tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91337712498249385202024-02-07T04:58:27.625-05:00Jas Obrecht Music BlogJas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-23114846172097108752010-09-05T07:52:00.001-04:002010-09-05T07:57:58.441-04:00Tampa Red: The Guitar Wizard<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJiTxusSRuQRDvcHXVfa5kR5mNOptkLOpqdA0KZXznsRilQTpWF0idd_jB4g-KuVfudxwLGlq5S7_ZBLczS5s5HejKtm-ZMX5N3qRAIVpOW8FD56YqCa1NzJB1P0PA46cSZJXbcHzhrv8/s1600/portrait.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJiTxusSRuQRDvcHXVfa5kR5mNOptkLOpqdA0KZXznsRilQTpWF0idd_jB4g-KuVfudxwLGlq5S7_ZBLczS5s5HejKtm-ZMX5N3qRAIVpOW8FD56YqCa1NzJB1P0PA46cSZJXbcHzhrv8/s320/portrait.jpg" /></a></div>During the Roaring Twenties, a dazzling array of slide players made it onto records. The first was Sylvester Weaver, a Kentucky bluesman who recorded 1923’s “Guitar Blues” lap-style in open D, using a knife to gliss the strings. Louisiana’s Lead Belly and the Mississippi Delta’s Charley Patton also used this old, Hawaiian-inspired technique, but most sliders held their guitars in standard playing position and used a true bottleneck sawed or chipped from a liquor bottle.<br />
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Regional styles soon emerged. Memphis and Mississippi guitarists such as Crying Sam Collins, Charlie Patton, and Furry Lewis applied slides to styles ranging from propulsive dance music to stark personal laments. In Atlanta, fleet-fingered Barbecue Bob, his brother Charley Lincoln, their pal Curley Weaver, and the great Blind Willie McTell plied driving, dexterous bottleneck on booming 12-strings. In Texas, the sublime gospel guitarist Blind Willie Johnson reached for spiritual redemption with some of the most harrowing and haunting slide ever recorded. <br />
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Among the galaxy of prewar slide guitar stars, none shone brighter than Chicago’s Tampa Red. Bridging blues, jazz, folk, and jive, his urbane, light-hearted records drew listeners from coast to coast. He was popular among record buyers – especially Southern blacks – for more than twenty years and released more 78s than any other artist in blues history. His influence stretched from Mississippi-bred bluesmen such as Robert Nighthawk, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Earl Hooker, and Elmore James to western swing bands and prescient rock and rollers. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2uUyIypzZuBgXOjh7ujj7E-0DGDZNuk6ql9UrOgt_28DNF6_xwZZmwTSe_R1UDxlx65i4HFAYAvcoPj8cFSRbPV4HgqIuOI4h8MFj_-jUxPl7-jj6xxl1Niw6wNYVQxWpYppQoduLnRo/s1600/Tampa+standing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2uUyIypzZuBgXOjh7ujj7E-0DGDZNuk6ql9UrOgt_28DNF6_xwZZmwTSe_R1UDxlx65i4HFAYAvcoPj8cFSRbPV4HgqIuOI4h8MFj_-jUxPl7-jj6xxl1Niw6wNYVQxWpYppQoduLnRo/s320/Tampa+standing.jpg" /></a></div>With his warm, sweet tone and dead-on intonation, Tampa Red was a master of single-string melodies and streamlined chords – so much so that he came to be known as “The Guitar Wizard.” He was also a terrific singer, with a keen, sensitive voice and streetwise delivery reminiscent of Lonnie Johnson, his favorite guitarist. Tampa Red’s early ensembles were crucial to the development of Chicago blues bands, and several of the songs he composed or popularized – “Love Her With a Feeling,” “Crying Won’t Help You,” “Sweet Little Angel,” and “It Hurts Me Too” among them – have become blues standards.<br />
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“Tampa Red ironed out all the kinks,” says Ry Cooder. “He made it more accessible and played it with more of a modern big band feeling – like a soloist, almost. He changed it from rural music to commercial music, and he was very popular as a result. He made hundreds of records, and they’re all good. Some of them are incredibly good. You gotta say, okay, that’s where it all starts to become almost pop. And he had a great guitar technique, for sure. He put it all together, as far as I’m concerned. He got the songs, he had the vocal styling, he had the beat. It’s a straight line from Tampa Red to Louis Jordan to Chuck Berry, without a shadow of a doubt.” <br />
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Tampa Red was born Hudson Woodbridge in Smithville, Georgia, sometime between 1900 and 1904. Orphaned in his youth, he moved to his grandmother’s house in Tampa, Florida, and assumed her last name, Whittaker. A boyhood bicycling accident permanently injured his foot, causing him pain as he got older. He took up guitar after hearing Mamie Smith’s 1920 recording of “Crazy Blues,” the first blues hit. “I didn’t have no special teacher,” he once said. “It was just a gift.” Inspiration came from a local musician named Piccolo Pete, as well as from his older brother, Eddie Whittaker. “Eddie didn’t play the type of guitar I play,” Tampa explained to Living Blues editor Jim O’Neal. “He played fingerwork, just straight guitar. He played Spanish-style, just natural chords.”<br />
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Unlike Hawaiian guitarists, whom he’d seen, Tampa learned to play slide with his guitar held in standard position, using a thumbpick to strike the strings. “Instead of all that finger doublin’ and crossin’, I got me a bottleneck,” he explained. “I used two, three, maybe four strings sometime. It’s got a Hawaiian effect. I couldn’t play as many strings as a fella playin’ a regular Hawaiian guitar, but I got the same effect. I was the champ of that style with the bottleneck on my finger.”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe4mucIQ99UUeyGbuePs_06qtg-jlpWvg7H9b7ZjyMQUBQJ4T15hQ3ykn_Eo-YvzUMmVutV5Zk7zlUww2_gx9KH2CBC7WehUIuqOC61CNfo4OaSc38RTcwIIAqJpWGzL4jYfJfy_i_6zE/s1600/Tampa+in+beret.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe4mucIQ99UUeyGbuePs_06qtg-jlpWvg7H9b7ZjyMQUBQJ4T15hQ3ykn_Eo-YvzUMmVutV5Zk7zlUww2_gx9KH2CBC7WehUIuqOC61CNfo4OaSc38RTcwIIAqJpWGzL4jYfJfy_i_6zE/s320/Tampa+in+beret.jpg" /></a></div>Arriving in Chicago in his early teens, the diminutive redhead became known around town as Tampa Red. He sharpened his skills busking on the street, sometimes in the company of Sleepy John Estes and Hammie Nixon. He played a flashy, gold-plated National Style 4 roundneck resophonic in open D and open E, sometimes using a capo to change keys. Bob Brozman, an authority on National guitars, explains how Tampa’s model choice affected his sound: “The tri-cones, which Tampa Red and all the Hawaiians used, have a very liquid, smooth, long-sustaining tone, whereas the single-cones, like Bukka White used, are really powerful and snappy, with a strong attack but a very quick decay.”<br />
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Tampa Red made his first recording, “Through Train Blues,” for Chicago’s Paramount label in May 1928. In a feat he’d repeat countless times, he announced his unmistakable presence with his opening slide flourish – few players have ever achieved such an instantly recognizable sound. Set to tuba accompaniment, Tampa’s debut was released paired with Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “How Long How Long.” <br />
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Paramount called Tampa Red back to the studio in September to back Ma Rainey, the South’s most beloved blues diva. His partner on the session was Georgia Tom Dorsey, a self-effacing, schooled pianist and the musical director of Rainey’s ensemble. Tampa Red held his resophonic close to the recording source, his smooth, bittersweet tone perfectly complementing Rainey’s powerful contralto. Their four Paramount 78s together were among her last releases. <br />
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Within a few weeks, Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, who’d met around 1925, began recording on their own under the direction of J. Mayo “Ink” Williams. The duo struck pay dirt with one of their first efforts, the sexy and irresistible “It’s Tight Like That.” Accompanied by easy-rolling piano and bottleneck guitar, Tampa sang on the Vocalion release:<br />
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<em>“Now the gal I love, she’s long and slim,</em><br />
<em>When she whip it, it’s too bad, Jim.</em><br />
<em>You know, it’s tight like that, beedle um bum,</em><br />
<em>Oh, it’s tight like that, beedle um bum,</em><br />
<em>Don’t you hear me talkin’ to you, I mean it’s tight like that”</em><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhrYSYCMRmpHVi-XxmK8zqKBHo6lFdey-pBlgGw9yq7D35rt6yVGG1xpB-TSJt1A-XzV5Zh5e1lmV1y_gdQP9ftnrIPceA-8QMbokCqZf6TowOzGLHYvJpfeoLNEX_u2l0pbJzWu4pFVc/s1600/It's+TightLiIke+That+ad+with+girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhrYSYCMRmpHVi-XxmK8zqKBHo6lFdey-pBlgGw9yq7D35rt6yVGG1xpB-TSJt1A-XzV5Zh5e1lmV1y_gdQP9ftnrIPceA-8QMbokCqZf6TowOzGLHYvJpfeoLNEX_u2l0pbJzWu4pFVc/s320/It's+TightLiIke+That+ad+with+girl.jpg" /></a></div>This instant hit became one of the era’s best-selling blues records. “It went just about to the four corners of the United States,” Big Joe Williams insisted. “Went through both races, white and black. You’d hear little kids mumblin’ it everywhere you went.” The duo rapidly recorded new versions for a variety of labels, with Vocalion’s “It’s Tight Like That, No. 2” being the first release to proclaim Tampa Red “The Guitar Wizard.” Another version by Tampa Red’s Hokum Jazz Band framed Frankie “Half Pint” Jaxon’s campy vocals with piano, guitar, “jazz horn” (kazoo), washboard, and jug. Before year’s end, Dorsey and Whittaker had played sessions with singers Madlyn Davis, Octavia Dick, Papa Too Sweet, and Bertha “Chippie” Hill, and recorded for Paramount as the Hokum Boys. On his own, Tampa cut a 78 with a jazzy four-piece studio band called the State Street Stompers.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUKSSds51v7fQnoXai_aPcrsJgHEHeuvSRGjwdDK3dp0970FElhqgZQuaihIReI6YBWyMkYoSo_eUkebVdnGAozrsr95Ig7xNBTLp78ZfnOEuUU-TKvhmSLIiFGhp2l-VN9miEtnpHeC0/s1600/tight-like-that.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUKSSds51v7fQnoXai_aPcrsJgHEHeuvSRGjwdDK3dp0970FElhqgZQuaihIReI6YBWyMkYoSo_eUkebVdnGAozrsr95Ig7xNBTLp78ZfnOEuUU-TKvhmSLIiFGhp2l-VN9miEtnpHeC0/s320/tight-like-that.jpg" width="148" /></a></div>“It’s Tight Like That” sparked a fad for hokum, a zany musical style that set double-entendre-laden lyrics to jumping good-time arrangements. The duo’s success sent other artists scurrying into studios to wax what W.C. Handy referred to as “a flock of lowdown dirty blues.” Tampa Red and Georgia Tom co-wrote dozens of songs, with both men supplying lyrics and Dorsey doing most of the arranging. (To hear and legally download many fine Tampa Red recordings from the 1920s, visit <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/TampaRed-11-19">www.archive.org/details/TampaRed-11-19</a>.) <br />
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Dorsey, who acted as the duo’s business manager, had fond memories of their time together, telling Living Blues, “Tampa used to come by my house to rehearse. I had me some nieces or cousins, and he’d sit down and play for them, have a lot of fun. He was a good-hearted fellow. Never was in any trouble as I know of. Was never arrested or anything like that while I was with him, or never got in any fusses or any brawls or fights or anything like that. He was very calm at all times. He was a very nice fellow. So am I. He’d come to my house, eat, stay all night if he wanted to. My wife fix a bed for him, and we got along like that.”<br />
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<strong>Georgia Tom Dorsey in his heyday as a bluesman.</strong> <br />
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During 1929, Tampa Red made stacks of 78s under his own name and accompanying Georgia Tom (billed as Memphis Mose), Lil Johnson, Cow Cow Davenport, James “Stump” Johnson, Sam Theard, Romeo Nelson, and the Gospel Camp Meeting Singers. The uptown Tampa Red’s Hokum Jug Band continued to set the template for combos to come with swinging, jazzy records like the raucous “My Daddy Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll),” with its saucy slide and orgasmic moans. Lil Johnson’s “House Rent Scuffle” was another forward-looking track, presaging rock and roll with its driving boogie-woogie piano and hepped-up slide. On other records, Tampa delved into folk, country blues, and slideless ragtime.<br />
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Between sessions, Tampa Red and Georgia Tom made the rounds of South Side night spots. “We’d play just anywhere,” Dorsey reminisced, “the party, theater, dance hall, juke joint. We were playing for all-black audiences.” To augment their sound, Tampa brought a rack-mounted kazoo into the act. “Tampa’d try any kind of thing if he thought he could get some publicity,” Dorsey continued. “I’d tell him, ‘If you gonna get a band, man, let’s get a clarinet or a trumpet or somethin’.’ He’d say, ‘No, we stay like what we are. We get all the money ourselves.’ I said, ‘That’s all right with me.’ He didn’t use kazoo much then. I wouldn’t let him use it much because, well, sometime he’d get too much mind on the kazoo, and let down on the guitar, and that’s the accompaniment, see. Instead of lettin’ down on the kazoo – ‘Woo-oo-woo-oo-woo’ – he’d stop strummin’.”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJofC3uZOeQgqvzuW1XbbD8So2LL1gukXNKLEAw7WWmDl70djUb7MZXM7BlvsEoGokxNpe6zcMtT42ydDLlB4_NEAv2drJQmI1rm3iN9Q0rkgNXGFbP7Bc-5P3DdqnK_8T9wQYDjs-wY8/s1600/Mama+Don%27t+Allow+No+Easy+Riders.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJofC3uZOeQgqvzuW1XbbD8So2LL1gukXNKLEAw7WWmDl70djUb7MZXM7BlvsEoGokxNpe6zcMtT42ydDLlB4_NEAv2drJQmI1rm3iN9Q0rkgNXGFbP7Bc-5P3DdqnK_8T9wQYDjs-wY8/s320/Mama+Don%27t+Allow+No+Easy+Riders.jpg" width="220" /></a></div>The duo toured the black vaudeville circuit. During their October ’29 stop in Memphis, they played sessions with Jim Jackson, one of the most popular musicians in town, and Jenny Pope, who’d sung with the Memphis Jug Band. “We traveled by automobile all down South through there,” Dorsey recalled. “We played Memphis, Louisville, down to Nashville . . . . We recorded in Memphis, and we went over about ten or fifteen miles across the line down in Mississippi. We’d go down in those cotton fields, lookin’ for talent. We brought some of ’em up there and recorded ’em. When we were down in Memphis, Tampa got another week’s play at the Palace Theater. They liked him so well they hired him there with just he and the guitar.”<br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyV69kJxdAmTFsjCEtktkszCLCjH_5OiVLh8O2ruZ0Xiw7MKfbMbqwaA1qkWmGZnUrslpx1iZ0vNx87NFvWWD2pHCXlLn_jw5tDSujeZAjhFkVudREgoM64C7UgfLDhZM9dWaaxMsOB80/s1600/FRankie+Jaxon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyV69kJxdAmTFsjCEtktkszCLCjH_5OiVLh8O2ruZ0Xiw7MKfbMbqwaA1qkWmGZnUrslpx1iZ0vNx87NFvWWD2pHCXlLn_jw5tDSujeZAjhFkVudREgoM64C7UgfLDhZM9dWaaxMsOB80/s320/FRankie+Jaxon.jpg" /></a>Back in Chicago, Dorsey commenced recording with Big Bill Broonzy and others as the Famous Hokum Boys, explained to Living Blues, “Tampa and me were a steady team, but if I wasn’t working tomorrow night and Bill wanted me, I’d go with Bill, see. Not only Bill, anybody. Frankie Jaxon or any of ’em. You’d work with anybody you could get to where they gon’ get paid.”</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>While the Depression brought a halt to most blues sessions, Tampa Red continued to record for Vocalion through the early 1930s, shifting between hokum, straight blues, and pop tunes. In 1932, he and Georgia Tom journeyed to New York to make their final recordings together. “I don’t know what happen to the blues,” Dorsey told O’Neal, “but they seemed to drop it all at once. It just went down. And so the artists were falling out because they couldn’t get work. I said, ‘I’m gonna get into another thing. I’m goin’.’ And Tampa cried like a baby: ‘No, Tom, don’t go. Now look what we could do.’ I said, ‘Tampa, you go with me, or else I ain’t goin’ no further. I’m losin’ money, and I can’t eat and live with that.’” Dorsey turned to gospel music, and during the ensuing decades, Rev. Thomas A. Dorsey, composer of “Precious Lord” and many other classics, came to be known as the “Father of Gospel Music.”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYCA_br30TjUofn3sFqliR00-qN5EznvfgpOj39WOoce56o-hUDzAMqRACA0ZyBHxxrUvmCQq9MkS5PuQhcjYyhts-zmkURX4cKhU1yH6njaSYBt7J28L0wDIopy3kjedKBmT_xZlV5uM/s1600/Tampa+Red+and+Leroy+Carr+1934.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYCA_br30TjUofn3sFqliR00-qN5EznvfgpOj39WOoce56o-hUDzAMqRACA0ZyBHxxrUvmCQq9MkS5PuQhcjYyhts-zmkURX4cKhU1yH6njaSYBt7J28L0wDIopy3kjedKBmT_xZlV5uM/s400/Tampa+Red+and+Leroy+Carr+1934.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>Blues summit, 1934: Tampa Red shakes hands with Leroy Carr.</strong> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCJwHK-4rQ5rca4AOpjVisqL0vn09ZpiIqvuEBAN3XCuTSLG6l-7lMWgA4SCsrpj_oR1tLDfnbgbz-xf3ESM7kxtEhQGTZHcUCjKL8fY36ZqVBxDmCvxjc5F0luFKp4aadcxMmoruANOI/s1600/Tampa+with+Lester+Melrose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCJwHK-4rQ5rca4AOpjVisqL0vn09ZpiIqvuEBAN3XCuTSLG6l-7lMWgA4SCsrpj_oR1tLDfnbgbz-xf3ESM7kxtEhQGTZHcUCjKL8fY36ZqVBxDmCvxjc5F0luFKp4aadcxMmoruANOI/s320/Tampa+with+Lester+Melrose.jpg" /></a></div>Tampa Red, meanwhile, continued to thrive in the blues. He concluded his tenure at Vocalion in March’34 with the original version of “Black Angel Blues” (which eventually became known as “Sweet Little Angel”) and the poignant slide instrumentals “Things ’Bout Coming My Way” and “Denver Blues.” His new association with producer Lester Melrose and the budget-priced Bluebird label resulted in some two hundred titles. Tampa’s initial releases, cut with pianist Black Bob, featured a few slide gems, but he was beginning to recast himself as a crooner and kazoo soloist. By 1936, he was playing Leroy Carr-influenced piano on record, with Willie B. James sitting in on guitar. “I can play some piano, you know – ragtime, a little blues,” he told O’Neal. “But guitar was my main thing, playin’ ‘Tight Like That’ and ‘Sell My Monkey.’ I could do more with the guitar than I could with the piano because there was plenty of piano players who could play the real thing.” Following the pop trends of the day, releases by Tampa Red and The Chicago Five, a studio band with guitar, piano, string bass, and clarinet and kazoo (later replaced by sax and trumpet), were aimed at tavern jukeboxes.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6HbTHpYMH1zDbn3MCJrE7gY8xA4qWxzSln-_7QZfz-19GAdC2hpc0C6qOQOiqil-Gkf8Z-Ok-60ZBD3Ksz1epabWOfc-Z-Ku8Wa9NaGs0ziCaN55m6MPELphQ9bfXnPX9_EHO4YVJr3k/s1600/Big+Bill+Broonzy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6HbTHpYMH1zDbn3MCJrE7gY8xA4qWxzSln-_7QZfz-19GAdC2hpc0C6qOQOiqil-Gkf8Z-Ok-60ZBD3Ksz1epabWOfc-Z-Ku8Wa9NaGs0ziCaN55m6MPELphQ9bfXnPX9_EHO4YVJr3k/s320/Big+Bill+Broonzy.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<strong>Tampa’s buddy, Big Bill Broonzy.</strong> <br />
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Tampa Red turned his business affairs over to his bride, Frances, and their spacious home at 3432 South State Street became a haven for blues musician. Blind John Davis remembered in Living Blues that Tampa’s house “went all the way from the front to the alley. He had a big rehearsal room, and he had two rooms for the different artists that come in from out of town to record. Melrose’d pay him for the lodging, and Mrs. Tampa would cook for them.” Tampa’s drinking buddy Big Bill Broonzy was a frequent guest, and they enjoyed fishing and going to baseball games together. The Whittakers also hosted Memphis Slim, Willie Dixon, Jazz Gillum, Big Joe Williams, Sonny Boy Williamson I, Doc Clayton, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Arthur Crudup, Washboard Sam, Big Maceo Merriweather, Romeo Nelson, Little Walter, Elmore James, and Robert Lee McCullum, who’d record as Robert Nighthawk. Tampa tutored Nighthawk, whose potent postwar electric slide merged his mentor’s facile approach with a sustaining Delta whine. Whittaker rarely jammed with his house guests, though, preferring to relax with a drink and enjoy the goings-on. He worked hard at composing, though, scribbling notes on typewriter paper late into the night.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDRSUvkEdotzhSsU2g0TBITnh7bUyzd3Rb-e1lepf-QoF8lWl-U1-8T7olrJqOdZNMy4K3Fasi-pSjhOQ8Hc7_sAmYeaVi9_zYL3x038q6XtGqAZQuVqHDY3sJUAEO7Iy7nkY0SUiPpkA/s1600/Tampa+Red+and+friends+w+caption.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="293" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDRSUvkEdotzhSsU2g0TBITnh7bUyzd3Rb-e1lepf-QoF8lWl-U1-8T7olrJqOdZNMy4K3Fasi-pSjhOQ8Hc7_sAmYeaVi9_zYL3x038q6XtGqAZQuVqHDY3sJUAEO7Iy7nkY0SUiPpkA/s400/Tampa+Red+and+friends+w+caption.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
By the late ’30s Tampa’s traveling days were over. For nine years he gigged just yards from his house at the H&T club, usually playing solo but occasionally in the company of Willie B. James or pianists Big Maceo, Sunnyland Slim, or Johnnie Jones, all of whom accompanied him on sessions. Tampa was one of the first Chicago musicians to acquire an electric guitar, which he played on 1940’s “Anna Lou Blues,” reworked by Nighthawk, Elmore James, and Earl Hooker as “Anna Lee.” The same session yielded “It Hurts Me Too,” later transformed into an Elmore James masterpiece, and “Don’t You Lie to Me,” which was covered by Fats Domino and Chuck Berry. Tampa appeared on Big Maceo’s “Worried Life Blues” in’41, and Maceo, in turn, manned the 88s on Tampa’s 1942 hits, “Let Me Play With Your Poodle” and “She Wants to Sell My Monkey.” In 1945, Whittaker moved from Bluebird to its parent’s label, Victor. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8cYosacsiLPd8IPnJWSkCC6ezMq3SPdufe5EhxHgSHkB06CuLcw_Zy3PqlHzlRsW-WCl2U0Kh0vnLEVy02pX9btTbdZzR-M1M5pgzHeTFRyO3zmomhyl-96bBtm348wpsr5FozOsuYjY/s1600/Tampa+Red+broadcasting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8cYosacsiLPd8IPnJWSkCC6ezMq3SPdufe5EhxHgSHkB06CuLcw_Zy3PqlHzlRsW-WCl2U0Kh0vnLEVy02pX9btTbdZzR-M1M5pgzHeTFRyO3zmomhyl-96bBtm348wpsr5FozOsuYjY/s200/Tampa+Red+broadcasting.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Although he was slowing down, Tampa Red stayed current, delving into horn-driven big-band jump a la Louis Jordan, powerhouse boogie-woogie, and as-yet-unnamed rock and roll. “When Things Go Wrong For You (It Hurts Me Too),” from 1949, was his last release in the national R&B charts. Tampa Red added piano and drums to his club lineup and cut his final Victor sides in 1953 with a younger-generation band that included harmonicist Walter “Shakey” Horton, Johnnie Jones, and drummer Odie Payne. By then Tampa’s uptown blues had been supplanted by the muscular rumblings of Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, and Muddy Waters. <br />
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Approaching age fifty, Whittaker retired from the night life to care for Frances, who had a serious heart condition. Tampa’s wife was “mother and God to him both,” as Sunnyland Slim put it, and her death in 1954 left Tampa a broken man. He quit performing and escalated his drinking. Rumors of his erratic behavior began to circulate, and for a while he was confined to a mental hospital. “I got sick and had a nervous breakdown,” he explained, citing his inability to refuse a drink as the cause. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>He was coaxed out of retirement in 1960 to record two albums for Prestige/Bluesville, but gone were the slide gymnastics. Instead, Tampa blew double-barrel kazoo and picked electric guitar counterpoint to his weary-voiced lyrics. After a few live performances, Tampa Red stowed his guitar beneath his bed. During the early 1970s, when labels began reissuing his old records on LPs, he was living on welfare with his companion, Effie Tolbert, on Chicago’s South Side. He enjoyed sharing a beer and a hand-rolled Bugler cigarette with old friends and the occasional journalist, but his recollections of his music career were few and far between. <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">After Effie Tolbert’s death in ’74, Tampa spent his final years in Chicago’s Central Nursing Home, where Blind John Davis looked after him. “I bring him to my home about two or three times a month,” Davis told me in 1979. “I give him cigarettes, and he can have a couple cans of beer a day. So everything is beautiful that way. He’s in beautiful shape, but he’s senile, and he don’t remember too much, you know.”</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIkdZztos29MoBJzTMVmO98cT6UN_LV2_mGmFz1hcN7kp4D-lHjdM092w5HH4WXN_rr4N9Glal1o5RjylYSx0EnXnGYjfSfVldVaapUqd5-QednJlJhyphenhyphenJyXire4UA4Byi6XAsxFrctRWA/s1600/Tampa+Red+obit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIkdZztos29MoBJzTMVmO98cT6UN_LV2_mGmFz1hcN7kp4D-lHjdM092w5HH4WXN_rr4N9Glal1o5RjylYSx0EnXnGYjfSfVldVaapUqd5-QednJlJhyphenhyphenJyXire4UA4Byi6XAsxFrctRWA/s200/Tampa+Red+obit.jpg" width="185" /></a></div>On March 19, 1981, Hudson Whittaker passed away. His gold National had been stolen years earlier, and his old Gibson electric went to Blind John Davis. He’s buried in Mt. Glenwood Memory Gardens in Glenwood, Illinois. In his autobiography, Big Bill Broonzy had accurately predicted, “There’s only one Tampa Red, and when he’s dead, that’s all, brother.”Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-45511496337264698782010-09-01T09:07:00.001-04:002010-09-01T09:10:10.204-04:00Jerry Garcia: The Complete 1985 Interview<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkbir-ueGPmcT8PzpXnkX-jkKHMrcz4twbTGR3Oe1zSlRf9sUHNq4z0tRspejjGofQVPKRq0J-D9XxJL3myriGowRfNVJ9_xJCC4RyHAbXV_mLp6oCy8b3m2VMXjO3HCUjswnVOoRJYDM/s1600/IMG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkbir-ueGPmcT8PzpXnkX-jkKHMrcz4twbTGR3Oe1zSlRf9sUHNq4z0tRspejjGofQVPKRq0J-D9XxJL3myriGowRfNVJ9_xJCC4RyHAbXV_mLp6oCy8b3m2VMXjO3HCUjswnVOoRJYDM/s320/IMG.jpg" /></a></div>I spent the morning of Saturday, January 12, 1985, at a hotel in San Francisco, interviewing Yngwie Malmsteen, the extraordinary Swedish metal guitarist, for his first English-language cover story. As soon as that meeting was over, I switched cassettes in my tape recorder and headed over the Golden Gate Bridge to meet Grateful Dead spokesman Dennis McNally at a restaurant in San Rafael. Dennis led me to the home of a Grateful Dead supporter who, it turned out, was letting Jerry Garcia live in her basement. My mission: Interview Garcia for a cover story in Frets, a magazine devoted to acoustic music.<br />
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I’ve never been a Deadhead, but friends who are tell me that my meeting with Jerry took place during one of the lowest points of his life. Garcia, unwashed and disheveled, shuffled slowly into the living room, his black T-shirt sprinkled with white powder. His fingertips were blackened in a manner consistent with “chasing the dragon,” as smoking heroin was commonly referred to in the Bay Area. Ten minutes into our interview, Garcia nonchalantly chopped a large rock of cocaine into about twenty lines and consumed all of it during the next hour. <br />
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My pal Jon Sievert, who showed up midway through the interview to shoot photos, observes, “Jerry was probably at his absolute nadir at the time of the interview, as witnessed by his bust in Golden Gate Park six days later on January 18. In between the interview and the bust, the band and Mountain Girl staged an intervention, in which Jerry was told he had to choose between drugs and the band. In the few times I was around Garcia in a private setting, that was the only time I saw him openly snort coke. What I remember most, however, was how articulate he remained when talking about music. As you can tell by listening to the tapes, his enthusiasm never waned.”<br />
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I have to agree with Jon: Garcia was bright and articulate throughout the interview. In fact, he was fun to talk to. He laughed often and revealed far more about his creative process than most musicians could. Portions of our conversation were presented as the July ’85 Frets cover story, but the vast majority of this 10,000-word interview remained untranscribed until this blog. As he made his way across the living room and settled into a chair, Jerry smiled and began the conversation. <br />
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<br />
Have we met before? <br />
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<em>Yes, probably at the Tribal Stomp in 1978.</em> <br />
<br />
Oh, yeah. I recognize ya. You’re familiar. <br />
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<em>Do you know about Frets magazine?</em><br />
<br />
Yes, I do.<br />
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<em>So this is for the cover story on the 20th anniversary of the Grateful Dead. </em><br />
<br />
Say! [Laughs.] <br />
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<em>What’s the appeal, for you, of acoustic music? </em><br />
<br />
What is the appeal? Hmm. First of all, my appeal is just music, you know. And I don’t really distinguish. It’s not like one kind of music is more appealing to me than others. For me, the acoustic guitar is a different instrument. I don’t think I would do it, really, if it weren’t for the technological advance of the successful electric-acoustic guitar, like the Takamine that I play onstage. I’ve never had any luck at all with the acoustic guitar and microphone. <br />
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<em>Too much squeal?</em> <br />
<br />
Too much everything. Too much boom. It really has to do with the kind of microphones that you use, and the kind of guitar. Most acoustic guitars are built to project in a room, just acoustically. And most microphones are designed to hear a small source, like the bell of a horn or a voice, and a guitar is something you hear all over it – I mean, in order for it to really sound like an acoustic guitar where you hold a microphone up to the soundhole. For example, if it’s a big guitar, like a D-28, it woofs and booms and does all these things that are non-musical in nature. There’s stuff you don’t intend to be heard. They are part of the sound of the guitar, for sure, but they are not what you mean when you’re playing. It’s the Frankenstein nature of the microphone as an electric ear that makes it so I haven’t had much luck with just acoustic guitar. Also, the difference in touch is too radical. The way you have to dig in with an acoustic guitar and a microphone, as opposed to the way you play an electric guitar, if I were to try to do both, my electric guitar chops go way downhill. <br />
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<em>Do you tend to pick up an acoustic less frequently than an electric?</em> <br />
<br />
Well, electric is my instrument. But I like playing acoustic, especially now with this advance, because it means I don’t have to radically change my touch so much, but I get the nice qualities of the tone and, you know, the pretty features of an acoustic guitar. But only really because I take that line in and get a nice clear signal that sounds to my ears like an acoustic, so the behavior of the instrument and the idioms that I find myself pulling out of it are what I associate with acoustic guitar. For me, they’re very different. It’s like they’re very different instruments. <br />
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<em>Does your way of visualizing the fingerboard or your playing approach change?</em> <br />
<br />
Uh, yeah. Very much so. For me, on the electric guitar I have a holistic approach to the fingerboard. On acoustic guitar, I have a preference for the first position and the open sounds, the open quality. I don’t use a capo on acoustic guitar, but I would. But I would never do that on an electric guitar. On electric guitar, I deal with the whole neck as a harmonic medium. I don’t see it in patterns or groupings. All those have become continuous for me. <br />
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<em>In the last Guitar Player interview, you spoke about finally making that breakthrough.</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, I’m through that. Yeah. <br />
<br />
<em>What have you found on the other side?</em> <br />
<br />
What it is is that there are really endless numbers of overlapping patterns [laughs], that’s all. That’s what it really boils down to. Depending on what half-step or whole-step, what partial you want to start on, you have all series of fingerings. You can either play them across the fingerboard or up the fingerboard or up the strings or across the fingerboard or any combination thereof, and really that’s just a matter of fluidity and a matter of breaking out of position playing. For me, it’s become a matter of now I play for a preference in the tone that I get, like playing high notes on low strings. For me, it’s much more a matter of what sounds nice – not where I play it, but where the lick sounds. So I can play the same lick in any of, say, three or four positions on the neck – the same lick in the same octave – and the tone is very different depending on the thickness of the strings you’re playing on. So that’s the kind of stuff. For me, it’s a matter of having much more choice over harmonic series, harmonic range, and tonal quality. <br />
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<em>Do you know what you’re doing in theoretical terms?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I couldn’t not. There was a time when I could get by with not knowing, you know, but not anymore, not with the caliber of musicians I play with. Besides, for me it isn’t satisfying to not know. It’s not satisfying to bluff. I like to know because for one thing, it makes it a lot easier to communicate what you’re doing. Just that alone is a good reason to know. <br />
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<em>How has your approach to soloing changed?</em> <br />
<br />
It keeps on changing, but I don’t have an approach. I still basically revolve around the melody. I think I come more from the point of view of the melody and the way it’s broken up into phrases as I perceive them. With most solos, I tend to play something that phrases the way the melody does. The phrase is maybe more dense or have different value and so forth, but they’ll occur in the same places in the song as they do in the melody. Basically, most of the time there’s some abstraction of the melody in there – at least that’s what I’m thinking. I’m not necessarily meaning to communicate that, but that’s what my mind does. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrI8WIvT5UXnX5P9pKeCQjs1Y0JQdwRdQo-UN2LZTs4mLoqox-LVKUqcTC_6CkXel6vnYh6cuKLeZjYQssmzQLPQ_c9WE7NhgrP0W5aIJdis8ZxuuXvFk_MZlfo4CRydeDDOGAGzf5X1Y/s1600/Jerry+and+Jas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrI8WIvT5UXnX5P9pKeCQjs1Y0JQdwRdQo-UN2LZTs4mLoqox-LVKUqcTC_6CkXel6vnYh6cuKLeZjYQssmzQLPQ_c9WE7NhgrP0W5aIJdis8ZxuuXvFk_MZlfo4CRydeDDOGAGzf5X1Y/s400/Jerry+and+Jas.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>Jerry and Jas during the interview. Photo by Jon Sievert. </strong></div><br />
<em>When you’re onstage, what influences the types of notes you choose?</em> <br />
<br />
Anything and everything! [Laughs.] Nothing in particular. I don’t watch my decision-making process that carefully. But usually the reason I start on a course of action is because I have a kind of a loose plan in mind going into a chorus. I take a chorus as a unit, generally speaking. I have sort of a loose plan there. Or something else that happens elsewhere in the music gets me going, like some rhythmic figure or that kind of stuff – detail.<br />
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<em>Can improvisation be learned or is it inherent?</em> <br />
<br />
No, I think it can be learned. <br />
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<em>What advice would you give someone who had lessons and theoretical knowledge, but wanted to find more freedom on the instrument?</em> <br />
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Mostly, the best possible thing, really, is to have somebody else to play with. One other person to play with. If you have one other person who plays the guitar, then you just trade of choruses or you play, like, five choruses against each other. You know what I mean? Like one guy backs up for five choruses or four choruses, and the other guy backs up for four choruses. That’s really the best way to do it, I think, to get a handle on it. I don’t know. It’s not the sort of thing that advice helps. It’s really one of the things where time spent is more profitable. <br />
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<em>Do you do much practicing?</em> <br />
<br />
I don’t do as much as I’d like to, but I go in and out of that. I go in and out of it. I’m about to enter into practicing. <br />
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<em>Anything in particular you want to work on?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, there’s a whole bunch of stuff. I’ve got two or three books that I’ve been wanting to crack for some time, but I haven’t made myself go into them. I’m lazy, just like everybody else is [laughs]. But these are some real nice studies on fourths and some really nice, just melodic humps that are very good. That’s why I’m going into a little woodshedding there – there are some things in there that I like. <br />
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<em>Do you have favorite books that you’ve gone over more than once?</em> <br />
<br />
No, I rarely go over them more than once. If I take a book and decide I’m going to go over it, I really go over the sucker. I go over it in depth and really do it, and after that, I’m done with it. Then it’s an absorption process, you know. Unless I’ve really forgotten something – and I haven’t gotten to that point yet – I may be losing stuff down at the back end somewhere [laughs]. But as soon as I get to the point where I look at a book and draw a blank and then open it up and find a bunch of little marks and stuff and realize I’ve been through this book and I don’t remember a thing about it, then I’ll start going back. I haven’t gotten to that point yet – but soon, I hope! [Laughs.] <br />
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<em>Do you do much jamming?</em><br />
<br />
Virtually 90% of the playing that I do is jamming. <br />
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<em>What about outside of the band?</em> <br />
<br />
No, I don’t. There’s not a situation around that has both a loose enough structure and good-enough-quality musicians where I can get into it and enjoy it. The level of musicianship that I exist at right now, it’s not much fun to play unless the people play really well. You know what I mean? There aren’t too many situations where you can just jam with somebody. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYEe1zlLHDiwd-cmJ-vsfqy-UrmSsSZxoAazoDHyGurkvQeywP8hel_ecj_wsPoU42eRGXiskNhLztg5EvZzBY51t9dbEIgU1mGXt744J5A7Jj45kFu7p55v-b-KuWP3yUKffyYLnljlA/s1600/Garcia+album.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYEe1zlLHDiwd-cmJ-vsfqy-UrmSsSZxoAazoDHyGurkvQeywP8hel_ecj_wsPoU42eRGXiskNhLztg5EvZzBY51t9dbEIgU1mGXt744J5A7Jj45kFu7p55v-b-KuWP3yUKffyYLnljlA/s200/Garcia+album.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><em>When do you play your best?</em> <br />
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I wish I could tell you that! Because if I could tell you it, it would mean that I knew when I was gonna play my best. It’s something I don’t know, when I’m gonna play my best. And a lot of times, I can’t even judge if it’s my best or not, until, say, like, later on I might listen to a tape and say, “Geez, that’s the best I’ve ever heard myself sound.” And that happens to me a lot. Almost all the time when I listen to a tape, I can’t believe it’s me. My own mental image of myself is that I play a lot worse than I actually do. I’m usually surprised when I listen to tapes. <br />
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<em>Are you self-critical?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah. Almost to the point of nihilism [laughs]. If it was left up to me, if I’d never heard anything, I think I would have given up long ago. Yeah, I am self-critical. Yeah. <br />
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<em>Do you ever feel like you’re in a rut?</em><br />
<br />
All the time. Yeah. Then I do something about it. When I feel like I’m really seriously stale, that’s when I start to crack books, because you really need something to move. And there’s so much to music, there’s no excuse for feeling stale. Nobody is such a great musician that they could be burnt out on all of music, you know. [Laughs.] So for me, it’s just a matter of going out and putting a little bit of effort into it, and I can almost always find something that I don’t know anything about and pick up on it and start a sort of itch-scratch cycle. <br />
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<em>Does listening to other musicians or bands ever inspire you?</em><br />
<br />
All the time. Yeah. Yeah. There’s nobody playing right now who knocks me out completely. I mean, there’s nothing that I hear right now that really makes me want to dash to my guitar. But there’s plenty of stuff in the past. You know, if I go looking for stuff, I can find it. But there’s nobody really playing right now who kills me. Music right now – everything that I hear right now is pretty derivative sounding. <br />
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<em>What’s your source? Do you listen to the radio or MTV or . . .</em> <br />
<br />
All those things. I’m just a human in the world – you know what I mean? And then I have a huge record collection. And I also have access to music stores, some of which are pretty hip, where the people who run them are music collectors and like that. That’s helpful. It’s helpful to have somebody’s taste. And also, the society that I’m in has a lot of musicians in it, and musicians are always turning you on to music, so there’s always input. <br />
<br />
<em>What are your views of young guitar players now?</em> <br />
<br />
Well, it’s a little hard for me to listen. The thing is, they’re much more accomplished than they used to be, but that just means that the instrument itself has a much better book than it used to have. The electric guitar has an enormous vocabulary and several different kinds of mediums, all of which have expanded enormously in the last 10, 15 years. That’s all to the good – it just means the instrument has expanded. But young players, even if they’re really brilliant technically, there’s a thing like a guy like John Lee Hooker or somebody like that who can play two or three notes so authoritatively on a guitar. There’s like 60 years of real mean person, right, who can scare the pants off you in one or two notes played with such immense authority and such soulfulness. There’s that, and that’s a real thing. For me, I’d much rather hear something like that than a lot of facility. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you ever listen to people like Eddie Van Halen?</em> <br />
<br />
Not seriously, no. Because I can hear what’s happening in there. There isn’t much there that interests me. It isn’t played with enough deliberateness, and it lacks a certain kind of rhythmic elegance that I like music to have, that I like notes to have. There’s a lot of notes and stuff, but the notes aren’t saying much, you know. They’re like little clusters. It’s a certain kind of music which I understand on one level, but it isn’t attractive to me. <br />
<br />
<em>If you could go back in time and question any old musician, does anyone come to mind?</em><br />
<br />
Uh, yeah. I’d still follow around what’s his name – the Gypsy guitarist?<br />
<br />
<em>Django Reinhardt?</em> <br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ZCqcZrpjyRK4BbJx36jDZU6JKXI7rNTwbey-ZLVpDFn1VYt7m-l1es8IcrpyvJ6sgzv10TCnyKw-vD_rnx3qkOo8AB755fXRAFh4jb5e_6BbsCw2ermJEG_JjRL0lrTypQouC34Bw4o/s1600/django+reinhardt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ZCqcZrpjyRK4BbJx36jDZU6JKXI7rNTwbey-ZLVpDFn1VYt7m-l1es8IcrpyvJ6sgzv10TCnyKw-vD_rnx3qkOo8AB755fXRAFh4jb5e_6BbsCw2ermJEG_JjRL0lrTypQouC34Bw4o/s200/django+reinhardt.jpg" width="192" /></a>Yeah, Django. I can’t remember anything, and my mind is gone. I have all of Django’s records – every single one of them. Most of what he plays is even hard to understand, no matter how much I’ve listened to it, in terms of the actual technical how it’s happening. Because I listen to it and I hear when a note is being struck and when a note is being articulated with the left hand somehow. And he does things I don’t know how he’s doing them. I can’t imagine. You know, he’s got fingers that are about half-a-mile long. I mean, I just don’t know how he’s doing it. And this is with a fucked-up left hand. [Blogger’s note: Reinhardt’s fretting hand was injured in a caravan fire.] He’s able to cross his fingers over this way [demonstrates cross-finger techniques]. He was able to do runs where the middle finger crosses over the index finger. That much I’ve figured out because there are things he plays that work that way, and he couldn’t do them any other way. There’s no other way he could do them. And they’re lightning fast. His technique is awesome! Even today, nobody has really come to the state that he was playing at. As good as players are, they haven’t gotten to where he is. There’s a lot of guys that play fast and a lot of guys that play clean, and the guitar has come a long way as far as speed and clarity go, but nobody plays with the whole fullness of expression that Django has. I mean, the combination of incredible speed – all the speed you could possibly want – but also the thing of every note have a specific personality. You’d don’t hear it. I really haven’t heard it anywhere but with Django. </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU1K760RbvO8BkB3fGSR5wRoNJMBxccuwUrDMEosYBJu-j9hgbZ6cjlk0lTgj2j0KXkEcRiowUOUkXwpEOAfZABhoYB5KGmVXd89XOOkEQ6j5KcRvcUihZ5W8xqHfejxpH8PPaJLF_GX0/s1600/Charlie+Christian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU1K760RbvO8BkB3fGSR5wRoNJMBxccuwUrDMEosYBJu-j9hgbZ6cjlk0lTgj2j0KXkEcRiowUOUkXwpEOAfZABhoYB5KGmVXd89XOOkEQ6j5KcRvcUihZ5W8xqHfejxpH8PPaJLF_GX0/s200/Charlie+Christian.jpg" width="159" /></a></div>The other guy I’d like to hear live would be Charlie Christian, who has an incredible mind, an incredible flow of ideas – they’re just relentless flow of ideas that are just bam, pouring out. It has this intensity that’s really incredible. And he has also a tone that I think is very hip. It sounds very modern to me. His whole playing, to my ear, it sounds very modern. And it’s amazing because what people extracted from his playing, the Top-40 stuff in his playing, doesn’t have that quality, really. People pick the lamest shit from his playing. But that great Solo Flight album, you know – I mean, that improvisation is amazing! You listen to that, and still it sounds incredible, to this day. <br />
<br />
<em>He’s really the first guy who could cut it with the horns.</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, right. Right, exactly. And could play the way a horn plays, play with that kind of flow of ideas. What horn players have to do is they have to learn chords as arpeggiations. They don’t have to think of playing all the notes at once. Well, he’s the first guy to play the guitar the way horn players play through changes. He has that sense of where everything goes harmonically. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF8sMOWzMVhxAVsOyB3wbAWfVvJ8gFF8i6OH_LkfMBP1oca_l92HFN2jBhd0ZDhvzDIx1cvLdWS5_XHj5CkP4xU12b19KlmAi75YKFCYm0tK4f9FBmUbGqjg48gtm-dI7k29DhCkQilpo/s1600/Solo+Flight+album.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF8sMOWzMVhxAVsOyB3wbAWfVvJ8gFF8i6OH_LkfMBP1oca_l92HFN2jBhd0ZDhvzDIx1cvLdWS5_XHj5CkP4xU12b19KlmAi75YKFCYm0tK4f9FBmUbGqjg48gtm-dI7k29DhCkQilpo/s200/Solo+Flight+album.jpg" width="199" /></a></div><em>It’s amazing what Charlie Christian accomplished in 17 months.</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, right. That’s the way it is, man. [Laughs.] That’s the way things are sometimes, you know. Yeah, well, he’s a guy I would love to be able to hear. And those are the two guys whose reputations are well-deserved. They’re the solid gold of American-derived music, guitar playing. <br />
<br />
<em>Where would you put in somebody like Robert Johnson? </em><br />
<br />
Well, he’s a primitive genius. And there’s others that I like that I feel are in that similar category. Blind Blake. Rev. Gary Davis too, when he was young, but he was always great. I had a personal preference for Mississippi John Hurt – his early records sound so smooth. They’re just like magic. And, you know, one or two others whose playing is just extremely beautiful to my ears. I like Chet Atkins. <br />
<br />
<em>Are there non-guitarists? </em><br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCSGdhLyYtfrqN3wtkHLZ9yRh3U5upJxbReqR0ee6BFEUHk8yfaS28CjIvf0z3XmdHe_iU0scrxW8XWr9YWU6Kbn7ujBZbOhGKfhqlgBbobUSD_tEevYGMbKlWAKNi325hiqvhSb0IM3w/s1600/Art+Tatum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCSGdhLyYtfrqN3wtkHLZ9yRh3U5upJxbReqR0ee6BFEUHk8yfaS28CjIvf0z3XmdHe_iU0scrxW8XWr9YWU6Kbn7ujBZbOhGKfhqlgBbobUSD_tEevYGMbKlWAKNi325hiqvhSb0IM3w/s200/Art+Tatum.jpg" width="181" /></a>Oh, year, sure. Art Tatum is my all-time favorite. Yeah, he’s my all-time favorite. He’s the guy I put on when I want to feel really small [laughs]. When I want to feel really insignificant [laughs]. He’s a good guy to play for any musician, you know. He’ll make them want to go home and burn their instruments. [Laughs.] Art Tatum is absolutely the most incredible musician – what can you say? </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><em>What era of Tatum’s piano playing appeals to you?</em> <br />
<br />
Well, all of it is fascinating, and I also haven’t heard everything, but I’ve got the two big sets from Norman Granz, and everything on those is beyond the pale. It’s just so incredible, you know. What a mind! <br />
<br />
<em>Were you a fan of the bluegrass masters?</em> <br />
<br />
[Tentatively] Yeah, uh, but bluegrass for me is band music, and I’m a fan of bands more than I am a fan of musicians. The musicians I like sounded best in a certain context – to my ears. So my favorites are certain bands, you know, certain vintage bands. That’s the way I think of bluegrass music. I am much more attached to that side of it than I am to individual players, because there are so many good players in bluegrass. But not all bluegrass bands are good. <br />
<br />
<em>What are your favorite bands?</em><br />
<br />
I think one of my all-time favorite bands was Bill Monroe’s bluegrass band when he had Bill Keith playing banjo and Kenny Baker playing fiddle – I guess that must have been right around ’64. ’63, ’64 – somewhere around there. That was a great band. And Del McCoury playing acoustic guitar and singing. That was a great band, really a sensational band. <br />
<br />
<em>You saw that band?</em> <br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Oh, yeah. A bunch of times. And the classic Reno & Smiley band, with Mac Magaha playing fiddle. Also, the original Bill Monroe band with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. Also, the classic Lester Flatt-Earl Scruggs and Foggy Mountain Boys band – that was a great band. I loved Jim & Jesse when that had either Jimmy Buchanan or Vassar [Clements] and the two great banjo players they had at the same time – what’s his name? It’s been such a long time with banjo players. They had two real great banjo players back in the old days. They both had the same big, square-style sound. They both had rhythmically a real symmetrical style. It’s hard to describe, but it’s that era, back when Vassar was playing with them or Jimmy Buchanan. Both about the same era. That was also in the early ’60s, right around there. They had a couple of really great bands in those moments back there. And also the Stanley Brothers. My favorite singers were the Stanley Brothers. Ralph Stanley was my all-time favorite singer, I think. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCjR4qtj9c_Xw2CqvObwp01JXvvIvUN2HEM6lM_m5VhyZNjichkqNe3Johq9WKZbDOWs3wMEHylBfzxo7YQgx8gcNF-srknSz1KsW3-ap-shS0rd0rnvuHrYho8HlzJ2x7lbLbH39wRwI/s1600/publicity_pic_ralph_stanley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCjR4qtj9c_Xw2CqvObwp01JXvvIvUN2HEM6lM_m5VhyZNjichkqNe3Johq9WKZbDOWs3wMEHylBfzxo7YQgx8gcNF-srknSz1KsW3-ap-shS0rd0rnvuHrYho8HlzJ2x7lbLbH39wRwI/s200/publicity_pic_ralph_stanley.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><strong>At right: “Ralph Stanley was my all-time favorite singer.”</strong> </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><br />
<em>What was your banjo style like? Could you describe it?</em> <br />
<br />
No. [Laughs.] No, I couldn’t. I really couldn’t describe it. I can’t describe it any more than I can describe my guitar playing. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you still have a banjo?</em> <br />
<br />
Sure, I’ve got several banjos. Great ones. <br />
<br />
<em>Ever have a 6-string banjo?</em> <br />
<br />
No. <br />
<br />
<em>Those things sound loud.</em> <br />
<br />
I bet they sound like hell! [Laughs.] I don’t think I could stand a 6-string banjo. I don’t think I could stand the combination. It’d be too alien for me. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you still play sometimes?</em> <br />
<br />
Uh, once in a while. Once in a very great while. But like I say, I burned out on banjo. I’m a burned-out banjo player. I really am. I went to the end of the rope, you know. It’s the band that counts. If I could play in a real great bluegrass band once or twice a week, I would definitely get my chops back together on the banjo. <br />
<br />
<em>Were you a 5-string man?</em> <br />
<br />
Oh, yeah, yeah. Bluegrass banjo – that was it. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwG3kcpsze8RoAfQyeaZKf9E66Y5u3gNE8R6yEXfkrP6QMrkpEtponseKSxbH_L9vEPFLSScTC4DWeoqFhpaCD74l9FsvsCtufwKEyqMttzGAbPBS2AantQwzImVwts5JrSSiwdKbyw7w/s1600/Jerry+by+Jas+side+shot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwG3kcpsze8RoAfQyeaZKf9E66Y5u3gNE8R6yEXfkrP6QMrkpEtponseKSxbH_L9vEPFLSScTC4DWeoqFhpaCD74l9FsvsCtufwKEyqMttzGAbPBS2AantQwzImVwts5JrSSiwdKbyw7w/s320/Jerry+by+Jas+side+shot.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><em>Do you think much of the technique transferred over to guitar?</em> <br />
<br />
It doesn’t transfer. <br />
<br />
<em>The right hand?</em> <br />
<br />
No really. Not really. No, to me, again, it’s apples and oranges. They really aren’t the same instrument. They have strings and a bridge and frets, and that’s it, you know. Other than that, they really are very different. Also, I thought there might be some crossover when I took up pedal steel, but they’re not the same either. The technique is very, very different. And the concept is also very different. And so when you’re dealing with those instruments, it doesn’t help to try to take one to another. <br />
<br />
<em>Are there songs that you only play on acoustic?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah. <br />
<br />
<em>How large is your repertoire? </em><br />
<br />
Well, I don’t know. I haven’t played through it yet. [Laughs.] I know a lot of songs – I know an awful lot of songs because I was into the traditional music scene. I like music! So I’ve learned a lot of songs in my life. I know a lot of ’em. And I know bits and pieces of a lot of ’em, as well. And there are also a whole lot of songs that I plan on learning. For me, repertoire isn’t a static thing. And even when I go on now with John and we do our acoustic thing – John Kahn who plays bass with me – there’s always a few songs I think of on the road that I think would be fun to do. And if I don’t remember them, I go and find a book somewhere that has them in it or something. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOGF4VeEpGeglfKJ6QTzC8ncqDpEya4lxknsRFc3YzN5HdrXjDVLbjGgyqFVt56w2jTU8qHJ9CAFXMKkzbvUI96DgYMSh1VkzIGpX2c0JQb7d2zwnCtnFIEsmM85zLUGYaQhlUOAyFxbg/s1600/Garcia+Kahn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOGF4VeEpGeglfKJ6QTzC8ncqDpEya4lxknsRFc3YzN5HdrXjDVLbjGgyqFVt56w2jTU8qHJ9CAFXMKkzbvUI96DgYMSh1VkzIGpX2c0JQb7d2zwnCtnFIEsmM85zLUGYaQhlUOAyFxbg/s400/Garcia+Kahn.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<em>Are you always adding songs?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, yeah. Part of the thing about music is the thing of staying interested, and you have to motivate yourself to some extent. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you compose on acoustic guitar? Have you written any Dead songs on acoustic?</em><br />
<br />
I have done that a few times, but more often I tend to compose on the piano. It makes me think differently. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you know as much musically on piano as guitar?</em> <br />
<br />
No. <br />
<br />
<em>Maybe that’s why it’s easier to compose. </em><br />
<br />
It is, because it just puts me in a different head. Theoretically I know as much, but my hands don’t know anything. I don’t know the instrument. But I can sit and figure anything out, you know, if I have a little time.<br />
<br />
<em>Art Tatum.</em> <br />
<br />
[Laughs.] Yeah, right. Give me 20 years and another head! <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB-2Qicr3Vwsije3gZiYkN6bVhHetlPlgCie6kmSTL1K8BzUWROABab_SUebq7azt1jjOiWsJP8f0VZv8hn_pAFmW8id8pp9kZRpx3AV31dERxc4Mooiam7OgdjwG0TggcrynQGZL6oxk/s1600/grateful+dead+avalon+poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB-2Qicr3Vwsije3gZiYkN6bVhHetlPlgCie6kmSTL1K8BzUWROABab_SUebq7azt1jjOiWsJP8f0VZv8hn_pAFmW8id8pp9kZRpx3AV31dERxc4Mooiam7OgdjwG0TggcrynQGZL6oxk/s320/grateful+dead+avalon+poster.jpg" /></a></div><em>Why have the Grateful Dead more or less limited their acoustic sets?</em> <br />
<br />
I don’t know. I don’t think [Bob] Weir feels comfortable playing acoustic music. I don’t know. I’m not sure exactly why. I personally would like to do it more often. Bob doesn’t seem to like to do it very much. So we don’t press it. If anybody feels even a little negative about something, we don’t do it. <br />
<br />
<em>How did the 1980 acoustic Dead sets come about?</em> <br />
<br />
I just thought it would be a good idea, so we tried it. It was fun. And also the technology came into place. That was one of the reasons why we didn’t do it for so long, because we used to try it with microphones. It really didn’t work. But the technologically it’s much, much easier now that you have instruments – like I say, the improvements in electro-acoustic instruments have been vast. <br />
<br />
<em>Did your audience react as well to acoustic music?</em> <br />
<br />
Oh, they have reacted as well, sure. They like it a lot. I like it a lot too. It’s a nice way to play. It’s a nice way to constitute. I like the combination of drums and electric bass and acoustic guitars. I think it’s really a nice sound. There used to be a nice-sounding band with those two good English fingerpickers with Bert Jansch and whatever the fuck his name is – that other guy – in a band called Pentagram that played in the early ’60s. <br />
<br />
<em>Pentangle, with John Renbourn.</em> <br />
<br />
Pentangle. Yeah, John Renbourn and Bert Jansch. And they were great! I mean, they had a nice little jazz drummer, a tasty jazz drummer that played brushes, and an excellent acoustic bass player and a lady that sang in sort of a madrigal voice [Jacqui McShee], and English voice. It was a lovely band. The texture was really nice, and it sounded great onstage. We played a lot of shows with them, and we heard them a lot in certain circumstances, and they sounded beautiful. It had a lot of possibilities, that combination of two acoustic guitars and so on and a standard rhythm section. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you miss having a second guitarist when you play in the duo?</em> <br />
<br />
No. No. It’s just a different thing. For me, the more the merrier. I like playing in a band. But when it’s an acoustic thing, it’s challenging to play with just two instruments. I like to think of relating to just one other instrument, especially if it isn’t another guitar. <br />
<br />
<em>What’s the appeal of working with John Kahn?</em> <br />
<br />
He thinks like me. He’s got the same “fuck it” attitude that I have. [Laughs.] <br />
<br />
<em>Are you as willing to go out on a limb?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah. <br />
<br />
<em>Is he good about following you?</em> <br />
<br />
Oh, he’s real good about following me, and that’s the thing about it. He and I have very, very similar – we have the same musical taste, with a slight overlap. It’s almost guaranteed. I mean, that’s why we’ve played together for so long – we think like each other. <br />
<br />
<em>What are your audiences like with the duo? Mostly Deadheads?</em> <br />
<br />
I imagine they are. I imagine they’re from Deadheads. But the audience is much more sensitive, I would say. We can get down to a whisper, and that place shuts up, man. I mean, nobody hollers nothin’. We can get it down to [gives a quiet whistle], where it’s really whispering, where the strings are just [quietly] ping, ping. Little tiny sounds are coming out, and the place is just [whistles quietly]. You can draw them down to absolute silence. <br />
<br />
<em>Ooh, that’s good.</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, it is. It really is. It’s something real special. I don’t know how many audiences would do that, but I found that in every case when I go out acoustically with John and I playing, we can do it every time. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDTbfs8TYFxqIxyGQj_ZhJJB68WZkb7P1_tzBTAso1DMiToHaRyT4dxeG6ZhEKbv5SQWSGyCJv1AxrAwjSR1apg9D_onf5WYx8YTQPn0FsENcrfNic3vFlbaTRWFVavkjEWHGH8MLMNaQ/s1600/JerryGarciaBand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDTbfs8TYFxqIxyGQj_ZhJJB68WZkb7P1_tzBTAso1DMiToHaRyT4dxeG6ZhEKbv5SQWSGyCJv1AxrAwjSR1apg9D_onf5WYx8YTQPn0FsENcrfNic3vFlbaTRWFVavkjEWHGH8MLMNaQ/s320/JerryGarciaBand.jpg" /></a></div><em>What’s the difference in pressure between fronting your own acoustic duo versus playing with the Dead? Do you feel more weight on your shoulders?</em> <br />
<br />
Uhhh. I do, in some cases, but that’s just because I have a martyr complex [laughs] or something like that. You know, a “poor me” complex here. No, no. Actually, it’s great to be able to play at all for anybody under any circumstances and have anybody like it. That’s really an incredible thing. And it would be so small minded of me to complain about any, any part of it. You know what I mean? It would be so chickenshit, you know? Ah, man, how could anybody think differently? To complain about any level of it would be so, ah, so . . . [laughs]. <br />
<br />
<em>What do you feel an artist owes his audience?</em> <br />
<br />
Everything. Shit. I mean, either he doesn’t owe them anything at all . . . I don’t know how you even get an audience. Ideally, nobody owes anybody anything. You know what I mean? In other words, everybody gets paid off. The artist gets off playing, and the audience gets off listening, and that’s it – that’s what it’s about. You know, the rest of it is somebody else’s story. That’s what I think the thing is about. And for me, being in the audience and getting off myself – I’ve never wanted any more than that. And the times when I’d get off, I love it! There’s nothing better. That’s where I get it from. The reason I’m onstage is because I’ve been in the audience. <br />
<br />
<em>What your favorite part of your business? Of everything you do, what do you enjoy the most?</em> <br />
<br />
I just love music. All of it – listening to it, playing. I mean, all of it. Everything about it, really. There’s really nothing about it I don’t like. Possibly interviews is the worst of it [laughs uproariously]. Well, that’s the most non-musical part, you know what I mean? [Laughs.] That’s the part that’s the strangest. Music is easy. Talking is not so easy. And it’s really something you have to learn. You learn how to bullshit, really. [Laughs.] <br />
<br />
<em>Do you play any music that doesn’t come out onstage?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah. Yeah, sure. There’s a lot of music. Yeah, right! I have this kind of a weird kind of music that I play, mostly just to myself, for myself, at times that’s just weird. [Laughs.] <br />
<br />
<em>Can you describe it?</em> <br />
<br />
No, I can’t really. It’s only just something I do when I’m sitting around with a guitar and there’s nobody else around. Sometimes I get off into these zones that, to me, are very fascinating for some reason. I’ve never tried to record it, so I have no idea really what it’s like. But I know as far as getting absorbed in something, I can get really absorbed in these things. But I have a feeling that they probably don’t sound so great. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnAHESbfRnI3sRrAOcSH1jxTjimaLAcCGnjhPKXdCCR3wNytuLiUBvKAIMxXAYXpgtSfGYY3HjKzxJtXvV37tDYTqbVpay9tSpmSW7UfBc7M-YICp-DJO2FpVprVa-b_VcPIgfylmYueU/s1600/Jerry+by+Jas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnAHESbfRnI3sRrAOcSH1jxTjimaLAcCGnjhPKXdCCR3wNytuLiUBvKAIMxXAYXpgtSfGYY3HjKzxJtXvV37tDYTqbVpay9tSpmSW7UfBc7M-YICp-DJO2FpVprVa-b_VcPIgfylmYueU/s320/Jerry+by+Jas.jpg" /></a></div><em>Is it more abstract?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, yeah. I can get really carried away. Yeah. It’s formless music – music that doesn’t have any form. It’s not even music that I could play with somebody. I think it’s that weird. I’ll have to try and record it sometime and see what it really sounds like. I’ve never really objectively gotten away from myself and listened to it. This is not something I do all the time, but once in a while I fall into this zone, you know, when I’m comfortable enough and have a nice-enough instrument and I just feel like playing and I don’t have any ideas or anything like that. I drift into a few kinds of areas that I just don’t really know what they’re like. <br />
<br />
<em>This is on electric guitar?</em><br />
<br />
Any kind of guitar. <br />
<br />
<em>Is it more like playing solos?</em> <br />
<br />
[Laughs.] I don’t know what it’s like. It’s just playing, you know. Like I say, it doesn’t have any form. Sometimes it’s chordal things, sometimes it’s progressions, sometimes it’s just chords, you know. Sometimes it’s kind of weird chord melodies that just have leading tones. Sometimes I play a whole bunch of real dense chord things that have these leading tones, but they aren’t songs. It’s just music. Sometimes I’ll get this idea that has a kind of counter melody of some kind in it, and I’ll start stretching it out and fooling around with it, and gradually it’ll turn into this whole thing. But it’s never stuff that I can repeat or remember, and I don’t even know whether it has any musical value or not. It’s just stuff I do. You know, it’s kind of a free-form music. Sometimes ideas come out of it. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you ever get a musical idea without an instrument . . .</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah! <br />
<br />
<em>And then apply it to the instrument?</em> <br />
<br />
Oh, absolutely! That’s where “Terrapin” – you know “Terrapin,” that Grateful Dead tune? – that’s where that came from. Dropped into my head – boom. <br />
<br />
<em>Which part?</em> <br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The end part. The big theme. It not only happened, it came fully orchestrated too. Yeah. I’ve had melodies drop into my head a lot, but they’re usually short. They’re usually not that long. That’s quite a long melody. And all of it came in – the conversational part of it, the way the instruments answer each other and that. Yeah, that’s one of those things. Yeah, that happens to me. Not very often, but it does. And then I do try to apply it. But usually I lose it. Usually I forget it. Usually I get a great idea, and then eengh! By the time I get somewhere where I can either solidify it with an instrument or write it down or something like that, it’s gone. </div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV5u1zZowCJbA5Mgot7f_JpGez2jgW7vrJeOw_VhaPB2Mgq1VAzkVIvgK3zyt6gKyEmof8bUeWcAEJuhT19aqHli0KxmmCeei6MhRWDy3idO_UDNXNg0AMHZ7YDJVyHSA-ocwBdJcOnTc/s1600/Grateful_Dead-Steal_Your_Face.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV5u1zZowCJbA5Mgot7f_JpGez2jgW7vrJeOw_VhaPB2Mgq1VAzkVIvgK3zyt6gKyEmof8bUeWcAEJuhT19aqHli0KxmmCeei6MhRWDy3idO_UDNXNg0AMHZ7YDJVyHSA-ocwBdJcOnTc/s200/Grateful_Dead-Steal_Your_Face.jpg" width="200" /></a><em>Ever have song ideas come to you at really strange times?</em> </div><br />
That’s the only time they come to me! [Laughs.] There’s always some music continuum going on, that I can sort of turn it on and off like a radio. But usually it’s just mind rot; it’s just stuff. Every once in a while a good idea comes through, and I never know when it’s gonna be. <br />
<br />
<em>Have you heard musical sounds that can’t be gotten on traditional instruments?</em> <br />
<br />
Not yet. No. Nothing that can’t be got. I haven’t heard anything that can’t be got yet. <br />
<br />
<em>What are your limitations as a musician?</em> <br />
<br />
Shit, I’ve got nothing but limitations! I mean, I’m limited by everything. I’m limited by my technique. I’m limited by my background. I’m limited by my education. I’m limited by the things I’ve heard. I’m limited by all that stuff. I’m limited by being a human being. Yeah. I think in a way that a musician – and particularly a musician with a distinctive style – is, in fact, a product of their limitations. What you’re hearing is their limitations, really. I assume that almost everybody plays at the outside edge of their ability, so that’s usually what you’re hearing – as good as they can do. <br />
<br />
<em>How long could you last in a band where when you went onstage, you’d have to duplicate what’s on a record?</em> <br />
<br />
Not a minute! [Laughs.] I don’t think I could last very long. I mean, that would be so dull for me. In fact, I don’t even think I could do it. <br />
<br />
<em>What percent of a Grateful Dead show is improvisation?</em> <br />
<br />
Oh, about 80%. I mean, almost all of it, really. All the stuff that isn’t the words and the melody. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6WcALtOs_RpLVdXOWxxBv1LA7HoGNNsrJger0r5IY5NnRcear1k3s1_3VmhNoZHfxnHCSIYlUXUtLfpG8HX_i1JSFVW6KF-TDCWa7Rw3SJMIeTqvzcohC2oFMqu-pI01fykweCrc4CdI/s1600/grateful-dead+poster+1966.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6WcALtOs_RpLVdXOWxxBv1LA7HoGNNsrJger0r5IY5NnRcear1k3s1_3VmhNoZHfxnHCSIYlUXUtLfpG8HX_i1JSFVW6KF-TDCWa7Rw3SJMIeTqvzcohC2oFMqu-pI01fykweCrc4CdI/s320/grateful-dead+poster+1966.jpg" /></a></div><em>What happens when someone else in the band wants to go off into an improvisational tangent that you might not necessarily be able to follow or want to get into?</em> <br />
<br />
You have to make an effort. Then I’ll lay out. If it’s something that I don’t have a handle on, then I’ll lay out. If somebody’s got something going, rather than wreck it by playing stuff that fucks with it, I’ll lay out until I either apprehend it – you know, understand it on some level and can do something to support it – or else I’ll just lay out, because that’s the best thing to do. And I lot of times I just like to listen to what’s going on, because a lot of times there’s some beautiful things happening that don’t have anything to do with me, and it’s nice to be able to just listen. The Grateful Dead can be very fascinating that way. I love to lay out, because sometimes Weir and Brent get into some incredible things. I mean, everybody does, really, so it’s nice to just stop: “Wow! What’s that?” I like that. <br />
<br />
<em>Can you psyche yourself into creative moods?</em> <br />
<br />
Uh, I almost always have to. I mean, yeah, they don’t come to me. In other words, if I don’t sit down and work at stuff, I don’t get song ideas. I’m not that creative, really. I’m not real prolific. I write maybe three, four songs a year, if that. And I have to work at ’em. I have to say, “Now I’m gonna work,” and sit down and work. It’s one of those things where I’ll work for a couple of hours and nothing will happen. I won’t get anything. I’ll stop for a while, pick it up again and work for a couple of hours, nothing will happen. The next day I’ll do the same thing, and the next day, and the next day. Maybe three or four, five days into it, I’ll get a little idea: “Hey, this is kind of nice.” You know, it’s like that. Then every once in a while you get a stroke – you get something, “Oh, far out!” But then usually then once I get going, once I’ve got the first idea, then maybe three, four songs will come out in the next two days. That’s the way that works for me, generally speaking. <br />
<br />
<em>Were any of the songs you’ve written particularly frustrating?</em> <br />
<br />
Oh, yeah. Some were really frustrating. “Reuben and Cherise” took about three years to write, literally – maybe longer than that. I kept writing and writing versions of it – “Oh, this sucks.” Hunter would rewrite the lyrics: “No, that doesn’t make it.” I’d write a new melody: “No, that isn’t it.” It’s so utterly and totally different from the very first conception of it. That went on forever. It just went on forever. <br />
<br />
<em>Did any songs happen spontaneously?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah! A whole bunch of ’em. A lot of ’em. I’d have to go through the whole list and say, “Yeah, this one, this one, this one.” An awful lot of them have just boom – they come out real quick. Because usually we’re cooking, Hunter and I, when that happens. The majority of our songs are cooking. It’s that first one or two or that really different one occasionally that we had to labor like crazy at or whatever. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you give Robert Hunter a chord progression?</em> <br />
<br />
We do it all different ways. He gives me lyrics. He gives me a stack of lyrics this big [holds fingers a couple of inches apart], and I give him about two melodies [laughs uproariously]. You know, his output is enormous. My output it teeny. But usually what happens is I go over to his house, and we just work on something. <br />
<br />
<em>On piano?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah. <br />
<br />
<em>Then do you teach it to the other members of the band at a rehearsal, do you give them a cassette . . . </em><br />
<br />
No, I let them guess it! [Laughs.] <br />
<br />
<em>Onstage, right?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah! No, I like to just teach it to ’em. I just tell them the chords: “Here’s the chords.” Like that. I like to keep it simple.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKMiNC2oYK0WPby3kA3UdYsv1JfDomjpXxJjPDLd1R6NyXaHNwCiasRIK__DyfqKZ_mS6y_wEptzII-Vt9MR6PqETN4JwSursuv1rRl622lZ_69xXCN_aK1QieMxRaVB_XTo8lzNT9po8/s1600/untitled.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKMiNC2oYK0WPby3kA3UdYsv1JfDomjpXxJjPDLd1R6NyXaHNwCiasRIK__DyfqKZ_mS6y_wEptzII-Vt9MR6PqETN4JwSursuv1rRl622lZ_69xXCN_aK1QieMxRaVB_XTo8lzNT9po8/s400/untitled.bmp" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<em>Are there any songs you’re particularly proud of?</em> <br />
<br />
Oh, yeah, there’s a bunch of them that I love. I really do love them. There’s a lot of them that I’m proud of. I don’t know. All of them are songs that I can perform time after time and not get bored with, and that’s saying a lot. <br />
<br />
<em>That’s a good sign.</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, it really is. They live for me. And after I’ve written them, I don’t feel like they’re mine anymore – luckily, because I’m self-conscious about my own work if I think about. If they reminded me of myself somehow, I don’t think I’d be able to stand to do them over and over again. So it’s nice. They don’t have any context, in a way, so it’s nice. I can perform them over and over again in lots of different moods, with lots of different coloration, and still feel good about ’em. <br />
<br />
<em>Are there songs you’ll only call out to play when you’re in a certain mood?</em><br />
<br />
Geez, that’s hard to tell. For me, playing onstage is so subjective, I don’t know how I feel about it a lot of the time. It may be that there are, yeah. There are definitely songs that a lot of times I am not in the mood for, so it works that way for sure. Whether it works the other way, I’m not so sure. That is to say that it’s possible that if I’m in the right mood, I can play any song. I can feel like doing any song. So I don’t know about that part of it. But I know on the negative side of it that there are times when I definitely don’t feel like playing a certain song. This is not true with every song, though. There’s only a few songs that are sort of mood-triggered or attached in some way to a mood – for me, in that subjective sense. [At this point photographer Jon Sievert comes in and we take a short break.]<br />
<br />
<em>You were talking about composing . . . .</em> <br />
<br />
I’ll tell ya, I don’t think of myself as a composer. I only do that because that’s what you do. I learned how to do it. It’s a craft. I can do it as a craft. I know about the craft of writing, but I don’t think of myself as a composer. I’ve never been compelled by my own compositions. I don’t feel that I’m particularly gifted in that area. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfuneumJL5CMmrPXHS_JHpzUVp91j12R2o9eCmp3Hy06HvHZlub0CC9PPEVljtTrFjJRvl-tInAOuPL9VjrvgyxyELwFeXGHg3pi7lhPmV9GkSVDRDi0p4nDR5GDGmToawwrOsl24q85Q/s1600/Grateful+dead+-+Jerry+Garcia+Band+poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfuneumJL5CMmrPXHS_JHpzUVp91j12R2o9eCmp3Hy06HvHZlub0CC9PPEVljtTrFjJRvl-tInAOuPL9VjrvgyxyELwFeXGHg3pi7lhPmV9GkSVDRDi0p4nDR5GDGmToawwrOsl24q85Q/s320/Grateful+dead+-+Jerry+Garcia+Band+poster.jpg" width="208" /></a></div><em>If somebody wanted to hear the essential Jerry Garcia, are there any cuts you’d tell them to listen to?</em> <br />
<br />
No, not really. I don’t think of myself as being on records. But any half a dozen live concerts of the Grateful Dead or my band would pretty much give them the more or less of it. <br />
<br />
<em>Do any concerts stand out?</em> <br />
<br />
I don’t keep track. No, I don’t. <br />
<br />
<em>You’re not like your fans, huh? </em><br />
<br />
No. For me, it’s the next note. It’s not the last one. <br />
<br />
<em>When you make a mistake onstage, is that your attitude?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah. Oh, yeah. There’s no such thing as a mistake. [Laughs.] <br />
<br />
<em>Do it again, and it’s improvisation.</em> <br />
<br />
That’s right. There’s no such thing as a mistake. <br />
<br />
<em>Are you satisfied with your accomplishments and your career?</em> <br />
<br />
Not at all. No. No, no, no, no, no. I still think of myself as someone trying to learn how to play the guitar. If I learn how to play the guitar, I’ll be really happy. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><em>Why do you think you’ve attracted such a loyal following? </em><br />
<br />
It must be really hungry out there. [Laughs.] I blame the general low quality of life, you know. <br />
<br />
<em>Yeah?</em> <br />
<br />
Well, yeah! I don’t know why. To tell you the truth, I don’t know why the first person stayed for the first song. It’s been a mystery to me, because there was a time when that didn’t happen. I played for a long time, and nobody cared about it at all [laughs]. That was never a criteria, as far as I was concerned. I would keep playing for nobody if that was what was happening. People hanging out and liking it is just another one of those things of just tremendous good luck, I think. Or at least that’s how I feel about it. I’m glad it’s that way – I’m glad people like it – but I don’t know how or I don’t know why or what, particularly. It’s hard to appreciate from this side of it. <br />
<br />
<em>Have you perceived a large change in your audience?</em><br />
<br />
Our audience has changed a lot of times, but our audience is still a Grateful Dead audience. That is to say, the kind of people that they are – I think there’s a certain kind of person, maybe, that likes Grateful Dead music. I don’t mean that in a narrow kind of way, because it seems to cut across all kinds of lines. I mean, it cuts across all kinds of cultural and social lines, so it’s not some easy formula for the Grateful Dead person. Our audience now are people who are 16, 17 years old, 18 years old now, that weren’t born when we were started. [Laughs.] That’s a sobering thought, you know. <br />
<br />
<em>Does the ambience of the concert seem the same?</em> <br />
<br />
Oh, yeah. Well, pretty similar, except there are some large differences, but they seem to be basically cultural in a big way in America. On the East Coast, they’re more vehement, you know. They’re more yaaah! The energy is higher, frankly. But the energy is higher on every level on the East Coast. You know, New York has that thing that only New York has. The West Coast has a thing that only the West Coast has. Those kind of differences, you know. But other than that, the Grateful Dead audience basically is the same kind of people. They get along pretty well with themselves, from coast to coast and all around. They seem to be a pretty good-natured lot. I like ’em. They’re good people. <br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_jgL01PTd9dIKUBZPX4GZdKMLdkKH1yASmdrcEW_CeGvMG_hZUZHFyjNkMm8vP-vTIWX0p6NLTuZE4IgZBBH8FqXN6kLZNJdgb1i83vDNproazg1O18igtSJYSbyTjHd63RcqB5zsQIY/s1600/John+and+Jerry+by+Jas.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_jgL01PTd9dIKUBZPX4GZdKMLdkKH1yASmdrcEW_CeGvMG_hZUZHFyjNkMm8vP-vTIWX0p6NLTuZE4IgZBBH8FqXN6kLZNJdgb1i83vDNproazg1O18igtSJYSbyTjHd63RcqB5zsQIY/s400/John+and+Jerry+by+Jas.bmp" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong>Jon Sievert during the Frets cover photo shoot.</strong> </div><br />
<em>For the work I do, I have to see a lot of heavy metal and jazz and different types of music . . .</em> <br />
<br />
Lucky you! [Laughs.]<br />
<br />
<em>Any bands you’d go out of your way to see?</em> <br />
<br />
There are a few, yeah. Let’s see – the last band I went to see is Dire Straits. That was the last band I went to see live, a couple of years ago. There are others that I would, but most of the time I’m out working and stuff. So I don’t really get a chance. But there are more that I would go to see if I were in a situation where I wasn’t working nights so much. I would go out more. But yeah, there’s actually a lot of music that I would go to see. It’s just the opportunity doesn’t present itself that often. That’s the problem. Time and space, you know. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you ever have trouble with being recognized in public?</em><br />
<br />
I’ve given up worrying about it, because I’m recognized almost everywhere now. It bothers me sometimes, because there’s that thing – you’d like to not have to think about yourself all the time. That’s the drag – the thing of constantly being forced to think about yourself all the time. And there are times when you’d like to, uh, . . . I feel some sense of responsibility toward that person too, the public Garcia person, you know. In other words, I don’t feel that I have the freedom to get roaring drunk and start fights and scream at people and do all the kinds of stuff that I might do perfectly comfortably if I were just nobody. You know what I mean? [Laughs.] I don’t like to be obnoxious. There are things you might to be able to do in perfect comfort if you felt that you didn’t have to answer for it in some way. And I feel some sense of stricture. Although I might not ever do those things, I do feel some sense of restriction down at that end of my personality. And sometimes I have mild fits of resentment about it, but shit, mostly people are very nice to me, and so far I’ve had no really bad experiences. I’ve had a few weird experiences and a few close brushes with total weirdness of one sort or another, but nothing that’s really freaked me out or made me feel too awful about it. <br />
<br />
<em>That’d be a great book title: “Close Brushes with Total Weirdness.”</em> <br />
<br />
[Laughs.] <br />
<br />
<em>What’s your acoustic guitar? </em><br />
<br />
Takamine. I don’t know what model it is, but it’s a lot like a D-21 except that it’s got a cutaway. A dreadnaught with one cutaway. <br />
<br />
<em>With slider controls?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, little slider controls. It’s got a high and low cut and boost and a volume, so it’s got three sliders as opposed to two. It’s right off the shelf – it’s a showroom model. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you have it set up to approximate an electric?</em> <br />
<br />
No, I use significantly heavier strings and also a higher action and all that. I have it set up like an acoustic guitar. <br />
<br />
<em>How much preparation do you have to do, playing wise, before you go on tour and onstage?</em> <br />
<br />
Well, I like to warm up. Before I go on tour, I like to spend two or three days with John, just warming up my chops on the acoustic guitar. We’ve done it enough now where it only takes a few days to warm up, chops wise. And then before a show, I’ll do more and less as the tour goes on – warming up before a show. There’s the long-term warming up, and the short-term warming up. <br />
<br />
<em>On acoustic, do you have to make many compensations in terms of technique with your right-hand picking attack?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, it’s a whole different ball of wax, yes. It’s very different. I hold my whole hand kind of differently. And just the position of the guitar and the thickness of the guitar and everything means my whole arm and wrist and everything have a whole different attitude. Electric guitar is real thin, so my elbow is close to my body and my wrist is close to the guitar. It’s all in here [demonstrates close-up playing position]. With an acoustic guitar, it’s all out here [hold arms further away from his body]. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you hold the pick the same way?</em> <br />
<br />
Pretty much, yeah. But I move it around all the time while I’m playing anyway. I don’t have “a” way I hold the pick in an iron grasp. I constantly adjust it. I more it around a lot. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you always use the pointy end?</em> <br />
<br />
Yes. <br />
<br />
<em>A lot of guys lately have been using the rounded shoulder.</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, I know. It’s because it makes it seem like you can play faster. But what you pick up in speed you sacrifice in point. I like to have a lot of control over the point of the note, the attack. And when you use the point of the pick, it means that by relaxing or tightening upon the pick itself you get, uh, . . . I use a real thick pick, one with absolutely zero flexibility. It’s like a stick. And the point is you get a lot of change in touch and a lot of change in tone and point attack of the note and coloration on that level and harmonic content of the attack by holding on to the pick tighter or looser. That makes a big difference in the tone. And on acoustic guitar, that’s one of the ways you can really color your playing. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTRKl_Ji89__mzv9tjVsZkZLr9Jg5RMbT65HEYLB53Wn8ZeD0qjmTIY7fBjCySubzC7qZrPqTmEdGXGK9ZtS2CvHRChuj9uvBm_lLOyOtq2-g0pkVzGndKRmh7Dw0lBKSC_CLFYdtVv9E/s1600/Jerry+in+color+1991.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTRKl_Ji89__mzv9tjVsZkZLr9Jg5RMbT65HEYLB53Wn8ZeD0qjmTIY7fBjCySubzC7qZrPqTmEdGXGK9ZtS2CvHRChuj9uvBm_lLOyOtq2-g0pkVzGndKRmh7Dw0lBKSC_CLFYdtVv9E/s320/Jerry+in+color+1991.bmp" /></a></div><em>Can you play a vibrato with your fingers the same way on acoustic?</em><br />
<br />
I do a slightly different kind of vibrato. I don’t do the same, because I use heavier strings, for one thing. It’s a different thing. But yeah, I don’t have any trouble with vibrato on acoustic.<br />
<br />
<em>Which fingers do you use?</em> <br />
<br />
I tend to draw my vibrato from my whole hand. <br />
<br />
<em>Like a violin player rather than B.B. King?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, yeah. I don’t do independent vibratos with my fingers very often. Once in a while I do. More often, I do a vibrato with my wrist. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you bend strings much on acoustic?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, but I don’t make an effort to. On an acoustic guitar, I’m more likely to bend a half-step. <br />
<br />
<em>Will you back the finger bending with other fingers?</em> <br />
<br />
No. Usually it’s unsupported. <br />
<br />
<em>You must have strong hands.</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, yeah. I always use relatively heavy strings for rock and roll guitar and a high action. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you play in open tunings on acoustic?</em> <br />
<br />
Never. Well, no, I wouldn’t say never. There are things I especially do, but I never perform in an open tuning. If I had another guitar that I could tune up in an open tuning and leave it there . . . I hate to retune the guitar onstage. I feel they settle into a tuning, and I don’t like to retune them for that reason – because you lose that sense of settling in. <br />
<br />
<em>How do you amplify?</em> <br />
<br />
I just run it into the board, because usually I travel with the same P.A., the same monitor system. I bring it up through the monitor, so it’s plenty loud. Sometimes I use just a little Twin Reverb onstage as a failsafe – just in case something goes wrong, I can still hear the guitar. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi2LiK5wD6MGVqWTaIcYLG7VjFTxiuKy4XvHjU24YH-UXGDDG4NkfzBl1PhGTph8kQQCJsKbVgIxq293YJmOqNiLaaHVhlhdPt_kF8TVsQw1_ybXCiu8hE7LwHEPKpFzbdF5RL_ZPG39Y/s1600/jerry+%26+merl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi2LiK5wD6MGVqWTaIcYLG7VjFTxiuKy4XvHjU24YH-UXGDDG4NkfzBl1PhGTph8kQQCJsKbVgIxq293YJmOqNiLaaHVhlhdPt_kF8TVsQw1_ybXCiu8hE7LwHEPKpFzbdF5RL_ZPG39Y/s320/jerry+%26+merl.jpg" width="248" /></a></div><em>Do you have plans for acoustic recordings?</em> <br />
<br />
No plans, really, but if something comes up, maybe. Really, the acoustic thing, the thing of performing as an acoustic artist, is something kind of new to me, really. I still see a whole lot. Like, John and I are just starting to get a feeling for it, and we’re starting to flash on how many kinds of things we can do. We can do all kinds of different styles of music – we haven’t even started to touch on it yet. I’m just doing a few things that are very available. I haven’t started to put a whole lot of effort into it. But John and I are starting to think of all different tunes we could do and different styles and all that, so in the future I think there’s a lot more happening in that acoustic format. I feel real good about that. John and I both do. It’s really a kick to do that. <br />
<br />
<em>Is a lot of your acoustic repertoire drawn from traditional tunes?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, yeah. A lot of it is, because I love those tunes. I just do whatever I love. <br />
<br />
<em>Would you feel comfortable playing, say, a reggae song?</em> <br />
<br />
I don’t think so. I might find some comfortable way to do it, but no, I’m too conscious of style. I associate style with the way it is. I don’t like taking a style and doing an inferior version of it. I don’t like trying to choke a style down into some package. Reggae is really an ensemble style – I would feel funny about trying to sort of force that down to one instrument or two instruments. It wouldn’t work for me. <br />
<br />
<em>Can you comment on your plans for the future?</em> <br />
<br />
No, except that I have plans for the future! [Laughs uproariously.] I plan to have a future, yeah! That’s as far as I’m gonna go. <br />
<br />
<em>That’s good enough for me.</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, me too. <br />
<br />
<em>Any predictions for the future of rock guitar?</em> <br />
<br />
I’m sure it’s just going to get more interesting – at least I hope so. Or maybe it won’t. It seems as though guitar goes through those things of being like – there was sort of a reductive school of guitar playing that went on there for a while during the ’70s. There was kind of an anti-guitar school. <br />
<br />
<em>Minimalist.</em> <br />
<br />
Right, right. And that was kind of okay, you know. But I’m a guitar player. <br />
<br />
<em>It put more of a focus on tone versus notes.</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, that’s true. And sometimes it’s a good idea to get down from the guitar tree. I also am not that much of a nut about guitar music, just guitar music. I like music music. It’s the thing of a guitar as a voice in the music – that’s really the thing. So it’s the music that counts to me. I mean, I’ll be happy whatever happens, as long as something happens. [Laughs.] You have to keep adjusting. I’d rather feel good than bad, you know. So given the choice of worrying about the development of music or being optimistic, I think it’s easier to be optimistic. <br />
<br />
<em>Are you concerned about what you’ll be remembered as?</em> <br />
<br />
God, no. I hope people don’t remember me beyond what’s necessary. Don’t hang anybody up by having to remember me too much – that’s what I would hope. It’s like, remembering is dangerous. <br />
<br />
<em>How would you like to be remembered as a musician?</em> <br />
<br />
As a pretty okay musician. I don’t know. I don’t really expect to be remembered – that’s way ahead of me. I’m still trying to just get good. If I get good, then I might say I hope people remember how good I am. The idea of being remembered would be embarrassing to me at this point. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4oeD3ymANFLApBsHTHRiiZ0aJgn4u4oCJq2oE-9ppmUgruaIBcgkJiDJqEnZ2ZHoO-GpTlI1-IGObriINS6IIVnlZ2miA8_kw0uBz0GNEVIwR1OoODYP7xBWbnS-mDRXhM6GIMITW6Zw/s1600/Jerry+Garcia+poster+1987.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4oeD3ymANFLApBsHTHRiiZ0aJgn4u4oCJq2oE-9ppmUgruaIBcgkJiDJqEnZ2ZHoO-GpTlI1-IGObriINS6IIVnlZ2miA8_kw0uBz0GNEVIwR1OoODYP7xBWbnS-mDRXhM6GIMITW6Zw/s200/Jerry+Garcia+poster+1987.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><em>You’ve got a humble attitude. </em><br />
<br />
If you were me you wouldn’t think so! [Laughs.] <br />
<br />
<em>Epilog</em><br />
<br />
<em>Jerry Garcia gave his last concert with the Grateful Dead on July 9, 1995. Three weeks later he died in his sleep at the Serenity Knolls rehabilitation center, where he’d been undergoing treatment for drug addiction. By year’s end, the Grateful Dead had announced their official retirement.</em><br />
<br />
<strong><em><span style="color: blue;">Show your support of this blog, and help feed the blogger, by making a donation using the Paypal link below.</span></em></strong>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-87300129973196881182010-08-28T09:55:00.000-04:002010-08-28T09:55:19.112-04:00Sam Chatmon Interview: Last of the Mississippi Sheiks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7IJQIOdeAuONJ7G0OA7YSMfD32bjG1mPiH6ZcwIBO2VJXXN0aiWRwOVirjPamm3ftEtrlXoa03TcfZBB511r1tj7bEarlICY6ZfseTCAv95bVXqTzmb7QRbVKG1RO4SfQo2t6VFiolVo/s1600/Sam+Chatmon+opener.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7IJQIOdeAuONJ7G0OA7YSMfD32bjG1mPiH6ZcwIBO2VJXXN0aiWRwOVirjPamm3ftEtrlXoa03TcfZBB511r1tj7bEarlICY6ZfseTCAv95bVXqTzmb7QRbVKG1RO4SfQo2t6VFiolVo/s400/Sam+Chatmon+opener.jpg" width="272" /></a></div>When Sam Chatmon first began playing the blues, Teddy Roosevelt was president of the United States. Most of his neighbors in rural Mississippi were still listening to rags and reels that dated back to slavery days. <br />
<br />
Chatmon launched his recording career in the 1930s, playing alongside his brothers Bo Carter and Lonnie Chatmon in the era’s most celebrated string band, the Mississippi Sheiks, and performed as one-half of the Bluebird duo “Chatman Brothers (Lonnie and Sam).” Outliving his brothers, Sam was “rediscovered” in 1960 by Chris Strachwitz, who recorded him anew for Arhoolie Records. Sam went on to make several fine albums for other labels and attain status as an elder statesmen of the blues. <br />
