The first time I listened to C. W. Stoneking I didn’t think it was possible that that sort of sound could come from a white man. Surely that bluesy jazz with a twist of Caribbean calypso can only come from a black man? I was about as surprised as the first time I heard that the world’s most exclusive coffee comes from the excrement of a small Indonesian mammal that looks like a cat.
It’s true. The most expensive coffee in the world, Kopi Luwak, is made from coffee berries that have been fed, digested, and defecated by an Asian Palm Civet. It is claimed that a civet’s stomach enzymes add to flavour of the coffee. Here I was thinking people just enjoyed drinking shit.
Vietnam, Malaysia, and other parts of Southeast Asia all have similar coffee farming practices. So if Kopi Luwak is not unique, what’s the novelty value? The answer to this question is as beyond me as the reason people listen to the overly polished pop princess jingles of Miley Cyrus and Beyoncé. Then again, they’re probably the same people who think eggs are a chicken’s period.
As for C. W. Stoneking, his take on hokum blues emerged on the Australian commercial music scene in 2006, about 70 years too late to ever be chart toppers. His music has a clammy humidity that swelters in the mind conjuring simple deliriums like sitting in an old wooden rocking chair watching the world go by. The heavy layering of comedic farce makes it impossible to take old C. W. seriously, but at the very least leaves you intrigued. To me he is one of those rare coffee beans found among the kitty litter. I expect his music might even bring a smile to the rest of us who are trawling through poop all day in order to serve the rich white class a $50+ cup of coffee.
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