Tag Archives: blues

The Time the King Anointed J.C.

Rolf Cahn narrates his blues fable telling the story of Texas bluesman Lightning Hopkins’ session with a San Francisco street musician, J. C. Burse. The program was broadcast at Pacifica Radio stations KPFA, KPFK, and WBAI in 1964. It includes three blues by Lightning and four by J.C.

Rolf did many folk, blues, and flamenco shows on KPFA in the early 60s, as well as a live series from his Berkeley club, The Cabal. I was his producer for most of this time.

You can read of Rolf’s journey from his family’s flight from Nazi Germany through his death in Santa Fe in 1994 at: http://folk.uio.no/alfs/rolf.html.

His family maintains a Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/ROLF-CAHN-HIS-LIFE-AND-MUSIC/318756167982

I wrote this poem for Rolf in 1971 when he urgently needed to get out of Berkeley.  Medicine Bundle