<br />
In concert and on record, Chatmon seemed a living summation of the country blues style his family helped pioneer more than a half-century earlier. While skilled on banjo, bass viol, mandolin, harmonica, and piano, he most often performed on acoustic guitar. Like his more famous brother Bo, Sam was facile in many keys and favored smooth fingerpicking patterns and old-time pluck-and-strum rhythms. He sang with a warm, plaintive, almost delicate voice, staying true to the spirit of what he reverently referred to as “the old-fashioned music that first was handed down.” <br />
<br />
Most sources credit January 10, 1897, as the date of Sam Chatmon’s birth. His father, fiddler Henderson Chatmon, was born in slavery and had several sets of children. “My daddy had three wives,” Sam claimed in the liners to the Rounder album Sam Chatmon’s Advice, “and my mother had the least children of any of them, which was 13. Daddy said he had 60 children, but that ain’t countin’ Charley Patton and all them on the outside.” (While the Patton link is unproved, Henderson reportedly had an affair with Annie Patton, Charley’s mother, during the 1890s.) <br />
<br />
The elder Chatmon owned fiddles, guitars, a banjo, mandolin, clarinet, piano, and bass viol, and his sons banded together to play white square dances and black parties. “All of us nine brothers played together,” Sam described. “Lonnie and Edgar would play the violins. Harry would play the guitar, piano, or violin. Willie and Bert played the guitar. Bo would play the guitar or banjo, and brother Laurie beat the drums. I’d usually play bass violin for them. Walter Vincent joined us in 1921. They called him ‘Walter Jacob’ on the records, but old man Vincent was his daddy.” (In discographies, Walter’s last name is usually listed as “Vincson.”) <br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjldIUmhWSVCZHR6qmd8oe4jMlDzIhKFPj_RNUodNgwldc0fks5IfC4yMr_H3VksarR8WxS0ww4c0F0YegAPZywqbfHmCFgt4VWPpf5FbELf1hZppS6pW4fUn3ckgWivSHh10Cb3EPyaT8/s1600/The+Mississippi+Sheiks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjldIUmhWSVCZHR6qmd8oe4jMlDzIhKFPj_RNUodNgwldc0fks5IfC4yMr_H3VksarR8WxS0ww4c0F0YegAPZywqbfHmCFgt4VWPpf5FbELf1hZppS6pW4fUn3ckgWivSHh10Cb3EPyaT8/s400/The+Mississippi+Sheiks.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>The Mississippi Sheiks, 1936: Bo Carter, Walter Vincson, and Sam Chatmon.</strong></div><br />
Working in various configurations, Walter Vincson and Lonnie, Bo, and Sam Chatmon performed and recorded as the Mississippi Sheiks, a name inspired by a popular 1921 Rudolph Valentino film, The Sheik. A propulsive fiddler, Lonnie managed the band, while Bo, a strong, confident singer and gifted guitarist, became its biggest star. (Bo, whose real name was Armenter Chatmon, cut stacks of popular records – some quite risque – during the 1930s under the pseudonym Bo Carter.) Vincson’s quavering vocals and steady guitar strums helped bring the music its exhilarating, countrified edge. The Mississippi Sheiks’ biggest hit, 1930’s bittersweet “Sitting on Top of the World,” became part of the blues repertoire, inspiring covers by Tampa Red, Bob Wills, Howlin’ Wolf, Ray Charles, Carl Perkins, Doc Watson, Cream, the Grateful Dead, and many others. Young Muddy Waters covered Mississippi Sheiks songs with his first string band. “Walked ten miles to see them play,” Waters told Jim O’Neal. “They was high time through there, makin’ them good records, man.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifSiZdREwsJeinVoX_axRpQu6CRYjdhDpBziaNBKAfv7nCVrhxftlhS4GWvZtEcvZ_cul-k5ilvplUbIOT_O-A70Ofpxneio6PeWd50AjX47ydaocin-RWdtaqFqPZaKJMjI0u4dxo-Tk/s1600/Sittin+on+Top+of+the+World+ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifSiZdREwsJeinVoX_axRpQu6CRYjdhDpBziaNBKAfv7nCVrhxftlhS4GWvZtEcvZ_cul-k5ilvplUbIOT_O-A70Ofpxneio6PeWd50AjX47ydaocin-RWdtaqFqPZaKJMjI0u4dxo-Tk/s200/Sittin+on+Top+of+the+World+ad.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>During the height of the Depression, when precious few blues records were made, the Mississippi Sheiks put out 78s on Columbia, OKeh, Paramount, Champion, and Bluebird. Their final session took place in January 1935. The following year, Lonnie and Sam recorded a dozen songs as the Chatman Brothers; aural evidence suggests Sam sang lead on all of these tracks but “Radio Blues.” According to Sam, the Mississippi Sheiks folded in 1937, when death claimed five of his brothers and sisters. By then, the band’s old-timey sound was rapidly being eclipsed by more streamlined styles. Bo was still specializing in risqué hokum at his final session in February ’40. He fell on hard times afterwards and died in obscurity in Memphis during the ’60s.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiPTUuAoW9qC2jGyEq2Kk8JH3sG-WK9yjiTc1tTBKOx3wPs1oJTkdfzTbqu7E6CsJV3f32QKLPHbBTYCKDWajvTW5GNJP2QkPBPj6teCDQacWwqdORVvkEgJCJHS6dPUKbCT0z5acDYvM/s1600/Flyright+CD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiPTUuAoW9qC2jGyEq2Kk8JH3sG-WK9yjiTc1tTBKOx3wPs1oJTkdfzTbqu7E6CsJV3f32QKLPHbBTYCKDWajvTW5GNJP2QkPBPj6teCDQacWwqdORVvkEgJCJHS6dPUKbCT0z5acDYvM/s200/Flyright+CD.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Sam worked as a farmer and a night watchman during the ’40s and ’50s, buying a house on a half-acre near Hollandale, a small Delta community about a dozen miles from the Mississippi River. When Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie Records taped him there during a 1960 field trip, Sam sounded remarkably similar to his 78s. He played many old Mississippi Sheiks numbers, as well as religious hymns and his own songs of social protest. He went on to perform concerts and record for Blue Goose, Rounder, and Flying Fish. Esteemed music critic Robert Palmer wrote of him in The New York Times: “The rhythmic elegance of Mr. Chatmon’s guitar playing and the unhurried, conversational warmth of his singing are qualities that have all but disappeared from American music. Even the best of the younger blues singers have captured only a part of the whole, while Mr. Chatmon effortlessly illuminates a vanished era with every gesture and phrase.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEAXd2ZWSLSHT9KhFj4psaGugqq-ipIls8AZF9Nh7kJ9_JiAKzKav8AnqZNFytlZVASDjtLe6QQQJtYDPknxvIHFsfOLi2dEZsyzKHmI21-xUTSsudMJ2FncOZkG5BITSU3ogGDl_lpzs/s1600/I+Have+to+Paint+My+Face.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEAXd2ZWSLSHT9KhFj4psaGugqq-ipIls8AZF9Nh7kJ9_JiAKzKav8AnqZNFytlZVASDjtLe6QQQJtYDPknxvIHFsfOLi2dEZsyzKHmI21-xUTSsudMJ2FncOZkG5BITSU3ogGDl_lpzs/s200/I+Have+to+Paint+My+Face.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Unlike some of his “rediscovered” contemporaries, Sam did more than recapitulate the past. He bravely sang of racial inequality in songs such as “I Have to Paint My Face,” with its ironic images of a “stomp-down, baby-chicken-killin’ nigger” and a black man’s desire to paint his face a lighter shade. Between concerts and recording sessions, he returned home to farm. Our interview took place during October 1980. It was late afternoon, and Sam had just come in from working in a field near Hollandale. This interview also appeared in the February 2009 issue my favorite blues magazine, Living Blues. <br />
<br />
Sam Chatmon made his final professional appearance at the 1982 Mississippi Delta Blues Festival and passed away on February 2, 1983. <br />
<br />
* * * * <br />
<br />
<em>There is some confusion about your birth date. How old are you?</em><br />
<br />
I’m gonna be 82.<br />
<br />
<em>Your father was a fiddler.</em><br />
<br />
Yes.<br />
<br />
<em>What kind of music did he play?</em><br />
<br />
Ragtime music, square-set dance. They called it a square dance music, breakdowns. <br />
<br />
<em>Did he play with another fiddler named Milton Bracy?</em><br />
<br />
Uh huh. <br />
<br />
<em>Was this when you were a child?</em><br />
<br />
No, I wasn’t born<br />
<br />
<em>You were the seventh son.</em><br />
<br />
Yes.<br />
<br />
<em>Did your father teach Lonnie to play?</em><br />
<br />
No, he didn’t teach no one how to play. All of us just learned ourself how to play. But his brother in law, Leo Wesson, taught him the notes, so he could play a violin by notes. <br />
<br />
<em>Could any of your brothers read music?</em><br />
<br />
No. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRg5lmVpD5jX7-Aqpd2dO_gC7MLBwT05goK48NNRK08ylqD5Jeh-1x9yAGAy4KldLfM1qwhRq_YNwad3e8aqTTVJwH8BcS-32oxe7j55vJ723beFYHL7IY_lL0B0jo1HpaRGvgXYjpZ2Q/s1600/Sam-Chatmon-Sam-Chatmons-Advi-498143.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRg5lmVpD5jX7-Aqpd2dO_gC7MLBwT05goK48NNRK08ylqD5Jeh-1x9yAGAy4KldLfM1qwhRq_YNwad3e8aqTTVJwH8BcS-32oxe7j55vJ723beFYHL7IY_lL0B0jo1HpaRGvgXYjpZ2Q/s200/Sam-Chatmon-Sam-Chatmons-Advi-498143.jpg" width="199" /></a></div><em>When did you start playing guitar?</em><br />
<br />
I started about four years old. <br />
<br />
<em>How did you learn?</em><br />
<br />
I just picked it up and watched the others – same way I learned how to drive a car. Ain’t nobody never showed me how to drive no car. I sit in there and watch.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you learn how to fingerpick when you were little?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, that’s the first way I learned. <br />
<br />
<em>What kind of songs was that?</em><br />
<br />
Just the same old old-fashioned blues.<br />
<br />
<em>Can you remember the first blues you ever heard?</em><br />
<br />
Well, I tell ya, the first I ever hear was: “Run down the river / thought I’d jump and drown / I thought about my baby / then I turn around.” That’s the first piece I ever heard anybody sing. My oldest brother sang it. His name was Ferdinand. <br />
<br />
<em>Did you meet any bluesmen when you were young?</em><br />
<br />
No, I never did go out that way. I didn’t start out till I was seven years old, and I was with my brothers. And we didn’t play no blues hardly, because we’s playin’ for white folks.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you ever meet Blind Lemon Jefferson?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I met Blind Lemon. Since I been pickin’ guitar and start playin’ with Bo, I done met ’em all!<br />
<br />
<em>What was your impression of Blind Lemon?</em><br />
<br />
He was okay. I used to play like him, but I quit.<br />
<br />
<em>How about Charley Patton?</em><br />
<br />
Well, I picked like Charley Patton, but I didn't like his singin’. Charley Patton was my brother.<br />
<br />
<em>Who were your favorite players in those days?</em><br />
<br />
Well, my favorite man for singin’ the blues is B.B. King. He used to follow me around when he couldn’t pick a little guitar.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you ever meet Robert Johnson?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah! You know, he picked the “Big Road Blues,” and I picked “Stop and Listen” just like he picked “Big Road Blues.” <br />
<br />
<em>What did he look like?</em><br />
<br />
He was sort of tall, brownskin man. He’s a nice young fella. <br />
<br />
<em>There’s an old story that he sold his soul to the devil.</em><br />
<br />
No. I’ll tell ya, he picked that piece about he sold his soul to the devil. Nah, he wasn't crazy until he go to drinkin’. Then he act funny.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBtg5N5Gzk-XtlVH0QMXApPhtaZcVmOli7ErzPshSrpMe2ceZWbzxXsIvjPblhaXKTM9VL0WR169bnSnLBl2TfADjGePasxrM9fEgkOM-58lJCm060J1b5eDyN7312anUISkI1E4T54lk/s1600/Bo+Carter+with+guitar+case.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBtg5N5Gzk-XtlVH0QMXApPhtaZcVmOli7ErzPshSrpMe2ceZWbzxXsIvjPblhaXKTM9VL0WR169bnSnLBl2TfADjGePasxrM9fEgkOM-58lJCm060J1b5eDyN7312anUISkI1E4T54lk/s320/Bo+Carter+with+guitar+case.jpg" /></a></div><em>You started playing the bull fiddle when you were seven?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I started to playin’ the bull fiddle. I had to carry a box to be tall enough to reach it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>Sam’s brother, Bo Carter. </strong><br />
<br />
<br />
<em>When did you pick up on banjo?</em><br />
<br />
Well, how I found out, you see, I knowed how to play a guitar when I was in the band. We had a banjo tuned like the first four strings on a guitar, where I could just play anything I want to play on the banjo. <br />
<br />
<em>When did you start playing for money?</em><br />
<br />
For money!? I was playin’ for money when I was seven years old. <br />
<br />
<em>How was the pay back then?</em><br />
<br />
We was doin’ pretty good for a while. We’d play at Coopersville and Brownsville. We’d get $25 dollars a week – that was great big money! Yeah, $25 a week – that was big money!<br />
<br />
<em>How much could a guy make a week working in the fields at that time?</em><br />
<br />
Well, you’d get about three dollars, maybe, a week. Six days.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you ever play parties for the white folks you worked for?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I play for them. I used to serenade for ’em, right here in Hollandale. He give me 60 cents a day for plowin’, and give me five dollars for playin’ three or four pieces at his house. <br />
<br />
<em>When did Walter Vincson join your band?</em><br />
<br />
That was back in ’23 or ’22. And then Charlie McCoy, Memphis Minnie – all of us played together there in Jackson. And we’d have two or three jobs. We send half of ’em one way and the other half go another way. <br />
<br />
<em>When you were playing music, did you still hold down a day job?</em><br />
<br />
I was farmin’. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt4KpeRClo5HZ9jt6s-KBekCrxHjAE8u5weQQlYNjTEP0DbDnbG0XCmRSA-sZe0Hwk8GrsVKpsodvPaEr7rUVIjqjCQ2L4xFGKEa77mBb6ADNMNuRMVyOE7XEOjdXW5q3R1Zt_wNxTuKM/s1600/OkehShieks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt4KpeRClo5HZ9jt6s-KBekCrxHjAE8u5weQQlYNjTEP0DbDnbG0XCmRSA-sZe0Hwk8GrsVKpsodvPaEr7rUVIjqjCQ2L4xFGKEa77mBb6ADNMNuRMVyOE7XEOjdXW5q3R1Zt_wNxTuKM/s320/OkehShieks.jpg" /></a></div><em>It’s said the Mississippi Sheiks became the post popular string band of the time. Is that true?</em><br />
<br />
Sho is. <br />
<br />
<em>Who was the competition?</em><br />
<br />
That Memphis Jug Band and all them – we played up there to them. They didn’t have no time with us. <br />
<br />
<em>As the guitarist in the band, did you prefer doing blues, fox trots, one steps . . .</em> <br />
<br />
My favorite was the “St. Louis Blues.” I liked that ever since I first heard it! Yeah, that’s what I likes to play now. <br />
<br />
<em>What key do you play it in?</em><br />
<br />
I play it in G. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you use many open tunings?</em><br />
<br />
No, I don’t use ’em now. I used to use ’em. Now I stays in regular tunin’.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you ever play bottleneck?</em><br />
<br />
That’s when I used to use the bottleneck, when I tuned it into Spanish [open G]. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZhQfwm4QHjqU33Dx9kU_kk3WPTh88NWM3ilsOl4T01tbdh4ZcKrN0vMoW5v0zINwnU3Ab1iSvVyD8UFKmTUlZ46HkKiMxay8GZe0e1PywKkzTz-A1_cHOLWHTxvse-MlpeeTJYL-xJ9E/s1600/He+Calls+The+Religion+ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZhQfwm4QHjqU33Dx9kU_kk3WPTh88NWM3ilsOl4T01tbdh4ZcKrN0vMoW5v0zINwnU3Ab1iSvVyD8UFKmTUlZ46HkKiMxay8GZe0e1PywKkzTz-A1_cHOLWHTxvse-MlpeeTJYL-xJ9E/s200/He+Calls+The+Religion+ad.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><em>Tell me about the first time you recorded.</em><br />
<br />
That was for P.C. Brockman. I recorded in Jackson in ’23. That was the first time I recorded. I played with the other boys. I put out records – me and Memphis Minnie, Charlie McCoy, and my brother Harry. [Blogger’s note: Chatmon may be referring to the ARC company’s 1935 field trip to Jackson, during which recordings were made by Harry Chatmon, Minnie Wallace, Son Joe, Robert Wilkins, and others.]<br />
<br />
<em>How much did you make for that session?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, just nothin’. About twenty dollars. <br />
<br />
<em>No royalties?</em><br />
<br />
No! No royalties at all. <br />
<br />
<em>And then you did some songs with Lonnie that came out credited to the “Chatman Brothers (Lonnie and Sam).” </em><br />
<br />
Yeah, in ’36. <br />
<br />
<em>Is that when you did that nice variation on “Make Me a Pallet on the Floor”?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I think it was. I put out another piece, the same tune as “Make Me a Pallet on the Floor” – “If You Don’t Want Me, Please Don’t Dog Me ’Round.” Now, that’s just the same thing as “Pallet on the Floor.” I changed the words.<br />
<br />
<em>Back then, were you making up a lot of material?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I made up all I played! <br />
<br />
<em>How did you go about making up tunes? Did you come up with the melody first?</em><br />
<br />
Well, the way you get a song together, you got to think about what you gonna sing about. When you’re puttin’ out a record, you ain’t got to put out but four verses – no more than five. You play through it once, and that clear the three minutes. You see, we used to have to play in three minutes, but now you can’t play but two minutes and a half on these little bitty records [45s]. So that’s the way I do it. I get me five verses, then I just practice up on them and go on put ’em out. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGNw1ApIkgQtFz9-uZ8lrlXP24Wgr3PQzbwhbPd0bL0AvYtW6pJYQ638ICRHywEZoGjAiKefgFbp-m0uas0WSmkN_PsXH-y3pYdLF51OjX55Wcu84nRRm_2i8TweHa5847GLvgVMfR4bw/s1600/Shake+That+Thing+ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGNw1ApIkgQtFz9-uZ8lrlXP24Wgr3PQzbwhbPd0bL0AvYtW6pJYQ638ICRHywEZoGjAiKefgFbp-m0uas0WSmkN_PsXH-y3pYdLF51OjX55Wcu84nRRm_2i8TweHa5847GLvgVMfR4bw/s400/Shake+That+Thing+ad.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<em>What was your favorite song that you made up?</em><br />
<br />
My favorite song that I made up was the “Radio Blues” and “Please, Baby, Don’t Give My Love Away Because I’m Sinkin' Down, I’ll Be Up Again Someday." I like them two pieces.<br />
<br />
<em>You and Bo had a lot of humor in your blues.</em><br />
<br />
Well, I guess we did. <br />
<br />
<em>Did the band break up in ’37?</em><br />
<br />
Well, I don’t know exactly, because I didn’t take time to try to think about when it broke up. ’Cause we was getting’ apart ’cause the one died and another one died. So that’s what broke the band up. My brother Ed, he played with my brother Bo in Hollandale, and I wasn’t playin’ at all. I was a night watch at the cotton press. <br />
<br />
<em>Did you still play guitar during the years you weren’t performing for a living?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I played.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you meet any of the younger bluesmen, like Albert King?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I met Albert King and Freddie King – they stayed on the plantation where I was the agent then. In Arcola.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcb2FRvEqxJNJ4a8qO-hNuHCYQoBhS-M6ohhcCfmu9PPIX9Uiy3y3Mj-fKaFR4fDPxTfrWYWzB3g-4atPI0dxmZeKGhI8KpIkGsTcIMKLGgGXRpipMsMPvxNtA4WgxgEIodvYcwrksYzU/s1600/Nick+Perls+gives+Sam+a+check.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcb2FRvEqxJNJ4a8qO-hNuHCYQoBhS-M6ohhcCfmu9PPIX9Uiy3y3Mj-fKaFR4fDPxTfrWYWzB3g-4atPI0dxmZeKGhI8KpIkGsTcIMKLGgGXRpipMsMPvxNtA4WgxgEIodvYcwrksYzU/s320/Nick+Perls+gives+Sam+a+check.jpg" /></a></div><em>You started playing again in 1960.</em><br />
<br />
Uh huh. <br />
<br />
<em>What did you think about someone coming to find you and getting you jobs in San Diego?</em><br />
<br />
Chris Strachwitz? Well, my wife was sick, and I thought it was the greatest thing that ever happened, ’cause I had about done spent my money out down to nothin’. And he brought that money by just like this, and just give it to me. <br />
<br />
<em>Was it surprising that your music became popular again?</em><br />
<br />
Well, no. Because everywhere I went, even when I was five and six years old, when I’d go to these clubs to play, the first thing they would say when I walked in the door, folks started to pattin’ and hollerin’, “Let Sam have it! Let Sam have it!” And I’d get that, man, and people – whoo! I’d put life all in there! And it’s the same thing right now. Anywhere I go, I just haves a zeal. I have a good zeal to play. <br />
<br />
<em>What kind of guitar do you use now?</em> <br />
<br />
I have a Gibson made in 19 and 10. I been using it about seven or eight years, but the first guitar I had when I was little was a Washburn. It’s out there in California now, hangin’ upside the wall. <br />
<br />
<em>Did you ever play a Stella?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah! Man, them there was good guitars! I wished I could find me a Stella now.<br />
<br />
<em>Through the years, did you have much interaction with the other Mississippi bluesmen?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I had a whole lot a action with ’em. Every one more or less did recordin’. I went to recordin’. <br />
<br />
<em>Did everyone get along, or was there a lot of competition?</em><br />
<br />
No, everybody get along fine. I ain’t never been out where nobody like to want to argue or nothin’ about nothin’ like that.<br />
<br />
<em>When was the best time for your kind of blues?</em><br />
<br />
Well, I’ll tell ya. From ’60, it’s been good time to me ever since I started back to playin’, ’cause I pick like Lonnie Johnson, pick like Blind Blake and them. And everybody when I do the pickin’, they say, “Oh, he play like so-and-so. He play like such-and-such a somebody.” So I got me a way of my own. And I learned how to pick it and learned how to sing to it, and that’s what I’ve done. And I’ve been havin’ a nice time ever since. <br />
<br />
<em>How often do you play guitar these days? </em><br />
<br />
I aim to pick it up every day, but sometimes I be too busy. I try to play in the evening – I like the night. I got a boy be hear directly. He want to come to pick some with me. I’m gonna show him how to pick just like I done with others. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggihlJfyD-G7L-HXUAXzNbaP-UAFY2UPrpcxix1Z8x1e0eDvz3_xGnRUomoKyKVbhncZ6OvgNPWGNWTN1GASLzfzJPTDDERg1Czed5XlSb09U33UERpkNJXsg92Fk9zQ-jCbuBMV-DpD0/s1600/Sam+and+dog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggihlJfyD-G7L-HXUAXzNbaP-UAFY2UPrpcxix1Z8x1e0eDvz3_xGnRUomoKyKVbhncZ6OvgNPWGNWTN1GASLzfzJPTDDERg1Czed5XlSb09U33UERpkNJXsg92Fk9zQ-jCbuBMV-DpD0/s400/Sam+and+dog.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<em>Do you like to play on your porch?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah. I likes to play anywhere! I love playing! <br />
<br />
<em>Are you the last of the performing Chatmons?</em> <br />
<br />
My boy got his own band – he in Chicago. He’s called “Singin’ Sam.” My grandchildren play too. My grandboy, his boy, he’s a saxophone blower. He ain’t but 17 years old. He’s a drum beater, a piano player, an organ player. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you always plays fingerpick style?</em> <br />
<br />
I’ll tell ya. I don’t use no picks. I got a pocketful of ’em, but I picks with my natural fingers. That’s the way I be. Now, I can play any old jazz songs you can name, way back, but I plays them sometimes with a pick. I’ll take a pick out then, but other than that I play with my natural fingers. <br />
<br />
<em>What old jazz songs do you play?</em><br />
<br />
Like “Dinah” and “Somebody Stole My Gal.” All them pieces. That’s jazz music! <br />
<br />
<em>Have you ever played an electric guitar?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, that’s how I first started off when Chris Strachwitz come by here [in 1960]. He had an acoustic guitar, and I picked his acoustic guitar and left my electric guitar alone. He didn’t want no electrics on the record I was puttin’ out. And I picked his guitar. <br />
<br />
<em>What kind of electric guitar did you have? </em><br />
<br />
I had a Fender. <br />
<br />
<em>A Stratocaster, Telecaster . . . </em><br />
<br />
No, it’s a Fender! I didn’t know nothin’ but a Fender, and I got the amplifier yet. I traded the guitar for one of Sears, Roebucks. That guitar was too heavy for me, so I got me a little old Sears, Roebuck guitar now. <br />
<br />
<em>A Silvertone? </em><br />
<br />
Silvertone! That’s what B.B. King used to pick. <br />
<br />
<em>When did you get into electric guitar?</em> <br />
<br />
Well, when the wife died, I had a guitar here at home. I said, “I give up.” Not to play no more. And my boy come here, and he brought me a good guitar, an electric guitar, that Fender, and started me back out to playin’. That was in ’60. <br />
<br />
<em>Have you ever been onstage with an electric?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, man, that’s all I played when I first started off. When I come to California, I played electric guitar everywhere I went. Yeah, but they didn’t like the electric guitar. I was tryin’ to get a job, audition, and they wanted acoustic guitar. So I said, “Let me pick the one that I’m used to.” Every time I’d pick, they’d hire me. <br />
<br />
<em>What do you think the future holds for the blues?</em> <br />
<br />
Well, I’ll tell you what I believe – I might be wrong – but everybody begin to like blues. There’s a mighty few people you find don’t like blues. Everywhere I go play, when I leave, going from one place to the other one to play, the people behind me just like the prodigal son. All the people followin’ me to get to hear me play again. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you have any advice you’d pass along to a young musician?</em><br />
<br />
Uh huh. Don’t drink! That’s my best advice. Do you know, a person drink, he think he be doin’ somethin’, when you actin’ a fool. <br />
<br />
<em>Will you be playing the rest of your life?</em><br />
<br />
I'm gonna play till I can’t. When I play, I feel better than I do when I’m sittin’ down. Yeah, my playin’ makes me feel good! <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1igQtlvAa_ZYzJrCJNHhk4pJ_mfgrJYYJJleANkwKfX7fhqnaG0GeU6VZbsmy_BOuhayBjOpkHhG80YHgld3v91Y2ZkThhOTCQ7plw77vUtOIQnKJLxQu6VzPrTSU1xtFIJgsgF0S5uo/s1600/Sam+Chatmon+and+His+Barbecue+Boys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1igQtlvAa_ZYzJrCJNHhk4pJ_mfgrJYYJJleANkwKfX7fhqnaG0GeU6VZbsmy_BOuhayBjOpkHhG80YHgld3v91Y2ZkThhOTCQ7plw77vUtOIQnKJLxQu6VzPrTSU1xtFIJgsgF0S5uo/s200/Sam+Chatmon+and+His+Barbecue+Boys.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><em>Was blues considered devil’s music when you were young?</em><br />
<br />
No, no. And I’ll tell you the way I do. I picks a blues – anywhere I go, I play ’em, and then I can play many church songs. And then I can get up the next day. When God gave you a talent, it ain’t no sin for you to do it. I don’t feel like blues is sin. That’s the way I feel. If that wasn’t a talent the Lord give me, I couldn’t do it, and somebody else’d be doin’ it. <br />
<br />
<em>Are you happy with your life and music?</em><br />
<br />
Sure is. Just as happy as I can be! <br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><em><strong>Help keep this blog ad-free, and help feed the blogger, by making a donation using the Paypal link below.</strong></em></span>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-10728999527602389402010-08-22T06:19:00.001-04:002010-08-22T06:22:44.895-04:00B.B. King: Live at the Regal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSnXsyPUMd8m2qeT0XkrcGKv_YicnDThEND1ltqITgHCfaZZ1J5N94FXguwJgpRJDqJ2GAuAmertU7dwyZSe97J8IIBJqJP-1OYZq6GW0IBwbOOK8pfJ4gdn7mheeA0JUbQA0zQcGuDts/s1600/BB+King+with+ES-355SV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSnXsyPUMd8m2qeT0XkrcGKv_YicnDThEND1ltqITgHCfaZZ1J5N94FXguwJgpRJDqJ2GAuAmertU7dwyZSe97J8IIBJqJP-1OYZq6GW0IBwbOOK8pfJ4gdn7mheeA0JUbQA0zQcGuDts/s320/BB+King+with+ES-355SV.jpg" /></a></div>B.B. King works audiences the same way he works the guitar he calls Lucille. He teases them, tickles them, and then jolts them with the lyrics he sings and the notes he plays. “Usually when I’m up there onstage,” King explains, “I try and do like an electric eel and throw my little shock through the whole audience. And usually the reaction comes back double-force and pulls me out of it, because the people can help you entertain. They become part of it. It’s something like radar: You send out a beam, and it hits and comes back with more energy.” <br />
<br />
Nowhere is this better exemplified than on King’s classic <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Live-At-The-Regal/dp/B000WLTKXK?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Live at the Regal </a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000WLTKXK" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />album, recorded on November 21, 1964, at Chicago’s Regal Theater, one of the nation’s most prestigious black venues. King had played there many times before, and Johnny Pate, a top producer and arranger, came in to supervise the recording. B.B.’s hard-swinging band was in sublime form, and King remembers his tenor man, Bobby Forte, as one of his “all-time great sidemen.” Rounding out the lineup was pianist Duke Jethro, trumpeter Kenny Sands, saxophonist Johnny Board, electric bassist Leo Lauchie, and drummer Sonny Freeman.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHAAdyPMmsvHk_FmFoHaWtQKxFYuz23PdP303UWHJCVc3Ds6Df81uz59SzPa8vz8Cc9k_C3OA-dqO7E-GqyHkudXN9SjTJkTGVI4eusjBZbfc2NrV5hnCyKsCzZ_f_ZPwDbQ0QaUgVW9M/s1600/regal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHAAdyPMmsvHk_FmFoHaWtQKxFYuz23PdP303UWHJCVc3Ds6Df81uz59SzPa8vz8Cc9k_C3OA-dqO7E-GqyHkudXN9SjTJkTGVI4eusjBZbfc2NrV5hnCyKsCzZ_f_ZPwDbQ0QaUgVW9M/s200/regal.jpg" width="142" /></a></div>In the liner notes for his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/King-Blues-B-B/dp/B000002OMC?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">King of the Blues</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000002OMC" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> box set, B.B. recalled that “Johnny Pate set up everything, making sure that we had a good sound, and he recorded two or three of the shows. And the audience was good. See, we were starting to lose young blacks. I’d never really had a young black audience – blacks were with me according to my age and older, and as I got older, my black audience got older with me. But at the Regal and in Chicago, they still think well of and respect me and the dignity of blues, thanks to Muddy Waters and the rest. That particular day in Chicago everything came together and the audience was right in sync.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho6pTlwM9nFxFsl15XCN7JYWT9U-FAcQszSl2xHb7MZEKCb76cKuA_OkeaX5QFFtj63BDDNZvXoI-bqedm5YbrHBweEiDKTLrIV9DulByHDUf6u2YOGVa4QA3jBRiKeyiGC3sJwuLAoVQ/s1600/live-at-the-regal+version+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho6pTlwM9nFxFsl15XCN7JYWT9U-FAcQszSl2xHb7MZEKCb76cKuA_OkeaX5QFFtj63BDDNZvXoI-bqedm5YbrHBweEiDKTLrIV9DulByHDUf6u2YOGVa4QA3jBRiKeyiGC3sJwuLAoVQ/s200/live-at-the-regal+version+2.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>The Regal repertoire was typical for that era. The band starts with “Every Day I Have the Blues,” with B.B.’s beautifully placed, warm-toned solo soaring over the driving rhythm and horn kicks. He then slides easily into “Sweet Little Angel,” which he describes as “one of the real, real oldies.” The song’s pedigree includes Lucille Bogan’s 1930 piano-backed version, Tampa Red’s 1934 slide guitar rendition called “Black Angel Blues,” and Robert Nighthawk’s 1949 Aristocrat single of “Black Angel Blues.” B.B. himself had cut an RPM single of the song in 1956. He laces his Regal version with crackling lines featuring his trademark “hummingbird vibrato,” which many have imitated but none have surpassed. (In a classic example of turning limitations to strengths, King originated his distinctive vibrato early in his career, when he found himself unable to play traditional Mississippi bottleneck blues: “I won’t say I invented playing like this,” he says, “but they weren’t doing it before I started! Bukka White and quite a few other people used bottlenecks, but I got stupid fingers. They won’t work. If I get something like that in my hand and try to use it, it just won’t work. So my ears told me that when I trilled my hand, I’d get a sound similar to the sound they were getting with a bottleneck.”)<br />
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Without missing a beat, King and his band segue from “Sweet Little Angel” into another powerhouse blues, “It’s My Own Fault.” His Gibson ES-355 SV, at the time the company’s top semi-hollowbody model, sported stereo electronics and a Vari-tone. With a flick of the switch, King dials in a tougher, more trebly sound for his solo flourishes. “I usually go through the stereo circuitry, with both pickups working against each other,” King explained. “With just a quick shift of the hand I can set the volume or change the tone. To tell you the truth, I’m not even sure which pickup does what. I just put them both on and use my ear.” Towels or wadded paper stuffed through the guitar’s soundholes eliminate feedback.<br />
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King’s storytelling lyrics during “It’s My Own Fault” hold the audience at rapt attention; his blistering solo brings them screaming to their feet. Without pause, the band modulates to a higher key as B.B. explains that he’s going to go “way down in the alley” with his next selection, “How Blue Can You Get.” His opening solo is a masterpiece of phrasing and string bends – pure B.B. King at his best. He delivers his heart-rending lyrics like a preacher in an old-time revival, and he brings down the house with his punchline, “I gave you seven children, and now you want to give ‘em back.” Wow! <br />
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King jump-starts his original “Please Love Me” with an Elmore James chordal flourish. He then pays tribute to his swing and bebop influences, Charlie Christian and T-Bone Walker, with horn-like guitar lines soaring above the jumping band. He follows with a sexy jump blues, “You Upset Me Baby,” comping rhythm while giving his band room to move. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2o3VdRfznxxFw4MabI7HeNjxHGI_uLmc7xbn0S21oQvCqQU4RZNPxwDhKWyI-I2jLoEUWYwndiAbsYnR3FlWyELSTPA-WEGo9qc0THGijIizmYSj2X47NG63LXKtN5Z8lKck431TsJj4/s1600/Onstage+in+dark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2o3VdRfznxxFw4MabI7HeNjxHGI_uLmc7xbn0S21oQvCqQU4RZNPxwDhKWyI-I2jLoEUWYwndiAbsYnR3FlWyELSTPA-WEGo9qc0THGijIizmYSj2X47NG63LXKtN5Z8lKck431TsJj4/s400/Onstage+in+dark.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
B.B. brings Lucille back into the spotlight for the extended opening solo of the “waaay back” slow blues “Worry, Worry,” providing a case-study in how to “tell the truth” on electric guitar. The performance showcases his extraordinary finesse with bends, which often involves hitting a fret lower than the intended note and then quickly bending up to pitch. “My reason for developing this way of doing it was that my ears don’t always hear like they should,” King explained with typical modesty. “I’m always afraid that I might miss a note if I try to hit it right on the head, so if I hit down and slide up to it, my ears tell me when I get there. But also it’s more like a violin or a voice; you just gliss up to it.”<br />
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After the hard blues of “Worry, Worry,” King and company change the pace with the rumba-esque, riff-driven “Woke Up This Morning,” which he’d recorded a dozen years earlier for RPM. He then launches into a reworking of Victoria Spivey’s prewar blues, “You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now,” making the song uniquely his own with gospel-inflected vocals and taut guitar jabs. He ends the show with “Help the Poor,” a modernistic, rumba-flavored plea for understanding. In just 35 minutes, B.B. King has delivered a blues masterpiece. <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu9a10GD1qDQzBKXfOWs7D3GEsNCovHMrhuAlcXqSXL2TPZ6o0g5kOm0GygGogdwZ1ixEt674CW2wCXJ5BVzOPmW5-rqOvg3s69TgM50gsQceOk70IQxV8_Pce7uBXG0MwUGpsKbplSEs/s1600/BBKing-LiveAtTheRegal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu9a10GD1qDQzBKXfOWs7D3GEsNCovHMrhuAlcXqSXL2TPZ6o0g5kOm0GygGogdwZ1ixEt674CW2wCXJ5BVzOPmW5-rqOvg3s69TgM50gsQceOk70IQxV8_Pce7uBXG0MwUGpsKbplSEs/s200/BBKing-LiveAtTheRegal.jpg" width="200" /></a>Mirroring the audience reaction, critics went wild when ABC released Live at the Regal, proclaiming it King’s “best ever” recording and hailing the “rediscovery” of a bluesman who, ironically, was averaging 310 shows a year. As the ever-astute critic Leonard Feather aptly put it in his liner notes for a reissue of Live at the Regal, “This unique Regal session is the definitive statement of B.B. King’s phenomenal rapport with a crowd, of the miraculous vibrations that can exist between audience and performer. In essence, it tells you how, where, and why he ultimately became King of the Blues.” </div><br />
These days, B.B. King is quick to point out that while the Regal concert was a good one, he’d played hundreds of better ones during the same era, which found him performing almost exclusively to black audiences. The album’s release in 1964 was perfectly timed, as young British rock musicians were in the midst of the “blues boom” that had led to the formation of bands such as the Animals, Yardbirds, and Rolling Stones. Back home in America, Live at the Regal struck a resonant chord with Michael Bloomfield, Duane Allman, Johnny Winter, and many other guitarists who’d soon bring blues to stadium-sized audiences. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpkvl6118QOQQERdFxCD5T-A21yxZ_lkWfFIJSPo4dbLwcAntkCm1YtnTuWeJCqKX8vhyphenhyphenBnVsqZvPn6-P4DgOH2JZ0BNtANNauPeJLMxIqaj5fcpx0pa5HU3C2cx1mtTVz52P8vlZ5xrk/s1600/prayer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpkvl6118QOQQERdFxCD5T-A21yxZ_lkWfFIJSPo4dbLwcAntkCm1YtnTuWeJCqKX8vhyphenhyphenBnVsqZvPn6-P4DgOH2JZ0BNtANNauPeJLMxIqaj5fcpx0pa5HU3C2cx1mtTVz52P8vlZ5xrk/s200/prayer.jpg" width="158" /></a></div>For a few years after its release, B.B. would still play to largely black audiences in the Southern chitlin circuit and Northern clubs. After one such performance, he was paid a compliment that shows great insight into his artistry: “I was at the Apollo Theater one time, and there was a critic there, and to me what he said was one of the great compliments that people have given me. The critic wrote: ‘B.B. King sings, and then Lucille sings.’ That made me feel very good, because I do feel that I’m still singing when I play. That’s why I don’t play a lot of notes maybe like some people. Maybe that’s the reason why most of my music is very simple – that’s the way I sing. When I’m playing a solo, I hear me singing through the guitar.” And that, ultimately, is the deepest beauty of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Live-at-Regal-B-B-King/dp/B000000IRU?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Live at the Regal</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000000IRU" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />. <br />
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<strong><em><span style="color: blue;">Show your support of this blog, and help feed the blogger, by making a donation using the Paypal link below.</span></em></strong>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-67181044722318409152010-08-20T08:28:00.004-04:002010-08-22T06:21:02.292-04:00Pops Staples Interview: Playing for Peace<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT3uM3IyRjVVxsSwxy3dSqXERK0ZleXkPwRFKdXl5ulHHwm0Mz3HBlE0M015WGom0xiYBGSbfxvhJ8IBWpvNc6CCNmpLyKcAU8Gb28oWsTIhwlYGIgidqKFKZ2Wj3aRAoID0_fWb0_lNQ/s1600/opener.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT3uM3IyRjVVxsSwxy3dSqXERK0ZleXkPwRFKdXl5ulHHwm0Mz3HBlE0M015WGom0xiYBGSbfxvhJ8IBWpvNc6CCNmpLyKcAU8Gb28oWsTIhwlYGIgidqKFKZ2Wj3aRAoID0_fWb0_lNQ/s320/opener.jpg" /></a></div>The Staple Singers recorded some of the most transcendent gospel and inspired pop of the 20th century. With his gentle voice and sublime guitar style, Roebuck “Pops” Staples anchored the family quartet that featured, at various times, his son Pervis and his daughters Cleotha, Yvonne, and Mavis. Although the Staple Singers were based in Chicago, Pops’ Mississippi Delta roots influenced his music throughout his life.<br />
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Pops was born in 1914 in rural Winona, Mississippi, and at age eight moved to Will Dockery’s plantation in Sunflower County. As a child he worked the fields. “The first music that I listened to was a cappella singing in the churches,” Pops remembered. “I was always into gospel right from a boy on up. I got into blues stuff after the gospel when I got to be 12, 13 years old.” In his youth he watched legendary Charley Patton play in front of Dockery’s general store. His favorite local bluesman, though, was young Howlin’ Wolf, who’d stand in front of the depot and play for tips. Once he had his own guitar, Pops learned the local non-bottleneck blues styles. At 16 he joined the Golden Trumpets, a Methodist quartet. He married his grade school sweetheart, Oceola Ware, and the couple had their first child, Cleotha, in 1934, followed soon afterward by Pervis.<br />
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Seeking a better life for his family, Pops moved to Chicago in 1935 and found work in the stockyards. His wife and children joined him the following year. Pops became a member of the Baptist church – his brother Chester was a reverend – and began singing with the Chicago-based Trumpet Jubilees. His daughter Yvonne was born in 1938, followed by Mavis in 1939. For many years Pops was too busy raising his family to play guitar – in fact, he didn’t even own one. As Mavis recalled, “I was about seven when I first saw my father play guitar. He had gone to a pawn shop and paid $30 to $35 for it. It only had three strings on it, and he had to save enough money to buy three more. He played the three-string instrument as best he could, then called us kids into the room and gave us parts to sing along with what he played.” And thus was born the world-famous Staple Singers.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOFYAVw9-rPRtkQPUFYcGFU0iUbx2AH2X1RMG5cQ1J3NrDsO0MdaT6Tkqg56577DWOsNvEuRzxmGhiR7Y8CV3Svf4mepaYz8IALZuRNcjzc6dXGc_JdmT_0Vu9umg97FRjKMDQbh38upA/s1600/Staples+circa+1951.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="283" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOFYAVw9-rPRtkQPUFYcGFU0iUbx2AH2X1RMG5cQ1J3NrDsO0MdaT6Tkqg56577DWOsNvEuRzxmGhiR7Y8CV3Svf4mepaYz8IALZuRNcjzc6dXGc_JdmT_0Vu9umg97FRjKMDQbh38upA/s400/Staples+circa+1951.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><strong>The Staple Singers, circa 1951: Pervis, Pops, Cleotha, and Mavis.</strong> </div><br />
By the late 1940s, the original lineup – Pops, Pervis, Cleotha, and Mavis – was singing in churches. They launched their recording career in 1953 with the Royal single “These Are They”/“Faith and Grace,” which they sold at concerts. A friend took them over to United Records, where they did their first session to piano accompaniment. At a follow-up session in 1954, Pops’ guitar was front and center in the mix. In 1955 they jumped to the Vee Jay label, recording their classic “If I Could Hear My Mother Pray” at their first session. At their 1956 Vee Jay session, the Staple Singers recorded one of the best-selling gospel singles of the year, “Uncloudy Day.” Education came first in the Staples family, and after Mavis graduated from high school in 1957, Pops quit his day job to focus his energies on the group. He subsequently completed his own high school education. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_SlBJY3ZDjYPLRWfcMgiGhhRC_Sj8NpRBohM6QDKkvkZTA7ifx2JByI1zen8ZtAEOZrkQZyY6_LQGzF5oBPz7wpvsCFRBBX9h-pFRpQM-WBZoRmfTp9d9-kFxyAOuDJMglBocD9fdTL4/s1600/The+Staple+Singers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_SlBJY3ZDjYPLRWfcMgiGhhRC_Sj8NpRBohM6QDKkvkZTA7ifx2JByI1zen8ZtAEOZrkQZyY6_LQGzF5oBPz7wpvsCFRBBX9h-pFRpQM-WBZoRmfTp9d9-kFxyAOuDJMglBocD9fdTL4/s200/The+Staple+Singers.jpg" width="191" /></a></div>Pops enjoyed a long friendship with Dr. Martin Luther King, who inspired him to begin recording protest songs. The Staple Singers went on to record pop and soul songs for Riverside and Epic, but didn’t hit their commercial stride until signing with Stax in 1968. In a rare appearance outside of his family group, Pops recorded the bluesy Jammed Together album with Albert King and Steve Cropper in 1969. The Staple Singers struck gold in the early 1970s with a series of inspirational pop/soul singles – “Respect Yourself,” “I’ll Take You There” (#1 in April ’72), and “If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me).” When Stax’s fortunes began to wane, they signed with Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom label in 1975 and scored two more Top-10 hits with “Let’s Do It Again” and “New Orleans.” The Staple Singers appeared in three notable 1970s concert films: Soul to Soul, Wattstax, and The Last Waltz. The group’s final appearance in the R&B charts came in 1984.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOyJS5UbLYUtqHJV0TAb65CDTm8K2mBNnWIYDL7-aNiC_IuY-QCE_7B2c59UnXeknqvtbfcEiEZrZjfF34bd9XRPHsnYtPRsYXI1J3HmDQ7vsNH9cDsXmKMc-2r9NA9sDLBBxU8cTsuf8/s1600/Peaceto+the+Neighborhood+CD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOyJS5UbLYUtqHJV0TAb65CDTm8K2mBNnWIYDL7-aNiC_IuY-QCE_7B2c59UnXeknqvtbfcEiEZrZjfF34bd9XRPHsnYtPRsYXI1J3HmDQ7vsNH9cDsXmKMc-2r9NA9sDLBBxU8cTsuf8/s200/Peaceto+the+Neighborhood+CD.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>After Mavis left the group to go solo, Pops flirted with acting, appearing in the Talking Heads film True Stories. He also made the rounds of blues festivals, where he usually sang gospel songs. In 1992, he realized his long-held dream of recording a solo album. Featuring the Staple Singers, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, and Ry Cooder, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Peace-Neighborhood-Pops-Staples/dp/B000000WIM?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Peace to the Neighborhood</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000000WIM" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> is nothing short of a masterpiece of love and hope. Soon after its release, I met with Pops in a San Francisco hotel room. It was May 11, 1992, and he was happy to talk about his life and music. Here, for the first time, is that conversation.<br />
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<em>On the new record, I hear a similarity between your music and Muddy Waters’, in that you both understand the power of keeping it simple. </em><br />
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Yes. In fact, that’s the best way to try to execute and explain yourself and what you’re trying to do to the people. I’m trying to play my music to something constructive and trying to get peace here between the United States and the people – what Chicago call the “melting pot,” all nationalities. I just can’t figure out why there’s a difference in people in the United States. Some have, and some have not. Some get the privilege, some don’t. I’m trying to sing songs that together we stand and divided we fall – that’s just not in the family, that’s in the whole United States. If we stick together, we will stand. If we don’t, I’m afraid somewhere down the line we gonna fall. It might be a long ways, but if you’re keeping one nationality down, you’re gonna be down there with ’em. The only way to get up is to carry the people along with you. If I’m down here and you’re up here, you gotta look back down here to try to bring me up. I don’t care who you are or how big you are – I think the onliest time you should look down on a person is when you’re lookin’ down to pick him up.<br />
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Everybody is somebody – it doesn’t make any difference whether you are the President or whether you’re a drunk walkin’ the streets, sleepin’ in the streets. Everybody is a human being. God love all of us the same. There ain’t big guys or little guys in the sight of God. So I would just like to try to get a song over for the people to listen. And the song’s trying to say don’t use cocaine, because it’s detrimental to your whole body and soul. It’s no good for you. That’s all, that’s all. I’m not trying to preach to nobody. I feel good. I live good, and I feel good. I’m 77 years old, and shoot, and I feel good because I don’t worry about nothin’. There’s no use to worryin’. So that’s my main emphasis – just try to help somebody along the way.<br />
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<em>Throughout your career, going all the way back to the Vee Jay material, it seems your message has been that music is a healing force. Music can bring a person closer to what’s truly important. </em><br />
<br />
Yes, yes. Right. I believe that it’s a healing to the soul. It’s a healing to the feeling of the people. Talkin’ to a lady the other day – she was riding down the freeway, and she was very depressed. Didn’t know why, didn’t know what to do. She was just depressed. And driving along playing the radio, one of the Staple Singers songs was put on. That song was sung through, and when it was finished, she said that it was like a load was lifted off her. She says, “Pops, that went on for the day!” That gave her all kinds of jubilee, made her feel good. And I feel good when people like that are gettin’ the message. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSn9ksNXVdZH4HucXhdo7gJUx0ELJt_DO4YHGRdByQ5EFqn0yzVuaW3Ldph94oO-jLjTfBaIKbiVqJhNCag-bOM11wilFLqMl4fwdQwT-dQPg98U2kNr9hrt6PJExPsB2EnttUxGUgqBk/s1600/I'll+Take+You+There+45.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSn9ksNXVdZH4HucXhdo7gJUx0ELJt_DO4YHGRdByQ5EFqn0yzVuaW3Ldph94oO-jLjTfBaIKbiVqJhNCag-bOM11wilFLqMl4fwdQwT-dQPg98U2kNr9hrt6PJExPsB2EnttUxGUgqBk/s200/I'll+Take+You+There+45.jpg" width="198" /></a></div>A little child come up to Mavis: “Mavis, you talk about you ‘take us there.’ Say, what y’all talkin’ about? Where y’all gonna take us to?” And Mavis say, “Well, what do you think?” She say, “Well, I don’t know, Mavis. I don’t know no place you can take us. The only place I know you can take us is to heaven.” So Mavis says, “That’s just what I’m talking about.” They listen, you know – they be listening. That’s what we talkin’ about – we gonna take you to heaven. Come on and go to heaven with us. <br />
<br />
<em>Respect yourself.</em> <br />
<br />
“Respect Yourself” – now, that’s my favorite! Respect yourself. If you don’t have no respect . . . When I was a boy, I had to respect my parents. Not only my parents, but my peers’ parents. Any older person, you would have respect for them. But now, we don’t have no respect for one another, nobody. That’s bad. But back in those days, it was a better world. We were living in places where we didn’t have to lock the doors, leave your guns and everything in the house, shotgun what you hunt with, pistol, whatever. Go out of town, wherever, leave your door unlocked. Come back and everything is the same. You can’t do that now. They won’t let ya. <br />
<br />
<em>Was it a more difficult time in terms of people having to work harder and having to face racial prejudice?</em><br />
<br />
Well, yes. It’s always been that way. We worked hard. The black worked hard down there, the white did too. In farming, all of us work about the same, but the white farmer got different treatments than the black farmer. It always has been that we had a harder struggle than the white because they could get paid for some of their cuttin’ or their ginnin’. The black people had to wait until the end of the year before they got theirs, so that was tough. That’s why I left.<br />
<br />
<em>When you were young, was there a difference between spiritual music and gospel music?</em> <br />
<br />
Yes. Spirituals is a song like “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, Comin’ to Carry Me On,” and gospel music was brought out sometime in the late ’30s or ’40s, I believe. Songs like “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” by Rev. Dorsey – that was a gospel number. There’s a difference between spiritual and gospel.<br />
<br />
<em>Some people call Rev. Thomas Dorsey the “Father of Gospel Music” Do you think that’s fair?</em> <br />
<br />
I know it is! Whoo, ain’t no “think” – I know it is. Yeah, he’s it. Dr. Dorsey was away on a tour – I don’t know whether he was singing’ the blues then or what, because he was a bluesman too – and his family passed, his [child and] wife. And she was the backbone of him. He didn’t know what to do. And that’s when he wrote “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” It come off from that, and he been goin’ ever since then. He’s still livin’ – oh yes! He’s just layin’ there, a sick man, but he’s still livin’. <br />
<br />
<em>Is he still at Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago?</em><br />
<br />
Yes, yes. Still there. [Blogger’s note: Rev. Thomas A. Dorsey passed away on January 23, 1993.]<br />
<br />
<em>What year did you leave Mississippi?</em><br />
<br />
’35. Got to Chicago, I had $12 in my pocket. Winter time. Nowhere to stay. But I did check up with my wife’s uncle, and I had a sister there. I went and stayed with her until I got a job.<br />
<br />
<em>Was there a church in Chicago where you played regularly?</em><br />
<br />
You know, I’ve got to go by there and get a picture of the first church I ever sung at in Chicago, if it’s there. I doubt it’s there, though. It was just a small storefront church. I sung at Pilgrim Baptist Church, Canaan, Metropolitan, and Shiloh. Lot of churches are still there, but I want to see the first one.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you still play in church?</em><br />
<br />
Yes, I play in church. We hardly play any shows in church, because churches don’t like to charge, but they like to use the Staple Singers because they can rent a hall and charge at the hall and raise benefits for the church. <br />
<br />
<em>I’ve read that you were one of the first people to bring the guitar into a Methodist ceremony.</em><br />
<br />
I was the first artist with a singing group to take the guitar and go into church, which they didn’t allow. And they had faith and believed in Pops Staples and the Staple Singers. You know, we wasn’t trying to start something for money or nothing. We were just singing because we love God’s word and we love God. We were singing for the praises of God. And the ministers could see that. They let us come in with the guitar, and that started the whole ball rolling. The Soul Stirrers, Blind Boys, Nightingales, Swan Silvertones, all of them – we would come to Chicago to sing on radio. They got to their songs, and I was on one end of the studio and had a guitar, and that was fascinating to them. The next time around, everybody came to Chicago had guitar. Something new, see? They had sung themselves out, went all over the world, just singing a cappella. And that was a new thing – the guitar was new! Now, they got guitar, bass, drum, everything.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEC61Jr3EwWmeIFg0I4P9yZns6e_mk945IrYXfgYbJZ_-QnpEaRGLcsM6ZejYUk8wDur6B_Vcb8n-r6RUCFFoKK_07HCCC4kZl0J3Z4lc7r2SFH-xW-JgHF7x2xtjwdIeGWWNTKHcf5Kc/s1600/Staples+circa+1955.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEC61Jr3EwWmeIFg0I4P9yZns6e_mk945IrYXfgYbJZ_-QnpEaRGLcsM6ZejYUk8wDur6B_Vcb8n-r6RUCFFoKK_07HCCC4kZl0J3Z4lc7r2SFH-xW-JgHF7x2xtjwdIeGWWNTKHcf5Kc/s400/Staples+circa+1955.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><strong>Pops holds the Les Paul heard on the Staple Singers’ classic Vee Jay records.</strong> </div><br />
<em>In the beginning, were you playing electric guitar in church?</em><br />
<br />
No. Acoustic.<br />
<br />
<em>Was this in Mississippi or Chicago?</em> <br />
<br />
Chicago. I started playing blues down in Mississippi. I was playing blues on Saturday night in house parties. Didn’t have my heart in it, but I just knew how to play. Weren’t enough guitar players around to go to all these parties, so I was hired to play in that style. [At this point, I hand Pops an old photo of Charley Patton.] <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtVFl_irc5Ej-6RvvXlu0AUMRQaTM2PnU_nyXJOGDl14sCae_G18Ea2b_Gs88P9wOC1pUK32icp5MD7Of62_CosD5JWI70Dc9h-I398l2DFloyk-JYZ1yfOYtNCYZlwpSPlZGnTDlYA5E/s1600/charlie+patton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtVFl_irc5Ej-6RvvXlu0AUMRQaTM2PnU_nyXJOGDl14sCae_G18Ea2b_Gs88P9wOC1pUK32icp5MD7Of62_CosD5JWI70Dc9h-I398l2DFloyk-JYZ1yfOYtNCYZlwpSPlZGnTDlYA5E/s200/charlie+patton.jpg" width="147" /></a></div><em>Were you familiar with this fellow?</em><br />
<br />
[Laughs.] We stayed on the same plantation. Sure enough. How old is this picture – do you know?<br />
<br />
<em>That’s about 1930.</em><br />
<br />
Mm, mm, mm. Charley Patton used to be on the lower place at Dockery – I was in the upper. Last year I was down in Indianola, Mississippi. We put a tombstone there. That man been dead how long, about 50 years? And they just put on his tombstone. I went down and sung at the ceremony.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you see him play when you were young?</em><br />
<br />
Saw him on the upper place, yeah. I didn’t know much about it – I was just a boy. And he – whoo! And from there, I seen Howlin’ Wolf. Howlin’ Wolf was a young man. And Dick Banks – Dick Banks never did make the records. And Bill Holloway, the guitar player. I said, “If I get to be a man, I’m gonna play a guitar.” So when I got to be about 12 years, I bought me a guitar and started to play.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you buy it from a catalog?</em><br />
<br />
No, I bought it right out of a hardware. A Stella – cost five dollars. One of the best acoustic guitars I ever owned. I bought it in Drew, Mississippi, where I be on the 5th of June this year. They’ll name the park after me. We goin’ to celebrate there. So I bought that guitar there. Paid five dollars for it. Times was so hard, I bought it on time. Put fifty cents down, and I paid it off.<br />
<br />
<em>B.B. King told me that back then, guitarists used a pencil and string to make a capo.</em><br />
<br />
Yes! [Laughs heartily.] Did you ever see that?<br />
<br />
<em>No.</em><br />
<br />
Yeah! That’s what we’d use for a capo. Piece of string to tie it down. Yep, that’s the way we’d do it, see. [Pops gets his Stratocaster to demonstrate.] Take the pencil, put it across like that [between two frets], take a string right around there [demonstrates how to wrap a string around both sides of the pencil], bear down on that tight. Tie the string, you got a capo.<br />
<br />
<em>Mr. King also said that worked when you broke a string – you could sometimes tie the string back together and put a pencil capo above the knot.</em><br />
<br />
[Laughs.] See, that was the problem: We weren’t able to have strings if you break one. We had to piece it together and put a capo on it and just keep on usin’ the string.<br />
<br />
<em>Were those Black Diamond strings?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, Black Diamond. <br />
<br />
<em>Those things were like baling wire. </em><br />
<br />
Yeah! Yeah.<br />
<br />
<em>When you saw Patton playing, was he by himself or with another guitarist?</em><br />
<br />
Patton be by himself, more or less. And Howlin’ Wolf be by himself. I didn’t never see no one play with him. But Dick Banks, there was him and another guy, Bill. There was two guitar players.<br />
<br />
<em>Would they play at the train station?</em><br />
<br />
Yes! That was good. Stand around, and people would just crowd up and throw money out there.<br />
<br />
<em>If a musician had a record out, would he have better luck?</em><br />
<br />
I didn’t never experience seeing nobody had a record. [I hand Pops a photo of Robert Johnson.]<br />
<br />
<em>Did you ever encounter this musician?</em><br />
<br />
Mm, mm. Never did. Now, I heard about him a lot. I never did see him, never did see him. Ah, boy. I heard so much of Robert. Big Bill Broonzy, Willie Dixon, Lonnie Johnson – of course I saw them. <br />
<br />
<em>I’ve always admired Son House.</em><br />
<br />
Son House – I saw Son House! Oh, yes. He’s dead. I saw Son House in Boston. We played together. Ooh, Son House – he come up not so long ago. Yeah, not so long ago. He came in the ’70s.<br />
<br />
<em>He was a good slide player.</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. I always wanted to play slide, but never did learn. <br />
<br />
<em>Why didn’t you?</em><br />
<br />
Didn’t take the time. I played it pretty good, but the way they were playing it, you had to tune your guitar into E minor straight, and I never would change it. I played it one way all the time.<br />
<br />
<em>When did you get your first electric guitar?</em><br />
<br />
In the ’40s. <br />
<br />
<em>Who was the first person you saw with an electric guitar? I heard Memphis Minnie was one of the first in Chicago.</em> <br />
<br />
I didn’t see her. Now, Big Bill – that’s about the first one I saw. Yeah.<br />
<br />
<em>Is it true he was a kindhearted guy?</em><br />
<br />
Didn’t know too much about him. I just know he was good to musicians. I was quite young then too. I had just got married when I met Bill. I wasn’t even playing then. I had been playing down in Mississippi, but when I went to Chicago, Big Bill Broonzy and Memphis Slim, they was playin’ together, and that started me back to wanting to play guitar. <br />
<br />
<em>So you gave up playing for a while? </em><br />
<br />
Yes, I got married, and my wife was having children so fast, I had to get out and get a job. So I got that job. I worked about 12 years before I even picked up a guitar. I’d got rid of all of them. I got the kids, they was on the way, and I got them up. They was about eight years old when I started to go back [to playing guitar]. There was a time I always was active, and they had us both working – my wife and me. We did it ourselves. We worked to make ends meet. She worked at night and I worked in the day. So on my time off, I taught the children to sing. I’d babysit in the day while she worked, and we gathered around, and that’s the way we started singing. Right around the house. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi90GIZhQqdRvMdp3StP2cQZargB5rbhokvYCLo6opyaHce1z6gBvDQK5_Uxnw-HbCpTPQrH7R3mWJo1AtBm8TJsk_pE58myiBt8fiIFxJi_rbchlg5K5Lare29itqs3Q8Y14XRMi2gbKI/s1600/Staples+circa+1954.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi90GIZhQqdRvMdp3StP2cQZargB5rbhokvYCLo6opyaHce1z6gBvDQK5_Uxnw-HbCpTPQrH7R3mWJo1AtBm8TJsk_pE58myiBt8fiIFxJi_rbchlg5K5Lare29itqs3Q8Y14XRMi2gbKI/s200/Staples+circa+1954.jpg" width="146" /></a></div><em>What were the first songs you taught your children?</em> <br />
<br />
“If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again” and “Do Not Pass Me By” – those kind of songs. “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” <br />
<br />
<em>You have such a distinctive guitar sound on your early records. I’d like to play you one of your old songs and ask you about it.</em> [I play the opening of “If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again.]<br />
<br />
That was one of the first songs we ever played! Isn’t that something.<br />
<br />
<em>What were you doing with the guitar to give it that sound?</em> <br />
<br />
Nothin’. I was just playin’.<br />
<br />
<em>What kind of amplifier?</em><br />
<br />
Gibson. [At this point Pops picks up his Strat and sings and plays the first verse of the song we’ve just heard. Even without amplification, that gentle tremolo sound is there – it turns out he created a lot of that effect with the way he’d move his left hand. In an interview several days later, Ry Cooder told me he’d experienced the same phenomena while working with Pops on the album.] <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyjTJNTNAYD7svZkuyljMzS6Vh4a5pg_8bIqSrY5SkUPlLHF-G2ESox6UGawD0Zofxdl4JCASbPGd9cMLaPsgu5fNOGCV9Dakwc5skOUyKLmxrQr877ItFYZjOCpmZJ0OSiDqx-2byIzg/s1600/Freedom+Highway+CD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyjTJNTNAYD7svZkuyljMzS6Vh4a5pg_8bIqSrY5SkUPlLHF-G2ESox6UGawD0Zofxdl4JCASbPGd9cMLaPsgu5fNOGCV9Dakwc5skOUyKLmxrQr877ItFYZjOCpmZJ0OSiDqx-2byIzg/s200/Freedom+Highway+CD.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><em>That’s so beautiful. Let me ask you about something else.</em> [We listen to the first verse of “The Lord’s Prayer” from the Freedom Highway CD.] <br />
<br />
<em>Who did the vocal arrangement?</em> <br />
<br />
I did. The children were so young, they didn’t know how to sing in a key, what key, or nothin’. It’s four sounds, so I just took them and [Pops plays four descending notes of a major chord on his guitar, one at a time, singing the pitch for each one.]<br />
<br />
<em>Each child would take a note?</em><br />
<br />
Yes, yes! That’s what I did. I give them a note [plays an A]. I said, “Now you keep that. Hold it!” So she sings [sings an A]. Each one gets a note. When they all sing together, that makes a chord. That’s the way I taught them how to sing. I said, “Now you just keep that sound all the way through.” That’s the way I taught them – no music or nothin’. I hit the string where they should be – where this one should be and where that one should be. That’s the way I taught them how to make that music.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimsdJ5gyPqdtBwoApemu6QwO9Dhns5DpXLgyHmLunKHjPsnzXdKYB_2hs_VhceFEWV4U_QKZgpaCsUjyO2tYL31Xq8uKpoGM-vChwEqQTCSLLJ6wCngn-BRVPEV4npV3hDOV-enW9l6oE/s1600/Mavis+on+Paisley+Park.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimsdJ5gyPqdtBwoApemu6QwO9Dhns5DpXLgyHmLunKHjPsnzXdKYB_2hs_VhceFEWV4U_QKZgpaCsUjyO2tYL31Xq8uKpoGM-vChwEqQTCSLLJ6wCngn-BRVPEV4npV3hDOV-enW9l6oE/s200/Mavis+on+Paisley+Park.jpg" width="158" /></a></div><em>When did you become aware that Mavis had such a great voice?</em><br />
<br />
Mavis was two years before we could get her – like I was hittin’ that sting – to hold her tune. For about two years, we kept on singing around the house. That’s the reason I said, “Never think about going on no road,” so we was just singin’ for ourselves. After about two years, Pervis and me was singing lead. Mavis was singing contralto, and then Pervis’ voice got too heavy for lead. I said, “Mavis, you try it.” And right then, when she hit the first song, I said, “That’s something.” I knew then. One of the guys said, “Staples, man, you sure got a good group” – that was when Pervis and me were singin’. He said, “You did right to leave the other group and start your family.” And I said, “Yeah, you think so? You just wait a minute – you ain’t heard nothin’ yet.” Sure enough, about six more months, Mavis was taking off.<br />
<br />
<em>If somebody wanted to make a record of Pops Staples’ best guitar playing, what songs would have to be on there? Which ones have your best guitar arrangements? </em><br />
<br />
Those, and “Uncloudy Day,” “I Been ’Buked and I Been Scorned,” and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” Some of those songs. That would be some of my old songs, back in those days. I play about the same – I don’t change much. But I can’t get a amplifier now. They changes up so – instead of going good to better, it seem like that sound I was getting out of the amplifier then, can’t get it now.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you have a reverb or a tremolo?</em> <br />
<br />
It was a tremolo on it, but they don’t make the tremolos like they did. It’s different things.<br />
<br />
<em>Have you tried getting one of the old amps or do you still have yours?</em> <br />
<br />
No. I found one, but they wouldn’t sell it to me. Down in Los Angeles. Ry had a pretty good one, but Jackson Browne had the best one. Jackson Browne had what I needed. See, that’s the one that I wanted to get and put it on the song with Bonnie Raitt [“World in Motion”]. That was a Fender Twin. I don’t know if it was a 10 or 12 speaker, but it was a Twin. It had a little foot tremolo [control], and you step on it. On one side [of the effects device] a wire come into the amplifier, and on the other side a wire come to the guitar. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you know what kind of tremolo it was? MXR?</em> <br />
<br />
It wasn’t no MXR. I just can’t remember. Whoo! Lord knows, if I had knew that this day was comin’, I would have kept all that stuff, but I didn’t. <br />
<br />
<em>You got rid of your classic gear?</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah. I didn’t know how valuable it was. <br />
<br />
<em>Have you kept any guitars through the years?</em> <br />
<br />
No. I wish I’d have kept that Stella, and the Les Paul I got in Chicago. I got rid of it – it’s worth about three, four thousand dollars now. <br />
<br />
<em>Is that what you used with Vee Jay?</em> <br />
<br />
Yes. Les Paul. <br />
<br />
<em>What kind of guitar was on the songs we just heard?</em><br />
<br />
Gibson Les Paul. <br />
<br />
<em>When you played on the Grammy Awards a couple of years ago, you conjured that old sound.</em> <br />
<br />
[Fingerpicks and sings the first verse of “It's Nobody’s Fault but Mine,” using his fretting fingers to create a tremolo effect.]<br />
<br />
<em>That’s so deep, so Mississippi.</em> <br />
<br />
[Laughs heartily.] That’s the Mississippi sound! Yeah.<br />
<br />
<em>Who are the best slide players you’ve seen?</em> <br />
<br />
[Sighs.] Ry Cooder in the late days. I didn’t pay much attention to them before Ry Cooder and Bonnie Raitt. I wouldn’t give one for the other. So there’s two of ’em – Ry and Bonnie. I love both of ’em. <br />
<br />
<em>When you were growing up in Mississippi, did people use bottle necks to play slide?</em><br />
<br />
Yes, broken bottle necks and pocketknives. Yeah, that’s what they used. <br />
<br />
<em>How would they make slides from bottles? </em><br />
<br />
They’d break that bottle neck off, and somehow they would make it fit their finger, and they’d play with it like that. But the knives, they would lay the guitar down on the lap and play with the knife. But with the bottle they could play with the guitar up.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOuzHtDqQlYwN3bTKTwYFK9KfWqIpX5ZKk9pLvOl_YpsJIb1pX5LhGg1ZqKhmNMsP7EWnsKkcmSkMWRFTZoiywAE8HdWLM_wV_BVYmiGI2JpR8WVrdlNnFQXPgvrnK9E05rF54128f78k/s1600/It's+Nobody%27s+Fault+But+Mine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOuzHtDqQlYwN3bTKTwYFK9KfWqIpX5ZKk9pLvOl_YpsJIb1pX5LhGg1ZqKhmNMsP7EWnsKkcmSkMWRFTZoiywAE8HdWLM_wV_BVYmiGI2JpR8WVrdlNnFQXPgvrnK9E05rF54128f78k/s200/It's+Nobody%27s+Fault+But+Mine.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><em>That song you just played – “It's Nobody’s Fault but Mine” – did you ever hear the old 78 by Blind Willie Johnson? </em><br />
<br />
Blind Willie Johnson. That’s where I got it from. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<em>When you were a child, did you ever hear people call blues “devil’s music”?</em><br />
<br />
Yes, yes. That’s why they didn’t want it in the church. Because that’s the “devil’s music.” Not only the blues, the guitar was the “devil’s instrument.” And the Bible said we should use strings and wind horns and all to make music and praise God, but they took it for devil’s music. It’s not the instrument. It’s what you play on the instrument. You know that. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOThdi8-gbDBdSRRmYjz4Jdql6WKDlLcIytuxbS9cpQnvRUz7stpgo_13_z5Dc7ySmZ4KA_343BdGEHRBxwUxFxud5qmpA9E-8JP276UnljDqIcy3mcXf5HNwr8zjzWrle5Vvt98tIgkw/s1600/staples2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOThdi8-gbDBdSRRmYjz4Jdql6WKDlLcIytuxbS9cpQnvRUz7stpgo_13_z5Dc7ySmZ4KA_343BdGEHRBxwUxFxud5qmpA9E-8JP276UnljDqIcy3mcXf5HNwr8zjzWrle5Vvt98tIgkw/s320/staples2.jpg" /></a></div><em>Rev. Gatemouth Moore told me last summer that the only difference between blues and gospel is you say “Jesus” instead of “baby.”</em> <br />
<br />
I’ve heard that. I’ve heard that. You got to have the feeling in your heart and the meaning. So many have took the gospel songs and sung with a blues feeling, and took the blues songs and made a gospel-song feeling. I take the blues feeling and do gospel. What I call “gospel” is truth. I sing truth for song. Songs have meaning. <br />
<br />
<em>Rev. Dorsey defined gospel music as “good news.”</em> <br />
<br />
Yeah, it is. It is. <br />
<br />
<em>What song did you play at Muddy Waters’ funeral?</em> <br />
<br />
“Glory, Glory, Hallelujah, Since I Lay My Burden Down.” Same thing I sang at Willie Dixon’s. I was in London when I sung for him. He passed while I was in London. We made a beautiful tape. He was doing some talking, and I sung on it. Muddy Waters and his. <br />
<br />
<em>When you’re looking to get a guitar, how can you tell when you’ve found a good one?</em> <br />
<br />
Well, I’ve been using a Fender all the time. I been using this one here, that Strat, for about a year now. It’s different in the feel of the neck. You can get the same guitar, same color and everything, but it won’t play like this guitar. You have to pick by the way it feels to your hand. That’s the way I pick mine. Of course, Fender made me a beautiful guitar – I guess it cost, oh, $1,100 – and they give it to me. I endorsed it, and they gave it to me. It’s beautiful, but I haven’t learned how to play it like I have this one [points to the Strat in his hotel room]. I got this one. The one Fender made me got pearl all up and down the neck and got my name engraved in it, but I play this one. And they gave me this one for half price. <br />
<br />
<em>Do you play as much guitar now as you did twenty years ago? </em><br />
<br />
No. I hardly ever play that much. I play more now since I made this record than I played in five or six years. <br />
<br />
<em>How great to be able to make this record.</em> <br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3cjlCH5dKm_Dq4DH8SuQpbd6GxuWP8o81_3EBuD8CZgLT3p5tfGcrhHuNFwN9iG-WjzD32OQg-42smHTZPiWtXGSVyiW-NXy6xGrUQQuo_9GomExZyPVguSxTvhRaVQ6rnL1Pk8EVfIU/s1600/Pops+and+Mavis+1994.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3cjlCH5dKm_Dq4DH8SuQpbd6GxuWP8o81_3EBuD8CZgLT3p5tfGcrhHuNFwN9iG-WjzD32OQg-42smHTZPiWtXGSVyiW-NXy6xGrUQQuo_9GomExZyPVguSxTvhRaVQ6rnL1Pk8EVfIU/s200/Pops+and+Mavis+1994.jpg" width="200" /></a>The Lord has given me the strength and the will and the songs and brought stuff to me to do. I’m doin’ very good with it. I got more write-ups with it than with anything, even with the Staple Singers. [Pulls out a copy of Jet magazine and points to an article.] That’s what come out in the Jet – that’s the Staple Singers’ magazine. That Jet came out last week. You can’t hardly get nothin’ in the Jet, but they thought enough of me and they think the record is well enough to put me in there. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><em>This article says it took you forty years to go solo! </em></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">[Laughs.] I didn’t want to go solo! I always said when I was a boy, “If I ever get to be a man, I’m gonna make me a record.” So I’m just now getting to it, just now getting to it. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><em>Must feel pretty good.</em></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Yeah, it does. It does. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><em>Plus in such a difficult time, it’s wonderful to have an uplifting message.</em> </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Yeah. I wonder sometime, does it do any good. It must be, because everybody talking about all the destruction in Los Angeles and all this stuff going on. The record seem like it come up just at the right time. </div><br />
<em>The title says it all – Peace to the Neighborhood. </em><br />
<br />
“Peace to the Neighborhood” – see, that’s what I strive for, Jas. Tryin’ to bring peace to everybody that’s miserable tryin’ to make it. You can’t pull yourself up by your own bootstrap. You need help sometimes. I was a lucky guy to be able to bring my children up. Through the time that I was comin’ up, I had to work for three dollars a week – a whole week, sunup to sundown. Three dollars a week – that’s less than you get for an hour’s pay now on the minimum wage. But now, I am blessed to bring my kids up and we made a nice living out of it. Because I want to do the right thing. I’m trying my best to help if I can. That’s what I’m trying to do. That’s my aim and my purpose. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj17bS6gEFPKxRIRReLP5qi5_d35uswXOXCyfc9jdQcVK4CNw-xawQBtYb606gVK699zc9XBoPZ4LKoxUHjKzCS9eONpwSnd3XtzljueoqvnRdTxpEoX5joIIKjFUh11xFQXsfr81Tn-Hw/s1600/Father+Father+CD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj17bS6gEFPKxRIRReLP5qi5_d35uswXOXCyfc9jdQcVK4CNw-xawQBtYb606gVK699zc9XBoPZ4LKoxUHjKzCS9eONpwSnd3XtzljueoqvnRdTxpEoX5joIIKjFUh11xFQXsfr81Tn-Hw/s200/Father+Father+CD.jpg" width="197" /></a></div><em>Epilog</em><br />
<br />
<em>After our interview, Pops asked me to send him some Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, and Blind Willie Johnson music, which I was happy to do. Later that year, </em><em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Peace-Neighborhood-Pops-Staples/dp/B000000WIM?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Peace in the Neighborhood</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000000WIM" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /></em><br />
<em> earned him a Grammy nomination. His follow-up album, </em><em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Father/dp/B00130V8AC?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Father, Father</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00130V8AC" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /></em><em>, won the 1995 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. In 1999, the Staples Singers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Months later, 85-year-old Pops Staples fell in his home in Dalton, Illinois, and suffered a concussion; he passed away on December 19, 2000.</em> <br />
<br />
<em><strong><span style="color: blue;">Show your support of this blog, and help feed the blogger, by making a donation using the Paypal link below.</span></strong></em>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-57645586322840427022010-08-15T09:01:00.004-04:002010-08-15T09:20:44.069-04:00Jimi Hendrix in London<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpA25_flg_1yY7nS90oqGiUkmRPq8fLqoQxUfVbLRJw1ExGEIAQVRpxCWMSuS3hQWpn9MmjDCZjpisr6UhKF7Prm6PsUI4uipi_Ybn22yHhzV0AS8x8iEBNTsWrdOfFr67wGXNnBxviqM/s1600/color+promo+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpA25_flg_1yY7nS90oqGiUkmRPq8fLqoQxUfVbLRJw1ExGEIAQVRpxCWMSuS3hQWpn9MmjDCZjpisr6UhKF7Prm6PsUI4uipi_Ybn22yHhzV0AS8x8iEBNTsWrdOfFr67wGXNnBxviqM/s320/color+promo+photo.jpg" /></a></div>When Jimi Hendrix boarded a flight to London on September 23, 1966, he had no idea how dramatically his life was about to change. His luggage – pretty much everything he owned – showed how hard times had been for him in New York City. He carried with him just one Fender Stratocaster electric guitar and a small bag with a change of clothes, plastic hair curlers, and acne medicine. His pocket held $40 borrowed on his way to the airport. The 23-year-old was traveling first class, though, courtesy of his new manager, Chas Chandler.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">That July, Chandler, bassist for the popular British group the Animals, had heard Jimi play at Café Wha in New York’s Greenwich Village. Jimi’s set included one of Chandler’s favorite songs, Tim Rose’s “Hey Joe.” “Jimi was just an explosive kid whose potential struck me,” Chandler remembered in John McDermott’s essential book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jimi-Hendrix-Sessions-Recording-1963-1970/dp/0316555460?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Jimi Hendrix Sessions</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0316555460" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />. “As much as his version of ‘Hey Joe’ impressed me, what convinced me of his talent was another song he did that day, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ by Bob Dylan. He did it with tremendous conviction, and the lyrics came right through to me.” Jimi accepted Chandler’s offer to record him in London once the Animals’ current U.S. tour was completed. Chandler, ambitious to become a record producer, was determined to have Jimi record “Hey Joe” as his first single. </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSxnpaAIHxxhKGO04ZLo-yM6VVYmmqvn_IYwHfR0j2ID3fABgwBL5Qi95iVX4TpNEDtxNnHcqeh30JDUmCutXgzZaRJsqg92eEC297Tyni2ze1ckpTrsxvUO24IKh0uDUYerlN477vhcg/s1600/Passport+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSxnpaAIHxxhKGO04ZLo-yM6VVYmmqvn_IYwHfR0j2ID3fABgwBL5Qi95iVX4TpNEDtxNnHcqeh30JDUmCutXgzZaRJsqg92eEC297Tyni2ze1ckpTrsxvUO24IKh0uDUYerlN477vhcg/s200/Passport+photo.jpg" width="170" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><strong>Jimi’s passport photo, September 1966. </strong></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Hendrix landed at London’s Heathrow Airport at 9:00 the following morning. It was Saturday, and as Charles Cross recounts in his excellent Hendrix biography, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Room-Full-Mirrors-Biography-Hendrix/dp/0786888415?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Room Full of Mirrors</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0786888415" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, publicist Tony Garland picked Jimi up from the airport and took him straight to the home of bandleader Zoot Money. Jimi tried to play his Strat through a stereo record player, but when that failed, he wowed Zoot with his performance on a borrowed acoustic. Andy Summers, later the guitarist for the Police, was living in Zoot’s house and witnessed this performance. Thus, writes Cross, Summers became “the first of legions of Great Britain’s guitar players to be awed and dazed by Jimi.” </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Jimi’s next stop that day was the Scotch of St. James, a club where musicians and record company execs hung out. Hendrix asked if he could jam with the house band, and when he began playing blues, the crowd was awestruck. Among the attendees was 20-year-old Kathy Etchingham, former girlfriend of Brian Jones and Keith Moon. Kathy accepted Hendrix’s invitation to spend the night. During the weeks that followed, she introduced him to “Swinging London,” and for the next two years they’d be an on-again, off-again couple. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD0hbyt3V8ksfts6NnSmhG1GnTWen2yD2L-XbFp6XqCc-GajBZzzmx3ZMTSLFhZpuBu7hDbvwdHziBCI4ZAR9j1aaazAVefUGTAHI_SMfdkSeMpKJoASErxnH9ddAHfFGTUMZi4OukOBQ/s1600/Tony+Brown+book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD0hbyt3V8ksfts6NnSmhG1GnTWen2yD2L-XbFp6XqCc-GajBZzzmx3ZMTSLFhZpuBu7hDbvwdHziBCI4ZAR9j1aaazAVefUGTAHI_SMfdkSeMpKJoASErxnH9ddAHfFGTUMZi4OukOBQ/s200/Tony+Brown+book.jpg" width="143" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Two days later, Chas took Jimi to meet Eric Burdon, lead singer of the Animals. As Burdon recounts in Tony Brown’s well-researched <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hendrix-Visual-Documentary-Original-Acclaimed/dp/0711927618?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Jimi Hendrix: A Visual Documentary</a>, “The first time I heard him play, I was in a rehearsal room putting together the New Animals, and this shadowy figure stepped into the room wearing a large Western, sombrero kind of hat, beads around it, and he looked almost sort of purple, you know, in the darkness of this club. And he just grabbed hold of Vic Briggs’ guitar and in the same instant said, ‘Do you mind if I have a jam?’, you know, and cracked up into an up-tempo blues jam with John Wieder. And Barry Jenkins and Danny McCulloch from my band just leapt in and chased him on this incredible jam. I mean, the sounds just rocketed around the room, like ricocheted around the room. I was totally stunned and from that point on I became unashamedly a Jimi Hendrix addict.” </div><br />
On his fourth day in London, Hendrix sat in with a group called the VIPs at the Scotch of St. James. As Jimi played, Kit Lambert, founder of Track Records, tried to talk Chandler into having Jimi sign with his fledgling label. The next day Jimi phoned Seattle to speak to his dad. In the book we wrote together, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Son-Jimi-Book-James-Hendrix/dp/0966785711?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">My Son Jimi</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0966785711" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, Al Hendrix recounted the conversation: “One day in late September 1966, our phone rang and the operator said ‘London calling.’ At first I was wondering who in the heck was calling me – I didn’t know anybody over there. It was Jimi, and he was all excited as he told me, ‘Dad, it looks like I’m on my way to the big time.’ He went on to say he was in England, auditioning for a bass player and a drummer. ‘I’m gonna call the group the Jimi Hendrix Experience,’ he said, ‘and I’m gonna have my name spelled J-i-m-i.’ Jimi also talked about he was going to sing. ‘Yeah, dad,’ he said, ‘all these other guys sing, and they ain’t got no voice and they’re just hollering and going on. You know I ain’t got no voice, but heck, I’m gonna do it too.’” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0fN_nW5KqRbmblfgVW-w1rSVlot-hT5yL5Qpyc9yQP1gK4hJIkLj1Wd5pabdEcSd8a2tq5RCme5ZU6euFTSMGP3oumxeUunpRb14oSlD9E6pMqVuN77neKG6LZ7EPZK_2YhPdqdLb_Ws/s1600/Sessions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0fN_nW5KqRbmblfgVW-w1rSVlot-hT5yL5Qpyc9yQP1gK4hJIkLj1Wd5pabdEcSd8a2tq5RCme5ZU6euFTSMGP3oumxeUunpRb14oSlD9E6pMqVuN77neKG6LZ7EPZK_2YhPdqdLb_Ws/s200/Sessions.jpg" width="151" /></a></div>Initially, Jimi had wanted a nine-piece revue like the one he’d played in with Little Richard. Chandler, though, wanted a trio, both to save money and to ensure that Jimi was the focus of attention. The first recruit, guitarist Noel Redding, had recently auditioned for the Animals. Chandler asked him if he’d be interested in playing bass for Hendrix, and Redding agreed to give it a try. On September 29, after jamming on “Hey Joe” and “Have Mercy on Me Baby,” Jimi offered Noel the gig. In the coming weeks, Chandler tutored Noel by showing him scales and walking patterns on bass. On occasion, Jimi would also teach him the parts he wanted to hear. During his first few months with the Experience, Noel used Chandler’s Gibson EB-5 semi-acoustic bass, and then got his own Fender Jazz Bass. <br />
<br />
While sitting in with Brian Auger’s Trinity, Jimi had his first encounter with a Marshall amplifier. He instantly rolled all the dials to 10 and shocked the crowd with a wall of feedback before playing launching into “Hey Joe.” “Everyone’s jaw dropped to the floor,” Auger remembered. “The difference between him and a lot of the English guitar players like Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Alvin Lee was that you could still tell what the influences were in Clapton’s and Beck’s playing. There were a lot of B.B. King, Albert King, and Freddie King followers around in England. But Jimi wasn’t following anyone – he was playing something new.” <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim01RzijqW__q1xnWNeiw4gBaMP0QAVCY_ZAX5OMS-waXaB6eyVM-QMc2dT7c5eEIEERIPGUk7islq3eDaXLn9NhpqhQZpmUHw9eTMgUsZjxvVAWrst2BEO1jysS6fxlC9EGJkgBp3HYk/s1600/Clapton+The+Autobiograpy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim01RzijqW__q1xnWNeiw4gBaMP0QAVCY_ZAX5OMS-waXaB6eyVM-QMc2dT7c5eEIEERIPGUk7islq3eDaXLn9NhpqhQZpmUHw9eTMgUsZjxvVAWrst2BEO1jysS6fxlC9EGJkgBp3HYk/s200/Clapton+The+Autobiograpy.jpg" width="135" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">At the time, Eric Clapton was considered England’s foremost guitar slinger – to the point where people had scrawled “Clapton Is God” on London buildings and subway walls. Now he was making the scene with Cream. Just one week after he’d landed at Heathrow, Hendrix went to see Cream. In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Clapton-Autobiography-Eric/dp/076792536X?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Clapton: The Autobiography</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=076792536X" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, Eric described what happened: “On October 1, we were booked to play at the Central London Polytechnic on Regent Street. I was hanging around backstage with Jack, when Chas Chandler, the bass player with the Animals, appeared, accompanied by a young black American guy whom he introduced as Jimi Hendrix. He informed us that Jimi was a brilliant guitarist, and he wanted to sit in with us for a couple of numbers. I thought he looked cool and that he probably knew what he was doing. We got to talking about music, and he liked the same bluesmen I liked, so I was all for it. Jack was cool about it, too, though I seem to remember Ginger was a little bit hostile. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1BwyWQ7WZ1_owBqSsqoSizGBq_1dujbEuIZxx3SvBbuUy0ttnDYOig9jPozoALGUX6Xj1EGPA22WvEVl9HEpad0KVhI7hRI-0D-kFSpo-Wt4ytz6NDrIYar1Zx7xA9JKOQf3rv_TUXhs/s1600/Cream+Eric+Clapton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1BwyWQ7WZ1_owBqSsqoSizGBq_1dujbEuIZxx3SvBbuUy0ttnDYOig9jPozoALGUX6Xj1EGPA22WvEVl9HEpad0KVhI7hRI-0D-kFSpo-Wt4ytz6NDrIYar1Zx7xA9JKOQf3rv_TUXhs/s320/Cream+Eric+Clapton.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><strong>Cream in 1966: Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce.</strong> </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">“The song Jimi wanted to play was by Howlin’ Wolf, entitled ‘Killing Floor.’ I thought it was incredible that he would know how to play this, as it was a tough one to get right. Of course Jimi played it exactly like it ought to be played, and he totally blew me away. When jamming with another band for the first time, most musicians will try to hold back, but Jimi just went for it. He played the guitar with his teeth, behind his head, lying on the floor, doing the splits, the whole business. It was amazing, and it was musically great, too, not just pyrotechnics. Even though I had already seen Buddy Guy and knew a lot of black players could do this kind of stuff, it’s still pretty amazing when you’re standing right next to it. The audience was completely gobsmacked by what they saw and heard, too. They loved it, and I loved it, too, but I remember thinking that here was a force to be reckoned with. It scared me, because he was clearly going to be a huge star, and just as we were finding our own speed, here was the real thing.” “It must have been difficult for Eric to handle,” Jack Bruce later commented, “because people were writing Clapton was ‘God,’ and this unknown person comes along and burns.” </div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Chandler, meanwhile, was hard at work completing the Experience. Drummer Aynsley Dunbar rehearsed with Noel and Jimi on October 4. The following day, Mitch Mitchell, who’d recently left Georgie Fame’s band, was brought in. As Mitchell described in Tony Brown’s book: “It was strange. I met this black guy with very wild hair, wearing a Burberry raincoat. I think we did ‘Have Mercy on Me Baby’ first. Jimi didn’t really sing, just mumbled along to the music. And for two hours we run through what we all knew – Chuck Berry, Wilson Pickett, basically R&B, after which Hendrix said, ‘Okay, I will see you around.’ After the initial session, I think it was only a few hours later that I got a call from Chas saying, ‘Yes, we’re interested.’ Chas said there was a gig in Paris the next week with Johnny Halliday and asked if we fancied doing it. So I said okay and spent three days rehearsing. Then off we went and that was how it started.” Chandler later revealed, “It was a toss-up between Aynsley Dunbar and Mitch Mitchell, and literally we just spun a coin – we couldn’t make our minds up – and it fell for Mitch.” </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlb0c985pJDvQvYUcYzYqBqoQWrJS_iQlqOCCAHoLwOPbKIqdcHXfL3SUzot_CZj93g-wFIddSvJAoLw4_yMY_th8YuAwaLIuHvFCEDM1I6OCkgrRkq4F1fHqX333IGJrU5QeXijTM33o/s1600/Mitrch+Mitchell+on+drums.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlb0c985pJDvQvYUcYzYqBqoQWrJS_iQlqOCCAHoLwOPbKIqdcHXfL3SUzot_CZj93g-wFIddSvJAoLw4_yMY_th8YuAwaLIuHvFCEDM1I6OCkgrRkq4F1fHqX333IGJrU5QeXijTM33o/s320/Mitrch+Mitchell+on+drums.jpg" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><strong>Mitch Mitchell on drums.</strong> </div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Next on Jimi’s agenda was French tour opening for singer Johnny Halliday, who’d seen him jamming in a nightclub. First, though, he needed to score a better amp than the 30-watt Burns model Chandler had supplied. On October 8, Mitch took Jimi to see Jim Marshall of Marshall Amplifiers. “I thought he was just another one who wanted to have something for nothing,” Marshall recalled in Brown’s book. “But he seemed to read what I was thinking and he said, almost in his next breath, ‘Well, I don’t want it for nothing. I wanna pay full price, but I want good service.’ And that’s what we gave him.” </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The newly named Jimi Hendrix Experience gave their debut performance on October 13, 1966, at the Novelty in Evreux. Their set consisted of “Midnight Hour,” “Have Mercy on Me Baby,” “Land of a Thousand Dances,” and “Hey Joe.” This first performance garnered a surprisingly bad review in the local newspaper L’Eure Éclair: “Il s’agissait d’un chanteur guitariste à la chevelure broussailleuse, mauvais cocktail de James Brown et de Chuck Berry qui se contorsionné pendant un bon quatre d’heure sur la scène en jouant parfois de la guitare avec le dents. Il termina la première partie qui fut suive d’une assez long entracte.” This roughly translates to “he was a singer and guitar player with bushy hair, a bad cocktail of James Brown and Chuck Berry who writhed onstage for a good quarter of an hour and sometimes played the guitar with his teeth. After he ended, there was a long pause.” </div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhczRwcpLaXRN0K11BQt4otzI3JO_x5LO2d7RwAUjNF85Ne1xelCVQgkZs5_8Y5pBVC3swg9rocwN02GXrKSpQG7m3BRHlFTvn7C50CfePjxXTe1-n21SQ1YYPnW4vgpSdvvHkJC39BD98/s1600/Inside+the+Experience.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhczRwcpLaXRN0K11BQt4otzI3JO_x5LO2d7RwAUjNF85Ne1xelCVQgkZs5_8Y5pBVC3swg9rocwN02GXrKSpQG7m3BRHlFTvn7C50CfePjxXTe1-n21SQ1YYPnW4vgpSdvvHkJC39BD98/s200/Inside+the+Experience.jpg" width="200" /></a>But Mitch Mitchell, for one, came away impressed: “Jimi was a quiet bloke, at least until he got onstage,” Mitchell recalled in his must-read autobiography, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jimi-Hendrix-Experience-Mitch-Mitchell/dp/0312100981?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Inside the Experience</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0312100981" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />. “It was on this first gig that we saw the whole other person, completely different from anything I’d seen before, even during rehearsals. I knew he played really tasty guitar, but I didn’t know about the showmanship that went with it. It was like, ‘Whoosh! This man is really out-front!’ The showmanship – playing behind his head, with his teeth, etc. – was amazing. But even then it was obviously not just flashiness, he really did have the musicianship to go with it.” </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR5DSRLxsTHnSXZiJ2COt-fNvk0XqN4OipsokPMrIvO5TXu65Kw86kuDb4Vof0K8ZfmW8QK66lKUCce9eWuRzoKbh2d58SPuKHa-u37HEpw5K-ioJ6XRK_sZVicVBK1AtZ1tD5OCO4Cc8/s1600/1966-10-18_04-Olympia-France.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="146" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR5DSRLxsTHnSXZiJ2COt-fNvk0XqN4OipsokPMrIvO5TXu65Kw86kuDb4Vof0K8ZfmW8QK66lKUCce9eWuRzoKbh2d58SPuKHa-u37HEpw5K-ioJ6XRK_sZVicVBK1AtZ1tD5OCO4Cc8/s200/1966-10-18_04-Olympia-France.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>The trio garnered far better reviews when they played the Olympia in Paris five days later, where Jimi blew everyone’s mind with “Killing Floor,” “Hey Joe,” and a pull-out-the-stops cover of “Wild Thing.” During the finale, Hendrix appeared onstage with the other performers, playing his white Stratocaster. The Experience then returned to London, where, exactly one month after Jimi’s arrival in London, the trio began making records. <br />
