purist, it would be very difficult for me to sit in with bands that stray that far away from my own style, so I applaude him for being able to do that, whether any of us like what it sounded like or not.