“Willie’s Blues”

by Robert J. Tilley

Release: May 1972
Format: Novelette
Genres: Science Fiction, Music and Musicals
Audience: Adults
Content: Definite Time Travel
Original Language: English

A music historian travels back to the 1930s to uncover the real story of how Willie Turnhill rose from an extra in the Curry Band to tenor sax virtuoso ever.

— Michael Main

He thinks of me now as the one person who’ll be able to say who’s the original and who’s the plagiarist when “the other guy” does eventually turn up!

DEBUT

“‘Willie’s Blues’,” Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1972.

VARIANTS

2 English variants

TRANSLATIONS: No translations.

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Time Periods

Circa AD 1930 to 1939: 1936–1938
Circa AD 2000 to 2099: circa 2078

Timeline Models

Single Static Timeline: “Dear Jesus—every step that I take around this room, every movement that I’ve ever made, every syllable that I’m saying right now; all of it idelibly printed on the circuit, each inflection a response that it’s impossible to break or even bend, just a little.”

Time Travel Methods

Wearable Time Object: “a black, skintight suit, with a control-box of some kind strapped to his chest”

Themes

Artist Paradox: When Palmer plays the future recording for Turnhill.
Chronology Protection Conjecture: “[A]nd if some lunatic, in a misguided attempt to benefit humanity long before it‘s due, is going to bring back the formula for curing cancer a hundred years before it’s found, then it’s simply not going to work. It couldn't. Something would be bound to stop it, [. . .]”
Ex Nihilo Obects and People
Free Will, Fate, and Determinism: “In short, free will is just an expression, a myth founded on vanity and wishful thinking; [. . .]”
Time Corps: “I’ve broken a cardinal rule laid down by the transfer people [. . .]”

Groupings

Fiction (France) (periodical): #257, May 1975
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (periodical): May 1972
Cited in Time Machines by Paul J. Nahin ()

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY (SPOILERS!)

From unspecified place, circa 2078 ⋙ to possibly Kansas City, where the narrator spent two days before driving to Florence, South Carolina, September 1936. Round trip. Note: Palmer arrives from the future and drives to Florence.
From unspecified place, circa 2078 ⋙ to possibly Kansas City, although Palmer could have driven from Baltimore or elsewhere, February 1937. Round trip. Note: Palmer takes a trip to hear Lacey’s band after Turnhill joined.
From unspecified place, circa 2078 ⋙ to probably directly to New York City, May 1937. Round trip. Note: Palmer listens to the battle of the century between Turnhill and Pitman.
From unspecified place, circa 2078 ⋙ to probably directly to New York City, June 1938. Round trip. Note: Palmer and Turnhill have a brief conversation at a bar, and Palmer stays through 8 July.