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With Chandler producing, the trio recorded “Hey Joe” at London’s DeLane Lea Studios on October 23. Jimi played his Strat through a Marshall twin stack. Chandler had to convince Jimi to overcome his insecurity about his voice. “It was the first time I’d ever sung on record,” Jimi would later confess. More than 30 takes were needed to complete the backing tracks, but in the end, the Jimi Hendrix Experience had its first hit single in the can. But what to put on the other side? Jimi wanted to cover “Mercy, Mercy” or “Land of a Thousand Dance,” but Chandler told him he’d need to write his own songs to make publishing royalties. So the following day Jimi sat down and wrote all of “Stone Free,” recorded and mixed on November 2. On October 25, the Experience made its London debut at the Scotch of St. James. With money from his early club gigs – typically £25 a performance – Jimi purchased mod clothing in the boutiques along Carnaby Street, the center of the “Swinging Sixties” fashion scene.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7r2qulLjh3c3SSVleqQwZGqKShnlitzpaFBQdAKVAlz09Us_SXAf2qaBolt2cUB_7QBIijsXCv_mvH3FU7DkYsyevZeNT3bRpHeIrdaonB_5RIe3kcH4hEKCkirRqKOimPn4Grc88wck/s1600/1967+promo+photo+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7r2qulLjh3c3SSVleqQwZGqKShnlitzpaFBQdAKVAlz09Us_SXAf2qaBolt2cUB_7QBIijsXCv_mvH3FU7DkYsyevZeNT3bRpHeIrdaonB_5RIe3kcH4hEKCkirRqKOimPn4Grc88wck/s320/1967+promo+photo+2.jpg" /></a></div>While Chandler shopped for a record deal, eventually signing with Track Records, Jimi began working on more songs. He developed early versions of “Can You See Me” and “Remember,” as well as two songs inspired by science fiction books he’d borrowed from Chandler – “Third Stone from the Sun” and “Up from the Skies.” He also kept up a busy rehearsal schedule. <br />
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On October 29, the British publication Record Mirror ran Richard Green’s “Ex Animal Adventures,” the first English-language article about the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The write-up misspelled both of Jimi’s names and misstated his age by three years: “Never one to let a good thing pass, Chas Chandler has signed and brought to this country a 20 year old Negro called Jim Henrix who – among other things – plays the guitar with his teeth and is being hailed in some quarters as main contender for the title of ‘the next big thing.’ . . . ‘He looks like Dylan, he’s got all that hair sticking all over the place,’ Chas told me. ‘He’s coloured but he doesn’t think like a coloured person.’” Ouch. But wait, there’s more: “‘He’s better than Eric Clapton,’ Chas claimed, getting to the main point about Jim. ‘He played with the Cream at a London college date and played Clapton off the stage. Ginger Baker didn’t want him to go on because he said he had to have Eric there to work with him. Clapton admitted that Jim was a fantastic guitarist.’” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQEPwM6EiIEN1p1ce8KwCd-yKYygFFwc4rb38bjw1fbfu7Zd2F8r8suEkig1tYS32TMcTqYxQm4W3CvEzOaENdZovfaXwC__V2FTutLJoAomTOUKSVgajSKAHVWJ9c1q8pC63npPNiOqs/s1600/Jimi+Hendrix+in+a+club.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="153" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQEPwM6EiIEN1p1ce8KwCd-yKYygFFwc4rb38bjw1fbfu7Zd2F8r8suEkig1tYS32TMcTqYxQm4W3CvEzOaENdZovfaXwC__V2FTutLJoAomTOUKSVgajSKAHVWJ9c1q8pC63npPNiOqs/s200/Jimi+Hendrix+in+a+club.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Beginning on November 9, the Experience played three nights in Munich, Germany, to ever-increasing crowds. “This was really the first time we all knew something big was going to happen,” Noel Redding remembered. “You could feel we were just on the cusp of success.” Using a long cord to walk into the adoring crowd, Hendrix damaged his guitar getting back onstage. In anger, he lifted it over his head and threw it to the ground. The crowd went berserk, and soon guitar smashing – often the same guitar, glued back together each night – became a standard part of the set. Hendrix did not pioneer this attention-getter, though. Pete Townshend of The Who was already an old-hand at smashing guitars, and in the film Blow-Up, released earlier in 1966, Jeff Beck is seen angrily destroying a guitar during a Yardbirds set.<br />
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Upon his return from Germany, Jimi watched while the Rolling Stones recorded “Ruby Tuesday” at Olympic Studios and visited a Who session at IBC Sound Studios. On November 24, two days before his 24th birthday, he recorded “Love or Confusion” at DeLane Lea Music. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8S7sArSbQfIK22sKffTeA8jfePtgNstJwvVOMNM7AveashaEyNejVdBUTBEpHvyqGaWH9ov-WVx4c_NHXGnOuPy76HtcFlcBjj0noZMRfRPE6W2Gf8jCfen42u5Ps5VyEYZNJf37uAVo/s1600/1967+promo+photo+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8S7sArSbQfIK22sKffTeA8jfePtgNstJwvVOMNM7AveashaEyNejVdBUTBEpHvyqGaWH9ov-WVx4c_NHXGnOuPy76HtcFlcBjj0noZMRfRPE6W2Gf8jCfen42u5Ps5VyEYZNJf37uAVo/s200/1967+promo+photo+3.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>The following day, Jimi played at the Bag O’ Nails and gave his first published interview to Peter Jones, who headlined his December 10th Record Mirror article “Mr. Phenomenon.” Jones was decidedly kinder – and a better speller – than Richard Green. “Now hear this – and kindly hear it good! Are you one of the fans who think there’s nothing much new happening on the pop scene? Right. Then we want to bring your attention to a new artist, a new star-in-the-making, who we predict is going to whirl round the business like a tornado. Name: Jimi Hendrix. Occupation: Guitarist-singer-composer – showman – dervish – original. His group, just three-strong: The Jimi Hendrix Experience. <br />
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“Bill Harry and I dropped in at the Bag O’ Nails club in Kingley Street recently to hear the trio working out for the benefit of press and bookers. An astonished Harry muttered: ‘Is that full, big blasting, swinging sound really being created by only three people?’ It was, with the aid of a mountain of amplification equipment. Jimi was in full flight. Whirling like a demon, swirling his guitar every which way, this 20-year-old (looking rather like James Brown) was quite amazing. Visually he grabs the eyeballs with his techniques of playing the guitar with his teeth, elbow, rubbing it across the stage. But he also pleasurably hammers the eardrums with his expert playing. An astonishing technique, specially considering he started playing only five or six years ago. Sweatily exhausted, Jimi said afterwards: ‘I’ve only been in London three months – but Britain is really groovy. Just been working in Paris and Munich.’” <br />
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Jones asked Jimi to describe his music: “‘We don’t want to be classed in any category,’ said Jimi. ‘If it must have a tag. I’d like it to be called ‘free feeling.’ It’s a mixture of rock, freakout, blues and rave music.’ . . . About that thing of playing the guitar with his teeth: he says it doesn’t worry him. He doesn’t feel anything. ‘But I do have to brush my teeth three times a day.’” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2jDWtlZM4wALY1R-fqO1WwPmT7ws7_TS6aLJJZFQng8tM8J95nyMmRi91faDhXQahx3pEEvJvWU1UnuHqTjYiP4YnOMXC77gGIwnN9N1PwH1kh7h9HndJU997lDfDJ_jamHTIQhTKDlU/s1600/kathy+etchingham.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2jDWtlZM4wALY1R-fqO1WwPmT7ws7_TS6aLJJZFQng8tM8J95nyMmRi91faDhXQahx3pEEvJvWU1UnuHqTjYiP4YnOMXC77gGIwnN9N1PwH1kh7h9HndJU997lDfDJ_jamHTIQhTKDlU/s200/kathy+etchingham.jpg" width="157" /></a></div>In early December, Jimi, Kathy Etchingham, Chas Chandler, and Chas’ girlfriend Lottie Lexon took residence at 34 Montagu Square in London; the flat’s previous tenant was Ringo Starr. During the next two years, Jimi would eventually amass a collection of nearly a hundred albums in the places he’d share with Kathy Etchingham. While he owned everything from Holst and Handel to comedian Bill Cosby – I Started Out as a Child was reportedly his all-time favorite album – most of his collection was dedicated to the blues, with Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and Sonny Boy Williamson being particular favorites. He also had a deep admiration for Bob Dylan. “People will argue with me,” Etchingham told James Rotondi in Guitar Player magazine, “but I tell you, that guy was a bluesman. That’s where his heart really lay. Anybody who tells me he would have become a jazz musician – well, balls to them. What he really liked, and what he really played at home, was blues.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaqu107v5hG_cJ7nRfPiPwras5LodpVnRHQBawEP4vGyLk0lAOmWtMxOIMszAtt-waPMvcDVawiiVKzM9n4o3u1aTPW96nXeVaK5RCXNI92Tn0eY9ZhyvAryT-isJ6yRI5VyXk7n7pa9k/s1600/Hey+Joe+Stone+Free.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaqu107v5hG_cJ7nRfPiPwras5LodpVnRHQBawEP4vGyLk0lAOmWtMxOIMszAtt-waPMvcDVawiiVKzM9n4o3u1aTPW96nXeVaK5RCXNI92Tn0eY9ZhyvAryT-isJ6yRI5VyXk7n7pa9k/s200/Hey+Joe+Stone+Free.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>On December 13, the Jimi Hendrix Experience taped “Hey Joe” for the popular British TV show Ready, Steady Go! Watching that performance was effects wizard Roger Mayer, who’d built the custom fuzz boxes used by Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck with the Yardbirds. “I said, ‘Damn, this guy is incredible,’” Mayer told me in a 1979 interview. “He was the epitome of what any rock guitarist should be – we had no one of that caliber in England.” (Mayer would soon give Hendrix the Octavia octave-doubling device heard at the end of “Purple Haze.”) Later that evening, the band had a recording session at CBS Studios. Jimi brought along four Marshall cabinets and told engineer Mike Ross, “Stick a microphone eight feet away, and it will sound great.” It did sound great, Ross observed, “but it was the loudest thing I ever heard in that studio. It was painful on your ears.” With Chandler very much in charge of the session, they completed “Foxy Lady,” “Red House,” “Can You See Me,” and “Third Stone From the Sun,” all of which would be included on the British version of the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s debut album. Three days later, “Hey Joe”/“Stone Free” was issued as a single, eventually making it all the way to #6 in the British pop charts. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxQr_AOs7UnUiXjO3m0ns1rqvBvk-QoikGkogq3u_wmsQHG1V_tQINe0jNgS_qeTg4ppc7kSFN0kud4Pq6ArAZcDyeTL1XvAd0tMr8A__Sba_kpkxn6AFAcbGLfF7jjTTXDitfXvR68ug/s1600/1-19+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxQr_AOs7UnUiXjO3m0ns1rqvBvk-QoikGkogq3u_wmsQHG1V_tQINe0jNgS_qeTg4ppc7kSFN0kud4Pq6ArAZcDyeTL1XvAd0tMr8A__Sba_kpkxn6AFAcbGLfF7jjTTXDitfXvR68ug/s200/1-19+photo.jpg" width="156" /></a></div>The Experience’s December 21 club gig earned a rave review from Chris Welch in the December 31 issue of Melody Maker: “Jimi Hendrix, a fantastic American guitarist, blew the minds of the star packed crowd who went to see him at ‘Blaises’ club, London, on Wednesday. Among those in the audience were Pete Townsend, Roger Daltrey, John Entwhistle, Chas Chandler and Jeff Beck. They heard Jimi’s trio blast through some beautiful sounds like ‘Rock Me Baby,’ ‘Third Stone from the Sun,’ ‘Hey Joe’ and even an unusual version of The Troggs’ ‘Wild Thing.’ Jimi has great stage presence and an exceptional guitar technique which involved playing with his teeth on occasions and no hands at all on others! Jimi looks like [he’s] becoming one of the big club names of ’67.” In 1980, I asked Jeff Beck about his relationship with Jimi: “It was a bit difficult. We could never enjoy a real close friendship because of what we did. He and I were both after the wild guitar playing. I liked Jimi best when we didn’t talk guitars.”<br />
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For Pete Townshend, watching Jimi perform was even more cathartic. “Seeing Jimi absolutely, completely destroyed me,” he told Matt Resnicoff in their September 1989 Guitar Player cover story. “It was horrifying, because he took back black music. He came and stole R&B back. He made it very evident that’s what he was doing. He’d been out on the road with people like Little Richard, had done that hard work, and then he’d come over to the U.K. And when he took his music back, he took a lot of the trimmings back too. Seeing Jimi shifted my emphasis, as it did for Eric Clapton. It was very strange for Eric and me. We went and watched Jimi at about ten London shows together. It got to the point where Eric would go up and pay his respects every night, and one day I got up to pay my respects. He was hugging Eric, but not me – he was kind of giving me a limp handshake – just because Eric was capable of making the right kind of approach to him. You have to remember the other thing about Jimi – that he was astonishingly sexual. You could just sense this whole thing in the room where every woman would just go for him at a snap of a finger. There was a slightly prince-like quality about him, this kind of imp at work. I found him very charming, very easy, a very sweet guy. You know, I just kept hearing stories, like the night that he went up to Marianne Faithful when she was there with Mick Jagger and said to her in the ear, ‘What are you doing with this asshole?’ <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3kFVCanj2o07bi73LvB83S_QHMdd55Y9DPKqSZlvNEuiVTuqGj2mzJBYuwly4z6VHJqdjJDLRCGJ4atBy27njfhUF7iYfPoFlakTwHZbuoShJGwVaXJZLZaLbR9t0mz3xroLMYGvgL0Y/s1600/The+Who.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3kFVCanj2o07bi73LvB83S_QHMdd55Y9DPKqSZlvNEuiVTuqGj2mzJBYuwly4z6VHJqdjJDLRCGJ4atBy27njfhUF7iYfPoFlakTwHZbuoShJGwVaXJZLZaLbR9t0mz3xroLMYGvgL0Y/s320/The+Who.png" /></a></div><br />
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<strong>Pete Townshend, foreground, with The Who</strong><br />
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“Slowly but surely Jimi became sure of himself. I’m talking about the first few weeks he was in London. You know, it was a new band, and they were just taking London by fucking storm! You can’t believe it. You’d look around and the audience was just full of record company people and music business people. I suppose I went away and got very confused for a bit. I kind of groped around. I had a lot of spiritual problems. I felt that I hadn’t the emotional equipment, really, the physical equipment, the natural psychic genius of somebody like Jimi. I realized that what I had was a bunch of gimmicks which he had come and taken away from me. He attached them not only to the black R&B from which they came, but also added a whole new dimension. I felt stripped, and I took refuge in my writing.” <br />
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In Christmas Eve publications, the British music press raved about Jimi’s first single. The New Musical Express proclaimed: “Here’s a young man who could make a profound impression in the future. This is a raw uninhibited treatment of a traditional number. It’s in the insidious R&B pattern, with thundering drums, some spine-tingling guitar work and a hypnotic slow beat. It’s guttural, earthy, convincing and authentic. Flip: Much the same remarks apply to this side, except it’s faster-paced and more fancy-free. This is a disc for the connoisseurs.” Record Mirror’s review, published the same day, was even stronger: “Should justice prevail, this’ll be a first-time hit. The most genuinely soulful record ever made in Britain. Jimi has really inspired the other two musicians. Dig the way the bass comes through. The best record Polydor has issued. A must. Flip is more urgent and equally soul-laden.” These write-ups doubtlessly fuelled Jimi’s holiday cheer. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhaHdF8WHx3zWOjHWg3g2kxCdV3NUmQQG0qlmW496a0KzF7xsyyfpQFRb0-l5-8Jeul448wgSyWgcJj2ZaYAmamTood6wfnFWiNodML62PxqWEFQ_ZlP0hun4lqitgllv65ufvoatY5E/s1600/The+Uppercut.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidhaHdF8WHx3zWOjHWg3g2kxCdV3NUmQQG0qlmW496a0KzF7xsyyfpQFRb0-l5-8Jeul448wgSyWgcJj2ZaYAmamTood6wfnFWiNodML62PxqWEFQ_ZlP0hun4lqitgllv65ufvoatY5E/s200/The+Uppercut.bmp" width="85" /></a></div>On the day after Christmas, the Jimi Hendrix Experience performed at the Upper Cut club. In the dressing room backstage, Jimi wrote the lyrics for what was to be one of his most enduring songs, “Purple Haze.” The Jimi Hendrix Experience gave its final performance of 1966 on New Year’s Eve, at the Hillside Social Club in Folkestone. Afterward, the band visited Noel’s mother, Margaret, who lived nearby. “It was very cold that night,” Mrs. Redding remembered in Tony Brown’s book. “Jimi asked me if it would be alright to stand next to the fire, and that’s how he got the idea for the song ‘Fire.’” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhASzvhzCmQp_RqGN4Jf3mLUMCfF2JkPi_eWMST-YnqfUuVYX70ZoeT5bUkhry6PSW1KDrDFt2lSpLNXfxWANqUengZT6hYZ1h4vbWAjLqY-2NkS-cSBtmPbd_NryrlTSA-zB6r3XyPlMo/s1600/My+Son+Jimi+book+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhASzvhzCmQp_RqGN4Jf3mLUMCfF2JkPi_eWMST-YnqfUuVYX70ZoeT5bUkhry6PSW1KDrDFt2lSpLNXfxWANqUengZT6hYZ1h4vbWAjLqY-2NkS-cSBtmPbd_NryrlTSA-zB6r3XyPlMo/s200/My+Son+Jimi+book+cover.jpg" width="151" /></a></div>News of Jimi’s success during his head-spinning first three months of 1966 reached all the way back home to his dad. “When Jimi first went to England,” Al remembered in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Son-Jimi-Book-James-Hendrix/dp/0966785711?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">My Son Jimi</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0966785711" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, “I didn’t think he was going to be that successful, but then I started getting reports on him after he started playing as the Experience. There was a notice of him in some music magazines, and then one of my stepdaughters saw a picture of Jimi with a caption that said ‘The Wild Man of Borneo.’ When she first looked at the picture, she thought it was me for a minute. She said, ‘What’s Al doing in London?’ Then she looked again and said, ‘Ooh, that’s Jimi Hendrix – ‘The Wild Man of Borneo’ and ‘The New Sensation of London.’ Jimi was on his way.” <br />
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Jimi Hendrix would remain headquartered in London for the first half of 1967, cutting records, playing clubs and concerts, and making forays into other European countries. Less than nine months after he left New York City impoverished and uncertain of his future, he returned to the U.S. a conquering hero, stealing the show at the Monterey Pop Festival. <br />
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<span style="color: black;"><em>Blogger's note: If there’s enough reader interest, I’ll write another blog on the rest of Jimi’s stay in London.</em> </span><br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue;"><em>Show your support of this blog, and help feed the blogger, by making a donation using the Paypal link below. </em></span></strong>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-33174241665452934592010-08-10T07:40:00.011-04:002010-08-10T15:15:49.393-04:00Are Robert Johnson’s Recordings Sped Up?<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggKYc4lLp8kPom7iTi9vyQg6JMNkloiowFqmYq2JRfi4OkvJuN1M9V95kreWZ67tu_P6CTvfdQtv0Xw-kY7JCE2DuLTyWwAKCmJr18QfeDV3D9uT9fsLMt_ZIfTWGSDDCf3YG3MTLk_Jg/s1600/Robert+Johnson+King+of+the+Delta+Blues.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" mx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggKYc4lLp8kPom7iTi9vyQg6JMNkloiowFqmYq2JRfi4OkvJuN1M9V95kreWZ67tu_P6CTvfdQtv0Xw-kY7JCE2DuLTyWwAKCmJr18QfeDV3D9uT9fsLMt_ZIfTWGSDDCf3YG3MTLk_Jg/s200/Robert+Johnson+King+of+the+Delta+Blues.jpg" width="200" /></a>Writing the liner notes for the Columbia/Legacy single-CD anthology <a href="http://www.amazon.com/King-Of-The-Delta-Blues/dp/B00138EXZG?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Robert Johnson: King of the Delta Blues</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00138EXZG" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> was a great pleasure, since I’ve loved and admired Johnson’s music since the 1960s. I’ve listened to Robert Johnson so much – along with his contemporaries Son House, Willie Brown, and others – that this music feels ingrained on my soul. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Recently my friend and fellow blogger, JP at <a href="http://www.stratoblogster.com/">http://www.stratoblogster.com/</a>, asked me to weigh in on the controversial theory that Robert Johnson’s 78s were sped up during the recording or mastering process. </div><br />
I don’t believe they are sped up. Here are my top three reasons: <br />
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1) In the early days of recording – from the cylinder era through the early 1920s – companies did issue records at non-standard speeds, usually to encourage customers to buy their particular model of record player. (My 1919 Brunswick wind-up 78 player, for instance, has an ingenious speed-control lever to allow adjustment of the rpm – revolutions per minute – for any 78.) But by the mid 1920s, pretty much everyone adhered to 78 rpm as the industry standard. It’s highly unlikely a seasoned engineer like Don Law would get the recording speed wrong at Johnson’s session. I’ve read reports that Vocalion, Johnson’s label, had on occasion sped up recordings during the mastering process to make them sound more exciting. But I just cannot imagine them doing this consistently for all of Johnson’s issued 78s. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-FoFU5pAbvZ3rQOZndegDoWWFLJpecZ-UEpGEIeMdqsj5oxDhVus67S_jliZUT27rlrhxKPUE0sIMhxY7XRHq-91X3qqaCA7gN8C3ssi1fc_mnVxGaIOSOeNbcTr-PtC8oIxKQfVpvnA/s1600/dime+store+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" mx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-FoFU5pAbvZ3rQOZndegDoWWFLJpecZ-UEpGEIeMdqsj5oxDhVus67S_jliZUT27rlrhxKPUE0sIMhxY7XRHq-91X3qqaCA7gN8C3ssi1fc_mnVxGaIOSOeNbcTr-PtC8oIxKQfVpvnA/s200/dime+store+photo.jpg" width="141" /></a>2) Speeding up the rpm would change the pitch of both the voice and guitar – make them higher. None of Johnson’s associates have been known to observe that his records sound off. And since you can match Robert Johnson pitch-for-pitch in the standard and open tunings he used, sometimes with a capo, they’re very likely not sped up. The only exception to this rule of physics would be if Johnson tuned some micro-tones off from standard. I doubt this happened, though, as he was known to perform in public with a rack-mounted harmonica, like Les Paul and Bob Dylan early in their careers. Getting a guitar to match a harmonica requires pitch-perfect tuning. And let’s face it: evidence suggests Robert Johnson was a musical perfectionist. </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFNTC5N7XoQeNeS4ytfUrU1fUFjj11tV_lsKP2lGy2Ov7_GKaCIR329fUtb5sLrinN2tl8SUjRNJz-KzsaOdiALSA7ORdErQAsbzaWdB1dVCd33waVIj_J68VC6qHAxets40Yy31HZIeE/s1600/Hell+Hound+on+My+Trail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" mx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFNTC5N7XoQeNeS4ytfUrU1fUFjj11tV_lsKP2lGy2Ov7_GKaCIR329fUtb5sLrinN2tl8SUjRNJz-KzsaOdiALSA7ORdErQAsbzaWdB1dVCd33waVIj_J68VC6qHAxets40Yy31HZIeE/s200/Hell+Hound+on+My+Trail.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>3) Most important, Robert Johnson’s music– and personality, from what Johnny Shines and others have told me – were on the manic side anyway. After all, he was a heavy drinker, had serious wanderlust, and wrote harrowing lyrics of making pacts with the devil and being dogged by hell hounds. It makes perfect sense that he’d perform with manic energy. It was part of his wiring. <br />
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For more insight into Robert Johnson’s recording sessions, check out the Ry Cooder interview at <a href="http://jasobrecht.blogspot.com/2010/05/ry-cooder-talking-country-blues-and.html">http://jasobrecht.blogspot.com/2010/05/ry-cooder-talking-country-blues-and.html</a>.Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-8971893030041083692010-08-07T13:54:00.018-04:002010-08-07T14:23:24.623-04:00Ma Rainey: The Mother of the Blues<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlRtseEREmkWDE8dxrj0r_Hr7acL-5W9K6sgEBLcCnkcqvKDcf3gtOLJCmWjI458ULBckYRhN20HNuFRYshCAbbYMLRPDw_oZs3xChyphenhyphen8k0fVrHMKqLEeaPl8HdvWmobxTpTnfni-OBFQk/s1600/opener.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlRtseEREmkWDE8dxrj0r_Hr7acL-5W9K6sgEBLcCnkcqvKDcf3gtOLJCmWjI458ULBckYRhN20HNuFRYshCAbbYMLRPDw_oZs3xChyphenhyphen8k0fVrHMKqLEeaPl8HdvWmobxTpTnfni-OBFQk/s320/opener.jpg" /></a></div>Bessie Smith may have been the early blues’ greatest singer, but Ma Rainey was its greatest performer. This intense, warm woman was a living link between minstrelsy, the earliest blues, and vaudeville. Ma’s deep, almost-vibratoless contralto sounded rough and unsophisticated compared to other commercial blueswomen, but she projected a great depth of feeling and was adored by audiences. <br />
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Her Paramount 78s sold tremendously well, especially in the rural South, where she had long captivated the hearts of the rugged workers of fields, levee camps, and lumber yards with beautifully sung lyrics like: <br />
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<em>“Grand opera and parlor junk,</em><br />
<em>I’ll tell the world that it’s all bunk, </em><br />
<em>That’s the kind of stuff I shun,</em><br />
<em>Let’s get dirty and have some fun”</em><br />
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One of five children of Thomas and Ella Allen Pridgett, Ma Rainey was born Gertrude Pridgett in Columbus, Georgia, on April 26, 1886. She was baptized into the First African Baptist Church. According to her brother, Thomas Jr., “at a very early age her talent as a singer was very noticeable.” When Gertrude was ten, her father passed away and her mother took a job with the Central Railway of Georgia. Around 1900 she made her singing debut with the Bunch of Blackberries revue at the Springer Opera House. Soon afterwards, she joined a tent show.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl_pzWJJXyoHuOKP8pkbmhwU9EIK7251PzrI_v46muf008u4K_9hulKCLCgd3ubJpbBG-fVXpGGFa0X98EJ0BvexRcbNOWI5wUycvXVV46Ktce5dFltYR4ze3adoq31266kCuTxdDlI0Y/s1600/Black+Bottom+ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl_pzWJJXyoHuOKP8pkbmhwU9EIK7251PzrI_v46muf008u4K_9hulKCLCgd3ubJpbBG-fVXpGGFa0X98EJ0BvexRcbNOWI5wUycvXVV46Ktce5dFltYR4ze3adoq31266kCuTxdDlI0Y/s200/Black+Bottom+ad.jpg" width="113" /></a></div>During an interview with musicologist John Work and poet Sterling Brown at Nashville’s Douglass Hotel during the early 1930s, Ma claimed that she heard blues for the first time around 1902, when she played a small Missouri town. “She tells of a girl from the town,” Work wrote in American Negro Songs, 1940, “who came to the tent one morning and began to sing about the ‘man’ who had left her. The song was so strange and poignant that it attracted much attention. Ma Rainey became so interested in it that she learned the song from the visitor and used it soon afterward in her act as an encore. The song elicited such response from the audience that it won a special place in her act.” Ma explained to Work that a 1905 fire had destroyed clippings describing her singing these strange songs and that although they were not yet called blues, she reported that she had often heard similar songs as she travelled the South.<br />
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Early in 1904, Will “Pa” Rainey, a singer, dancer, and comedian, was smitten by Gertrude’s charms. She accepted his proposal, and became “Ma” to his Pa. The couple hit the road, performing song-and-dance routines for a variety of black minstrel troupes that worked under tents. As her fame spread, “Madame Gertrude Rainey” became a headliner with the Smarter Set, the Florida Cotton Blossoms, Shufflin’ Sam From Alabam’, and the famous Rabbit Foot Minstrels. Her biggest numbers with the Rabbit Foots were “Florida Blues,” “Kansas City Blues,” and “Jelly Roll Blues.” Accompanied by a jug band, jazz combo, or pianist, Ma sang pop and novelty numbers as well, and she was renowned for her dancing and comedy. <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6QOqy70e_CZL-ZvzisFaST5BIpw8xgKsNRm5TgrXqgxwMrkenxwaf3CbUajjeYz0g9YX9fQeBEGEAUVMZsL8a7j0DYuwI903J2UOccfBFMDeRNrKBzLQdXDQ7usXZu-F9JjSiu0r7cnY/s1600/Rainy+%26+Rainey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6QOqy70e_CZL-ZvzisFaST5BIpw8xgKsNRm5TgrXqgxwMrkenxwaf3CbUajjeYz0g9YX9fQeBEGEAUVMZsL8a7j0DYuwI903J2UOccfBFMDeRNrKBzLQdXDQ7usXZu-F9JjSiu0r7cnY/s200/Rainy+%26+Rainey.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><strong>Right: Ma and Pa Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues</strong></div><br />
“She was always a great star, from way back there about 1912,” remembered Thomas Dorsey in Living Blues magazine. Dorsey first saw Ma and Pa Rainey when he was a popcorn boy at Atlanta’s 81 Theater. Around this period, a young chorus girl named Bessie Smith joined the troupe. It’s unknown whether Ma gave Bessie singing lessons, but Bessie clearly emulated the older singer. From 1914 to ’16 Ma and Pa traveled with Tolliver’s Circus and Musical Extravaganza, billed as “Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues.” When their days of assassinatin’ together ended, Ma Rainey carried on as a single woman. <br />
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By 1917 Ma was packing them in. The fact that her shows were integrated – half the tent reserved for whites, half for blacks – testifies to her drawing powers in the South. When whites outnumbered blacks – not an uncommon occurrence, according to witnesses – the overflow sat peacefully in the black section. The two-hour show typically opened with three jazzy numbers by the band. Then, with a crescendo and flash of lights, the curtains opened on a line of flashy chorus girls showing knees and laced-up high heels. Ma employed chorus boys too, who were almost invariably “light brownskins” or “yellows.” “I don’t care how good a real dark-skinned person could do something,” old-time musician Clyde Bernhardt explained to author Sandra Lieb, “they just couldn’t get the credit for it from the colored person like a brown-skinned or light-brown-skinned or yellow person would. Colored people have always been more prejudiced than white people.” Next up was a hilarious skit – one of them, for instance, involving trained chickens, a coop, a thief, and a shotgun-toting “brownskin” made up to look like a bearded cracker. After that, a soubrette sang a fast dance number such as “Ballin’ the Jack,” joined by the chorus boys and girls. <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIE5XAA5cu2vLHdMdA6MUh_EWP1QPLXPyEJ3J1ido2cC6Yl_SNGm8LgRaGxuJbZu_GqA-x7h-ALAyTulpqzQBjkUTjPnxejAGKGzI1UVO2sn5pS54ogzAC6A0Swl8Tpp4_gu8Ww2I04Iw/s1600/Alabama+Minstrels+poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIE5XAA5cu2vLHdMdA6MUh_EWP1QPLXPyEJ3J1ido2cC6Yl_SNGm8LgRaGxuJbZu_GqA-x7h-ALAyTulpqzQBjkUTjPnxejAGKGzI1UVO2sn5pS54ogzAC6A0Swl8Tpp4_gu8Ww2I04Iw/s320/Alabama+Minstrels+poster.jpg" /></a>After more comedy routines, Ma Rainey would make her entrance. Her voice big and powerful, she’d sing “Walkin’ the Dog,” “I Ain’t Got Nobody,” “A Good Man Is Hard To Find,” “Tishimingo Blues,” “Jelly Roll Blues,” “Memphis Blues,” “Yellow Dog Blues,” “Alcoholic Blues,” and her favorite encore, “See See Rider Blues.” She’d dance and joke about craving pigmeat (i.e., young men). Then the whole troupe participated in the grand finale. Afterwards, they’d pack everything into a train car and move on. In the Jim Crow country, the performers carried their own food, since blacks weren’t permitted in dining cars, and members of the troupe had to sleep on the train or with black families along the route.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Ma traveled with a choreographer, and while she might scold her girls for not lifting their legs high enough during rehearsal, she seldom lost her temper and was never violent. Offstage, she acted more like a religious person than a celebrity, never cursing and giving generously to churches and charities. Her employees were not permitted to drink alcohol during the evening of the show.</div><br />
But the squat, 5’6” singer was no motherly Aunt Jemima. A fringe of wiry hair peaking out from under a glittering beaded headband, she was famous for her gold teeth, feathers boas and plumes, glittering diamonds, necklace of gold coins, and fondness for Coca Cola. “She wasn’t a good lookin’ woman,” claimed Gatemouth Moore, who toured with her during his childhood. “I won’t call her ugly, but what a terrible face! And Ma Rainey was short and stumpy and very dark. But to me, she was mama.” Alberta Hunter called her “the ugliest woman in the business.” Onstage, though, Ma wowed audiences with her glamorous satin gowns, high heels, false eyelashes, and gold complexion (the result of greasepaint, powder, rouge, and judicious amber stage lighting). As troupers used to say, “You can take a little powder, take a little paint, and make you look like what you ain’t.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5-R7CArgic5PIjjAHc4tTDc3JLv5q4HozXKZpLrwLyQH564Wda189FH0UxNSwzFU5FUvW5b4GKR2fJOSjpB48NKKMnI1PoY9LuigOCXOTxD-U_fTRdgGZ-68nlVoyqc4p4v78xBl9qHw/s1600/Bad+Luck+Blues.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5-R7CArgic5PIjjAHc4tTDc3JLv5q4HozXKZpLrwLyQH564Wda189FH0UxNSwzFU5FUvW5b4GKR2fJOSjpB48NKKMnI1PoY9LuigOCXOTxD-U_fTRdgGZ-68nlVoyqc4p4v78xBl9qHw/s200/Bad+Luck+Blues.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>In December 1923, when she made the leap from minstrel star to recording artist, 38-year-old Ma Rainey was already considered an old-timer. Ink Williams saw her perform at Chicago’s Monogram Theater and decided to take a chance. Rainey quickly proved her worth: Her initial 78s, cut with Lovie Austin and Her Blues Serenaders, sold so well that Ma is sometimes cited as having saved the Paramount 12000 race series during its early years. Beautifully punctuated by Tommy Ladnier’s swinging cornet and Jimmy Bryant’s winsome, under-recorded clarinet, her first selection was Austin’s “Bad Luck Blues.” Ma’s next cut, her own “Bo-Weavil Blues,” struck a resonant chord among Southern-born blacks who’d moved to the North:<br />
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<em>“I’m a lone bo-weavil, been out a good long time,</em><br />
<em>I’m a lone bo-weavil, been out a good long time,</em><br />
<em>I’m gonna sing this blues to ease a bo-weavil lonesome mind</em><br />
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<em>“I don’t want no man to put no sugar in my tea,</em><br />
<em>I don’t want no man to put no sugar in my tea,</em><br />
<em>Some of them’s so evil, I’m afraid they might poison me”</em><br />
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Five months later, Bessie Smith cut a reverent cover of “Bo-Weavil Blues.”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHKD7ufO17C0_BPFS9L_heuoDlu2d0cx3XiepbZCVOf_Fxf_d8VO2OAmHZwmgX8BMPUO-ZcC4OxUmrfDU085aWrksEqsxZ_9SN0BKiv2wCL2u6tyjV9QBhY-qGH3dgcxMsVqEAv7wAbE0/s1600/Paramount+Book+of+Blues+page.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHKD7ufO17C0_BPFS9L_heuoDlu2d0cx3XiepbZCVOf_Fxf_d8VO2OAmHZwmgX8BMPUO-ZcC4OxUmrfDU085aWrksEqsxZ_9SN0BKiv2wCL2u6tyjV9QBhY-qGH3dgcxMsVqEAv7wAbE0/s320/Paramount+Book+of+Blues+page.jpg" width="230" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>From The Paramount Book of the Blues, 1926</strong></div><br />
Ma composed or collaborated on at least a third of the 92 songs she recorded for Paramount Records. Her storytelling lyrics often presented an unflinching view of life from the perspective of a woman in turmoil. Usually set to a 12-bar, AAB pattern, her most striking lyrics dealt with abandonment by her man, prostitution, lesbianism, sado-masochism, drunkenness, superstition, and murder. Unable to read or write, Ma reportedly showed up at sessions with drawings she’d made to remind her of lyrics. Some of her best-known songs – “Bo-Weavil Blues” and “See See Rider Blues” among them – married elements of blues and pop. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmrrAwS-UyUVknzYb6wKiN13PyE9e7_QhwoHjlaCaGO7xekraYkWNbwsDDWmyNaSVrdFKvVH7JV0IakJXmgtgmTx1kUfQFxyWRdprvIF9HvILVNA4MbDftHkmaJn9ks4rHYTyAeGluyqg/s1600/Dream+Blues.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmrrAwS-UyUVknzYb6wKiN13PyE9e7_QhwoHjlaCaGO7xekraYkWNbwsDDWmyNaSVrdFKvVH7JV0IakJXmgtgmTx1kUfQFxyWRdprvIF9HvILVNA4MbDftHkmaJn9ks4rHYTyAeGluyqg/s200/Dream+Blues.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>In aggressive ad campaigns to promote her records, Ma’s label proclaimed her “The Songbird of the South,” “The Gold-Necked Woman of the Blues,” “The Paramount Wildcat,” and “The Mother of the Blues.” A few months after her first 78s went on sale, Paramount held a contest offering valuable prizes to whoever could come up with the best name for “Ma Rainey’s Mystery Record” (the winning title was the song’s first line, “Lawd, I’m Down Wid de Blues”). Like her labelmate Blind Lemon Jefferson, Ma was celebrated with a special souvenir record label bearing her image, a forerunner of the picture disc album of the 1970s and modern imprinted CDs. <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Ink Williams introduced Ma Rainey to Thomas Dorsey, a skilled piano player and blues composer who’d later write “Precious Lord” and become the beloved “The Father of Gospel Music.” Dorsey found her “grand, gracious, and easy to talk with,” and agreed to direct her touring group, the Wildcats Jazz Band. At band’s first performance, at Chicago’s Grand Theater in April ’24, the curtain opened to reveal a large prop Victrola phonograph in the center of the stage. A girl put a big record on it, the band kicked off “Moonshine Blues,” and Ma’s voice resounded from within the box. After singing a few bars, Ma opened a door and stepped into the spotlight, her necklace of gold coins and diamond-studded fingers glistening in the stage lights. The crowd went wild, calling Ma back for seven curtain calls. “She clearly proved that she was far superior to any of her predecessors,” proclaimed the next issue of Chicago Defender, the nation’s leading black newspaper. <br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidOcbNm4yaxXI7P7cWTviANMK2R_ZNUa7I3MM3l3bHd6R8zXvLpY93Z6NQXOeOi_bzwAsKmfvKJPn-UMHB7gQICX6J_e_Ug6gt5TioiK46ocv1cRGd8AaLXxJ4ou0WeIOi3GNly8h8Iss/s1600/Blues+Oh+Blue+ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidOcbNm4yaxXI7P7cWTviANMK2R_ZNUa7I3MM3l3bHd6R8zXvLpY93Z6NQXOeOi_bzwAsKmfvKJPn-UMHB7gQICX6J_e_Ug6gt5TioiK46ocv1cRGd8AaLXxJ4ou0WeIOi3GNly8h8Iss/s200/Blues+Oh+Blue+ad.jpg" width="111" /></a></div>“Ma had the audience in the palm of her hand,” Dorsey remembered in Living Blues. “I travelled with her almost four years. She was a natural drawing card.” When Dorsey got married, Ma helped keep the couple together by hiring his bride as a wardrobe girl. According to Dorsey, Ma’s touring show featured acts such as one-man-band Stovepipe Johnson, tap dancer Jack Wiggins, and Dick & Dick, who specialized in singing, dancing and joking. But Ma did most of the blues singing: “She’d have these prima donnas,” Dorsey recalled, “but they didn’t sing blues on her shows. See, they’d sing something else, like hot pop or somethin’ like that. She was the only blues performer. Naturally, you wouldn’t put another blues singer on your show – may out-sing you.<br />
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“I wrote quite a few of her songs. There were several of ’em we wrote together; I can’t remember ’em all, only those that kinda made a hit. ‘Stormy Sea Blues,’ that was a real hit. Fact, she opened with that sometimes. She’d sing it and then do whatever you’d do in a storm. The storm start to raging, you try to run here and run there and get away. You become excited. Oh yeah, she had a good act there. That was one of the best numbers on the show for a long time. We’d have effects, like lightnin’ effects the stage manager gave us. We carried two or three of our own drops, to change the scenery. She had her own drop with ‘Paramount Records’ and a picture of the label painted on. We carried about four trunks of scenery, drops, and things you could fold up there.” In some shows, Ma danced a rowdy Charleston with Broadway Fred Walker. When Ma shimmied, she reportedly shook “like jelly on a plate,” and when she spun around and slapped her ample behind, she helped start a daring dance craze called the Black Bottom. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr3UB9MCk92kZFkhpl_y5IK-raAHdLxt1tNFI_5iPZ-7BKXZkEsEVZ5JNN4p7UYeA0MdJo-hRHFOLVrFxxo1r00rG7eMskJJhSGRO-m6ahJWrifZaLbtGeh6ZTqgIJMeIg83iRB6aE2VU/s1600/Ma's+band+with+Dorsey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr3UB9MCk92kZFkhpl_y5IK-raAHdLxt1tNFI_5iPZ-7BKXZkEsEVZ5JNN4p7UYeA0MdJo-hRHFOLVrFxxo1r00rG7eMskJJhSGRO-m6ahJWrifZaLbtGeh6ZTqgIJMeIg83iRB6aE2VU/s320/Ma's+band+with+Dorsey.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong>Ma Rainey’s Wildcats Jazz Band, with Thomas Dorsey on piano</strong></div><br />
Unlike contemporaries such as Alberta Hunter, Ida Cox, and Mamie Smith, Ma often showcased a roots Southern sound on her records. Listeners could almost smell the canvas and minstrel greasepaint in 1924’s “Lost Wandering Blues,” cut with Miles Pruitt on banjo and his twin brother Milas on 6-string guitar. The AA part of one of its verses would resurface in Blind Lemon Jefferson’s best-known song, which, in turn, was covered by Carl Perkins and the Beatles:<br />
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<em>“I’m standin’ here wonderin’ will a matchbox hold my clothes?</em><br />
<em>Lord, I’m standin’ here wonderin’ will a matchbox hold my clothes?</em><br />
<em>I got a trunk too big to be botherin’ with on the road”</em><br />
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Later that summer, Miles Pruitt provided down-home 12-string guitar on her eight-bar song “Shave ’Em Dry Blues.” In the years to follow, Ma would also cut rural-sounding records with accompaniment from Blind Blake, Papa Charlie Jackson, jug bands, and the piano-guitar team of Georgia Tom Dorsey and Tampa Red. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi9hHN4YKq-akDMXQiC38N-0QpSoegFMaLdOFRD_0adntqVTiSLWaFituv4blcW89dLwCP1yWm_z-plEIooZclhlZsgcOdoS9PZ8PnAB6deQmqYdy0vXtNpG1uT-PtzIsUW-HctMKsm7E/s1600/Countin+the+Blues.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi9hHN4YKq-akDMXQiC38N-0QpSoegFMaLdOFRD_0adntqVTiSLWaFituv4blcW89dLwCP1yWm_z-plEIooZclhlZsgcOdoS9PZ8PnAB6deQmqYdy0vXtNpG1uT-PtzIsUW-HctMKsm7E/s200/Countin+the+Blues.jpg" width="142" /></a></div>The majority of Ma’s records, though, featured jazz ensembles, some quite extraordinary. During October 1924, for instance, she journeyed to New York City and cut several superb sides credited to Ma Rainey and Her Georgia Jazz Band. Her classic “Jealous Hearted Blues” featured pianist Fletcher Henderson, banjoist Charlie Dixon, trombonist Charlie Green, Howard Scott on cornet, and Don Redman on clarinet. The following day, Louis Armstrong and Buster Bailey replaced Scott and Redman, playing sublimely on three sides. Buster’s clarinet laughed and wept to coincide with Ma’s lyrics in “Jelly Bean Blues,” and “Countin’ the Blues” captured a textbook example of Louis’ sassy wah-wah muting. Their winsome accompaniment helped transform the traditional, murder-threatening “See See Rider Blues” into a blues masterpiece that would also inspire numerous covers:<br />
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<em>“See, see rider, see what you done done, Lord, Lord, Lord,</em><br />
<em>Made me love you, now your gal done come,</em><br />
<em>You made me love you, now your gal done come”</em><br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLeOH9EQOueVGFu54vFn76MNkFrLnJSL1-eC7dvwUpVcCZHY-ENkUVCIcV_lWiOrRGlwy2q9_FTJTxV43m05oF2OtqaQJ4mLcMH6pz_bjSjN0YLtrL-_eT43Z40igpObU6wXtVZ68v5kA/s1600/See+See+Rider.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLeOH9EQOueVGFu54vFn76MNkFrLnJSL1-eC7dvwUpVcCZHY-ENkUVCIcV_lWiOrRGlwy2q9_FTJTxV43m05oF2OtqaQJ4mLcMH6pz_bjSjN0YLtrL-_eT43Z40igpObU6wXtVZ68v5kA/s200/See+See+Rider.jpg" width="200" /></a>Louis Armstrong in particular was impressed by Ma Rainey. Thomas Fulbright, a traveling actor who saw them both perform, recalled, “His facial expressions, his singing, his very stage presence were all vivid reminders of Ma. He sounds like her, and when he opens his mouth and stretches his lips across his teeth in a certain way, he even looks like her.” </div><br />
Ma Rainey did most of her recording in Chicago, where she maintained an apartment in the old Angelus Building on the corner of 35th and Wabash. Between sessions, she’d play the Theater Owners’ Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) black vaudeville circuit, headlining a revue. A copy of her itinerary on file at the University of Mississippi’s Blues Archive suggests that she was typically booked for a week at each venue. In November ’24, for instance, she worked Pittsburgh’s Star Theater, Cleveland’s Grand Central Theater, Columbus’ Dunbar Theater, and Cincinnati’s Roosevelt Theater. Most of her bookings between 1924 and ’29, though, were for Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Louisiana, and the Carolinas. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhft-PEE9H-LAClSWa8YXnhDjfwO_vUTCF3dmCyb4irwmjX7xtS1pVycowkDZlEH68qI7_2xCjqVgjRsbO3MJL3XOYgTaqGR_BfzRoKKcbOr1AudZ6YJ1vNb1nljkrigeEXu-A2G_Qxh98/s1600/Ma+and+fan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhft-PEE9H-LAClSWa8YXnhDjfwO_vUTCF3dmCyb4irwmjX7xtS1pVycowkDZlEH68qI7_2xCjqVgjRsbO3MJL3XOYgTaqGR_BfzRoKKcbOr1AudZ6YJ1vNb1nljkrigeEXu-A2G_Qxh98/s320/Ma+and+fan.jpg" /></a></div>During the good years Ma traveled in her own railroad car and was addressed as Madame Rainey. “Ma was the greatest,” Dorsey insisted. “She was very generous and kind. She paid you your money; she didn’t try to cheat you or pass you by. She was unselfish and always trying to help other performers. She didn’t worry about whether they’d become competition. Ma called everybody ‘sugar,’ ‘honey,’ and ‘baby’ – even white folks. People of both races loved her. She used to hold what she called ‘white folks night,’ and white people would overflow wherever she played. She was the biggest star of her time. There’ll never be another black woman like Ma Rainey.” By 1927, Ma was successful enough to buy a Mack bus with her name emblazoned on the side.<br />
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Life on the road with Ma had its lighter moments, as Dorsey described: “Went down to Columbus, Georgia, to play the theater there with Ma Rainey. Put us on a big truck and carried us all around the town ballyhooin’. And couldn’t nothin’ play but the wind instruments and the drum; couldn’t put no piano up there. Just to attract the attention – yeah, the old ballyhoo, we called it. We done that many times. We were down in South Carolina, and we got out of the town. On the way to the next settlement, on the side of the road was cattle – lotta cows and things out in the pasture. Of course, this impressed me. And the cows were standing in groups, huddles, or whatever you want to call it. And we said, ‘Let’s stop this truck. Let’s play for the cows and see them run.’ And we started cuttin’ that jazz loose there. Cows didn’t move. Them cows walked up to the fence and listened to us play! Didn’t a cow run. I said, ‘Well, there must be something in the music.’”<br />
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In 1927 Ma recorded new versions of her past hits “Bo-Weavil Blues” and “Moonshine Blues.” She also recorded several songs littered with images of domestic violence, betrayal, and murder. The character in “Cell Bound Blues,” of instance, finds herself in a jailhouse as she sings of pulling a gun on her man and asking witnesses to hold him back: “When I did that. he hit me cross my head / First shot I fired, my man fell dead.” Guitar ace Tampa Red’s bittersweet bottleneck lines made the violent, erotic images of 1928’s “Sweet Rough Man” all the more harrowing: <br />
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<em>“I woke up this mornin’, my head was sore as a boil,</em><br />
<em>I woke up this mornin’, my head was sore as a boil,</em><br />
<em>My man beat me last night with five feet of copper coil</em><br />
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<em>“He keeps my lips split, my eyes as black as jet,</em><br />
<em>He keeps my lips split, my eyes as black as jet,</em><br />
<em>But the way he love me makes me soon forget”</em><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz6qgH3wFnxwuTtnwNn8zcxaBPzbnT47zTbBskvS8lRP3nBAwJj9FjSr9yiCC5DNFVQ9o2PqofdKwiBgIcG1lBBlwNgwnU5v9dxjqNoR765uDxYDe1rpnKlGP4qDPzWf37zYeGpLKKfMM/s1600/Sissy+Blues.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz6qgH3wFnxwuTtnwNn8zcxaBPzbnT47zTbBskvS8lRP3nBAwJj9FjSr9yiCC5DNFVQ9o2PqofdKwiBgIcG1lBBlwNgwnU5v9dxjqNoR765uDxYDe1rpnKlGP4qDPzWf37zYeGpLKKfMM/s200/Sissy+Blues.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Ma Rainey was equally unflinching when it came to writing about sexual themes. “Sissy Blues,” for instance, addressed bisexuality with the memorable lines: “My man’s got a sissy, his name is ‘Miss Kate’ / He shook that thing like jelly on a plate.” The term “jelly roll” was a long-standing euphemism for a sexual organ – in this case, a transvestite’s. In the next verse, Ma laments, “a sissy shook that thing and took my man from home.” <br />
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She portrayed a rebellious hooker in “Hustlin’ Blues,” which stomped along to a countrified arrangement of banjo, washboard, jug, horn, and piano:<br />
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<em>“It’s rainin’ out here and tricks ain’t walkin’ tonight, </em><br />
<em>It’s rainin’ out here and tricks ain’t walkin’ tonight, </em><br />
<em>I’m going home, I know I’ve got to fight</em><br />
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<em>“If you hit me tonight, let me tell you what I’m going to do,</em><br />
<em>If you hit me tonight, let me tell you what I’m going to do,</em><br />
<em>I’m gonna take you to court and tell the judge on you”</em><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3fiYSuQToQX8dUEy-UQEiHv9oQBU831wfHB5B115_6a8Enkrt3784YU0sAuTlxI1GiooabhXD6mQxBKGsi3Pz6QJa8Pc1RcpHApwImaf1BElMAgr6eHh9qBTvTbj-hWDM4qeG7aAF4RY/s1600/Prove+It+on+Me+Blues.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3fiYSuQToQX8dUEy-UQEiHv9oQBU831wfHB5B115_6a8Enkrt3784YU0sAuTlxI1GiooabhXD6mQxBKGsi3Pz6QJa8Pc1RcpHApwImaf1BElMAgr6eHh9qBTvTbj-hWDM4qeG7aAF4RY/s200/Prove+It+on+Me+Blues.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>Ma Rainey’s “Prove It on Me Blues” provided a fairly unveiled celebration of lesbianism: “Went out last night with a crowd of my friends / They must’ve been women, ’cause I don’t like no men.” Paramount’s ad for the 78 depicted a heavyset Ma Rainey dressed in a man’s fedora and three-piece suit, flirting with a couple of slender, feminine babes while a cop watches suspiciously from across the street. There is evidence that Ma, like Bessie Smith, enjoyed women from time to time. <br />
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Ma and her Paramount Flappers made a bus tour of the Midwest and South during 1928, earning rave reviews from the Chicago Defender’s Kansas City critic for Fred Walker’s hoofing, William McKelvie’s “eccentric dancing,” Ma’s joyous singing and “upteenth costume changes,” and even for “little Emma Smith, the girl with the diamond tooth.” Upon their return to Chicago, Ma and her Paramount Flappers broke attendance records with its month-long engagement at the Monogram Theater. <br />
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Ma’s been accused of producing her most countrified 78s during 1928, her last year of sessions, but her ten sides with Georgia Tom Dorsey and Tampa Red sound citified to me. Holding his metal-bodied National guitar close to the recording source during “Black Eye Blues,” “Blame It on The Blues,” “Sleep Talking Blues,” Tampa achieved a smooth-sustaining bottleneck tone very similar to an electric guitar’s at low amplification. At this June session, Tampa approached Georgia Tom with the idea of recording a song of their own, “It’s Tight Like That.” The marriage of Tampa’s sly lyrics and bottlenecking with Dorsey’s rollicking piano arrangement seemed irresistibly erotic, and the 78 became a runaway hit for Vocalion. Ma later sang the tune in her own shows.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwtzW6bB_Bdq4GmvO8gX3UKourxV6WWZXhOktKokRZ4UH6a4E8cGjIgccnZYjUCGvsfjXZlgz2uQcRBNKtYXVKM5ZGiLC-XQgZL6J-LJJBHju2CkVhaEUycPWxYd2qrCXKXrZB7_3pbcM/s1600/Ma+and+Pa+Poorhouse+Blues.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwtzW6bB_Bdq4GmvO8gX3UKourxV6WWZXhOktKokRZ4UH6a4E8cGjIgccnZYjUCGvsfjXZlgz2uQcRBNKtYXVKM5ZGiLC-XQgZL6J-LJJBHju2CkVhaEUycPWxYd2qrCXKXrZB7_3pbcM/s200/Ma+and+Pa+Poorhouse+Blues.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>During October 1928, Ma cut the first of a pair of minstrel-style duets with Papa Charlie Jackson. Derived from Victoria Spivey’s popular “T.B. Blues,” “Ma and Pa Poorhouse Blues” began with a humorous exchange in which we learn Papa Charlie had to pawn his big banjo and somebody stole Ma’s bus. Learning they’re both broke, the singers decide to go to the poorhouse together. In December, Ma made her last record, playing a man-hungry woman to Papa Charlie’s interested “big-kid man” in “Big Feeling Blues.” Soon afterwards, Paramount canceled her contract.<br />
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By then, sighed one Paramount exec, Ma Rainey’s “down-home material had gone out of fashion,” and it was thought she was too set in her ways to change. Young, sharp, jazzy blacks found her too country-sounding, male singers and swing music were now dominating the marketplace, and vaudeville in general was rapidly falling out of vogue. Reeling from fierce competition from talkies and the overall centralization of the entertainment industry, the T.O.B.A. had had its worst year on record in ’27, and its Chicago office closed the following year.<br />
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Ma Rainey worked the ailing T.O.B.A. and tent show circuits during the spring of 1929, taking her Paramount Flappers to Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, and Tennessee. In April, the outfit was forced to hook up with the C.A. Wortham Circus. In May, Ma’s producer and seven cast members walked out, citing non-payment of wages, an event that surely grieved Ma, given her reputation for generosity. Things worsened as the year dragged on. Ma toured Michigan with the Wortham circus during the summer and joined the Sugarfoot Green tent show that fall, but by December she was back to playing in a minstrel comedy called The Arkansas Swift Foot. When this show fell apart on the road in 1930, Ma joined the stumbling Bandanna Babes. A headline in a 1930 issue of the Chicago Defender said it all: “Hundreds of Performers Seek Bookings in Vain.” In June, T.O.B.A. managers voted to close their theaters.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtBRcTE2S-1kesRG0ZAIvGBEV8mQZnuSrXTv2FW_nEN-n23z27EMBg6Mlz_wv92X5ouk9jknTYRBGiHjsFj68sYwoFKFJkuVEEGi7b1M-fYbaKvIvARKzP2qw53GBjnAaTHXpr8awSkLg/s1600/Ma+Rainey+Milestone+album.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtBRcTE2S-1kesRG0ZAIvGBEV8mQZnuSrXTv2FW_nEN-n23z27EMBg6Mlz_wv92X5ouk9jknTYRBGiHjsFj68sYwoFKFJkuVEEGi7b1M-fYbaKvIvARKzP2qw53GBjnAaTHXpr8awSkLg/s200/Ma+Rainey+Milestone+album.jpg" width="199" /></a></div>“Talking pictures put the musicians out of work,” sighed Tom Dorsey. “With the vaudeville acts, the good ones went to Hollywood and the other ones got porter jobs and became firemen and dishwashers. Got out of the business. It was finished. Because it was another era altogether, and it just turned everything around. It was a tragedy in a way, but time brings on changes. The same way with the blues singers – they went out.” By 1932, Paramount Records had folded. <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Ma Rainey reverted back to minstrelsy. Her troupe played east Texas oilfield towns with the carnival of Donald MacGregor, who once earned his keep as the Ringling Brothers’ Scottish Giant. Dressed in a kilt, he acted as Ma’s barker, introducing her as the Black Nightingale. By now the touring bus was history, and Ma Rainey traveled in a crude homemade trailer that was little more than a canvas tent attached to rough timber mounted on the chassis of an old automobile. She canned her own vegetables and cooked her own meals on a portable stove. During 1933 Ma shared billings with Bessie Smith at Fort Worth’s Fat Stock Show; at her three-day show in Houston, her accompanist was young T-Bone Walker. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBozAeLcamTcXKE17HBras3_2UH2Eb3PbQxMMUgyQV_IMboI96b39BynRGgcQmo56JUOCzSTw6mZoq6mon-jCeE-GfcR7qD5Nat3VRqB260PwjjpRmqum0RExMarGglHNeIhLHS-2Kp4s/s1600/Ma_Rainey_House_Exterior.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBozAeLcamTcXKE17HBras3_2UH2Eb3PbQxMMUgyQV_IMboI96b39BynRGgcQmo56JUOCzSTw6mZoq6mon-jCeE-GfcR7qD5Nat3VRqB260PwjjpRmqum0RExMarGglHNeIhLHS-2Kp4s/s200/Ma_Rainey_House_Exterior.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">With the deaths of her mother and sister died in 1935, Ma Rainey retired from the road to live with her brother Thomas in a house she’d built for her mother in the historic black community of Liberty District in Columbus, Georgia. A good businesswoman, Ma also owned two theaters in the area. She joined the Friendship Baptist Church, where her brother was a deacon. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Ma Rainey died of heart disease on December 22, 1939, and was buried in Columbus’ Portersdale Cemetery. In an ironic postscript for The Mother of the Blues, her death certificate listed her profession as “housekeeping.” Six months later, Memphis Minnie recorded a tribute song entitled “Ma Rainey”:</div><br />
<em>“She was born in Georgia, traveled all over this world</em><br />
<em>She was born in Georgia, traveled all over this world</em><br />
<em>And she was the best blues singer, peoples, I ever heard”</em><br />
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During the ensuing years, Ma Rainey’s records inspired many other singers – Big Mama Thornton and Dinah Washington among them. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipl0x1x9F-r5VnVswj8kvZ0TXhJm-9QCnoiFazH6i1XuT9Wl6hszpmGVYelnAk4WbRobW7slihATa3vcACBU5aSRjSEu7N60H673DdXv0R1EVmj9NoCoQ0kHbXjKGTYlT6L_qH2ioeqQc/s1600/Sandra+Lieb+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipl0x1x9F-r5VnVswj8kvZ0TXhJm-9QCnoiFazH6i1XuT9Wl6hszpmGVYelnAk4WbRobW7slihATa3vcACBU5aSRjSEu7N60H673DdXv0R1EVmj9NoCoQ0kHbXjKGTYlT6L_qH2ioeqQc/s200/Sandra+Lieb+cover.jpg" width="130" /></a></div>Beginning in the mid 1960s, albums of old Ma Rainey 78s were issued as albums; one of the best was Milestone’s 1974 two-record Ma Rainey anthology. In 1981, Sandra Lieb published the full-length biography Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey. Soon afterward, August Wilson wrote the musical Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, with Theresa Merritt performing the title role to great success on Broadway. “White folks just don’t understand about the blues,” Ma’s character told the audience. They don’t understand that it’s life’s way of talkin’. You don’t sing to feel better – you sing ’cause that’s a way of understanding life.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh344CMFpBmjGD_dweSPWmZOTPT1Nx1Gn-xCBGydaSKeDIp8zBwjg2SWpsHQouF5iXTqXMBr9nijsNM3lSH5OkLrwBr809Dl6HgI2TWvzWUcgWYVubUxrnX0KIzlVwlqatC79dOJpheb-s/s1600/Ma+rainey%27s+Black+Bottom+still.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh344CMFpBmjGD_dweSPWmZOTPT1Nx1Gn-xCBGydaSKeDIp8zBwjg2SWpsHQouF5iXTqXMBr9nijsNM3lSH5OkLrwBr809Dl6HgI2TWvzWUcgWYVubUxrnX0KIzlVwlqatC79dOJpheb-s/s320/Ma+rainey%27s+Black+Bottom+still.jpg" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The play received rave reviews. “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom sneaks up on you like the anger, pain and defiance that rides on the exultant notes of the blues,” proclaimed Newsweek’s October 22, 1984, issue. “It’s a fierce and biting one, mixing the savage inevitability of black rage with the shrewd humor of jazz itself.” In the New York Times, Frank Rich praised the production as “funny, salty, carnal and lyrical.” In 1985, Manhattan Records released the original cast recording. <br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8Jy5Mqz1kVH9lA04dos2ZtVf3V_k3HAPa6zk9t66G1bMXswrjQBY59adouDVDORGTwowzZPoDS1iECgNYycPnVP6sRFCmJPYxDcpWntox1MWDyDEiVEK48-W-s9VkFxAH9HqjGcJkMr0/s1600/Ma+Rainey+gravestone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8Jy5Mqz1kVH9lA04dos2ZtVf3V_k3HAPa6zk9t66G1bMXswrjQBY59adouDVDORGTwowzZPoDS1iECgNYycPnVP6sRFCmJPYxDcpWntox1MWDyDEiVEK48-W-s9VkFxAH9HqjGcJkMr0/s200/Ma+Rainey+gravestone.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Nine years later, Ma Rainey was honored with a U.S. postage stamp. Today, the home she built for her mother at 805 Fifth Avenue in Columbus, Georgia, has been restored as the Ma Rainey House and Blues Museum, where visitors can view the great blues singer’s piano, photos, contracts, and other memorabilia. All of her 78s have been reissued on CD. <br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><strong><em>Support this blog by making a donation via the Paypal button at the bottom of this page.</em></strong></span>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-59915221768824960582010-08-01T07:49:00.006-04:002010-08-22T06:21:35.058-04:00Gretchen Menn Interview: Beyond Imitation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL9LhDuihKN-gJn4RwJx-UKyMRSYXPMwIzJIK7a678yLsoXDSg6J0DYNb7B5fWgtMrlejSCmu8jbVBFQKcKC8my7jRrQ8cucCftDhpblUsYuuwCEF8tqS7SQaXtIhiQ6_p3C0NCMilIlU/s1600/GretchenMenn_4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL9LhDuihKN-gJn4RwJx-UKyMRSYXPMwIzJIK7a678yLsoXDSg6J0DYNb7B5fWgtMrlejSCmu8jbVBFQKcKC8my7jRrQ8cucCftDhpblUsYuuwCEF8tqS7SQaXtIhiQ6_p3C0NCMilIlU/s400/GretchenMenn_4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Some guitarists just seem destined for ascendency. I felt this for the first time listening to Eddie Van Halen’s “Eruption” on Don Menn’s stereo at Guitar Player magazine in 1978. It happened again a few months later while watching Steve Morse front the Dixie Dregs. In the 1980s, that premonition came roaring back while listening to early demos of Yngwie Malmsteen, Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Shawn Lane, and Buckethead. And now, after a many-year hiatus, that intuition strikes again: Meet Gretchen Menn, best known for her work with Zepparella, Sticks and Stones, and Lapdance Armageddon. <br />
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When I first encountered Gretchen, she was a toddling around her home in Palo Alto, California. Her dad, renowned music journalist Don Menn, had just hired me as Guitar Player magazine’s new Assistant Editor. On the wall of Don’s office at GPI was a gift from Pete Townshend, a numbered Gibson Les Paul that had been smashed onstage. Some months afterward, three-year-old Gretchen pulled a Townshend on her mom’s violin, demolishing it beyond repair. It would be a dozen years before she’d get a guitar. <br />
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Following graduation from Palo Alto High School, Gretchen attended Smith College, where she studied classical guitar with Phillip de Fremery, a former student of Andres Segovia. Her website notes that “Gretchen’s adventurous approach to her education would foreshadow her approach to the guitar. She convinced a professor to allow her to launch a special studies project on the intricate and unclassifiable music of Frank Zappa. Her analyses of ‘The Sheik Yerbouti Tango’ and ‘The Girl in the Magnesium Dress’ showed a love for epic, melodic, genre-shattering rock and roll composition that would manifest later in her original instrumentals.” She drew additional inspiration from Eric Johnson, Steve Morse, Django Reinhardt, Louis Armstrong, B.B. King, Deep Purple, Van Halen, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Jeff Beck, as well as Baroque, classical, romantic, and 20th century music.<br />
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Earning a music degree from Smith College in 1997, Gretchen launched her first band, the jazz/funk ensemble Sketch. Then she segued into two years of flight school and a year as a commercial jet pilot. This career choice was not altogether unprecedented: With the breakup of the Dregs, Steve Morse had also trained and worked as a commercial pilot. Like Morse, Menn found the lure of music too strong, so she hung up her wings and strapped on an electric guitar. In 2001 and ’02 she delved into the singer-songwriter scene with the Tori Amos- and Fiona Apple-influenced Black Hill Sky. Then she abruptly changed course.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUjEr-JZRdWfzyKQHL4iHT0-7Fxo-1zwmjDbOSp9FnYPMn2n-z_vKTi-WIy9DOmegRgwYuWBzcTpxxgtn6NijOKEXQ0qkWfFeSRlydOEQp0OlnsuYxp_X-9nftoH6ED03JHtq4aWEcYXY/s1600/Live+at+19+Broadway.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUjEr-JZRdWfzyKQHL4iHT0-7Fxo-1zwmjDbOSp9FnYPMn2n-z_vKTi-WIy9DOmegRgwYuWBzcTpxxgtn6NijOKEXQ0qkWfFeSRlydOEQp0OlnsuYxp_X-9nftoH6ED03JHtq4aWEcYXY/s200/Live+at+19+Broadway.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>From 2002 until 2005, Gretchen played the Angus Young role in the powerhouse cover band AC/DShe. She not only donned Angus’ trademark schoolboy uniform, but played his crunching rhythms and vibrato-laden solos note-for-note. She then jumped to Zepparella, swapping AC/DC for Led Zeppelin. In Zepparella, Gretchen brilliantly re-creates Jimmy Page’s parts. The lineup has released two albums – 2005’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Zepparella-Live-At-19-Broadway/dp/B001DQB0XG?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Live at 19 Broadway </a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001DQB0XG" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />and 2008’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/A-Pleasing-Pounding/dp/B000Y21WCY?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">A Pleasing Pounding</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000Y21WCY" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> – and appears in several videos on youtube (“When the Levee Breaks” is a must-see: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH-_9cwdLug">www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH-_9cwdLug</a>). As a side project, Gretchen formed the original, high-energy “baseless power trio” Sticks and Stones and in 2007 released <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Unbreakable-Strings/dp/B003DSE1SS?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Unbreakable Strings</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B003DSE1SS" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />. You can also hear her on 2006’s The House of More (featuring members of Zepparella playing original material) and 2008’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Conversation-Francis-Bakin/dp/B001BN1RDY?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Conversations with Francis Bakin</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001BN1RDY" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQPksaec5Lwtie4bvtWnsPNIzNgjZR5MDZe2HQ9bFlSmcjtiBdHtTC7s2FuBES_DWSG3VLulfw-3Wgnah2beZnW8IQxjPHO2XbZ67foilSGWWC-hx6sjX1LtyOucVkSBiEVfmivdhD7Ig/s1600/Gretchen_Menn_7790.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQPksaec5Lwtie4bvtWnsPNIzNgjZR5MDZe2HQ9bFlSmcjtiBdHtTC7s2FuBES_DWSG3VLulfw-3Wgnah2beZnW8IQxjPHO2XbZ67foilSGWWC-hx6sjX1LtyOucVkSBiEVfmivdhD7Ig/s320/Gretchen_Menn_7790.jpg" /></a></div>As you’d suspect, picking, bowing, and bottlenecking a Gibson Les Paul a la Jimmy Page is but one facet of Gretchen’s musical persona. Her classical training and freeform improvisations come to the fore in Lapdance Armageddon, her instrumental duo with co-guitarist Jude Gold. They’ve just released a self-titled EP and pair of videos. In the subplot of their Gypsy-jazzy “Tri-Tip” vid, Mistress Menn strips off her jacket, rolls up her sleeves, and tortures a poor Fender solidbody (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkbZ-BidRf8">www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkbZ-BidRf8</a>). <br />
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Gretchen has recently signed on as an endorser for GHS Strings. She’s also getting plenty of exposure as a DiMarzio Featured Artist (check out the video: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxbFcugk6yY">www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxbFcugk6yY</a>). “I kind of like to think I have an eye for talent,” says Larry DiMarzio. “Gretchen has a marvelous history, being Don’s daughter and having the Guitar Player magazine connection. But my first concern with artists is always, can they play? And Gretchen has got natural talent, with no prima-donna vibe. She’s charming, she’s smart, and she’s amazingly hard working. Everybody who meets her loves her. She’s creative, new, and different, and she represents the new wave of what’s coming into the marketplace – women who play guitar.” <br />
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I suspect you’ll be seeing a lot more of Gretchen Menn in the months to come. At the time of our mid-July interview, she was hard at work on her as-yet-untitled solo album. <br />
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<em>What do you enjoy most about playing guitar?</em><br />
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It’s endlessly challenging, yet instantly gratifying. It has taught me patience, as my love of guitar required that I learn to deal with my propensity for frustration. I’m really a better person because I fell in love with the guitar. <br />
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<em>Was there a specific moment in life when you decided to devote yourself to the instrument?</em><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">You were there, Jas, the night I decided to play guitar. When I was about 15, you and my dad took me to see Joe Satriani. As amazing as Joe was, it was the opener, Eric Johnson, who tapped into the divine in a particular way that resonated with me, and made me want to pick up the instrument. His notes seemed exuberant, and I thought he must be the most joyful person in the world to be able to create such music. It was one of those rare moments where time seems to stand still, and you realize you are experiencing something that will forever alter your course. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWh7LhaphDLchQLZs3CfEL_ujOsROnpaOUgK_GEkbvSNOsAciBZlDOboQvaxYqJVdHVlpsUcOIAty0lEVW0svRy9YjegkzJsIVTrO49158ijKqPZNbT-sPsyMTyksI7KbIGsy4tHJH_-Y/s1600/Don+Menn,+Eric+Johnson,+Jas+O+1986.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWh7LhaphDLchQLZs3CfEL_ujOsROnpaOUgK_GEkbvSNOsAciBZlDOboQvaxYqJVdHVlpsUcOIAty0lEVW0svRy9YjegkzJsIVTrO49158ijKqPZNbT-sPsyMTyksI7KbIGsy4tHJH_-Y/s200/Don+Menn,+Eric+Johnson,+Jas+O+1986.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><strong>Don Menn (L) and Jas Obrecht (R) present Eric Johnson with the 1986 Guitar Player Readers Poll for Best New Talent. </strong></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><em>Your dad, having been the editor of Guitar Player Magazine, has extraordinary insight into the ups and downs of being a rock guitarist. Has he been supportive of your career choice?</em></div><br />
My dad has often told me that, when I was born, he made it one of his main parenting goals to help me determine what is was I most wanted in life, and then help me get the skills to achieve whatever that might be. I don’t think he expected that music would necessarily become my path, and I am sure he would have been completely supportive of whatever I decided to do, provided I followed my heart and my conscience and employed some common sense. <br />
<br />
In terms of the specifics of being a guitar player, my dad never tried to steer me in a particular direction. He has always been candid that playing guitar is a labor of love, not a path to fame and fortune. He is an incredibly positive person, though, and I inherited a lot of his wiring and brain chemistry. I play guitar because I love to play guitar, and I don’t ask anything more from it. I think where people get into trouble and disappointment is they expect their passion to pay off. I feel lucky to have a passion! Not everyone does. So while I have never expected any sort of payoff, I have always felt that true skill and artistic integrity can’t go unnoticed forever, and will always have a place somewhere, if even on a modest scale. Therefore, my focus has been to continually strive to become the musician I aim to be. <br />
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<em>Has anyone along the way given you enduringly beneficial advice?</em><br />
<br />
My classical guitar teacher, Phillip de Fremery, is a true master and an enduring inspiration. From my first lesson and still, as I make occasional pilgrimages to the East Coast to study with him, he has taught me some of the best practice techniques and skills for listening deeply. He has incredible patience and discipline, and a profound love of the instrument – all of which he imparts to his students. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ3DdNsJnmSrd7Gyg1UxkrBpr6hUSFDJcZTQxH6MQat0LQAjcxov1Utitttkk8PIx-BOT0Wz6Jn8L-Yi5AAEVhvYEDQUflHSxjUR2s32jHpKB_AlJ6rpHgaYPPf5rRvPXObm5XsxLgriY/s1600/Max+Crace+photo+with+violin+bow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ3DdNsJnmSrd7Gyg1UxkrBpr6hUSFDJcZTQxH6MQat0LQAjcxov1Utitttkk8PIx-BOT0Wz6Jn8L-Yi5AAEVhvYEDQUflHSxjUR2s32jHpKB_AlJ6rpHgaYPPf5rRvPXObm5XsxLgriY/s320/Max+Crace+photo+with+violin+bow.jpg" /></a></div><em>Okay – whose style is harder to master, Angus Young or Jimmy Page?</em> <br />
<br />
Great question. I don’t have an easy answer, and I definitely don’t consider myself at master at either – maybe just a diligent student. Both present their own challenges. <br />
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Angus’s playing can seem deceptively straight-forward. The blues-based licks feel familiar enough, as they are so rooted in a style that has become part of standard rock guitar vocabulary, but his attack and energy and feel – the things that make Angus sounds like Angus – are much more elusive. AC/DC is a freight train of a rhythmic machine, and that kind of tightness within a band is not something to take for granted. I would challenge anyone inclined to dismiss Angus’s playing to try playing what Angus plays while doing what he does. As someone who did it for a couple of years, incessant head-banging, duck-waking, running around in circles, riding on shoulders, and general Angusing can make solos that feel easy enough in your practice room significantly more difficult. Even the simplest blues lick becomes beastly while rolling epileptically on your back. <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiurEHL5-BlGfNjmO0hup-kRK1v7HFFSWNzE8CMWklfMNn9wo1LrUETc6pJMhQb1-_ol14boUQ2bl7djnoistdtznbR54J-ktuH8gn_5MgFxP0V-bxk4Zb3U09ReN0mwDik6uX8MeiA75M/s1600/sh_zepparella_art.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiurEHL5-BlGfNjmO0hup-kRK1v7HFFSWNzE8CMWklfMNn9wo1LrUETc6pJMhQb1-_ol14boUQ2bl7djnoistdtznbR54J-ktuH8gn_5MgFxP0V-bxk4Zb3U09ReN0mwDik6uX8MeiA75M/s200/sh_zepparella_art.gif" width="200" /></a>Jimmy’s playing involves diverse techniques. Before learning Zeppelin, I had never played slide, in alternate tunings, explored effects much, or certainly ever taken a bow to a Les Paul. Like with that of Angus, a big challenge for me with Jimmy’s playing is trying to recreate his feel, which is so signature. One of the fun puzzles Led Zeppelin’s music presents is figuring out how to arrange for live performance songs that are often densely layered and overdubbed in the studio recordings. Zepparella doesn’t have a keyboard player, so there are a few songs in which I cover the keyboard part. “In the Light,” for instance, is a song we really wanted to do, and yet figuring out how to approach the keyboard prelude and solo took some creativity. I ended up settling on using a slide to play an approximation of the part and running it through a long delay and Phase 90 set to medium speed. It’s clearly not a keyboard, and I certainly can’t do with a slide what John Paul Jones so brilliantly did with ten fingers, but it somehow works for our purposes. </div><br />
<em>How did you go about learning their tones, techniques, and specific parts?</em> <br />
<br />
I listened as carefully as I could, and practically wore out the “Pause” and “Rewind” buttons on my CD player. Videos were less helpful, as neither Angus nor Jimmy plays the recorded versions of their solos live. There were a few places with the Zeppelin tunes where I consulted transcriptions, which were helpful. An important discovery I made toward the beginning of Zepparella was the Tascam CD GT-1, a phrase trainer that slows down a CD, without altering the pitch. I also have a few valued guitar geek friends, and I bounce ideas and questions off them. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirzhoxdNYy7qUrbjhhTP5SR17LJe8pQ_JP9_Uzfn_lFDAonwXCOa3JNamqB1sDq4WwQL5N4BRs2yYrNLgEIooreBMXwB2j13QPfhX-o8pgUTYqiorCsHQtjYHGmtKmVIf7L8j2mBqBR9A/s1600/Gretchen_Menn_7775.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirzhoxdNYy7qUrbjhhTP5SR17LJe8pQ_JP9_Uzfn_lFDAonwXCOa3JNamqB1sDq4WwQL5N4BRs2yYrNLgEIooreBMXwB2j13QPfhX-o8pgUTYqiorCsHQtjYHGmtKmVIf7L8j2mBqBR9A/s400/Gretchen_Menn_7775.jpg" width="267" /></a></div><em>To recreate this music, do you feel compelled to chase down period-perfect equipment?</em><br />
<br />
Well, my budget prohibits it, but I am certainly open to playing any vintage Les Pauls, Telecasters, or Plexis that anyone would care to donate to the cause. I do have two newer Les Pauls with DiMarzio 36th Anniversary PAF’s, a newer Danelectro, and 1977 Marshall JMP. My CryBaby wah-wah pedal and Phase 90 are from the mid ’70s. <br />
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<em>It draws crowds, but do you sometimes get tired of imitating others?</em><br />
<br />
I never get tired of playing great music. Tribute bands have been a fantastic way to gain experience – if the first step toward fluency is imitation, then tribute bands are paid education. My only concern about them, especially having played in a couple that have had a decent degree of success, is getting pigeonholed. No musicians want their creative endeavors to be upstaged by re-creative endeavors. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEITv63YpeBhHMOVjbzqyxIeakHyHaBcK0efB7ao53OPQzIeqK2idMLiqLRYF0JWnjoYWSadLvgJi3nnHxfNZLfyQA1wjPOdbIICcbwhyphenhyphenjCV9wOrCN8TCyTsbObaVAMIPTLQnGZtf4Nyc/s1600/Gretchen_Menn_7808.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEITv63YpeBhHMOVjbzqyxIeakHyHaBcK0efB7ao53OPQzIeqK2idMLiqLRYF0JWnjoYWSadLvgJi3nnHxfNZLfyQA1wjPOdbIICcbwhyphenhyphenjCV9wOrCN8TCyTsbObaVAMIPTLQnGZtf4Nyc/s400/Gretchen_Menn_7808.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><em>Forgive me if this sounds crass, Gretchen, but it is an obvious question: Is there a downside to being an attractive female lead guitarist?</em> </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Compliments don’t offend me, so I don’t take that as crass. I have to say it cracks me up how often people think that something completely superficial, and frankly incidental, would count against intelligence or skill – as if being female and non-vomitous looking commands so much of my time and energy that I couldn’t possibly have a moment to further my competence or abilities! </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">To answer the question more directly, I think there are both positives and negatives. Many of the positives are evident early on – everyone thinks it is so adorable when a cute little girl wants to play guitar like the big boys, and you get extra attention by simply being different. When you start costing the big boys gigs, you become subject to the same criticisms that anyone else would, and people can get catty and insinuate that any achievements are solely a result of the increased intrigue of being the minority gender in the field. Yet looking good as a musician is absolutely meaningless unless you have the abilities to back up the initial attention. The nice thing is that abilities speak for themselves, and the solution is if you don’t want people to think you suck because you are a girl, then apply yourself to attaining a high degree of proficiency on your instrument. True skill is irrefutable. If people are inclined to assume I know nothing because I am a girl, then so much the better! I’d much rather prove a pleasant surprise than be a huge disappointment. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><em>What are the joys and challenges of playing in Lapdance Armageddon and Sticks and Stones?</em></div><br />
Both bands have been amazingly educational and rewarding. Mickael Tremel and Sam Adato in Sticks and Stones and Jude Gold in Lapdance Armageddon are some of my biggest inspirations, influences, and dearest friends. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqBNE2p6Ei_YCcrzyLyJezfEBe16UW_ehvcVWgjlV-BzYYjzf0OlpSwpnI2LB6kvqzM_cKciRusoDueqKocc6jhyphenhyphen8_p2C_BUleyylSo0cewjsP88stjdPVbPkiQhDnkx5ftSdZcbDnCkg/s1600/sticksandstones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqBNE2p6Ei_YCcrzyLyJezfEBe16UW_ehvcVWgjlV-BzYYjzf0OlpSwpnI2LB6kvqzM_cKciRusoDueqKocc6jhyphenhyphen8_p2C_BUleyylSo0cewjsP88stjdPVbPkiQhDnkx5ftSdZcbDnCkg/s200/sticksandstones.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Sticks and Stones, my first instrumental rock project, allowed me to write and play in a genre I have loved since before I even picked up a guitar. One of the main challenges was negotiating the unusual ensemble -- two guitars and drums. Our basslessness wasn’t by design – we just didn’t find the right fit, and didn’t want to wait or to compromise. Not having a bass player completely changed the way I composed guitar lines. I drew heavily on my classical guitar training, putting in bass-like lines while also playing leads, resulting in some interesting contrapuntal and polyphonic lines. It is really cool when a limitation leads to enhanced creativity, because I doubt I would have given those sections as much thought had someone else been covering the lower register. One of the greatest joys of Sticks and Stones is playing music entirely written for ourselves. Yet the fact that we found that some other people enjoy it is a delightful bonus. <br />
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The biggest challenge of Lapdance Armageddon is playing in an ensemble that’s so exposed – an acoustic duo. There is no room for error and nothing to soften mistakes. Despite my years on classical and electric guitar, I had never performed on steel-string acoustic before Lapdance Armageddon. Our first official gig was opening for Adrian Belew, followed shortly thereafter by two shows opening for one of my biggest influences, Steve Morse – it was incredibly intense, to say the least. Both of those guys are legends, and their audiences are made up almost entirely of serious musicians. But Jude is a world-class guitarist, and there is nothing like playing with someone that good to bring your playing to another level. There is tremendous purity in making music that requires just your fingers on a fretboard. I am more accustomed to showing up hours before a gig to load, unload, set up, and check gear, so to arrive with just a guitar is as liberating as it is intimidating. Another great joy in this project is how accessible it seems to be, despite being instrumental. Perhaps the lower volumes and the intimacy of just the two guitars help draw people in. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipQIZWJj2hyphenhyphenZEorbnaOueB2rA03s43XY6x0KpRJ-BIZPQCkY9UVwrXpoWn-Dtu2AALg8-QaZseo8d8GaY5emyHZR7jXu5sHrsBUkWNawT4eUpTXhTp8YRCO45Qq58VTi9G8UzwMpB_O0c/s1600/Gretchen_Menn_6643.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipQIZWJj2hyphenhyphenZEorbnaOueB2rA03s43XY6x0KpRJ-BIZPQCkY9UVwrXpoWn-Dtu2AALg8-QaZseo8d8GaY5emyHZR7jXu5sHrsBUkWNawT4eUpTXhTp8YRCO45Qq58VTi9G8UzwMpB_O0c/s320/Gretchen_Menn_6643.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><em>Would fans who’ve seen you onstage be surprised to hear the music you play when you’re by yourself?</em><br />
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Maybe. A few vigilant observers have pegged me as classically trained, even when playing Zeppelin tunes. My tastes are eclectic, and I am always working on new things in my practice – everything from Bach preludes to Jeff Beck solos. Recently, I’ve been focusing on writing, developing, and executing my own music. I often seem to write beyond my immediate abilities, so my own music requires a significant amount of woodshed time. <br />
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<em>How do you compose?</em> <br />
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I compose in various ways – with my guitar, without it. Sometimes melodies will come to me in my sleep, and I am able to remember them. I keep staff paper with me to scribble down ideas, and I use the voice recorder on my iPhone. Sometimes I give myself a writing assignment, where I’ll challenge myself to write something within certain parameters. Other times I’ll sit down and just write freely, with no preconceived notion of what is supposed to come out. <br />
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<em>Bob Marley believed that all songs are in the air, and they just find someone to flow through. Do you ever feel this happening to you?</em><br />
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Absolutely. I’ve given scratch titles, like “Something I Never Would Have Written,” when I really have no idea how I came up with an idea. I have also had tunes seem to write themselves, and melodies I worry I must have inadvertently ripped off. Some things feel so natural, you feel certain they already existed.<br />
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<em>Are you a disciplined musician?</em><br />
<br />
I don’t feel that I am overly disciplined, but I think I am perceived by my band mates, friends, and family as being very disciplined. I’m not someone who practices eight hours a day. I am focused and driven and consistent, but not monomaniacal. I do take lessons periodically, and am always striving to improve weak areas in my playing. But to me, creativity is enhanced by life experiences. I have interests and activities outside the guitar. That means every time I sit down to play, practice, or write, I am really excited to do so. In general, I probably play about four hours per day. <br />
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<em>What would you most like to improve about your playing?</em><br />
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I am working on improvisation. In classical guitar as well as tribute bands, accuracy and consistency are highly valued. The music has been written, and your job is to replicate it to the best of your ability – taking liberties is not generally encouraged. This means I’ve had little opportunity to just jam and compose spontaneously. <br />
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<em>Describe your dream gig.</em> <br />
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Gig as in show or as in job? My current dream gig, as in job, would be to get to play with Jeff Beck. I would love to be in a place musically where I could actually have something to offer in that situation. I also would have loved to work with Frank Zappa. Both Jeff Beck and Frank Zappa have such deep musical integrity and adventurousness. <br />
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My dream gig, as in show, doesn’t involve a specific venue or location or band or even audience size. What makes a gig wonderful to me is when I feel I play my music with conviction and the audience is there with me, listening with open ears, understanding it, resonating with it, and enjoying it. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOn-ALhTTpoNyV8Dbjl79t9hPNL78ZeZD-XaE6U6Glf-NceQehgPYUQU9XajB6SgHmgNPHmZSxvgVF8uByqtmBCwyF0n9U9kJh2UKuMqg59OLuaPK80Y-cOfdgQyFLRPsKXlmwWQcDi9E/s1600/Gretchen_Menn_8296.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" bx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOn-ALhTTpoNyV8Dbjl79t9hPNL78ZeZD-XaE6U6Glf-NceQehgPYUQU9XajB6SgHmgNPHmZSxvgVF8uByqtmBCwyF0n9U9kJh2UKuMqg59OLuaPK80Y-cOfdgQyFLRPsKXlmwWQcDi9E/s320/Gretchen_Menn_8296.jpg" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><em>At this point, where can someone hear and see your best work?</em> </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">There are some Lapdance Armageddon and Zepparella videos on youtube, as well as the DiMarzio video, which is mostly talking (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxbFcugk6yY">www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxbFcugk6yY</a>). For iTunes, you can search “Lapdance Armageddon,” “Sticks and Stones,” and “Zepparella.” The CD Baby links are <a href="http://www.cdbaby.com/lapdancearmageddon">www.cdbaby.com/lapdancearmageddon</a> and <a href="http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/sticksandstones">www.cdbaby.com/cd/sticksandstones</a>. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><em>What’s coming up in the near future?</em><br />
<br />
I am in the middle of working on my first solo record. It will be instrumental, and features some great players – John Mader on drums and Stu Hamm on bass. There may be a few other people on there as well, but I won’t name any names until the tracks are done. Jude Gold is co-producing it. Lapdance Armageddon, our acoustic duo, plans to do a full-length record in October, so we’ll be back to doing more live shows and touring after that. Zepparella has been keeping very busy with shows – we travel quite a bit, and make it all around the country. You can check my website for the latest: <a href="http://www.gretchenmenn.com/">http://www.gretchenmenn.com/</a>.<br />
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Photo credits: The opening shot of Gretchen Menn with blue Les Paul by Larry DiMarzio (<a href="http://www.dimarzio.com/">http://www.dimarzio.com/</a>). All other color shots by Max Crace (<a href="http://www.maxcrace.com/">http://www.maxcrace.com/</a>). The B&W of Don Menn, Eric Johnson, and Jas Obrecht by Jon Sievert (<a href="http://www.humblearchives.photoshelter.com/">http://www.humblearchives.photoshelter.com/</a>).Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-71484982077617774272010-07-27T14:57:00.018-04:002010-07-28T07:22:04.648-04:00Jesse Ed Davis: “I Just Play the Notes That Sound Good”<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEsjN3K7YVt4ubLgjOincrDiegDGrPzfpj4HPwHH8-TPaOOK25FZiYtNfvqdnDe1NkLlUQb2n9Z_2s2y0Wnl4E-sMmbm3ifNGhaIOmVi_L22XAoRPvFfl_rF2EsHf9X1_rZ3to2o34CXc/s1600/jesse-ed-davis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEsjN3K7YVt4ubLgjOincrDiegDGrPzfpj4HPwHH8-TPaOOK25FZiYtNfvqdnDe1NkLlUQb2n9Z_2s2y0Wnl4E-sMmbm3ifNGhaIOmVi_L22XAoRPvFfl_rF2EsHf9X1_rZ3to2o34CXc/s320/jesse-ed-davis.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>Charismatic Jesse Ed Davis was truly one of the rare breed known as a “guitarist’s guitarist.” On session after session in the late 1960s and 1970s, he epitomized the concept of playing for the song, drawing deeply from country, blues, rock, and R&B influences without mimicking anyone. He recorded with three of the Beatles and blues giants John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and Albert King. He appeared in the film Concert for Bangladesh and played sessions with Eric Clapton, Gene Clark, Neil Diamond, John Trudell, and many others. He released three solo albums on major labels. And yet despite these accomplishments, Jesse Ed Davis remains best known for his work on the early Taj Mahal albums and for being “the guy who inspired Duane Allman to play slide guitar.” <br />
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True, Jesse created the signature riff used by Duane for the Allman Brothers Band’s “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Statesboro-Blues/dp/B000WQVJGQ?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Statesboro Blues</a>,” as well as the bottleneck on Eric Clapton’s “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hello-Old-Friend-Album-Version/dp/B0011Z7L8C?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Hello Old Friend</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0011Z7L8C" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />.” But slide was just one facet of Davis’ widespread talent. He created many memorable hooks. Playing fingers-and-pick country on his trademark Telecaster, he could fire off multiple-string bends and double-stops as naturally as a Nashville cat. In blues settings, he made every note count, like a B.B. King or Mike Bloomfield. He delved into jazz. His uncanny feel for rock led to his becoming John Lennon’s guitarist of choice for the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rock-N-Roll/dp/B001KOC7WO?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Rock ’n’ Roll</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001KOC7WO" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0002X4TRA" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> album. <br />
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<strong><em><span style="color: blue;">Click on the blue links to download songs and albums.</span></em></strong><br />
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With his handsome features, long black hair, and moddish clothes, Davis cut a dashing figure onstage. He was one of very few Native Americans to achieve prominence in pop music, and today, 22 years after his untimely death, he’s regarded as a hero by many young Native Americans. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPhP10Xu2p4m_eEjUln1ZNWlu25OebhVjxQqj5XF9FAWpo98EfTR0Dg_xm3Cfo6Adv6thaLz0BcC6YrQZz9oc6AUW30krX-LRbOXvUFb5qFHcRFrGjHDmoQ5bPJAsZzyjjW5wGU1iVybs/s1600/portrait.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPhP10Xu2p4m_eEjUln1ZNWlu25OebhVjxQqj5XF9FAWpo98EfTR0Dg_xm3Cfo6Adv6thaLz0BcC6YrQZz9oc6AUW30krX-LRbOXvUFb5qFHcRFrGjHDmoQ5bPJAsZzyjjW5wGU1iVybs/s200/portrait.jpg" width="182" /></a></div>A full-blooded Kiowa Comanche, Jesse Edwin Davis III was born in September 21, 1944, in Norman, Oklahoma. Growing up on an Indian reservation, he found a childhood hero in Elvis Presley. As Jesse recounting in a 1974 Guitar Player magazine interview with Steve Rosen, “I used to tie a rope around this acoustic Stella guitar we had, put it over my neck, and play Elvis Presley records real loud. I’d stand in front of the mirror and mimic the words and watch myself. I wanted to be Elvis so bad.” <br />
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Influenced by Chuck Berry records, he began playing seriously while in seventh grade: “I learned how to play when my dad was taking lessons. When he’d go off to work, I’d get his Martin guitar and bang around on it. The first guitar that I had was a Silvertone my father bought for me at Sears, Roebuck. I used to just sit for hours and figure themes out. I had that Silvertone for a long time until I finally just wore it out. All this time, I had my eye on a Fender Telecaster that had been sitting around in this same store for years and years. It was brand-new, but nobody ever bought it. When I was about 16, my dad finally gave me that Telecaster, which I’ve played for many years. The guitar just struck a hidden chord deep within my soul.” He credited a local blues pianist, Wallace Thompson, for teaching him how to play blues, and played in a high school rock band with Michael Brewer, later of Brewer & Shipley. <br />
