#5 bar

Having pored over these catalogs before, I’m used to having to dig for a twelve-bar that is not “Roadhouse Blues.” This particular catalog is no different, although I rate the finds as unconventional, bordering even on decent – a Jimmy Reed cover (by Elvis), an eight-bar (“Sporting Life Blues”), and a jump-blues title track from a movie that no one within a twenty-block radius of K-town has ever seen (again, Elvis).

I take a quick glance around the room. “Sporting Life” is definitely out. The two Elvis tunes, also out: too obscure. I figure the closest the people in this room have come to an “Elvis” moment, if at all, was Robin Zander in 1988…

Nineteen eighty-eight. 

I flip back a few pages in the catalog, punch in 2-0-4-7-1 into the remote, and wait. Several minutes later, I hear Scotty Moore’s intro riff coming through the speakers.

“Uh, who picked this one? Anyone?”