History Behind New Blue Mexico

Over twenty years ago now, I wrote a song called "Tragedy of the Commons". It's on my Mad Buffalo 'A Good Bad Road' album. The song is really my take on a paper Garrett Hardin did in the late 60's, which basically said that a region—a valley, a forest, a prairie—that has some resource needed by a group of people with a common goal of using that resource to make a living, can be overrun by a single community member. One with perhaps lots of money, political influence, greed, who rises up and takes over that resource. He buys more cattle and ultimately forces everyone else who can't keep up—small farmers and ranchers, families, communities … businesses supporting the community—off the land. Since everyone has individual freedom they are free to do that. Then, it's like "you can't play poker with someone who has all the chips and there's no betting limit".

That's what happened in much of New Mexico in the mid to late 1800's. A few wealthy people with profound political influence and outright greed ran-in a countless number of cattle and ended up forcing most people who were just scratching for a living there out. Through corrupt lawyers, corrupt judges, corrupt politicians. Violence. They were called The Santa Fe Ring and they 'legally' stole millions of acres of land from Spanish people who lived and worked that land for over 200 years, small ranchers and farmers, and Native Americans. The Ring was too big and too powerful to be challenged in any way.

This situation was not unique to New Mexico of course. It spread throughout the southwest and to what quickly became Los Angeles. A town growing rapidly (great weather!) that needed water. Lots of it. Ambitious souls who wanted to build cities, farm vast amounts of land … other interests be damned. Without water there was no chance of being successful doing that. So the power brokers of past and present basically grabbed water far and wide, from a mind numbing chunk of the entire west. 1300 dams in California, the near complete draining of the Owens valley on the east side of the Sierra Mountains.

Almost all the water in the vast Colorado River. Most of the Southwest, much of California. Los Angeles is a desert. Evaporation exceeds rainfall. So … if you want to develop these lands, you gotta have water. Water that runs uphill to money out here. See "Chinatown". Read "Cadillac Desert" and most everything Edward Abbey wrote.

Now, all of this is a fairly strong undertow with New Blue Mexico. But, I think like everything else I've ever tried to do, it's imbedded in great music. Blues? Lots of people seem to think so. Some don't, and God bless them.

My song "Big on a Bender" from my last album Farmhand Blues, has been on the iconic B.B. King's XM Bluesville station going on ten months. Bender has been in the top ten there for much of that time, reaching the #1 slot several times. The tune was on Bluesville's renowned program 'Rack of Blues' for 23 weeks. At present the song has received around 420 spins. The record has been high on the Roots Music Network charts for nearly a year.

So … I don't know. Nor do I really care what people call my music. It's all just music to me. But I like the blues world. I love lots of the DJ's who work out of their garages, for no money, spinning the music they love. I'm thrilled that many of these folks dig my music. I have no apologies to people that don't. It is what it is.

By no means does this music mirror the iconic Delta or Chicago Blues and the like … well, maybe some of it does. But I call what I do 'Western Blues'. In New Mexico, the gateway to the Wild West, a blue pall settled over it like a thick fog … just like it did in most of the rest of the west and beyond. Greed rose up to crush too much of this beautiful country of ours.