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Jesse taught guitar at a music store and briefly studied literature at the University of Oklahoma before going on the road at 18, with country singer Conway Twitty. “He’s one of the greatest downhome dudes and finest white blues singers I ever heard,” said Davis. “We’d go out on the road and barnstorm it up.” In 1965, Jesse made his recording debut on a Conway Twitty 45, “I Don’t Want to Cry.” He next recorded two singles with Jr. Markham & The Tulsa Review, for the obscure Uptown label. “After that,” he recalled, “I was just laying around playing with nobody for three years, until I started playing with Taj.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtsLUQgyFvMH49ve837pPx6n6ZyF3EifpOXUZY5shGVb8rsmVCIXnt6eg3z3vcPIwJgPW2MVU6WWpvZvyHRoz8Ip6vnvEYwuhyphenhyphena02ZClyl8gEevHPWqmgFbeMFOZn43ZkrOv8_z9_GiXw/s1600/Taj+Mahal+1st+album.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtsLUQgyFvMH49ve837pPx6n6ZyF3EifpOXUZY5shGVb8rsmVCIXnt6eg3z3vcPIwJgPW2MVU6WWpvZvyHRoz8Ip6vnvEYwuhyphenhyphena02ZClyl8gEevHPWqmgFbeMFOZn43ZkrOv8_z9_GiXw/s200/Taj+Mahal+1st+album.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Moving to Los Angeles in the mid 1960s, Davis became the pianist and guitarist in Taj Mahal’s band. Their debut album, called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Taj-Mahal/dp/B00004XSUW?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Taj Mahal</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00004XSUW" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, contains Davis’ groundbreaking performance of the old Blind Willie McTell song “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Statesboro-Blues-Album-Version/dp/B001387060?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Statesboro Blues</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001387060" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />.” Ironically, McTell, one of the great prewar slide guitarists, played the original version without a slide. “I had never really played bottleneck before that,” Davis explained in Guitar Player, “and so for that recording I just put a steel tube on my finger and worked up a line. I just played it in regular tuning. I didn’t know about open tunings until I saw Muddy Waters play at the Whiskey in Los Angeles some time after that.” After his initial attempt in standard tuning, Davis settled on open D for slide. While in Los Angeles in 1967 recording with Hourglass, Duane Allman went to see Taj Mahal play at a nightclub. After watching Jesse Ed Davis perform his slide version of “Statesboro Blues,” Allman, who’d never played slide before, spent many hours working out Jesse’s slide riff and used it to power the Allman Brothers Band’s signature song. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2k2E6nrg7YgkwaOTn01F1ChAeyuAeGLlRPtVZQdwutJFRtShSzVjctmhU74iHwj4SnSoWjMHAcX_XZUATrhVqJpIDQ1NGVi45FMahfNg9NL-2PMkQ7ujr_NswWAeardZq7ZVDwZ7Ru4k/s1600/thenatch27lblue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2k2E6nrg7YgkwaOTn01F1ChAeyuAeGLlRPtVZQdwutJFRtShSzVjctmhU74iHwj4SnSoWjMHAcX_XZUATrhVqJpIDQ1NGVi45FMahfNg9NL-2PMkQ7ujr_NswWAeardZq7ZVDwZ7Ru4k/s200/thenatch27lblue.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>In 1968, Jesse played guitar, bass, and piano on Taj Mahal’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Natchl-Blues-Taj-Mahal/dp/B00004XSUU?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Natch’l Blues</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00004XSUU" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, a collection of old-time blues tunes. His to-the-point riffs, warm solos, and sparkling guitar-harmonica interplay with Taj Mahal helped gain the album considerable radio play and the “classic” status it enjoys today. (The 2000 re-release of Natch’l Blues on CD includes three bonus tracks highlighting Davis’ lead guitar style.) Soon after its release, Davis described his equipment: “I still play that Telecaster my dad bought me when I was 16. Fender equipment is my favorite; however, I’ve used Gibsons from time to time.” Asked to describe his relationship with Taj Mahal, Davis responded, “It was written. We’re two proud men, playing together.” <br />
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Davis was asked if he and Taj had grown up listening to the same old-time blues heroes. “No,” Davis responded, “I’ve just been into those guys for about a year. The cats I listened to were Jimmy Reed and cats like that. Chet Atkins and hillbilly music were really all you could find on the radio back there in Oklahoma. I never started to appreciate them until I started playing with Twitty – before that, it had always sounded real nasal and twangy, even more so than I sound. I also used to listen to the soul sessions they had back in Oklahoma. My dad’s a Dixieland fanatic, and he’s got a ten-foot stack of 78s of everybody from that era. I was into all those cats like Ted Lewis. Today my favorite guitarist is George Benson. I have a lot of respect for Charlie Christian, James Burton, Grady Martin, and Jerry Kennedy. I have a lot of admiration for Jaime [Robbie] Robertson, now with The Band.” Soon after recording Natch’l Blues, Jesse made a notable session appearance with an old friend from Oklahoma, pianist Leon Russell, and Marc Benno on Look Inside the Asylum Choir. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA3REPJJKmniZYcrTdNGHp0ntmzqiRxoaiFwLB9xcfES4ncDiv8luwktsbMN8VgDClnHwA62QOaaUhv8JxL6MbC3a8iiY_tT1kOZV-922NsmoEsBDtAnRof1xf0yr8jZOCQHOpoJykHD8/s1600/Taj+Mahal+-+Giant+Step.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA3REPJJKmniZYcrTdNGHp0ntmzqiRxoaiFwLB9xcfES4ncDiv8luwktsbMN8VgDClnHwA62QOaaUhv8JxL6MbC3a8iiY_tT1kOZV-922NsmoEsBDtAnRof1xf0yr8jZOCQHOpoJykHD8/s200/Taj+Mahal+-+Giant+Step.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>On Taj Mahal’s 1969 two-record album Giant Step/De Ole Folks, Davis was credited with playing organ, piano, and guitar. Gently chorused, Curtis Mayfield-derived fingerpicking made “Ain’t Gwine Whistle Dixie (Any Mo’),” which Davis co-wrote, a staple on FM radio stations, while “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Best-Taj-Mahal/dp/B00004XSUS?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Six Days on the Road</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00004XSUS" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” provided a great platform for his country licks. Around this time, Jesse and Taj made cameo appearances on Mike Bloomfield’s Live at Bill Graham’s Fillmore West album. <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWyGhN0cM0dR5WZhQ-UvI5kClF8HoOm24KNZo_CankKA4wcc_-ogPInmjzvG8WzXcmAJhPxINZRqy9uFrS19oz_9DNv4AI2funMKmoWzZT7vplsl-Q_FwoBmLaxrTBNoHvHFf89tqiQuE/s1600/Rolling+Stones+Rock+and+Roll+Circus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="173" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWyGhN0cM0dR5WZhQ-UvI5kClF8HoOm24KNZo_CankKA4wcc_-ogPInmjzvG8WzXcmAJhPxINZRqy9uFrS19oz_9DNv4AI2funMKmoWzZT7vplsl-Q_FwoBmLaxrTBNoHvHFf89tqiQuE/s200/Rolling+Stones+Rock+and+Roll+Circus.jpg" width="200" /></a>Davis made an unforgettable appearance on British TV in 1969. In his book Clapton: The Autobiography, Eric Clapton describes the event: “I had a call from Mick asking me to come up to a studio in Wembley, where the Stones were recording a TV special called ‘<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rolling-Stones-Rock-Roll-Circus/dp/B000621484?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">The Rolling Stones’ Rock and Roll Circus</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000621484" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />.’ I was intrigued because he told me that another of the contributing artists was Taj Mahal, an American blues musician whom I really wanted to see. It was certainly an amazing lineup, and included, as well as Taj, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Jethro Tull, Marianne Faithfull, and The Who. It was an interesting gig. Mick played the ‘the ringmaster,’ complete with top hat and tails, and introduced different acts. Jesse Ed Davis, who played guitar with Taj Mahal, was brilliant.” </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMiLG2I-XsRcnx4Fn1gGsmk2gzeTEvLC8VhqbqxBArDj-5OSxp1OR0LHvv9HoVEytsrif0nhrQR3q7OhCneIeWn-04-TQYPbyeUnzbkHtKA2tIVEd53J8peTEclEjH-OrDr_HkkSq8Vu4/s1600/jesse+ed+davis+solo+LP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMiLG2I-XsRcnx4Fn1gGsmk2gzeTEvLC8VhqbqxBArDj-5OSxp1OR0LHvv9HoVEytsrif0nhrQR3q7OhCneIeWn-04-TQYPbyeUnzbkHtKA2tIVEd53J8peTEclEjH-OrDr_HkkSq8Vu4/s200/jesse+ed+davis+solo+LP.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Jesse Ed Davis recorded his first solo album, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jesse-Davis/dp/B001A3GSMK?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Jesse Davis!</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001A3GSMK" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, at Olympic Sound Studio in London in 1970. With its colorful Native American-influenced artwork, the self-titled album featured Leon Russell on piano, Eric Clapton on guitar on most tracks, and background singers Gram Parson, Merry Clayton, and Nikki Barclay of Fanny. Davis delivered several strong original rockers – “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Every-Night-Saturday/dp/B001A39PRU?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Every Night Is a Saturday Night</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001A39PRU" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” was a standout – but downplayed his own soloing abilities to allow room for Eric Clapton. The album won Jesse a legion of admirers but met mixed critical reviews.<br />
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In 1971, session offers began coming fast and furious. Davis produced the self-titled album debut of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Gene-Clark-aka-White-Light/dp/B000068PQ7?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Gene Clark</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000068PQ7" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, formerly of the Byrds, drawing critical raves for playing “with the subtlety of a Robbie Robertson.” He added tracks of guitars to Marc Benno’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Minnows-Marc-Benno/dp/B000006ZBB?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Minnows</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000006ZBB" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, taking a notable slide solo on “Speak Your Mind.” He ventured into jazz on keyboardist Ben Sidran’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Feel-Your-Groove-Ben-Sidran/dp/B000ICL5HM?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Feel Your Groove</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000ICL5HM" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, getting production credit for two tracks, and Charles Lloyd’s Warm Waters. He produced and arranged <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Roger-Tillisons-Album/dp/B001L5VY9E?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Roger Tillison’s Album</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001L5VY9E" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, playing “electric and bottleneck guitar and banjo.” He tracked powerful riffs and bittersweet solos on the highly energetic album <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shelter-People-Leon-Russell/dp/B000002TYO?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Leon Russell and the Shelter People</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000002TYO" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, and rejoined Russell and Benno on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Asylum-Choir-II-Leon-Russell/dp/B000002TYN?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Asylum Choir II</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000002TYN" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />. Buffy Sainte-Marie’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/She-Used-Wanna-Be-Ballarina/dp/B000000EKM?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">She Used to Wanna Be a Ballerina</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000000EKM" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> found him sharing guitar duties with Ry Cooder and Neil Young. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9-JJGgXMYluxGGlAV0b5mp4OnDZPvXWPE2RPISh4xInQ4W1tc3af04cuP09VGjglS1FlAG5cNRldPAxf_gdTqC-O52TfW8RjU3hMOgVU-RTUB9_pbBqyXVlmcsdJj00HSBqaqIe17hok/s1600/B.B.+King+-+L.A.+Midnight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9-JJGgXMYluxGGlAV0b5mp4OnDZPvXWPE2RPISh4xInQ4W1tc3af04cuP09VGjglS1FlAG5cNRldPAxf_gdTqC-O52TfW8RjU3hMOgVU-RTUB9_pbBqyXVlmcsdJj00HSBqaqIe17hok/s200/B.B.+King+-+L.A.+Midnight.jpg" width="190" /></a></div>At blues sessions that year, Jesse played on four tracks of Albert King’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lovejoy-Albert-King/dp/B000000ZID?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Lovejoy</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000000ZID" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, and then went toe-to-toe with Joe Walsh on B.B. King’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Know-You-Love-L-Midnight/dp/B001NY43J6?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">L.A. Midnight</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001NY43J6" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />. At his session for John Lee Hooker’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Endless-Boogie-John-Lee-Hooker/dp/B000002OI6?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Endless Boogie</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000002OI6" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, he played stand-out slide on the slow blues “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Might-Through-Married-Two-Timing-Mother/dp/B000W11FPG?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">We Might as Well Call It Through (I Didn't Get Married to Your Two-Timing Mother)</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000W11FPG" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />.” On his final outing with Taj Mahal, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Just-Be-Like-Am/dp/B001PCOT04?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Happy to Be Like I Am</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001PCOT04" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, he revisited old-time country blues, delved into Caribbean influences, and participated in a memorable band version of “Oh! Susanna.”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu0AQG2N4UVuTKkmCn5psczRl6hnGsGuGzYfM2P6ol8SjxCUpLDzcUKG7Q9rULly2ktfw3tK6rDp160gg5_8G3hfeh7-7WHrWidAs9zCLgmpWm4Dqg-XxXl_kWhSJ6DrOB-xnrs8nMFlc/s1600/Klaus+George+Jesse+at+Bangladesh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu0AQG2N4UVuTKkmCn5psczRl6hnGsGuGzYfM2P6ol8SjxCUpLDzcUKG7Q9rULly2ktfw3tK6rDp160gg5_8G3hfeh7-7WHrWidAs9zCLgmpWm4Dqg-XxXl_kWhSJ6DrOB-xnrs8nMFlc/s400/Klaus+George+Jesse+at+Bangladesh.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><strong>Klaus Voorman, George Harrison, and Jesse Ed Davis at the Concert for Bangladesh.</strong> <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdyS-s0Mey07SnTNhaNhRqfS_CZyf0DS2niGkWaOyUOaBSpUGQdd8hGr80_phjhe_63-wUautI06J3dRhBI-P1JW9LTG1codcX2B2JZLxzC986BlxtpkF_RL9PTs4zJMqc8O9L3MFrDrA/s1600/The+Concert+for+Bangladesh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdyS-s0Mey07SnTNhaNhRqfS_CZyf0DS2niGkWaOyUOaBSpUGQdd8hGr80_phjhe_63-wUautI06J3dRhBI-P1JW9LTG1codcX2B2JZLxzC986BlxtpkF_RL9PTs4zJMqc8O9L3MFrDrA/s200/The+Concert+for+Bangladesh.jpg" width="200" /></a>By far, though, Jesse’s biggest gig of 1971 was playing in the stage band at the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Concert-Bangladesh-George-Harrison-Friends/dp/B000BF0D88?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Concert for Bangladesh</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000BF0D88" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, organized by George Harrison. On that August evening in New York City, Davis shared the stage with George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Klaus Voorman, Leon Russell, Jim Keltner, Billy Preston, Carl Radle, and the Memphis Horns. Seeing Harrison’s melodic slide style up close influenced Davis to take his own bottlenecking beyond blues-rock realms. The film </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Concert-Bangladesh-2pc-George-Harrison/dp/B000AYQJ3I?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Concert For Bangladesh</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000AYQJ3I" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> quickly made the rounds of theaters. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBUwZM17Y2jHqYfx7g6mqRABwd3LHLowG8_Xen1Apoe9STDigYXGb_xLTpnz6Zv8pgJzrg3eST6WggChkywnWTG9iJn-suhhLflj1EHCJ73vXAASaH5CGtxExq7zYVRVJYRURcKWEKjNU/s1600/Jackson+Brown+LP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBUwZM17Y2jHqYfx7g6mqRABwd3LHLowG8_Xen1Apoe9STDigYXGb_xLTpnz6Zv8pgJzrg3eST6WggChkywnWTG9iJn-suhhLflj1EHCJ73vXAASaH5CGtxExq7zYVRVJYRURcKWEKjNU/s200/Jackson+Brown+LP.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>When Jackson Browne began assembling an all-star studio team for his 1972 debut album, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jackson-Browne-Saturate-Before-Using/dp/B000002GYL?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Jackson Browne (Saturate Before Using)</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000002GYL" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, the guitarists he called were Clarence White, Albert Lee, and Jesse Davis. Jesse reportedly soloed on the Browne’s first hit, “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Doctor-My-Eyes-Version-Remastered/dp/B001G6H80C?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Doctor My Eyes</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001G6H80C" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />.” Jesse picked up two production credits that year, for Gene Clark’s so-called “White Light” album and Jim Pulte’s Out the Window, which spotlighted his guitar, banjo, and backup singing. Davis also appeared on the Steve Miller Band’s Recall the Beginning and Marc Benno’s Ambush, on which he played slide. At his May 1972 with Lightnin’ Hopkins, Davis was joined in the studio by none other than John Lee Hooker, on-hand as a guest artist. Due to problems at the fledgling label, the resulting album, Lightnin’ Hopkins’ It’s a Sin to Be Rich, stayed in the can until 1992. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7w1cgjVVfXPb0aX1tvEs1tBJTy50WkSf3jC3I5xPTv3Ieb1jIIu04980Cj9V1KOi5EvBSkdcJKF0G-VFt9JdhLInDS23nGIPs2LBFoQSWx_596Ssqzul3CispbojFKqbiQE23xTH9aCI/s1600/Ululu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7w1cgjVVfXPb0aX1tvEs1tBJTy50WkSf3jC3I5xPTv3Ieb1jIIu04980Cj9V1KOi5EvBSkdcJKF0G-VFt9JdhLInDS23nGIPs2LBFoQSWx_596Ssqzul3CispbojFKqbiQE23xTH9aCI/s200/Ululu.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
For Davis, though, the highlight of 1972 was the release of his most acclaimed solo album, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ululu/dp/B001A3CP2C?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Ululu</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001A3CP2C" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />. Critics hailed the title track and the cover of Merle Haggard’s “White Line Fever” as examples of the “ragged glory of unabashed rock and roll.” The core band featured Dr. John on keyboards, Donald “Duck” Dunn on bass, and Jim Keltner on drums. Davis mixed originals – “Red Dirt Boogie, Brother,” “My Captain,” “Ululu,” and “Make a Joyful Noise” – with a spirited reading of “Oh! Susannah” and covers of George Harrison’s “Sue Me, Sue You Blues,” The Band’s “Strawberry Wine,” and Leon Russell’s “Alcatraz.” He capped the album with the rollicking “Further on Down the Road,” which he’d written with Taj Mahal. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCs3ejWIR9lCYLCWVOkBaAjTGGIr6QZbkgXwMqBv8kdjYPxmzjdrfWRP1itQ1pCxYSC5DCxU5K3YzoO2P91AngZFk-9oBHMeIVhPPwArUBvJf1ELnjeEPApZT5-nfT6yHlr9oF5C96Ag/s1600/jesse+ed+davis+-+keep+me+comin%27+1973.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCs3ejWIR9lCYLCWVOkBaAjTGGIr6QZbkgXwMqBv8kdjYPxmzjdrfWRP1itQ1pCxYSC5DCxU5K3YzoO2P91AngZFk-9oBHMeIVhPPwArUBvJf1ELnjeEPApZT5-nfT6yHlr9oF5C96Ag/s200/jesse+ed+davis+-+keep+me+comin%27+1973.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Early in 1973, Jesse played guitar and sang backup on Bryan Ferry’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/These-Foolish-Things-Bryan-Ferry/dp/B00002DEB8?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">These Foolish Things</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00002DEB8" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, featuring many Roxy Music alumni, and joined a star-studded cast for Rod Taylor’s self-titled release on Asylum. He next played on Arlo Guthrie’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Last-Brooklyn-Cowboys-Arlo-Guthrie/dp/B000001SN4?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">The Last of the Brooklyn Cowboys</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000001SN4" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, which also featured Ry Cooder and Clarence White. He also released his third and final solo album, the self-produced <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Keep-Me-Comin-Jesse-Davis/dp/B0012CJM7M?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Keep Me Comin’</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0012CJM7M" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, which was devoid of guest stars. Instead, Davis relied on studio stalwarts – drummer Jim Keltner, bassist Bob Glaub, and keyboardist James Gordon. He co-composed four of the songs with John Angelo, calling his “Who Pulled the Plug” one of “the great Okie classics.” <br />
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In reviews, Davis’ singing voice was compared to Leon Russell’s, which caused him to proclaim to Steve Rosen: “That’s a misconception – Leon Russell sounds like me! The truth is, Leon and I got drunk one night a little while back, and he finally says, ‘If you want to be a musician-turned-singer like me and Dr. John, but you don’t think you can sing, then just sing as loud as you can. Just turn it up as loud as you can stand it.’ So that’s what I did, and I found out that when you scream as loud as you can, you can really get off on it, just like playing a good guitar line or something.” <br />
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Asked about the music theory behind his playing, Davis responded, “I just play the notes that sound good. If you have to play a certain scale, then that’s cheating. You don’t even know what something’s going to sound like until you hear the note yourself. I just play what I like to hear—that’s all.”<br />
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In 1973, Davis listed his Telecaster, Stratocaster, and Gibson SG as his three favorite guitars. “The thing that I like about the SG is that the neck joins the body at the last fret, so you don’t have to mess around with it.” He explained that he favored the SG for slide, due to its thicker sound, and preferred the “thin metallic sound” of the Telecaster for slow blues. His collection at the time included another Telecaster with a humbucker pickup, a Fender Malibu, a Martin acoustic, a Yamaha 12-string, and a metal-bodied Dobro. He was using Ernie Ball Super Slinkies for the Tele and heavier Rock ’N’ Roll Regulars for the SG, and praised his pick of choice, a Fender Heavy, for its “strong, forward attack.” Jesse listed the Fender Vibro Champ as his all-around favorite amp in the studio, “because of the range of sounds I can pull from it.” He mentioned a Neumann 87 condenser as his favorite amp mike. Onstage, he preferred an Acoustic 155 for large venues and a Fender Bassman with four 10” J.B. Lansings speakers for more intimate settings. <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsCfRwzIsCahlFgHeQWomPQ_W1xBrp6F59zUfMiWI0F4UO89V514KRvnickpDN7YY7edv9idmghXbnib2g2nzh5p3SNG7dBooXSxn9WOIttoA1HsIPaawe00wq79ToWgE9v3q2Hg6iIp8/s1600/Klaus+John+RecPlant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="cssfloat: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsCfRwzIsCahlFgHeQWomPQ_W1xBrp6F59zUfMiWI0F4UO89V514KRvnickpDN7YY7edv9idmghXbnib2g2nzh5p3SNG7dBooXSxn9WOIttoA1HsIPaawe00wq79ToWgE9v3q2Hg6iIp8/s400/Klaus+John+RecPlant.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><strong>Jesse Ed Davis, Klaus Voormann, and John Lennon listen to a playback at the Record Plant.</strong> </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwPcM-aYR6mrRFgEKQetF8095c2xwPpnT9h_OAx-BlD2QuDfN6mIWY91UwaFRcXVzAyDw35bGRWTyYncvYiJNebMk0IkgW53r6mgOZIpd05RC_nNbF74J_Oym5-SlRRh0kgrnQalGczvg/s1600/John+Lennon+-+Walls+and+Bridges.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwPcM-aYR6mrRFgEKQetF8095c2xwPpnT9h_OAx-BlD2QuDfN6mIWY91UwaFRcXVzAyDw35bGRWTyYncvYiJNebMk0IkgW53r6mgOZIpd05RC_nNbF74J_Oym5-SlRRh0kgrnQalGczvg/s200/John+Lennon+-+Walls+and+Bridges.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Jesse’s celebrated collaborations with John Lennon began in 1974. He appeared first on the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Walls-Bridges-John-Lennon/dp/B000AYQLX6?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Walls and Bridges </a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000AYQLX6" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />album, and then worked on what was to become Lennon’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rock-N-Roll-John-Lennon/dp/B0002X4TRA?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Rock ’n’ Roll</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0002X4TRA" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> album. During the latter sessions, Lennon and Davis rolled tape on rock and roll classics by Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, Sam Cooke, Link Wray, and Little Richard. Their version of Cooke’s “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stand-By-Me/dp/B000WWD6CA?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Stand by Me</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000WWD6CA" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” provided Davis a perfect setting for melodic, multi-tracked slide lines reminiscent of George Harrison. The song was Lennon’s last hit of the decade. Davis also worked on Harry Nilsson’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pussy-Cats/dp/B001B1CBL8?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Pussy Cats</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001B1CBL8" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, with Lennon producing. Critics were dumbfounded by the alcohol-fuelled release, with one writer describing it as “an utterly bewildering record that’s more baffling than entertaining.” The following year Davis was featured on Nilsson’s Duit On Mon Dei, also poorly received. </div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV5z_42HqohyphenhyphenOTvwVuaHyWhIa7OtqkrEbU4EVmn2EZIo8fblX6DbSPX4nRNiRzjedBCtYBZN-yY7eH-3MmMHVhOWEfBMOvRZ0MWRICKhwaW5fwEm5k_NpTRFVuNLDsx9we2VsdSz0TEfY/s1600/John+Lennon+Rock+and+Roll.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV5z_42HqohyphenhyphenOTvwVuaHyWhIa7OtqkrEbU4EVmn2EZIo8fblX6DbSPX4nRNiRzjedBCtYBZN-yY7eH-3MmMHVhOWEfBMOvRZ0MWRICKhwaW5fwEm5k_NpTRFVuNLDsx9we2VsdSz0TEfY/s200/John+Lennon+Rock+and+Roll.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>At other sessions, Davis appeared on Bert Jansch’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Turnaround-Digitally-Remastered-Bonus-Tracks/dp/B002DDDJBE?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">L.A. Turnaround</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B002DDDJBE" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, Brewer & Shipley’s self-titled debut, the Pointer Sisters’ That’s a Plenty, Gene Clark’s No Other, and Ringo Starr’s Goodbye Vienna, which featured the other three Beatles as well as Harry Nilsson, Robbie Robertson, and Steve Cropper. Davis was called back for Ringo’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ringos-Rotogravure-Ringo-Starr/dp/B000002IU2?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Rotogravure</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000002IU2" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> sessions, attended by Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Peter Frampton, Dr. John, and the Brecker Brothers. <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhSuSARUuB6oCjSzxs5jT_rybqi_TIA26j492NAh8e2pPvxBlQ7RRj1saXDABM_lPpPsbvP6NFWX7yx1EVoGFMLDAm7RkjoW3xIbeH4uiEmFM3epQKISDnuvfzKMy6mthMwB5sT8LyLBM/s1600/George+Harrison+-+Extra+Texture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhSuSARUuB6oCjSzxs5jT_rybqi_TIA26j492NAh8e2pPvxBlQ7RRj1saXDABM_lPpPsbvP6NFWX7yx1EVoGFMLDAm7RkjoW3xIbeH4uiEmFM3epQKISDnuvfzKMy6mthMwB5sT8LyLBM/s200/George+Harrison+-+Extra+Texture.jpg" width="200" /></a>In 1975, George Harrison called in Jesse to be the second guitarist on his critically acclaimed <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Extra-Texture-George-Harrison/dp/B000008GEE?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Extra Texture</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000008GEE" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> album. Soon afterwards, four of the studio musicians who’d been at the sessions – David Foster, Danny Kortchmar, Paul Stallworth, and Jim Keltner – formed the studio band Attitudes and invited Jesse to play on their self-titled album, issued on Harrison’s Dark Horse label. Davis also played on David Bromberg’s “big band” album, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-On-The-Water/dp/B00138H69Q?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Midnight on the Water</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00138H69Q" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, as well as on Jackie De Shannon’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/New-Arrangement-Jackie-DeShannon/dp/B002FEUNN8?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">New Arrangement</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B002FEUNN8" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, Eric Mercury’s self-titled debut, Keith Moon’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Two-Sides-Moon-Keith/dp/B000005EI3?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Two Sides of the Moon</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000005EI3" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, teen idol David Cassidy’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Higher-They-Climb-Harder-Fall/dp/B001QLJMVA?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">The Higher They Climb, They Harder They Fall</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001QLJMVA" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, and Dion’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Born-Be-You-Streetheart-Dion/dp/B000059RHW?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Born to Be with You</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000059RHW" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, which was given the wall-to-wall production treatment by Phil Spector. On Rod Stewart’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Atlantic-Crossing-Exp-Rod-Stewart/dp/B002E2QHD6?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Atlantic Crossing</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B002E2QHD6" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, Davis fit right in with the Muscle Shoals rhythm section and received a songwriting credit. A lesser-known gem, Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Together-Concert-Arlo-Guthrie-Seeger/dp/B000VNMSAQ?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Together in Concert</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000VNMSAQ" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, featured him playing folk, country, and blues solos in an unplugged setting. <br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNhomZMK4O1lOJDQ7R0xzV2AFdkNlklToLt7pEoicbnxyKNECH5hyphenhyphenwiEQ1cPK9aqYk4pDTj6WEuLB-3E0CT0n1FCyAkVEkui7-hSqXpNEZk6w7MV4gP_z19iJlsBs3Lg8n491j06w5Ptc/s1600/Pete+and+Arlo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNhomZMK4O1lOJDQ7R0xzV2AFdkNlklToLt7pEoicbnxyKNECH5hyphenhyphenwiEQ1cPK9aqYk4pDTj6WEuLB-3E0CT0n1FCyAkVEkui7-hSqXpNEZk6w7MV4gP_z19iJlsBs3Lg8n491j06w5Ptc/s200/Pete+and+Arlo.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The following year Davis joined scores of other musicians for the sessions for Neil Diamond’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Noise-Neil-Diamond/dp/B0012GMZV8?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Beautiful Noise</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0012GMZV8" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, Geoff Muldaur’s Motion, and Tracy Nelson’s bluesy <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Time-My-Side-Tracy-Nelson/dp/B000002R41?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Time Is on My Side</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000002R41" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />. He was the only guitarist on Van Dyke Parks’ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Clang-Yankee-Reaper/dp/B00122RDSC?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">The Clang of the Yankee Reaper</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00122RDSC" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, which included Pachelbel’s “Canon in D,” and played on David Blue’s Cupid’s Arrows, Dunn & Rubini’s Diggin’ It, and Donovan’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/7-Tease-Slow-Down-World/dp/B0001R9PAI?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Slow Down World</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0001R9PAI" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />. His best date of the year, though, came when Eric Clapton invited him to play on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/No-Reason-To-Cry/dp/B000VWPWXW?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">No Reason to Cry</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000VWPWXW" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, which also featured Bob Dylan and The Band on various tracks. The stellar slide on “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hello-Old-Friend-Album-Version/dp/B0011Z7L8C?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Hello Old Friend</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0011Z7L8C" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” Clapton’s first Top-40 single in two years, was pure Jesse Ed Davis. “Eric always told me how much he admired my playing,” Davis remembered. </div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxYpc1r2h8eljeQRl8nOkHSiUc6-TyBV_tou4Gh3gkUmVWFYKP6vJlBYj6vy5OyAMonGTe2vT9t77qDNLlV17JiObwbz9sIPM_5ZSB1tZ5d55nM745K5vTDz3FaRoV9ZMkBuAhqUo8lwg/s1600/Eric+Clapton+-+No+Reason+to+Cry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxYpc1r2h8eljeQRl8nOkHSiUc6-TyBV_tou4Gh3gkUmVWFYKP6vJlBYj6vy5OyAMonGTe2vT9t77qDNLlV17JiObwbz9sIPM_5ZSB1tZ5d55nM745K5vTDz3FaRoV9ZMkBuAhqUo8lwg/s200/Eric+Clapton+-+No+Reason+to+Cry.jpg" width="200" /></a>Sadly, 1976 was to be Jesse Ed Davis’ last year as major studio player. Drug and alcohol abuse, then prevalent among the musicians with whom Jesse was most closely identified, began taking a serious toll on his health. In 1977, Davis played on Long John Baldry’s Welcome to the Club and Leonard Cohen’s Phil Spector-produced <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Death-Ladies-Man-Leonard-Cohen/dp/B0012GMVY4?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Death of a Ladies Man</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0012GMVY4" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />. In 1978, he worked only on Ben Sidran’s Little Kiss in the Night, Brian Cadd’s Yesterdaydream, and Jack Nitzsche’s Blue Collar soundtrack. After his appearance on the 1979 A&M “concept” album <a href="http://www.amazon.com/White-Mansions-Legend-Jesse-James/dp/B00000839H?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Legend of Jesse James</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00000839H" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, there is no record of Jesse Ed Davis recording anything until 1985. During these years, Jesse reportedly lived day-to-day, battling his demons and occasionally undergoing treatment for his addictions. </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu1Li__ahMY5vrx9gmLZvb-imPnAMSTvoPqZNWtDDeoY5Zyrw-Wswglc-cmHvnVe-5nPEDUiamUQp-WPD6C9HYyds_9Iaaj4CIOp-JWiT0s691uZwU2cMWMvz8ao1_C99f3O-v10WFNA0/s1600/coll_AKA_Grafitti.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu1Li__ahMY5vrx9gmLZvb-imPnAMSTvoPqZNWtDDeoY5Zyrw-Wswglc-cmHvnVe-5nPEDUiamUQp-WPD6C9HYyds_9Iaaj4CIOp-JWiT0s691uZwU2cMWMvz8ao1_C99f3O-v10WFNA0/s200/coll_AKA_Grafitti.jpg" width="198" /></a></div>Near the end of his life, Jesse Ed Davis went back to work with Indian activist/spoken word poet John Trudell, creating heavy “talk poems.” “I started out with just indigenous drums,” Trudell said, “but once I met the Kiowa guitarist Jesse Ed Davis in 1985, his incredible leads gave me the compulsion to rock the words.” They formed Graffiti Man, with Jesse playing guitar and keyboard in a four-man lineup. The band produced a mail-order cassette, titled <a href="http://www.amazon.com/AKA-Grafitti-Man-John-Trudell/dp/B0000009OE?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">A.K.A. Graffiti Man</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0000009OE" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />. Bob Dylan played it during intermission at his concerts and proclaimed it the “album of the year.” It was finally issued on CD in 1992. With heavy, bluesy guitar sweeping over an Indian chant, “Rockin’ the Res” was hailed as an anthem for a new generation. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaY7dcrVgYimoUNTBe7d-4v3V2V5dnRyFYOieS-yJDUk0feDsjpWggT3VT7pBQqjz0VrL74yHvEdY2_lLjARKnP5DW1wtI97Zc4dqVvMAGStanuD3XyEoCQIQPCXSQqBMk1ic_mv1j52Q/s1600/Scott+Colby+-+Slide+of+Hand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaY7dcrVgYimoUNTBe7d-4v3V2V5dnRyFYOieS-yJDUk0feDsjpWggT3VT7pBQqjz0VrL74yHvEdY2_lLjARKnP5DW1wtI97Zc4dqVvMAGStanuD3XyEoCQIQPCXSQqBMk1ic_mv1j52Q/s200/Scott+Colby+-+Slide+of+Hand.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Soon afterward, Davis suffered a stroke that temporarily paralyzed his picking hand. When he recovered, he joined up-and-coming slide guitarist Scott Colby on the acclaimed 1987 <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Slide-Hand-Vinyl-Scott-Colby/dp/B0000502RO?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Slide of Hand</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0000502RO" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> album. “Jesse had a great touch for doing really emotional blues and country fills that were very sad and melancholy,” Colby said. In 1987, Davis and Trudell made a demo cassette called Heart Jump Bouquet, and these tracks are included in the Daemon box set <a href="http://www.amazon.com/John-Trudell-Collection-1983-1992-Boxed/dp/B000VLNYTC?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">John Trudell: The Collection 1983-1992</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000VLNYTC" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />. Warner Brothers’ 1988 Christmas album, Winter Wonderland, featured a final Davis track, “Santa Claus Is Getting Down.” <br />
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Jesse Davis spent his final days living in Long Beach, California, where he sometimes counseled at the American Indian Free Clinic. On June 22, 1988, he was found dead in a laundry room in Venice, California, reportedly of a heroin overdose. His body was returned to Oklahoma for a traditional Comanche burial. In 1998, his first two solo albums were issued on CD by Warner/Japan. <br />
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In 2002, Jesse Ed Davis was inducted along with Dave Brubeck and Patti Page into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame. “Whether it was blues, country, or rock,” stated the official citation, “Davis’ tasteful guitar playing was featured on albums by such giants as Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, John Lennon, and John Lee Hooker, among others.” For a kid who used to imitate Elvis in front of a mirror, Jesse Ed Davis had truly come a long way. <br />
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<strong><em><span style="color: blue;">Help support this blog and independent music journalism by making a small donation via the Paypal button at the bottom of this page.</span></em></strong>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-4567056037448512062010-07-19T18:55:00.018-04:002010-07-28T07:26:09.438-04:00Transatlantic Blues: How British Musicians Helped Save American Blues and Rock<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibBhDdrDiavF6-bFlAAhd-YFySk_XHx-STb_TrOTwoEybczlwdrxy_7Mw-MOs-l2-U8k2dldxh0c4R6SeJoczAT_wY9f-oHDnS_IUdEeNfV4Y-E7fGn2hkZ5aWxUjNyjXwrVlUjr6UUb0/s1600/American+Negro+Blues.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibBhDdrDiavF6-bFlAAhd-YFySk_XHx-STb_TrOTwoEybczlwdrxy_7Mw-MOs-l2-U8k2dldxh0c4R6SeJoczAT_wY9f-oHDnS_IUdEeNfV4Y-E7fGn2hkZ5aWxUjNyjXwrVlUjr6UUb0/s320/American+Negro+Blues.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />
Believe it or not, in the early 1960s British musicians helped save American blues and rock and roll. <br />
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In its earliest incarnation, rock and roll had brought the meteoric rise of Bill Haley & The Comets, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, and other movers and shakers. Their music was raucous, thrilling, and seemingly unstoppable, but the initial ride was short-lived. By the late 1950s, Haley was washed up. Elvis was in the army. Chuck Berry was in jail. Little Richard had abandoned rock to preach the gospel, and Buddy Holly was dead. Payola scandals had ended the careers of Alan Freed and other seminal DJs. Fundamentalist preachers were publicly burning records that, they rabidly frothed, brought white youths “down to the level of the Negro.” As a result, American rock and roll was nearly sanitized to death. <br />
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By 1963, it had hit its nadir. Month after month, forgettable pop like Bobby Vinton’s “Blue Velvet,” Paul & Paula’s “Hey Paula,” Jimmy Gilmer’s “Sugar Shack,” and the Singing Nun’s “Dominique” dominated the charts. Across the Atlantic, though, something earthy and primal was taking shape as young British groups such as the Beatles, the Animals, the Rolling Stones, and the Yardbirds drew inspiration from Chuck Berry and American blues artists. In an ironic yet welcome twist of fate, most kids in America became aware of the great bluesmen via cover songs and songwriting credits on albums by their favorite rock bands. “That’s a funny damn thing,” Muddy Waters exclaimed. “Had to get somebody from out of another country to let my white kids over here know where we stand. They’re crying for bread and got it in their backyard.” <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8D4t_JFQKE7YqoT-QpTIpD4d0ivS-qp6Ck1lNAYLAGmXlyRP1eXs2PBCx3aDvnz2w_sc2wLYVI4csygzeMD7kX25CbUwKPVoqUDwMM7AvmwcmJdK3GO4-hEUJa7mFsVPphKovgCRv4Tw/s1600/Sonny+%26+Brownie+Bluesway+publicity+shot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="156" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8D4t_JFQKE7YqoT-QpTIpD4d0ivS-qp6Ck1lNAYLAGmXlyRP1eXs2PBCx3aDvnz2w_sc2wLYVI4csygzeMD7kX25CbUwKPVoqUDwMM7AvmwcmJdK3GO4-hEUJa7mFsVPphKovgCRv4Tw/s200/Sonny+%26+Brownie+Bluesway+publicity+shot.jpg" width="200" /></a>In Great Britain, some listeners had been enthusiastic about blues since World War II, when the BBC broadcast records by Lead Belly, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, and Josh White to help soothe nerves rattled by Nazi bombing raids. American servicemen disembarked in Liverpool and other ports with recordings of American blues, swing, and Dixieland, and many these 78s found their way into the hands of British record collectors and radio programmers. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEito3-Psy1JGhlZiXeKq0YSrS37DNSfngX_3eilKb77MeiSV1ae6VwJhldgo8FtHD0wK78oCtKmSQiq18McyyNeEi9tFnfVvCa9I6LWZ2sG9FmHOkQfcj4oZIL0ZZztzsIQQqgjUC1mNRI/s1600/Big+Bill+Broonzy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEito3-Psy1JGhlZiXeKq0YSrS37DNSfngX_3eilKb77MeiSV1ae6VwJhldgo8FtHD0wK78oCtKmSQiq18McyyNeEi9tFnfVvCa9I6LWZ2sG9FmHOkQfcj4oZIL0ZZztzsIQQqgjUC1mNRI/s200/Big+Bill+Broonzy.jpg" width="182" /></a></div><strong>Left: Big Bill Broonzy</strong><br />
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After the war, these records inspired the creation of trad jazz, a lite re-creation of Dixieland. Chris Barber, a leading trad bandleader and trombonist, had the foresight to arrange British club gigs for some of the original blues artists. The first to arrive, Big Bill Broonzy in 1951, managed to convince many concert-goers that he was “the last American bluesman,” but Lonnie Johnson’s breakthrough solo set at Royal Festival Hall the following year put an end to that publicity stunt, as did appearances by Josh White, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. These artists became musical touchstones for Britain’s first pop guitar stars, Big Jim Sullivan and Hank Marvin. Idolized by young Jimmy Page, studio legend Sullivan was steeped in records by Lead Belly and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. “When I was starting the guitar,” Sullivan recalled, “we used to go out on the Thames in a big riverboat with people like Sonny and Brownie and Big Bill Broonzy. They would be playing, and I’d just sit there watching them. That was the highlight for me.” Instrumental star Hank Marvin, who formed the Shadows with Cliff Richard in 1958, cited Broonzy and Lead Belly as his main influences. <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX20opF2ZAIKTLKlX8rKYpTYEsKEhzPLNtkz6wtTS5zF1sRjADViycrlaQmB195qJMXg8MqrZ3iIPz0tsalVVZ-oEDpkfjjC_gLnG29O6m17WUmelkH4krxAsCjIkWjiXKiAo7NnMwVhQ/s1600/Lonnie+Donegan+Rock+Island+Line.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX20opF2ZAIKTLKlX8rKYpTYEsKEhzPLNtkz6wtTS5zF1sRjADViycrlaQmB195qJMXg8MqrZ3iIPz0tsalVVZ-oEDpkfjjC_gLnG29O6m17WUmelkH4krxAsCjIkWjiXKiAo7NnMwVhQ/s200/Lonnie+Donegan+Rock+Island+Line.jpg" width="200" /></a>By the mid 1950s, British youths were enamored with skiffle, a folksy, bluesy, somewhat heavy-handed answer to America’s folk boom. The movement got its name from Dan Burley’s 1946 recording of “Skiffle Boys,” and hit its peak a decade later with Lonnie Donegan’s recording of Lead Belly’s “Rock Island Line.” Dozens of future British stars got their start performing skiffle. “Lonnie Donegan set all them kids on the road,” remembered George Harrison. “Everybody was in a skiffle group. You only needed two chords.” Or three chords, if you wanted to focus on acoustic blues, which is exactly what British audiences wanted to hear. <br />
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</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibz3NCGZV1PiIAKpTjJTNPWKvZanlM0xRopA8Nfdprsm4UgzJsc1pDFtq1qRdrKM0a0Wg0MypDg6xX-xyDOaY3LHdaihFGRMQN8zaNojE9j2k49w_bXl_0Z2fKgNbHKdCQdYaVrzcTg0k/s1600/Viceroy+Skiffle+Board+ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibz3NCGZV1PiIAKpTjJTNPWKvZanlM0xRopA8Nfdprsm4UgzJsc1pDFtq1qRdrKM0a0Wg0MypDg6xX-xyDOaY3LHdaihFGRMQN8zaNojE9j2k49w_bXl_0Z2fKgNbHKdCQdYaVrzcTg0k/s200/Viceroy+Skiffle+Board+ad.jpg" width="185" /></a></div>In Chicago, Big Bill Broonzy usually played electric guitar with a small ensemble, but in England he stuck to traditional solo acoustic blues. Before his death in 1958, Broonzy recommended that Chris Barber bring over Muddy Waters, the reigning king of Chicago blues. Just back from a tour of raucous clubs in the American South, Muddy flew over with his pianist, Otis Spann. Unaware that Broonzy had presented himself as a country blues artist, Muddy opened his first British show with his Fender Telecaster and amp at full throttle. Aghast purists retreated from the venue. “I didn’t have no idea what was going on,” Waters explained to writer James Rooney. “I was touring with Chris Barber – a Dixieland band. They thought I was a Big Bill Broonzy, which I wasn’t. I had my amplifier, and Spann and I was going to do a Chicago thing. We opened up in Leeds, England. I was definitely too loud for them. The next morning we were in the headlines of the paper – ‘Screaming Guitar and Howling Piano.’ That was when they were into the folk thing before the Rolling Stones.” Muddy lowered his settings for the rest of the tour, which reportedly went well. Among his concert-goers were Alexis Korner, Cyril Davies, and Eric Burdon, who’d later front the Animals. <br />
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By 1960, many aspiring British musicians were avidly seeking American blues and rock and roll records. Jeff Beck was enraptured by Cliff Gallup with Gene Vincent’s Blue Caps. Elvis’ “Baby, Let’s Play House” with Scotty Moore inspired Jimmy Page to play guitar, and Page rapidly made the progression through Elvis, Ricky Nelson, and Gene Vincent to the hard-core blues of Elmore James and B.B. King. After teaching himself Muddy Waters’ “Honey Bee,” Eric Clapton formed his first band, the Roosters, to cover songs by Waters, Lightnin’ Slim, Fats Domino, and T-Bone Walker. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfnyu7g5vFBYCzU0ap1TQ4Rf5kV6IIGx1tVc-DtnTKxXh_yGboerj7pOI2NKbsDHUrUP1ACElcXlN4xBAyw1tPqsutMou5jC1n2q-KEEUaP-ZMU-Wh6H3y1L3U800ME-4tFDTOafgFkro/s1600/Best_of_Muddy_Waters_1958_Chess_Records.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfnyu7g5vFBYCzU0ap1TQ4Rf5kV6IIGx1tVc-DtnTKxXh_yGboerj7pOI2NKbsDHUrUP1ACElcXlN4xBAyw1tPqsutMou5jC1n2q-KEEUaP-ZMU-Wh6H3y1L3U800ME-4tFDTOafgFkro/s200/Best_of_Muddy_Waters_1958_Chess_Records.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Boyhood pals Mick Jagger and Keith Richards hadn’t seen each other for years when they met by accident on a train platform in 1960. The way Keith tells it, at that moment he was as interested in Jagger’s albums as he was in Jagger. “Mick had The Best of Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry Is on Top under his arm, which were very hard to get in England. I said, ‘Hey, man, nice to see you, but where’d you get the <em>records</em>?!’” Small-label reissues of American country blues from the 1920s and 1930s were also enthusiastically received. <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPtaRXKrLokuSqMU6JGcwpvhfQNhZaYCfIu_kDRWKF5XqH6WHH_OePpQTTKN-_iCazWLtVjdFqWFfOCQ440VIkCMY66CNJJWcMU_ohZNGGsn4xLJ7P9u_aBcqExc6c0XeNV-Q3UZQtQVo/s1600/Rollin'+Stone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPtaRXKrLokuSqMU6JGcwpvhfQNhZaYCfIu_kDRWKF5XqH6WHH_OePpQTTKN-_iCazWLtVjdFqWFfOCQ440VIkCMY66CNJJWcMU_ohZNGGsn4xLJ7P9u_aBcqExc6c0XeNV-Q3UZQtQVo/s320/Rollin'+Stone.jpg" /></a>A magnet for aspiring musicians, London’s Skiffle Centre was transformed into the London Blues and Barrelhouse Club, where Long John Baldry and former Barber bandmates Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies hosted blues sessions. Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, Ginger Baker, and Jack Bruce all took turns in Korner’s Blues Inc. “We’d all meet in this blues club, Alexis Korner’s place,” Keith described. “And Brian, he stunned us playing Elmore James shit on slide onstage with Alexis, along with Cyril Davies, Nicky Hopkins, and Jack Bruce on bass. All of those guys were gathering together in just a few spots in London.” Jagger and Richards were soon sharing a flat with Jones and jamming to blues records. They named their band after a track on The Best of Muddy Waters. “Muddy was my man,” Keith insists. “He’s the guy I listened to. I felt an immediate affinity when I heard Muddy play the opening lick from ‘Rollin’ Stone.’ You can’t be harder than that, man. He said it all right there. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZDZM9a2GzsA1Lri_ugx62eUSKQ579cUntLuD3nnQF6vfjrjEmZwo9HtsKrEqV18Sez4qaIUn3SarLZo1jB5bFYQBFMChmxU80nGPsY9oI6gtlTny4Sm8LMaBVwL-SIw0wpZTH-EPgklM/s1600/Rolling+Stones+and+Cyril+Davies+1963+ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZDZM9a2GzsA1Lri_ugx62eUSKQ579cUntLuD3nnQF6vfjrjEmZwo9HtsKrEqV18Sez4qaIUn3SarLZo1jB5bFYQBFMChmxU80nGPsY9oI6gtlTny4Sm8LMaBVwL-SIw0wpZTH-EPgklM/s200/Rolling+Stones+and+Cyril+Davies+1963+ad.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>“When we started the Rolling Stones, we were just little kids, right?” Richards continues. “We felt we had some of the licks down, but our aim was to turn other people on to Muddy Waters. I mean, we were carrying flags, idealistic teenage sort of shit. There was no way we thought anybody was really going to seriously listen to us, but we wanted to get a few people interested in listening to the shit we thought they ought to listen to – which is very elitist and arrogant, to think you can tell other people what to listen to. But that was our aim, to turn people on to the blues. If we could turn them on to Muddy and Jimmy Reed and Howlin’ Wolf and John Lee Hooker, then our job was done.” </div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGU1_y_YdwoRUfhQc8SXWEjZ9HBxmne0YkFVf9QcZkoZnelJie7Cl5H73kWZMm0QrE-N1UiFWVGdKzeaeSOZHFI71L8DGPRedwr9WTcC6mC9sqJdiYSvjIW3y_AiSu7cNOepkv25MfWfI/s1600/lippman+Jazzbeat+January+1964.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGU1_y_YdwoRUfhQc8SXWEjZ9HBxmne0YkFVf9QcZkoZnelJie7Cl5H73kWZMm0QrE-N1UiFWVGdKzeaeSOZHFI71L8DGPRedwr9WTcC6mC9sqJdiYSvjIW3y_AiSu7cNOepkv25MfWfI/s320/lippman+Jazzbeat+January+1964.jpg" /></a>At the same time, European promoters were arranging to import blues artists. In 1962, German concert promoters Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau organized the first of nine festivals. Today these festivals are universally referred to as the American Folk Blues Festivals (AFBF), although some of the early ones were billed as the American Negro Blues Festival. Their goal was to bring authentic American blues artists to Europe for three to six weeks of performances at first-class venues. To ensure a good lineup, Lippman enlisted the help of blues impresario Willie Dixon. “Willie was able to get me one of my favorite blues people, T-Bone Walker,” Lippmann recalls, “and then John Lee Hooker and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.” Chicago harpist Shakey Jake Harris, drummer Jump Jackson, and old-time diva Helen Humes rounded out the 1962 lineup. “We actually did this to present blues to jazz fans,” Lippmann says, “but the jazz fans didn’t come that much. It was a completely new audience appearing at blues festivals. Later on, it became the rock audience.” The first AFBF roster was recorded live in Hamburg, Germany, in October 1962, and subsequent tours were recorded and filmed as well. <br />
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When the AFBF tours came to Great Britain, producer Giorgio Gomelsky usually hosted the musicians at his house. “We became kind of a link between Chicago blues and British R&B, which was fundamentally blues-based music,” Gomelsky explained. “Jimmy Page came over often, the Yardbirds, Brian Jones, John Mayall. When the first American Folk Blues Festival came over, I got the Rolling Stones tickets. They were all broke, so I got about twenty of these blues musicians tickets in the first rows, and they were sitting there worshipping these wonderful people.” <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoIH1F7qtGzxwz6YSSMga6rDI0g-ApeXx9OA1qutq0O69APNgR1BuSsPlYuzIKWAvr-OEkTRSPaaTba29YBIzQ4xHu3nv0fEjEFtvNtTK7g856YP8XoMx3610kdbb446k925XSCUB5mGs/s1600/willie+dixon+on+bass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoIH1F7qtGzxwz6YSSMga6rDI0g-ApeXx9OA1qutq0O69APNgR1BuSsPlYuzIKWAvr-OEkTRSPaaTba29YBIzQ4xHu3nv0fEjEFtvNtTK7g856YP8XoMx3610kdbb446k925XSCUB5mGs/s200/willie+dixon+on+bass.jpg" width="161" /></a>John Lee Hooker, for one, was floored by the reception: “When I got to England in ’62, it was like God just let Jesus go over there. That’s all you could hear: ‘John Lee Hooker!’” The real thing, amped and cathartic, had arrived. British rockers were knocked out by what they saw. The Rolling Stones were inspired to add Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon tunes to their repertoire. Willie Dixon, always the businessman, did his best to encourage them. “He was like a song hustler a lot with me,” laughs Mick Jagger. “He always had a sheaf of songs in his briefcase, and he’d try to sell you. Rather foolishly, I didn’t used to take too much notice of them. And, of course, when you’re peddling songs like that, they never sound as good as they do when you’re listening to Howlin’ Wolf doing ‘Wang Dang Doodle’ or something on a record. He always had them, though.” The Animals, meanwhile, got to work adapting John Lee Hooker tunes.</div><br />
“Those shows had a really big impact,” observed French producer/promoter Philippe Rault. “There was a bunch of English bands that had put the fuse to the dynamite – like Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies – who really inspired all those groups like the Stones, but they were always the second-hand product. When those shows came over, there was a lot of attention, not only from the blues fans going to the shows, but from all of the English pop stars at the time. It was a major influence on spreading the blues in Europe at the time. The really pivotal period was 1962 to 1964 – people were so starved for those shows because it was the real thing finally happening.” <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7bBRjqbsCw9O7UQkZZbluh-TavDoobakHdz2fJDPqvasmdo2dAhsCZhZUJJyb7t4M0WBnU2j-pizbLksJGMnz03wU9unR_Rm3ncoLnQFJaCtXrLzxn1LEd5lIVxv5NMQXsDqz8hyphenhyphenPXuM/s1600/1963+tour+programme.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7bBRjqbsCw9O7UQkZZbluh-TavDoobakHdz2fJDPqvasmdo2dAhsCZhZUJJyb7t4M0WBnU2j-pizbLksJGMnz03wU9unR_Rm3ncoLnQFJaCtXrLzxn1LEd5lIVxv5NMQXsDqz8hyphenhyphenPXuM/s200/1963+tour+programme.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
Working tirelessly, Willie Dixon ensured that the ensuing festivals would be just as dynamic. His first choice for 1963’s American Folk Blues Festival tour, Muddy Waters, once again misjudged his audience. “I went back – took my acoustic with me – and everybody’s hollering, ‘Where’s your amplifier.’ I said, ‘When I was here before, they didn’t like my stuff.’ But those English groups had picked up on my stuff and went wild with it. I said, ‘I never know what’s going on.’ A bunch of those young kids came around. They could play. They’d pick up my guitar and fool with it. Then the Rolling Stones came out named after my song, you know, and recorded ‘Just Make Love to You,’ and the next thing I knew they were out there. And that’s how people in the States really got to know who Muddy Waters was.” Joining Muddy on the tour were Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Joe Williams, Memphis Slim, Victoria Spivey, Otis Spann, Willie Dixon, Matt Murphy, and Lonnie Johnson, arguably the best of the prewar blues guitarists. At the tour’s conclusion, Lippman arranged for Sonny Boy Williamson to record with the Yardbirds, with 17-year-old Eric Clapton on guitar. <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju-HjCAs_YTPBCPeeeCE-pDjbfeAGuoJW75dsppgaonDppoh3m99uufWWO76PTiQkTf6naOmWPNVFO_w5Z8A_sgJLfg-z9lXkSG0Z4HifK6k_rVGgmI348j869McQp5C_uC5Rq5D71siA/s1600/Victoria+Spivey+lg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju-HjCAs_YTPBCPeeeCE-pDjbfeAGuoJW75dsppgaonDppoh3m99uufWWO76PTiQkTf6naOmWPNVFO_w5Z8A_sgJLfg-z9lXkSG0Z4HifK6k_rVGgmI348j869McQp5C_uC5Rq5D71siA/s200/Victoria+Spivey+lg.jpg" width="163" /></a>Upon her return home from the 1963 tour, Victoria Spivey, whose recording career dated back to the 1920s, covered the event for Record Research magazine. “One of the happiest months of my life!” Spivey wrote. “I have had many Bands and Shows, but I’m telling you, few have measured up to the wonderful people I have had the honor of working with in the German Folk-Blues Festival which played 31 days from Oct. 23 thru Nov. 22, 1963, through 8 countries and 22 cities. Everybody, the bosses, the managers, the producers, the blues stars, all were just great!</div><br />
“Horst Lippmann, our employer, was a wonderful fellow. Boy, did he take care of us! The best hotels, best jets, best trains, someone to look after our luggage, dressing rooms, looking after our money needs and so much more. He made us really feel at home in Europe. When the boys and I parted on our return jet flight to New York, I cried like a child and some of them had tears in their eyes too. It was really wonderful that so many stars could work so well together and understand each other so well.” The day after the festival ended, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7YfOa5hmh6XhHuLWQ4AUNR_uroKX1s8A-M0-p711aNI8HFAColEuRLSwJAZYbxLTjU3m9WrhA5u0mXcfI09OTdgO7tXNBeYpyj2McKx_Ac7QyIvvl_8809D139IBLEsBF3aZF3Ps49n4/s1600/1963+ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="126" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7YfOa5hmh6XhHuLWQ4AUNR_uroKX1s8A-M0-p711aNI8HFAColEuRLSwJAZYbxLTjU3m9WrhA5u0mXcfI09OTdgO7tXNBeYpyj2McKx_Ac7QyIvvl_8809D139IBLEsBF3aZF3Ps49n4/s200/1963+ad.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>The 1964 AFBF tour featured band sets by Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson, solo performances by sage Texas songster Lightnin’ Hopkins, the old-time guitar-harmonica-jug blues of Sleepy John Estes and Hammie Nixon, and lonesome, primitive-sounding country blues guitarist John Henry Barbee. Muddy Waters also returned to England that year as part of The Blues and Gospel Train featuring Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Rev. Gary Davis, and Otis Spann. <br />
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Back on their home turf, though, times were still tough for blues artists, as Keith Richards witnessed first-hand: “We went into Chess Studios in 1964, the first time we came to America. Went to Chicago to record most of our second or third album at Chess, and we walked in. There’s Phil Chess and there’s Ron Malo, the engineer, and this guy in white overalls is painting the ceiling. As we walked by into the studio, somebody said, ‘Oh, by the way, this is Muddy Waters, and he’s painting the ceiling.’ He wasn’t selling records at the time, and this is the way he got treated. My first meeting with Muddy Waters is over the paintbrush, dripping, covered in white paint. ‘This is Muddy Waters.’ I’m dying, right? I get to meet The Man – he’s my fucking god, right? – and he’s painting the ceiling! And I’m gonna work in his studio. Ouch! Oh, this is the record business, right? Mmmmm. The highs with the lows! Ooh, boy. In that one little meeting, in those few seconds, Muddy taught me more. He said, ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you,’ but the look in the eye was saying, ‘Well, you can be painting the ceiling next year!’ Because he had no idea that we revered him or anything. We were just another bunch of creeps.”<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtw0MM22j9xWcJnK6dVX4v0Z37Y1BkO2ILyM0-w6tIOc7N0SZe5eb_g0BVi6U1dEj9GLZ3kySY0jidR3qWAYKgpzhVr9E1EepsYnBE-2qTw6utCkXmTISy9xpRWw5C6_fk65I4FxGSVGE/s1600/Isaiah+Ross.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtw0MM22j9xWcJnK6dVX4v0Z37Y1BkO2ILyM0-w6tIOc7N0SZe5eb_g0BVi6U1dEj9GLZ3kySY0jidR3qWAYKgpzhVr9E1EepsYnBE-2qTw6utCkXmTISy9xpRWw5C6_fk65I4FxGSVGE/s200/Isaiah+Ross.jpg" width="141" /></a></div><br />
<strong>At right: Doctor Isaiah Ross.</strong> <br />
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For the 1965 American Folk Blues Festival, Dixon and Lippman assembled a truly eclectic all-star lineup: John Lee Hooker, piano legend Roosevelt Sykes, rough-hewn Big Mama Thornton, Mississippi bottleneck guitarist Fred McDowell, one-man-band Dr. Isaiah Ross, easygoing J.B. Lenoir, and a first-rate Chicago blues band with harmonica ace Shakey Horton, bassist Jimmie Lee Robinson, drummer Fred Below, and a young Buddy Guy. “I got booed a lot,” Buddy recalls, “because I was the youngest cat there. It was like, ‘Who’s this?’ I was standing up playing, being myself as I normally would, and they wasn’t ready for that.” <br />
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While the AFBF continued to be held for several more years, its attendance began dwindling after 1965, mostly due to competition from other festivals. By then, the record sales of many of the so-called British Invasion musicians who’d attended the early shows had helped bring long-overdue fame to their heroes John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon, Jimmy Reed, and Muddy Waters, all of whom saw dramatic increases in their bookings. To a man, these bluesmen were grateful to those long-haired British musicians who helped bring their music center stage in the land of its creation. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcMzytR4ebuBbxF8lxOIsU-3G0Lia575wFklHRBkjSYKGo0hYKl3HtqIquEsAoq-twVrPw0resngnyLo9sRAOpFsbesYpz-4rZbOQZ0eErd-ukdloPWPKH1pdSUEmtOjc6YdFomAUI5Zo/s1600/1963-1966.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" hw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcMzytR4ebuBbxF8lxOIsU-3G0Lia575wFklHRBkjSYKGo0hYKl3HtqIquEsAoq-twVrPw0resngnyLo9sRAOpFsbesYpz-4rZbOQZ0eErd-ukdloPWPKH1pdSUEmtOjc6YdFomAUI5Zo/s200/1963-1966.jpg" width="143" /></a></div><br />
<em>Many classic AFBF performances have been issued on DVDs by Hip-O Records. A great first purchase is </em><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/American-Folk-Blues-Festival-British-1963-1966/dp/B000OPP7LS?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow"><em>The American Folk Blues Festival – The British Tours 1963-1966</em></a><em><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000OPP7LS" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />. In addition, </em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/American-Folk-Blues-Festival-1962-1966/dp/B0000AYL2M?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow"><em>The American Folk Blues Festivals Volume 1</em></a><em><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0000AYL2M" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, </em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/American-Folk-Blues-Festival-1962-1966/dp/B0000AYL2N?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"><em>Volume 2</em></a><em><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0000AYL2N" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, and </em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/American-Folk-Blues-Festival-1962-1969/dp/B0002KP54E?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow"><em>Volume 3</em></a><em><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0002KP54E" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> DVDs are highly recommended. For a stellar audio collection, try Evidence Music’s five-CD box set, </em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/American-Folk-Blues-Festival-1962-1965/dp/B0000014QN?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow"><em>American Folk Blues Festival ’62 to ’65</em></a><em><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0000014QN" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />. For an extensive American Folk Blues Festival discography, visit </em><a href="http://www.wirz.de/music/afbffrm.htm"><em>www.wirz.de/music/afbffrm.htm</em></a><em>.</em><br />
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<em><span style="background-color: white; color: blue;"><strong>Help keep this blog alive by making a small donation via the Paypal button below. Visit our exclusive blog store at http://astore.amazon.com/jaso01-20.</strong></span></em>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-39461930991266223872010-07-13T16:22:00.019-04:002010-07-28T07:27:47.151-04:00Polk Miller and His Old South Quartette, 1910<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg88g4ZfG5w3JF4Aj74ReWSSReAPCojw5s6HD4VeRyWgjHKSWDjivDbwW81K1ZliLMaTRtMzBc_PJaAJ_Cc96eofTra8GrPy-c9AtGgmIh1Wog8A5a6pOLGakRCmZ0801Hr8MIhf85RpJ0/s1600/Polk+Miller+with+banjo+Edison.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg88g4ZfG5w3JF4Aj74ReWSSReAPCojw5s6HD4VeRyWgjHKSWDjivDbwW81K1ZliLMaTRtMzBc_PJaAJ_Cc96eofTra8GrPy-c9AtGgmIh1Wog8A5a6pOLGakRCmZ0801Hr8MIhf85RpJ0/s320/Polk+Miller+with+banjo+Edison.jpg" width="252" /></a></div><em>Caveat: Several of the century-old passages quoted in this article are racially offensive. The fact that these quotes use common parlance for the era in which they were published does little to diminish their ugliness. For the sake of historical accuracy, though, I’ve kept the quotes intact. My apologies to those offended. </em><br />
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<em>Why cover Polk Miller at all? Because despite the racial overtones in his music and press, the man deserves credit for his pioneering efforts to integrate American music. I’m convinced that at his core Polk Miller was motivated by a profound admiration for African-American music. On with our story. </em><br />
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By 1910, an abundance of black performers had been recorded in Cuba, Brazil, and Puerto Rico. Pete Hampton, who recorded in Germany and England, could well have been the most prolific African American recording artist before the era of Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong. On the U.S. mainland, though, sessions featuring African Americans were still rare and integrated sessions far rarer. With their 1909 and 1910 Edison Amberol and Standard cylinders, Polk Miller’s Old South Quartette provided a very notable exception. <br />
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A white man, Polk Miller hailed from Prince Edward County, Virginia. “I was raised on a plantation where ‘niggers’ were thicker than hops,” Polk stated in an old newspaper sketch found among his papers, “and it was there that I learned to ‘pick upon de ole banjo.” During the Civil War he served as a Confederate artillery man and hospital steward. According to a biographical sketch written by his son Withers Miller for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Polk himself furled the Confederate banner at Appomattox. <br />
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Afterwards Miller farmed for a while, and then ran a successful drug store and animal remedies company in Richmond, Virginia. After a hard day’s work, Polk enjoyed entertaining family and friends with his banjo and voice. His son Withers recalled: “He was thoroughly fond of music, having a good voice, his singing being one of his many accomplishments. In story telling he had few equals, if any, and no superiors. In interpreting the Negro dialect he excelled, and it was through this channel that he achieved his greatest fame.” <br />
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In an undated newspaper clipping found among his scrapbooks, Polk Miller explained his reasons for launching his performing career in 1892: “On coming to Richmond in 1860, and entering upon the career of druggist, I was soon so mixed up in ‘physics’ that I didn’t have time to keep up with my music. Indeed, I wouldn’t tell anybody that I even ‘knowed how’ to play the banjo, because it was looked upon as a ‘nigger insterment,’ and beneath the notice of the ‘cultivated.’ For years I longed for the time when it would ‘come in fashion’ and I could play on my favorite musical instrument without disgracing myself in the eyes of my city friends. . . . I do play the ‘nigger banjer,’ and now and then as I pass along the road. . . I delight in getting behind a Negro cabin and singing a plantation melody ‘jes’ to see ’em come a crallin’ out to see who is dat out dar a-playin’ on dat banjer.’” A year later Miller gave up pill peddling for life as a musician and “darkey dialectician.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRjvzqac2puH3aX0EcFLAla8t-xjnDKKjIe4Ohyphenhyphenbg9jwYGOh6s1_HwyH-utoUTuqm216Medy9H_fR-6kSghjHo-BZcbz4Nzf9Ju2PjFkf2X0ZvzcbmlpF1ic6vx2Biq09YOUb1beWhgv0/s1600/Lecture+and+Ball.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRjvzqac2puH3aX0EcFLAla8t-xjnDKKjIe4Ohyphenhyphenbg9jwYGOh6s1_HwyH-utoUTuqm216Medy9H_fR-6kSghjHo-BZcbz4Nzf9Ju2PjFkf2X0ZvzcbmlpF1ic6vx2Biq09YOUb1beWhgv0/s320/Lecture+and+Ball.jpg" /></a>Mark Twain, for one, was convinced Miller made the right choice. An October 15, 1894, article in the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette recounted Twain’s introduction of Polk at Madison Square Garden. “Mr. Miller is thoroughly competent to entertain you with his sketches of the old-time Negro,” Twain reportedly said, “and I not only commend him to your intelligent notice but personally endorse him.” Twain particularly admired Polk’s storytelling abilities. The stentorian-voiced Miller embarked on extensive tours of the South and made swings through Illinois, Michigan, New York, and Texas. He was particularly fond of playing Confederate reunions and monument fund-raisers. </div><br />
Although he did not perform in blackface, Polk sometimes billed himself as “The Old Virginia Plantation Negro” and performed Negro spirituals and pop and folk tunes such as “Run, Nigger, Run,” “Gwine Back To Dixie,” and “Carry Me Back To Old Virginny.” His old-time pluck-and-strum banjo style was so good, reported Joel Chandler Harris in the Atlanta Constitution, “when Polk Miller plays, you may look for a live nigger to jump out of his banjo” – high praise indeed from the creator of Uncle Remus. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRsdEc8MLKH2ksqrkC6CSSNabRn3Nww6uuxXtvdz0YjeTZYMWuCHRwvMio1X7B2KUA4aC8eRu-pWV8xEUdQU9HcI-VNhNBr34Y7pwAfJF3NOlsBGsppuuhzKt_O5UbY5IYBEN_SPJTe_I/s1600/PolkMillerQuartet2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRsdEc8MLKH2ksqrkC6CSSNabRn3Nww6uuxXtvdz0YjeTZYMWuCHRwvMio1X7B2KUA4aC8eRu-pWV8xEUdQU9HcI-VNhNBr34Y7pwAfJF3NOlsBGsppuuhzKt_O5UbY5IYBEN_SPJTe_I/s320/PolkMillerQuartet2.jpg" /></a></div>Despite the racist overtones of his press coverage, Miller was daring enough to go on tour with four African Americans, the Old South Quartette, beginning around 1900. In a Richmond Journal article dated January 3, 1912, Miller explained that the four, whom he referred to as his “boys” or “employees,” had been “singing on the street corners and in the barrooms of this city at night to motley crowds of hoodlums and barroom loafers and handing around the hat . . . . I could get a dozen quartettes from the good singing material among the Negroes in the tobacco factories here.” The clipping indicates that Polk and his quartet played colleges and military schools, as well as the “most exclusive social clubs” in New York, Boston, Baltimore, Washington, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland. Their two-hour show featured dialect stories and recitations, “coon songs,” and displays of Polk’s prowess on fiddle and banjo. When a visiting European prince missed the ensemble’s performance at Carnegie Hall, Mark Twain lamented that he’d “missed about the only thing the country can furnish that is originally and utterly American.” Polk’s personal clippings also indicate that the Old South Quartette performed at African American churches. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyswGWni_NH9KzwZgCJLcMYhBieoOeeySTHH-qRbrqYgCMBoo954xkFhu2_AbFivUjVR8NET8KTl9A-gRcqpFiZQv51n7_HUKvDUs5NReypBQ9r28WSrcp9TFGWvVk6jdsV_5X9JXBSLE/s1600/288+c+1905.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyswGWni_NH9KzwZgCJLcMYhBieoOeeySTHH-qRbrqYgCMBoo954xkFhu2_AbFivUjVR8NET8KTl9A-gRcqpFiZQv51n7_HUKvDUs5NReypBQ9r28WSrcp9TFGWvVk6jdsV_5X9JXBSLE/s200/288+c+1905.jpg" width="138" /></a></div>Eventually Miller and his quartet were joined by storyteller Col. Tom Booker in the program “Two Old Confederates in Old Times Down South.” The show aimed at pure nostalgia, as seen in a 1910 brochure emphasizing that the Old South Quartette were “genuine” Negroes: “Their singing is not the kind that has been heard by the students from ‘colored universities,’ who dress in pigeon-tailed coats, patent leather shoes, white shirt fronds, and who are advertised to sing plantation melodies but do not. They do not try to let you see how nearly a Negro can act the white man while parading in a dark skin, but they dress, act, and sing like the real Southern darkey in his ‘workin’’ clothes. As to their voices, they are the sweet, though uncultivated, result of nature, producing a harmony unequaled by the professionals, and because it is natural, goes straight to the hearts of the people. To the old Southerner, it will be ‘Sounds from the old home of long ago’. . . . To hear them is to live again your boyhood days down on the farm.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQH3cTX_BiPh40fQwm05hpyuos7Ogmi4s240i8iSx-rB6HzCIZNc7z8N7CWQHEXd52FosQlZGDy7h1exchzy5f5VdMsAL9Qkl22TiypATRdq3qqKqbvn874F_5VUAuLCtlBoux8xX9Mt0/s1600/Bonnie+Blue+Flag.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQH3cTX_BiPh40fQwm05hpyuos7Ogmi4s240i8iSx-rB6HzCIZNc7z8N7CWQHEXd52FosQlZGDy7h1exchzy5f5VdMsAL9Qkl22TiypATRdq3qqKqbvn874F_5VUAuLCtlBoux8xX9Mt0/s320/Bonnie+Blue+Flag.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Polk Miller’s Old South Quartette produced four Edison Amberol cylinders and three Standard cylinders at their November 1909 session. For his first recording, Polk plucked and strummed banjo and sang lead on a rousing version of “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Bonnie-Blue-Flag/dp/B000SHAU0A?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Bonnie Blue Flag</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000SHAU0A" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” the Confederate rallying song. James L. Stamper’s quavering, powerful bass led the quartet’s well-rehearsed choruses. The January 1910 issue of the trade publication Edison Phonograph Monthly advertised the Amberol wax release, no. 389, as “one of the most popular war songs of the South, surpassing in popularity even the world-famous ‘Dixie’ in the days from’61 to ’65. It was sung by Polk Miller around army campfires and he sings it now at reunions of Confederate veterans.” In 1914's Edison Blue Amberol Records for February, “The Bonnie Blue Flag” was offered in celluloid as Blue Amberol 2175. In this publication, Miller was described as “James Whitcomb Riley, Frank Stanton, Uncle Remus and Thomas Nelson Page, all rolled into one.” The company further claimed that “the correct idea of plantation life in the ‘Old South’ can be better learned from an evening with him than from all the books that have been written on the subject.” <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2zRrPlwpz3V48UnQRcjtQVhRqU-r0QDDNRZNqubHydXI9UrHraTiwXOZ53cpS-oJyiiFJdfyveLJrvWNLL6VxfIdn2OEMmNby6mLd8L7yr6W6EDgNihREWGu4s1H3BQHKCTqba9KJAo/s1600/Amberol+Records.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="114" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2zRrPlwpz3V48UnQRcjtQVhRqU-r0QDDNRZNqubHydXI9UrHraTiwXOZ53cpS-oJyiiFJdfyveLJrvWNLL6VxfIdn2OEMmNby6mLd8L7yr6W6EDgNihREWGu4s1H3BQHKCTqba9KJAo/s320/Amberol+Records.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
</div><em><strong><span style="color: blue;">Click on the blue links to download Polk Miller's songs.</span></strong></em><br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Issued as Amberol 390 and later as Blue Amberol 2176, Miller’s “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Laughing-Song/dp/B001GEQP4O?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Laughing Song</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001GEQP4O" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” had no relation to African-American recording pioneer George W. Johnson’s similarly titled releases, other than its use of belly laughs during choruses. Performing on a guitar strung with steel strings, Polk conjured a piano sound by following deft bass notes with quick plucks of his treble strings. Equal parts carnival barker, windbag orator, and drunken fool, he seemed to revel in hooting and hollering above the quartet’s deadpan harmonies. “It takes a genuine Southern Negro to sing this song,” claimed the January 1910 Edison Phonograph Monthly, “which is typical of the happy darkey nature. The laughter of the quartet is natural and contagious.” With its rerelease as Blue Amberol 2176 in 1914, the company’s promotion added this information: “It ought to be natural, for the Old South Quartette was composed of genuine darkies of the ‘Sunny South,’ trained in music by Mr. Miller.” (Here’s a video of “Laughing Song” being played on an old-time cylinder machine: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SayKr9dpKs&feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SayKr9dpKs&feature=related</a>.) <br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMTTUGXH99Ws2VShBFkWx3N5Z-9VvA9gu6ekv4fVMSSMhOV__Suv2KhsCZWy7MEn9i9W_RO4cDFpVlbE2pPAAMovtuBEuOPM6LoKMCA7QBhIzIzrzRvvxm1Snx7wuirhKVPyOo2-IRIUo/s1600/Watermelon+Party+%26+What+a+Time.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="193" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMTTUGXH99Ws2VShBFkWx3N5Z-9VvA9gu6ekv4fVMSSMhOV__Suv2KhsCZWy7MEn9i9W_RO4cDFpVlbE2pPAAMovtuBEuOPM6LoKMCA7QBhIzIzrzRvvxm1Snx7wuirhKVPyOo2-IRIUo/s200/Watermelon+Party+%26+What+a+Time.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">By contrast, Polk’s propulsive delivery of the spiritual “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/What-A-Time/dp/B000SHAU4G?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">What a Time</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000SHAU4G" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” was reverential and unmistakably Southern. He began slowly, strumming guitar and singing unison choruses and call-and-responses with his quartet. Then, like a good backwoods preacher, he pushed the music’s tempo and sped up his exhortations. By the song’s end, the quartet’s mesmerizing parts were edging toward African chant. Upon its release in 1910 as Amberol 391, “What a Time” was described as “a favorite church hymn of the Virginia country negroes, with a characteristic plantation air, quaint and pleasing.” For its reissue as Blue Amberol 2177, an intrepid copy writer added: “It reminds us of the revival meetings of the ‘Shouting Methodists’ and is typical of that noisy but picturesque religion.” <br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8CfqDFaldovYDnkwQ4v9c6Ft4MWKNvcGQR73L0R8D2HYqCqZjQOi6Feby8SK98QD2p6eNUF98AfgRcrUPqFrgZZCmLHR1f1YwHHrUXPeJyqRdKZuixS_zaQgZRwstr3eqnO56OWk0X24/s1600/Cylinder+and+case.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="182" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8CfqDFaldovYDnkwQ4v9c6Ft4MWKNvcGQR73L0R8D2HYqCqZjQOi6Feby8SK98QD2p6eNUF98AfgRcrUPqFrgZZCmLHR1f1YwHHrUXPeJyqRdKZuixS_zaQgZRwstr3eqnO56OWk0X24/s200/Cylinder+and+case.jpg" width="200" /></a>The litany of stereotypical “Negro” foodstuffs assembled in “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Watermelon-Party/dp/B001GEMYZI?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Watermelon Party</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001GEMYZI" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” Amberol 392, was burnt-cork shuck-and-jive, with the quartet singing lines like “Oh you darkies, won’t you come along with me” beneath Polk’s promises of catfish, persimmons, possum, ham, ginger snaps, sarsaparilla, and other delicacies to “keep the niggers happy.” The January 1910 Edison Phonograph Monthly identified the selection as “an original ‘makeup’ by James L. Stamper, the basso of the quartet, and for which no music has ever been written.” With its reissue as Blue Amberol 2178 four years later, Edison continued to deny Stamper songwriting credit: “No music has ever been written for this selection. It certainly is characteristic of the Southern darkies; it ought to be, for Mr. Stamper is as typical a negro of the South as could be found. Nobody composed this music – like Topsy, it ‘just grew.’” In unabashedly racist rhetoric, Miller was praised in same paragraph for doing so much in his lifetime to “to bring to the ruling race an appreciation of the characteristics of the Negroes.” According to Edison, Mark Twain called the group’s performance of the song a “musical earthquake.” </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq02pyFcAEQHwq-GAR5ywBz7ATQyJved6E4uPfd0YSLNzBiS2nV9EOr2Ib5KNxCOW8aGxsc5D1yuzJN-ERDVmyB_hr9qJJkjLaFoXyWyDWWBAe1ZImU9vnElBVvxjXIrD8TiwIso2xGLo/s1600/285.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq02pyFcAEQHwq-GAR5ywBz7ATQyJved6E4uPfd0YSLNzBiS2nV9EOr2Ib5KNxCOW8aGxsc5D1yuzJN-ERDVmyB_hr9qJJkjLaFoXyWyDWWBAe1ZImU9vnElBVvxjXIrD8TiwIso2xGLo/s320/285.jpg" width="217" /></a></div><br />
<strong>Left: An unidentified member of the Old South Quartette, circa 1905. </strong><br />
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Polk Miller’s three spiritual selections were issued as two-minute Standard Edison cylinders. The January 1910 Edison Phonograph Monthly claimed that he sang “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rise-And-Shine/dp/B001GEKUAE?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Rise and Shine</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001GEKUAE" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” no. 10332, just as “the old darkies used to sing it on his father’s plantation before the war.” The publication singled out Standard release 10333, an a cappella “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Old-Time-Religion/dp/B000SHAU82?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The ‘Old Time’ Religion</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000SHAU82" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” as ‘a hymn of Negro origin, but owing to the fact that its words and melody stir the popular heart, the Southern whites have introduced it into their church services” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0imHrNtLnYDcEeB-tb42IZfLKneeq2HpWCCVBM3zANHNFOy8vrhyXPwHw82lWDshri3ryoQeWPFcqzOp4GdsSELD7hg6XW4r-3_OnBMe54FDYkUnfVgXUSnjxfu-YQM_lV9FL2VfJeLI/s1600/Standard+Records.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="cssfloat: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0imHrNtLnYDcEeB-tb42IZfLKneeq2HpWCCVBM3zANHNFOy8vrhyXPwHw82lWDshri3ryoQeWPFcqzOp4GdsSELD7hg6XW4r-3_OnBMe54FDYkUnfVgXUSnjxfu-YQM_lV9FL2VfJeLI/s320/Standard+Records.jpg" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The Quartette’s version of the old camp meeting song “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jerusalem-Mornin/dp/B000SH7DAU?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Jerusalem Mournin’</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000SH7DAU" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” no. 10334, contained the memorable lyrics: “The Good Book says that Cain killed Abel/ He knocked him in the head with the leg of a table.” Randall Graves, the quartet’s first tenor, alternated lines with the rest of the quartet. With its spirited amens, choruses of “I be ready,” and Stamper’s descending, tuba-like phrases, this song captures the Old South Quartette’s most spirited performance. </div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisZYyiIFfdxTn9G6XH_FKS4j8CZXzRGKtHlfZIqr5p2Z9rmvqvgPiCMlmLkQjXLDwGHWM4kZoZvZndl1TZSwdnIr0TCdv6_bSTGI0RsGrxTm6W3pyos-MgpysAacEgY7Ef1zfq3CpGISY/s1600/Polk+Miller+Records+a+Surprise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisZYyiIFfdxTn9G6XH_FKS4j8CZXzRGKtHlfZIqr5p2Z9rmvqvgPiCMlmLkQjXLDwGHWM4kZoZvZndl1TZSwdnIr0TCdv6_bSTGI0RsGrxTm6W3pyos-MgpysAacEgY7Ef1zfq3CpGISY/s320/Polk+Miller+Records+a+Surprise.jpg" /></a>Polk Miller and the Old South Quartette’s cylinders apparently sold well upon their initial release. The Edison Phonograph Monthly for March 1910 reported that “the seven records made by Polk Miller and his ‘Old South Quartette,’ which went on sale January 3rd, have proven a tremendous surprise. We expected that the demand for these records would be confined almost exclusively to the South, as the request that they be catalogued emanated from that section. In this we were mistaken, for while naturally the demand was greatest in the South, still the North took to them very kindly and some sections of the West simply cannot get enough of them. One enthusiastic Kansas dealer wrote in to the factory suggesting we make one thousand records of the same order. The popularity of the records proves that real “darkey” plantation melody still has a firm grip upon the affections of the American public, irrespective of locality.” </div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Despite the cylinders’ popularity, Polk Miller did not record again, and by 1912 he had parted ways with the Old South Quartette. Although he got along with the men – “they were always respectful and considerate in their demeanor towards me,” he told the Richmond Journal – touring with African American singers had become too difficult. Over the years, he estimated, more than twenty men had been members of his quartet. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Travel was especially difficult in the South, where Jim Crow laws forbade the members of the quartet from using restaurants, saloons, drinking fountains, lavatories, train cars, hotels, and hospitals designated for whites. This was an era of unprecedented racial violence, with over 2,000 African Americans lynched in the first years of the new century. In their travels, Miller and his quartet no doubt encountered the same angry glares and hand-lettered signs that had caused such dread in W.C. Handy and other traveling musicians: “Nigger don’t let the sun go down on you here.” </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">In the Richmond Journal article, Miller indicated that discrimination sometimes held sway in the North as well: “Some of the Northern towns which wanted me would write, ‘We are exceedingly anxious to have you, but our people don’t want the quartet, as our people do not like the Negro.’ There is a certain class of whites in the South, whose ancestors never owned Negroes. . . . This class of people made it very uncomfortable for my Negroes. My solicitude for the comfort of my men, and many times for the safety of them in going from the halls to their quarters, worried me very much and unfitted me for my work. . . this fact, with the inborn dislike of the Negro on the part of the hoodlum element, intensified my troubles when on the road and in some places I had to call on the police to guard my men. . . . I shall never again take a Negro quartet on the road with me.” He offered this explanation of the fate of his final lineup: “I farmed them out to a New York man for five weeks. He was so much taken with them that he has taken them for good and all, for which I am profoundly grateful.” </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6luUlgDSGx2e6jES6uvosAnTNP6oJ2N7lLYujSivBfOQkJq0O7itWu0iIx-g7QGkXNZBNFju-e5totJYcJshvDoN_qvJqBRJWCRhpo1WxxYxsDyb04-BV5BcvoJUu2iQMgPEURGf_S7U/s1600/Polk+Miller+opener.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6luUlgDSGx2e6jES6uvosAnTNP6oJ2N7lLYujSivBfOQkJq0O7itWu0iIx-g7QGkXNZBNFju-e5totJYcJshvDoN_qvJqBRJWCRhpo1WxxYxsDyb04-BV5BcvoJUu2iQMgPEURGf_S7U/s320/Polk+Miller+opener.jpg" /></a></div>Thanks to Ed Knights, a primary care physician in the Boston area, we know that in addition to performing with the Old South Quartette, Polk Miller also toured with an integrated medicine show. In his youth, Dr. Knights was taught several of Polk Miller’s routines by his grandfather, and he’s graciously volunteered to share this information with readers of this blog: “My grandfather, K. Brooke Anderson, worked off of the back of a patent medicine wagon owned by Polk Miller. He was a raconteur, played the bones, did soft shoe, and sang. He taught me a number of those songs and stories. My grandfather was born in 1892 and was a teenager at the time he worked for Mr. Miller. He used the money to help pay his way through the University of Richmond. He was part of a performing group of several blacks and whites whose job it was to draw a crowd. They taught him to play the bones, which he used not only with the music but also as a form of percussion while doing soft shoe, and as a way of illustrating things like knocking on a door during a story. The only dance I remember the name of was the Pigeon Wing, and the specific story I remember him using the bones for was a somewhat bawdy version of ‘The Ride of Paul Revere,’ in which Paul ends up abandoning the ride after a young woman answers the door.<br />
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“A series of Mr. Miller’s stories referred to ‘The Scaredest Man in Gootchland County.’ Themes included his failure to scare off a nocturnal watermelon thief, an episode where he thought the reins draped over his shoulder were a snake chasing him, and an incident involving his first use of a spyglass, in which he almost caused a panicked Confederate retreat when he thought ‘the damn Yankees are right on top of us!’ In one of the stories he pretended to be a black talking to ‘Mars Miller’ about the time an English Lord showed up at the resort hotel. This involved him doing a black impersonating a stuffy English Lord, a tricky combination of accents my grandfather made sure I learned before the age of 12!<br />
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“The songs they sang included a variety of verses of ‘Liza Jane,’ ‘Who’ll Be the Leader When the Bridegroom Comes,’ ‘Well, Mona, You Shall Be Free,’ ‘Raccoon and the Possum, Climbing up the Hill,’ ‘Hambone am Sweet, Bacon am Good,’ and ‘Tombigbee River.’ Again, he made sure I learned all the verses. Mr. Miller would sometimes buy the big black bass singer a chocolate shake (five or ten cents at that time) as a bribe. There would then follow an earth-shaking version of ‘Rock Me in the Cradle of the Deep.’<br />
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“My grandfather never said whether he wore blackface. The wagon was in and around Richmond, and they sold patent medicines between skits and after the show. My grandfather said Polk concentrated on animal remedies once the government began to crack down on the safety and efficacy of patent medicines for people. Polk used to appear in advertisements with a dog, and my grandfather told me that he actually had a dog named Sergeant, but it looked nothing like the dog used in their advertisements. It was just an ‘old mangy yellow mutt.’” Dr. Knights has inherited his grandfather’s love of performance, having been involved in community theater for thirty years. On occasion, he still recreates Miller’s routines at family gatherings. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWvfmyV7GJUO_aeN8MTktruyRl94i3cHd-9kUNGm936uU0ZBYAgRM6TgVEamQX19ZG385jo6geEY1vxHY2Er6CZqau-hYi-kPS12HRdEnIz61dO2FjRwhyqhV4y19zyf7LZpnW-EkjOMo/s1600/No+Hiding+Place+Down+Here.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWvfmyV7GJUO_aeN8MTktruyRl94i3cHd-9kUNGm936uU0ZBYAgRM6TgVEamQX19ZG385jo6geEY1vxHY2Er6CZqau-hYi-kPS12HRdEnIz61dO2FjRwhyqhV4y19zyf7LZpnW-EkjOMo/s200/No+Hiding+Place+Down+Here.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Polk Miller drew his last breath on October 20, 1913, and was buried in Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery. His arrangements lived on when a lineup called the Old South Quartette recorded in Long Island City during the fall of 1928. Among their seven QRS and Broadway sides were “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Watermelon-Party/dp/B000SHAUD2?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Watermelon Party</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000SHAUD2" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” and a close remake of “Laughing Song” titled “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Oysters-Wine-at-2-M/dp/B001GEJ2S0?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Oysters and Wine at 2 A.M.</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001GEJ2S0" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” A half-century after his death, Polk Miller’s animal remedies were still being sold, and in more recent years, his cylinder recordings have been anthologized on the CDs <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Polk-Miller-His-South-Quartette/dp/B001E7XFZU?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Polk Miller & His Old South Quartette</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001E7XFZU" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> and Document Records' excellent <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Earliest-Negro-Vocal-Quartets-1894-1928/dp/B000S57VNG?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">The Earliest Negro Vocal Quartets (1894-1928)</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000S57VNG" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />. <br />
