If we are going to be accurate, this piece should more properly be called the day Pappo bumped into me, but it doesn’t quite have the ring.

Norberto Aníbal Napolitano, aka Pappo, 1950 – 2005. Photo — – www.diarioz.com.ar

Argentina has long had a love of and heavy involvement with the Blues, and in his time Buenos Aires born and bred Pappo played an integral part on that scene. He played with such seminal bands as Los Abuelos de la Nada, Los Gatos, Aerobus and Riff, and spent five years or so in the late 1970s playing and recording in the UK alongside greats such as Fleetwood Mac’s legendary Peter Green and Lemmy of Motorhead fame. His last, rolling band was Pappo’s Blues which produced seven exciting albums. More info here.

So to the bump. One evening I was proceeding in a northwards direction up the Avenida Corrientes in downtown Buenos Aites, my eyes drawn to the east as I passed one of the many theatres in that part of town where the star turn was , yes, you’ve guessed it already, Pappo. Crowds were forming outside the door, the foyer was filling with blues fans and I was toying, not very seriously, with the idea of cancelling my evening class and joining them.

When bang, crash, wallop I am thrown to the floor and pinned to the ground by a couple of hundred pounds of what turns out to be Pappo, himself not so much proceeding as sprinting frantically south, late for his gig and losing his balance, huffing and puffing like the overweight, unfit blues rocker he was. Like I was, then and now. His hard, black battered guitar case was digging into my neck, and my eyes focussed surreally on a torn and tattered sticker that read ‘Head Music’. It was certainly doing my head in.

Gentleman Pappo extricated himself from the melange of English and Argentine limbs with a surprising nimbleness, looked me northeast to southwest and, ascertaining that no permanent damage had been caused, proffered a friendly and sincere sorry, che accompanied by a muttered reminder to himself to be more careful. Yours truly, not often at a loss for something to say, at such short notice could only come up with the fatuous vos sos Pappo, which was neither news to him nor particularly useful in the circumstance.

A brief conversation of sorts did develop – in English, after he’d worked out that was where I was from. He had a love of England, and this was in any case pre-1982. He invited me to see the show stage side but I had classes to teach. And we were both pushed for time. All too soon, the two ships that had collided in the night sailed on in their respective directions: he to do blues battle on a Corrientes stage and I, somewhat more prosaically, to teach a private class to an industrialist in Palermo.

And that is how Pappo and I bumped into one another.  He died in a motorbike accident in February 2005 but for a certain generation his legend lives on. If you want a reminder of (or introduction to) the genius that was Pappo visit the Youtube link below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RButQWeIn-c]