Her name was Jean Mullen, but she called herself Green Bean Jean. She played bars in the small California mountain town where I lived at the time, and I first saw her on a night out with some of my mule-packer cowboy friends.
She was either skinny and gawky or model-thin and infinitely elegant — it was a time in my earlier life when I was between opinions on women — they might be little girls or alluring goddesses, either one. Eventually, I came down on the side of the goddess.
She sat on a tall stool, played a guitar and sang. She had an incredibly broad vocal range, from deeper-than-deep to glasses-shivering-on-the-table high. Four and a half octaves — does that sound right? It’s what I remember, but I could easily be wrong, this many years after.
I came night after night to see her, sat down quietly at a table and blew out the candle, and there in the dark was touched by her presence and her music. On braver nights, I’d sit in front and request some of her songs.
Live music has always had a profound effect on me. Put a song on the radio or CD player and I might sing along in my broken voice or slap the table in syncopation, jig around in my chair or car seat and become one with the music. But put me in front of live musicians and I sit there frozen and slack-jawed, banjaxed, perpetually astonished that, right here and now, these people are creating music. Continue reading “Jean”