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<em>Thanks to Tim Gracyk (<a href="http://www.gracyk.com/">http://www.gracyk.com/</a>) and Dr. Ed Knights, MD, for their contributions to this article, and to the Virginia Commonwealth University (<a href="http://dig.library.vcu.edu/index.php">http://dig.library.vcu.edu/index.php</a>) for making available historic photographs of Polk Miller and the Old South Quartette. Polk Miller’s scrapbooks are housed at Richmond’s Valentine Historical Museum. Doug Seroff’s outstanding article “Polk Miller and the Old South Quartette” in 78 Quarterly No. 3 is illustrated with many items from these scrapbooks, including several quoted here. To order the Polk Miller CD and see an excellent collection of century-old Polk Miller articles and ads, visit Ken Flaherty, Jr.'s website, <a href="http://polkmiller.com/">http://polkmiller.com/</a>. For more on George W. Johnson, see <a href="http://jasobrecht.blogspot.com/2010/05/george-w-johnson-forgotten-black.html">http://jasobrecht.blogspot.com/2010/05/george-w-johnson-forgotten-black.html</a>.</em><br />
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<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-17019429883456235112010-07-08T15:43:00.029-04:002010-09-11T11:26:19.088-04:00Donald Kinsey: Playing with Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Albert King . . .<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm3VR4ZkppNKGYdUFNdXnYWNB6WQjsBd7HGmdT20XSmk-CJaA-KgJI2agvU5kphrp8RQ3HLERVNkG-EKgpLkHb53N4BbzPSJB0ptNt-0RF2WjTkN1Iq1ptyo9wck_Z8JGThP4tsvIhM_4/s1600/opener.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm3VR4ZkppNKGYdUFNdXnYWNB6WQjsBd7HGmdT20XSmk-CJaA-KgJI2agvU5kphrp8RQ3HLERVNkG-EKgpLkHb53N4BbzPSJB0ptNt-0RF2WjTkN1Iq1ptyo9wck_Z8JGThP4tsvIhM_4/s320/opener.jpg" width="248" /></a></div>By age 23, Donald Kinsey had already earned his place in music history, having played in the bands of Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Albert King. His credits for 1976 alone include Peter Tosh’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Legalize-Peter-Tosh/dp/B00000JH21?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Legalize It </a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00000JH21" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Live-Dangerous-Boston-Peter-Tosh/dp/B00005NBYZ?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Live and Dangerous</a> albums, as well as Bob Marley’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rastaman-Vibration-Bob-Marley-Wailers/dp/B00005KBA0?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Rastaman Vibration</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00005KBA0" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Live-At-Roxy-Complete-Concert/dp/B000WLRX3O?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Live at the Roxy</a>. In short, Kinsey, master of the poignant guitar solo, has one of the most impressive blues and reggae resumes imaginable. <br />
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<div style="border: medium none;">Son of bluesman Lester “Big Daddy” Kinsey, Donald was born in 1953 and raised in Gary, Indiana. Playing with his father’s revue, he became known as “B.B. King, Jr.” At 18, he was hired to go on the road with blues great Albert King, who featured him on his classic Stax albums <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blues-at-Sunrise-Albert-King/dp/B000000ZJZ?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Blues at Sunrise</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000000ZJZ" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blues-Sunset-Live-Wattstax-Montreux/dp/B000000ZLW?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Blues at Sunset</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000000ZLW" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wanna-Get-Funky-Albert-King/dp/B000000ZJF?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I Wanna Get Funky</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000000ZJF" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Montreux-Festival/dp/B000UBQJTK?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Montreux Festival</a>. Donald’s next project, the short-lived power trio White Lightnin’, was signed to Island Records, which led to his celebrated stints with labelmates Peter Tosh and Bob Marley. Between 1976 and 1984, Kinsey went on several tours with Tosh, including opening for the Rolling Stones in 1978, and recorded six albums. He became a full-fledged member of Bob Marley and The Wailers in 1976 and, as described below, was in the room the night Bob Marley was shot by would-be assassins. Three years later, Donald joined the reggae legend’s final tour. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
Since the mid 1980s, Kinsey has devoted himself to playing alongside those who bear his family name. He’s recorded four albums with his father and five with the Kinsey Report, which features his brothers Ralph on drums and Kenneth on bass. The following interview took place in Gary, Indiana, on August 1, 1985. At the time, Big Daddy Kinsey’s first album, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Situation-Big-Daddy-Kinsey/dp/B000000DOJ?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bad Situation</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000000DOJ" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />, was about to be released. <br />
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<i>How does it feel to be back playing the blues?</i> <br />
<br />
I’ll tell you, it’s a good feeling. It really is. I was deep off into the reggae scene for a minute there. It was refreshing and almost regenerating coming back and playing the blues. Being here at home in the Midwest really, really, really did me wonders within myself. <br />
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<i>When did you come back to the Midwest?</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIfYGxaYwC7EJLMgr6M8l3TZdGc5OvH8apnGr0R1RJcH9M3ZhYOF8SjWRTM_YK6g0BUd6Qh_qAPInLBPIuO0pazj1KvTjStR-SD4Cdke30vbR1ur5hacWTR42CGoJHMo-0mzlG7elihdE/s1600/Mama+Africa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIfYGxaYwC7EJLMgr6M8l3TZdGc5OvH8apnGr0R1RJcH9M3ZhYOF8SjWRTM_YK6g0BUd6Qh_qAPInLBPIuO0pazj1KvTjStR-SD4Cdke30vbR1ur5hacWTR42CGoJHMo-0mzlG7elihdE/s200/Mama+Africa.jpg" width="200" /></a>It’s been two years. Man, we were on the road for almost eight months out of the year with Peter Tosh on that Mama Africa album. We toured all of Europe and we went to Africa. When we were in France, and even before, I was noticing there was something happening with the blues. It seemed like it was coming alive more. You would see more of it on TV. You would see artists. You would hear it on the radio. It was like it was coming alive again. My father, which put the guitar in my hands, he’s been really consistent with me. I called him, and I told him that the vibe just felt right, as far as my feelings go, for him to work on his first album. So I just told him that when I come back home, I wasn’t going to go back out on the road with nobody else or do anything, that I was gonna really spend some time working with him trying to get an album out there. So that’s what we did, and it just so happens that the timing and everything just was perfect, because Peter hasn’t done anything since. </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;"></div><div style="border: medium none;"><i>When was your last album with Peter Tosh?</i> </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;">The Mama Africa album – that album was maybe two, three years ago at the most. </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZmQ9t6IVX2t-JuqKcMG-HUxB4yIg3fzVuciuzbpbHguDHH1-HuweGTcz2xeDPZ9Ew0uKvTJEPKAlLqwhivNhhHtPsUrHsN6ORqzskrH2ZPPI2H3rS__Qy6foodS-6YmPzmy7Wif9v8mg/s1600/Big+Daddy+Kinsey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZmQ9t6IVX2t-JuqKcMG-HUxB4yIg3fzVuciuzbpbHguDHH1-HuweGTcz2xeDPZ9Ew0uKvTJEPKAlLqwhivNhhHtPsUrHsN6ORqzskrH2ZPPI2H3rS__Qy6foodS-6YmPzmy7Wif9v8mg/s320/Big+Daddy+Kinsey.jpg" width="252" /></a></div><i>You co-wrote all the songs on your dad’s album.</i> <br />
<br />
Yeah. Normally how we work as a family is I might come up with a basic structure, and might even have a melody, but I might not have one word. I make a tape of whatever it is I have for my dad or brother. Or vice versa – they’ll do the same thing. We’re very creative musically, and usually the music is almost the first thing. We might have a concept of where we want the song to go. It was dad’s album, so we were writing for it to really fit dad. He had to be a part of everything, you know. <br />
<br />
Like the “Nuclear War” tune, for an example. We picked a topic that was a now topic. It just so happened that his father was still living. His father was in World War I, my father was in World War II. I didn’t go into the service, but my brother Ralph, he was also in the service. So we just took it a little more recent than that and just said, “Well, my son is in Lebanon,” you know. It’s always a group effort. We always get together at my father’s house. Downstairs we have a little four-track system set up, so it’s like headquarters. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSv649Qb9jS748whSfLrH56LvrWckV7LGasftw1vy-VTHiUc6jEi2ANw9OJnA1dxEc9AhOvTWqSidiE6B8Z0W6NiNH4UqlKcAqx1PuCVX6MESeQBHTFtuyYc2L1qOh9aSynxadJq89USE/s1600/White+Lightnin%27.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSv649Qb9jS748whSfLrH56LvrWckV7LGasftw1vy-VTHiUc6jEi2ANw9OJnA1dxEc9AhOvTWqSidiE6B8Z0W6NiNH4UqlKcAqx1PuCVX6MESeQBHTFtuyYc2L1qOh9aSynxadJq89USE/s200/White+Lightnin%27.jpg" width="198" /></a></div><i>You’ve played with your brother Ralph in a few bands. </i><br />
<br />
Yeah. First of all, it was White Lightnin’. We did an album on Island Records. That came about after me playing with Albert King. When I was with Albert, I met this bass player who goes by the name of Buster Jones. During that time my brother Ralph was in the service. He came home, and then the three of us got together. We put together a three-piece. It was rock and roll – kind of like heavy metal. <br />
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<i>Lot of solos?</i><br />
<br />
Right, right. It was good. And it was bluesy. I can’t think of anything that I’ve done, man, that wasn’t bluesy. We came here to Gary, and we got together. We started writing the material and just shooting stuff around, trying to see what our sound would be as a three-piece. We were using big chords and heavy solos. There’s something about three-pieces – I used to really check out a lot of Cream – and I was interested. “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mississippi-Queen/dp/B00137V0BW?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mississippi Queen</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00137V0BW" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />” was one of my favorite tunes, by Mountain. And then also playing with Albert King taught me a lot. It helped me at that particular time, because I was going through that period where I was thinking speed was it, as far as soloing and really trying to get something across. But Albert and a lot of people helped me grab my heart, man, and slow down a little bit. Then I was more into delivering something that would be easier for people to catch on to, something that they can carry with them in their memory. <br />
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<b><i><span style="color: blue;">Click on the blue links to download songs and albums.</span></i></b> <br />
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<i>Did you learn that from Albert King?</i> <br />
<br />
Yeah, Albert. Every now and then he would give me solos, you know, and one day we was on the bus and he just came to me and said, “Hey, when you solo, slow yourself down.” He said, “Those people out there in the audience, by the time they are getting ready to leave from that concert, they not gonna remember anything you done. You’re not gonna leave them with a feeling. It’s better for you to utilize four or five notes in some type of melody that can really connect with the people than to play 150 notes within a solo.” And it kind of made sense to me. I just took that and tried to mold it into something. It done me good. I try to play more with the melody type of form, where the solo is almost a vocalist type of situation. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="border: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-aalVve9qwS80_KwojwgSIBSJID3Kd2raV1Q_BVEnATRhY8OkcUx56E2vBwq7XKNm_dKrVK5ZWwbLz1atXMklvgk_STYFe5bajLYAOVl9KEsndmBfHFWMbUiIq_kIaaK9FxBgBL1kxJU/s1600/Donald+soloing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-aalVve9qwS80_KwojwgSIBSJID3Kd2raV1Q_BVEnATRhY8OkcUx56E2vBwq7XKNm_dKrVK5ZWwbLz1atXMklvgk_STYFe5bajLYAOVl9KEsndmBfHFWMbUiIq_kIaaK9FxBgBL1kxJU/s200/Donald+soloing.jpg" width="163" /></a></div><i>What should a Donald Kinsey solo do?</i> <br />
<br />
It should enhance whatever the song is all about musically. It should be like an icing on the cake and not change the flavor of the cake. Yeah. <br />
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<div style="border: medium none;"><i>Did you play any solos on Albert King’s</i><i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wanna-Get-Funky-Albert-King/dp/B000000ZJF?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I Wanna Get Funky</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000000ZJF" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /></i><i> and </i><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Montreux-Festival/dp/B000UBQJTK?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Montreux Festival</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000UBQJTK" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /></i><i> albums?</i></div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;"><div style="border: medium none;">Yeah. Let’s see. On the I Wanna Get Funky album, I don’t know if you’d call it an actual solo, but I did the slide work on the “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/I-Wanna-Get-Funky/dp/B000UBMWOG?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I Wanna Get Funky</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000UBMWOG" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />” track, and the slide is kind of dominating that song. On “That’s What the Blues Is All About” I’m doing the wah-wah track on that, the rhythm. “Till My Back Ain’t Got No Bone” – there’s slide on that one too. </div></div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;"><i>Did you play the wah-wah on the Montreux album?</i> </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy3S8HyL0eqfnLpbJ7Uzi8sce5tiXU0SOdQOwXDw2JsCnogCTKMYhJPELkrdLpu4MZqk7SXsTT-2cMxjqfMsKKlY_-4reptSNyUS-BEGBiwph-NOWoqMvyTzL1jeK5ZDz8ja4TiSIOWt8/s1600/Montreux+festival.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy3S8HyL0eqfnLpbJ7Uzi8sce5tiXU0SOdQOwXDw2JsCnogCTKMYhJPELkrdLpu4MZqk7SXsTT-2cMxjqfMsKKlY_-4reptSNyUS-BEGBiwph-NOWoqMvyTzL1jeK5ZDz8ja4TiSIOWt8/s200/Montreux+festival.jpg" width="198" /></a>Yeah, I’m playing the wah-wah. On the last cut, when we’re going out, I’m actually the one that’s ending the album, after he goes off during “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Love-Woman/dp/B000UBQP1M?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">For the Love of a Woman</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000UBQP1M" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000UBQP1M" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />.” </div><br />
<i>Did Albert ever give you playing advice, like how to bend notes?</i> <br />
<br />
No. It was something that I already had, because they used to call me “B.B. King, Jr.,” when I was like 15 years old. <br />
<div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><i>I’d heard about that. How did you get the name?</i> <br />
<br />
<div style="border: medium none;">[Laughs.] My father was a B.B. King man – he liked B.B. King. Every time B.B. King came through town, my father would be there, if he was available. He has a lot of photographs of him and B.B. King around. And I used to listen. I was one of those types of guys that would put the record on. My father, if he wanted me to learn a song, man, he’d get me a record and say, “Here. You sit here for this record.” And I would learn it until I had it. My father used to be playing, like, “Johnny B. Goode” type of things, as far as rock and roll was concerned, on the guitar. And so I would pick up on stuff like that. But as far as really blues, I heard a lot of B.B. King when I was younger, and Muddy Waters and Lightnin’ Hopkins. </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><i>Is that your earliest memory of music?</i> <br />
<br />
<div style="border: medium none;">Yeah! Yeah, really. I really became serious with the guitar, spending time picking it up and trying to learn it, when I was about 13, 14. My brother and I was playing nightclubs behind my father when I was 15 years old, if not before then. I used to sing a lot of B.B. King tunes – “Sweet Sixteen,” “Three O’Clock in the Morning.” What happened was we went on a little tour of the South, and we stopped in Memphis. This lady, Mrs. Walker, was related to B.B. King, and she owned this club in Memphis. We played there – it wasn’t too far away from the Lorraine Hotel. Anyway, she suggested to my father of calling me “B.B. King, Jr.” because she felt that I sounded a lot like him and played a lot like him. This is when I was 15. So we came all the way back here, and that went along for a long time. They must have called me B.B. King, Jr., at least up until I was in high school and about 17 years old. And on some gigs over in Chicago, people got to know me by that name. </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><i>What was the name of the band back then?</i><br />
<br />
It was my father’s band. During that time, dad would always carry a revue. So for a while it was Big Daddy Kinsey and The Constellations, which was like the name of our band. Then it got off into Big Daddy Kinsey and His Fabulous Sons. <br />
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<i>Were you in the Constellations when you backed Eddie Silvers?</i> <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border: medium none;">Right, with Eddie Silvers. </div><br />
<i>Your first recording, right? </i><br />
<br />
<div style="border: medium none;">Yeah, right! [Laughs.] Okay, you know, man. Yeah, that’s right – Eddie Silvers, man, what a monstrous horn player. That was during the Constellations. We was invited to a show with Denise LaSalle, and B.B. King’s daughter, Shirley King, was also on the show. That’s where we met Eddie Silvers. I’m trying to think of the name of that club in Chicago – I think it was called Copacabana or something like that, but it’s torn down now. But anyway, we met Eddie Silvers, and him and dad got really tight. They kind of dwelled together, because dad, like I said, carried a revue. We had this young lady by the name of Jean Shy singing – she was a female vocalist with a beautiful voice. Me and the band would do a few numbers. Then I would step out front and I would do my thing, and then I would bring on Jean Shy. Then dad had this harmonica player with him – he went by the name of Baby Boy. His name was Fred Robinson. I would bring him on right before I’d bring dad on. He would do a few tunes. And then dad would come on. So it was a whole revue type of thing. </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;">Eddie hooked up with us, man, and Eddie had been around for a long time. Right at that time, me and my brothers, we wouldn’t have been more than 16. When Eddie got with us, he would come over to Gary and really take a lot of time with me and Ralph and with my father. He was the one that started coming up with the idea of us going into the studio. Eddie had wrote a lot of songs. But you know, the first record we did with him, we kind of co-wrote it together. It was called “Funky Cold Duck.” He made me come up with a name for my guitar, like B.B. King had Lucille and Albert had Lucy. So I came up with Lulu! [Laughs.] So then we did a tune about that, called “Lulu.” </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><i>What kind of guitar was it?</i> <br />
<br />
Oh, man, I had a ’57 Gibson Les Paul, a sunburst. I still have it, man. It’s a monster guitar. So we sit down and we made an arrangement on this. And the one that dad did was “Livin’ a Hard Life.” <br />
<br />
<i>Were these 45 rpm singles? </i><br />
<br />
Yes, these was just singles. <br />
<div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><i>Did you do other recordings before Albert King?</i> <br />
<br />
<div style="border: medium none;">Well, I had did some things at this studio here in Gary, called Bud Pressners’s, but it was just demo. It wasn’t really what I would call a record. So we had been in the studio here at Bud Pressner’s. That was really the first recording studio that I had actually been in. It was with a guy by the name of Ben Brown. This guy was one of the first people to actually have any business contact with the Jackson 5. Ben Brown was really on the music around scene here, trying to help local talent in some way. We went into the studio with him and Oscar Brown, Jr. We ended up doing a couple of tracks, but I can’t even remember the tunes that we was doin’. </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><i>Did you play with your dad up until you joined Albert King’s band?</i> <br />
<br />
<div style="border: medium none;"><div style="border: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoZi9HSwNSP-q5s-G96ED6EGSKYReZRSj5b1ufr_VD7jvg47eLu3zaAojmBOYNlG-DPSKzzPppSy0BD9IkrTeu4rfQ6MhNdmqMFy5Ph8vl9Xye2doahUEMX0bjPn9-O1D0Nk9A8f4JvP0/s1600/Blues+at+Sunrise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoZi9HSwNSP-q5s-G96ED6EGSKYReZRSj5b1ufr_VD7jvg47eLu3zaAojmBOYNlG-DPSKzzPppSy0BD9IkrTeu4rfQ6MhNdmqMFy5Ph8vl9Xye2doahUEMX0bjPn9-O1D0Nk9A8f4JvP0/s200/Blues+at+Sunrise.jpg" width="200" /></a>Yes. All the time I was playing with my father, we were doing more than just the blues. It was just the blues for a long time, but then we started breaking off and doing some more R&B – doing some Sonny Taylor type of stuff and doing some Sly Stone type of stuff. We started branching out into a more R&B type of thing, so we would do shows on our own as well. Then we were doing a show here in Gary at Clayton’s Show Club. We was opening for Albert King. After the performance that night, I had come home and was in the bed. When my father got home, he hollered upstairs and told me to come downstairs. So I come downstairs in my pajamas, and he come up to me and he says, “Hey, Albert came up to me tonight and said that he would like for you to go out on the road with him.” Said he needed a guitar player and he really liked me. That was really exciting. </div></div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><i>Were you about 18?</i><br />
<br />
Right, I was 18. And you know what? I’ll tell you something else too, man. I came out of school in January, because I had enough credits rather than wait until the commencement. I said, “Just go ahead and give me my diploma, and maybe I can go out here and work in one of these mills for a few months, help save up me some money and tighten up all my equipment.” I wanted to put away some money if I need to travel or go in the studio. So I was working straight days. It was perfect. I wasn’t trying to make no ton of money out there. I just wanted something easy and make a little money and be able to rehearse in the evenings and work on the weekends with my music. I was a janitor – that was cool. I wasn’t working that hard. I come to work one day, and they told me to go out on the tracks. They put me up on one of those blast furnaces. The next day, they told me to report for 3:00-11:00. I called home and told my father what they were doing. So dad said, “Well, quit, man.” So I came back in there and told them I quit. A week after that, Albert came through town, and then this happened. <br />
<br />
<i>How long were you with Albert King?</i> <br />
<br />
I was with Albert for a little over three years. <br />
<br />
<i>Did you leave his band to form White Lightnin’ with your brother?</i> <br />
<br />
Yeah. <br />
<br />
<div style="border: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6bqWC3Xt45UcF2E3ayssWYH4oI_2KpyPXdN981Qf-Uv7Hu0qWO2LjJpmpI9IV17ITdeC3UpMj4SlLXzqGj3-487ODuSZ8xvkNsnHZV_oCpwIXWfK-RIx73-x7BNGvIyVDC7gZ1d0D3HI/s1600/White+Lightnin+Wild+In+The+Streets.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6bqWC3Xt45UcF2E3ayssWYH4oI_2KpyPXdN981Qf-Uv7Hu0qWO2LjJpmpI9IV17ITdeC3UpMj4SlLXzqGj3-487ODuSZ8xvkNsnHZV_oCpwIXWfK-RIx73-x7BNGvIyVDC7gZ1d0D3HI/s200/White+Lightnin+Wild+In+The+Streets.jpg" width="200" /></a><i>Then you cut your debut album for Island Records.</i> </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;">Right. </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;"><i>Was that produced by Felix Pappalardi?</i> </div><br />
Yes. That was a nice experience. When we was in New York, we hooked up with Gary Curford. He was involved with Felix Pappalardi [bassist for Mountain and producer for Cream]. Felix, at the time, hadn’t been doing too much, and Gary thought that it would be a very good project for Felix, with us being a trio and having the type of energy that we was dealing with at that time. Felix – I couldn’t have thought of anybody better, really. It was an honor for us to be working with him. We became very close, and we spent a lot of time together before going in the studio. The name of the album was White Lightnin’. <br />
<br />
<i>Did White Lightnin’ tour?</i> <br />
<br />
Yeah. Really just here in the United States. We was on the road with Black Oak Arkansas, Uriah Heep, Jethro Tull. <br />
<br />
<i>Is this when you hooked up with Bob Marley and The Wailers?</i> <br />
<div style="border: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4YJPWKi6COK71ftffBMgR8sY4xzp0K0qJTSsj1INb43vIThLwQz7p2CWorGyFvuSIplNQfx0B7HI6UetAsTWjbeeJx6dYxLC_MDpVbvCfVoplT4FO1-o2s36BEQ5p9vWD_9b9sjIhxXU/s1600/Bob+Marley+blue+postcard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4YJPWKi6COK71ftffBMgR8sY4xzp0K0qJTSsj1INb43vIThLwQz7p2CWorGyFvuSIplNQfx0B7HI6UetAsTWjbeeJx6dYxLC_MDpVbvCfVoplT4FO1-o2s36BEQ5p9vWD_9b9sjIhxXU/s320/Bob+Marley+blue+postcard.jpg" /></a></div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
Yeah. White Lightnin’ had just finished doing a concert in Central Park in New York, and Bob Marley had also just finished performing in New York at the Beacon Theater. Both groups was on Island Records, right? And they had something like a press party, and we was invited to the press party, and that’s how I actually first met Bob. </div><br />
<i>Were you a reggae fan at that time?</i> <br />
<br />
Not at all! [Laughs.] Well, I’ll tell you what happened. When I first walked up inside of Island Records there in New York, I seen all these posters with Bob Marley. Naturally, I asked my manager, “Who is this guy Bob Marley?” My manager knew Bob Marley – they’d had some type of dealings before – and I got to pick up quite a few cassettes of his music. For some reason or another, I understood the music from the very beginning. I understood the vibration of the music. So when I met Bob, I was familiar with some of his songs; I had listened to some of them. But this was just like a week or two before I met him. Anyway, I guess Bob had heard the White Lightnin’ album or had heard something about me being a guitar player with a very heavy blues background. And Bob liked the blues. <br />
<br />
<div style="border: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbIML0Ekih5Nz2Tys5Eb9KIYSZWwWsRzyzQmCrCDwR_aVh70XKOwnteBooE4YGSqFwUz4rLvTqTh-uTqb3OYojbGgtly51i0efe_cmEcVqezi8TxkxS7xw_VKp4ZIwha70GNK1nmjShCk/s1600/Peter+Tosh+-+Legalize+It.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbIML0Ekih5Nz2Tys5Eb9KIYSZWwWsRzyzQmCrCDwR_aVh70XKOwnteBooE4YGSqFwUz4rLvTqTh-uTqb3OYojbGgtly51i0efe_cmEcVqezi8TxkxS7xw_VKp4ZIwha70GNK1nmjShCk/s200/Peter+Tosh+-+Legalize+It.jpg" width="200" /></a>About a week later, Peter Tosh [co-founder of The Wailers] was also in New York, working on his first solo album. A friend of mine by the name of Lee Jaffee was representing Peter. So he invited me over to his apartment to introduce me to Peter. I went over and sit down. Peter was cooking when I came in – Peter was really into cooking, you know. So I met him and sit down and listened to some of the tracks he had been doing, and man, he instantly just invited me down to the studio. They was going in the studio around 6:00 or 7:00 that night, and so he asked me to come in. And that was the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Legalize-Peter-Tosh/dp/B00000JH21?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Legalize It</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00000JH21" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> album. </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;"><i>So you recorded with Peter Tosh before Bob Marley.</i> </div><br />
Yeah, I did the Legalize It album first. To tell you the truth, at that particular time, we was having little disagreements within White Lightnin’, with the management and what not. Me and my brother wanted to go one way, the bass player wanted to go another way. So that was kind of fizzling out. After Legalize It was finished, Peter asked me was I available to tour with him. That was really quote of a shocker with me, because I’d played on quite a few of the tracks, but I hadn’t really gotten my fingers wet with reggae yet. <br />
<br />
<i>Were you mostly playing blues?</i> <br />
<br />
Yeah, yeah. <br />
<br />
<i>Did you have to adapt your style much?</i> <br />
<br />
Well, I had to adapt it more or less more rhythm-wise. Reggae, to me, also has a touch of country and western flavor, especially when you’re approaching it from a lead guitar kind of standpoint. And then Peter Tosh, too, a lot of the songs he writes and a lot of the style really has a touch of country and western. I’m the type of guy if I walk in on a track – you know, somebody calls me in and they done already laid these tracks down – well, then, I just try to feel the music and what the song is all about. The mood of the song. And I try to enhance that. You take, for instance, the song on the Legalize It album “You Never Miss Your Water Until Your Well Runs Dry.” I see a lot of country and western kind of flavor in that, musically. So I wasn’t playing a bunch of heavy kind of sounds – it was more mellow, sweet kind of textures. You know that I mean? <br />
<br />
<i>The opposite of what you were doing with White Lightnin’.</i><br />
<br />
Right. <br />
<br />
<i>So you had to compress your style. </i><br />
<br />
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because it was definitely the opposite of White Lightnin’. What I found was it was really good for me to do something that was such a drastic change. It called me to have to discipline myself. The one good thing about it, though – they would talk to me, especially when it came to the rhythm. In reggae, they do a lot of doubling on the bass line and the plucking kind of stuff. They had to really get me into that. There are so many different methods that they use for doing that. And the skank – oh, man! The skank is like the chicka, chicka sound. <br />
<br />
<i>The scratchy rhythm. </i><br />
<br />
Right, the scratchy rhythm. Peter Tosh is like the godfather of that. I mean, you give that guy a wah-wah and put a pick in his hand, and that just is gone! He’s the ultimate. He can do some rhythms with the scratchin’. But I picked up on this stuff really, really quick. The rhythm was in me already. The rhythm was there. It didn’t take me long to grab hold to it. Plus, I just put myself all the way into what they was doin’. I went down to Jamaica. <br />
<br />
<i>This is with Peter Tosh or Bob Marley? </i><br />
<br />
When I did the Legalize It album, I met them in Miami. I never did go down to Jamaica until I hooked up with Bob. <br />
<br />
<i>Did you tour with Tosh before playing on Rastaman Vibration?</i> <br />
<br />
Yes. Just the Legalize It tour. That must have been, say, like about a year. That was about ’75, because we did the Rastaman Vibration album in ’76. <br />
<br />
<i>How did you switch from Peter Tosh to Bob Marley?</i><br />
<br />
Man, I came home from our tour with Peter. I’d been out just riding around, and I came home and my father said, “You got a telephone call from a Don Taylor.” I said, “Don Taylor? That’s Bob Marley’s manager.” He said, “Well, he left a number here for you to call.” So I called him, and Bob answered the phone. When I tell him who I am, he said, “Don-al Kinsey! What’s happening, mon?” [Laughs.] I said, “Hey, you tell me what’s happening.” He said, “Yeah, mon, I want you to come down and play some gits with me.” And so I said, “Well, yes!” They was in Florida, recording at Criteria. The timing was just perfect. I said, “No problem. Just send me a ticket and I’ll be there.” It really just happened just like that. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMEcQfAMc6_-tIXiZHFqD_poL5iRAlDvCQ4pChQfm-cpKE6g-abHKUnYZy8AP7Q62ZPKeYYEPmF48H2PNaQpf2YsDcfFoI1VxtdSflVa8MQ_9tczD7vp3lEJkbIe962NP9luZ2xeKZpic/s1600/Rastman+Vibration.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMEcQfAMc6_-tIXiZHFqD_poL5iRAlDvCQ4pChQfm-cpKE6g-abHKUnYZy8AP7Q62ZPKeYYEPmF48H2PNaQpf2YsDcfFoI1VxtdSflVa8MQ_9tczD7vp3lEJkbIe962NP9luZ2xeKZpic/s200/Rastman+Vibration.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><i>So Bob had already recorded Rastaman Vibration, and then you overdubbed your parts?</i> <br />
<br />
Pretty much. <br />
<br />
<i>Did you do some of the wah-wah parts?</i><br />
<br />
Yeah. <br />
<br />
<i>You’re doing solos on “</i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Roots-Rock-Reggae/dp/B000V6LVRE?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Roots, Rock, Reggae</i></a><i><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000V6LVRE" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />” and “</i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Want-More/dp/B000V6LVRO?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Want More</i></a><i><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000V6LVRO" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />.”</i> <br />
<br />
Yeah, and I did the one [sings “Woman hang your head and cry”]. <br />
<br />
“<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Johnny-Was/dp/B000V6NQ0O?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Johnny Was</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000V6NQ0O" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />”? <br />
<br />
Yeah. I did most of the soloing on that whole album. [Here’s a 1976 in-studio video of Bob Marley and the Wailers, including Kinsey, playing “Roots, Rock, Reggae”: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/donaldkinsey#p/a/f/0/Ug5P53YPyPI">www.youtube.com/user/donaldkinsey#p/a/f/0/Ug5P53YPyPI</a> ]<br />
<br />
<i>You joined the Wailers at that time.</i> <br />
<br />
Mm-hmm. <br />
<br />
<i>And went down to Kingston?</i> <br />
<br />
Right. <br />
<br />
<i>Was there any pressure on you to become a Rastafari?</i> <br />
<br />
[Laughs.] <br />
<br />
<i>Did that lifestyle come naturally to you?</i> <br />
<br />
Well, my father’s father is a minister. Ever since I’ve known him, he was a minister. And I used to go to his church every Sunday. I also played guitar in the church. I used to play behind a lot of gospel groups and stuff like that. <br />
<br />
<i>Was that a Holiness church?</i> <br />
<br />
Yes, it was. Church of God in Christ. So I went through this period of time that I would go to church and my grandmother would get up and testify to all the saints. She would say, “I would like for the saints to pray for my grandkids, that they won’t take this talent that’s been given to them and use it in a negative way.” Or, as she would say, “use it for the devil.” That used to bother me, man. I didn’t know what she was talkin’ about. All I knew is that I liked music. I would play all kinds of music. I didn’t really know what she was saying. But one thing that kind of woke me up is that I know that my grandmother loved me, and I knew there was some meaning to what she was saying. <br />
<br />
<i>Maybe she had a premonition.</i> <br />
<br />
I don’t know, man. She probably did, because my grandmother is that type of woman. As a matter of fact, when I was there in Jamaica when the shooting [of Bob Marley] went down, my grandmother, she felt that because she had called my people. She’d been trying to get in touch with me while all this was going down. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEXJ_FC2KctRVfXNHnFc0TGRcrlTsgY467uD8GSHfDlch720wgfPP2p9DabqwlbnctVsw_NlZIw_8oELvyg6H3oTGjBI2uP3SA6O9rPZMy-fT4mW7cF0VhqUc-r-ZGqCPIKxsLFpf42Qs/s1600/BobMarley+jean+shirt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEXJ_FC2KctRVfXNHnFc0TGRcrlTsgY467uD8GSHfDlch720wgfPP2p9DabqwlbnctVsw_NlZIw_8oELvyg6H3oTGjBI2uP3SA6O9rPZMy-fT4mW7cF0VhqUc-r-ZGqCPIKxsLFpf42Qs/s200/BobMarley+jean+shirt.jpg" width="161" /></a><br />
But anyway, I kind of think that when I got hooked up with Bob and them, I began to start seeing another outlet with music other than, say, the traditional type of gospel that I was accustomed to. I saw how these guys was using music and the messages that they was puttin’ in their music. A lot of these songs that I was hearing – especially with Bob and Peter – was like gospel music. <br />
<br />
<i>Did you have any issues with their religious beliefs?</i> <br />
<br />
Well, as time went on, I started having some problems with it. I didn’t understand the whole concept with Selassie. Other than that, there really wasn’t too much problem. I understood the dreadlocks. <br />
<br />
<i>The ganja.</i> <br />
<br />
<div style="border: medium none;">Well, the ganja being related to the religion – I didn’t understand that, really. I just took it as something they liked to do. And I used to smoke. When I got with them, I found myself smoking more ganja than usual. But then one day we was on the bus, and I was twisting up a spliff. And Bob told me, “Hey, man, you smoke too much.” That stopped me! I said, “For Bob to tell me I smoke too much, and I know I don’t smoke nothin’ near the people he’s with.” But he was noticing me. Bob kept an eye on me. Bob and I really got close. And when he told me I was smoking too much, he said, “Hey, man, instead of smoking so much, you should pick up the book and read the Bible.” That impressed me with him. </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><i>What kind of a man was Bob Marley? </i><br />
<br />
<div style="border: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9rdeytivgNJibQ1q-i-Vvld7mcsAk4DwveplNJ5PKp5tDcxlSPdTRnm88g0iRQSvNs7GC-EYUCUBN2a_eSfgvEl4gl197bzzCpZjVU2S4pJVOIbXUMuaWqnLxWplJfptPGT_o2YBOtfo/s1600/Bob+Marley+B%26W+postcard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9rdeytivgNJibQ1q-i-Vvld7mcsAk4DwveplNJ5PKp5tDcxlSPdTRnm88g0iRQSvNs7GC-EYUCUBN2a_eSfgvEl4gl197bzzCpZjVU2S4pJVOIbXUMuaWqnLxWplJfptPGT_o2YBOtfo/s320/Bob+Marley+B%26W+postcard.jpg" width="244" /></a>Bob was a fun guy – he liked to have fun. He was a businessman. He respected his music – he took it very seriously. He was kind of a private man. But a person in his position and dealing with what he was dealing with, he had to be private to some extent, you know, because he had so many people trying to get in on him. Even with me, it took some time before him and I could be kind of humorous with each other. There was quite some time before I’d see him crack a joke or something like that. He was kind of serious pretty much most of the time, other than when he was playing kickball. He loved playing soccer. But with music, when we picked up our instruments in rehearsal, he was always serious about that. </div><br />
<i>Did he tell you what he wanted you to play?</i> <br />
<br />
He never did say anything to me about what he wanted. That’s one think I liked about them. I think that they felt that I was sincere about the music, that I liked the music, that I wouldn’t just come out there and go inside the studio and just put anything down. I would go in and look up and tell them to run the track down, and I’d tune up. As I’m doing this, I’d be playing a few riffs, just filling the track out. Most of the time, it would end up I would do something, and they would say, “Yeah, man!” <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP9LDAUkPhegF2cIdEm-Zs71P4u25sDb0saVcyPMnk8zByWG5Tv7tu3osRH3_zo5FzZq-2qzzwXMyaFLLofhQwu9J-DzGHXhpXz2Izt952BbbDGTIa9uF38v1S6HmhD17fxIGIxcGS0tY/s1600/bob+marley+and+donald+kinsey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP9LDAUkPhegF2cIdEm-Zs71P4u25sDb0saVcyPMnk8zByWG5Tv7tu3osRH3_zo5FzZq-2qzzwXMyaFLLofhQwu9J-DzGHXhpXz2Izt952BbbDGTIa9uF38v1S6HmhD17fxIGIxcGS0tY/s320/bob+marley+and+donald+kinsey.jpg" /></a></div><i>How did you affect their music?</i> <br />
<br />
There was one time I read an article, and the guy tried to say that I was adding American blues to reggae, or adding “slick licks” to reggae. But I’ll tell you the truth: After I had been around the music for a while, I started hearing certain things about, say, for instance, The Police or Men at Work and groups like that that take the basic foundation of reggae and turn it into pop. They go out here and take elements of different music and they become #1 records, big records for them. And you have these [Jamaican] guys that are like the godfather of this music, and they don’t know what a gold record or a platinum record looks like. <br />
<br />
You see, Bob would expand more. I started seeing that the music needed to go somewhere. I started becoming interested in wanting to be part of the music from a track standpoint of view – from the very first creative impulse. Like on this last album, the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mama-Africa-Peter-Tosh/dp/B000062URI?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mama Africa </a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000062URI" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> album, I requested from Peter that I be able to be there from the moment of laying the tracks, because I feel that’s where it’s all that, man. If it’s not there in the tracks, it’s not really there. And so when we was doing that album, the producer Chris Kenzie came up to me – we were staying at the same house – and he asked me what if Peter did a version of “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Johnny-B-Goode/dp/B001BXV22K?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Johnny B. Goode</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001BXV22K" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />.” When he first said it, I had to just think for a minute. I said, “Well, a lot of rock and roll groups have done a version of ‘Johnny B. Goode,’ and they did it just like Chuck Berry did it. If Peter did it, there wouldn’t be nothing there that would remind you of the original ‘Johnny B. Goode,’ other than maybe some hot guitar licks.”<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1LMQBf9Z5yzA43vjnGSI4ywoinp0Ir-lZcYN8fELAFaij1GMvUEu-tOXvg1qNA12a8ZW0IJrIqVOaV7VviQc_HQ0IsXC5w3EjispsTVh9cBgSntoGOdHACYkjAJjNqE6OQ7fUqjqg4cc/s1600/Peter+Tosh+with+a+joint.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1LMQBf9Z5yzA43vjnGSI4ywoinp0Ir-lZcYN8fELAFaij1GMvUEu-tOXvg1qNA12a8ZW0IJrIqVOaV7VviQc_HQ0IsXC5w3EjispsTVh9cBgSntoGOdHACYkjAJjNqE6OQ7fUqjqg4cc/s320/Peter+Tosh+with+a+joint.jpg" /></a></div>So I sit down and try to work out an arrangement. And it turned out we came up with a pretty nice little arrangement and presented this to Peter. For a long time, Peter didn’t want to do the song. For whatever reasons, he wasn’t into doing somebody else’s song. I don’t know what it was. There would be a lot of other Rastamans around that would just tell him that he don’t need to do somebody else’s song. “You don’t need to do some rock and roll tune, man.” But I felt that the tune really had something in common with Peter. Peter’s from out in the country – you know what I mean? We changed a few of the lyrics around, like saying “deep down in Jamaica close to Mandeville, back up in the woods on top of the hill,” for it to really be Peter. Instead of being the leader of a rock and roll band, he’d have a reggae band. But, man, it was difficult. He did not want to do this song. <br />
<br />
And this is an example of some of the things that I contributed, in a sense, to the music. Some people felt it as being “diluting the purity of reggae.” But I don’t see it that way. And “Johnny B. Goode” was a pretty nice record for Peter Tosh. After he finally laid the vocal track, it ended up being one of his favorite tracks. [Here’s an 1983 HQ concert video of Tosh, Kinsey, and band playing “Johnny B. Goode”: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn-AyKP0VGU&feature=related">www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn-AyKP0VGU&feature=related</a> ] <br />
<br />
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<br />
<i>What kind of a setup did you use for Bob Marley?</i> <br />
<div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;">Okay. The Marley sound was kind of a different thing from Peter. With Bob, I always played through two Fender Twin Reverbs, and I would split them. I had an A/B switch. For different type of rhythm, I would have quite a bit of bottom on it. Like, say for instance, a song like “Crazy Baldhead,” that choonk, choonk, choonk. That particular song there has a lot of bottom end on the rhythm guitar. As far as guitar, I’ve always played my Gibson Les Paul. </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;"><i>I thought you had an SG with Bob.</i> </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;">Let me tell you something – people mixes that up! The guitar looks like an SG, but the guitar is actually a ’57 Les Paul. </div><br />
<i>So you used that same guitar with Albert, Bob, and Peter?</i> <br />
<br />
Right. I think it’s a Les Paul Custom.<br />
<br />
<div style="border: medium none;"><i>What effects devices did you have between the guitar and the pair of Twins? </i></div><br />
<div style="border: medium none;">Basically, I was using a Roland analog delay and a Vox wah-wah. Let me see. During my time with Marley, I wasn’t using an overdrive effects or anything of that nature. It was strictly the power from the amp. </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;"><i>Did you play on any records with Bob Marley besides Rastaman Vibration?</i> </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;"><div style="border: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzakD0RzxdOhn_a7XuiDkkZ9NwW_THoEaraT3tPXWGjyCk7e86Wnm6iXTC7EyNeTWyKuwNXJUcYQDG9EO-lgrwv_S-n2OC0lQKcDq8fe57J3bkcEQZn8FaWZzARG5gTqObemEgxQtWRus/s1600/Babylon+By+Bus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzakD0RzxdOhn_a7XuiDkkZ9NwW_THoEaraT3tPXWGjyCk7e86Wnm6iXTC7EyNeTWyKuwNXJUcYQDG9EO-lgrwv_S-n2OC0lQKcDq8fe57J3bkcEQZn8FaWZzARG5gTqObemEgxQtWRus/s200/Babylon+By+Bus.jpg" width="200" /></a>Well, they took a couple of tracks from the ’76 tour that we did and they put them on Babylon by Bus. It was a couple of tunes from the Rastaman Vibration album. I think it was “War” and “Rat Race.” But they mention that it was taken from the tour. [Blogger’s note: In 2003, Island Records released the two-CD set Live at the Roxy, featuring Bob Marley and The Wailers’ complete May 26, 1976, concert in Hollywood. Donald Kinsey plays lead guitar.] </div></div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;"><div style="border: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqP8ZfSDAyWMC38pH2TGpeZ-xgvrVb5xWkHaWuYULQUk5yzEyemCwxkHrjkuUzJd8ecaYGIMXMuh7XNEcdQcoP13I3YdeUp_qZwF-zLB-wMMj0kAuo35RL69B-nyzqxleqL9qYd-HFU-o/s1600/Live+at+the+Roxy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqP8ZfSDAyWMC38pH2TGpeZ-xgvrVb5xWkHaWuYULQUk5yzEyemCwxkHrjkuUzJd8ecaYGIMXMuh7XNEcdQcoP13I3YdeUp_qZwF-zLB-wMMj0kAuo35RL69B-nyzqxleqL9qYd-HFU-o/s200/Live+at+the+Roxy.jpg" width="198" /></a><i>Is it true you were in the room when assassins tried to kill Bob Marley?</i> </div></div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;">Yes. That was the ultimate freakiness of my life. We was rehearsing. We was gonna be doing a concert, the Smile Jamaica. I don’t know, man. For about a week, as time was coming closer and closer for this thing, members of the band was getting shaky. They was feeling things that I didn’t know anything about, to the point to where the I-Threes – Marcia, she was afraid to the point where she just said that she was not gonna do it. So now when I started hearing stuff like this, I’m saying to myself, “Now, what’s going on here? Everybody’s getting upset, and everybody’s thinking that this is gonna be dangerous.” You know? And I asked Bob. Bob told me, “No problem, mon. Everything’s cool.” </div><br />
<div style="border: medium none;"><div style="border: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtkPVAWnlCAevwiRuvuHAQZH7tf5EGSMLFor7GfuXP0PVN7D7pSqylKgqtMEWHair2tTx93q8PzT0TSdDRRNC1ZSeTYwl9vrPYung1gqCWYOoxpwCfAGmads5bHhSv9k_jADAuzVgnHQM/s1600/Bob+Marley+Shot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtkPVAWnlCAevwiRuvuHAQZH7tf5EGSMLFor7GfuXP0PVN7D7pSqylKgqtMEWHair2tTx93q8PzT0TSdDRRNC1ZSeTYwl9vrPYung1gqCWYOoxpwCfAGmads5bHhSv9k_jADAuzVgnHQM/s320/Bob+Marley+Shot.jpg" width="233" /></a>So two days before the show, we’re having a rehearsal at night. It must have been around 8:00, 9:00, and we had just taken a break. So I was going into the kitchen to get something to drink. It just so happened that me, Bob, and his manager was in the kitchen. All of a sudden, man, we just started hearing pop, pop, pop, pop. People started opening up gunfire. A guy came around to the back door, which was right there at the kitchen, and pulled his gun inside the door and just started shooting. We was in the corner – we couldn’t go nowhere. Our backs was pressed up against the wall. Seemed like I could just see bullets come and pass right by me. Seem like I could actually see the bullets, like it was in slow motion. It was weird, man. </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div></div><div style="border: medium none;"></div>But anyway, when this guy pulled the gun back, I felt that I could walk, so I immediately ran and jumped behind a big Anvil case that we had in one of the corners. There was already about three or four people back there. And then I seen Don Taylor walking out, and he caught most of those bullets. Oh, he was in bad shape, man. He finally collapsed after losing so much blood. And then after all of that went down, I was left there – me and Neville Garrick, the artist – and everybody else went underground. The police came around. I didn’t know what was going on. The police had my passport – I couldn’t leave. So anyway, I didn’t want to stay at my hotel because I figured these people might know where I’m staying at and they might want to come and – you know. They might be looking for me. I didn’t know what was happening. I knew these sisters that was airline stewardesses, and I told them what happened. So they let me stay at their place. The following day I tried to get in touch with somebody to find out what was going on, but I could not get in touch with nobody. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWIoCzHdnKppO2xDEsa0XTebdGw90kNm9SDEvN5DaNG7ilcUdiKHNnUwaUCqVYQB2Wx0Aauehwq8kVlOBvyKIwMdh4HO1hyphenhypheniC-EjfLPkXHFLf3kXFV1aOdnowe1rZb-amaSkD06kkac7Q/s1600/Smile+Jamaica.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWIoCzHdnKppO2xDEsa0XTebdGw90kNm9SDEvN5DaNG7ilcUdiKHNnUwaUCqVYQB2Wx0Aauehwq8kVlOBvyKIwMdh4HO1hyphenhypheniC-EjfLPkXHFLf3kXFV1aOdnowe1rZb-amaSkD06kkac7Q/s200/Smile+Jamaica.jpg" width="181" /></a></div><i>Did you play at the Smile Jamaica concert? </i><br />
<br />
Yes. What happened was the police, some kind of way, figured out where I was at. They had walkie-talkies and came over to the house and said that Bob wanted to talk with me. I said, “Where is he at?” He was up in Strawberry Hills – he was at this house up in the hills. So they took me down to the Sheraton Hotel and I couldn’t believe that. When I got there, there was so many TV camera crews and stuff there, so much wires you could barely make it through the front door. It was like a whole big scene down there. So I went upstairs and I talked to Bob by walkie-talkie. Bob asked me, “Donald, you wanna do the show?” Now, where I was at on the balcony, I could look over there at the park where all the people was. For some reason or another, I just had faith that the Almighty was with us, because if it was meant for something to happen to us, it would have happened then. So I wasn’t afraid. I just put my faith in the Almighty to protect me, and I told Bob. I said, “Yeah, I’ll be there. I’ll go.” We couldn’t find all of the band members – the bass player wasn’t there. <br />
<br />
<i>Didn’t Cat Coore from Third World fill in? </i><br />
<br />
Yeah, I think Cat played bass. So man, we did it! [Several videos from the Smile Jamaica concert, December 5, 1976, are available on youtube. This one for “So Jah Seh” features a lot of Donald’s bluesy guitar: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3b7DUKQKTY&feature=related">www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3b7DUKQKTY&feature=related</a>] <br />
<br />
<i>Was that your last appearance with Bob?</i><br />
<br />
At that time. I got back with him in ’79. What happened was, after the Smile Jamaica show, everybody just went over to the Bahamas. I was really shaken up. I just came up to Bob and I told him that I needed a break. He understood. So that was pretty much how I split. We were still tight, but I was confused because nobody would tell me nothing.<br />
<br />
<i>Then you went back to working with Peter Tosh?</i> <br />
<br />
<div style="border: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb6Q41ffqJc2ZDJQuRf88b5L1H4dJdiwruPJHoB97uduwusREmGswrTjQ2fvDxgjOGFNNNre2OUNqHu1Hel7k5_cDmL79LODC6XiWqUJOz21WvY7bMg1tOkT0BQIk_j1byhWZSnu6nhMA/s1600/Bush+Doctor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb6Q41ffqJc2ZDJQuRf88b5L1H4dJdiwruPJHoB97uduwusREmGswrTjQ2fvDxgjOGFNNNre2OUNqHu1Hel7k5_cDmL79LODC6XiWqUJOz21WvY7bMg1tOkT0BQIk_j1byhWZSnu6nhMA/s200/Bush+Doctor.jpg" width="200" /></a>That’s when I hooked back up with Tosh, yeah. But between that I came back home and did a couple of things with the Staple Singers – we toured. I also started putting together this group the Chosen Ones – that was with my brother Ralph and Joe Thomas on bass guitar, Ron Prince on guitar, Michael Robinson on guitar. I was into guitar! [Laughs.] And eventually we had John Harris on keyboards. We recorded an EP [Don Kinsey & The Chosen Ones], but that was after I did Peter Tosh’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bush-Doctor-Peter-Tosh/dp/B0000665EZ?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Bush Doctor</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0000665EZ" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> album. </div><br />
I got a call from Herbie Miller, Peter Tosh’s manager. I met them up in Woodstock because they was rehearsing for the Rolling Stones tour there. The Stones really was into Peter, man. Peter was finishing his Bush Doctor album there at Bearsville Studio, and the Stones was rehearsing for the tour there. So we went up there and Robbie Shakespeare, along with Peter, was producing. That album had a couple of hot tracks on it – I kind of liked it – plus I liked the fact of being able to do some tracks with Keith Richards. He played on the album too. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVfg0EIBAUy5k8viz25FN21z4qZP2uH0k3A3fKY03cBTUhR5SCJrkZMB7dv9sJhf3rkzSEtgmG3vwCGebLuLo8ezHsKaNevcZiV9DaCqe1TbT5jaKxSEIwtl139jBVOFS045ngrDCQ0MY/s1600/Bob+Marley,+Mick+Jagger,+Peter+Tosh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVfg0EIBAUy5k8viz25FN21z4qZP2uH0k3A3fKY03cBTUhR5SCJrkZMB7dv9sJhf3rkzSEtgmG3vwCGebLuLo8ezHsKaNevcZiV9DaCqe1TbT5jaKxSEIwtl139jBVOFS045ngrDCQ0MY/s320/Bob+Marley,+Mick+Jagger,+Peter+Tosh.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<i>Did Keith Richards’ style fit in with yours?</i> <br />
<br />
Yeah, man. They love the blues, man. <br />
<br />
<i>Did you accompany Peter Tosh on the 1978 Rolling Stones tour?</i> <br />
<br />
Yeah. That was really great, man. I had fun doing that. Usually by the end of an album, I would end up doing the tour. We didn’t start the tour – I think the Stones was already out like a week or two before we actually started it. But that was an experience man, I’ll tell you. The first show we did was in Philly, I think. You get over 100,000 people at that big stadium. These people was there to see the Rolling Stones, man, and we was up on that stage. It was the first time I’d been in a situation on that level. We first came on, and we got a few apples up there on the stage, a few cans. This happened for about maybe 15 minutes. Mick Jagger eventually came out on the stage and he made a statement, which was really nice. He said that we was invited on this tour as his guests, and he told the people to just cool out, sit back, and get into the music. After doing that, we struck into “Don’t Look Back,” which was the record that they had did together on the Bush Doctor album. <br />
<br />
<i>Mick Jagger was up there singing with you? </i><br />
<br />
Right. That tour there really exposed reggae to a wider audience. We started out with them on the East Coast, and out of the whole tour we must have did about 15 shows. <br />
<br />
<i>Did you ever join in during the Rolling Stones’ set?</i> <br />
<br />
Most of the time they was onstage with us. They wouldn’t do it every place, but every now and then they would do the “Don’t Look Back” tune. See, Peter was on Rolling Stones Records too. Keith wouldn’t come out too much. I was hoping that he would, because there was one tune that we actually played on together, which was the title track “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bush-Doctor/dp/B001BXV216?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bush Doctor</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001BXV216" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />.” Keith wouldn’t come out too much, but Mick would, and he would play guitar too. I had the pleasure of singing “Happy Birthday” with Mick on that tour. [Laughs.] <br />
<br />
<i>After the Stones tour, you rejoined Bob Marley?</i><br />
<br />
Yeah. That tour ended out there in Anaheim. I really liked the vibes of the people out there. This thing that I wanted to put together with the Chosen Ones, I thought the music would be more acceptable out there on the West Coast. I met a few people in the Bay Area and started to look for a house. I wanted a house big enough for the whole band to be there. I wanted it out in the country where we could rehearse and not disturb people. So we ended coming out there and hooked up with management. We all moved to Petaluma and started rehearsing. We started doing some gigs around there – you know, the Keystones and the Old Waldorf, different places. Next thing I know, Bob is coming back on tour. When he came into Oakland is when I hooked up with him. Really, I just did the West Coast with him. Junior Marvin was with him, and Al Anderson was with him as well. <br />
<br />
<i>Was this his final tour?</i> <br />
<br />
That was the beginning of it. It was a long stretch – they was out there for a long time.<br />
<br />
<i>Could you tell he was ill? </i><br />
<br />
<div style="border: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcI4Tsto6UWNuUwMJGbehcfyqcOWVQj570xr9CWcOpQ-xwBOC9sd7mf89byFuJMoa75wvNlmICwWmXyEfiFlqfEKebkqeIYfJ1oqP6j1FL7osNR89JNWTipo42SwD9JBv91tbTAuuvyJQ/s1600/Bob+Marley+pensive.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcI4Tsto6UWNuUwMJGbehcfyqcOWVQj570xr9CWcOpQ-xwBOC9sd7mf89byFuJMoa75wvNlmICwWmXyEfiFlqfEKebkqeIYfJ1oqP6j1FL7osNR89JNWTipo42SwD9JBv91tbTAuuvyJQ/s200/Bob+Marley+pensive.jpg" width="160" /></a>Yes. Man, it really hurt me bad. When we finished doing the show at Oakland, they had a big press meeting backstage. They had a lot of people from different magazines and stuff. They would ask Bob a question, and it seemed like he would get right into the middle of the conversation and just lose total track. Then one of the other guys would have to pick up for him and finish the statement. I didn’t say anything, but after that was over with and we got back to the hotel, Bob got off the bus and came over to me. Him and I was talkin’, and he said, “Man, it seem like I’m just getting tired.” I said, “Well, Bob, if you’re getting tired, just take a break.” He said, “Yeah, mon. It come like the business is getting really, really hard and rough.” I said, “Brother, you should take a break.” But anyway, he didn’t take a break. You could tell it was coming down on him. It was beginning to affect him mentally. That was really crucial. And I don’t think that at that particular moment he really knowed it was cancer. </div><br />
<i>Are you in any of the Bob Marley films or videos?</i> <br />
<br />
You know what? I have not actually seen any of my films, but I’ve had people come up and tell me they’ve seen videos and films with me in them. There was a lot of places we played where there was cameras. But like I said, I haven’t really seen any of them myself. <br />
<br />
<i>What happened after Bob Marley’s West Coast tour?</i> <br />
<br />
I came back and I did the Chosen Ones EP. <br />
<br />
<i>What kind of music was that?</i><br />
<br />
<div style="border: medium none;">That was a combination. We had one tune on there called “Reggae the Night Away,” which was a reggae tune, but real up-tempo. And then we had another tune on there called “Much Too Long,” which was kind of a funk reggae thing. Another tune was a straight-up R&B kind of rocker called “Music Make Me Feel Alright.” That EP was on Faulty Records. We stayed out there in California for a while, until we started having some problems with the management there. Then we all came back this way. This was around ’81. </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzLc_SqroKQ1yXjZXmn1dC1SW9IS_lhyphenhyphenWK2MJB_SM8Txjb3lozkR6Bp-PIFGg3MzV8DK8-sqnJPBltRRFw-AZFqJxFNaX4v_WPUPbTJb0skT5FWL_BB8rHqVnfY76X9OoLcYX67TVjffw/s1600/Mama+Africa+back+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzLc_SqroKQ1yXjZXmn1dC1SW9IS_lhyphenhyphenWK2MJB_SM8Txjb3lozkR6Bp-PIFGg3MzV8DK8-sqnJPBltRRFw-AZFqJxFNaX4v_WPUPbTJb0skT5FWL_BB8rHqVnfY76X9OoLcYX67TVjffw/s320/Mama+Africa+back+cover.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;"><b>Donald and his brother Ralph (lower left) on the back cover of Peter Tosh's Mama Africa. </b></div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
<br />
<br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
<i>Did Peter Tosh’s Mama Africa album come next?</i> </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;"><div style="border: medium none;">The next thing that happened was Peter was doing a tour for the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wanted-Dread-Alive-Peter-Tosh/dp/B000068G1A?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Wanted Dread or Alive</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000068G1A" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> album, and he called me out. I didn’t play on the album, but I did the tour with him on that. Then after that we started working on the Mama Africa album, and Betty Wright was sent down to do some background vocals with us. Betty and I spent quite a bit of time together, getting the backgrounds on that Mama Africa album. Her manager knew about my background on the reggae scene, and they wanted to try to take her out of the Clean Up woman thing and put her into a more now type of situation. So her manager came up with the idea of me and Marlon Jackson coming together and producing an album with her. That was Betty Wright’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wright-Back-at-You-Betty/dp/B003K4OOU0?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Wright Back at You</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B003K4OOU0" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> album. I played on it and co-produced two of the songs. On that album, she did two of the songs that my brother and I wrote. I think it’s a real nice album, but the record company didn’t do too much with it. She was pregnant during the time, and by the time the record came out, I think she was pregnant again. The record didn’t really get too much exposure. After doing the Betty Wright album, then we went out on tour with Peter again on the Mama Africa album. After Mama Africa, I came back and we did dad’s album. </div></div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><i>You mentioned that you thought the blues scene was picking up. Do you still feel that way? </i><br />
<br />
Yes! I really do. <br />
<br />
<i>Are there any young players you admire?</i> <br />
<br />
Well, let’s see. There are not too many. Since I been back here, workin’ with my father, there hasn’t been too many young guitar players. Michael Robinson was with me with Chosen Ones – he’s playing with Koko Taylor now. Lurrie Bell is coming – he’s good. He’s with Billy Branch in Sons of the Blues. Now, he is someone to keep an eye on. He’s been knowing my father and my family for a long time. I just seen him last Sunday night. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9So-t5uWVJ7ngYlKdFAolpPdxnCExjuuPtnS0iF2cwgAiOGkOyIwezIfCGjsBkmXGe9ugBa6y-EZgKj8y_VbHlHfQRQc3SAwgMLfU7Ms3E-P1RiQmRSoxEz5uBNUfnjPgdeRNa2SO25s/s1600/Bad+Situation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9So-t5uWVJ7ngYlKdFAolpPdxnCExjuuPtnS0iF2cwgAiOGkOyIwezIfCGjsBkmXGe9ugBa6y-EZgKj8y_VbHlHfQRQc3SAwgMLfU7Ms3E-P1RiQmRSoxEz5uBNUfnjPgdeRNa2SO25s/s200/Bad+Situation.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
<i>What are your favorite tracks on your dad’s album?</i> <br />
<br />
Oh, wow. I would say my favorite track on it is “Kinsey’s Mood.” <br />
<br />
<i>Does your dad play the Elmore James-style slide on there?</i> <br />
<br />
Yes, right. Whenever you hear slide, that’s him, except for “Change Your Evil Ways” – that’s me. <br />
<br />
<i>That sounds kind of like Duane Allman. </i><br />
<br />
[Laughs.] <br />
<br />
<i>Was that in open tuning?</i> <br />
<br />
No, that’s just straight-ahead tuning. <br />
<br />
<i>What did you play on the song “Tribute to Muddy”? </i><br />
<br />
On “Tribute to Muddy,” I’m playing the basic rhythm guitar. Well, I’m doing two guitar parts on there. I’m also doing that kind of bass line type of thing. <br />
<br />
<i>Who does the “Treat Your Woman Right” solo?</i> <br />
<br />
That’s me. Dad is doing the rhythm on that. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><i>Does he play rhythm in “Gonna Make You Mine”?</i><br />
<br />
Yes, he’s playing like the reggae skanking there! I was playing the fills. Now that tune is one of my favorite tunes on there because we tried to create a new type of flavor. It was good for dad too, because when I was first getting off into reggae, it took a while for my father to have appreciation for that. [Laughs.] We was downstairs one day, me and him, just kind of messing around. I said, “Hey, dad. You play this seventh chord. Just give it one stroke – chank, chank, chank!” Then I came up with the other melody around it. Before I knew it, he was into it, and so we went with it. He felt the music – he was in the groove with it.<br />
<br />
<i>Did you use your Les Paul again for Bad Situation?</i> <br />
<br />
Alright. I used my Gibson, and another one too. There’s this guitar called Avatar – that’s the company in New York. Anyway, I got an SG from them. When we was in New York during the Mama Africa tour, they came up to me and the guitar player in Tosh’s band, Steve Golden – he’s a great guitarist – and they wanted us to check out their guitar. They knew I was playing the Gibson. So they brought two guitars down for us to check out, and they left one there with me. They just told me to keep it. If I liked it, great, play it. If I don’t, toss it in the trash or whatever. So I been playing it. I plays it now, as a matter of fact. Up until then, I used my Gibson on every recording. <br />
<br />
<i>Did you have a backup guitar with Marley and Tosh?</i> <br />
<br />
With Tosh, we always had a couple of guitars. Peter had a yellow Gibson with a double cutaway. I loved this guitar. In fact, I was using Peter’s guitar on the tour. I really wasn’t into taking my Gibson because I had a couple of guitars stolen on the tour, but not the one I’ve had since I was young. I was just not into taking my guitars out on the road, but I did take my main ax, and I took it with me everywhere I went. I wouldn’t let it go on the bus or with the rest of the equipment. <br />
<br />
<i>You have a very smooth style. Do you use a pick?</i><br />
<br />
Yes, I do use a pick. Not all the time, but most of the time I do. There are only a few kind of picking things I do without one. I’ll tell you the song I didn’t use a pick on – the “Gary, Indiana” song. I was doing a lot of fingerpicking, like two-note kind of chords. So I use my fingers with that. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div style="border: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjonEhyphenhyphen0fL0P43C34mMgJayN-Z4ePND0ALMm3km7sYCBUgykKqE1V71239AFzEQH3gnR_IYLhuLG_i2doHG5Pw2rwbu8ijkUYcdm3g3-Tl6LD49_at65ii4wotiKh6Dg0x9byAnXC5btlw/s1600/Donald+Kinsey+recent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjonEhyphenhyphen0fL0P43C34mMgJayN-Z4ePND0ALMm3km7sYCBUgykKqE1V71239AFzEQH3gnR_IYLhuLG_i2doHG5Pw2rwbu8ijkUYcdm3g3-Tl6LD49_at65ii4wotiKh6Dg0x9byAnXC5btlw/s200/Donald+Kinsey+recent.jpg" width="200" /></a><i>Do you use your left-hand little finger a lot?</i> </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border: medium none;">I wouldn’t say a lot. For solos I use it, but not a whole lot. </div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div><i>What fingers do you use to bend strings?</i> <br />
<br />
I use my first three fingers. The second finger not as much as the first and the third. Yeah. <br />
<br />
<br />
<i>When you’re bending a string, do you back that finger up with the others?</i> <br />
<br />
No, I use just the one. <br />
<br />
<i>That’s like Albert King.</i> <br />
<br />
Right. <br />
<br />
<i>What amps do you record with now?</i> <br />
<br />
I use Twin Reverbs – the same ones I’ve had all along. But on the Chosen Ones EP, for “Music Make Me Feel Alight” I used a little Yamaha rehearsal amp. [Laughs.] That was more of a rock and roll kind of tune, and that amp really distorted. I also used effects devices on dad’s album. I used a Lexicon Prime Time [digital delay] on “Gonna Make You Mine,” on the kind of reggae tune. I’m not into so much effects, really. <br />
<br />
<i>A true bluesman.</i> <br />
<br />
Yeah. If anything, just a little tight delay here and there to fatten it a little bit. On “Nuclear War” I used a Mutron Super Phase on the chords. I did all the guitar parts on that song. <br />
<br />
<div style="border: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-wqBj1mqSEJ8H5HRjNXDtKN4AF0Prjm4nQx64NhVWk6IwtL7nLfyVObU6B6IL2yCxecf2FdDMNIspok_b8F3Optaxx1irwF2T7blnEo-kWuY3cVZIFL-El8N1F_33iVXCHPNkViSSQoY/s1600/Kinsey+Report+four.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-wqBj1mqSEJ8H5HRjNXDtKN4AF0Prjm4nQx64NhVWk6IwtL7nLfyVObU6B6IL2yCxecf2FdDMNIspok_b8F3Optaxx1irwF2T7blnEo-kWuY3cVZIFL-El8N1F_33iVXCHPNkViSSQoY/s320/Kinsey+Report+four.jpg" width="320" /></a><i>Are you working in music full time now?</i> </div><br />
Yes, I am. Basically, I’m with my father right now. I’m working on putting together the Kinsey Report – me and my brothers. <br />
<br />
<i>Are you going to have your dad guest?</i> <br />
<br />
I’m going to try my best! [Laughs.] <br />
<br />
<i>Are you happy with the way your career’s going?</i> <br />
<br />
Well, yes. I’m kind of unhappy with seeing what’s happening to Peter. I hate to see him going through the changes he’s going through. <br />
<br />
<i>Is his career stalling?</i> <br />
<br />
Yeah. I put a lot of energy into Peter’s thing. I was really into it. I had a vision of where it could go. The last album, man, it set a pace for us to come back to do something, and it didn’t happen. So I was very disappointed about that. But at the same time, I was very happy with being able to do this with my father and to do this with my brothers, you know. <br />
<br />
<i>Are you mostly playing around Chicago and Gary?</i> <br />
<br />
Pretty much, but more so Chicago. We did a Founder’s Day festival here in Gary. We don’t really do too much playing in Gary. We play in Chicago on the weekends. <br />
<br />
<i>What advice would you give someone who wants to be a professional guitar player?</i> <br />
<br />
If they have done got to the point where they made up their mind that they want to be a professional guitar player, the main thing that I would tell them is to listen to a variety of guitar players. Listen to different forms of music in order for them to someday possibly create some style of their own. Don’t just go off on what’s supposed to be the hottest guitar player on the rock scene or pop scene or whatever scene. Listen to some of everything. Like me – when I’m in my car, I never just tune in to one radio station. I listen to Latin music, I listen to all kinds of music. That would be one of my key things, because music is like blood, man. We all have it, and it’s all connected – I don’t care what kind of music it is. It’s all related to some other form of music. It’s just different people’s ways of expressing the same notes. People ask me who’s my favorite guitar players. I couldn’t really answer that question because I don’t tune in that deep to any one particular guitar player. That’s kind of the way I feel about that. <br />
<br />
<i>Did you learn to read or write music?</i> <br />
<br />
I got into reading more or less from a chord standpoint rather than solos and getting that deep into it. See, I arrange a lot, but I work with a guy who’ll sit down at the piano and we’ll work out what it is I’m doing, and then he’ll chart it for me. But I have been getting into that. I’ve been having thoughts about maybe going in and taking a little classical lesson, just to have that under my belt. That’s definitely good to have. All the things that I play, I can’t sit down and write it all down. <br />
<br />
<i>You sure have had an interesting career.</i> <br />
<br />
Yeah, it has been, man. I have a lot to be thankful for. <br />
<br />
<i>You’ve contributed a lot to the music too. </i><br />
<br />
That makes me feel good as well because I know for a fact that these guys wouldn’t have wanted me around unless they felt that I truly contributed something. I feel real good about it. If I had it to do all over again, I’d do it the same way. I just look forward to the future. I look forward to doing more work with my father and my brothers. <br />
<br />
###<br />
<br />
<i>Epilog</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<div style="border: medium none;"><div style="border: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-e_xjyo2JRsijFlcFIIrqdSRFWnR5ddy8fGl_i_MeRN6I_nZSXmYsLAzk3PCFAaEYLL7gCenCl6IR8HgZ6dfInbvbIsck_g2mu6R3hRO-_D068U2F87f1Lii1AIvdGjzmGyVVM8Yi3ME/s1600/Kinsey+Report+color.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-e_xjyo2JRsijFlcFIIrqdSRFWnR5ddy8fGl_i_MeRN6I_nZSXmYsLAzk3PCFAaEYLL7gCenCl6IR8HgZ6dfInbvbIsck_g2mu6R3hRO-_D068U2F87f1Lii1AIvdGjzmGyVVM8Yi3ME/s200/Kinsey+Report+color.jpg" width="154" /></a><i>Donald Kinsey got his wish. The success of Big Daddy Kinsey’s Bad Situation led to the elder Kinsey releasing three more albums: </i><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cant-Let-Big-Daddy-Kinsey/dp/B000000N7C?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Can’t Let Go</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000000N7C" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /></i><i>, </i><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Am-Blues-Big-Daddy-Kinsey/dp/B0000046Q8?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I Am the Blues</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0000046Q8" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /></i><i>, and </i><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ramblin-Man-Big-Daddy-Kinsey/dp/B00000JQZK?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ramblin’ Man</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00000JQZK" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /></i><i>. His sons continued to work with him until his death in 2001. The Kinsey Report, featuring Donald Kinsey on vocals and guitar, brother Ralph on drums, brother Kenneth on bass, and Ron Prince on guitar, released </i><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Edge-Of-The-City/dp/B000QQWBFA?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Edge of the City</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000QQWBFA" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /></i><i> in 1987. Since then, the band has released </i><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Drive-Kinsey-Report/dp/B0000009ZB?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Midnight Drive</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0000009ZB" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> (the title track features one of Donald's best lead guitar performances)</i><i>, </i><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Powerhouse-Kinsey-Report/dp/B000000WHM?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Powerhouse</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000000WHM" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /></i><i>, </i><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Bridges-Kinsey-Report/dp/B000000WJC?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Crossing Bridges</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000000WJC" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /></i><i>, and </i><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Smoke-And-Steel/dp/B000QQRY98?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Smoke and Steel</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000QQRY98" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /></i><i>. They continue to play clubs and blues festivals. For more information on Donald Kinsey, visit his official website at <a href="http://www.donaldkinsey.com/">http://www.donaldkinsey.com/</a> and his youtube channel at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/donaldkinsey">www.youtube.com/donaldkinsey</a>. </i></div></div><div style="border: medium none;"><br />
</div>### <br />
<br />
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<div class="separator" style="border: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-64972657201268156592010-07-05T16:40:00.031-04:002010-07-28T07:49:00.999-04:00Eddie Van Halen: The David Lee Roth Era<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00004Y6O7" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL-Er_ORpak-J6GImsnp6qwutFsvcJ8kRDXVqTisOrgGccfKe6yLfJReFGMnU5at2trPXxt63Wz9sD2TVdOzwxf_OFeBGXqNG8njDsG0bFm5vfi8yrEuoBxQvgcOiH1nlkQCqmhaR4pMg/s1600/Eddie+opener.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL-Er_ORpak-J6GImsnp6qwutFsvcJ8kRDXVqTisOrgGccfKe6yLfJReFGMnU5at2trPXxt63Wz9sD2TVdOzwxf_OFeBGXqNG8njDsG0bFm5vfi8yrEuoBxQvgcOiH1nlkQCqmhaR4pMg/s320/Eddie+opener.jpg" width="215" /></a></div>With the release of 1978’s self-titled <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Van-Halen/dp/B00004Y6O9?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Van Halen</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00004Y6O9" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> album, 23-year-old Eddie Van Halen rewrote the rules of rock guitar. His sheer speed, unusual note choices, inspired finger tapping and whammy work, and fiery tone inspired guitarists everywhere. His impact was especially felt among crotch-rock guitarists in big-name bands, who saw their dreams of becoming “the next Jimi Hendrix” blown away in the 1:42 it took to listen to “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Eruption/dp/B00122FSN4?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Eruption</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00122FSN4" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />.” Within months, it was virtually impossible to go into a music store or listen to a garage band without hearing some guitarist doing a rough approximation of Eddie’s groundbreaking instrumental. While the band’s rise seemed meteoric, the musicians had, in fact, spent years perfecting their act. <br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">In the Beginning . . .</span></strong> <br />
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Eddie Van Halen and his older brother Alex were born and raised in Holland. Their father, Jan Van Halen, was an accomplished clarinetist in big band and classical styles. At age six, Eddie began taking classical piano lessons from a strict Russian master who’d slap his knuckles with a ruler whenever he made a mistake. <br />
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In 1967, the family moved to Pasadena, California, where the brothers discovered rock and roll. “I wasn’t into it at all back in Holland,” Eddie told me. “Wasn’t much of a scene going on. When we came here, I saw Hendrix and Cream around ’68, and I said, ‘Fuck the piano! I don’t want to sit down. I want to stand up and be crazy!’ The main influence for me, believe it or not, was Eric Clapton. I mean, I know I don’t sound like him, but I know every fuckin’ solo he ever played, note-for-note, still to this day. I used to sit down and learn that stuff note-for-note off the record. The live stuff – like ‘<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Spoonful/dp/B001NCRV0Q?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Spoonful</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001NCRV0Q" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,’ ‘I’m So Glad’ live – all that stuff. But when we first came to the U.S., I started playing drums, and my brother was taking guitar lessons – flamenco, nylon strings, stuff like that. While I was out doing my paper route so I could keep paying the payments for my drum set, he’d be playing my drums. And eventually he got better. I mean, he could play ‘Wipe Out,’ and I couldn’t. So I said, ‘Keep the drums. I’ll play a guitar.’ From there on, we’ve always played together.”<br />
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The brothers named their first band Mammoth: “It used to just be me and Al and a different bass player. I used to lead sing, and I couldn’t stand that shit! I’d rather just play. Dave Lee Roth was in another local band, and we used to rent his P.A. We said, ‘Fuck! It’s much cheaper if we just get him in the band!’ So we got Dave in the band, and then we were playing this gig with a group called Snake – they opened for us. We were all tripped out, because the bass player was singing. That was Michael Anthony, and we asked him to join. So we all just kind of hooked together. We all stuck with each other, because by the time we graduated from high school, everyone else had to go to school to be a lawyer or whatever.” <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJVGo_qM1OOEnZ6P9NcIYf0nZzh5II9MI709uN08bk7sCd0LQF1DUP6aVxn3JBOab-OPJmxJbswELdnYAd_y87d7052fEOm94C2mTCr3kZ3KJ1nGFifCvXZ86yEGDLf2sw_q8RKkGQzu8/s1600/Van-Halen-News.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="146" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJVGo_qM1OOEnZ6P9NcIYf0nZzh5II9MI709uN08bk7sCd0LQF1DUP6aVxn3JBOab-OPJmxJbswELdnYAd_y87d7052fEOm94C2mTCr3kZ3KJ1nGFifCvXZ86yEGDLf2sw_q8RKkGQzu8/s200/Van-Halen-News.jpg" width="200" /></a>Discovering another band had a claim on the name Mammoth, they considered calling themselves Rat Salade before wisely settling on Van Halen. For the next three years, the musicians worked the Pasadena/Santa Barbara bar circuit, with Eddie playing a ’58 Fender Stratocaster. “We played everywhere and anywhere,” Eddie recalled, “from backyard parties to places the size of your bathrooms to you name it. And we did it all without a manager, without an agent, without a record company. I guess the main thing that really got us going was the Pasadena Civic. We’d print up flyers and stuff thousands of them in high school lockers. And the first time we played there, we drew maybe 900 people. The last time we did, which was in 1977, we drew 3,300 people at four or five bucks a head. It was about the only place where we could play our own music. We also used to play Gazzaris and other places where you had to do the Top-40 grind.” </div><br />
In 1977, Kiss bassist Gene Simmons offered to finance Van Halen’s demo tape. Then they caught the attention of Warner Brothers’ Ted Templeman, who would produce all six Van Halen albums featuring Dave Lee Roth as lead singer. The first Van Halen album – and arguably the best – was recorded and produced in just three weeks. <br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">The Debut Album Heard Around the World</span></strong><br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuyetiRIVxSmAe3BgN33jFkj3jQnnGqEnGk6A-BORZPDCYH3uwLTq60WSZek7pmDp_G3kElyiJW4O8P98yyKoGBnefZdpTLBdrb2eW7VWf-WGcl95qM-2I8qJIPeawps5xpDSL0sPM3IE/s1600/VH1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuyetiRIVxSmAe3BgN33jFkj3jQnnGqEnGk6A-BORZPDCYH3uwLTq60WSZek7pmDp_G3kElyiJW4O8P98yyKoGBnefZdpTLBdrb2eW7VWf-WGcl95qM-2I8qJIPeawps5xpDSL0sPM3IE/s200/VH1.jpg" width="199" /></a>In 1978, I’d been an editor at Guitar Player, then America’s only guitar magazine, for about a week when a review copy of the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Van-Halen/dp/B00004Y6O9?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Van Halen </a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00004Y6O9" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />album arrived. Our chief editor, Don Menn, put the album on his turntable, and we all stood around and listened to “Eruption.” “Is that a keyboard or a guitar?” Don asked as Eddie began tapping the frets – at that time, the technique was so rare, we weren’t even sure it was played on a guitar. Adding to the mystery was the fact that although Eddie was depicted holding a Stratocaster, the guitar on the record sounded unlike any Fender we’d ever heard. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Soon afterward, on July 23, 1978, I attended a Bill Graham Day on the Green concert in Oakland, California, where AC/DC and Van Halen were opening for Pat Travers, Foreigner, and Aerosmith. I was there to interview Travers, a second-tier guitarist who, it turned out, was too distracted by groupies to do an interview. Stressed about coming back to the magazine empty-handed, I began shooting basketball at a small court Bill Graham had set up backstage for musicians. A lean, muscular young man about my age wandered over and said, “Hey, man, can I shoot with you?” </div><br />
We played one-on-one for a while and then stopped to cool down. “What band are you in?” he asked. <br />
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“I’m not in a band.” <br />
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“What are ya doin’ here?”<br />
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“I’m an editor from Guitar Player magazine. I came here to interview Pat Travers, but he blew me off.” <br />
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“Pat Travers blew you off? I can’t fucking believe that! Why don’t you interview me? Nobody has ever wanted to interview me.” <br />
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“Who are you?” <br />
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“Edward Van Halen.” <br />
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Whoa! We sat down at courtside and Eddie Van Halen gave me what he refers to as his first major interview. Coincidentally, it was also my first important rock interview. <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY65d8-G2r2YVxokJpfvN_Ndh9zyE7VkXIIMPnEo5E_RQpGGoMczxklFTBuHmbncS3HPp-NPKYTyvle01AwXhCzyMlRaFmt8PIHo5NWOexZurhPiv8QIkaIUgLcrrA7eUxFSKmSxLQN14/s1600/Eddie+straight+on.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY65d8-G2r2YVxokJpfvN_Ndh9zyE7VkXIIMPnEo5E_RQpGGoMczxklFTBuHmbncS3HPp-NPKYTyvle01AwXhCzyMlRaFmt8PIHo5NWOexZurhPiv8QIkaIUgLcrrA7eUxFSKmSxLQN14/s320/Eddie+straight+on.jpg" width="227" /></a>“Tell me about your guitar,” I began, referring to the distinctive white and black-striped guitar he’d just used onstage. “It’s a copy of a Strat,” Eddie responded. “It’s not a Fender. It’s by a company called Charvel. You know, I bought a body from them for 50 bucks and a neck for 80 bucks, slapped it together, put an old Gibson pickup in it, and it’s my main guitar. Painted it up, you know, with stripes and stuff. I just didn’t like the fact of having the standard rock-star setup – you know, a brand-new Les Paul and a Marshall. I was really into vibrato, so the reason I started dickin’ around that way is I wanted a Gibson-type of sound, but with a Strat vibrato. So I stuck a humbucking pickup in a Strat, and it worked okay, but it didn’t get good enough tone because Fenders are kind of cheap wood – they’re made out of alder or something. So then I found out about Charvel, which makes guitar necks and bodies out of ash. But the main reason I made it was to have something that no one else had. You know, I wanted it to be my guitar, an extension of myself. I hate store-bought, off-the-rack guitars. They don’t do what I want them to do, which is fuckin’ kick ass and scream!”</div><br />
The first Van Halen album, Eddie told me, took three weeks to record – one week for the instruments and two weeks for the vocals. “We went into the studio one day with Ted, and we all just played live and laid down like 40 songs. And out of those 40 we picked ten and wrote one in the studio for the record. So we’ve got plenty of songs. The album is very live with no overdubs – that’s the magic of Ted Templeman. I’d say out of the ten songs on the record, I overdubbed the solo in two or three songs. One of them’s doubled in “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ice-Cream-Man/dp/B00122FSTS?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Ice Cream Man</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00122FSTS" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” and “Jamie’s Cryin’.” All the rest are live! I used the same equipment I use live, the one guitar, soloed during the rhythm track, and Al just played one set of drums [laughs]. And Mike, you know. And Dave stood in the booth and sang a lot of lead vocals at the same time. The only thing we did overdub was the backing vocals, because you can’t play in the same room and sing with the amps – otherwise it will bleed on the mikes. The music, I’d say, took a week, including “Jamie’s Cryin’,” which we wrote in the studio – I had the basic riffs to the song.”<br />
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Amazingly, the album’s standout track – one of the most important guitar solos in rock history – was included as an afterthought. “My guitar solo, ‘<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Eruption/dp/B00122FSN4?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Eruption</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00122FSN4" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,’ wasn’t really planned to be on the record,” Eddie explained. “Me and Al were dickin’ around rehearsing for a show we had to do at the Whiskey, so I was warming up, you know, practicing my solo, and Ted walks in. He goes, ‘Hey, what’s that?’ I go, ‘That’s a little solo thing I do live.’ He goes, ‘Hey, it’s great. Put it on the record.’” Another great track, “Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love," featured Eddie soloing on a rented Coral Electric Sitar.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRx8T9X-lk7lMDLp8lAclU_oe16xVb1WLuOZtbKndgmNPeAH_ieTla4putjjT2ls8gNbZdM6wiSBrkbS0Y-ShZZtBF4RyTi_WQxv8KL1MA41DJ9MPEovJuLpJkSfqw1CQnHBN7fiaoA40/s1600/Eddie+side+shot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRx8T9X-lk7lMDLp8lAclU_oe16xVb1WLuOZtbKndgmNPeAH_ieTla4putjjT2ls8gNbZdM6wiSBrkbS0Y-ShZZtBF4RyTi_WQxv8KL1MA41DJ9MPEovJuLpJkSfqw1CQnHBN7fiaoA40/s320/Eddie+side+shot.jpg" /></a><br />
Asked to describe the difference between the album and a concert, Van Halen responded, “Well, between that record and the shows we’re doing now, I’d say none. [Laughs.] Because we were jumping around and drinking a beer and getting crazy in the studio too. There’s a vibe on the record, I think, because a lot of bands, they keep hacking it out and doing so many overdubs and double-tracking and shit like that, it doesn’t sound real. And then a lot of bands can’t pull it off live because they overdubbed so much stuff in the studio that it either doesn’t sound the same, or they’re standing there pushing buttons to get their tape machines working right or something. So we kept it real live, and the next record will be very much the same.” <br />
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After we’d talked for about 40 minutes, Eddie led me over to the band’s trailer and handed me his guitar. It had noticeably low action and wider string spacings at the nut than any I’d seen. A couple of weeks later he called and I asked him about it. “That’s to help the vibrato setup,” he explained. “You gotta know how to set the thing up so it won’t go out of tune, which took me a long time to get down. I mean, no one ever told me. But I figured it out, and I just play the fuck out of that thing now, and it won’t go out of tune. The amount of springs that you use in the back affects it too. I have Fender springs, but they’re a little looser. Really, though, it’s got a lot to do with the way you play it. That vibrato bar is actually like another instrument. You’ve got to know how to use it. You can’t just grab it, jerk the thing, and expect it to stay in tune.”<br />
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The pickup, it turned out, was a Gibson P.A.F. extracted from a 1961 Gibson ES-335. “I had the coil rewound to my specifications,” Eddie detailed. “I just use the one pickup because that’s just basically the sound I like. You can get different tones out of it. One volume knob and one pickup – that’s all there is to it. No fancy tone knobs over here! It’s simple and it sounds cool. I dip the pickup in paraffin wax, which cuts out the high, obnoxious feedback. It’s kind of a tricky thing, because if you leave it in there too long, the pickup melts. This just gets rid of that real high squeal, like a microphone feeding back.”<br />
