It was just what I needed. Exhausted from creating and hosting the First Annual Anti-Communist Film Festival, I saw a live music notice. Robert Lighthouse, a Swedish blues singer, was playing at Hank Dietle’s tavern, a juke joint in Maryland. Dietle’s was described by writer Eddie Dean: “The bar is a dimly lit, one-room, linoleum-floored clubhouse with dark wood-paneled walls cheered by strings of low-watt holiday bulbs. The feel is midcentury rec-room deluxe, a cozy time capsule from the era when Elvis dwelt among us.”
Perfect. A dude from Sweden with a guitar singing Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson and R.L. Burnside. I was feeling vulnerable, but not in a bad or desperate way. I’d put a huge amount of work into the film festival, managing licensing, promotional material and blog posts, and staying in a cheap and scary old hotel because I wasn’t being paid. I needed some soul and TLC. Music that was gentle in a place full of people who are the same. There was too much rage online, too many hysterical leftists and too many people on the right ranting about Jews and calling for televised public executions. I needed the restorative humanity blues.
I arrived early for Lighthouse’s five p.m. set. When Lighthouse, a skinny and handsome man in his 60s, appeared at the front door, I offered to help with his gear. “Sure,” he said with a smile. “There’s an amp in the back seat of my car.” I brought it in. I’d been familiar with Hank Dietle’s, built in 1950, from the time I was in high school in the 1980s.
Lighthouse’s set was wonderful, with songs by Blind Willie Johnson, Memphis Minnie, R.L Burnside, Dylan and the highlight, James Brown’s “This is a Man’s World.” Lighthouse’s Swedish accent worked in his favor, making him sound original—and vulnerable. He was funny, joking about how his left-leaning song “If I Were President” went over differently the further South he went.
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