Jamming in Kherson while the Russian army bombs the city: Robert Lighthouse on guitar, "Shoe Man Max" blowing harp, and a street musician on a homemade drum.
"Over more than 40 years of playing blues around the world — from a Hopi reservation in Arizona to Norway, Kenya, and his native Sweden
— guitarist Robert Lighthouse had never heard Bob Dylan’s ballad 'John Brown
.' This nettled the 60-year-old, a disciple of American music who’d thought himself familiar with the whole of the legend’s vast catalog. Simple and plaintive, 'John Brown' is a deceptive anti-war song, beginning as a patriotic fairy tale narrated by a young soldier’s proud mother. ... In late March 2024, Lighthouse returned from his third tour of Ukraine, where he played Robert Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson, Isaiah 'Doctor' Ross, and original songs for beleaguered locals and exhausted soldiers. Back in suburban Washington, D.C., where he has lived for close to 40 years, Lighthouse was surprised to learn that the song he’d written about the carnage in Ukraine closely resembled the one Dylan had recorded in 1962, at the Gaslight Cafe, on MacDougal Street. Lighthouse’s cris de coeur is called
'If They Won’t Book You in Heaven', and the lyrics, in part, go like this. ..."
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