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The rest of his setup consisted of a homemade pedalboard and Marshall amps. “I use two Echoplexes,” Eddie explained at courtside. “I also use an MXR flanger, just for little subtle touches, and an MXR Phase 90. It doesn’t really phase; it just kind of gives me treble boost, which I like. Cuts through for solos. I had a different motor put in the Univox echo box so it will go real low and delay much slower. Like on the record, on ‘Eruption’ on the end of my solo, all that noise – that’s a Univox echo box, which I put in that practice bomb we have onstage. I thought it looked cool. That’s about it.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPjU7cmhAWx8bCBg7hDRs2Jf-BZSHgNAQKhyPhxnl1YGTrbdOEEnBWgg3E8c-SoZV_T1dAvjh5hpaaUlk1YywtTGaFQe-mTcm0psFzy7D7Y9zuVU75_eNEvt5BQmSdqvZrC-baWoCZK4A/s1600/Jas+and+Eddie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPjU7cmhAWx8bCBg7hDRs2Jf-BZSHgNAQKhyPhxnl1YGTrbdOEEnBWgg3E8c-SoZV_T1dAvjh5hpaaUlk1YywtTGaFQe-mTcm0psFzy7D7Y9zuVU75_eNEvt5BQmSdqvZrC-baWoCZK4A/s200/Jas+and+Eddie.jpg" width="140" /></a></div>As Eddie and I were winding down our conversation at that Day on the Green, my pal Jon Sievert, Guitar Player’s staff photographer, came over and asked to take some backstage shots. Eddie suggested he shoot the two of us playing the white-and-black Strat together. After the article came out in the November 1978 issue of Guitar Player, Eddie called to express his thanks. <br />
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The Van Halen album sold more than 6 million copies, reaching #19 in the charts. Its adrenaline-laden rework of “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/You-Really-Got-Me/dp/B00122HOV8?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">You Really Got Me</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00122HOV8" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” was the first Van Halen song to break into the Top 40. The band launched a major tour, opening for Journey and Black Sabbath. While Dave’s larger-than-life personality and distinctive singing voice were usually front and center, it was really Eddie’s guitar genius that propelled the band to the top of the heavy metal/hard rock scene, a phenomena that ultimately would trigger Dave’s departure. Before that happened, though, the classic Van Halen lineup would record five more albums together. <br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Everybody Wants Some</span></strong> <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5SMsjvuRh-JZTWVMcqgWIly4jGsRqq_jWJqxf5EvGmfo_a_Yl41-lNeAc-avq3vWB27Rt1MH_i4QcG5CKUihEW-ki9AZn_tGjDanw_rFL_-QR-vXP6zGJvx4qvzFxD1WAmtqp-abdiRk/s1600/Van+Halen+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5SMsjvuRh-JZTWVMcqgWIly4jGsRqq_jWJqxf5EvGmfo_a_Yl41-lNeAc-avq3vWB27Rt1MH_i4QcG5CKUihEW-ki9AZn_tGjDanw_rFL_-QR-vXP6zGJvx4qvzFxD1WAmtqp-abdiRk/s200/Van+Halen+II.jpg" width="196" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">“We kept it real live on the first one, and the next record will be very much the same,” Eddie predicted. They spent just six days recording it. Released as new wave music was beginning to dominate the charts, 1979’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Van-Halen-II/dp/B00004Y6O8?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Van Halen II </a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00004Y6O8" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />bucked pop trends by focusing on straight-ahead rock and roll. “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dance-Night-Away-Album-Version/dp/B00123HWDC?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Dance the Night Away</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00123HWDC" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” became the band’s first Top-20 single, followed by a reworking of Linda Ronstandt’s “You’re No Good.” The VH originals “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Somebody-Get-Doctor-Album-Version/dp/B00123HWEQ?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Somebody Get Me a Doctor</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00123HWEQ" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/D-O-A-Album-Version/dp/B00123JZFA?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">D.O.A.</a>,” and “Outta Love Again” were heavy on the testosterone, while the lovely instrumental “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Fly-Album-Version/dp/B00123FR84?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Spanish Fly</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00123FR84" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” showed how fingertaps could be applied to nylon-string guitar. Overall, though, the 31-minute Van Halen II seemed less exciting and focused than the band’s debut. Nonetheless, Van Halen was on the fast track to becoming America’s premier hard rock band. </div><br />
Eddie quickly discovered that fame has its price. By the end of the first tour, he’d grown irritated with manufacturers cloning his guitar and players swiping his techniques. “I just don’t understand how someone could walk onstage with my guitar, because it is my trademark,” he insisted. “You know, when people see a freaked-out striped guitar like that, with one pickup, one volume knob, they obviously know it’s mine. The same thing with playing fingertaps. They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery – that’s a crock of shit.”<br />
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To stay ahead of other players, Eddie built a new guitar. “It was my idea to have it rear-loaded, so it wouldn’t have a pickguard,” he explained. “So Charvel routed the guitar for me, because at the time I couldn’t afford a router. So they claim that they built it for me, which is actually bullshit. You know, all they did was what I told them to do. That’s the guitar on the second album cover. I’ve tried a bunch of different pickups in there. I finally ended up using a DiMarzio with a P.A.F. magnet, rewound with copper tape around the windings. I rewound it myself, which took a long time.”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg4Ojiy3vcs0-7PRTDvKznBHSN99uLlo6C2OWsC1y3d_EhZyPVdnAxa9qfNFvctzIOMQF3PBrsSTY5KHIMs8NFnhqlliIcoNRUaMdpQ5pYiFEdjyO2vWX4knbi0Gp2jzJX__8yMIeTTS4/s1600/Woman+and+Children+First.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg4Ojiy3vcs0-7PRTDvKznBHSN99uLlo6C2OWsC1y3d_EhZyPVdnAxa9qfNFvctzIOMQF3PBrsSTY5KHIMs8NFnhqlliIcoNRUaMdpQ5pYiFEdjyO2vWX4knbi0Gp2jzJX__8yMIeTTS4/s200/Woman+and+Children+First.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Van Halen returned to a heavier sound for 1980’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Women-Children-First-Van-Halen/dp/B00004Y6OA?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Women and Children First</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00004Y6OA" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, showcasing much more ambitious songwriting. On December 29, 1979, Eddie called to tell me about changes he’d made to his guitars and setup, and mentioned the band had just wrapped up Women and Children First. “We just go in there and play live,” he said of the sessions, “and I depend on making it sound good out of the amp, instead of, ‘Oh, well. Fix it in the mix.’ That’s why it also goes so quick. We just finished recording our third album in six days – well, we finished the music in six days.” <br />
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I asked if he’d recycled anything from the Gene Simmons demo or from the leftovers from the first album’s sessions. “No. You know, it’s weird: I like to be excited too. I think you’ll kind of trip off the next album. It’s hard rock. There’s a thing on there with a real weird vibrato noise. It actually sounds like an airplane starting. Dave wanted to call it ‘<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tora-Album-Version/dp/B00123M4EE?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Tora! Tora!</a>’ [laughs]. I wanted to call it ‘Act Like It Hurts.’ We haven’t decided yet. It’s kind of a trippy album. I like it. I think you’ll have to listen to it a couple of times. It’s a little bit different than the past.” <br />
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The album’s single, “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cradle-Will-Rock-Album-Version/dp/B00123I3KS?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">And the Cradle Will Rock</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00123I3KS" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” featured Eddie on keyboard. “I played a Wurlitzer electric piano through my Marshall stacks, and it sounds like my guitar! Wait ’til you hear it! I play it for people, and I have to tell ’em that’s a piano. And they go, ‘What?!’ It sounds real good. It’s real simple. I’ve been trained on classical piano since I was six years old, but it doesn’t show. [Laughs.] You know, it’s nothing tasteful. I just picked the thing up and started banging on it. Wait ’til you hear this noise on it; it’s tripped out!"<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr_H5UFZXvFeOJZKeyz-3EwLBdGadQSWFsf1H5XR1SIVIbKAIBHiWp8qnVya9hZTC4zFeD55GqMhYT5dJ9ijHuVREBn34yl6nJ36-aTlbxMZ8WkmeZJD8BlA6_4T5yCPh14tNOTyKogEI/s1600/Woman+and+Children+First+insert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr_H5UFZXvFeOJZKeyz-3EwLBdGadQSWFsf1H5XR1SIVIbKAIBHiWp8qnVya9hZTC4zFeD55GqMhYT5dJ9ijHuVREBn34yl6nJ36-aTlbxMZ8WkmeZJD8BlA6_4T5yCPh14tNOTyKogEI/s320/Woman+and+Children+First+insert.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
On guitar, Eddie dialed in a denser, crunchier sound, but his basic setup remained the same: A homemade guitar, primitive pedal board, and Marshall amps. “You know, that’s funny,” Eddie told me. “Last year when we opened for Ronnie Montrose and Ted Nugent and all these people, they’d look at my pedalboard – a little piece of plywood with an MXR phase shifter duct-taped onto it – and they’d go, ‘What is this shit?!’ And then after the show, they start trippin’. They go [in a quiet, respectful voice], ‘Whoa! How do you get that sound?’ I really think it’s funny. I see Montrose with his $4,000 studio rack with his digital delay and his harmonizer and everything else, and I swear to God, I can’t tell he’s using it. And Nugent, we opened three shows for him in Maryland. On the first day he’s just kind of saying, ‘You little fucker, you – what is this garbage pedalboard you’re using?’ By the third day, he came to our soundcheck and asked me if he could play through my equipment. I just said, ‘Hey, Ted, you can play through it if you want, but it’s not gonna sound the way it sounds when I play through it.’ Because it really isn’t the equipment. It’s in the fingers. Not to sound egoed-out, but it is.”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7a32RivxLQbEwebggCyZB5-tO1CYnML4fjKMJ57UQqV-w2aCPbhWf1e6pHABwdRRq8dUiijS7Y_Of1uUmr61qam17VRha_5MIvaX5ENp7S8NQyLMnr0A1YC-EAyzD_LAj0Hv_MLykTlc/s1600/1980-04+Eddie+Van+Halen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7a32RivxLQbEwebggCyZB5-tO1CYnML4fjKMJ57UQqV-w2aCPbhWf1e6pHABwdRRq8dUiijS7Y_Of1uUmr61qam17VRha_5MIvaX5ENp7S8NQyLMnr0A1YC-EAyzD_LAj0Hv_MLykTlc/s320/1980-04+Eddie+Van+Halen.jpg" width="246" /></a></div><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Women-Children-First-Van-Halen/dp/B00004Y6OA?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Women and Children First </a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00004Y6OA" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />brought Van Halen headliner status. I was pleased to write Eddie’s first national cover story to promote the album’s release. It was actually Eddie’s idea: He called and said he’d reveal all of his playing secrets in exchange for a Guitar Player cover. He delivered on his word during a crazy day-long interview in Hollywood – with Neil Zlozower there to shoot photos. (Neil also did the live cover shot.) The April 1980 Van Halen cover was the fastest-selling and most sought-after issue published during my twenty years at the magazine. <br />
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The band Van Halen rapidly acquired a larger-than-life image, with a reputation for partying hard. They were also known for destroying dressing rooms when venues failed to fulfill a contractual stipulation about not having any brown M&Ms mixed in with the others (“They’re supposed to make you horny,” Dave told Eddie.). Dave’s flamboyant preening and overblown TV and stage raps amused millions of fans but caused Eddie to simmer behind the scenes. He was also growing frustrated with Dave’s lack of enthusiasm for exploring new musical directions. Dave, meanwhile, took umbrage whenever Eddie became the main focus of media attention, such as when he won yet another poll in a music magazine. “To tell you the truth,” Eddie insisted, “I’m not into the star bullshit at all. I mean, a lot of people get off on it. They let their hair grow, buy a Les Paul and a Marshall, and wanna be a rock and roll star. I don’t even consider myself a rock star. I enjoy playing guitar, period.<br />
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“There’s a lot of people who don’t know me who hate me, because they think I’m some egoed-out motherfucker, but I’m not at all. That’s just one thing that I never expected. Doing interviews – God! I remember once I did a Top-40 AM radio interview in the beginning. I’m not much of a talker, really, and they’re all motor mouths. Dave’s real good at it. You’re excited when you’re listening to him, but when you play the tape back, he actually didn’t say anything, but it doesn’t matter. It’s just excitement. I can’t do that. So here’s Dave motor mouth getting the guy all jazzed up, and then he turns to me and goes, ‘I understand you and your brother are from Amsterdam, Holland.’ And I go, ‘Yeah.’ That was it! Big long pause. I just wasn’t ready for a big long story. I’m not an entertainer with my mouth, but everyone expects me to be. I just feel like saying, ‘Everything I got to say is in the notes.’”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhigL9gxSvSmG8I9Cm-K0ywkrrhRYp8ScbKYWdefRn1gpwCDXcGkrmDqHVweUcTHbgk5Y4tuBzK8C3tBbqP8EJhNAKPX-Qcbe42WBHld90W2ObNEBXpxYTKJ0AfwCSKYDIIQgYO1KQVco/s1600/Fair+Warning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhigL9gxSvSmG8I9Cm-K0ywkrrhRYp8ScbKYWdefRn1gpwCDXcGkrmDqHVweUcTHbgk5Y4tuBzK8C3tBbqP8EJhNAKPX-Qcbe42WBHld90W2ObNEBXpxYTKJ0AfwCSKYDIIQgYO1KQVco/s200/Fair+Warning.jpg" width="197" /></a></div>Tension between Eddie and Dave fuelled 1981’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fair-Warning-Van-Halen/dp/B00004Y6O7?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Fair Warning</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00004Y6O7" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, Van Halen’s darkest album. Like its predecessors, the album went multi-platinum, but there were no party songs or anthemic rockers. It was fast and funky, furious at times, and most of all edgy. At just 31 minutes, it yielded no hits and was also the band’s poorest-selling record to date. Eddie soon found inspiration from another source when he began dating actress Valerie Bertinelli, whom he’d eventually marry. <br />
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After a grueling ten-month world tour, the band was rushed into the studio to record 1982’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Diver-Down-Van-Halen/dp/B00004Y6O6?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Diver Down</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00004Y6O6" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />. On July 22, 1982, Eddie awoke me in the middle of the night to talk about it. “Last year when we came off the Fair Warning tour, we were gonna take some time off and spend a lot of time writing and this and that. Dave came up with the idea of, ‘Hey, why don’t we start off the new year with just putting out a single?’ And Dave wanted to do ‘<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Street-Remastered-Album-Version/dp/B00122B9FA?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Dancing In the Street</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00122B9FA" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />.’ He gave me the original Martha Reeves and The Vandellas tape, and I listened to it. I’m going, ‘Fuck! I can’t get a handle on anything out of this song!’ I couldn’t figure out a riff. You know the way I play: I always like to do a riff as opposed to just hitting barre chords and strumming. So I said, ‘Hey, look, if you want to do a cover tune, why don’t we do ‘(Oh) Pretty Woman’?’ It took one day. We went to Sunset Sound, recorded it, it came out right after the first of the year, and it started climbing the charts. So all of sudden Warner Brothers is going, ‘Hey, fuck, man. You gotta hit single on your hands. We need that album, man. We gotta have that record.’ And we’re going, ‘Wait a minute. We just did that to keep us out there, so people know we’re still alive.’ But they kept pressuring, so we jumped right back in without any rest or any time to recuperate from the tour, and started recording.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvKwh4MghGlNMOkVyncTZWSzhKQa1uzryEwLrNNCOp0_Ky8AVtq1YWCZtWXUFtMEKj6n9qSDoj91eGLthzL7ZhiDPcax38ikj2GGt3a93LPkx10WVd6kO-sE10nn7ho-v2TT6DhYhyhHY/s1600/Diver+Down.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvKwh4MghGlNMOkVyncTZWSzhKQa1uzryEwLrNNCOp0_Ky8AVtq1YWCZtWXUFtMEKj6n9qSDoj91eGLthzL7ZhiDPcax38ikj2GGt3a93LPkx10WVd6kO-sE10nn7ho-v2TT6DhYhyhHY/s200/Diver+Down.jpg" width="199" /></a></div>“We spent 12 days making the album. We had a totally different approach this time. We used a different studio too. It’s now called Warner Brothers Recording Studios, but it used to be called Amigo. It’s owned by Warner Brothers, and they have a real big room. It was nice to have a change, because we’d done every other album at Sunset Sound. It was just a lot of fun going to a different studio. Getting back to what I meant about different approach in recording, the reason it went quicker . . . . I guess Fair Warning took longer than any album we’ve ever done, just because I did more overdubs and there were more things on tape that had to be mixed. I did so many different guitar parts. But this album [Diver Down] was actually cheaper to make than our first one. It cost like 46 grand. And the reason why was the different approach.” <br />
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Eddie’s main guitar was still the “regular old-faithful red-striped garbage Strat, the same one I used on the first albums. The same guts, everything’s the same. I might be crazy, but that guitar sounds better than anything I ever bought or built or owned. That is the only guitar that I use to record, except for like ‘<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cathedral-Album-Version/dp/B001OB7Q5G?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Cathedral</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001OB7Q5G" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,’ where I used a regular Stratocaster to get a little more of a nasal type of sound.”<br />
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On <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Diver-Down-Van-Halen/dp/B00004Y6O6?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Diver Down</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00004Y6O6" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, the band streamlined guitar parts, toned down Dave’s vocal extravaganzas, and added hints of keyboard synth. But where was the songwriting? The album’s hit singles were the covers of “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pretty-Woman-Remastered-Album-Version/dp/B00122B95U?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">(Oh) Pretty Woman</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00122B95U" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” and “Dancing in the Streets.” “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Where-Have-Times-Album-Version/dp/B001OB4XHU?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Where Have All the Good Times Gone!</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001OB4XHU" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” was a Ray Davies Kinks song. “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bill-Sweet-William-Album-Version/dp/B001OB7QH4?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001OB7QH4" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” featuring Jan Van Halen on clarinet, dated back to the Roaring ’20s. “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Trails-Album-Version/dp/B001OB65R6?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Happy Trails</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001OB65R6" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” was written by Dale Evans to use as the theme song for radio and TV’s The Roy Rogers Show. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL91VCXF69Ugm4LZUz6mzr4ArcIUcQGY4Cb2XEv6IO81UK5z-Bl6USjE9ahw1cSL4RbGyTWY9tIe3TIFCi22UFNeHrOalkGFi_B5OpTTPl7P0ZDqV20GgmuW5bAcXLR8zEkI6gfLO4cEQ/s1600/Diver+Down+insert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL91VCXF69Ugm4LZUz6mzr4ArcIUcQGY4Cb2XEv6IO81UK5z-Bl6USjE9ahw1cSL4RbGyTWY9tIe3TIFCi22UFNeHrOalkGFi_B5OpTTPl7P0ZDqV20GgmuW5bAcXLR8zEkI6gfLO4cEQ/s200/Diver+Down+insert.jpg" width="194" /></a></div>In all, the band contributed just 17 minutes of new songs to the album. And one of these tracks, “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Intruder-Album-Version/dp/B001OB2HEG?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Intruder</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001OB2HEG" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” was done to accommodate a video. “The only reason we did that is because we did a video for ‘Pretty Woman,’” Eddie explained. “We had a transvestite tied up and two midgets harassing her, squeezing her ass and doing this and that. And Dave was Napoleon, Mike was a Samurai warrior. Alex, my brother, was Tarzan, and I was like a gunslinger, wearin’ leather pants and twirlin’ a gun and stuff. And a hunchback was in it; he was in a bell tower, looking down at the two midgets harassing this supposedly pretty woman. And he would hop on the phone and call each one of us. I’d hop on a horse and come to the rescue, and so would Al and Dave and Mike. And at the very end, Dave pulls up in a white stretch limo – you know, he’s always the one that’s got the classy, crazy shit. He looks at her, and she starts running towards him like he’s her hero. And she pulls her wig off, and you see that she’s a dude! <br />
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“And the reason we did ‘Intruder’ was because the video was longer than ‘Pretty Woman.’ So we just went right back in and said, ‘Hey, we need some more music.’ I used a beer can, all kinds of weird stuff, just making noise. It took a minute and 40 seconds to do – no overdubs, nothing. In the very beginning I twirled my vibrato bar, and it kind of sounds like a chain. The next thing you hear was done by rubbing a can of Schlitz Malt against the low E. The cricket sound was picking above the nut with the vibrato bar all the way down. And I rubbed the springs on the back. The thing that sounds like an elephant – rrrrnngh, rrrrnngh – that was so funny. My guitar has one pickup. I just took my pick and right where the neck joins the body, I would scrape the pick up the string to the pickup, and the string was hitting the magnet pole of the pickup. Like that. It was so much fun.” Van Halen has made this video available on their official myspace page: <a href="http://www.myspace.com/vanhalen">http://www.myspace.com/vanhalen</a>. <br />
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Another original, “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Little-Guitars-Intro-Album-Version/dp/B001OB4XRU?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Little Guitar (Intro)</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001OB4XRU" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” a gem of an instrumental, came from an unexpected source of inspiration. “I came up with ‘Little Guitar’ – the Spanish-sounding thing – when I bought a couple of Montoya records,” Eddie detailed. “I’m hearing this guy going [imitates machine gun fire], fingerpicking. I’m going, ‘My God, this motherfucker is great! I can’t do that.’ So I listened to that style of playing for a couple of days, and I cheated. Steve Lukather, the guy from Toto, he was in the studio when we were mastering it, cutting the disc, and he’s going, ‘How the fuck did you do that? You overdubbed that, huh?’ I’m going, ‘No, I didn’t.’ What I’m doing is trilling on the high E and just slapping my middle finger on the low E. So I’m doing the trills and pull-offs with my left hand. I just think it’s funny. If there’s something that I want to do, I won’t give up until I can figure out some way to make it sound similar to what I really can’t do.” <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">When critics howled about Diver Down’s cover tunes, Eddie responded: “I don’t think any cover tune we’ve ever done has been like the original. It takes almost as much time to make a cover tune sound original as it does writing a song. So fuck the critics! It pisses me off, because I spent a lot of time arranging and playing synthesizer on ‘Dancing In the Streets’ and they just kind of write it off, like, ‘Oh, you know, it’s just like the original,’ but that’s bullshit.</div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">“I think that ‘Pretty Woman” and ‘Dance the Night Away’ are the only two songs ever recorded by us that have no guitar solo. Hey, well, shit, it almost makes me feel bad. It shows you how much guitar solos mean to people, because ‘Pretty Woman’ is actually our only legitimate hit. It got to #11 or #10 or something like that in Billboard. It was straightforward, just like ‘<a href="http://www.amazon.com/You-Really-Got-Me/dp/B00122HOV8?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">You Really Got Me</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00122HOV8" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />’ on the first album was straightforward, but it was updated. Actually, people didn’t even know that it was an old song until critics started saying, ‘Here’s Van Halen doin’ cover tunes again.’ And they’re good fucking songs! Why should they not be redone the way we do ’em for the new generation of people?” At the overblown 1983 US Festival, Van Halen gained more criticism as they set a record for the most money earned for a single appearance, netting $1 million for a boozy 90-minute set. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQWKxZTDiBanCNADKsbI8-66UfdQAL5bqWy6am0H8ZVwGvLDn5V-Sv9UC9cSW3uFKKXAr96FvV3ik3r_orznzAUkwsUcU-IksRsEMWFI92M12LjsI6MUdkKTIA64OMVW12axbbKMT-Gis/s1600/1984.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQWKxZTDiBanCNADKsbI8-66UfdQAL5bqWy6am0H8ZVwGvLDn5V-Sv9UC9cSW3uFKKXAr96FvV3ik3r_orznzAUkwsUcU-IksRsEMWFI92M12LjsI6MUdkKTIA64OMVW12axbbKMT-Gis/s200/1984.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Then the unexpected occurred: Van Halen redeemed itself with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/1984-Van-Halen/dp/B00004Y6O3?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">1984</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00004Y6O3" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, one of the defining albums of the 1980s. By then, MTV was all the rage, and Van Halen delivered both musically and visually, gaining a #1 hit with the unstoppably upbeat “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jump/dp/B001O7WCYU?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Jump</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001O7WCYU" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />.” The regularly rotated video featured a happy, boyish-looking Eddie playing keyboard synth and a “genius-brand guitar solo,” to swipe one of his favorite phrases. Two more singles followed – “I’ll Wait” and “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Panama/dp/B001O8069M?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Panama</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001O8069M" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” – and “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hot-For-Teacher/dp/B001O7UO7W?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Hot for Teacher</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001O7UO7W" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” spawned another popular video. An instant classic, 1984 showed countless bands the commercial potential in blending heavy guitar with synthesizers. Few did it as well as Eddie and the boys, though. Later that year, a Neil Zlozower image of Eddie in 1978 was used for the cover of my book Masters of Heavy Metal. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP7t-AHT1HylYht0_AqBQ52W9b5LEWHXIHlqVckvG2rPjCOPHeFu46aDioncsLFu6trlG2mdb7-9q10AFcZicNCO5D9VONvR-6hWRtbqy8S7TwjF6hJ4gqKFM2ePnJ6A4VoH24dS4eG9Y/s1600/Masters+of+Heavy+Metal+book+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP7t-AHT1HylYht0_AqBQ52W9b5LEWHXIHlqVckvG2rPjCOPHeFu46aDioncsLFu6trlG2mdb7-9q10AFcZicNCO5D9VONvR-6hWRtbqy8S7TwjF6hJ4gqKFM2ePnJ6A4VoH24dS4eG9Y/s200/Masters+of+Heavy+Metal+book+cover.jpg" width="154" /></a>The 1984 album reached #2 on the pop charts. Eddie also appeared on that year’s #1 album, Michael Jackson’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Jackson-25th-Anniversary-Thriller/dp/B000WS4QJG?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Thriller</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000WS4QJG" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, playing the unforgettable “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Beat-It-Single-Version/dp/B0013DDLPY?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Beat It</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0013DDLPY" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” solo. (Steve Lukather played the song’s killer rhythm guitar.) Not to be outdone, the attention-craving Roth arranged to record his first solo project, 1985’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Heat-David-Lee-Roth/dp/B000002L7D?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Crazy From the Heat </a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000002L7D" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />EP. His covers of the Beach Boys’ “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/California-Girls-Album-Version/dp/B00123FIGA?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">California Girls</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00123FIGA" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” and the Depression-era pop songs “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Just-Gigolo-Nobody-Album-Version/dp/B00123LO6S?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00123LO6S" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />” became hits. Heady with excitement, Roth announced that he had a film deal in the works. The next Van Halen album, he said, would have to wait. </div><br />
For Eddie Van Halen, who always insisted that family comes first – and to him the band is <em>always</em> family – this was the last straw. In April 1985, Roth was out of the band, and by June, Sammy Hagar was announced as his replacement. The band’s first two albums with Sammy – <a href="http://www.amazon.com/5150/dp/B002CO1Y2A?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">5150</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B002CO1Y2A" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ou812-Van-Halen/dp/B000002LEM?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">OU812</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000002LEM" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> – both shot to #1. Dave, meanwhile, briefly hit the Top 10 with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Smile-David-Lee-Roth/dp/B000002L9W?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Eat ’Em & Smile</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000002L9W" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> in 1986 and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Skyscraper-David-Lee-Roth/dp/B000026DMU?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Skyscraper</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000026DMU" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> in ’88.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">The Reunions</span></strong> <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">After Sammy’s departure from Van Halen in 1996, Dave rejoined Eddie, Alex, and Mike for two new songs on the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Best-Van-Halen-Vol-1/dp/B000002NAA?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Best of Volume 1</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000002NAA" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /> album, “Can’t Get This Stuff No More” and “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Me-Wise-Magic/dp/B001FEEYYS?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Me Wise Magic</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001FEEYYS" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />.” That fall, the four of them appeared together at the MTV Video Music Awards. Jubilant fans speculated that Roth was back in the band, but Eddie soon issued a press release clarifying that Dave was brought in for the two songs and nothing more. Bad blood followed. </div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Nine years later, Alex, Eddie, and Dave reunited again, this time with Eddie’s 17-year-old son Wolfgang on bass. Their Van Halen tour lasted from September 2007 until June 2008, with time off for Eddie’s stint in rehab. At the tour’s final stop, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Dave insisted that this was not his final show with Alex and Eddie, and that they’d see everybody next time. Here’s hoping . . . . <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnt2IDUYxHF-5NPxfKtGsx3fIh-O0FQG4hu1c327iSM9sqmT2nPNkQ-G56XDqkE46_9BC1RzK58P9yYgEy_1Q1YsmlL6rFamxrd4_tdHoCwb4Popmi6-MB8TCtfrV0hcUrMv6IJQ5bjlI/s1600/jas+and+eddie+handshake+1978.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnt2IDUYxHF-5NPxfKtGsx3fIh-O0FQG4hu1c327iSM9sqmT2nPNkQ-G56XDqkE46_9BC1RzK58P9yYgEy_1Q1YsmlL6rFamxrd4_tdHoCwb4Popmi6-MB8TCtfrV0hcUrMv6IJQ5bjlI/s200/jas+and+eddie+handshake+1978.jpg" width="141" /></a><em>All of the Eddie Van Halen quotes in this article were taken from interviews we did together between 1978 and 1984.</em> </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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<strong><em>Thanks to Jon Sievert for permission to use his B&W photos of Eddie from Day on the Green, 1978. To see a stunning array of Jon's photos, visit </em></strong><a href="http://humblearchives.photoshelter.com/"><strong><em>http://humblearchives.photoshelter.com</em></strong></a><em><strong>.</strong> </em><br />
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###Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-84505602912136647842010-07-03T10:14:00.047-04:002010-07-28T07:50:52.479-04:00My Favorite Concerts: John Lee Hooker, 1967<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj39qgqIUbHRIVKR84FVsr7yQfbqAI0uTNK_A7DBg_x7Z4RsCDqyDo8sqymD5mBUnMVBuE1b0WvXUXH2uG_uwNbm3aixALZt3QJSyopPLAps6BBUE8UqqI-AP0VWG-dwvVEBMcZcqddyes/s1600/Hooker+1960s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj39qgqIUbHRIVKR84FVsr7yQfbqAI0uTNK_A7DBg_x7Z4RsCDqyDo8sqymD5mBUnMVBuE1b0WvXUXH2uG_uwNbm3aixALZt3QJSyopPLAps6BBUE8UqqI-AP0VWG-dwvVEBMcZcqddyes/s320/Hooker+1960s.jpg" width="228" /></a></div>A few weeks into my freshman year at the all-boys Jesuit high school in Detroit, I went to my first school event: a concert in the commons. The performer was none other than John Lee Hooker. I knew nothing about him, other than one of my favorite albums, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Best-Animals/dp/B000003BDD?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">The Best of the Animals</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000003BDD" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, included a line where Eric Burdon listed “meeting John Lee Hooker” as his most thrilling experience. I later learned he’d written their hits “Boom Boom” and “Dimples.”<br />
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The rowdy audience of preppy teenagers quieted down when John Lee Hooker was announced. Hooker, who still lived in Detroit, walked in wearing a black leather coat and a Russian-style black hat, both of which he left on the entire evening. Carrying a red semi-hollowbody guitar, he worked his way to a small stage set up in the middle of a large room with a circular balcony that doubled as a running track. He plugged into a small amp and eased himself into a folding chair illuminated by single spotlight. Tapping time with both feet, he began playing staccato blues riffs with his thumb and forefinger while moaning in a deep, resonant voice. Never having heard anything like this before, I was instantly mesmerized.<br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQvGLyfo_I_8bDkzYrl_9BxiyS2T_D_atv3lPL-YxlTyGvaYPcvkVAG0gS6pZZ91SabXVLu93gE92UTwBVCNh9p9hz6qt0bF1-m6HVIBgIoDK1MVfbd_xC_Hr3GzvkV6yDVvqB7CqogHg/s1600/john-lee-hooker+cafe+au+go+go.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489683589141658114" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQvGLyfo_I_8bDkzYrl_9BxiyS2T_D_atv3lPL-YxlTyGvaYPcvkVAG0gS6pZZ91SabXVLu93gE92UTwBVCNh9p9hz6qt0bF1-m6HVIBgIoDK1MVfbd_xC_Hr3GzvkV6yDVvqB7CqogHg/s200/john-lee-hooker+cafe+au+go+go.jpg" style="height: 200px; margin-top: 0px; width: 199px;" /></a>Hooker had just released his magnificent <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Live-Cafe-Go-Go-Soledad-Prison/dp/B000002P4B?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Live at Café au Go-Go </a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQvGLyfo_I_8bDkzYrl_9BxiyS2T_D_atv3lPL-YxlTyGvaYPcvkVAG0gS6pZZ91SabXVLu93gE92UTwBVCNh9p9hz6qt0bF1-m6HVIBgIoDK1MVfbd_xC_Hr3GzvkV6yDVvqB7CqogHg/s1600/john-lee-hooker+cafe+au+go+go.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000002P4B" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /></a>album, recorded the previous summer with the Muddy Waters band, and at our show he covered most of the songs on the record, sans accompanists. Seldom opening his eyes, he sang his menacing “I’m Bad Like Jesse James” and heart-wrenching “When My First Wife Left Me,” “It Serves Me Right to Suffer,” and “I’ll Never Get Out of These Blues Alive.” He picked up the pace for “Bottle Up and Go” and “One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer,” rocked the house with “Boom Boom,” and closed the show with his almighty “Boogie Chillen” and “Dimples.” Wow!</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">This night marked the beginning of my love for the blues. I went right out and got Live at Café au Go-Go. In time, I filled orange crate after orange crate with blues LPs. When I b<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4E3fodkdsI9uwLNTozXmlGuOXi34eZ_cZcqqZJWBaj1A-tEp4hH2Ii-5oS9FmYf7kk1W_y9Y-9nJj0PKx8ODHoODWhd6Mc_Ebp_ADHJ6Slev4C4YzCqyW6DqYwVtYiBgIx1tVJOwZwIM/s1600/Rollin'+%26+Tumblin%27+book+cover.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489683426877886306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4E3fodkdsI9uwLNTozXmlGuOXi34eZ_cZcqqZJWBaj1A-tEp4hH2Ii-5oS9FmYf7kk1W_y9Y-9nJj0PKx8ODHoODWhd6Mc_Ebp_ADHJ6Slev4C4YzCqyW6DqYwVtYiBgIx1tVJOwZwIM/s200/Rollin'+%26+Tumblin%27+book+cover.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 130px;" /></a>ecame a music journalist in the 1970s, I made it my mission to interview as many blues artists as I could find. Best of all, I was blessed to become friends with John Lee Hooker.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Jim Marshall, who shared my love for the man he always referred to as “Mr. Hooker,” photographed two of my interviews with John Lee Hooker. When I was choosing a cover for my book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rollin-Tumblin-Postwar-Blues-Guitarists/dp/0879306130?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Rollin’ & Tumblin’: The Postwar Blues Guitarists</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0879306130" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, he suggested I use a shot he’d taken around the time of that concert in Detroit. I gladly accepted.</div><br />
RIP, John and Jim.<br />
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<strong><em>To buy your own copy of Rollin' & Tumblin', which contains John's interviews with B.B. King and Buddy Guy, as well as any of the many John Lee Hooker CDs featuring my liner notes, visit our Amazon blog store at <a href="http://astore.amazon.com/jaso01-20">http://astore.amazon.com/jaso01-20</a>. </em></strong><br />
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<em><strong><span style="color: blue;">Help support this blog and independent music journalism by making a small donation via the Paypal button at the bottom of this page. </span></strong></em>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-70001909644197719842010-07-03T09:53:00.058-04:002010-07-28T07:54:15.839-04:00My Favorite Concerts: Simon & Garfunkel 1967<em></em><br />
<div><em>As a music journalist since the 1970s, I’ve attended more concerts than I can remember. Some, though, have etched indelible memories and continue to inspire. In the My Favorite Concerts series, I share these recollections and I invite readers to post their favorites at the end of the blogs. To download songs, click on the blue links. </em><br />
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When I was 14, we lived near the towering Uniroyal tire alongside I-94 on t<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinpJXkVq6kYJ6bdO68nyzZnjbvwoyLViXhCdwPAnEdWB13OF47mBSH3lo33QJ8CvOr28cbt30NYvg1XzaXvMrrI50ofoipTBvMtvLaOjqYWk18-kivlSG4i3GpGJgbnW_oqDsgy9bkVyE/s1600/simon+garfunkel+1967.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" height="294" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489679598346129906" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinpJXkVq6kYJ6bdO68nyzZnjbvwoyLViXhCdwPAnEdWB13OF47mBSH3lo33QJ8CvOr28cbt30NYvg1XzaXvMrrI50ofoipTBvMtvLaOjqYWk18-kivlSG4i3GpGJgbnW_oqDsgy9bkVyE/s320/simon+garfunkel+1967.jpg" style="float: right; height: 184px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" width="320" /></a>he way into Detroit. My parents had taught at the University of Detroit in the 1940s, and one of my mother’s colleagues lived across the street. One cold afternoon she stopped by to ask if we wanted three tickets to see Simon & Garfunkel at the university.<br />
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That Christmas, my parents had given me a Sears Silvertone – my first guitar – and I’d already learned the opening notes of “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Sound-Of-Silence/dp/B0018Q4FNS?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Sounds of Silence</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0018Q4FNS" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />.” Even though we were grade schoolers and the concert was on a Sunday night, I managed to talk my mom into taking my sister Nancy and me to the event. We’d only seen one other concert before this, the Four Seasons, about six months earlier. <br />
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When we showed up at the box office, we discovered our tickets were front row center, with backstage passes. Hip<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxW7U-1qVGLW34xoZ-X0Ym3ST1LhhkTBfIlsHeD2YqaKfgYfKM_aXSC7PUWSPkgndgDfFt6G8bcbxy8ski172rKsNGGXFtlh8wKpgYH1HbrTXG-siXb6x5oMx2j4xBIJU9Bnm_ZRXyL_M/s1600/Simon+%26+Garfunkel+ticket.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489678983746554818" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxW7U-1qVGLW34xoZ-X0Ym3ST1LhhkTBfIlsHeD2YqaKfgYfKM_aXSC7PUWSPkgndgDfFt6G8bcbxy8ski172rKsNGGXFtlh8wKpgYH1HbrTXG-siXb6x5oMx2j4xBIJU9Bnm_ZRXyL_M/s200/Simon+%26+Garfunkel+ticket.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 135px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a> and respectful, the gathering crowd seemed more beatnik-folkie than the hippies we’d been visiting with around Plum Street. We settled into our seats in the University of Detroit’s gymnasium, the lights dimmed, and Simon & Garfunkel walked into a spotlight to thunderous applause. Their microphones were less than ten feet from my chair. Art Garfunkel, dressed <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7fudR-hYkkKVwgvL43PCInxAhQWIGaF7WaQCAVlezS9gNi5ocwOEFh5oAmPuvXa-kBfq6JZ_R_QoDhkHkw9lgyR0qJwrvJ9n9UFLfuYuZl5dNeyO_yvjta7yt0q3WRNU9BP7mfDPqmCs/s1600/Simon+%26+Garfunkel+ticket.jpg"></a>in brown leather pants and a rust turtleneck, sat upon a stool. Paul Simon, in turtleneck and jeans, stood as he quickly checked the tuning on a Martin 6-string guitar so polished it reflected the spotlight’s glare into our eyes. His string-ends looked like little butterflies perched atop the tuning pegs.<br />
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The duo launched into breathtaking renditions of “<img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0018Q2BA2" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0018QZ762" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Scarborough-Fair-Canticle/dp/B00136LSJC?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Scarborough-Fair-Canticle/dp/B00136LSJC?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Scarborough Fair</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00136LSJC" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” “Cloudy,” “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/April-Come-She-Will/dp/B0018Q18MY?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">April Come She Will</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0018Q18MY" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” “He Was My Brother,” “Bleeker Street,” “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Poem-Underground-Wall/dp/B0018Q2BA2?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">A Poem on the Underground Wall</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0018Q2BA2" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” “Patterns,” “Richard Cory,” “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/I-Am-A-Rock/dp/B00136Q0YA?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">I Am a Rock</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00136Q0YA" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Dangling-Conversation/dp/B0018R34N4?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">The Dangling Conversation</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0018R34N4" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/59th-Street-Bridge-Feelin-Groovy/dp/B00136NV3S?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">59th Street Bridge Song</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00136NV3S" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Anji/dp/B0018Q61SK?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Anji</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0018Q61SK" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Homeward-Bound/dp/B00136RU7Q?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Homeward Bound</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00136RU7Q" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” “Sounds of Silence,” and an early version of “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mrs-Robinson/dp/B00136LSHO?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Mrs. Robinson</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00136LSHO" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />,” reworked later that year for The Graduate. My favorite moment was when Simon switched to a 12-string guitar for a thrilling “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Emily-Whenever-May-Find-Her/dp/B0018R11MA?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0018R11MA" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />.” Their voices created some of the best harmonies I’ve ever heard.<br />
<br />
After the show, we were led down a corridor backstage and asked to wait. About twenty minutes later Art Garfunkel came out and warmly greeted my mother, sister, and me. Paul Simon showed up a few minutes later. I remember him telling me that Davy Graham had written “Anji,” that he liked Martin guitars the best, and that his brother Eddie also played guitar. My mom, with typical wry humor, asked Garfunkel if his leather pants were hot under the stage lights. As we were leaving, the musicians pulled two posters off the walls and autographed them for my sister and me. </div><div><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ6kcuwd0djBTeOgPS8XDDZA-UaHon78tIYxUBpN8OeMkqG1LgNaYm8CNfgGymsZo1gF3TY_-Rcg_sN8nYD7KwActRKAf4szJLDZKKetGVGV3Sdy-frsXNwRkd0TFgO3I7GVWG0J8Iud0/s1600/Sounds+of+Silence+cover.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489680885103259186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ6kcuwd0djBTeOgPS8XDDZA-UaHon78tIYxUBpN8OeMkqG1LgNaYm8CNfgGymsZo1gF3TY_-Rcg_sN8nYD7KwActRKAf4szJLDZKKetGVGV3Sdy-frsXNwRkd0TFgO3I7GVWG0J8Iud0/s200/Sounds+of+Silence+cover.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a></div><div>The next day, we bought all three of their albums – <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sounds-Silence-Exp-Simon-Garfunkel/dp/B00005NKKV?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Sounds of Silence</a><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sounds-Silence-Exp-Simon-Garfunkel/dp/B00005NKKV?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"></a>;<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wednesday-Morning-3-A-M/dp/B0018Q4GEQ?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00005NKKV" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /></a><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wednesday-Morning-3-A-M/dp/B001BHWEAA?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001BHWEAA" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />.; and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Parsley-Sage-Rosemary-Thyme-Exp/dp/B00005NKKX?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00005NKKX" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />. I’ve loved Simon & Garfunkel’s music ever since. Although I had no way of knowing it at the time, this concert set a pattern that would repeat countless times in the decades to come: Watch a performance, take notes, and go backstage to talk to the musicians. In essence, I was able to turn this unforgettable night into a career. <br />
<br />
Coincidentally, something else happened in popular music while we were at the concert: The Rolling Stones performed “Let’s Spend the Night Together” on The Ed Sullivan Show, changing the song’s refrain to “let’s spend some time together” to accommodate the censors.<br />
<br />
<strong><em><span style="color: blue;">Help support this blog and independent music journalism by making a small donation via the Paypal button at the bottom of this page.</span></em></strong> </div>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-15728756947554275712010-07-02T13:37:00.047-04:002010-07-28T07:58:25.275-04:00Otis Rush: The Living Blues Interview<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3aKI5jIXnBJ7x8hg0zXOW-JIx96DXyQnAeMnUb__LvLHw5xW1743Sp-GiBTXJY4O-ouJHBRpHC6-XyN346-voflUhTb6ZoSWC1TTh653wZCauUU9anxDj4yjppnhAN9NfOlHk5AX20Xk/s1600/Cobra+publicity+shot+1957.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3aKI5jIXnBJ7x8hg0zXOW-JIx96DXyQnAeMnUb__LvLHw5xW1743Sp-GiBTXJY4O-ouJHBRpHC6-XyN346-voflUhTb6ZoSWC1TTh653wZCauUU9anxDj4yjppnhAN9NfOlHk5AX20Xk/s320/Cobra+publicity+shot+1957.jpg" /></a>During the mid 1950s, a tough new breed of guitarists began to emerge from Chicago's West and South sides. These twenty-something bluesmen had all been raised in the South, and they played loud, hard, and sure-handed. Master string-shakers, they framed their cathartic tales of heartbreak and woe with unforgettable riffs and story-telling solos. Their ranks included Magic Sam, Freddie King, Buddy Guy, Joe Young, Luther Allison, Jimmy Dawkins, and first among them to score a hit, Otis Rush.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div>Born on April 29, 1934, Rush was raised on a plantation-style farm near Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers were murdered in the early 1960s. A southpaw, Rush learned to play a flipped-over right-hand guitar, and to this day still strings "in reverse," with his bass strings nearest the floor. Seeing the Muddy Waters band during a 1949 visit to Chicago caused an epiphany: "All I could say was, 'Whoa! I got to do that.'" He stayed in Chicago, immersing himself in records by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Albert King, B.B. King, and T-Bone Walker – occasionally slowing down the turntable to play along – and took lessons with Reggie Boyd. Rush made his club debut circa 1953, playing to his own foot stomps. In '56, Willie Dixon spotted him playing at the 708 Club and arranged for his debut session with Eli Toscano's fledgling Cobra Records.<br />
<br />
Rush's very first recording, a heartrending rewrite of Dixon's "I Can't Quit You Baby" delivered with a fever-and-chills v<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhydBrowKtF0GRlrpTYgUfayEhbaclD76T3aAVVTWZUbcRCLeyuYlrLYOofODMHTpULETmxYq9hVBKPo6s44Q-XP1eRfSE8NYf4b3sg71IaSY99SNZp2McjQoQkQDL70IeTAgYts0Q-rrc/s1600/I-Cant-quit-You-Otis_Rush.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489372077532697746" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhydBrowKtF0GRlrpTYgUfayEhbaclD76T3aAVVTWZUbcRCLeyuYlrLYOofODMHTpULETmxYq9hVBKPo6s44Q-XP1eRfSE8NYf4b3sg71IaSY99SNZp2McjQoQkQDL70IeTAgYts0Q-rrc/s200/I-Cant-quit-You-Otis_Rush.gif" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a>ocals, reached the Top 10 in Billboard's charts for "R&B Sellers in Stores" and "Most Played R&B in Juke Boxes." Hailed as one of Chicago's most brilliant performers, Rush was soon moving in progressive directions. His sultry moaning and groaning in Dixon's "My Love Will Never Die" foreshadowed '60s soul ballads, while his tormented, strikingly original "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)," "My Love Will Never Die," and "Double Trouble" became urban blues classics. With its visceral attack, beautiful phrasing, shimmering vibrato, and elastic bends, Otis' guitar approach was soon inspiring a generation of rock and blues guitarists – Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Peter Green, Magic Sam, Carlos Santana, and Stevie Ray Vaughan among them. On Rush's recommendation, Cobra recorded Magic Sam in 1957 and Buddy Guy in '58 (with Otis playing rhythm guitar on Guy's first Chicago recording).<br />
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Under Dixon's guidance, Rush signed with Chess Records and recorded another classic – "So Many Roads" – in 1960, but the association proved to be one of many unhapp<img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0000005O7" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-X_6Ayf6RR2XkkEIQBDIt1k2zmypnEijEVNFwcFJkgtlZ9f1meiRVjizPW67VaYvn7wfYesRDms1HDPzbGqRlHKEFJaoOPY3K0v3giCQnE7yEXWHcjcUnYqoG3tuyq0kG50pLB_AnAQY/s1600/1960s+with+Gibson.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489378365636198962" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-X_6Ayf6RR2XkkEIQBDIt1k2zmypnEijEVNFwcFJkgtlZ9f1meiRVjizPW67VaYvn7wfYesRDms1HDPzbGqRlHKEFJaoOPY3K0v3giCQnE7yEXWHcjcUnYqoG3tuyq0kG50pLB_AnAQY/s200/1960s+with+Gibson.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 187px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>y experiences he'd have with record labels. Later in the decade he cut records with mixed results for Duke, Vanguard, and Atlantic's Cotillion subsidiary. His brilliant 1971 album <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Right-Place-Wrong-Time-Otis/dp/B0000005O7?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Right Place, Wrong Time </a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0000005O7" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />lived up to its name, staying on the shelf for a half-decade. Rush confessed to being "high as a kite" from alcohol while making 1975's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cold-Day-Hell-Otis-Rush/dp/B000004BJK?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Cold Day in Hell </a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000004BJK" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />for Delmark, and his 1978 Sonet LP, Troubles, Troubles, would be his last studio album for sixteen years. He played occasional dates and recorded live albums for Delmark, Black and Blue, Trio, and Blind Pig, but mostly stayed home drinking and "living off the land" by "hustling pool, trying to catch the lottery."<br />
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In 1994, Rush ended his studio hiatus to record <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Aint-Enough-Comin-Otis-Rush/dp/B000001E2F?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Ain't Enough Comin In </a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000001E2F" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />for Quicksilver Records, using the same production team and core musicians as Buddy Guy's Feels Like Rain. But unlike Guy's album, with its airwaves-approved duets and star names, Rush carried the show alone, journeying from p<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio-7QZj5liou1SoZJESSCOk8-eutr5zLGhFAiLlDZ_-NvrGg4IFoP3wRgHTf8EmkuD6SQp4nmTFsbpzH51kI8ULlZlA48zizeizxzERxMMw4WQBb6VJi0m5rVfXe88yuO2lgkrmV40j48/s1600/Ain't+Enough+Comin%27+In.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489378609833448626" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio-7QZj5liou1SoZJESSCOk8-eutr5zLGhFAiLlDZ_-NvrGg4IFoP3wRgHTf8EmkuD6SQp4nmTFsbpzH51kI8ULlZlA48zizeizxzERxMMw4WQBb6VJi0m5rVfXe88yuO2lgkrmV40j48/s200/Ain't+Enough+Comin%27+In.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 196px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a>assionate pleas to gritty soul and sanctified screams. The title track was the album's sole Rush composition.<br />
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Rush says that his latest release, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Any-Place-Going-Otis-Rush/dp/B000009QSJ?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Any Place I'm Going</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000009QSJ" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, co-produced with his wife Masaki and Willie Mitchell for House of Blues, is "better than any stuff I've ever done, because of the sound." He recasts his old Cobra single "Keep on Loving Me Baby" with a modern sheen and delivers a taut slow blues with "Looking Back." The album's other Rush original, the title track, was co-written with Will Jennings, of Titanic and "Up Where We Belong" fame.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgefNamXWEy9Yh7f7-ry4HhbtIxmuwVnSkg1FETdQyETuKvQJvl7wzu2UxST8w154PQOl5fqz9i0lL0tXjzzsjQAMhKdfLVCKEFmhS0gQ7ORmpQJL9UJmcfqvbqJk_LdeBySUU4O3RYLG0/s1600/1998-11+Otis+Rush.jpg"></a><br />
Through the years, Otis Rush has been characterized as a brooding, intensely guarded man who's extraordinarily reticent during interview<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFCj32sUo7aDatBJSVVBAuXy5M5e26k2YEsU5SX0dKzxySnz0S_2gZxZIH-wpSWV-w7xfjJX2WY4MQ-phGpvluD7_uc4hJwadDzCOGGjNgY1HJMUUohOs9f3Axu7v6NVG8Wx0lFMAZNoM/s1600/1998-11+Otis+Rush.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489386157439203714" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFCj32sUo7aDatBJSVVBAuXy5M5e26k2YEsU5SX0dKzxySnz0S_2gZxZIH-wpSWV-w7xfjJX2WY4MQ-phGpvluD7_uc4hJwadDzCOGGjNgY1HJMUUohOs9f3Axu7v6NVG8Wx0lFMAZNoM/s320/1998-11+Otis+Rush.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 232px;" /></a>s. This was not the case during the following two-and-a-half-hour conversation, which took place in Chicago on August 8, 1998, in the lobby of Rush's upscale North Shore high-rise. Perhaps Rush’s unflinching recollections of his youth provide insight into the anguish that drives so many of his classic recordings. It originally appeared as the cover story of Living Blues #142 in November 1998.<br />
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* * * *<br />
<br />
<em>When you were beginning to play, did you solo right away or go through learning chords first?</em><br />
<br />
I learned solos right away, because I was playing more like John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, stuff like that. I began to practice, and I learned as I go. I'm still learning.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you own an acoustic guitar when you were young?</em><br />
<br />
Yes, I did. I didn't own it, but my brother did. I have a brother – he can't play, but he bought a guitar. I guess that was my big break. His name was Leroy.<br />
<br />
<em>Was this in Philadelphia?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, Philadelphia, Mississippi.<br />
<br />
<em>You once described that town as being so small you could throw a baseball across it.</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. You can bat a home run, and it's over! [Laughs.] It's in Shelby County. It's forty-some miles from Meridian, a hundred miles from Jackson, Mississippi. Living there was a hell of an experience for me.<br />
<br />
<em>Why is that?</em><br />
<br />
Just the things you had to go through. This was back in the '40s and '50s. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHuAuCTjVK6LkuAwCJitykxQVfZEyL6i6fzvMBuy_VB0Wej_kvrIskoWl4Oklwqm_B6dngXw4YpQYDt1pxHpocaIJAi9tbQI0f-nPmo3LkThNzYFpnujLmktXK4-kBsCWTpOfIDxXOGxk/s1600/Philadelphia+1938.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489386538585795794" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHuAuCTjVK6LkuAwCJitykxQVfZEyL6i6fzvMBuy_VB0Wej_kvrIskoWl4Oklwqm_B6dngXw4YpQYDt1pxHpocaIJAi9tbQI0f-nPmo3LkThNzYFpnujLmktXK4-kBsCWTpOfIDxXOGxk/s320/Philadelphia+1938.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 258px;" /></a><br />
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<div><div><br />
<br />
<div><strong>This 1938 Mississippi Highway Map lists the population of Philadelphia as 2,560</strong>.</div><br />
<br />
<div><em>Was there a lot of racism</em>?<br />
<br />
Yeah, a lot of that too. I've had to go around the back to restaurants. When white people are having dinner, I must wait till they get through eating. After they eat, then we could eat. I'm not kidding. The rest rooms, they had signs up there – "White" and "Colored." You know I'm telling the truth. It was all over. You'd go to a restaurant, even on the highway, and it'd say, "Colored, go around the back." When we wanted some food, we can't order from the front. But I don't want to get into that. Like I say, it's been a hell of an experience.<br />
<br />
<em>You've said that your hard times started around the time you were five years old.</em><br />
<br />
That's right. My mother didn't have a husband. There were seven of us – five boys and two girls, and she had to raise us by herself. I'm what they call a bastard. All my brothers had another father – they're half-bothers – and I have one whole sister, Odie Mae. There's also Leroy, Lorenzo, Eugene, and Wilmon. The other sister is Elizabeth. The seven of us had to support each other.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you ever work in a field?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah! From five years old. My mother and older brothers and sisters be out in the field picking cotton, pulling corn, or something. I'm lookin' at them workin', and I wanted my mother to compliment me. Every time I'd pull some cotton, I'd give it to her and let her put it in her sack – she used to drag the sacks. She said, "Boy, you're doin' great!" She kept on telling me how great I worked. I get tired and go sit in the shade, so at some point she said, "Come on, boy." I said, "What, mom?" "You pick that cotton like you been pickin'." I didn't want to pick it. She said, "You better come on, boy, I ain't gonna tell you no more." So at six, seven years old, man, I'm working my ass off. I had to pick that cotton. At nine or ten years old, my goodness, I was plowin' the mule, turning this land over with the plow. No tractor – they had 'em, but not on this farm.<br />
<br />
The white man let us go to school when the weather was so bad out there that we can't go to work. And we'd be prayin' for bad weather all the time! [Laughs.] We would hope for a storm, so today we could go to school. I went to school, man, but not like I should have. I'd be in school, I have all these plans for today – this is my great day – and [knocks three times, then says in a loud, gruff voice] "Junior in there?" They called me Junior and Bud then. "Is he in there? Send him out here." Then he'd say, "Come on, boy. I want you to go out here and cut them bushes and do that bottom over there." I come out of that school mad, man! I felt like kickin' my own ass. But, hey, you better get up and go – don't you be seein' that damn tree with that limb hangin' out like that with them ropes around it? Shit. I come out of there – and no argument! My teacher don't argue, just, "You got to go! You got to go, Junior!"<br />
<br />
<em>Were you aware of lynchings?</em><br />
<br />
Was I aware of them?! I knew all the time what they'll do! I'm livin' there, man! I'm livin' in Philadelphia, Mississippi.<br />
<br />
<em>Nowadays most people are unaware that thousands were lynched in the South before World War II.</em><br />
<br />
Hey, you don't be careful, they still do that shit down there. Okay? And you don't have to go so far south to run into one of these peoples. Right here in Chicago – you understand? You could go around a block, and you'll run into one of them. What do you call it – Klu Klux Klan? They everywhere, man! Look at what they just did to this man in Texas – drag a man behind a pickup truck until he's dead. That ain't happened no ten years ago. That just recently happened. So you know I gotta be right because they still doin' it! And who knows how many peoples is under the water or under the bushes and trees and leaves. We don't know they're there, but somebody know where they're at. A lot of peoples is missing.<br />
<br />
<em>When is the last time you went back to Philadelphia?</em><br />
<br />
I went back eight or nine years ago. I played out there in Hollandale and went to see my brother.<br />
<br />
<em>When you were a kid, did you ever see anyone playing a one-string or diddley-bow?</em><br />
<br />
One-string guitar? No.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you know people who played blues music?</em><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyODblLHGa8zHZHKVreAFttY0weASHnCiTwqsjdWnDLJKfEfWpN5Sk4XLMQnEcuf5cKhClN-rxlHnSKaBn_9W6sovUWOqZHIimPDVmLyi7TeThXsPgGMgzpM280ujAOtKFuGhhJVb3vos/s1600/Charles+Brown.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489381501397128706" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyODblLHGa8zHZHKVreAFttY0weASHnCiTwqsjdWnDLJKfEfWpN5Sk4XLMQnEcuf5cKhClN-rxlHnSKaBn_9W6sovUWOqZHIimPDVmLyi7TeThXsPgGMgzpM280ujAOtKFuGhhJVb3vos/s200/Charles+Brown.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 162px;" /></a><br />
Not really. I used to listen to John Lee Hooker's records. He was about one of the oldest guys out there. John Lee Hooker and Charles Brown. Charles Brown played piano, and he had a great sound. And today, I can hits those notes on my guitar, and you can almost swear that it's a piano player. </div><div><br />
<em>That's spending some time with the music.</em><br />
<br />
Well, I practiced. I didn't learn it overnight. Over the years I learned how to do this, but his songs always stuck in my mind – "Black Night," "Driftin' Blues." He had other tunes out there that I was crazy about. I thought he was the most fantastic singer and piano player that I ever met. I still think this today about those old sounds, them old records – you can't beat this, man! And you had piano players everywhere trying to sound like Charles Brown. I learned a lot of his stuff on my guitar, and you don't see a guitar player playin' piano on his guitar. But honest to God in heaven, I can hit it.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you get that from playing along to the record?</em><br />
<br />
No, just listenin' and never forget them sounds. I learned a lot of stuff note-by-note. I hit this note [frets an imaginary guitar], and I says, "That don't sound right; I got to keep on practicin'." I kind of put it together at one point, and I do it onstage right now. I play a little of Kenny Burrell's stuff – "Chili Con Carne" ["<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Chitlins-Carne-Gelder-Digital-Remaster/dp/B000T2EN0M?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Chitlins Con Carne</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000T2EN0M" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />"]. I do a little of Wes Montgomery [hums a riff] – that's "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bumpin-On-Sunset/dp/B001NYVZ38?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Bumpin' On Sunset</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001NYVZ38" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />." I used to play that. George Benson, man, but he came up late from these guys.<br />
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<em><strong><span style="color: blue;">Click on the blue links to download songs and albums. </span></strong></em><br />
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<br />
<em>Did you ever hear of Charlie Christian?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was a monster on the guitar, you understand? And Wes just captured it all. I'm lookin' at him play with his fingers. I played next door to him – Wes was in one door, and I'm in the next door. He was playin' at the Plugged Nickel down on Wells, downtown Chicago, and I'm playing at Mother's Blues. You had all kinds of musicians coming through the Plugged Nickel – Kenny Burrell, everybody.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you copy any blues guitar records, like "Boogie Chillun"?</em><br />
<br />
John Lee Hooker, of course. I can play that. I won't say note-for-note, but I did learn "Chili Con Carne" note-for-note, and that's a lot of scratchin'. I took me a month to really work it out. I can play it today. My son Tony, who's on my new CD, we recorded this in Memphis, but we didn't put it on the record. My son play the guitar.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you teach him?</em><br />
<br />
Some little things, I teach him. I carried him on the road with me one time in Canada, but he was a bit young, and he wasn't ready for the stage. But now he's a Chicago policeman, and the police station has got some kind of band, and they do shows. Tony's by my first marriage, and my two daughters is by Masaki. Lena's 18 years old, going on 19, Sophia's 15 going on 17. And are they bad! Ooh, my goodness. If I didn't love 'em . . . [Laughs.] I tell you what, I'd ditch 'em! But I love 'em, and, oh, man. How strong is love? Nobody knows. Because if I didn't love 'em, I don't know what I'd do. I know I wouldn't be foolin' with 'em! They wouldn't be around me if I didn't love 'em.<br />
<br />
<em>Are they hard-headed?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, man, they got other words for it. I ain't gonna say it, because you're taping me. They nice children, but them teens, them teenagers. When I was comin' up, I don't think I was like this. I couldn't be.<br />
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<em>Was your mother strict?</em><br />
<br />
Shoot! [Laughs nervously.] I used to get my butt whooped. One time I went with my brother Eugene – he died – to a place where they gin cotton. I guess I was about eight or nine. My brother was a teenager. There was a pencil sharpener hangin' on the wall of this gin. We looked at it, and he tore it off the wall. "I'm gonna get this, Bud" – he called me Bud – "I'm gonna take this." I said, "Yeah, man, yeah!" I'm happy he took it. When we get home, my mother could see it got some splinters on it from where it tore off the wall. So she says, "Where'd you guys get this pencil trimmer at?" And I jumped up and said, "He found it, mama, I 'clare he did." We couldn't even say "swear" – hey, you say "swear," you gonna get that belt on you – so we'd say, "I declare, mama."<br />
<br />
She says, "You sure you find this?" Now my brother said, "Yeah, mama, I found it." Again, I said, "Yeah, mama, he found it, I 'clare he did." She said to me, "Boy, come here. How come this wood and nails hangin' here? Boy, you lied to me. I'll fix you up." She didn't whip my brother, but she told me to go take my clothes off. Meantime, she was humming and braiding together three peach tree branches, just like people do hair. She said, "You lied to me. You know you took that." I said, "I didn't take it – he took it!" "But you told me you find it, didn't you?" "Yeah, but mama, what you gonna do with those branches?" She said, "I'm gonna give you the whoopin' of your life." I said, "You can't whoop me with that, you'll kill me!"<br />
<br />
She wailed me and wailed me, and I hit the floor. I can't do nothin' but scream. I guess I'm jumpin' so fast and hard, it's hard to get hit, so she grabbed me by the legs and lift me up. She took me by my feets, held me upside down, and pounded my head on the wooden floor. [Laughs nervously.] She said, "Don't you lie to me again." I was glad when she turned me aloose. I'm tellin' you, she didn't play.<br />
<br />
<em>Was your mother churchified?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, yeah, until she got that belt. I got these whoopings like this, and ooh, I was careful about what went down from then on. She'd cut you. That old peach tree switch, it'd wrap around you. I got scars on me, and I'm not telling you all of it.<br />
<br />
When I was a teenager, I wet the bed, and my mother tell me, "Every time you wet the bed, I'm gonna whoop your ass." So I'd get up in the morning knowing that automatically I'm gonna get a whoopin'. Sometimes I wet the bed two or three times a night. I slept with my brother, and he'd tell on me sometime. Sometimes I'd get up during the night and find the sheet and be dryin' the bed, but them pee circles tell the truth – it's there. Oh, man, I peed in the bed 365 days out of the year. She eventually took me to the doctor, and the doctor said, "Don't whoop the boy. His kidneys is bad." He gave me medicine, but it still didn't help me. I had to grow out of that.<br />
<br />
<em>Were you ever inclined to be violent toward others?</em><br />
<br />
I suppose so. It made me angry. I can't help but to say you're right, because I begin to get angry. I get in a few fights, stuff like this. Later on, some of the musicians, something ain't right – I got in fights with musicians on intermissions.<br />
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<em>After you moved out on your own, were you close to your mom?</em><br />
<br />
I kind of kept my distance, but I love her so much. I'm glad she whooped my butt. She learnt me a lot. After she whooped me, I had respect for other peoples, most of all her. Like I say, she had seven children, and she wasn't about to let us rule her. She was disciplined, and boy, she whoop your butt.<br />
<br />
<em>Did your mother have any problems with your playing blues music?</em><br />
<br />
Well, see, that's some of the reason I play. She used to go to town on a Saturday night, and every time she'd take me to a little cafe and feed me a hamburger and a pop – RC Double Cola. All these pins and needles would hit me in the head when I drank the pop, because I didn't know how to belch. They had a jukebox at that little cafe where I'd get my hamburger, and that's where I'd listen to Charles Brown and John Lee Hooker. Sometimes I'd buy my own bag of precooked hot dogs and go to the movies and watch Roy Rogers and Gene Autry.<br />
<br />
<em>Where did you learn about Eddy Arnold and the Blue Grass Boys?</em><br />
<br />
Down there at the same jukebox. And it wasn't all jukebox, it was radio from Nashville, Tennessee – WLAC. Yeah! You could hear that station, man, no matter where you go. We didn't have no TV – wasn't no TV at that time. I grew up in the country on a farm.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you have electricity at home?</em><br />
<br />
Later in my age, when I became teenage, we had electric. Other than that, it was a kerosene lamp. We didn't know nothin' about no electric.<br />
<br />
<em>What kind of church did you attend?</em><br />
<br />
Baptist, up in the hills in the woods. That's where my church was.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you sing in church?</em><br />
<br />
I sing, but to myself. That's when everybody was singing – the choir was singing, my mother was singing in the church. She'd sing and get happy and shout. Just like when preachers is preachin', she'd look like somebody was killin' her. She just went out of her mind and shout, I guess, from the hurt inside about life. And I know that we was botherin' her, but she had us under control because my dad was never around.<br />
<br />
<em>Are you the only professional musician in your family?</em><br />
<br />
Yes. That's from watching my mother when we went to town and I get that hamburger. She went and bought one of them big, old wide records, a 78 by Tommy McClarence [McClennan], and Lightnin' Hop<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr28OycOOBaAelwxMa0IXM72D6UeujlP51dJlyB7dL8VRBHXJqZtxqA491hg6hlK9tMIZ2d500n2OLojVJrZLdM0_18fWaj6wP_01FwBBgyLCJJM8Yf5JgVCORKoblarHipJXPJ4ipULE/s1600/Memphis+Minnie.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489381142415496498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr28OycOOBaAelwxMa0IXM72D6UeujlP51dJlyB7dL8VRBHXJqZtxqA491hg6hlK9tMIZ2d500n2OLojVJrZLdM0_18fWaj6wP_01FwBBgyLCJJM8Yf5JgVCORKoblarHipJXPJ4ipULE/s200/Memphis+Minnie.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 148px;" /></a>kins. She would say, "Listen to that fool play!" I heard every breath she breathed, you understand? My ears was inside of that record, listening. And John Lee Hooker – she kept buying up those records. There was a lady called Bessie Smith. And Memphis Minnie – hey, man, she was something else on the guitar. She was more like a modern singer and guitar player in those days. Louis Jordan.<br />
<br />
We had a wind-up record player, and we'd wind that up until the spring get so tight, then we put that record on. It was spinnin' – sound good, you know? It had a little dog and said "RCA Victor." Anyway, we had the Soul Stirrers, Sam Cooke, the Five Blind Boys, just different records. We had these big records, and it was just like a nightclub to me. We wind that thing up and I'd listen to it, and I'd learn to find notes on my guitar. But they had a guy named Vaughan Adam. He had been to the Army, and he came back out of the war. He was slick on the guitar. He could play all them pretty chords. We live on the same farm. We was livin' on Otis Lewis' farm. I never will forget him. There was a bunch of houses on his plantation, and everybody live close together near the front office – bang, bang, bang – and as far as you could see was acres of farm fields.<br />
<br />
<em>At what point did you say, "I gotta get out of here, and maybe music's my way out"?</em><br />
<br />
I ain't never thought I'm gonna be playing no music. When I came to Chicago, I was farmin'. I had my own little place by then – I had left home. I had my own little farm, five acres, and I was stayin' on a white man's farm. And I had the most prettiest field – it was just like a movie, and people stopped to take pictures of it. It was so rich, and I did it! They'd park their trucks, and every day, they lined up out there, looking at my work. I grew corn – got fourteen wagon loads of corn – and I did about five bales of cotton, so I got a bale to the acre. I didn't have no stock.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you grow greens and other vegetables?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, we grew that, but there was so much of that around, you don't even think about that. I grew this on this white man's farm. I was sharecroppin'. Whatever I make on this farm, I have to give him half of it. God's truth. He put all the money up for my fertilizer and stuff. You got to have poison to keep the bugs and boll weevils off of the cotton. I worked by moonlight at night. I got a scar on my stomach right now from turning this thing that spread the poison – I turn that knob so many times, it rubbed it sore. I put it on when the dew falls. The poison looks like flour from the kitchen when you bake biscuits. It just land on that dew, and that's what made my cotton so special. I'd work from sunup to sundown. Then I'd go home, eat, get a little rest, and then about ten, eleven o'clock, get up out of the bed, go out there and work by that moonlight until about two or three in the morning. Then I'd go back and get a little rest, then get up and go back out there.<br />
<br />
<em>That's a hard way to live.</em><br />
<br />
I did it. Even when it was too bad weather for me to work in this field, he had a truck to haul logs from the woods and take them to town to the sawmills. That's where you get your lumber from to make houses. I knew how to load this truck with all them big logs – it had them big hooks – and if I wasn't workin' in the field, I'd take that. I'd get paid a little bit for that. I worked, I worked, and then at the end of the year, my crops was so rich.<br />
<br />
Now, harvest time, he asked me in the field one day, "Otis, I want you to tell me something." I said, "Sure, if I can." He says, "What's six times six?" I said, "Thirty-six." He said, "Damn!" You know, I'm not supposed to know these things. I just said it at the time, but I really didn't know what it were. I just guessed thirty-six. I went back and started counting my fingers and said, "Damn! I was right!" So he didn't cheat me too much. That's what he was after. See, if I'd have said forty-six or twenty-six, he'd tear me up. Nobody had to tell me – he asked me that question to see if I could count. He gave me a pretty fair shake, okay? He still took lots – as a matter of fact, all my corn. But he gave me cash money for my cotton. I started counting, laying on the bed – I said, "Damn! I've got to go."<br />
<br />
My sister had said she had met T-Bone Walker up here in Chicago, people like these. Muddy Waters. They had jobs up here, you know. I said, "Maybe I go up there and get me a job!" So I came to Chicago, thinkin' I might be able to get a job and stay awhile and work, and then go back. So I went, and eventually I did find a job. I stayed here two weeks with my sister, and she took me by to see Muddy Waters.<br />
<br />
<em>How old were you at the time?</em><br />
<br />
I don't know. I was in my teens.<br />
<br />
<em>Where did you see Muddy?</em><br />
<br />
Muddy was at Zanzibar. That's about 1400 West Roosevelt. That's where I saw my first musician alive onstage. It was Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter, L.C. McKinley, and Junior Wells was there. As we got out of the car, I heard this music. I'm thinking it's a record, a jukebox. And when I went in there and looked up on my left, they was up there playin' that stuff, and I flipped out, man! I said, "Damn! This is for me!"<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio4ElQRnRIb-CJ2G4-bV_EsmVOX7bjgWx-oj3BVd1sqQ9kmC-I0vnCQ6HFzQ7EK6AgVojQRuDOMaXm5i4Wbxl95BxnhhQJADnNTFYRGk3Kv0LsF9_GwfUl9eMQcLu2ADhSftI4GpMKUv0/s1600/Muddy+1960s+with+strange+guitar.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489376088515111650" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio4ElQRnRIb-CJ2G4-bV_EsmVOX7bjgWx-oj3BVd1sqQ9kmC-I0vnCQ6HFzQ7EK6AgVojQRuDOMaXm5i4Wbxl95BxnhhQJADnNTFYRGk3Kv0LsF9_GwfUl9eMQcLu2ADhSftI4GpMKUv0/s200/Muddy+1960s+with+strange+guitar.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 160px;" /></a><br />
I didn't meet Muddy Waters and Junior and all of them. I froze up in the seat and just look at 'em and drink me a beer. I got up and left when I was expired by them, man. I was froze. I had already been messing around with my brother's guitar, but I didn't know anything about it. I just liked to pick it up and nurse it. I went home to my sister's, and I didn't even have a guitar in Chicago. My brother kept his when I came to visit my sister. </div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><br />
<div>I had planned to go back, but after I saw Muddy and these peoples onstage, I went downtown and bought me a Kay guitar – it was so cheap. I bought a little amp, and that was so light and cheap, when I play a note, it look like the amp danced. We was livin' up on the third floor at 3101 Wentworth – that's where my sister was.<br />
<br />
I'm up on the third floor, and all the neighbors are saying, "Oh, Lord, this boy's up there again with this noise! Lord, have mercy!" I was runnin' 'em crazy, you know what I mean? My stuff was so cheap, it really run you crazy. But I was enjoyin' the hell out of it, and I just played day and night. I'm sittin' up there at the time peoples' getting to bed. I get up early in the morning and wake 'em up, tryin' to play what I heard Muddy and them play onstage. I went out and bought his records. I used to sound just like him. I used to play all that stuff, like Little Walter, Muddy. I used to make my livin' doin' that after I got started – playin' like them.<br />
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<br />
<em>Did you go back to Mississippi?</em><br />
<br />
I stayed here. I worked hard. I went and got me a job at G.H. Hamilton Company at 47th and Racine. They had everything from a dead man casket to turnip greens. [Laughs.] That's a cold storage. They had stock-beef. They had all kinds of departments, and you'd work different places. This was while I'm up on that third floor at my sister's house, making all that noise. I had learned a few notes, and this is how it got started.<br />
<br />
One night a guy by the name of Bob come by. He had a club at 2711 South Wentworth – Club Alibi. He says, "Who is that guy that's been making all this noise up in the window? Where is he?" You could hear him talkin' outside. "Where is that guy? Somebody tell me where that guy is. I need somebody to play for me." I'm listening too, laying back across the bed. They point at my apartment. "He's right in that window up there." He came up and knocked on the door. He says, "You the guy that make all the noise?" "Of course. I'm him." I didn't know if he liked me or hate me. Anyway, he says, "Look. I want you to do me a favor. My band didn't show up tonight. Would you come and play for me? Come on, man. Just sit up there and play. I'll give you five dollars." Shit! I grabbed my shirt, my Kay guitar, my amp that dance when I play, and went down there, and he put me onstage. I pat my feet like John Lee Hooker, both feet goin', and I did a night. I never had a band, no way, so that was easy for me.<br />
<br />
Like I say, I had this job at this G.H. Hamilton Company. I'm a good worker out there, and these people knew it. But after I did that five-dollars-a-night job, the guy says, "Man, you did so good, come back tomorrow night." Ooh-wee! Five dollars, for my guitar? And nobody even give me a sodie pop for playin'? [Laughs heartily.] Hey, lookee here: "Five dollars?" Then after that second night he says, "Tell you what. Come back tomorrow night too." For three nights. Four nights. I said, "That's twenty dollars – for me?" </div><br />
<div>Now, I'm up all night, right, getting five dollars a night. I was making at least seventy-five to a hundred dollars a week on my job. But five dollars for my guitar? I done lost all my rest. By the time I got to work the next day, I'm out of it. My boss says, "Otis, you're sick." I said, "Ah, I'm alright." He says, "Something is wrong with you. I know you a good worker, and I never have any problem out of you. You got to be sick." He sent me to see the company doctor, so I play the game, just like I'm sick. "Well, yeah, I guess maybe something wrong with me," but I already know what's wrong with me.<br />
<br />
Came back, I work a little better, but I get sleepy. I was drivin' a power-lift tractor-truck. I had to lift iron and stuff – tons of stuff – and load trucks with it. This man told me, "Otis, you gonna have to take some time off until you get straightened out. You sick." I went on home and said, "I ain't goin' back to that job." So my five dollars a night became ten. Ten became fifteen. Fifteen became twenty. I worked for twenty dollars a night, and I was enjoyin' it. Rent was twelve dollars a week. When I got thirty dollars a night, I said, "Damn! For my guitar?" By now I got the fever.<br />
<br />
By the time I had quit my job, I had saved up. I had made good with my farmin' when I left from down there, and I had put all that away – I didn't waste it. When I worked at G.H<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLcU_P1p3AbGwlohFpk1PC8AicN7n_lYwCAVAW72uEcKqT3UYkkzWwwKAFNQVzcAx7IpWVhRQ1hNdwcOZ0sueDpcmUIa90r-VmvFvXcBEHS3NbK9yWRm018fNFyUmAp_d1WOLilGzhlRM/s1600/1948+Buick+Roadmaster.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489375468187963938" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLcU_P1p3AbGwlohFpk1PC8AicN7n_lYwCAVAW72uEcKqT3UYkkzWwwKAFNQVzcAx7IpWVhRQ1hNdwcOZ0sueDpcmUIa90r-VmvFvXcBEHS3NbK9yWRm018fNFyUmAp_d1WOLilGzhlRM/s200/1948+Buick+Roadmaster.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 148px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>. Hamilton Company, I was working there nights and some days. I worked hard, saved a little money. And I went and bought me a second-hand car off a parking lot. It was a '48 Buick Roadmaster Torpedo, and it was laying down just like a real torpedo would lay. And I said, "Damn! Look at me!" Now I can't wait to go home. I want the peoples to see me in this car. My car was dark green, almost black-lookin', and it had Cadillac hubcaps all the way 'round it. It had a big silver sun visor up in front, and then every window had its own visor. It had a radio, heater. I said, "Man! This is me?!"<br />
<br />
I hop in the car – I'm goin' to Mississippi. I get me a map, and I mapped it out. Never before drived it, but after I got that map, I wasn't afraid. I see it, and I see how to get there. I'm drivin' and drivin'. I wanted to drive all the way without going to sleep, but I didn't know nothing about drinkin' no coffee or taking these pills to stay awake. After a while I had gotten sleepy, and I almost killed myself. It was two-lane highway, and I dozed off, went to sleep drivin'. I could hear a truck horn – [moans twice like a blowing horn]. I'm headed straight for it! I jerked my wheel to my right, and I just missed this truck head-on. My man was blowin' his horn, and he saved my life.<br />
<br />
<em>Sounds like you had an angel riding alongside you.</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, 'cause that would have done it. I pulled off the highway and parked that car. I was kind of up in the trees now. Lay there, couldn't go to sleep now. I was so scared. But eventually I did lay there until I got me a nap. But while I was asleep, I hear this truck come by. It had such an impact – the noise, the wind – my car was shakin'. In my dream, I'm thinkin' I'm drivin' and went to sleep again, so as I wake up I was tearin' up my car inside, because I thought I was movin'. That learnt me a lesson. That told me not to be out there drivin' sleepy. Now I be drivin', I get sleepy – I pull the car over and park it. If I see somebody in the band tryin' to drive sleepy, I want to get out and whoop his ass. Right away, I want to whoop somebody's ass. I tell 'em, "Quit it. You drivin' sleepy, you can kill everybody. If you really want to kill yourself, just let us out. Then you just drive into a tree, or stick a match to you."<br />
<br />
<em>Did you make it down to Philadelphia?</em><br />
<br />
I made it safe and was drivin' around down there. Of course, a lot of them wanted my car. A lot of these white people say, "Where you get this car from, boy?" I say, "I bought it." After they kept tryin' that, I said, "They don't want me to have this car down here." It was kind of sharp, man, and freaked off whoever had it. I said, "It's about time for me to get the hell out from down here."<br />
<br />
I'm getting ready to leave the next day or so, because things is getting too hot for me, and I went to a big picnic out in a pasture. These white peoples was sayin', "I want to buy this car, boy," just like that. I said, "Sure! I'll sell it." I know what time it is now. I let one guy know that he could buy my car if he wanted. But all the time, I know I'm not gonna sell him my car. I'm playin' for this time, because tomorrow he won't see nothin' but my dust. And that's what he saw – nothin' but my dust.<br />
<br />
My brother decided to come up with me and visit because he didn't have to pay. I had a car full of peoples that wanted to come up to Chicago. But we ran out of money and almost ran out of gas. Now, I'm looking at that gas tank, and it kept getting lower and lower. I'm way out there somewhere, and the hand done got way over. I know it's about to go, and I'm so worried, I don't know what to do. Again, God provide for me. There was a guy thumbin' for a ride. You don't want to pick these peoples up, but I had said, "Maybe he can give me a few dollars, and I can get some gas and go on home." Sure enough, he said, "I'll get you some gas! Just give me a ride." What a blessing! He filled my car up. "Oh, man, fill my car with gas? Ooh-wee!" You're right – that was some angels watchin' over me. I made it back, and I wasn't wantin' too much to drive anymore because I almost had that accident.<br />
<br />
<em>Is this when you started putting a band together?</em><br />
<br />
At first, it wasn't nobody but me playin' guitar. Then I added Poor Bob, who worked with Hound Dog Taylor, so there was two of us playin' guitar. I practiced with him, and we sit and pat our feet. Then I add Paytons [Earl Payton] on the harmonica, and that sounded so good. Then I went and got T.J. [McNulty], the drummer. He worked the same job out at the G.H. Hamilton Company, but he didn't know nothin' about no drums. I taught him how to play drums, what kind of beat I wanted. What I did, I got a bucket for him, put some rubber 'cross the top of it, and let him beat the bucket while we play.<br />
<br />
He eventually went and bought drums, and later on he got with Luther Allison. But I'm the one that put him in music. I used to carry a harmonica on the job with me, and blow that harmonica out there. That was my first instrument. See, I remember when a dime could buy you a harmonica. That's the kind of life I lived, and I used to blow pretty good, but I got interested in the guitar.<br />
<br />
<em>Back in the '50s, were there different blues scenes on Chicago’s West and South Sides?</em><br />
<br />
It was different. It's still different now. It's just the peoples. Some of 'em got attitudes from the South Side. Some on the South Side don't want to go to the West Side. Same vice-versa. </div><br />
<div><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489374632509091890" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1fQvZuog36HMLtc9IRZEoGs33XctlRmEJ8zyK6AscwpqJ_kX80rOZT58fyDoz3qVkR7QiN1Jt-JSE3xjydVnRe7AylLhbbuxrEvOh_v0nC5qiQeqSvp326FZDtOQTmpdEEA9LgkE9mOU/s200/Battle+of+the+Blues.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 130px;" /></div><div><em>Is it true that Muddy tended to play the South Side while Howlin' Wolf played the West Side?</em><br />
<br />
No, they was playin' for Sylvios. Sylvios was West, out on Lake Street. The 708 Club was East 47th Street, real close to Cottage Grove, and that was South. I remember these addresses so well. So they playin' backwards and forwards. They play over there sometimes on the weekends, sometime over here. Just where they could get a gig at.<br />
<br />
<em>Were your Cobra sessions the first time you played with a decent band?</em><br />
<br />
