I remember Buddha telling this story! Thanks to Brett Nod Clarke for the link:
A Story from the Late Great Chris Mechalek
On friday, I got a call from a producer at The Learning Channel, they were looking for a harmonica player to be featured in an episode for a new reality show TLC will be airing this weekend. What I was told on friday about the show wasn't exactly right. Maybe they were fucking with my head or they were talking about a different show. I don't know.
This particular episode features a 148yr old cane with a harmonica built in the handle. We were at an auction house in Phoenix where there must have been at least 300 people from the public there. The guy bidding for the cane was an actor. I didn't stay for the auction of the cane... Anyway, he says he wants to bid on the cane and asked the auctioneer if it works. He says they bought in a professional harmonica player to prove that it plays perfectly.
Enter Buddha sporting cowboy boots, jeans, a blue plaid denim shirt and a straw hat...I look slick as shit!! The Auctioneer hands me the cane and says "Play it Boy". Then he gets the audience into a ridiculous clapping tempo. The arrangement of what I was going to play, the arrangement I worked on for three hours while I wait, was out the window because now, I can only play OH SUZANNAH as fast as I can. What a joy! Gimmie a Fuckin break. But no, at that moment in time I was the bizzaro Marlboro Man with the straw hat, lip stick, eyeliner and white powder on my face. And I'm going to be in front of tens of millions of viewers playing OH SUZANNA!"
