Mem Shannon Remembers Jimmy Glickman Belatedly Thanks to Facebook

The blues guitarist's recollections of the late Jimmy Glickman went straight to the recently discovered Filtered Messages file, where it languished until now.

In the last few weeks, word has circulated about Facebook’s Filtered Messages mailbox—one that few people knew existed. After musicians found gig offers from the past misdirected into that file, I checked mine. Most of the messages were typically spamtastic, but one message came from Mem Shannon a few months ago when I asked musicians for their memories of New Orleans’ Music Exchange’s Jimmy Glickman. I knew the two had been close, and one touching moment for me at the Glickman memorial at Tipitina’s was watching Shannon watch the slideshow of Glickman photos by himself while the memorial parade formed up outside. 

I’ll add Shannon’s comments to the story that we initially ran, but here’s the story he sent:

New Orleans Music Exchange was very magical place and James Steven Glickman was the lead magician. Some years back, Air France lost two of my guitars on a flight home from Europe, mainly because a not-so-nice stewardess made me check them at the gate. They were in a case designed to carry two guitars. The stewardess took them from me and gave me a badly torn claim ticket. At the time, I didn't notice the condition of the ticket. When we arrived stateside, I discovered the torn ticket was useless. I ended up coming home without my instruments. 

A few month's later I get a call from Jimmy: "Mem—your guitars are on the way. They'll be at the store this afternoon"! I said, How?! He said the claims people found "New Orleans Music Exchange" bumper stickers in the case pocket and called the store, described the guitars and the case to Jimmy, and he knew they were mine! Yeah, I got ’em back!