How could there be anything but the hard blues for us in this fallen world, this vale of tears? Julius Hemphill Trio -- September 11, 1977 in Los Angeles -- Alex Cline, drums; Baikida EJ Carroll, trumpet ---- photo by Mark Weber -------- When the Lp COON BID'NESS (Arista, 1975) hit the streets it knocked us for a loop, it was Hemphill's first album, and contains one entire side of &quot;The Hard Blues,&quot; a giant snarling, whiplash of a blues driving along in an old pickup truck with one flat tire, jolting, spitting, wailing, a blues of disaffection and pity, pitiful, pitiless, a stomping pastiche of roadhouse dishonor, the southwest blues down to the core, nasty, salty, unredeemed. Our beloved blues, it fit the times, maybe still does, the dignity of the blues, honest and forthwith, we'll be giving it a spin, the same Lp I've had since 1975, however many years that is? It's one of those records I can hear in my head, having listen'd to it so much back then, like a west Texas sirocco, it's always in your ear.