That was before the Cobra session, because me and Louie Myers and Dave Myers had start practicin' and playin', and that's when I started making fifteen dollars a night. We called ourselves the Four Aces – I named us. Junior Wells was playin' half-time with Mu<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyUXrYTjGeBL9IN3U9Vklce0IrlF9wJMNq32kK8qeWrL00fZOMYhyphenhyphenXmbmlCISUFPY1M9ZRHlLoT41DcuMN0_o-JD0IOvWBG7TwXX95zqUS5r3tu8kLKSxy_7wIhfzlGqWU61EEDeVAjVQ/s1600/Little+Walter+1950s.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489373851984299666" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyUXrYTjGeBL9IN3U9Vklce0IrlF9wJMNq32kK8qeWrL00fZOMYhyphenhyphenXmbmlCISUFPY1M9ZRHlLoT41DcuMN0_o-JD0IOvWBG7TwXX95zqUS5r3tu8kLKSxy_7wIhfzlGqWU61EEDeVAjVQ/s200/Little+Walter+1950s.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 195px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>ddy. Muddy had Little Walter playin' with him, but Little Walter had made "Juke," and that was a hot record. Walter went on his own.<br />
<br />
<em>What kind of guy was Little Walter?</em><br />
<br />
Walter, they tell me, was rough.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you ever hear the rumor that he was murdered?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, yeah. But let me tell you about Walter. Walter was a hell of a nice guy to me. I never find no faults in him. I sit there and talk to him just like I'm talkin' to you. He talk to me, he make all kind of sense. We made sense to each other. Howlin' Wolf was the same. I heard lots of peoples talk about him, but I never had no problem. I talk to these guys and give 'em respect, and I got it in return.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you know another of Muddy's harmonica players, Henry Strong, who was also known as Pot?</em><br />
<br />
I know Pot, and he was a hell of a damn harmonica player. Nice kid, man. Pot got killed by a knife. Juanita killed him. She would hang around the clubs where we played. You know, she hang awhile, but I'm kind of movin' out, you know what I'm sayin' [motions like he's moving away from someone, then laughs]: "I got somethin' to do. I gotta go get me a beer right here. I gotta go to a wife someplace." I been knowin' the girl for a long time, man – for years – and wouldn't of thought that she'd do something like that. Pot went out, stayed a one-night stand, and she got that switchblade and tapped him, cut him two or three times. Bang, bang, bang – it was over. She hit that wrong spot. They locked her up – she got a record, but she did that shit and got out of it.<br />
<br />
<em>When was the first time you saw a record with your name on it?</em><br />
<br />
That was "I Can't Quit You, Baby." I got copies from the record company.<br />
<br />
<em>What was your reaction?</em><br />
<br />
I had flipped already. When I went in the studio, I know I'm making this record, right? I don't know if I had made twenty [years old] or not. Anyway, Willie Dixon helped me on that: "I can't quit you, baby, I gotta put you down for a while. Messed up my happy home, you made me mistreat my onliest child." Believe me, I didn't have no idea what I was getting into when I record this record. But Willie had some things written I didn't like, so I changed a lot of the words. And it was a hit! It was the biggest record for me for a long time.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you send copies home to Mississippi?</em><br />
<br />
No. I was so excited, I don't even talk to them. I don't even call them. My head was so jammed up with the music: "I'm a artist. I can play. I made a record!"<br />
<br />
<em>Didn't Muddy give you some advice after your first hit?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, yeah. That was at the 708 Club, parked right out front. He said, "Otis, I want to talk to you." Him a<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivR6vQSUzk_0BxlKD9mxgVTSQyWQ9mzNPWclovkZiPwgxxYeEnWHtddqwK3pnxelWnTvM7C8a-eXqD-GCx8Kyqj48TCO0fhpMKORdzCrHabFQLb_56xw2aXnag7Kx4otUGNRXvlMZ3O_4/s1600/Muddy+Waters+with+cigar.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489373223671430674" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivR6vQSUzk_0BxlKD9mxgVTSQyWQ9mzNPWclovkZiPwgxxYeEnWHtddqwK3pnxelWnTvM7C8a-eXqD-GCx8Kyqj48TCO0fhpMKORdzCrHabFQLb_56xw2aXnag7Kx4otUGNRXvlMZ3O_4/s200/Muddy+Waters+with+cigar.gif" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 156px;" /></a>nd Jimmy Rogers and all of 'em out there, sittin' in the car, drinkin'. Well, I had my share of drinks, and he was tellin' me, "You got a good record out there – I want to give you some advice." I'm listening, but it's goin' in one ear, comin' out the other. To me, he was meddlin', but I still listened. Just for respect, I held a conversation with him, but other than that, I didn't gave a damn about what he was talkin' about.<br />
<br />
But what he said made sense, and I realized that he gave me these points, and I could see some of the musicians that's been out there already, how they act. He was tellin' me, "Don't get the big head. Be nice, don't treat peoples dirty." He was tellin' me to try to smile, practice – which I was doin' all that. It were all real good advice, and every word he was tellin' me was true. But I had already learned how to respect people, because my mother done whooped my ass. Muddy didn't have to tell me nothin'.<br />
<br />
<em>While older players like Muddy and Elmore James were still playing acoustic guitars with soundhole pickups, younger guitarists like you and Buddy Guy and Magic Sam were playing Fender Stratocasters. What attracted you to solidbody guitars?</em><br />
<br />
<em> </em>This was something new came out. We wanted something loud and powerful. I told you my Kay was so weak. And the stronger the amp is, the better for us – that's why you'd hear a lot of loud music. The old Fender Bassman was a big seller and a strong amp. Peoples try to buy it now for collection. I still have mine upstairs, a tweed one. They's nice amps. But now I got all kind of amps – Mesa Boogie – and I got twelve, thirteen guitars.<br />
<br />
<em>What kind of amp did you use on the Cobra singles?</em><br />
<br />
It was an amp called Challenge. I bought it at Lyon & Healy.<br />
<br />
<em>Were you playing with a guitar pick then?</em><br />
<br />
Usin' fingers. But after a while, I began to use a guitar pick, then thumbpicks and all that stuff.<br />
<br />
<em>You once said that working for Eli Toscano at Cobra was "heaven," and working for Chess was "hell."</em><br />
<br />
Yes. With Eli, I was able to do what I wanted to in the studio. Chess, he's runnin' everything, and I didn't have no freelancin'. I had to do everything his way. Eli at Cobra treated me the best.<br />
<br />
<em>Even though he gambled away your royalties?</em><br />
<br />
He was a con man. He conned me out of "I Can't Quit You, Baby," which was a big hit. It was all in the Cashbox. It was nationwide, Tops Tens. And back in these days, man, yo<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF18bAK5dJA2hS0uzKf5yI3DurKtcLf3ZRkC8BLWzwNTNhGM4i7nyQJ2LstAEzhyphenhyphenYE-r_F06xjPP3smcTJPugcdiexaNSV5k5vlrRigMv8ZcHsGvHoIzlyO83vO4kqX2aDN0J5pvsMtJ8/s1600/New+Label,+New+Star.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489372382212436594" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF18bAK5dJA2hS0uzKf5yI3DurKtcLf3ZRkC8BLWzwNTNhGM4i7nyQJ2LstAEzhyphenhyphenYE-r_F06xjPP3smcTJPugcdiexaNSV5k5vlrRigMv8ZcHsGvHoIzlyO83vO4kqX2aDN0J5pvsMtJ8/s200/New+Label,+New+Star.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 68px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>u don't get this kind of record. I went on a tour and played with the guy that wrote for Elvis Presley – Carl Perkins – and Jimmy Rushing, Big Moms Mabley, the Drifters, and I ain't nothin' but a bluesman. I played with a lot of peoples, man. Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley. That's sayin' somethin' back in them days. That was in the '50s.<br />
<br />
<em>Were there a lot of hangers-on after you had a hit?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, yeah. Everybody knows you, you know what I mean? Everybody want a piece of the pie.<br />
<br />
<em>What's the first popular song you wrote on your own?</em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEika-Al64Z1h_TB1T5HRORDimPz17FOTPOUUQhtW1VKbhBDuxFvedjIn_1f3f2kum04d9ABDJWU02-3PGkq1kK13Paw2tqYYSxYDhNPBmkl7Mi9lGP-hdWWS8eHHsSJHOFvtxgpJPWPXo0/s1600/Jump+Sister+Bessie.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489371408376993570" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEika-Al64Z1h_TB1T5HRORDimPz17FOTPOUUQhtW1VKbhBDuxFvedjIn_1f3f2kum04d9ABDJWU02-3PGkq1kK13Paw2tqYYSxYDhNPBmkl7Mi9lGP-hdWWS8eHHsSJHOFvtxgpJPWPXo0/s200/Jump+Sister+Bessie.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a><br />
<br />
After "I Can't Quit You, Baby" – and like I say, I put some words into that, because I didn't like the way Willie had everything – then he came up with "My Love Will Never Die." Then he had this "Groanin' the Blues" and "Jump Sister Bessie" – I said, "Man, this is some horseshit all over!" I didn't know whether to scratch my watch or wind my head by now. I said, "I can do better than this." So I started writin' my own material. I did "Three Times a Fool," "Checkin' on My Baby." Then we sittin' in the living room, playin' cards. Some lady had a hand. "Oh," she says, "trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble, double troubles."<br />
<br />
<em>And "Double Trouble" became one of your big records.</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. That came just by people talkin'. You can say something, and I done clocked it up here [taps forehead]. And when I get home, I write it. I just put that initial [idea] down, and then I go back and pick it up later and write a song from it. I got songs now that I'm workin' on now, man, I wish I could tell it. But I got some lyrics that'll make you cry.<br />
<br />
<em>How did you write "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)"?</em><br />
<br />
[Hums the song's syncopated opening guitar pattern.] Think about it now [hums riff again, then sings the opening line of George Gershwin's "Summertime" set to the same syncopation.] Right?<br />
<br />
<em>What about that middle riff?</em><br />
<br />
I put that in there from something I heard Jody Williams playin'. He had some kind of shit fouled up, man, and I said, "Shoot, I can do better than this." At that time Bill Doggett had "Honky Tonk" out, and some of them cats was playin'. And I begin puttin' my stuff together.<br />
<br />
<em>What did you think of Eric Clapton's cover of "All Your Love" with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blues-Breakers-John-Mayall/dp/B00005K9QP?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">John Mayall's Blues Breakers</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00005K9QP" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. I'm listening at the TV give them credit for my music. They doin' a story on John Mayall and Eric Clapton. They sayin', "Nobody sound like this guy" – they talkin' about John Mayall. But that's not John <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Uy3FJ9moVtNAEz-zOPT-URzB717zD-eusiRVg8D6KpEy0Utm945hPZ4dqjn_mjEeDVtYO5-6S8Gmn-dDCxcxj7EqCu11rts8GK73mejcvuFno3Mwrc69a7sEfGfw_CVru0YuR_g5p8w/s1600/John+Mayalls+Bluesbreakers.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489370827930889954" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Uy3FJ9moVtNAEz-zOPT-URzB717zD-eusiRVg8D6KpEy0Utm945hPZ4dqjn_mjEeDVtYO5-6S8Gmn-dDCxcxj7EqCu11rts8GK73mejcvuFno3Mwrc69a7sEfGfw_CVru0YuR_g5p8w/s200/John+Mayalls+Bluesbreakers.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>Mayall's music! That's my music. They didn't even know I'm the writer. All they know it was John Mayall or Eric Clapton. And it came from me.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you like Eric's version?</em><br />
<br />
Eric plays nice, man.<br />
<br />
<em>And then he did "Double Trouble" later on.</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I can't say nothin' but they sound good. But they ain't me.<br />
<br />
<em>Have you ever met Clapton?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. He was supposed to help me record this CD [points to a copy of Any Place I'm Going], but some kind of way he managed to not help me. He helped Buddy Guy, and he did a show for a week down at Buddy's club, and I went down there and talked to Eric to get him to help me. He sit there and told me he was gonna help me. Masaki was with me. But we called him up, and he got excuses – some tour or something. For some reason, he didn't want to help me. All excuses, which don't make sense – if you want to help somebody, you can help them. But I don't hold that against him, because as long as God give me my right mind, I'm gonna learn new stuff. And if I write new stuff, I ain't even gonna need his help. I'm gonna write some stuff that he gonna want to record.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you have any favorites among the songs you've written?</em><br />
<br />
"Right Place, Wrong Time" was one of them. "Keep Lovin' Me Baby," "Double Troubles," "All Your Love," "Checkin' on My Baby." "Three Times a Fool," "It Takes Time," "Easy Go." This is my writing. I have a bunch of them, and some of them I can't think of.<br />
<br />
<em>Did your appearance on the 1966 Chicago/The Blues/Today! anthology do you any good</em>?<br />
<br />
Not really. </div><div><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn90cTOvJbH9nWHk7Ad9DAGC4YgNI7VmX15T4eQs2IqZlXioaHRqqcMKqLuscptIAVcuRYYVQMUChaRdpucOMqRjtfjn-q-_sVXV2ruUC8J0_d9UVRm2uuQY0Zoq2nyudziavAiUvMedQ/s1600/Mourning+in+the+Morning.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489370088374873682" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn90cTOvJbH9nWHk7Ad9DAGC4YgNI7VmX15T4eQs2IqZlXioaHRqqcMKqLuscptIAVcuRYYVQMUChaRdpucOMqRjtfjn-q-_sVXV2ruUC8J0_d9UVRm2uuQY0Zoq2nyudziavAiUvMedQ/s200/Mourning+in+the+Morning.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 199px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a> <em>Are your Atlantic sessions for <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mourning-Morning-Otis-Rush/dp/B000002ITC?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Mourning in The Morning </a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000002ITC" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />with Duane Allman a good memory?</em><br />
<br />
Well, I had [co-producers] Mike Bloomfield and Nick Gravenites there.<br />
<br />
<em>It's been reported that Nick showed your song "Right Place, Wrong Time" to . . .</em><br />
<br />
Dr. John. Yes. You talkin' about angry? I been angry at Nick. This is my shit, and he let this man come in there and hear it. I recorded Right Place, Wrong Time in '71, and it came out about five or six years later. Meantime, while mine's laying around, Dr. John go by and he see it. He got a gold record [for 1973's "Right Place Wrong Time"], and I got not a dime. But if you take out my phrase – "right place, wrong time" – he don't have a record, I don't have a record. The punch line is the phrase that sold everything. If you don't put that in the song, you ain't got no song.<br />
<br />
<em>If you could do your career over again, what's the first thing you'd do differently?</em><br />
<br />
All these records that been stole from me – number one, I'd fix it where they couldn't do that to me. On this one [points to Alligator's Lost In the Blues] they put Lucky Peterson on piano. That was Bruce at Alligator Records – I'll never record for him. Oh, man, you don't know how close I come to going to jail for his death. Understand? Because this I die for [points to song titles on CD insert] – this is my music. I put this together, and I ain't gonna see nobody just run over me and take it from me. If you do, you gotta take me first. My mother bounced my head, trying to discipline me to learn to respect peoples, but she also taught me how to fight.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you consider this record disrespectful?</em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4u7tp000r3ZbtkjQkWuS-uGSxmIX68Mp84y1eCKa9U-BU0ZFktcJ4pwl9ZKzyUKTcDqh1Lsc9n_ByxV_54-OelPfpPsM-q2r3IXbE4LyzRkWqbgtTCkZ93NSZde-JHtWALnrtIwsOeA4/s1600/Otis_Rush_at_Notodden_bluesfestival_1997.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489377633583514946" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4u7tp000r3ZbtkjQkWuS-uGSxmIX68Mp84y1eCKa9U-BU0ZFktcJ4pwl9ZKzyUKTcDqh1Lsc9n_ByxV_54-OelPfpPsM-q2r3IXbE4LyzRkWqbgtTCkZ93NSZde-JHtWALnrtIwsOeA4/s200/Otis_Rush_at_Notodden_bluesfestival_1997.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 158px;" /></a><br />
<br />
Of course it is! You know that. He went and bought the master from Sonet Records over there [in Europe]. When he come back here, he call up Lucky Peterson to put piano on this. I didn't have no piano on the record! He says, "Otis' favorite piano player, Lucky Peterson." Me, I didn't have no money – he had the money, you understand? So I went and got a writer. So all over TV, in Europe, Africa, America, he's known for having took my record. He don't like me for it today, because we got in a fight with the press. And he talked about me something terrible too. That's Alligator Records. He's everywhere. He's got a hand in those Grammy [Handy] Awards out of Memphis – nominations and all this stuff. Now, Koko Taylor, he tried to put her down before me. I said, "When the show come and they're on there, if I'm not the headliner, I don't even play." Son Seals – I don't open up no shows for these peoples. I'm out there playin' before they got into music.<br />
<br />
<em>Would you open a show for John Lee Hooker or B.B. King?</em><br />
<br />
Yes. B.B., John Lee Hooker, I respect. But here's somebody here – Koko Taylor, Son Seals – I have no respect for them. Koko Taylor don't play no guitar. She just stand up there and sing. Shit. Me, I fight a bear about my music – I'd run from him, do something! I'd make him tired, man. [Laughs.]<br />
<br />
<em>If you could somehow magically put together your dream blues band, who'd be in it?</em><br />
<br />
Well, when it comes to the piano, Charles Brown is the blues man, okay? You got to know that. If you went to the horns, the guy what blowed on "Chili Con Carne" – Stanley Turrentine. He blow like nobody else, man. You got all of these famous horn players, but when it come to my feelings, I listen to this man. As a bass man in my field, I would use James Green when he was young. He's an old bass player. And Ernie Gatewood had some great sounds. For rhythm guitar, Luther Tucker was a hell of a player. When it went to a guitar player with a slide, it would be Earl Hooker – you can't beat him with the slide. That's how I learned to play slide without the slide – I don't use it, but I make the sounds.<br />
<br />
<em>Earl was so clean.</em><br />
<br />
He tried to show me how to play the slide. I put it on, but by me being left-handed, I got to reach up top to get my sound, but his [higher strings] were at the bottom.<br />
<br />
<em>You and Albert King both put your string sets on with the skinny ones nearest the ceiling. This must cause a different sound on bends, since you're moving the strings the opposite way from most players.</em><br />
<br />
A right-hand man try to push the little E up, where I ain't got nothin' to do but just pull it down. And it's more easier to pull something down than to push it up. Just like this building – you can tear it down in a second, but to put it up takes a few months.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you ever try to restring a guitar with the skinny strings nearest your toes?</em><br />
<br />
I have did it, but it don't make no sense to try to learn over again.</div><br />
<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil8_F9i2mKnsfX7v-gZ5YmBkAy5uAEgtAydqtTGe0Bn0_s5WNaRAwTAB85efRc7Setu3Vzl9hQltBTKKNE0lSqIC9oTookJ0ugA99lLaedofCj7LyMCWGC4RDP4jXD8eewiUIG7pJy90M/s1600/Otis+Rush+at+Notodden.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489376648663221410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil8_F9i2mKnsfX7v-gZ5YmBkAy5uAEgtAydqtTGe0Bn0_s5WNaRAwTAB85efRc7Setu3Vzl9hQltBTKKNE0lSqIC9oTookJ0ugA99lLaedofCj7LyMCWGC4RDP4jXD8eewiUIG7pJy90M/s200/Otis+Rush+at+Notodden.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 148px;" /></a></div><div><em>Whereas a lot of players show off during solos, you tend to tell a story with your guitar.</em><br />
<br />
Mm-hmm. Well, I can play fast stuff, but I try to take my time and make you feel what I'm doin'. You can play a bunch of notes so fast, but then you turn around, and somebody out there listening says, "What did he play?" Sound good, but can't remember nothin'. Take your time and play. Measure it out enough where they got time to hear what you're doing. To me, that's important.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you know the names of all the notes on the guitar?</em><br />
<br />
I do most of mine by ear, but I can read because I went to school and I learned how to play. I can read some music, but I can't play that shit fast and read it all.<br />
<br />
<em>Are you always aware of what key you're in?</em><br />
<br />
Always aware of what key, my chords, my notes. I can make that guitar say what you sayin' right now. I can say the Lord's Prayer on my guitar, and you'll say, "That's every word of it."<br />
<br />
<em>The guitar is such an expressive instrument . . .</em><br />
<br />
Just like you talkin' there? I can make my guitar say just what you said. And I ain't bullshitting. I can sing with my guitar, just like I sing with my voice. I did things by Aretha Franklin that's unbelievable. "Baby I Love You" is one thing I did already on a recordin'.<br />
<br />
<em>Among all your albums, which are your favorites?</em><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMZ0FHutJ1vTm3puMBCvJtcAw6nDo92PCgEYS5u1BtorZ0rFvfMDZchfVlULIeRulB4l0G7SB7NJ4NQugoiVqGqVSJLD_4F6qUEGyIuOSSAO9CtuO9YRKah5zQsX_ptgc8ZeJBCoWkaPg/s1600/Tops.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489369247335437602" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMZ0FHutJ1vTm3puMBCvJtcAw6nDo92PCgEYS5u1BtorZ0rFvfMDZchfVlULIeRulB4l0G7SB7NJ4NQugoiVqGqVSJLD_4F6qUEGyIuOSSAO9CtuO9YRKah5zQsX_ptgc8ZeJBCoWkaPg/s200/Tops.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 196px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>I did a thing live in San Francisco with the Bobby Murray band behind me – <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tops-Otis-Rush/dp/B000000N76?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Tops</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000000N76" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, I named it. That's my arrangements on all that stuff. We never played a note together before we got onstage, but I had sent the records to them to practice, because they were gonna back me up. So you hear us together right there for the first time, and it turned out nice. I'd been looking for that particular kind of sound.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you have positive feelings about Ain't Enough Comin' In?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. It could have been a hell of a record, but John Porter, he's greedy. He don't listen to me. He's the producer, but I put all this stuff together.<br />
<br />
<em>What are your feelings about managers?</em><br />
<br />
Hey, look, they're hell, okay? I had Rick Bates for my manager for Ain't Enough Comin' In, and that was the biggest mistake of my lifetime – hirin' him. You make a record, and then they send this guy to you: "I want you to use this guy." You recordin' for them, so you're trying not to be hard-headed. They want me to use this guy, I'll go along for a while. So in the meantime, he gettin' deeper and deeper in your business and in your pocket. This son-of-a-bitch tried to get me to sign something that says if he do this particular thing for me, he wants to get paid forever. If I sign that, even if I'm dead, he still get that money! Hey, man, when a manager come to you like this, that show you he ain't no good. I don't sign nothin' forever for nobody. Oh, I know a few peoples this has been done to, but I don't want to talk too much. They done signed forever and they makin' big money, but my man's got his hand in their pocket, and he got it in there forever. And they gotta pay it. They gotta sign that.<br />
<br />
<em>What's the most stressful thing about today's music business?</em><br />
<br />
People that don't care, man. People that don't care about you, people that take records from you. That put something on your mind. That ain't no good for no one, you understand? It just is trouble. It's just like somebody got the key to your door, and you don't want 'em in your house. You done told them, "Stay out," but they come back again. Takin' my music is takin' money from me. You know, who wants to be stuck up? My mother whooped my butt so much, I have nothin' but respect for peoples. She didn't have to whoop me this much, but I'm glad she whooped me. I work; I don't steal.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you believe in spanking kids?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I tell you what: You hit 'em today, discipline 'em, and here come somebody with a police badge. You goin' to jail – you "abusin'." That's what's wrong with the world today: They need some abusin' goin' on around here. Some of these kids need their ass whooped, like mama whooped mine. I know that, but me, I'm not gonna hit mines. Why? They done heard so much of this shit, they ready to call the police. It only take one call, a couple of calls, and you got a record, like you done killed some damn somebody. Somebody came here for me – I been havin' problems. I told you my kids is bad, but I'm gonna let 'em go the way they want to go. I done told them that I ain't gonna try to whoop 'em, but I ain't gonna let 'em whoop me, either. Father or no father, man, don't nobody hurt me. You know what I mean? I don't want to hurt nobody, but I don't intend to get hurt. So now I don't try to tell them too much. I tell them right from wrong, and if they want to go on, I say, "You go ahead on. But I told you how to do this. Are you gonna listen to me? If not, go to hell."<br />
<br />
<em>Is success hard on marriage?</em><br />
<br />
Of course. Anything is hard on marriage. Marriage is a hell of a deal. I don't care if you're success or unsuccess, marriage is a mother, okay? You have to deal with what you think is best for you. Ain't nobody gonna treat you like you treat yourself. You got to kind of look out for yourself. But I've taken a lot of stuff that I shouldn't have took. Why I do it? I try to stay out of trouble.<br />
<br />
<em>What are your feelings about drinking liquor?</em><br />
<br />
For me? I haven't been drinkin' nothin' for the last four years, but here lately I've been drinkin' a little wine. I damn <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIP-zNnyjc6RrzCAFEhKddQP_aqBFiojMyuWxN8JKK0CYnS2JgTSWlyxLEYFw5BOrkJBmHXzuMInjhKtpwgmdS30HdYO610zPmAuwzCPuFkmMegrYkFxWPOiQNb9DuIwMrjQlL7jU0CkA/s1600/House+of+Blues.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489368495782142706" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIP-zNnyjc6RrzCAFEhKddQP_aqBFiojMyuWxN8JKK0CYnS2JgTSWlyxLEYFw5BOrkJBmHXzuMInjhKtpwgmdS30HdYO610zPmAuwzCPuFkmMegrYkFxWPOiQNb9DuIwMrjQlL7jU0CkA/s200/House+of+Blues.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 158px;" /></a>well have been missing it. I'm not lyin' – when I first moved in this building, I wasn't drinkin', but I've drinken my share in my lifetime in music. But I had drinken so much, it was making me sick. Beer – I had to have it to go to sleep, wake up, whatever. I needed a drink. But now I can drink it or don't drink it. But it did make me sick. I had to go in the hospital. I got high blood pressure, and my man said to take it easy with that stuff.<br />
<br />
<em>Are you a happy or surly drinker?</em><br />
<br />
I was happy, understand? I could make it, I thought. But what it was doin' was gettin' my insides. I used to smoke, but I put it down. For maybe four years, I ain't smoked. My wife, she just steadily smoke, smoke, smoke. I keep telling her, "Don't smoke," and she gets the habit. She'd tell me, "You go get you a drink. I'm gonna smoke as much as I want." She says that if smokin' kill her, she's ready to die. It's your privilege – keep smoking – but there's something to it. The lung can't take all this smoke. That's what kills peoples in these buildings – it's not so much the fire get them, it's the smoke. They can't breathe. What a way to go.<br />
<br />
<em>How do you deal with your anger?</em><br />
<br />
Man, I go for a walk. I go around this park [points across street]. It's two miles around there, they tell me. Sometime I go twice. I go in the morning, and sometime I go in the afternoon. I do it now. And I run a little, so I feel pretty good too. I'm able to deal with a lot of my stress. I been out there just about every day this week. And I ain't just started – I been doin' this for months.<br />
<br />
Playing music also takes a lot of stress away. When I go onstage, my stress is in trouble. It don't be gone long, but it ain't strong like it were before I went onstage. My stress get weak. I don't know what I be playin' on my guitar sometimes, and when I do play that way, I can play little things other than blues. I play different kind of guitar. But when you stress onstage – ooh, that's a hard road to travel. But if you ever get your stress feelin' and play it onstage, you can make a person cry. I have did it. I been playin' onstage and ladies would faint. They had the fire department come take 'em out on these stretchers. I was on a tour, and they did it. Took two or three peoples and carried them away. They wasn't dead or nothin', but emotionally they went out, and they don't know where they were, I guess. They took 'em to the hospital. Now, that's from me playin'. Been some powerful stuff happen to me that maybe one day I can tell you about it. But right here, I keep it the way we got it.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you believe in God?</em><br />
<br />
Of course I do.<br />
<br />
<em>Is there a heaven and a hell?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. Sometimes I don't know, but I do believe there's got to be somethin' somewhere. You just can't come here and disappear. I have a feeling that my ashes or something been here before. I have some crazy dreams, you know what I mean? I've had a lot of strange dreams. I've had dreams that I've passed away, and I'm lookin' at myself pass away. I'm lookin' at the lights go out. But when it winds up, it's just like a question mark – why? – and the light goes out. That's as far as I'm goin'. I leave it alone.<br />
<br />
I have had dreams that repeat over and over, I guess, for about thirty or forty years. I dreamed this dream that I could fly. I've been able to stand here, like I'm talking to you, and just barely go [raises arms like spreading wings] and fly. I say in my dream, "Look at me, look at me – I can fly!" As I'm dreaming this, it comes to me in my dream that I tell people, "I've been dreaming that I can fly, and really I can fly now – see?" I'm showin' people how I'm floatin' around, and I come down and land like a helicopter, easy. I've repeatedly dreamed this over and over for most of my life.<br />
<br />
<em>That flying dream must make you feel good.</em><br />
<br />
I don't know if it's good or bad. But what I was so happy about was I could fly, man. I was worser than Superman!<br />
<br />
<em>Does playing music ever give that exhilarated feeling?</em><br />
<br />
Best high you can get is off of just playin' music. When you drink and play, you feel okay. But when you get high just from playin', all of a sudden somethin' hit you. I have played to myself sittin' in the room and said, "Damn! How come I can't do this onstage?" But I find out the only time I can play that is when that spell hit me.<br />
<br />
When you get high from your music, your knowledge is something different than it is when you just pick up a guitar and feel good. There's something special hit you, and you cannot play like that every day. You don't even think like it. Ideas won't come to you.<br />
<br />
Ideas come to you by spells, and most of the times you get ideas, you got to get up and write it down. And the biggest mistakes I ever made is layin' there sayin', "I'm gonna get up and write it down" or "I ain't gonna get up – I'll remember this." And then you wake up later, and [snaps fingers] it's gone. So when things come to you, get up and write it down.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOcmBWAyyFYxXZ1_d-0BKlUDzriqULjQqOiBxgGg9gWJ1u9S9OjEF84x1UELQtk4B1QJ4x1rtHCpXqMGpDuaHUOKXbSwLohOiyD2bxAFbGVSnKjquw0-0apZYvB_dCpY9whnJug9tGnAk/s1600/Long+Beach+Blues+Festival.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489367381311876578" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOcmBWAyyFYxXZ1_d-0BKlUDzriqULjQqOiBxgGg9gWJ1u9S9OjEF84x1UELQtk4B1QJ4x1rtHCpXqMGpDuaHUOKXbSwLohOiyD2bxAFbGVSnKjquw0-0apZYvB_dCpY9whnJug9tGnAk/s200/Long+Beach+Blues+Festival.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 168px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a><br />
<em>Do you love the guitar as much today as you did at the start of your career?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. Yeah, I love it. I love a good-sounding guitar, because that's my work. That's my pride. I get paid for it, and I have to be very careful with it. I must respect it, because you don't get this every day. It's a gift.<br />
<br />
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<div><strong><em><span style="color: blue;">To see my books of blues interviews, including others with Otis Rush, as well CDs featuring my liner notes, visit the Jas Obrecht Music Blog store at </span></em></strong><a href="http://astore.amazon.com/jaso01-20"><strong><em><span style="color: blue;">http://astore.amazon.com/jaso01-20</span></em></strong></a><strong><em><span style="color: blue;">. </span></em></strong></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-14551235218801838462010-06-22T18:11:00.032-04:002010-07-28T08:00:15.586-04:00Rick Nelson Remembers the Rockabilly Era<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJGcly2RzMbZrRioN8xonLw8RrDFZQ19dizMpytTDOR-y7g7pVZDcJ2gX2yCuzTygZMNRI19KMM0Ytjp6KDy9TSJlhnmoXqdm0JuJPtCNtj_MtJ0Rp61NQKlXzpou4qZn8WM-inL8Lz6w/s1600/Rick+Nelson+James+Burton+sepia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" rw="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJGcly2RzMbZrRioN8xonLw8RrDFZQ19dizMpytTDOR-y7g7pVZDcJ2gX2yCuzTygZMNRI19KMM0Ytjp6KDy9TSJlhnmoXqdm0JuJPtCNtj_MtJ0Rp61NQKlXzpou4qZn8WM-inL8Lz6w/s320/Rick+Nelson+James+Burton+sepia.jpg" width="274" /></a></div>In the early days of rock and roll, Ricky Nelson’s singles <em>rocketed</em> up the charts, sometimes selling a million copies in a single week. Unlike his peers Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and the Everly Brothers, Nelson had the best promotional platform imaginable: a hit TV show.<br />
<br />
Originally a 1940s radio show about a real-life mom, pop, and the<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4xReE1T6N1FmbFe8J4RjAALDKQBBy6ApT6xakR9iumM_nBiTdriazCyNbhhd9OVCiSB8Rm2HEyZpbpOZAyQvCdcJpVNew5y4ZPgUC5MIb2I9gQYfFSunKjOpvkisVoK6KE8WOSbA_8Wk/s1600/Here+Come+the+Nelsons.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485739067812227714" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4xReE1T6N1FmbFe8J4RjAALDKQBBy6ApT6xakR9iumM_nBiTdriazCyNbhhd9OVCiSB8Rm2HEyZpbpOZAyQvCdcJpVNew5y4ZPgUC5MIb2I9gQYfFSunKjOpvkisVoK6KE8WOSbA_8Wk/s200/Here+Come+the+Nelsons.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 132px;" /></a>ir two sons, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet made its TV debut in 1952, when Ricky was 12. By April 1957, when he performed his first rock and roll song – a cover of Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin’” – the show had an estimated 15,000,000 viewers. Within a month, his Verve single of the song had replaced Elvis’ “All Shook Up” at #2 in the national charts. Nelson jumped to the Imperial label, brought in James Burton on guitar, and rapidly produced hit after hit. Kids eagerly tuned in to each new episode of Ozzie and Harriet, hoping for another rock and roll performance. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil2i5_cUYLvoyBWNQfhqWUnaDiuTKzanQx7V82ZMK0z48tq5o5dk1iJiFx2WbD_oz7UFBuh2z12a90KMQ6KkwB5q-09ygqHrSJ7SvL6sStKeGP4OCTDSdJGscLCff05yJO3Ws3_ASwprQ/s1600/Here+Come+the+Nelsons.jpg"></a>No mere teen idol, Ricky Nelson created some of the era’s finest rockabilly and pop records.<br />
<br />
With the British Invasion and the cancellation of the family show, Rick (as he now called himself) hit a commercial dry spell. In 1969 he shed his teen-idol straightjacket and helped pioneer country-rock. Getting booed at an October 1971 rock and roll revival at Madison Square Garden inspired him to compose his beloved song “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Garden-Party/dp/B000W1YXQ4?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Garden Party</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000W1YXQ4" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />.” During the next decade, Nelson recorded albums for MCA, Capitol, and Epic, and toured up to 250 days a year. When we did our interview on June 16, 1981, Rick seemed like someone I’d known all my life.<br />
<br />
****<br />
<br />
<em>Who are the best guitarists you’ve worked with?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, boy. You know, it’s so hard to say. I think the two best are probably James Burton, who is really an innovator in guitar playing, and Bobby Neal. But it’s so hard to generalize, because they have really different styles.<br />
<br />
<em>When James Burton joined your band, how well known was he?</em><br />
<br />
He wasn’t well known at all, really. The first time I heard him was in the office at Imperial Records. He came up from the Louisiana Hayride with Bob Luman. Actually<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW6efZrV4pLMnYfIJAkqMUg_cOkGs4zRAlDjMmCWXwZMscnKjKazWepm83Sh2qjEVENYw3tUJSP0k-jS3_OCdXd_8gM6pqBMZ5fiGxiYi9YhjozJuzHCGOnU0g8paa22atHn0lBiax4WA/s1600/Ricky+with+James+and+band.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485738260476389330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW6efZrV4pLMnYfIJAkqMUg_cOkGs4zRAlDjMmCWXwZMscnKjKazWepm83Sh2qjEVENYw3tUJSP0k-jS3_OCdXd_8gM6pqBMZ5fiGxiYi9YhjozJuzHCGOnU0g8paa22atHn0lBiax4WA/s200/Ricky+with+James+and+band.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 154px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>, Bob Luman was auditioning for Imperial. I was looking for a band at that time. I was 16 and so was James. I heard this guitar playing at the end of the hall. I thought, “Wow, I love the way he plays.”<br />
<br />
<em>Your promo material mentioned that you recorded “A Teenager’s Romance” after your girlfriend said she liked Elvis.</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I did that, and the other side was “I’m Walkin’.” (Here’s Rick performing “I’m Walkin’” in the 1957 episode of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwSwlkxHSnY">www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwSwlkxHSnY</a>.)<br />
<br />
<em>Were you interested in rock and roll before then? <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBrw_fGomsO0Y-xjgn-FrlMd9O_YFSWqedOxLfmjM0nfEn2lfCzW3k9CYdLxIVqf-bYJVESrw1dqTMRUZrQa3YNrCpYlh96DQQRLvW2QKbDHV3euQJYOZ5g4R-ukewYEXha_vHHQF-Aqk/s1600/Carl+Perkins+Blue+Suede+Shoes+music.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485738063106590690" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBrw_fGomsO0Y-xjgn-FrlMd9O_YFSWqedOxLfmjM0nfEn2lfCzW3k9CYdLxIVqf-bYJVESrw1dqTMRUZrQa3YNrCpYlh96DQQRLvW2QKbDHV3euQJYOZ5g4R-ukewYEXha_vHHQF-Aqk/s200/Carl+Perkins+Blue+Suede+Shoes+music.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 146px;" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2YTq7lOYsRpq7-soYCYiUu7jpw6t535rw1qR1o08zhAGqUINHeNgFXIm8W1XVelWxyvwBn5HHg8a-Ev072NvRFbfD7Vr5_H1kWKWvzXXoCf3jlJItwJHcQ4SjnWUg_pzTguml7b7fQFk/s1600/Carl+Perkins+Blue+Suede+Shoes+music.jpg"></a></em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiATOkqZM21Ub5AxsFYHhyphenhyphenbZpDRLB3KFVaMT-crE2qAFHFpy3pOW90Z4cvfGA3sWnpWwdM18NmxKrtDuzylXGhJgKelLEQ_p3PoFEqD67XAgsKXYvZhVePyQ5hWszwKUjDJZlKYzbcHfdU/s1600/Carl+Perkins+Blue+Suede+Shoes+music.jpg"></a><br />
Yeah, very much so. I remember the first <em>truly</em> rock and roll record that I ever heard was with Carl Perkins. It was “Blue Suede Shoes.” (Here Carl performs the song in 1956: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79CJON8fv6c">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79CJON8fv6c</a><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79CJON8fv6c">m/watch?v=79CJON8fv6c</a>. Dig those crazy legs!)<br />
<br />
<em>What other influences did you bring into the studio?</em><br />
<br />
Well, you couldn’t help but be influenced by Elvis a little bit. My main influence was probably Carl Perkins at that time. I really idolized him. I really tried to sound like Carl Perkins. I used a standup bass – you know, a slap bass – at that time. Actually, electric basses came in about ’57.<br />
<br />
<em>Did Ozzie have much to do with your getting signed to Verve?</em><br />
<br />
My dad? Well, he was involved, because I was just 16 at that time. And sure, he was very much involved.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you remember which musicians you used for the Verve sessions?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I remember it was people like Barney Kessel – mainly jazz players. They really didn’t understand rock and roll. There was a whole group of people that just never quite made it, like Howard Roberts and people like that. They were really great jazz players, but they never quite made it as far as playing rock and roll goes. <br />
<div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><br />
<div><em>Do you remember how those early sessions were done?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I sure do. We had one studio that we recorded in. It was just one room, and we’d all go down there and work out the arrangements right in the studio there. There was no title as a producer, you know. There was no such thing as a producer at that time. They were A&R men, and Jimmy Haskell was the kind of go<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrAx1F2V7JH9c4Wpz0ewYTwvkdy4Kz2ghi-z_dMZ8_d1Nhrj43yKa0DfWeobgPFmi8i-Uyl2go4bCAMg5ENYyf3YL8HXujhfLSzRe4gTG74tXl_ZbW_eFGVf6j2bbyD0Mfwq7gTPsLJAU/s1600/Rick+Nelson+in+studio.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485737824625453714" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrAx1F2V7JH9c4Wpz0ewYTwvkdy4Kz2ghi-z_dMZ8_d1Nhrj43yKa0DfWeobgPFmi8i-Uyl2go4bCAMg5ENYyf3YL8HXujhfLSzRe4gTG74tXl_ZbW_eFGVf6j2bbyD0Mfwq7gTPsLJAU/s320/Rick+Nelson+in+studio.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 218px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 320px;" /></a>-between between Imperial and myself, and I remember Jimmy used to hold up chord symbols and stuff because nobody could read in there at all. All of a sudden he’d bring out a big “A,” and then all of a sudden a “C,” things like that. So that was the extent of reading music.<br />
<br />
<em>Was there a natural echo in the room, or was the echo on those records done electronically?</em><br />
<br />
It was a real chamber, upstairs.<br />
<br />
<em>What were the recording techniques?</em><br />
<br />
It was just really straight-ahead. And what we used to do was we’d record the drums and bass really out front, on the basic track, if we were gonna lay vocals and things on it. They ended up being about four generations down, because that was when they used to overdub.<br />
<br />
<em>Compared to today, what was the turnaround time between the sessions and the records being released?</em><br />
Oh, God, it was just so basic and straight-ahead, you know. It was a lot more healthy, I think. We’d record like, say, on a Saturday night, and the record would be out in all the stores like on Tuesday or Wednesday. That week, it would have sold a million records, you know, if I got lucky. </div><div><br />
<em>Did you pick the tunes yourself?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I did, which was a real luxury.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you make suggestions to your guitar players, like to emphasize the country influence?</em><br />
<br />
No, they were all from the South, you know, so it was just a very automatic kind of thing. It’s a certain feel. Nowadays they call it rockabilly, I guess, for lack of a label.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2yrfloo_bzTkFvQu5GlY54-ZPg2MG3aNTFe6im5cRJLF0WdOMPf0KUuXryU_zhA71LwbnkLZg0F6zNPOCP3ADtLIdOzkO_K6XuXKjlvCEXqZUU-_WO1ZB9XBjK4w5GCiZSNEVxVR3c5k/s1600/Blue+Suede+Shoes+78.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485729294062437138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2yrfloo_bzTkFvQu5GlY54-ZPg2MG3aNTFe6im5cRJLF0WdOMPf0KUuXryU_zhA71LwbnkLZg0F6zNPOCP3ADtLIdOzkO_K6XuXKjlvCEXqZUU-_WO1ZB9XBjK4w5GCiZSNEVxVR3c5k/s200/Blue+Suede+Shoes+78.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 196px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a><em>Being 16, how clear of a vision of the final product did you have?</em><br />
<br />
Very clear, because I tried to emulate Sun Records. It was when Music City was happening, and I used to buy up <em>all</em> of Sun Records down there. Because I love that sound.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you play guitar when you were young?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I did.<br />
<br />
<em>How old were you?</em><br />
Let me see – I think I was probably about 14.<br />
<br />
<em>When you moved from Verve to Imperial, was Joe Maphis your guitarist for a while?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, he was. On the first album, Joe played all the leads, like “Boppin’ the Blues” and “Waitin’ in School” – all those things.<br />
<br />
<em>How did Joe get involved?</em><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0PkniqiiYYTRxoJgzrzcR2erTXoWHehod2X3nbCM5xistLNeOlDIBJjhp6fX404mp-LYSgf3Cb27gLr0MDiPaTNh37Q8q9aElGnf6qYToziDGRfhbqXzBpMfpJ5sk2dEHraOsZHmL2Vw/s1600/Joe+Maphis+publicity+shot.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485730070382549858" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0PkniqiiYYTRxoJgzrzcR2erTXoWHehod2X3nbCM5xistLNeOlDIBJjhp6fX404mp-LYSgf3Cb27gLr0MDiPaTNh37Q8q9aElGnf6qYToziDGRfhbqXzBpMfpJ5sk2dEHraOsZHmL2Vw/s200/Joe+Maphis+publicity+shot.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 160px;" /></a><br />
There was a show called Town Hall Party, with like Tex Ritter. Merle Travis was on it, and Joe Maphis. I got to know them because I dated Lorrie Collins at that time. I used to see her. They were called the Collins Kids, and Larry Collins was sort of a protégé of Joe Maphis on Town Hall Party. I used to go down there every Saturday night and just sort of hang out there when I was about 15. I got to meet all the people and hear all the stories, and I really liked the way he played.<br />
<br />
<em>Who were your backup singers on the early records?</em><br />
<br />
It was the Jordanaires.<br />
<br />
<em>Did being compared to Elvis create pressure?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, you know, at that time everybody was compared to Elvis if you stood up and played a guitar. It wasn’t really a pressure for me. It was something that I always felt was very flattering.</div><div><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZdovJVPyA6K7BIClh79tXgpommQ5TpXbos12Y6WLzyHYSfEVFEofcEA-I5ZwgqysX-4RAbd6JI_RyoWjpQYYYhSHaDZ5pcMIXi_8R_lihK2z3GANsjczpJEX4daOOcw9OJfSmCBD1d34/s1600/Life+magazine.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485742740898095138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZdovJVPyA6K7BIClh79tXgpommQ5TpXbos12Y6WLzyHYSfEVFEofcEA-I5ZwgqysX-4RAbd6JI_RyoWjpQYYYhSHaDZ5pcMIXi_8R_lihK2z3GANsjczpJEX4daOOcw9OJfSmCBD1d34/s320/Life+magazine.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 320px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 213px;" /></a> <em>Being that young, did you have much artistic control over your career?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I had complete control over it. </div><div></div><div><em></em></div><div><em></em></div><div><em>Did you go on many tours?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, during the summer. Actually, the first thing that I ever played was the Ohio State Fair, to 20,000 people. It’s a large step from your bathroom to 20,000 people!<br />
<br />
<em>Did you see the film The Buddy Holly Story?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I did.<br />
<br />
<em>Was that an accurate portrayal of what it was like back then?</em><br />
I just met Buddy Holly very briefly. My friends during that time were Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran and the Everly Brothers, people like that that I used to hang out with. But I never really got to know Buddy Holly. I know they used to go out on the Dick Clark bus tours for three or four months of one-nighters. I was very fortunate at that time to be able to play buildings by myself, so I <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEils9dHoD2z0ACpN_UprrAyRmCLd58mVTb9gwtCrr9J74ryPq3SAWzrpdOpS0ZZiFFOTkeHukvJyJ4cUcImH-IqhyphenhyphenpXAyIeUbkbqlWycW49S7_qBG8LZ5zdbQQKPLxwfVR8iHEbNxgAAm4/s1600/Eddie+Cochrane+and+Gene+Vincent.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485730648337589426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEils9dHoD2z0ACpN_UprrAyRmCLd58mVTb9gwtCrr9J74ryPq3SAWzrpdOpS0ZZiFFOTkeHukvJyJ4cUcImH-IqhyphenhyphenpXAyIeUbkbqlWycW49S7_qBG8LZ5zdbQQKPLxwfVR8iHEbNxgAAm4/s200/Eddie+Cochrane+and+Gene+Vincent.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 158px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>never really had to do that. </div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><br />
<br />
<div><strong>At right: Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent</strong></div><br />
<br />
<div><em>Did you do much jamming with Gene Vincent?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, yeah. A lot.<br />
<br />
<em>Was what he played with you the same as what he played in public?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, pretty much. And we were real good friends.<br />
<br />
<em>Compared to today, what was the concert scene like back then?</em><br />
<br />
It was really the very beginnings of rock and roll, and people were getting their clothes torn off. It was very physical. </div><br />
<br />
<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMLXUNnVtPza42KWMWrCo3650eB0nN16KISD-Bdxf35JuY77TpuiFkhwKI857ndvex4Q6w5cTQDiN9PST8FD0xtP8TRdtNz7TL9Iz0QujeR1SqNAaNj3GC2V8CNwxHvTU0ls8m4FTMJ0M/s1600/Rock+N+Roll+Trio.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485740663036102834" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMLXUNnVtPza42KWMWrCo3650eB0nN16KISD-Bdxf35JuY77TpuiFkhwKI857ndvex4Q6w5cTQDiN9PST8FD0xtP8TRdtNz7TL9Iz0QujeR1SqNAaNj3GC2V8CNwxHvTU0ls8m4FTMJ0M/s200/Rock+N+Roll+Trio.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 196px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a></div><div></div><div><strong>The Rock 'N' Roll Trio, 1956: Paul Burlison with Johnny and Dorsey Burnette. </strong></div><br />
<br />
<div><em>How did you become involved with the Burnette brothers? </em><br />
<br />
I met Dorsey and Johnny right around the same time I knew Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent. They had driven out from Tennessee, from Memphis, and they pulled up in the driveway. This is after my first record. They were very persistent. They just opened the trunk, took out their guitars, and started playing. I really did like the songs and the way they sang. They had a whole bunch of what are considered to be rockabilly-type songs right now, and I really liked them. So during that time I ended up with a handful of writers that I could more or less count on for material. Guys like Baker Knight and Dorsey, and subsequently I got to know the<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQvM3IWPsJSiYFOEMsmV04Wt3qFXwwkNbVMah0Uyh5f4AahCIo7tsrChRHP1QIdgqhOk1_jxXfaqlzK8Azw3WUEGwcDZzHiXvSL2mJA145P4g23CVWmKLsXcWL_5S4Gi5ybU8qGSxFMWI/s1600/It's+Late.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485731121515939906" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQvM3IWPsJSiYFOEMsmV04Wt3qFXwwkNbVMah0Uyh5f4AahCIo7tsrChRHP1QIdgqhOk1_jxXfaqlzK8Azw3WUEGwcDZzHiXvSL2mJA145P4g23CVWmKLsXcWL_5S4Gi5ybU8qGSxFMWI/s200/It's+Late.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>m very well. [Blogger’s note: Between 1957 and 1959, the Burnette brothers wrote the Ricky Nelson hits “Waitin’ in School,” “Believe What You Say,” and “It’s Late,” while Baker Knight composed “Lonesome Town,” “I Got a Feeling,” and “I Wanna Be Loved,” among others. See Rick, James Burton, and band performing “It’s Late” on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet in 1959: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diH71kQNna8">www.youtube.com/watch?v=diH71kQNna8</a>]<br />
<br />
<em>How much freedom did you give James Burton on your records?</em><br />
<br />
Almost complete freedom, unless I heard a specific thing that I wanted him to play. You know what? I was thinking about James, and I remember before there was anything like slinky strings, he was probably the first to come up with something like that. It was when we recorded “Believe What You Say.” I remember him coming into the studio and going, “Hey, listen to this!” He’d put banjo strings on his guitar, so he could bend them way up, and that was really the front-runner of slinky strings. (See Rick and James play “Believe What You Say” in 1959: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQNkg4dOsRk">www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQNkg4dOsRk</a>.)<br />
<br />
<em>What are your favorite cuts from the late ’50s and early ’60s?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, boy. I’m not sure. It’s so hard to say. You’re speaking of mine? I don’t know. They all have kind of a different flavor to them – at least I tried to make them different. I think “Lonesome Town” has a special meaning to me. It was probably one of the first records with just a guitar – just an acoustic guitar and a vocal.<br />
<br />
<em>Over the years, have you embraced new technology as it’s come along?</em><br />
<br />
It’s kind of a constant battle for me, because all the magical kinds of things that happen have nothing to do with the technology. If anything, the technology does get in the way of those kind of overtones, the g<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp9ME9IJIRE7iK1OFV4uNRD-wOmYoqg_iehPAEP7Yb4_qHKQzWpiJlbTswdvlg6-kUEYucZtFfWMpydNVZnbZ_rIj6nj14BRGm0F_vpu-dYklqfRmG5SSw9A_7wFNCVnQGdIuesVKQTIA/s1600/Hello+Mary+Lou.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485739452722614370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp9ME9IJIRE7iK1OFV4uNRD-wOmYoqg_iehPAEP7Yb4_qHKQzWpiJlbTswdvlg6-kUEYucZtFfWMpydNVZnbZ_rIj6nj14BRGm0F_vpu-dYklqfRmG5SSw9A_7wFNCVnQGdIuesVKQTIA/s200/Hello+Mary+Lou.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a>eneration-down type thing. Like “Hello Mary Lou” was about eight generations down. So all of a sudden we got to about the seventh or eighth generation, and the cowbell started sounding like another kind of instrument. Really. Those kind of things are very difficult to duplicate. (Here’s “Hello Mary Lou”: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLkCWT2neuI">www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLkCWT2neuI</a>)<br />
<br />
<em>Do you find it easier to put together an album now?</em><br />
<br />
I kind of have to always – not fight it, but just keep in mind that if the technology part of it is heard on the record, it never quite makes it for me. So in a way, it’s a little more difficult for me. Every record company wants me to have a producer, which can be easy if you get the right combination where a producer can come in with really good material and things like that. It can kind of ease the burden and let you record. But if you get a producer that wants to change your image and this and that – you know what I mean.<br />
<br />
<em>You self-produced the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Garden-Party/dp/B000W1QWO0?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Garden Party </a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000W1QWO0" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />album.</em><br />
<br />
Yes.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you enjoy doing that?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I <em>really</em> did, because when I wrote the song, I wrote it in one night. It was a<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOwJv8qVSJrgleWxqBX6zbGZUY_npszF9Pbee3u6t51TYhUs3ZCO8LurzhjIcf-fI6R9q_KM55u8M0dv26XUoDjR7OgIFhVbvvbkMz1Qd63CSJY_6o8OegRakXsnsNPHilNmTndI-2MY8/s1600/Garden+Party.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485729707020696722" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOwJv8qVSJrgleWxqBX6zbGZUY_npszF9Pbee3u6t51TYhUs3ZCO8LurzhjIcf-fI6R9q_KM55u8M0dv26XUoDjR7OgIFhVbvvbkMz1Qd63CSJY_6o8OegRakXsnsNPHilNmTndI-2MY8/s200/Garden+Party.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a> very strange feeling because it was there to be written. I could hear exactly what I wanted it to sound like on a record. And then when I went into the studio, it started sounding that way. It was really exciting.<br />
<br />
<em>Would you recount the story of that song?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, yeah. We played at Madison Square Garden. Richard Nader had been after me for about four years to do a rock and roll revival. I was really opposed to it. And I don’t know – he caught me at a weak moment. I had just formed the Stone Canyon Band and I was writing a lot of material. We were playing colleges and things like that. So musically, it was a whole other direction that I was going in. And I just thought, well, okay. I’d never played Madison Square Garden, and I started thinking of the reasons why I should do it. I never quite convinced myself, really. I’ve never been very good at faking it like that, you know. I have to make a complete commitment to whatever I’m doing in order to have it be the least bit successful. What I do, I really have to make a total commitment to it, and not talk myself into it. And that’s what happened that night – I felt really out of place being there. It was a learning experience for me. It wasn’t a sour grapes thing at all. It was just a reminder to myself that you gotta do what you believe in. (Here’s Rick performing “Garden Party” in 1972, the year the record came out: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6S9dCGwB8M&feature=related">www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6S9dCGwB8M&feature=related</a> )<br />
<br />
<em>What do you view as the best period of rock and roll?</em><br />
<br />
I think right now. It’s wide open. I’m playing all over, not just L.A. and New York. I’m playing all over the country, and people are really willing to accept all kinds of music. For the first time, I don’t think it necessarily has to fit into a specific slot as far as people go. Maybe the radio stations and the promotions people have to fit it into a slot to get played.<br />
<br />
<em>Who would have thought rock and roll would reach the proportions it has?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, yeah! When I first started, people we’re saying, “Well, it’s gonna be out in <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm2UgUS11bqCj3HHAVlNJef0j04l0FenmsxqV7XuehpkYEZfkcykoU8vY8IRkAsKyeWiI6irPyvvH6D5r1FlpH0IwE7a4Kg9e_xhqrEeon6JQgYAA9E5fTQGN-dL-fDEWU-04x0HjZfGY/s1600/Rick+Nelson+color+portrait.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485740063744024002" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm2UgUS11bqCj3HHAVlNJef0j04l0FenmsxqV7XuehpkYEZfkcykoU8vY8IRkAsKyeWiI6irPyvvH6D5r1FlpH0IwE7a4Kg9e_xhqrEeon6JQgYAA9E5fTQGN-dL-fDEWU-04x0HjZfGY/s200/Rick+Nelson+color+portrait.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 171px;" /></a>three weeks anyways – it’s a fad.” Really!<br />
<br />
<em>And now it’s probably the classical music of the future.</em><br />
<br />
Oh, sure.<br />
<br />
<em>What venues do you play these days?</em><br />
<br />
We’ve been doing a lot of schools, a lot of concerts, and they’re really rewarding. Actually, we’ve been doing a lot of high schools.<br />
<br />
<em>That must be fun.</em><br />
They really are, because all of a sudden we’re playing to a whole new group of people that just accept you at face value. It’s a real good feeling when they like the old songs. Like, say, “Believe What You Say,” which is a very basic three-chord rock and roll song. If anything, punk rock and all that has kind of come around a complete cycle to that, and it’s a kind of a music I really understand and really enjoy playing.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<em>Any contemporary rock and roll that you enjoy listening to?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, yeah. Very much. I like Pat Benatar a lot – I think she’s great. There are so many bands, it’s really difficult. And they all have their own personalities because that’s what happens when you get bands together like that, like garage-type bands. They end up having their own sound, which is great. I think it’s a very healthy kind of thing.<br />
<br />
<em>What do you look for in a sideman in your own band?</em><br />
<br />
It’s a very intangible kind of quality they have to have. It’s difficult to put it into words, but a certain feeling that either works or doesn’t work – especially a drummer. It’s so important to have a certain body rhythm. Like two people can play the same tempo and have it completely different. With the band I have now, I’m really happy with it.<br />
<br />
<em>Who’s the guitarist in your current band?</em><br />
<br />
A fellow named Bobby Neal.<br />
<br />
<em>How did you find him?</em><br />
<br />
Well, when I was with Epic, I went down to Memphis to record an album, and he was on those sessions. I heard him play down there, and I really liked the way he played.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you play much guitar on the Playing to Win album?</em><br />
<br />
I just played rhythm, you know? Just acoustic. </div><div><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdlJRoCycZyyki0aJLlR4QEPLlxvp2Jp3x8pCxhr-BU0C9K5g0i50IdrB8TnOMB-Xeuqe8ZALR2yCLoKNffqaqQRcJd5llDumi9YQ8NxtVihrMnxxyb38_hj4wh1BThhyMkp_A4KJGVts/s1600/Rick+Nelson+with+hand-tooled+guitar.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485737280614444674" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdlJRoCycZyyki0aJLlR4QEPLlxvp2Jp3x8pCxhr-BU0C9K5g0i50IdrB8TnOMB-Xeuqe8ZALR2yCLoKNffqaqQRcJd5llDumi9YQ8NxtVihrMnxxyb38_hj4wh1BThhyMkp_A4KJGVts/s200/Rick+Nelson+with+hand-tooled+guitar.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 174px;" /></a></div><div><em>What guitars do you own now?</em><br />
<br />
I have a Martin.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you know the model?</em><br />
<br />
Let me see – it’s a D-35. I’ve had it since I was 17.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you play lead at all?</em><br />
<br />
Not really. I tried a couple of times, you know, and it took a little while to get it on tape [laughs], so I leave that up to somebody else.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you go on the road much nowadays?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, yeah. Really a lot. 200 days a year, on average.<br />
<br />
<em>How do you keep your sanity?</em><br />
<br />
Well, that’s a good question! [Laughs.]<br />
<br />
<em>Do you play your guitar much outside of performing?</em><br />
<br />
You mean at home? Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you use it to play yourself in and out of moods?</em><br />
<br />
Yes, I do. And to write. It’s weird – the best songs that I think that I have written have come from times when I haven’t been necessarily thinking about writing a song – or thinking about anything specific. It’s just maybe a mood or something like that, and something starts to happen. </div><div><br />
<em>Have songs ever come to you at odd times?</em><br />
<br />
Not really. It’s not like I go to sleep and write a verse on a pillowcase or something. I have done that – I’ve dreamt that I’ve written this great song. I’ll write down a few words, wake up the next morning, and it’s ridiculous. [Laughs.] I guess a lot of people have done that. Usually I just feel like playing. Sometimes I’ll be walking around not necessarily thinking about anything. I know that’s how “Garden Party” started happening. When it started to happen, I wrote the whole song on one piece of paper – I didn’t want to move. I was writing on the corners, on the back, and everything.<br />
<br />
<em>Any advice for young performers?</em><br />
<br />
All I can think about is that I really enjoy performing a lot and playing and doing what I do. That really has to be a prerequisite. It is for me, anyway. I don’t see how you can do a really good job on something where you’re just going through the motions. I just thoroughly enjoy what I’m doing.<br />
<br />
###<br />
<br />
<strong>Epilog</strong><em><br />
<br />
After our interview, Rick Nelson continued to tour. In 1984 he participated in a<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFhtmQR7areaYfvfY158Aj9VcqLgZtGpC_GrlXlNexteHCQjhgdp4EzV-SZIH9x6_pY5yjqxmiDOo_fH5vmHNes91mE4lBn36EoNBmbNBOPaoECr8LIXU7haVu4fhmTdYrihDlz3fMb-U/s1600/sideways+in+color.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485728648075703826" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFhtmQR7areaYfvfY158Aj9VcqLgZtGpC_GrlXlNexteHCQjhgdp4EzV-SZIH9x6_pY5yjqxmiDOo_fH5vmHNes91mE4lBn36EoNBmbNBOPaoECr8LIXU7haVu4fhmTdYrihDlz3fMb-U/s200/sideways+in+color.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 150px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a> Sun Records reunion with his idol Carl Perkins, among others, which led to his only Grammy. In 1985 he assembled a new band and signed with Curb/MCA. He played his final concert on December 30, 1985, and died in a plane crash the following day. The last song he performed in public was Buddy Holly’s “Rave On.”</em><br />
<br />
###</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-87349930521155514532010-06-17T16:33:00.047-04:002010-07-28T08:02:51.476-04:00Detroit Blues: The Eddie Burns Interview<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii0B3Y_Ej2UST4slVQoDyS2C8JwLFhswOq0Zj4FdsH_xJbo8bxcj0L5y2SbePySgta3vA4OrzmbLzbwxsokphJoCuzTceZBWfW-WetFxx3EIrqNWHQ0Wp0NK88NMO_QhkPcIf2uoiMSxw/s1600/Eddie+Burns+opener.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483872613899384578" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii0B3Y_Ej2UST4slVQoDyS2C8JwLFhswOq0Zj4FdsH_xJbo8bxcj0L5y2SbePySgta3vA4OrzmbLzbwxsokphJoCuzTceZBWfW-WetFxx3EIrqNWHQ0Wp0NK88NMO_QhkPcIf2uoiMSxw/s320/Eddie+Burns+opener.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 266px;" /></a><br />
In the decade following World War II, the epicenters of the urban blues boom were in Chicago, Houston, Oakland, and Los Angeles. But other cities made essential contributions as well, notably Detroit, where musicians from the Black Bottom to Paradise Valley specialized in swing, jump blues, boogie-woogie piano, and electrified country blues. Detroit’s most happening scene was along Hastings Street, with its black-owned shops, clubs, and restaurants, as well as its gambling dens, bordellos, and ongoing house parties. John Lee Hooker, Eddie Burns, Baby Boy Warren, Willie D. Warren, Calvin Frazier, Henry Smith, Washboard Willie, Eddie Kirkland, Bobo Jenkins, and other Detroit bluesmen came here to play for tips and cut storefront singles for local blues entrepreneurs such as Bernie Bessman and Joe Von Battle. Eddie Burns, 82, is the last of Detroit’s early postwar legends to still live in the Motor City.<br />
<br />
Born in Belzoni, Mississippi, Burns is the eldest brother of Chicago bluesman Jimmy Burns. Raised around Clarksdale, Mississippi, he was inspired by Sonny Boy Williamson I records and in-person encounters with Sonny Boy Williamson II to learn harmonica during his teens. In 1947 Burns left Mississippi for good, taking a job as a troubleshooter for the Illinois Central railway company. In Iowa, he formed a guitar-harmonica duo with John T. Smith, who accompanied him to Detroit in 1948. Soon after his arrival, Burns met another bluesman who’d been raised around Clarksdale, John Lee Hooker, whose “Boogie Chillen” was just about to be released. “Oh, Eddie and I became good buddies right away,” Hooker told me. “We was so close, and he listened to me to get a lot of his stuff. When I first met him, he was only playin’ harmonica, which he still know how to play now. And oooh, he was so good!”<br />
<br />
John Lee Hooker invited Burns to blow harp at his next session, which produced the Sensation singles “Burnin’ Hell” and “Miss Eloise,” as well as “Sailing Blues,” “Black Cat Blues,” and “I Had a Dream,” which all later came out on albums. That same day, Burns and Smith <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyg7zJrJXA8NTE14GKy5015sElBxA5ZcAwksiOEgfWiWwmBK9vb3dy7CQ-lRVq4nV8Q0GJa1O1woC_6urnZGcUlqBKiVKfjC9s3fnOy9LH-2FEt4bkoI2Ukx7V1ew1lrLg0-rFpjP-k3M/s1600/Swing+Brothers+-+Papa%27s+Boogie.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483869915644859282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyg7zJrJXA8NTE14GKy5015sElBxA5ZcAwksiOEgfWiWwmBK9vb3dy7CQ-lRVq4nV8Q0GJa1O1woC_6urnZGcUlqBKiVKfjC9s3fnOy9LH-2FEt4bkoI2Ukx7V1ew1lrLg0-rFpjP-k3M/s200/Swing+Brothers+-+Papa%27s+Boogie.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>also recorded on their own, with “Notoriety Woman” b/w “Papa’s Boogie” coming out on Palda credited to the Swing Brothers. Hooker soon found work at the Harlem Inn and had Burns sub for him when a doctored drink laid him low. Burns, by now teaching himself guitar, put together his first group at the Harlem Inn.<br />
<br />
During the 1950s John Lee Hooker became blues star, releasing dozens of singles on various labels. Burns fared less well financially, working day jobs, playing small clubs, and participating in a scattering of local sessions. In 1951, Hooker and John T. Smith supported him on a series of originals recorded by Joe Von Battle, who sold the titles to Gotham. Despite Burns’ appealingly raw vocals and Sonny Boy I-inspired harp, these performances of “Making a Fool Out of Me,” “Where Were You Last Night Baby,” and “Squeeze Me Baby” remained unissued for many years. Von Battle was more successful with 1952’s “Hello Miss Jessie Lee” and “Dealing with the Devil,” leasing the sides to Deluxe. The single’s success brought Burns a steady, better-paying gig at the Tavern Lounge, which he celebrated in 1953’s “Tavern Lounge Boogie,” on Modern. By then he’d expanded his band to piano, two guitars, and drums, while the sounds of his own harp and guitar remained lean and countrified.<br />
<br />
Burns married his first wife in 1953 and soon started having children. He worked at a Dodge automobile factory and played four or five nights a week to all-black audiences. In 1954 he cut the Hastings Stre<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0fKcwNqJ3APTO2Z_VVh0UdELi-l6tJBbZKVt9-J6fWqFuaRznEvMe7HEEYbUsDox8QcxNF3X3MfaQ9eo2sNjRhrgL9B3E9uLmYnKWvLB9ZbizqYltBeUlxoUzhOrFImrHarPKw7tQDRQ/s1600/Superstition+on+Checker.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483890422358138626" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0fKcwNqJ3APTO2Z_VVh0UdELi-l6tJBbZKVt9-J6fWqFuaRznEvMe7HEEYbUsDox8QcxNF3X3MfaQ9eo2sNjRhrgL9B3E9uLmYnKWvLB9ZbizqYltBeUlxoUzhOrFImrHarPKw7tQDRQ/s200/Superstition+on+Checker.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a>et classics “Superstition”/“Biscuit Baking Mama,” released by Checker credited to Big Ed and His Combo. Eddie played guitar on his final single of the decade, 1957’s “Treat Me Like I Treat You”/“Don’t Cha Leave Me Baby,” released on JVB and Chess. By then his blues were going out of fashion, and he began playing guitar at club dates and sessions with younger harmonica player Little Sonny Willis.<br />
<br />
Signing with Harvey Fuqua’s Harvey label, Burns scored a regional hit with 1961’s exhilarating “Orange Driver” and “Hard Hearted Woman,” both with Marvin Gaye on drums. His second and final single for the label, “(Don’t Be) Messin’ with My Bread,” inspired a cover by John Lee Hooker. For the next coupl<img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000062Y8C" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqz7pWBLv7auKNIqE2edol3FGLNbWh6drWWyWW3vdefr76DB9z_jrtnDZdE9dSMHnXUBlvrpKuUOlqpgJi3amY-5s30MrYAZSWhFB7ooOUBZGS2C2lMNxWRwrzawceAnLIBMhRZfJFxBk/s1600/Don't+Be+Messing+with+my+Bread+on+Harvey.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483891176594274258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqz7pWBLv7auKNIqE2edol3FGLNbWh6drWWyWW3vdefr76DB9z_jrtnDZdE9dSMHnXUBlvrpKuUOlqpgJi3amY-5s30MrYAZSWhFB7ooOUBZGS2C2lMNxWRwrzawceAnLIBMhRZfJFxBk/s200/Don't+Be+Messing+with+my+Bread+on+Harvey.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>e of years Burns mostly worked as a sideman and cut two singles for the Von label in 1965. The following summer he reunited with John Lee Hooker at Chess Records’ Chicago studio. “I recorded with Eddie Burns again, for Chess, because we was buddies, and he was playin’ so good at the time,” Hooker explained. The resulting album, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Real-Folk-Blues-More/dp/B000062Y8C?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">The Real Folk Blues</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000062Y8C" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, prominently featured Burns’ scrappy, sustainless lead guitar on “I’m in the Mood,” “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer,” and other stand-out tracks. (In 1991, MCA/Chess packaged unreleased tracks from the session as John Lee Hooker’s More Real Folk Blues/The Missing Album.) Burns also recorded “Jinglin’ Baby” on his own, which has brought him royalties ever since its inclusion on the Chess Blues box set.<br />
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<em><strong><span style="color: blue;">Click on the blue links to download songs and albums.</span></strong></em> <br />
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By the late 1960s, most of the establishments along Hastings Street had closed or been torn down to make way for a freeway. Nearly all of the small, independent blues labels had folded or been sold, and Motown, R&B, and rock and roll had become Detroit’s prominent sound. Outside of a few supper clubs and bars in Detroit and Ann Arbor, few blues venues were available to pure blues musicians<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHupZJrRqywLoL1ok8-jsONhE1aNHofeSARXBPTY4LXZGKjsVTlNZ3pFQt0MZYjf5Psk8v2tEGuS3yDuD969mYnK-vRdEPXY4-1vc5RyM6epac3PD5x9NfTlNXnUlH5AlqSrnWAz_N_OI/s1600/Belle+Isle+Blues+poster.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483891682253871298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHupZJrRqywLoL1ok8-jsONhE1aNHofeSARXBPTY4LXZGKjsVTlNZ3pFQt0MZYjf5Psk8v2tEGuS3yDuD969mYnK-vRdEPXY4-1vc5RyM6epac3PD5x9NfTlNXnUlH5AlqSrnWAz_N_OI/s200/Belle+Isle+Blues+poster.gif" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 157px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a>, and by the early 1970s Bobo Jenkins, Baby Boy Warren, Dr. Ross, and many other musicians were working in automotive plants. With six children and a second wife, Burns, who’d worked at Dodge, attended Detroit’s Wolverine trade school and learned welding. “I didn’t know no skilled labor job,” he says, “and I did that because my hands was important. You gotta be careful with your hands if you play guitar.” <br />
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Finding few bookings as a modern bluesman or Top-10 soul performer, Burns expanded his style on acoustic guitar, learning the down-home country blues of Tommy McClennan. His return-to-roots paid off in 1972, when he toured England and recorded his first albums, the all-original Detroit Black Bottom for Big Bear Blues and Bottle Up & Go, with its Tom<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGYQlZrjJXa-r7doYc-ktLBMakH-WgQsRwXmaFK0jS85PET1r9ujMQ8dI0ioyR_FDmGnWryuC_sExY1SL4-0tcA9N1EJgSy8-6SUCWPplUxfHcJO7TZHMFGSn1emPbCCn21ncd-J9iCGs/s1600/Detroit+Black+Bottom+LP.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483892172108888546" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGYQlZrjJXa-r7doYc-ktLBMakH-WgQsRwXmaFK0jS85PET1r9ujMQ8dI0ioyR_FDmGnWryuC_sExY1SL4-0tcA9N1EJgSy8-6SUCWPplUxfHcJO7TZHMFGSn1emPbCCn21ncd-J9iCGs/s200/Detroit+Black+Bottom+LP.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>my McClennan covers, for Action Records. Burns returned to Europe as part of “The American Blues Legends 1975” tour with Billy Boy Arnold, Jimmy Lee Robinson, and Homesick James. He won critical praise for opening his shows alone on harmonica and guitar, and then burning hard with a band that included Robinson on bass. Back home, he played the festival circuit and recorded Detroit Reunion with Eddie Kirkland. In 1980, he had a brief, unsuccessful flirtation with running his own label. The European-based Moonshine label then issued Treat Me Like I Treat You, a compilation of Bur<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje8TlfwONsvvYVSz5K1Cz_ha3bCk7PKPcd8EfVjlypoELpKF_oh7Uz3mPfa075k3w-5ensXTg_DrXXvNvDJgeoqUDVa4RFA-2FTAl-ebjmrHh2uyg9NA0OxDnIMJKmfPztYcf3E5zO9_c/s1600/Treat+Me+Like+I+Treat+You+album.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483894090052086834" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje8TlfwONsvvYVSz5K1Cz_ha3bCk7PKPcd8EfVjlypoELpKF_oh7Uz3mPfa075k3w-5ensXTg_DrXXvNvDJgeoqUDVa4RFA-2FTAl-ebjmrHh2uyg9NA0OxDnIMJKmfPztYcf3E5zO9_c/s200/Treat+Me+Like+I+Treat+You+album.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a>ns’ early singles and a pair of 1982 performances.<br />
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Burns recorded his first CD, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Detroit/dp/B000QQY2QQ?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Detroit</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000QQY2QQ" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, in 1989 for the Ohio-based Blue Suit label. Backed by a tight band led by longtime accompanist Joe <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ9xq6VpFgFtpttdug0NNvCvnOc0Vt3ppX3mxxKT5tNEr4eV0UodQQcP1J0djxvFr30EpKjGzNAv9o-8rJ55cS8twS02nzQnuhhqNsX9wQZ-oAq6VIQEEoJvVHHRf428Ep4HCcAJRQEuM/s1600/Treat+Me+Like+I+Treat+You+album.jpg"></a>Turner on piano, Burns injected “When I Get Drunk” and a remake of “Orange Driver” with fluid guitar fills reminiscent of his work on Hooker’s Chess recordings. He displayed a much rawer side on his unaccompanied prewar-style acoustic covers of McClennan’s “Bottle Up and Go” and Hooker’s “Boom Boom.” With its infectious swing and bright tone, “Kidman” showed how he’d updated his harmonica style.<br />
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At the time of our interview, Burns was living on Detroit’s East Side with his wife of 30 years. He was still writing songs, playing festivals, and gigging around the town where he <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQDLRlwUNmv67ocm1bfgQiSvGl_lc9PsOs5bh8b-5EHtpxNRHupOZHJ5YL_vyhd10tuhPEph0MVzzxIpl9Q_Z9q5aZJ5N8luuAv6lYETUkzUyZPF4SPLHRZpYh1zBdqV7JuAnCqIltroU/s1600/Living+Blues+cover.jpg"></a>made his name. On a frozen afternoon in November 2000, we met at the comfortable, immaculately kept home he’s owned since 1970. Surrounded by photographs of his family, he spoke of his life in music, his desire to record another album, and his spiritual beliefs. He also lived up to the praise that John Lee Hooker and others have bestowed upon him: Eddie Burns is, indeed, one of the nicest musicians you could meet. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBJeHWMspv5owgxqWrm9FYcW0-6AcFpwV77vyRgdwtGOr9m9axW5em3bn69a62GHUoyH9-tImnaI2SIlyjrwqExuWYX6rQNCetTrQOiI-hRmI64pv_DwujxGmRQEr8oTcQJWW7QkosqEc/s1600/Living+Blues+cover.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483873118022874306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBJeHWMspv5owgxqWrm9FYcW0-6AcFpwV77vyRgdwtGOr9m9axW5em3bn69a62GHUoyH9-tImnaI2SIlyjrwqExuWYX6rQNCetTrQOiI-hRmI64pv_DwujxGmRQEr8oTcQJWW7QkosqEc/s320/Living+Blues+cover.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 242px;" /></a><br />
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This interview originally appeared as the cover story of Living Blues magazine, issue #156, in March/April 2001.<br />
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<em>Your brother Jimmy Burns plays some fine blues.</em><br />
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He’s a good guy. Leaving Here Walking is his first blues LP, because, see, he was a rhythm and blues artist before he was a blues artist. So now he’s carryin’ both along together, and they workin’ pretty good for him. I guess it was in his blood, because our father, Albert, was a musician. He died in a head-on collision in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1962.<br />
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<em>How much older are you than Jimmy?</em><br />
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Oh, Jimmy’s the baby, so I would say about 15 or 16 years. He didn’t remember me when I left; he was too young. I got two other brothers, and he’s the last one of nine kids. We had a brother that passed at the age of 13.<br />
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<em>You were born in Belzoni, Mississippi?</em><br />
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Yeah, but I don’t know anything about it because I didn’t grow up there. I grew up around Clarksdale, Webb, and Dublin.<br />
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<em>Did you live on a farm?</em><br />
Ah, somewhat. See, I was raised by my grandparents – my mother’s father and mother. And my granddad, he was a gambler, juke joint man, that kind of thing, and then he worked for the white folks. She did too. She cooked. And so I did very little farming myself, and never did like it. Still don’t. I admire it because it’s important.<br />
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<div><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483871715646975586" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_hRuLTXRx-IJmKpL9dAKohVNzSZbOPL1S58Em7bfzZHcFlAV83WQH3YOa3bR91DcXnbRW1sIYNhyphenhyphenewbD5cym8av5M8_MXKUyOktbuidkuDcLBLi1PvlbzddRErpR9GlHSq51ddIBlovM/s200/tolly+mcclennan.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 160px;" /> <strong>Left: Tommy McClennan</strong> </div><br />
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<div><em>Did your grandparents have a collection of 78s?</em><br />
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We had a record player and lights in our house. We had a Philco radio that played 78s – ten of them – back around 1938, ’39. And all of the people that was out there back then was playin’ blues. I liked John Lee Williamson, which was Sonny Boy I, Jazz Gillum, Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, Lil Green, Walter Davis. Tommy McClennan was my favorite, because I idolized him. Still do – I still like him. He was so <em>soulful</em>, if you listen to his old stuff. That was my first real influence, other than John Lee Williamson. Them two was like running along together with me. Tommy McClennan was a guitar player, and Sonny Boy Williamson was a harmonica player. And at the time I didn’t know that I would ever play myself. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzrvElDASIcsGWNI_IQWSKGGdGsoGInF5mKT98PNhglwBWqwubqizHQYD6GasWbSI45XFJUdpt23gZf-zbUOijix-gS_E0CA4VqYmd-6Xx86s0ykNVcFVjXDR2rasZMl0gM0xdVGGvoaY/s1600/Sonny+Boy+Williamson+I.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483871213200960434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzrvElDASIcsGWNI_IQWSKGGdGsoGInF5mKT98PNhglwBWqwubqizHQYD6GasWbSI45XFJUdpt23gZf-zbUOijix-gS_E0CA4VqYmd-6Xx86s0ykNVcFVjXDR2rasZMl0gM0xdVGGvoaY/s200/Sonny+Boy+Williamson+I.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 135px;" /></a></div><br />
<div><strong>Right: John Lee Williamson, aka Sonny Boy Williamson I</strong></div><br />
<div><em>Did you see many blues performers while you were living in Mississippi?</em><br />
<br />
Lots of ’em, but they was all local. The only two blues artists that I recognized, one of them was Tony Hollins. I met him in Dublin, which was about 12 miles from Clarksdale. That was before I went out on my own. The next one, after I got to Clarksdale, was Honeyboy Edwards. I don’t think he was makin’ records then, but he used to travel from Chicago all the way down to the Gulf, working his way down, just freelancin’, playin’ parties and street corners and in little cafés. That’s how I seen him. Pinetop Perkins – I knew him in Mississippi, and I got to know him later here [in Detroit]. But we ran around some in Clarksdale. His name is Joe Willie Perkins. He got that name “Pinetop” from Pinetop Smith, with that “Pinetop Boogie Woogie.” And he played it note-for-note. We used to be walkin’ around in Clarksdale before I left there, and we’d go by a jukebox at a café, and a tune would be playin’. When we get where a piano was, he’d say, “Eddie, this is the way that tune went.” And he picked that stuff up just like that [snaps fingers]. That’s how good he was.<br />
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<em>Did you ever play piano?</em><br />
<br />
No. That’s my main instrument, though. I like piano. But I think I really could play if I put my mind to it.<br />
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<em>Was your first instrument a harmonica or one-string?</em><br />
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Harmonica. That’s what I was blowin’. You could get one for about 25 cents back then, and I started blowing harmonicas. My first influence was John Lee Williamson, and I started blowing that kind of music. Well, the first thing I started playing was a piece of broom wire – you know, they used to be brooms out with the wire on it – and I used to tack that up on the wall. I’d use a couple of bottles, like a Coke bottle or medicine bottle [as bridges], and that’s how you tune it. You put one up near the top and another one down near the bottom, and you get your sound. I played it with a little medicine bottle in my [fretting] hand, and then I’d pick it. I was singing Tommy McClennan, just about everything that was out – boogie woogies and stuff. I was good with that wire.<br />
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<em>In some communities, people frowned on blues music. Did you run into that in Mississippi?</em><br />
<br />
No, but my dad did. See, my dad was a deacon in the Baptist church, and he played piano, guitar – like the Charley Patton-type thing. He played all that stuff. He also blew harmonica and sung. He would play for a few of the country dances at his house.<br />
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<em>While living in Mississippi, were you aware of racism?</em><br />
<br />
Yes, I was, because I grew up playing with white kids. I used to also cut their lawns, because the people I was working for, they was the boss. They had money. We was almost in their yard – just a road separated our houses. The boss was real nice, and the white kids was beautiful kids. We played football, horseback ridin’, went all down in the woods. They liked me, and at one time I thought it was the same thing – you white, and just the colors is different. But then I found out that the trend was the white folks would like you like they would their pets, like Fido. You had to go to the back door back then, even with me being a kid. They used to give me their dad’s whiskey. I was young, but I liked to drink some. I didn’t pay no attention at first, but I noticed they would pour it in this top, you know, so my mouth wouldn’t touch the bottle, and they would pour it in my mouth that way. After I really found out what that was like, it started growing inside of me. That’s one of the reasons I left Mississippi so young, because I knew that I had to get out. And I only been back there a couple of times, and now I don’t have no relatives there at all.<br />
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<em>Were you aware of violence aimed at black people in Mississippi?</em><br />
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Well, black people was violent to themselves – that’s what I noticed. They would kill each other just like that [snaps fingers]. There’s so many people got killed in Mississippi, and I know that for a fact, because I’ve went to some funerals. People wouldn’t go nowhere, and the guy that did the killing might wind up at the funeral of the other person! So long as you wasn’t killin’ no white folks, you was all right.<br />
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<em>Did you run into Rice Miller, Sonny Boy Williamson II, when you were young?</em><br />
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Yes. I was born in ’28, so this must have been somewhere around 1935. We were living on a plantation there, my mother and them was, out on old 49 Highway. It was a blacktop road, two lanes. The old Greyhounds – looked like school buses back then – used to come right by our house, ’cause we stayed out there on the road. And one day I was walking with another man, and we met this tall man coming down the road with these cut-up shoes on and this<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF4OrsMIyf26eYesirOhKh6_P0_ZpEVP6oapYNODgPbqk75zt7-hPzkJSS-VFsghulgZa-_tooCSi9fp2XAjdNrXwFr5h6RM5MNYW3E5GfyFkAoFJmf6nAqWBlFWwRHL2aq_FihxhZtWY/s1600/Sonny+Boy+Williams+-+Chess+promo+photo.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483870427065670434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF4OrsMIyf26eYesirOhKh6_P0_ZpEVP6oapYNODgPbqk75zt7-hPzkJSS-VFsghulgZa-_tooCSi9fp2XAjdNrXwFr5h6RM5MNYW3E5GfyFkAoFJmf6nAqWBlFWwRHL2aq_FihxhZtWY/s200/Sonny+Boy+Williams+-+Chess+promo+photo.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 158px;" /></a> belt around his waist and all of these harmonicas in these holsters. This man stopped Sonny Boy, which was Rice Miller, and wanted to know would he play him a song. This man gave him one little thin dime, and Sonny Boy stopped right there and he played a song called “Good Whiskey” by Peetie Wheatstraw.<br />
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After that I heard him on this King Biscuit Time program in Helena, Arkansas, and once he played at the school where I was goin’. All of the kids and their parents were there at the school to see Sonny Boy and his bunch that he had there in Helena on the radio. They had a drawing for some King Biscuit, and that was interesting to the people because that King Biscuit flour, man – oh, it were sellin’. The biscuit would really rise up. So Sonny Boy played some guitar that night. He wasn’t a good guitar player, but he did mess around with the guitar. I believe his guitar player was Joe Willie Wilkins. Dudlow was on piano, Peck was on the drums, and Sonny Boy was on harmonica and vocal. So that was the second time that I had seen him.<br />
<br />
Then after I left my parents and everybody and went to Clarksdale, I was my own man then. Sonny Boy used to play at a spot in Clarksdale, up in the upper brickyard, called the Green Spot. What I remember then about him, mostly, other than bein’ on the radio, was one Sunday night they was playin’ there at the Green Spot, and they had a crap house – where they shoot craps – in the back. By then, I must have been about 16, and Sonny Boy called “show time.” The guys was still in the crap h<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGn6VkCeMpqBkjsNn_Zr2ImDU-EQPZ73b05roMGceaP-odAfGxaBW-LgvRORzS0FlWlIj5O9QFaPkUSPXn882cCGznnYxE1PrJyV3-vOtI_wh9PsirevuK5khYamxdBdvfjm5nsF2YmLQ/s1600/Sonny+Boy+Williamson+II+-+Alligator.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483870779752644754" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGn6VkCeMpqBkjsNn_Zr2ImDU-EQPZ73b05roMGceaP-odAfGxaBW-LgvRORzS0FlWlIj5O9QFaPkUSPXn882cCGznnYxE1PrJyV3-vOtI_wh9PsirevuK5khYamxdBdvfjm5nsF2YmLQ/s200/Sonny+Boy+Williamson+II+-+Alligator.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 159px;" /></a>ouse. He was real temperamental, and he got mad and came in and got his harmonicas out. When the band got ready to come up, he was already playin’. So he told them he’d see them tomorrow back on the radio. [Laughs.] “I’m gonna play this by myself.” And he played it by himself! He played Eddie Vinson’s “Kidney Stew,” Joe Liggett’s “Honeydripper” and “Tanya,” and “I Love You for Sentimental Reasons” by Nat King Cole. And when he got through playing, all the people went crazy, and I did too, because I was used to listening to Sonny Boy I [with a combo], and I didn’t realize all of this music was in this one little instrument. And he was blowin’ this stuff just like it went, just like it was made. I really got hot on the harmonica after that. Whenever the big boys – like 18, 19, 20 years old – would spring a key [break a key inside the harmonica] they would give me the harmonica. Now it sounds like it’s bending, but it’s really sprung. [Laughs.] So that’s how I really got off into the harmonica, and I wound up learning how to blow like that.<br />
<br />
<em>Was there a favorite brand of harmonica back then?</em><br />
<br />
It was a harp was being made in Germany – might have been Hohner. It was a heavy type of harmonica. It ain’t made like that today. And that harmonica had a real nice loud tone to it, nice mouthpiece. It was kind of thick, like the way it was made back then, and it had screws on the sides. That’s what I remember.<br />
<br />
<em>Were players doing anything special to make them sound good, such as dipping them in water?</em><br />
<br />
Ah, yes. I used to do that. I didn’t never see Sonny Boy do it. It made the keys super. Yeah, they sound different. But the only thing was you had to keep doin’ that to the harmonica, because your keys then would start stickin’. You had those little wooden teeth in there, you know, and they would swell if you put lots of water in it. But yes, when I came here [to Detroit], I was blowin’ the harmonicas. You heard this “Burnin’ Hell” and all them tunes with me blowin’ with Hooker? That’s what was happenin’. We cut that stuff in 1948, and I was blowing a harp called American Ace, a little cheap harmonica that I bought for about $1.25. That’s the kind I was buyin’, and that’s what I would blow. I didn’t have but one. <br />
<br />
<em>What key would you buy if you only had one?</em><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDTpb0HVHZTaDAiMsHKaLIVGMe_QXWmgHd-P6jpxOuI3nDtbDRxZK0EfH0Sapqxp_a1m3xZ-FphtAb7CEXy1i0DlGBuH2-ftz5zyEGfqZrkh8cBy4cBZKe3JGYHn5tKU0h1W68rF6xrx4/s1600/American+Ace.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5484102051417893650" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDTpb0HVHZTaDAiMsHKaLIVGMe_QXWmgHd-P6jpxOuI3nDtbDRxZK0EfH0Sapqxp_a1m3xZ-FphtAb7CEXy1i0DlGBuH2-ftz5zyEGfqZrkh8cBy4cBZKe3JGYHn5tKU0h1W68rF6xrx4/s200/American+Ace.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 144px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a><br />
C. It was a C then. American Ace probably come in more than one key, but I was blowin’ a C because it was tight.<br />
<br />
<em>So the guitarists would be playing in G?</em><br />
<br />
Yes. The first guitar player I had – he and I came here to Detroit together – was John T. Smith. At that time, he didn’t have a clamp [capo], so he would use a pencil with string around the neck. It was considered as a clamp. And that’s how you would change [keys]. So he played in the key of G, the key of E – I think he didn’t play no more than in about two keys. But anyway, he would use this pencil. The first place I saw someone do that was in Mississippi at the house parties, what we called “house breakdowns.”<br />
<br />
<em>Why did you leave Mississippi?</em><br />
<br />
I left Mississippi to work for the Illinois Central because this labor agency came down there. They would travel into towns like Clarksdale because they needed workers up in the North. Your ride was free, and you had a job waitin’ on you. I was on the emergency gang in Iowa, a troubleshooter. It was a good job. John T. Smith had got out of Chattanooga, Tennessee, the same way. He had left the railroad and I had left the railroad, and we both came to Waterloo, Iowa. So we met because he was a guitar player and I was a harmonica player. We were playing on the street corners, and we made a good team and started playin’.<br />
<br />
<em>How did you wind up coming to Detroit?</em><br />
<br />
There was a lady that lived here; we called her Big Mary. She came over that summer to Waterloo on a vacation, and we met her. Next thing I knew, her and John was goin’ together, and they was really gettin’ into it! [Laughs.] She wanted to bring him back with her to Detroit, and they wanted to bring me. This lady said she would look out for us – food, place to stay. And she did. I guess it was a big gamble, but we did it. We didn’t have nothin’.<br />
<br />
<em>Soon after you arrived in Detroit, you and Smith cut a single as the Swing Brothers.</em><br />
<br />
Right. That came about through John Lee [Hooker]. That’s when John came in the picture. We was playin’ at a house party, because house parties was good when we got in town. Couldn’t play in no bars – wasn’t no bars that you play no blues in. We was playin’ at this house party that Saturday night on Monroe Street. We didn’t know John Lee, but he lived right in the back of the place where we was playin’. John at that time was a partygoer – that’s what I remember about him. He was drinkin’ heavy and stuff like that. He was on his way home before day, and he heard this music upstairs. It wasn’t electric music – it was all acoustic, you know. We didn’t have mikes back then. All of a sudden there was a knock on the door, and when the landlady answered, it was John Lee. He came in, and we met him. He told us he was John Lee Hooker, and we told him who we were.<br />
<br />
<em>Is this before he’d cut “Boogie Chillen”?</em><br />
<br />
No, he had cut “Boogie Chillen,” but it wasn’t out. It wasn’t released. It was called “in the can” at that time. And he liked the way we sound. I was blowin’ harmonica – that’s all I did then. I didn’t learn guitar in Mississippi. I learned that here, but I learned to blow the harmonica there and got good on it in between, you know. So John listened to us that night, and then he sat in with us. That’s when he told us that he had cut this tune that wasn’t out, but he had another session comin’ up. This was a Saturday night, and he had another session Tuesday. We kept that appointment and went to the studio with him.<br />
<br />
<em>Was this for “Burnin’ Hell”?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. That’s when we did “Burnin’ Hell” and all them tunes. That was for Bernie <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBF_9ss5OOkOA0TouH8plRzA4RBuuDb9wrNnhrsL2-SKtVRsnvT8HvvIiaIMv-vMSCJR0EuArzWnNmiLwqKrinvrm7wHNberbpHaCRp2kmFYdm6ITxzK1Ox1xFv8vWIV7cvtuNM-Grtig/s1600/John+lee+Hooker+-+Miss+Eloise.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483869168805212066" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBF_9ss5OOkOA0TouH8plRzA4RBuuDb9wrNnhrsL2-SKtVRsnvT8HvvIiaIMv-vMSCJR0EuArzWnNmiLwqKrinvrm7wHNberbpHaCRp2kmFYdm6ITxzK1Ox1xFv8vWIV7cvtuNM-Grtig/s200/John+lee+Hooker+-+Miss+Eloise.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>Bessman. We had just met. And the same day that we did “Burnin’ Hell,” we did “Miss Eloise” and “Black Cat” and all them tunes. We did six or seven tunes of his, and John T. is taking some solos on some of that stuff. We was talkin’ about that waterin’ the harmonica? Well, there wasn’t no water, so we had about six or seven fifths of this cheap whiskey, rockgut. I got one of them bottles, poured it in my harmonica, and all the keys stuck but about two or three! [Laughs.] I’m doin’ all that blowin’ that you’re hearin’ on about three keys throughout the whole thing, but Bernie Bessman still liked it! On “Burnin’ Hell,” you hear some little squeaks in the harmonica, like something got in your throat or something. And I didn’t have another harmonica, so I had to make that one do.<br />
<br />
I didn’t know that Bernie Bessman was gonna cut me that same day. That wasn’t in the plan. I had done wrote one tun<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyi24VihhCv37VHimGk4ASNJlDuzk5KuOIXuapppQG9F4yCZslSliPoeC_S7cDWJQi4nY6iRhoenUsGCG3waQ17_L1vIOcSHUcHbMd5kndZkGmPfVNJ07QYZQvqWEkbc2wGTMhuWI7eJE/s1600/Swing+Brothers+-+Notoriety+Woman.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483869541846204898" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyi24VihhCv37VHimGk4ASNJlDuzk5KuOIXuapppQG9F4yCZslSliPoeC_S7cDWJQi4nY6iRhoenUsGCG3waQ17_L1vIOcSHUcHbMd5kndZkGmPfVNJ07QYZQvqWEkbc2wGTMhuWI7eJE/s200/Swing+Brothers+-+Notoriety+Woman.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a>e, “Noteriety Woman,” and I didn’t have but one tune. And Bernie, after we got through with Hooker’s session, then he said, “I want to cut you.” I said, “What?” He said, “Yeah. How many tunes you got?” I told him one. And that “Papa’s Boogie” [the flip side of the “Notoriety Woman” 78]? I made that up right there in front of the microphone.<br />
<br />
<em>What inspired “Notoriety Woman”?</em><br />
<br />
I kind of got the idea from John Lee Williamson, because I could blow just like John Lee Williamson back then. And the way I’m singin’ it, it kind of remind you, although I didn’t have that heavy voice like him. But I could ’personate him real good. But, you know, you do have some influences when you first start out.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you and Hooker do much womanizing?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. Did you ever meet his wife, Maudie? That’s something else about when we met. I was new here, and I had gotten a job at a factory, workin’ for Alcoa Aluminum. I had got here in August, and now I been here about three months, and Christmas was coming up. It was starting to get cold. I was a little panicky about being here in the winter, because by that time I was on my own. We wasn’t no longer with the lady that brought us here. And that’s when Hooker told me about his mother-in-law likin’ young men. So . . . [Smiles.]<br />
<br />
<em>Did she let you stay with her?</em><br />
<br />
Mm hmm. One of the best ladies I ever had, and I was young too. She had a lot of kids.<br />
<br />
<em>You learned guitar fairly quickly right around this time.</em><br />
<br />
I did, yes. Well, I had a lot of good influences here [in Detroit]. I learned on the jazz guitarists, John Lee Hooker. Arthur Crudup and Tommy McClennan – those was my main two, and then T-Bone Walker when I started changin’, Johnny Moore and the Three Blazers. See, I play all of those different styles.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<em>Did you learn chords and solos at the same time?</em> <br />
<br />
No. I learned chords later, from experience. I just picked the guitar up and started pickin’ it. I always was a leader – a lead guitarist – after I got away from the way the older guys used to play blues. You know, you used to accompany yourself, something like Lightnin’ Hopkins, Arthur Crudup, Tommy McClennan, guys like that. It [playing chords] was already out there. Called it “barre chording” – that’s without the clamp – and you make your own positions with your hand. And that’s when I really started changin’ my music. Because all up until that time, I was playing “open,” like E natural, keys like that.<br />
<br />
<em>Ever learn bottleneck? </em><br />
<br />
No, no. I really don’t like bottleneck too well. Some people are real good. Robert Nighthawk was good with it. Tampa Red was good with it. Muddy Waters was okay with it. And you got a lot of people today playin’ it, and it’s all right. But a lot of people overplay, and I don’t like it when it’s like that. See, by me playing that straight piece of wire [his childhood one-string], it kind of reminds me of that.<br />
<br />
<em>Many of your records through the years have had a similar guitar tone. You’ve stayed true to the way you hear the instrument.</em><br />
<br />
Yes. It’s just like a kid growing up: You have to grow into this. See, I been a musician now for 52 years. You gotta have an open mind and ear. I play by sounds. I don’t play by what I see somebody do; I play by what I hear. And my memory is real good. It’s sharp, and I can remember just about everything I hear that’s got me on it. You know, you can’t play no notes that hasn’t anybody played. It’s the way you put it together. That’s why I don’t really go out for this copycat thing, because you can’t beat the person that invented it.<br />
<br />
<em>When is the first time you saw an electric guitar?</em><br />
<br />
First, it was those DeArmond pickups that you put in an acoustic guitar. Honeyboy Edwards was playin’ one, and there used to be a guy down there [in Mississippi] called L<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggurKAaE6nPJGZyWW2htUJrsFcnTFBl1qRfkqslsOk8eMZsEUg9l8d8unbdQKG62cYm8mKm-1imkkx1GAG2N8R6O0EXqiF__Qz4ZMekgEZMmak6Y5Gya2lD2w5Y_1z6RLI7J1apPIq2Pk/s1600/JohnLeeHooker+with+acoustic+pickup.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483895161350857666" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggurKAaE6nPJGZyWW2htUJrsFcnTFBl1qRfkqslsOk8eMZsEUg9l8d8unbdQKG62cYm8mKm-1imkkx1GAG2N8R6O0EXqiF__Qz4ZMekgEZMmak6Y5Gya2lD2w5Y_1z6RLI7J1apPIq2Pk/s320/JohnLeeHooker+with+acoustic+pickup.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 298px;" /></a>ee Kizart – Joe Kizart’s brother. He had the little pickup in his guitar back then. All them guys mostly had pickups in their guitar. That’s how it was. John Lee got into that later.</div><br />
<br />
<div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgleOaXuVkscpD20OBJJoWpfkAxXEyyvDtaCmX1fL8HSlpFIV-LJ7-iq8tEwqOPiCQPJpPuucnTuOW5ITkH-thgIaNEi5Y4fpS2KLwmPYP8BCeOd907uVbGPqlUK2T85KzjoRMuaVQX5rg/s1600/JohnLeeHooker+with+acoustic+pickup.jpg"></a></div><strong>At right: John Lee Hooker with his pickup-equipped Stella. </strong></div><br />
<br />
<div><div><em>But once Hooker put that DeArmond soundhole pickup into his Stella, his sound was popping.</em><br />
<br />
Right. Oh, yeah!<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgww1xeRZUVKxpr7s23LRYeAFCFSD4U0iR_EjtE43i1JMReEtyewYuYmdjMbyYqsdBgYF4PSF_jGzLk35-MlocOCm7F8v6pQbial3ibMKkzelMHBcMFSuSN8jac764KrLZUU6ZA3ANfOqw/s1600/JohnLeeHooker+with+acoustic+pickup.jpg"></a><br />
<em>With his feet keeping time.</em><br />
<br />
That was mostly John Lee. He specialized in that, and Bernie knew that. And he would take them wooden foldin’ chairs, put two of ‘em on the floor [points to under his feet], and put Hooker on top of them. And when Hooker get to playin’, you know, he get happy with it – bam, bam, bam, bam. That was it! He had his foot on a wooden foldin’ chair. That’s how he was getting that sound. And the studio we cut at still exists today. United Sounds Studio on Second. We was cuttin’ for the old man when the old man was there – Joe Syracuse.<br />
<br />
<em>What kind of amplifiers were you using?</em><br />
<br />
Sears, Roebuck had an amp out with a double transformer. It was tube amp, big, with dials all the way across the top – Silvertone, it was called. Hooker used to have one of them. It had two big speakers – I believe it was two 12s.<br />
<br />
<em>What about for harmonica?</em><br />
<br />
See, harmonica is something that you got to really be careful with, even today, because if you get into a place where it’s bad acoustics, you can lose your sound. You don’t hear it, and that’s dangerous for a harmonica player. So Little Walter, when he invented his style, especially when he went out on his own, he had three speakers, a P.A. Two would be out in the building, and up over his head was the other one. You got monitors to do that now, but you still can have problems because a lot of people don’t know how to set the monitors. Now, today I could blow the harmonica and don’t have to hear it – because I know the positions, I know where I’m at. And that’s the way your recording sessions used to be. You didn’t hear nothin’. When you count that music off, all the music was going into the control room. The only time you heard it again is when they play it for you.<br />
<br />
<em>Back in the early 1950s, some of the material you cut for JVB ended up coming out on Chess and Checker. Were you aware that would happen?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I knew that it happened. That was Joe Von Battle. Okay, Joe was a guy that was on Hastings Street, and he was taking advantage of people. I went to him. He had a connection with Chess way back then. But that was the problem – there always was what we called a “middleman.” You might be on RCA, but RCA didn’t deal with you directly. The<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirOplqL_yARY9Hf5gi5qnXQnAGa5HS8Geo4KqUWdsDrAViuzPhsn5wwZmlSxr0mQDNZByFT10_5RGvJkDen_aADZirhfkKADRIuSRQawnEwIcdw9VU04vCXhY5r-zCp-ZMmrgfiXtLIpU/s1600/Treat+Me+Like+I+Treat+You+78.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483866322548455218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirOplqL_yARY9Hf5gi5qnXQnAGa5HS8Geo4KqUWdsDrAViuzPhsn5wwZmlSxr0mQDNZByFT10_5RGvJkDen_aADZirhfkKADRIuSRQawnEwIcdw9VU04vCXhY5r-zCp-ZMmrgfiXtLIpU/s200/Treat+Me+Like+I+Treat+You+78.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>y didn’t know you, and that’s the way it was. And so right there was a big gap for getting cheated, because they dealin’ with the man, and you don’t know what he gettin’. You’re so glad to be there, but you don’t know what’s goin’ on. And that’s the way Joe Von Battle was. He was dealing with Chess, and I knew I wasn’t going to do nothing for him direct, such as signing contracts, but I would have signed with Chess. So I tried to give him “Treat Me Like I Treat You” to get me this connection. “Just give it to me,” you know. And after “Treat Me Like I Treat You” was a hit in 1957, he sent his contract to Chess and had Chess send it to me, and I’m supposed to be dumb enough to sign this and don’t know the difference! And I didn’t sign it. Now, Chess had done picked up “Treat Me Like I Treat You,” and it was out. And it was a hit. Chess might have been giving Joe Von Battle money, but I w<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcmLqiwi1FXuTuwY7ufx8aZN0Tlt7Q2BHZxFZ08eUb_av3NcSl7lJWTYfRknYilQZHz_ObNS54SjCAG0U-oX-Jcn_4hKW-p6aATCMSy9vvs_Fnsgm3hi1ENeP7HN_jN7_k6FIRQEgLhqg/s1600/Treat+Me+Like+I+Treat+You+Chess+78.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483865876978344050" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcmLqiwi1FXuTuwY7ufx8aZN0Tlt7Q2BHZxFZ08eUb_av3NcSl7lJWTYfRknYilQZHz_ObNS54SjCAG0U-oX-Jcn_4hKW-p6aATCMSy9vvs_Fnsgm3hi1ENeP7HN_jN7_k6FIRQEgLhqg/s200/Treat+Me+Like+I+Treat+You+Chess+78.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a>asn’t getting any. I got $50 out of this tune – that’s all. So I got the union. I had became a Detroit Federation of Musicians member, and the representative wrote Chess a threatening letter and told them to stop playing this tune. And they did, immediately. They quit promoting it. They scared ’em.<br />
<br />
Then after that Don Robey [of Peacock Records] wanted me, because he’d heard the tune in Texas or wherever he was. He came up here lookin’ for me. And I signed with him. But Chess and Joe Von Battle told him that if he cut me, they’d sue him. So that scared Don Robey. He’d had a suit, which he wound up losing, when Junior Parker didn’t tell him that he had a contract already with Sun Records. So Don Robey wrote me a “Dear John” and told me, no, he wasn’t gonna cut me because he was already in a suit. But in the end, he wasn’t givin’ nobody nothin’ either! He had Johnny Ace and Bobby Bland, Junior Parker, and all of them. But see, where they was really makin’ their money was out there on the road.<br />
<br />
<em>Which record company treated you the best?</em><br />
<br />
Well, I’m gonna tell you the truth, my friend: I haven’t really had no good deals in records, as far as getting what rightfully belongs. I don’t know nobody that really gave me the propers that I rightfully should have gotten. But I still get royalties here and there. Like “Jinglin’ Baby” – I’m getting royalties from that from MCA. And they found me – I didn’t find them – after they bought Chess.<br />
<br />
<em>When was the prime of Detroit’s Hastings Street blues scene?</em><br />
<br />
Actually, Hastings Street wasn’t really a blues scene. You had Joe Von Battle there, you had Sam Records there. There was two storefront labels on Hastings, but you didn’t have no blues club there. The only blues club that I remember that was on Hastings was Brown’s Bar, where Big Maceo used to play. And right down the street was the Three Star Bar.<br />
<br />
<em>You read about the Silver Grill, Jake’s Bar, the Mars Bar, Joe’s Tap Room. Do any of these ring a bell?</em><br />
Yeah! All of them ring a bell, but they wasn’t no blues clubs. No. It was the swing music and Charlie Christian type thing – swing and bop music and sentimental music, which was ballads. But it wasn’t blues.<br />
<br />
<em>Where would you make money playing?</em><br />
<br />
At first, we was playin’ around house parties – that was it. Even for Hooker. There used to be tremendous house parties. I really learned to play guitar at these house parties for a dollar and a half a night, from sunup till sundown. But Hooker went right along with us on there. He wasn’t playin’ in no clubs either. I remember his first club was the Harlem Inn. That’s the first club I played in. The Harlem Inn was on Congress Street at Mount Elliott. It was a little house [converted into a] bar that sold beer and wine. It didn’t even have a bandstand in there. Hooker was playin’ in there by himself until he got sick. See, he liked to die from somebody put a mickey in his drink. He was sick for a couple of years, but he came through that all right<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW-Sc9NheH3tNIHVHeqqCUFbnXJnrrEitV72z3PhmNsBsqPu7Yd3Ivs79qzt4SENaOBNdNDnpqmSwwKIBFF6NWacaBe_DW7ldUHXTgXxBE_HuQUwX2FKv6AgB5FatCuxaIr2VhibiQTQc/s1600/John+Lee+Hooker+with+Epiphone.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483865406502046722" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW-Sc9NheH3tNIHVHeqqCUFbnXJnrrEitV72z3PhmNsBsqPu7Yd3Ivs79qzt4SENaOBNdNDnpqmSwwKIBFF6NWacaBe_DW7ldUHXTgXxBE_HuQUwX2FKv6AgB5FatCuxaIr2VhibiQTQc/s320/John+Lee+Hooker+with+Epiphone.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 218px;" /></a>. And during that time, I was playin’ his music. By that time, he’d got off into the music; he really was doin’ good. His records was sellin’ real good on the jukebox, but it was a long time before he started travelin’. He looked like he had something against it, but he did get off into it later.<br />
<br />
When he got sick, that’s how I got my first break. He told this man at the Harlem Inn that he wanted his job when he got well, and that he would keep him in musicians to replace him. He had tried two guitars, and that didn’t work. Whatever he tried, it didn’t work. So the man kept telling him, “The crowd is walkin’ out on these people that’s playing.” Hooker ran out of people to send him, so that’s when he came to me. “Ed,” he said, “why don’t you?” I said, “I can’t do that. I never played in no club before.” He said, “Yeah, but you know all of my music.” And he was right, I did know all his music, and I was playin’ it around the house parties and street corners. I went there, and I was a hit. Shortly after I got there, he got well, and then I played there some with him. And then he started travelin’, and I would take care of the Harlem Inn for him until he got back. When I formed my first group, it was at the Harlem Inn. I had a piano player, guitar, and other musicians on my sets. I always would play there until he came back, but then he was gone so much.<br />
<br />
By me being a progressive musician, I was learning and playing everything on the jukebox. That’s the way it was, and that’s how fast I could pick the stuff up. And that was more than what Hooker was playin’. He went his own way, and he’s still playin’ that way today. That’s him! When it comes down to comparison of musicians, we’re no comparison. Even though I learned under him, started out under him and can sound like him, I don’t. I could have learned how to blow with a rack like Jimmy Reed did, but I didn’t do that even. I still blows my harmonicas on my set, but it’s just part of my show. I play so many tunes on the guitar, and so many tunes on the harmonica with the band. Little Walter also played guitar and blew harmonica like I do.<br />
<br />
<em>What did you think of Little Walter’s style?</em><br />
<br />
I was right up on it. Still is. He was indeed what you call a modern harmonica player. Because he would listen to horns, and that’s what you be hearin’. If you listen today, you’ll notice his music is like that. His harmonica is different. When he started out, on some of his early recordings with Muddy Waters and them, he was blowin’ just like I was. I think we all got influenced from John Lee Williamson.<br />
<br />
<em>How did you mike the harmonica? You see photos of people with those big microphones.</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. You know, they started sellin’ those. A lot of guys today, especially white boys, they buy that mike and they blow like that. That’s the way it used to be. Sonny Boy II used to use a harmonica like that. I also played with him, by the way, in the later years. He used to love Detroit, and he would come here quite often.<br />
<br />
<em>Let’s listen to one of your first recordings.</em><br />
<br />
[We begin playing 1951’s “Making a Fool Out of Me,” featuring Burns on vocals and harmonica and John Lee Hooker on guitar.] That’s storefront. That’s what my writing was like back then. See, I didn’t never know this stuff would ever get on no record, but I was trying to get on records then. It was cut with the cutting machine – that’s how far back that goes. My wife, she laughs at that music and how I sounded back then, because I didn’t have a chance to learn about diction and stuff like that. Back then, it just came up and came out. Growing up in Mississippi, a sharecropper’s son, we didn’t know anything about no diction! You can recognize a lot of Southerners that way. Some got away from it, but maybe not all the way.<br />
<br />
<em>How did you get the reverb on your voice?</em><br />
<br />
Well, now, they probably worked on this stuff. That stuff was cut for Joe Van Battle. Gotham Records bought this stuff from Joe Von Battle – he was selling it right under my nose, and I didn’t know this. It just came out. I also had some stuff out on Deluxe, which was King Records. I don’t know what kind of deal he was making, but either way, the money was only going back to Joe. But this is some of my first work. That’s what I sounded like back then.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you write this?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. I was influenced by a lot of different kind of music when I was comin’ into this stuff. Like Walter, he developed his one way, and that’s how come we could relate so good. Two things we had in common, which I didn’t know then. On a harmonica, the bass is usually on one side, but I have to turn it over, so I’m blowing bass on the opposite side, so that makes a difference. I am also left handed, but I’m blowing from the right to the left. And Little Walter did that too. That’s how I could pick up on his music, I guess, so well. See, I play guitar right-handed, like everybody else do, and when I throw, it’s right-handed, but I write left-handed. Messed up, eh? [Laughs.]<br />
<br />
<em>Did you use a guitar pick on your early records?</em><br />
<br />
At that time I did. I don’t now.<br />
<br />
<em>It also sounds like you didn’t crank the amp very loud.</em><br />
<br />
That was the setting in the studio, but it might have been the guitar that I’m playin’. I used to play them thick guitars. When I played on “Let’s Go Out Tonight,” I sound different because I was playin’ the same kind of guitar the jazz guitarists is playin’. I played them fat ones for years – Epiphones, Gibsons, a Gretsch. But I don’t use that now. I’m using a Tokai. On Detroit, I’m using a Gibson stereo ES-345 with the [Fender] Twin.<br />
<br />
<em>Some of those Deluxe recordings you mentioned featured Washboard Willie.</em><br />
<br />
Right. Washboard Willie started out at the Harlem Inn also. He used to come there. He was funny, because he<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS3Wa1SX5Ikw4L54pgDlZeNw3VpPYzX7yhBNK-2v2BEApXIdWn_qIer_lLfyi1ed0SNOw21gTve-mybD3WzTnbXAnhroJpJkQxeLPfD60iGgUQ7q9meDNqa6wjS3jtF2sE6TUriLqImLI/s1600/Washboard+Willie.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483864881836894530" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS3Wa1SX5Ikw4L54pgDlZeNw3VpPYzX7yhBNK-2v2BEApXIdWn_qIer_lLfyi1ed0SNOw21gTve-mybD3WzTnbXAnhroJpJkQxeLPfD60iGgUQ7q9meDNqa6wjS3jtF2sE6TUriLqImLI/s320/Washboard+Willie.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 279px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a> wore his apron and he had his washboard with all of these pots and stuff on it. He had a skillet too. He had that washboard around his neck and everything! He was a killer guitar player, though. ’Course, it wasn’t but one melody. I played with him a few times, but he was too tough. You play all night, you blow your brains out there, you be playin’ so much! Believe it or not, he was doin’ a lot of R&B songs back then, like Joe Turner’s “Honey Hush,” the Clovers’ “Cash Ain’t Nothing but Trash.” But you had to do all the playin’, 'cause it wasn’t nothin’ but the bass, washboard, and the drum – boom, boom – and the guitar. That was it!<br />
<br />
<em>Do you have copies of your early singles?</em><br />
<br />
Somewhat, but not on 78s, no.<br />
<br />
<em>When records started coming out with your name on it, did you send copies home?</em><br />
<br />
Well, I used to give my mother my records. My brother and them was brought up in Chicago, and she brought all that with her to Chicago. What happened was, she loaned them to a cousin of hers, and she never did get the stuff back. But she had all of my records at one time.<br />
<br />
<em>Why didn’t you move to Chicago, given that it had such a happening blues scene?</em><br />
<br />
I didn’t like it. I never have liked Chicago – talkin’ about livin’ there. Still don’t. You had a lot of labels around there back then, but you had some labels and things here in Detroit, because Woodward Avenue used to have lots of labels – RCA, Decca, Bernie Bessman.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you ever play in Detroit’s Eastern Market?</em><br />
<br />
Not Eastern Market. See, I landed in Black Bottom. That was down there along Monroe Street, which used to come all the way out to around Mount Elliott Road. It was a long way from downtown. Other than the parties, I used to play in the poolrooms and on the corners.<br />
<br />
<em>Let’s talk about a few of the old Detroit bluesmen. Do you remember One-String Sam?</em><br />
<br />
I didn’t know him personally. I was on a festival with him for John Sinclair, that Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival, in ’73, I think it was. We was on that set when they featured Detroit one evening.<br />
<br />
<em>Bobo Jenkins.</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I knew Bobo Jenkins. I met him at the Harlem Inn. He was a photographer at that time, and he was good. He had one of those big, nice cameras where you shoot pictures and develop them. He was shootin’ ’em for money, taking them for the people in the club. He had a darkroom in a garage out back of the Harlem Inn, where he would go develop the pictures, right there on the spot. His big song was “Democrat Blues.” And the same day he cut “Democrat” was the same time I cut “Biscuit Baking Mama” and “Superstitious Blues” [released on Checker, 1954].<br />
<br />
<em>What was your relationship with Eddie Kirkland?</em><br />
<br />
Eddie Kirkland and me started out together. At that time he was workin’ for Ford Rouge, in the foundry. And he was up on this Lightnin’ Hopkins type thing back then. We played them house parties. All of us were. Calvin Frazier was gettin’ out a little bit, and he was playin’ like T-Bone Walker. They used to call him T-Bone Walker Junior. Another guy where I got a lot of influences was Little George Jackson. He wasn’t really no blues guitarist; he’d play stuff like Charlie Christian. You never hear of him, but he was playing all of this sentimental music and swing stuff like Charlie Christian was playin’. When I first got to Detroit, if you wasn’t playin’ that kind of music, you wasn’t in it at all.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you ever hear of Sylvester Cotton?</em><br />
<br />
I knew him. He also cut some cuts for Bernie Bessman, and then he just disappeared. I don’t know what happened to him. He played guitar, a Lightnin’ Hopkins type player.<br />
<br />
<em>How about Detroit Count?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. Piano player. “Hastings Street Opera.” He named everything on Hastings in that tune. [Imitates the single] “All right! I’m movin’ down Hastings Street!” Detroit Count used to play at a hotel owned by Sonny Wilson, the Mark Twain. That’s where B.B. and them<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb5ZECoPJghgq0s27kyxfhEB8oPiJAakTaBV48evTbPUl5K8KA8DgygKbQrCNCR2kGhQM4KNLu5jwHi0-LGlepfbsZ37aCMJGtIJDKJwsqzJ5VUhRCNuLuYlMELmHQMvZI67TeufmxqIA/s1600/Detroit+Count.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483856330761268322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb5ZECoPJghgq0s27kyxfhEB8oPiJAakTaBV48evTbPUl5K8KA8DgygKbQrCNCR2kGhQM4KNLu5jwHi0-LGlepfbsZ37aCMJGtIJDKJwsqzJ5VUhRCNuLuYlMELmHQMvZI67TeufmxqIA/s200/Detroit+Count.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 188px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a> used to live when they come here, because it was one of the best black hotels at that time. He played there a long time. I knew him.<br />
<br />
<strong>At right: Bob "Detroit Count" White in 1948. </strong><br />
<br />
<em>L.C. Green.</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. We used to play together, and he left here and went to Pontiac. He had webbed fingers that were together, and yet he played like that!<br />
<br />
<em>Whatever happened to your first partner, John T. Smith?</em><br />
<br />
Well, he was a woman’s man. He messed around, takin’ a guy’s wife that we knew and was kind of a friend of ours. He’d taken his wife and left and went to Cleveland. He used to work for the public works for the city. I never did see him no more after that. I don’t know what happened to him.<br />
<br />
<em>When Motown started becoming Detroit’s primary music, did the blues scene drop off?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. They put a hurt on blues all ’cross the country. The Memphis sound, Booker T. and the MG’s, and all that stuff was out there around the same time. James Brown, rhythm and blues type things, soul. All that music put a whippin’ on the blues. With all records, the DJs played a big part. If you didn’t have the kind of record they wanted, you didn’t get no plays, which is how your record would make it.<br />
<br />
<em>Was recording for Harvey Fuqua in the early 1960s a good experience?</em><br />
<br />
It was. I think that’s when I really came to my best, because indeed they really was a blues label. They was R&B, like Junior Walker, Shorty Long. They had the Spinners, and Robert Lockwood cut there too, but they never did release nothin’ on him.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw1Cqi5IAE4T9QvxnKhjVXXnRK5WOcil1K1D8tPmQrB0a9XovM7GwqMu51WwQpdsQ1V92k_hK5hiS6x3s2eniZEbb6bLurnL7JGConx88vRLta-Y2EyumLR2auOLCVTDHJ35Z4-VMRt9w/s1600/Orange+Driver+on+Harvey.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483854816693362930" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw1Cqi5IAE4T9QvxnKhjVXXnRK5WOcil1K1D8tPmQrB0a9XovM7GwqMu51WwQpdsQ1V92k_hK5hiS6x3s2eniZEbb6bLurnL7JGConx88vRLta-Y2EyumLR2auOLCVTDHJ35Z4-VMRt9w/s200/Orange+Driver+on+Harvey.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a><br />
<em>What inspired you to compose “Orange Driver”?</em><br />
<br />
From that drink used to be out. It was some kind of orange flavor, yellow-looking, that was spiked with vodka. People was drinkin’ that stuff and getting drunk, so I figured this would be good. If you notice, I’m pretty good at things like these slang words people use. I always got an idea from that, like “I’m out of work,” “Don’t even try” – those are words that people use. I pick up all kind of stuff like that and write songs. That’s how that “Orange Driver” came about. And Harvey and them, they never did change nothin’ I’d written. They’d just clean it up with guys like Robert White, who was one of the guitar players who played on most of the sessions over there. I would rehearse with him maybe a month or two months before I cut stuff like “Orange Driver,” “Hard-Hearted Woman,” “Mean and Evil.” And they still have stuff in the can that they’ve never released on me. (Hear “Hard Hearted Woman” at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b03TyYf5oo4">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b03TyYf5oo4</a>.)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4g_clUU0a8Oxmrkq5t3z-gFzH8hIxQkslfMp0859AmIxxRDQ-uPCIhKDwxbgAjuJN1HidjdKvcHuPRBhCWov0eCbPpTMsD1DmYWoeKT7IirqWqUTv-fZoRG_gRcVjcB16kyR518K34q0/s1600/Hard+Hearted+Woman+on+Harvey.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483855396628902354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4g_clUU0a8Oxmrkq5t3z-gFzH8hIxQkslfMp0859AmIxxRDQ-uPCIhKDwxbgAjuJN1HidjdKvcHuPRBhCWov0eCbPpTMsD1DmYWoeKT7IirqWqUTv-fZoRG_gRcVjcB16kyR518K34q0/s200/Hard+Hearted+Woman+on+Harvey.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 192px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a><br />
<em>How did Marvin Gaye happen to play drums on “Orange Driver” and “Hard Hearted Woman”?</em><br />
<br />
Because he could play drums! He wasn’t a studio drummer, but, see, I used to see him every day when we were in Studio B, which used to be on St. Antoine and Farnsworth. That was Anna Records at first. Anna was Anna Gordy, who was one of the owners. It wasn’t Motown then. I remember when Marvin was knockin’ around Anna. She was quite a bit older then he was, and they wound up getting’ married. And she was a lot responsible for his fame. See, Anna’s brother Barry Gordy was also my manager too, and I got a deal with Anna Records. When I first started recording with them, you had to be clean-shaven, mohair and silk suits and stuff. They didn’t allow us to wear moustaches. But then Harvey Fuqua and them tried to change me into a Junior Walker. I didn’t feel it then, but if I wanted to today I could go to some rhythm and blues.<br />
<br />
<em>What happened to Harvey Fuqua?</em><br />
<br />
Harvey’s still very well alive. He’s up in New York, singin’ good. You know, he was a great pianist and he also was a great producer. So this is how I got the influence about music. After I got out there and got my feet wet, then I knew that I could do it. See, producin’ ain’t nothin’ but concentrating on hearing stuff. You don’t see it; you hear it. When a tune’s playing, I can shut out certain instruments and just concentrate on one thing, like maybe the drum or bass. That’s how I put music together: Song first, then the music. The song is always first – that’s the hardest part.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you have favorite keys to play in?</em><br />
<br />
I like E. E is a tough key. It’s a beautiful key. It’s good for blues. Got a lot of sharps and flats in it. And you know all of them keys got at least four different positions [on the guitar fretboard] that you can play in, and each one of them is different when you learn the combinations. A lot of bluesmen don’t know that. A lot of them play on the end of the neck, but they can’t go to the middle or to different octaves.<br />
<br />
<em>Or they use a capo.</em><br />
<br />
Which is just the easiest way of doing it. But the clamp is great if you backin’ somebody with the harmonica. It’s all right. When you playin’ the barre chord, you really don’t have that support there – you have to have the rest of the instrumentation there to play it. Yeah.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you have children who play music?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I got six childrens. Four daughters and two sons. Eddie Jr. plays – he lives in Austin, Texas – and my other son, my baby boy, he fool around with the bass a little bit. All of my daughters can sing. I got grandchildren too.<br />
<br />
<em>If one of your grandchildren wanted to play professionally, what advice would you offer?</em><br />
<br />
Go to school. Today. Blues, I feel personally, is a black tradition. A lot of people don’t agree, and anybody can play it – I’m not prejudiced about people playing it. The only difference is, when you’re playing it for <em>me</em>, you gotta come clean, or it gets boring. Like most of these white boys is good guitar players, but, see, blues is a feelin’, indeed, and it ain’t no lot of ’em got that feelin’! They can play the guitars – no problem – but they either overplay or they don’t put that feeling there. It ain’t about no modern times. It’s about <em>blues</em>. And if you get back to the old bluesmen, if them people didn’t have the blues, man, then who in the hell gonna have the blues? With all that prejudices and stuff they had – you know, fields, the boss, the woman messin’ up. The guys used to sing about it. I <em>understand</em> what was happenin’, because I got a little bit of that, and it made me run! Or I might have wound up the same way.<br />
<br />
The reason I know about the blues music today and play it is because I know about the culture of it. It’s an art, just like anything else – it ain’t about no down this and that. And just anybody can’t do it. It ain’t like that. And I know a lot about what I’m doing, my friend. I actually know the blues – I <em>know</em> it – but it didn’t just all come from blues. It’s the whole surrounding of music. And in that music is a message. It’s there if you listen, but if you’re not listening, you won’t get to that. You’ll miss the whole boat.<br />
<br />
I was playin’ in London, England, one time, and this particular night this young lady was in the audience. She got up and ran up to me and asked me what was I doin’ to her! See, blues music and gospel music is closely related. Some gospel singers give you the goosebumps. And it’s a funny feeling. Some people call our music, the blues music, “magic.” Some kind of black magic or evil or something, because they make this contact. And when you make this contact with it, you is gonna feel your hair crawlin’ on your arms and things. If you got some people that can perform it, that’s how they make you feel. That’s what she had. Whatever I was performin’ is the real thing. I wasn’t just playin’ for the money. If I happen to take the gig, you better believe I’m gonna do it for the people that show up. Now, that could be three people, 300, or 3,000 – it don’t make no difference. I’m gonna play for ’em, or I’m gonna leave it alone. And that’s the way I am.<br />
<br />
<em>What are your favorite gigs these days?</em><br />
<br />
Festivals is great. The hardest thing about festivals is getting’ to ’em. You do about a 90-minute set, mostly, and that be about it. Clubs, man, is ridiculous. You got to do three, four sets. I play a few clubs here and there every now and then, but with this new breed out here, I don’t feel justified playin’ with them, because they so different. With what I know today, I have the ability to change, but I will not sell out. One time I almost came close to selling blues out, when I got off into some jazz by ear. And then I made this major discovery, which is that isn’t the way to go. With jazz, you should know how to read. And I didn’t know that I couldn’t play the blues after I had gotten away from it during the early ’60s. I had gotten off into this rhythm and blues thing, and one time I even had John Lee playin’ with me when the blues was really poor. Sonny Boy Williamson – I gave him a job during that time. But I had musicians that was playin’ everything, and I was playing with ’em. As I played this other music, I kept my music in the back of my mind, but I didn’t know that I couldn’t go back and pick that blues right up. I had to come back and get in the woodshed to get that feelin’ back. In all honesty! It got sweet. And today, you got a lot of people that straddle the fence, but they don’t know this. And they play like that so long, until if they really had to play a blues, they couldn’t do it.<br />
<br />
<em>You hear the expression “the blues will never die” . . .</em><br />
<br />
It won’t. May not make no money, but blues music don’t ever quit sellin’. You die, but the music lives on.<br />
<br />
<em>Is the album called Detroit your most recent CD?</em><br />
<br />
I haven’t done any recording here since Detroit, and that was the first CD that was made on me. That was with Blue Suit Records, and they want to cut me again. See, all that cuttin’ I was doin’ in the later years was in Europe, which was a big mistake. I was goin’ over there cuttin’ [original material], and there’s a whole trail of paper that goes with that when you got it hooked up right. But they’d throw me a few hundred dollars to cut and I come on back home – well, you know the rest of that!<br />
<br />
<em>That’s the end of it.</em><br />
<br />
Yeah! You don’t get no publishing. If I went there today, I would do like James Cotton and Billy Branch and all them and cut some [cover] stuff that been played it to death, get that little money, and come on back home. They ain’t worried about no publishing and all of that. But if you wrote the tunes, you want all your proceeds hooked up right. And if you don’t get that, you gettin’ cheated. I know about all this now, but I had to pay for that. If you notice on this Detroit, I got my own publishing. Even Hooker got a publishing company now.<br />
<br />
<em>And he’s making a fortune.</em><br />
<br />
But look how he’s makin’ it – usin’ all these musicians and things. His guy, Mike Kappus, is taking care of him, and he got big royalty checks comin’ in now. But he’s usin’ all them musicians, rock and all, and this is it. Whoever put that together was smart. I don’t have nothin’, but I’m not too sure I would have went that route. With John Lee, all of them musicians don’t come off right.<br />
<br />
<em>It’s not like when you were playing with him on “Miss Sadie Mae,” “Black Cat,” and those songs.</em><br />
<br />
Oh, no. That was Hooker then. That was <em>Hooker</em>.<br />
<br />
<em>Are you ready to record another album? </em><br />
<br />
I stays ready. If I was to cut now, I’d want to produce myself – I know how to do that – or have my brother produce me. And all the musicians I’d use is gonna be good musicians. If I get the right deal, I could do about a 11- or 12-tune CD. I already know that a blues market is a small market, but fai<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6WWqdfkO1zf05VXheYSNvxOj5Lm_k9toG68AUFCvuNmE2ihT0bwcebYH5pr7yGSymbtDqq054TqxZrV52xqoZnmTFYIVWOAaL4T1UsZYBcdjxwE-rAC9D7Wmo2GUUpAlr9HxM2Vdn8K4/s1600/Eddie+Burns+in+color.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483851393950694754" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6WWqdfkO1zf05VXheYSNvxOj5Lm_k9toG68AUFCvuNmE2ihT0bwcebYH5pr7yGSymbtDqq054TqxZrV52xqoZnmTFYIVWOAaL4T1UsZYBcdjxwE-rAC9D7Wmo2GUUpAlr9HxM2Vdn8K4/s200/Eddie+Burns+in+color.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 150px;" /></a>rness is what I’m looking for, and I don’t want to get married to no label.<br />
<br />
See, I don’t want to cut for two reasons: They stockpile your stuff, and if you don’t get it hooked up right, a lot of ’em will sell your music. That music is supposed to be employment and it’s supposed to make it richer for the artist. But they can sell it in a way where you can’t get nothin’ off of it! And a lot of people don’t want nothing to do with you if they can’t use you. So I’m not raring to get in no studio. I’m in a position where I don’t have to go in regardless, and that’s the way it’s gonna stay. I’m not rich, but I’m independent. I don’t do it because I have to do it. I do it because I want to do it. And I got a lot of reasons why I won’t sell it out.<br />
<br />
But I am interested in getting out here and maybe travelin’ some, but not no 365 days a year. Music is in my blood, and that’s all I want to do, because I love makin’ people happy. Because when everybody has a good concert and I’m playin’ my music, I’m high, man! Do you know why? It’s my music that the people is enjoyin’, stuff that I done sit down and created. And that’s a good feeling.<br />
<br />
<em>When you’re playing around the house, is it mostly blues music?</em><br />
<br />
That’s what I do – and never electric. It’s always to myself, because I write a lot, and I don’t want to draw no crowds. People in the neighborhood might see me comin’ and goin’, and they know I’m a musician, but that’s it. They don’t hear no records playin’. They not gonna hear me playin’. I pick it up my acoustic every once in a while, and it’s mostly blues from the old guys like Tommy McClellan and Arthur Crudup.<br />
<br />
<em>If you could somehow see any musician who’s ever recorded, who’d you want to see first?</em><br />
<br />
Tommy McClellan would be one of them. Sonny Boy Williamson I would be one of them. Arthur Crudup, Tampa Red, Big Maceo. Those people, to me, was all true blues. And then getting into another scene – and I have a great love for all music, because all of it have a message – I like people like Louis Jordan, Nat King Cole, Johnny Moore and the Three Blazers. T-Bone Walker was kind of on the borderline. He wasn’t truly a deep blues musician; he used all jazz musicians on his sessions. I got to know him, and that was a great thrill. I guess I admire all of the originators over the copycats, because you’ve got both.<br />
<br />
<em>Among all the bluesmen you’ve known, who were your favorites?</em><br />
<br />
I think B.B. King, because he’s holding his own. Lowell Fulson. T-Bone. I liked them. Whatever they was about, it was them. Johnny Moore, which I didn’t know, Amos Milburn. You getting up there into some different music now. And Charlie Christian. I got things by him, like “Air Mail Special.” Lionel Hampton. I can go on and on. See, I like all that big band stuff. Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Joe Williams, and Joe Turner. I like it all.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you ever hear from Eddie Kirkland or John Lee Hooker?</em><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNo1nzQM6lzEZpE3TyUFjiB9h8r7LrPMb7q6JD11O7mprYVIGkUersk7oACh-MePcU-SeGa0HrZ8MEi0iVorw9InbjCU14tet6o1gpxdRJpxdRU-sqRokNmnxWUxUBPDpFZU1UbsFOFJ0/s1600/Eddie+Kirkland+promo.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483850335071067314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNo1nzQM6lzEZpE3TyUFjiB9h8r7LrPMb7q6JD11O7mprYVIGkUersk7oACh-MePcU-SeGa0HrZ8MEi0iVorw9InbjCU14tet6o1gpxdRJpxdRU-sqRokNmnxWUxUBPDpFZU1UbsFOFJ0/s200/Eddie+Kirkland+promo.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 160px;" /></a><br />
Kirk always comes by here. He travels a lot, and he does his the hard way – he drives everywhere he goes, just about, in any kind of weather. He comes to see me whenever he’s in town, and he always spend an hour or two. We chat and stuff. It’s been a few years since I seen John Lee. But I talk to him on the phone.<br />
<br />
<em>I’d like to ask you a couple of spiritual questions.</em><br />
<br />
Okay.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you believe in heaven?</em><br />
<br />
The hereafter? Yes.<br />
<br />
<em>Will you be able to see others again?</em><br />
<br />
That I don’t know. You could be married. But from what I know about the Bible, if you married, you no longer married when you die. You only go back to individuals. You’re not married in heaven. So I might see her there, but we’d just be angels. That’s supposed to be everlasting life – if you get there. What made you thought of that?<br />
<br />
<em>I remembered John Lee Hooker saying that he thinks God’s going to wipe the earth clean of disbelievers.</em><br />
<br />
I don’t knock denominations, but one thing I’m gonna say: Jehovah Witness is not one of my denominations. I know how Hooker got there, and it’s the wrong way. [It’s] because we don’t have many denominations that will support you playing music. It’s called “out there in the world.” Now, I play the music, but I’m gonna tell you something: First of all, the music is an art. The music ain’t no sin. It’s the things surrounding it that are the sins. Adultery, which is womens, too much booze. You can drink, but you’re not supposed to get drunk. I drinks very little, and I don’t be getting up in the sack with no womens. I comes home to my own wife.<br />
<br />
See, I’m in the church myself, Church of Christ. I been baptized and all that. And we all gonna be judged one day, but by the things that you did while you was living. Don’t nobody know – even his son don’t know – when it’s gonna be the resurrection. But we do know there’s one comin’. Some churches gonna tell you there’s only one denomination gonna be saved – that’s a lie! God love all people. It ain’t got no color on it, no language on it. He love ’em all. And there’s gonna be people saved from all of the denominations, even Jews, which is his favorite people in my Bible, the King James version. And what you readin’ in the Bible, that’s what’s happening. You can’t bring up nothin’ that’s happening out here today that’s not already in there. It’s fulfilling now. Religion is about love. It ain’t about evil. Treating your fellow man like you want to be treated – that’s what it’s about.<br />
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<em>Epilog<br />
<br />
Nine months after our interview, on September 12 and 13, 2001, Eddie Burns recorded an album of new material, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Snake-Eyes-Eddie-Burns/dp/B000068D0H?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">Snake Eyes</a><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Snake-Eyes-Eddie-Burns/dp/B000068D0H?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000QZRG4W" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000068D0H" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, for Delmark Records. As I wrote in the liner notes, “His rollicking ‘Papa Likes to Boogie’ is classic house-party music, Detroit style, while ‘Miss Jessie Lee’ is a plaintive, unadorned harmonica blues reminiscent of Sonny Boy Willia<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNjxiLsXspKzarGyLhu9LKjde2funPAtyQoeNLWaeg8S7Xe2Y2Rwd0S-A7lsqgCkDwbEJByx1zz3GWskTBlqIm7wVjtcC-D3jev-157WXsjzdm59sud_5dFmNlqwir5knnaHYywmv2UwU/s1600/Snake+Eyes+cover.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483848922189348354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNjxiLsXspKzarGyLhu9LKjde2funPAtyQoeNLWaeg8S7Xe2Y2Rwd0S-A7lsqgCkDwbEJByx1zz3GWskTBlqIm7wVjtcC-D3jev-157WXsjzdm59sud_5dFmNlqwir5knnaHYywmv2UwU/s200/Snake+Eyes+cover.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>mson I. ‘Lend Me Your Love’ shows his finesse on acoustic guitar. On other tracks, Burns reveals his mastery of slow blues, easy swing, and the mantra-like riff. Making it a family affair, brother Jimmy Burns guest on electric and acoustic guitars and takes the second vocal on ‘Cash Ain’t Nothin’ but Trash.’ Best of all, throughout the project Burns remains true his musical vision: ‘It’s about blues.’” In 2005, he released another CD, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/2nd-Degree-Burns/dp/B000QZRG4W?ie=UTF8&tag=jaso01-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"rel="nofollow">2nd Degree Burns</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jaso01-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000QZRG4W" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important;" width="1" />, on the Blue Suit label. His tracks from the old days in Detroit continue to appear on anthologies. </em><br />
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For an outstanding illustrated Eddie Burns discography, visit <a href="http://www.wirz.de/music/burns.htm">http://www.wirz.de/music/burns.htm</a>.<br />
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<strong><em>To see my books of interviews with bluesmen including John Lee Hooker, as well as Eddie Burns and John Lee Hooker CDs featuring my liner notes, visit the Jas Obrecht Music Blog store at </em></strong><a href="http://astore.amazon.com/jaso01-20"><strong><em>http://astore.amazon.com/jaso01-20</em></strong></a><strong><em>. </em></strong></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-20323230430344497502010-06-12T13:11:00.042-04:002010-06-21T17:32:31.080-04:00Rory Gallagher: The 1991 Interview<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwBUPQ2KpjYEIyExJeZDo4StZQBlHyGGvLhU1epWFvkSApK28wjWl7ZwSRC3KcH6qdatd4nthzpKvN0EOf-eqbc4uADlTSZHrd0vjBV3nMQLyo1Lf7KRd_PfaMA111uxLgPBfaLFGCfgg/s1600/Rory+opener.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 229px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481966096033024546" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwBUPQ2KpjYEIyExJeZDo4StZQBlHyGGvLhU1epWFvkSApK28wjWl7ZwSRC3KcH6qdatd4nthzpKvN0EOf-eqbc4uADlTSZHrd0vjBV3nMQLyo1Lf7KRd_PfaMA111uxLgPBfaLFGCfgg/s320/Rory+opener.jpg" /></a><br />Rory Gallagher threw every fibre of his being into his music. Scrappy, unabashed, and bluesy to the core, he was a sublime guitarist and compelling singer. His live and studio recordings, especially during the 1970s, deliver strength, wisdom, and inspiration. Personally, I count him among my favorite guitarists. I seldom travel without his music and sometimes listen to him for weeks on end.<br /><br />During my decades as an editor for Guitar Player magazine, Rory was high on my wish-list for interviews. The trouble was, after the 1970s, he only played the San Francisco Bay area three times. I was on the road during his 1982 and 1985 appearances. Then, after a six-year hiatus, it was announced that Rory was coming back to the United States to promote a new album, Fresh Evidence. His brother and manager, Donal Gallagher, sent word that Rory would be happy to speak with me.<br /><br />We met backstage at the Catalyst Club in Santa Cruz, California, on the afternoon of March 15, 1991. I quickly discovered that Rory was charming and enthusiastic and highly intelligent. Here, for the first time, is a complete transcript of that interview.<br /><br />****<br /><br /><em>You’ve stayed true to the music that inspired you in the beginning.</em><br /><br />Yeah, I think that you have to recognize the kind of source point that you have. Even though you develop as a player over the years and you get influenced by different things, you have to keep to the heart of what you started with, that kind of initial vision of music, you know? Obviously, it’s taken me this amount of time to learn a lot of different things about music and playing and so on, but I think I’m getting there slowly. [Laughs.]<br /><br /><em>You seem to gravitate toward roots American music.</em><br /><br />Yeah. Even though I grew up in Ireland, where there’s a lot of folk music and traditional music is very close at hand<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0QzWrhckxG0oRDW8-yZgPCHxc2BaU29m9fDMCzaNeBfnAowYTHlKLdLIvbx6rjJMrBozspUJeW5Uutp0rfnx8ipAnk0BYW1xKtfxqK09Ai4mVDuWuHvnrRRy3AgW5ytuj1tmhHPESQ6c/s1600/Rory+with+first+guitar.jpg"></a>, it didn’t initially appeal to me, even though I can see traces of it creeping in over the years i<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL59NdFPG5bepLtlTNFq05-41zxAMFR5vJCFngHy5QLqVbP_LJrgWleuDPgk08O-ArINSWsUFBy9fodX0eYsPmpHUMT0X4RlrmSgIarzJxUUVyMmHHDbUjVMIrdmAwIPzHCzEay_fmfAE/s1600/Rory+with+first+guitar.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 138px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481959887926702290" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL59NdFPG5bepLtlTNFq05-41zxAMFR5vJCFngHy5QLqVbP_LJrgWleuDPgk08O-ArINSWsUFBy9fodX0eYsPmpHUMT0X4RlrmSgIarzJxUUVyMmHHDbUjVMIrdmAwIPzHCzEay_fmfAE/s200/Rory+with+first+guitar.jpg" /></a>n my songwriting and some chord patterns and some kinds of solos I do. But I wasn’t really turned on until I heard American music via Lonnie Donegan. You know, I heard him doing Woody Guthrie songs, Lead Belly songs. And of course, I heard Elvis Presley and Eddie Cochrane, the early rockers, Chuck Berry. So it was a mixture of folk, blues, and rock from America. I was only six, seven, eight, nine, at that age, and then I just followed it through and learned about all these artists. And I’m still discovering undiscovered people and learning. But it took me about a good ten or fift<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNbWzKDoPC99OS2bJRwR6Hk5CZ738qfostrbib09FE-Yo-v1Uu49MjwnSpf4N9LPhAQfXJxJtmvBXgiq94lnas3hi0zCuQnPVlHLXf6ASeveIyaxTrA4ew3I30fFg7k_KWmB7UTAZv9Pw/s1600/Rory+with+first+guitar.jpg"></a>een years to find out who was who in the whole spectrum of things – who were the originators or the prime movers, and who were the followers and copyists.<br /><br /><em>Are there records you'd recommend for young players who aren’t acquainted with Son House and other early bluesmen?</em><br /><br />Well, I mean, everyone is stating the obvious Robert Johnson connection. He seems to be the virtuoso of that era, of that point, but Son House would be very important inasmuch as he gave lessons, I believe, to Robert Johnson. He probably wrote “Walkin’ Blues,” for instance. And Muddy Waters also claims that Son House was important at the time.<br /><br />It depends. You see, it’s very hard to dictate to some youngster who might listen to Albert King and immediately see themselves in that lineage. I think all young rock and blues players should dig deeper, back beyond the obvious big blues stars like B.B. King and Buddy Guy, who are all great. I’m very interested also in the country blues and the “electrified country blues,” as I would call it – Big Joe Williams and things like that. I also like all the slide players from Earl Hooker through Muddy Waters, obviously. Robert Nighthawk is a favorite of mine, and I eventually discovered Tampa Red kind of late on, and he’s very smooth-playing. Like that lick that Muddy Waters is known for – we all thought that was an original Muddy Waters thing, but he got it from Tampa Red. So this folk music tradition of passing on and picking up and stealing goes on like mad, you know.<br /><br />But in my own style, being a European very influenced by American music and so on, I try to find a way that if I’m doing a blues number, I can do it very traditional if I want to. I can also add my own element or my own twists to it and have it be a rock song with a blues thing in it. I try to be adventurous and progressive in some material, in others I try to be as downhome and ethnic as possible.<br /><br /><em>We hear that on your performance of Son House’s “Empire State Express.”</em><br /><br />Yeah. That was as close to . . . I did that in one take, on purpose. I did that on St. Patrick’s night, oddly enough, just last year. It was the last track on the album [Fresh Evidence], and I loved the song. I’d lost the [Son House] album that I had, so I had to remember it. Luckily I had written the lyrics down. I do it close enough to Son House’s style. To sing it in the tempo I was doing, I had to slightly adjust the rhythm a bit, but I thought it was great song. I thought it was a very overlooked song, you know? Al Wilson of Canned Heat played a National guitar on one or two tracks of that particular album. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiapaxHGLEqr9LyEEVunpfxMRL0tobjcSKKzCoYr1PrG_he3ZpzY8EsXpsQTDRbrX76X2xDBTG8m64v89HjvGyrkiPM2jFsbKGOodCkCPgd2aPHGcK3wGIBpyJWi5FTgC9pNQaJYRNowDk/s1600/Son+House+-+Death+Letter.gif"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 198px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481956626736440674" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiapaxHGLEqr9LyEEVunpfxMRL0tobjcSKKzCoYr1PrG_he3ZpzY8EsXpsQTDRbrX76X2xDBTG8m64v89HjvGyrkiPM2jFsbKGOodCkCPgd2aPHGcK3wGIBpyJWi5FTgC9pNQaJYRNowDk/s200/Son+House+-+Death+Letter.gif" /></a><br /><br /><em>That’s Son House’s Death Letter album?<br /></em><br />That’s right – with “Pearline” and “John the Revelator”— that’s another great song on that. And then “Ghost Blues” [on Fresh Evidence] – that’s quite traditional in its approach with the National. The mood also on – what do you call it? “Middle Name” – the guitar on that is more like a Slim Harpo record. So it happens, all kinds of references all over the place. There are a couple of rock tracks alright – “Kid Gloves, “Slumming Angel,” and “Walking Wounded.” The rest are very much in the blues field, I think. “The King of Zydeco,” even though it’s about Clifton Chenier, it’s almost countryish more than zydeco in the feel, but by the time the accordion comes in and the maracas, it is . . . . We did try the washboard on it to see if it gets it – you know, his brother’s “rub board,” as they call it – but it didn’t work in that song. We laid down another track, called “Never Asked You for Nothin’,” which nearly made it to the album, but it’s one of those fifteenth songs that <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgngOyML8Ptc97YNjo5LPwGCzShhnW8-lEFBOos_m_zxIsYXXuNBaPUnp8e3DwUqzYgMpiz3S_-ITkRm-L_KvF87YBiDzmBKbVhRoZcR-0VFa8DsM_Cl-p0mAAAxMML1dHBgE95w4QoEh4/s1600/Fresh+Evidence.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 194px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481958925254468498" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgngOyML8Ptc97YNjo5LPwGCzShhnW8-lEFBOos_m_zxIsYXXuNBaPUnp8e3DwUqzYgMpiz3S_-ITkRm-L_KvF87YBiDzmBKbVhRoZcR-0VFa8DsM_Cl-p0mAAAxMML1dHBgE95w4QoEh4/s200/Fresh+Evidence.jpg" /></a>could crop up again, you know. And we were lucky enough to find this guy, Geraint Watkins, who’s an enthusiast of Cajun music and zydeco music and plays great boogie-woogie piano and rock and roll piano. He’s played a lot with Dave Edmunds and he’s played piano with the Stray Cats and so on, and he has his own group called the Balham Alligators. Balham is an area in South London, so it’s a bit of a funny name, really, just a ludicrous name. That’s the way he is.<br /><br />Also, production-wise, I was very keen on the album before, which was called Defender, which had a lot of blues elements in it as well, but it’s more of a rock production, whereas this [Fresh Evidence] is kind of – not mellow, but we didn’t overdo the compression and we didn’t overdo the cleaning up and the noise gates and things like that. We left it fairly wooly and casual, which is the way I think suits the songs, you know? I hope people catch up on Defender, because that’s an album that’s still quite current in the set, even though we move the repertoire around every night.<br /><br /><em>What year was Defender?</em><br /><br />Two years ago.<br /><br /><em>It was released in England?<br /></em><br />Released in England and all over Europe. It will be released here in two weeks’ time, in fact, so it will be running concur<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAX-_4s9CgEjOpk8pkXve-znQACw1xNG_QsuaG3wyHkppljSpODh5D-fJWYStQ7aEvf3brUPT7e-ieVIiJ5xr2dR0wU0VbEzGbDrnJ7gVV77c5OFigFe43MIqqtkyu7_e_3w84A26iGgM/s1600/Defender.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 199px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481957048294837362" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAX-_4s9CgEjOpk8pkXve-znQACw1xNG_QsuaG3wyHkppljSpODh5D-fJWYStQ7aEvf3brUPT7e-ieVIiJ5xr2dR0wU0VbEzGbDrnJ7gVV77c5OFigFe43MIqqtkyu7_e_3w84A26iGgM/s200/Defender.jpg" /></a>rently with this new album. But obviously the emphasis is on Fresh Evidence. Defender has some rock songs, some tough songs like “Kickback City” and “Road to Hell,” but there are some blues songs. Like, one of the numbers we do is called “Continental Op,” which was influenced by Dashiell Hammett – that’s one of his characters. Even though it’s a rock boogie feel, it’s very much a John Lee Hooker chording, with suspended fourths and things like that. It also had a song called “Loanshark Blues,” which was there again a bit like a Slim Harpo “Shake Your Hips” type of feel, but it had some nice lyrics about a down-and-out guy in debt to the loan shark – very fast, alliteration-type lyrics. There’s a song called “Ain’t No Saint,” which is very much an Albert Collins-Albert King feel. I’d like to get to the point where it will be a Rory Gallagher feel rather than . . . . But you have to refer to all these inspirers or influences, you know.<br /><br /><em>Although there is definitely a Rory Gallagher feel. For example, there's a continuum between songs like “Slumming Angel” and “Living Like a Trucker.”</em><br /><br /><div><div><div><div><div>“Living Like a Trucker” – I remember that one quite well because we had the clavinet with the wah-wah. I was so straight-laced then, I wouldn’t play a wah-wah pedal myself. It’s like somebody joked to me the other night – they were disappointed to hear certain equipment I was using. They didn’t even want me to use electricity. Some people have this image of you as so purist that you wouldn’t even use . . . you know [laughs].<br /><br /><em>They’ve obviously never heard Taste at the Isle of Wight.<br /></em><br />Right. But this is the way it goes. But “Living Like a Trucker,” I like that track myself. All those albums will come out in the next year or two on IRS on CD, with lyric sheets. And some will be slightly remixed and EQ’d for CD. With this absence behind me, it’ll be great to have all my old material out again and people can look at it and see if it’s held up in court or if it’s not. I think it hasn’t dated too badly. </div><div><br /></div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 316px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481958479914659570" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA-SEA709BtABlzPo_lrbb23a7NjTxSP8aAVqpIhLyhmjfTWJD5ykyNPFx2HDkf8JhhXG1NApTQ8AMYjVgOHCO8mcn-qaVc4sld7zaJrUJk9nSmmCTI0wI2V_SGp1hqYREeLYu7w2KF40/s400/rory+gallagher+early+chrysalis.jpg" /> <em>When you’re recording solos, what do you expect from yourself? What should a Rory Gallagher solo be about?</em><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM_0PYRTNipkz_Oufg5RNe55HHTAwTUN4v5XU1lsAdDWIvWgMtmVezSuYoRwHQs32_szSV_7pkF_fksnEf1sDsE1Y2XXBUdegi_U6NtfVS2oxjEcSX5hCB3VWWMEygvICYRRvkJpqGkFI/s1600/rory+gallagher+early+chrysalis.jpg"></a><br />I try to split the difference between being fairly clever and technical, and still primitive. Because I think if it’s just a t<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj776mIvhCbXmpQNEdB_I2wQyh0_drLKYu5E4k6RwvupNvBEk_I23XNhcuUWM0BzgzHhKyhCrKcmywkaBJGv-gRykGtz-mxnTNkiThkpeQckrd1k1vq6RMkpPnZmzm-W2v_qf0zvUx33NY/s1600/rory+gallagher+early+chrysalis.jpg"></a>echnical exercise, that’s all very well. Even if a solo has to lean towards the primitive, so be it. It depends on the song, if you have to play very calculated or if you’re overdubbing the solo sometimes. You know, I used to always go for live leads, mistakes and all, just for feel. But now if a certain song needs a very sort of melodic type of solo, I’m prepared to work on it over and over. But I try not to get in the habit of dropping in [punching in notes] because it’s very tempting to get<em> the</em> perfect solo. I have been guilty of it once or twice, but only just to save it if you’re on a great direction. But as a rule I try to keep a grip on technology, so it doesn’t take the human factor out of it and you get too lazy about things, you know.<br /><br /><em>Has technology impacted the way you make records? Was recording the new album different than, say, recording Blueprint or Tattoo?<br /></em><br />A little bit different, yeah. Of course, we’ve got the 24-track. Both of these albums were 8-track. When we went 16-track, I thought that was the year 2000! In fact, on this album we brought in tape echoes, spring reverb. We tried to use more vintage equipment. We did use, obviously, certain modern EQ’s.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTDeU9l0b3LuWLBUbrfSVuTtT0zBJkYAUNIInuo6hBxoxOt-W16_4t6P5zbuSU5tr8a0WcabbFr5qSv_4EgRukQykp8zWeEs-0WgXp4pGQWouGk542L4HTriwg6u5OR6lwiJWH0zOg8Gw/s1600/Tattoo.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 198px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481963858366172290" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTDeU9l0b3LuWLBUbrfSVuTtT0zBJkYAUNIInuo6hBxoxOt-W16_4t6P5zbuSU5tr8a0WcabbFr5qSv_4EgRukQykp8zWeEs-0WgXp4pGQWouGk542L4HTriwg6u5OR6lwiJWH0zOg8Gw/s200/Tattoo.jpg" /></a> I’m not that mad about digital equipment, and obviously if you had to clean up something, you would use a noise gate – you know, very subtly. But performance-wise, I don’t think there’s that much difference, except that we probably were a bit more rigid in those days about getting it. We still try to get it in the first take. I would repair something now if I thought it was a great performance, whereas in the early days, just because of a repair we could have saved some tracks, but we were very keen with getting it as-was, even with the Telecaster whistling and everything. It was ridiculous, that kind of attitude, but that’s the way I thought. We needn’t have been so strict with ourselves, but that’s the way we were. I had the same attitude to echo, as well. I was very conservative in that area, which probably was a mistake. But you learn as you go along. It also depends on the engineer that you’re working with<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7XYNDzhR9OlA07xXQO-SZJqUd1JTusJu6fRLrxBwV_raTGi60n_Rb0eIaSoPqC77WzCahijkGTuYbDGrwmAp4J-Eu6uBUaxS8pMJz-uGjJUFfNpMKxrYtua0gYxg_pvUM0axcWY-54ys/s1600/Rory_Gallagher_-_Blueprint.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5482216047055235458" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7XYNDzhR9OlA07xXQO-SZJqUd1JTusJu6fRLrxBwV_raTGi60n_Rb0eIaSoPqC77WzCahijkGTuYbDGrwmAp4J-Eu6uBUaxS8pMJz-uGjJUFfNpMKxrYtua0gYxg_pvUM0axcWY-54ys/s200/Rory_Gallagher_-_Blueprint.jpg" /></a> and the confidence you have in him and the whole sound and feel. I still think the approach for performance isn’t that different from the early records, but we’re probably a little more aware of what’s sonically possible now and what we can do. And also all those early albums were done in three to six weeks, whereas albums now take six months, nearly, like with this album, between remixes and retakes and what have you.<br /><br /><em>Did you try to avoid layering tracks and go for live as much as possible? </em></div><em><div><br /></em>Yes, in general. I also went for a strong rhythm guitar part in tracks like “Middle Name” and “King of Zydeco” and “Walkin’ Wounded.” Instead of the Strat, for instance, I’ve got this small Chet Atkins Gretsch which is great for rhythm with fairly heavy strings – not the <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaPBA97F0O8xKSP9N6hPAgCvNI-1Khzyekt_TDthR4ZodxLPCdIVlS7o1mIq1cErZe5jVBviuH_9et9z5vI_pEOJlOjPGlfJ7hqoCU8jm8uIiGLV3WN-BKgWoS8PwQxmPfU7meWhUllNo/s1600/Rory+starburst.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 191px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481964387193635474" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaPBA97F0O8xKSP9N6hPAgCvNI-1Khzyekt_TDthR4ZodxLPCdIVlS7o1mIq1cErZe5jVBviuH_9et9z5vI_pEOJlOjPGlfJ7hqoCU8jm8uIiGLV3WN-BKgWoS8PwQxmPfU7meWhUllNo/s200/Rory+starburst.jpg" /></a>Eddie Cochrane model, the Les Paul-shaped one, the little orange one. That was great for rhythm. And I used a Les Paul Junior on the rhythm part of “Kid Gloves” and also the rhythm part of “Walkin’ Wounded.” Even though I’m identified with the Strat and I like the Strat, I think if you have Strat rhythm and Strat lead, except in a Hendrix situation, it can be a little bit one-dimensional. So it’s nice to have an alternative guitar to broaden the sounds. Even a Telecaster sounds good for rhythm and then Strat for lead, depending on the track.<br /><br /><em>Do you still have the old Stratocaster that you used on the early records?<br /></em><br />Yes. It’s super-glued together.<br /><br /><em>Like Albert King’s Flying V guitar – it recently fell into a river and had to be super-glued back together.<br /></em><br />I always like the out-of-phase sound Albert had, but he would never give you any information about his tuning or anything. Also, he was one of the few bluesmen that I know that was using Acoustic transistor amps, solid state, which had a distortion control on them. Steve Winwood used to use one alright when he was with Blind Faith. And I think on the Gary Moore album, when Albert was working on it, he was actually playing through a Roland JC-120, which is a transistor. So obviously he’s at home with them. But then the pickups on the Flying V’s are very full and warm, and they can take the match-up with the solid state.<br /><br /><em>When Albert sent the guitar back to the guy who built it, Dan Erlewine, he put it in a burlap sack without a case, wrapped some rope around it, and shipped it by Greyhound bus.<br /></em><br />God almighty! <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjghPJ3W1aIQxWaAXKEjpGZ193E1GElgAAJZ42P9jATiGKz0j4XbdRaBBzLC8TW7JjsqUK5iXnBfIAajU2G0TjYKQ8pmx7aeQ7-zCgtw8q59UJXzrStl3Z899a4W4ceuDNGL1koTqGjW9M/s1600/Albert+King.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 161px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481957737315447570" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjghPJ3W1aIQxWaAXKEjpGZ193E1GElgAAJZ42P9jATiGKz0j4XbdRaBBzLC8TW7JjsqUK5iXnBfIAajU2G0TjYKQ8pmx7aeQ7-zCgtw8q59UJXzrStl3Z899a4W4ceuDNGL1koTqGjW9M/s200/Albert+King.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><em>Dan asked Albert why he did it, and Albert told him it was too good a case to risk having anything happen to it.<br /></em><br />[Laughs.] That’s funny. That’s strange.<br /><br /><em>That’s Albert.</em><br /><br />It’s like the story of Mike Bloomfield showing up to record with Bob Dylan with the Telecaster without a case, in a zipper bag. That casual thing is great, you know. Everything’s gone into flight cases now. But we still have a few funky areas left in terms of cases. But the more you travel around the world, you really have to be cautious of your instruments, because it’s only when they stolen or get broken that you really miss them at that particular show.<br /><br /><em>Have you lost instruments?</em><br /><br />I did actually have the Stratocaster stolen in Dublin in the ’60s, and I got it back after two weeks because they had a p<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA2idgxRGy8X_E-UJ7wfA-9gkFnJzKOkbJ6Y__0M9xjdvYbhNKd4Yq4WK-XH5BRS8NyTZ7cjdT26kfPsridGQIOK9-qS-YtJpu_LerOo9snyfts_aS7lGX3SPlX0camy3j3GaOXd6Kkns/s1600/1961+Fender+Stratocaster.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 150px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481958118039049186" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA2idgxRGy8X_E-UJ7wfA-9gkFnJzKOkbJ6Y__0M9xjdvYbhNKd4Yq4WK-XH5BRS8NyTZ7cjdT26kfPsridGQIOK9-qS-YtJpu_LerOo9snyfts_aS7lGX3SPlX0camy3j3GaOXd6Kkns/s200/1961+Fender+Stratocaster.jpg" /></a>olice program on TV and they put it on there. I lost a Telecaster at the same time – somebody broke into the van and stole the Strat and a Telecaster, which was only on loan to me. That never came back. I got the Strat back, though. It was found over a ditch, with a few extra scratches from the brambles and things. It had been out in the rain, as well. So I swore I’d never sell it or paint it after that. I had to borrow a guitar to get me through that fortnight. I had given of hope in getting it back, and I really couldn’t afford another Strat at that time. I was playing a Burns which a roadie had leant me. But that’s the way it goes. But the Strat is playing well. Obviously, machine heads, frets, pots, and things have been changed over the years, but it’s still the same.<br /><br /><em>Do you know the year it was made?</em><br /><br />It’s November ’61, and I got it in August of ’63. So it was second-hand. It was the first Stratocaster in Ireland, apparently, but the guy who ordered it wanted a red one, like Hank Marvin, and they sent him a sunburst one instead. So he had to wait for a year-and-a-half or whatever to get the red one, and then he sold this one through the shop. So I got it. Prior to that, I had loan of a guitar. I had one electric Solid 7, which was an Italian, very flimsy guitar, which used to distort and everything through this four-watt Little Giant amplifier I had. I wish I had it now as a tune-up amp, because it was like a Pignose type of sound. In those days, you were trying to get the clean sound of Hank Marvin and the Ventures, or whatever. Buddy Holly. But when I got the Strat, I was set.<br /><br /><em>It must have been a happy day for you.<br /></em><br />Oh, it was. I mean, for weeks, every morning I would wake up, I’d go over and look at the guitar in the case, and treat it like a living being or some kind of magical thing. Even the smell of the case – I mean, I was really standing on my head at that time.<br /><br /><em>Do you still travel with it?<br /></em><br />Oh, I do, yeah. I don’t necessarily carry it myself on the plane, but we’ve got it taken care of. We watch it. Luckily, I have a ’57 as well, which is in great condition. I got that from a guitar player named Robert Johnson, of all people, who was based in Memphis at the time and worked with John Entwistle. And it’s a great guitar. I use that on the albums when I don’t use the old Strat. It’s more a Fifties sound – it’s more of a clean, rockabilly, Buddy Holly sound. It has a maple neck, and it’s good if you want a really zingy sound. Because my old Strat is a classic Strat, I suppose. Because of the age and sweat in it and everything else, the tone is a lot dirtier, raunchier, than your standard Strat. It borders on the sound of an SG almost, sometimes, or a real raw Tele, which suits me. But the ’57 is nice. All I’ve done to that was put the big frets on – I like the jumbo frets. And I also disconnect the middle control, which is the tone pot for the rhythm pickup. So on both Strats I have the lower tone pot as a master tone. I like that on a Telecaster you can adjust the tone on the lead pickup. But I think the idea that Fender had was that in those days you played rhythm on the rhythm pickup and then you clicked into the “Peggy Sue” position and went for it. In the early days, you see, some bands<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj63icGVjqPskhW5TsU2ElTTbK14lEAasryv6IqSIX_zeIpOHSPZ8FWpp8H3eNcGyLVv4AcMTueMIMnNRYCkhmsEXi391YwKKw_oV9NZGdUmbqJDEzIs-CqUvxDEM0ydSCxnDlQjWLSQB8/s1600/Muddy+with+red+Telecaster.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 238px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481960322262451778" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj63icGVjqPskhW5TsU2ElTTbK14lEAasryv6IqSIX_zeIpOHSPZ8FWpp8H3eNcGyLVv4AcMTueMIMnNRYCkhmsEXi391YwKKw_oV9NZGdUmbqJDEzIs-CqUvxDEM0ydSCxnDlQjWLSQB8/s320/Muddy+with+red+Telecaster.jpg" /></a> didn’<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ4-tSPrAD1WwTsqF-CAJ6rl6HNjCVTenidAlOlXwPWOINWfRmurtwfyhLYEDrq5Uci-fAlbJmu1X1X4JBmDynBITYZfonFxdKhV3iH6TDETinKkYeDhiEcwb9l_V6PHxlszMnF10n_wc/s1600/Muddy+with+red+Telecaster.jpg"></a>t have bass or bass guitar, as you know. The same with the Telecasters – in the rhythm position, that big capacitor creates big, boomy bass lines. In fact, Muddy Waters, up until a couple of years before he died, he left his guitar in that style, so he could great that real boomy rhythm thing, you know.<br /><br /><em>Muddy played that Tele to the very end, as far as I know.</em><br /><br />The red Tele. Apparently the neck was a replacement neck. The guitar was originally blonde, and Fender of Chicago – there must have been a branch there – gave him a neck with an extra-thick back to it, so that’s what happened there. But Muddy had a great feel. Even when he wasn’t playing slide, the figures he would play – particularly with Jimmy Rogers and, of course, Sam Lawhorn, who just passed away fairly lately.<br /><br /><em>You were lucky to have worked on The London Muddy Waters Sessions.<br /></em><br />Yeah, I was. Haunted. Or<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsdXt427bQe_bkupIjNk23lZ7iw093Lc_n1JCqqgW8-3kIc8mFU_0gekZNfMcIzgqNLJIsWUKOCNqdB2V7ENj8KbM4SeVhbCrtiapvjDhJ83xt2daKnFwNUhhvGdP8e8rXGJqiCqTBC7M/s1600/The+London+Muddy+Waters+Sessions.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481947054570472482" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsdXt427bQe_bkupIjNk23lZ7iw093Lc_n1JCqqgW8-3kIc8mFU_0gekZNfMcIzgqNLJIsWUKOCNqdB2V7ENj8KbM4SeVhbCrtiapvjDhJ83xt2daKnFwNUhhvGdP8e8rXGJqiCqTBC7M/s200/The+London+Muddy+Waters+Sessions.jpg" /></a>iginally Al Kooper was going to produce that album, and he made the call. They changed producers then, and the project was back on. But I was obviously delighted. It was three nights. I was playing every night, gigs, at the same time, and they would hold up the session till midnight till I got there. And he was sitting there tuning his guitar, a glass of sparkling wine in his hand. He handed it to me, treating a 23-year-old youngster. But, I mean, it was serious business, because he had half his own band there, and then he had Mitch Mitchell on drums, Steve Winwood on piano. So we had a good time. They remixed it back in Chicago, I think. They brought a few spare tracks from it out on some of these compilations or best-of series.<br /><br /><em>What was it like working with Albert King on his Live LP?</em><br /><br />The situation was, he showed up in Montreal and it was all arranged to be recorded. His second guitarist left him on the day, so he asked me himself, would I stand in? I said n<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAkTs-ZW0zSj2nrVTmUZfohdPm0Mkb_IpO_0_88CSGRWjpZPOTe2iNa9NiD-pMYhwsHAW5-CAVVNJl1aX75EklMhRtpnWWUIwEW4LfC_YtCVA2kPFcrreDdTETa4d458PRImgH3RclF-Q/s1600/Albert+King+Live.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481946390995322066" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAkTs-ZW0zSj2nrVTmUZfohdPm0Mkb_IpO_0_88CSGRWjpZPOTe2iNa9NiD-pMYhwsHAW5-CAVVNJl1aX75EklMhRtpnWWUIwEW4LfC_YtCVA2kPFcrreDdTETa4d458PRImgH3RclF-Q/s200/Albert+King+Live.jpg" /></a>o, because his material is quite arranged – it’s not loose like Muddy’s, you know? He’s a more intense guy than Muddy, I thought, not as friendly. I hate to say it, but I was forced to sit in and just fill out as best I could. There was no rehearsing, no nothing. You just had to guess what chord, what key he was in. Any time I’d ask him what key it was, he’d say “B natural,” and he’s playing in minors. His tuning is like Em6 or Em7, as far as I know, back to front, so I just had to busk it. But it was an experience! [Laughs.] I got over it.<br /><br /><em>Mike Bloomfield once mentioned being onstage in a cutting contest with Hendrix, and he said Jimi just pulled out all the stops. He said something like, “All I could think was, I wish to God that I were Albert King!” </em><br /><br />Yeah. If Albert wants to nail you to the wall, he’s got that amazing attack. He just hits that one-single-note-type syndrome. I was a Hendrix fan and a Bloomfield fan. I met Mike once – we did a TV show, Midnight Special, when the Electric Flag reformed. And he was a very nice, modest guy, and a beautiful player. A really soulful player. I could see him in a situation with Hendrix where he wouldn’t go into that trickery, really. But it’s a compliment to Mike if Jimi was that scared, because normally Hendrix was quite prepared to lay back and even play bass on these jam sessions.<br /><br /><em>Had you met Jimi?</em><br /><br />I never met him. I saw him playing two times, but three shows. I was in the Speakeasy Club in London once, and he was sitting a couple of tables away, talking to someone. I hadn’t the guts to go over and annoy him. That’s happened to me a few times. And you regret it later – I mean, all you got to do is shake their hand and make contact. Because these people pass through this world and you don’t get to say hello to them, you know.<br /><br /><em>If you could transcend time to see any musicians play, who would be tops on your list?<br /></em><br />Oh, there’s a whole glut. I’d like to have seen Django Reinhart live – I believe that was scary. Obviously I’d like to see Robert Johnson – who wouldn’t? I’d like to have seen the first Sonny Boy Williamson. There are so many people. I’d like to have seen Buddy Holly live, for that matter. I didn’t see Son House live, but I was lucky enough in the ’60s to have seen a lot of the main people. I saw Muddy, I saw John Lee Hooker, Big Joe Williams. I saw T-Bone Walker. And we were lucky enough touring the States we played with Freddie King, we played with Juke Boy Bonner. I’d like to have seen Blind Boy Fuller live, mind you, although he was in the line of Blind Boy Blake. And I saw Gary Davis. I’m pretty lucky, really. But certainly some of the early people I’d like to have seen.<br /><br /><em>Blind Boy Fuller is a fairly obscure figure, even today. How did you happen to come across his music?<br /></em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-2IcSCpW9SkwnJbBVDvKvlEkdd62uMnwe_pSrTAkoPTCLIBFGvd-iwEy0lV7GsefgnWokX4f3A_8LDYM1dB7L78b0PZaxFNd3dqOt-cDgzRD_VG8lyvC0cW7E4dam0EjoS3fnJCKF-6I/s1600/Blind+Boy+Fuller.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481945980944434738" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-2IcSCpW9SkwnJbBVDvKvlEkdd62uMnwe_pSrTAkoPTCLIBFGvd-iwEy0lV7GsefgnWokX4f3A_8LDYM1dB7L78b0PZaxFNd3dqOt-cDgzRD_VG8lyvC0cW7E4dam0EjoS3fnJCKF-6I/s200/Blind+Boy+Fuller.jpg" /></a><br />The Blues Classics record with Bull City Red and Sonny Terry on it.<br /><br /><em>With “Step It Up and Go” on it?<br /></em><br />Yes, and “Three Ball Blues.” Oh, he was great. And Scrapper Blackwell I liked a lot, particularly when he recorded when he was about 71 or something like that. And he was in great form. In fact, when I went back and listened to the original recordings with Leroy Carr, I was slightly disappointed because he had actually improved, to my ears, as a player. But then the early records were recorded very dull – you couldn’t hear the guitar that well. That was a surprising thing about that blues revival, that Furry Lewis, John Hurt – a lot of them – had impro<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEholaAB3qSKdGF8jriiLJ9IVZTs_IxhUHRUpzK9gUD5rSohX2QQ6QRCtGvc1qLJNgv9SWEE_vbjOElm1TPIbkN7sQf3Sj1nWB6_Dfg7aSV7pU9l_qxGae3UzWKA5vCY_gQIu9yNKT-88tY/s1600/Scrapper+Blackwell.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481949416021670850" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEholaAB3qSKdGF8jriiLJ9IVZTs_IxhUHRUpzK9gUD5rSohX2QQ6QRCtGvc1qLJNgv9SWEE_vbjOElm1TPIbkN7sQf3Sj1nWB6_Dfg7aSV7pU9l_qxGae3UzWKA5vCY_gQIu9yNKT-88tY/s200/Scrapper+Blackwell.jpg" /></a>ved as opposed to going the other way. It was fantastic. There a lot of people still alive. I hope now that John Lee Hooker has this big hit and that Albert Collins and Albert King are doing well, and B.B. King, that it will draw in some of the more less-known guys, like John Littlejohn and Johnny Shines, Johnny Young. They’re not the classic players, but they all have nice rough sounds, you know.<br /><br /><em>Do you use open tunings?<br /></em><br />Yeah. I use the DADGAD tuning on “Out on the Western Plain,” the Lead Belly song. That’s one of my favorite tunings. That was supposed to be discovered by Davy Graham, a Scottish guitarist, and then it was used a lot by Bert Jansch and Martin Carthy, all great players in their different ways. I’ve been messing around with dropped D lately, which is taking down the bottom E and the top E. It’s quite nice. Open A is related to open G, and I use that a lot as well, putting on the capo.<br /><br /><em>What tunings did you use on the record for the slide tunes?<br /></em><br />Let me see. Open G. Even though “Ghost Blues” is in A, the guitar was tuned to G. The slide on “Walkin’ Wounded” is just in standard tuning, which I can do. “Empire State Express” is open G. I think any other slide parts are in standard tuning, in the same way in which Earl Hooker could play chords and then go into the solo.<br /><br /><em>Muddy once said that Earl Hooker was the best slide player.<br /></em><br />He used to play great single-string guitar too, particularly on the early Junior Wells records. On the original “Messing with the Kid,” he plays great snerfy Stratocaster sounds, before he went off to the Danelectro. And then he went off to that Gibson.<br /><br /><em>His slide on songs like “Anna Lee” is just out of this world.<br /></em><br />“Anna Lee” and “Sweet Black Angel” are both, as you know, Robert Nighthawk songs. But he was the first guy, aside from Hendrix, that I could accept the wah-wah pedal from [laughs].<br /><br /><em>I had trouble with Earl’s wah-wah – sometimes he went overboard.<br /></em><br />Yeah, yeah. Well, I think what turned a lot of people was the Howlin’ Wolf record where they added so much wah-wah pedal – remember that one that came out around the time as Electric Mud? [The Howlin’<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBDG7WOpuGQXfvoJyOQawM-54D6zQUkIOjkOSyaRe-Q5BbQ_jW7UX76xWUM6RXkHK4D-yLsTm9WRphT4Ghx3FHtVxHPNob5UldU-kNixEK726jir5qFt3hvSW6F6JkCqz2APY8L_3Nc4E/s1600/This+is+Howlin%27+Wolf%27s+New+Album.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 198px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481945597764544946" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBDG7WOpuGQXfvoJyOQawM-54D6zQUkIOjkOSyaRe-Q5BbQ_jW7UX76xWUM6RXkHK4D-yLsTm9WRphT4Ghx3FHtVxHPNob5UldU-kNixEK726jir5qFt3hvSW6F6JkCqz2APY8L_3Nc4E/s200/This+is+Howlin%27+Wolf%27s+New+Album.jpg" /></a> Wolf Album, on Chess]<br /><br /><em>The one with Pete Cosey on it.</em><br /><br />Yeah. I can’t remember who else was on the album. The liner notes were funny. They even put on the front “Howlin’ Wolf doesn’t like this record, but then he didn’t like his electric guitar …”<br /><br /><em>Howlin’ Wolf’s main guitarist, Hubert Sumlin, was seriously underrated.</em><br /><br />Absolutely, yeah. It’s a shame. How is his health? Is he okay?<br /><br /><em>I’ve heard he’s feeling good lately.<br /></em><br />He’s made some records that I’ve got since the Wolf days, but he’s either produced the wrong way or the material’s not there or he misses Wolf or all the chemistry that went on.<br /><br /><em>Instead of cutting with house bands provided by labels, he’d probably be better off if he could pick his own band and material and do it his own way.<br /></em><br />It’s important. Well, a lot of people think they know best, once they get this producer mentality. I know it’s an important job, but some people can be extremely unsympathetic to what’s right, you know what I mean? But then as the years move on and on, everything becomes tighter in terms of budgets, P.R., pressure, and all these other factors. Hubert’s a guy who deserves his hour in the sun, really, because he played some amazing stuff, both on the Les Paul and on the Strat. You never knew which guitar he was playing on the records – he’s got a great sound. And then he showed up in England with this tigerskin-type Strat. I saw a photograph of it on one of those Kent albums of Memphis blues – all that Joe Hill Louis type era. But there’s a photograph of the guitar, and I have a vague idea it’s an African guitar. Somebody told me it’s a Zanzibar or something like that. If you ever see him, ask him. Particularly with all this interest in pawnshop specials, this one has never cropped up – unless he painted it himself or something.<br /><br /><em>When you’re playing slide, do you use a guitar pick?<br /></em><br />Yeah, pick and fingers, you know. I also vary the slide. Sometimes I use a Coricidin bottle on my ring finger, sometimes on my small finger. Then sometimes I use a brass slide if I’m playing the National. But if I’m playing the straight electric, I use a steel bottleneck.<br /><br /><em>Do you hear a difference in tones between the various materials?<br /></em><br />I do, actually, yeah. The glass is obviously more – I won’t say Hawaiian – but more smooth and sweet. The brass or copper is very harsh, if you want to get that Son House so<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqXiatbVHrSxZ1H3zy8wN8_YVcFxhPM9ut0DSLvQk5LNzd6BMBh586afVb4whlKrDsOZiErkT3Od7U3-g8DaawwBgFRhF3Tmpbpd_IbLFYlMALG9AI1sAtvDEny4FEJ6BNQS5Fc-kugcA/s1600/Rory+1991+with+Dobro.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 256px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481944011943796562" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqXiatbVHrSxZ1H3zy8wN8_YVcFxhPM9ut0DSLvQk5LNzd6BMBh586afVb4whlKrDsOZiErkT3Od7U3-g8DaawwBgFRhF3Tmpbpd_IbLFYlMALG9AI1sAtvDEny4FEJ6BNQS5Fc-kugcA/s320/Rory+1991+with+Dobro.jpg" /></a>rt of attack. It’s almost too harsh all the time. Steel is a good compromise. It depends on the guitar you are playing.<br /><br /><em>Do you use a socket wrench like Muddy, or a steel slide?<br /></em><br />A steel slide. I have a socket wrench because John Hammond told me he was using a socket wrench, and then Lowell George, who we played with, had one as well. They’re fantastic, but you really need very heavy strings for them. I don’t know which one I have – a 5/8th or 7/8th or whatever it is. They’re fantastic, but if you’re playing more than a couple of numbers, they do wear your small finger down. They’re very heavy, but they’re ideal for slide. That’s my one complaint – not that I like light slides, but you don’t want them to be tiring your hand.<br /><br /><em>Do you set up your action different if you’re going to play slide, or do you have a special guitar for it?<br /></em><br />I have a Gretsch Corvette which is in open G or open A, depending on the song, and that’s got strings from like .013 to .050, something like that – medium. My regular strings would be like .010 to .044, something like that, and the action is quite high. So it’s okay for slide. But to play real open-tuning slide, you need the heavier strings. But I can cope with both, you know. I try to, anyway.<br /><br /><em>What is your favorite amp?<br /></em><br />Good question! It’s a battle between the Vox AC30, which is my first amp, and the 4x10 Bassman Fender, although I love the little Deluxe Fender, which is nice as well. But I have played Ampeg VT-44s, which are very nice. Over the years I’ve used Marshall 50-watt combos in conjunction with a Fender or a Vox, and they’re very good for volume and bite. But the warmth of the Fenders and the character of the Vox are pretty hard to beat, so it’s somewhere in there.<br /><br /><em>What do we hear on the new album?</em><br /><br />On the rhythm tracks it would be a combination of Vox and Marshall. Nearly all the lead parts were done with the Fender 1955 Bassman. We took the back off it and put mikes in the back as well as the front, so we got all kinds of variations. That was pretty much the way – I mean, not every track was laid down as a rhythm track, but I’d say 80% of the tracks were like that – Vox and Marshall for rhythm, left and right, and then the Fender Bassman for leads.<br /><br /><em>Your fans in America have been waiting a long time for you to tour. What’s been the delay?<br /></em><br />I don’t know. We just went back to Europe after the last American tour, in ’85, and we just got stuck in Europe, recording and touring. We played Yugoslavia and Hungary, and so on. And then we were trying to sort out the right record deal in America. I don’t know where the years went.<br /><br /><em>We’d see ads in N.M.E. that you were playing over there.<br /></em><br />We just got irritated too. We were on a couple of big nationwide tours with these big, stadium-type rock bands. We’d do that in order to get to America, to pay for the flights and also to give us some free time to play clubs and colleges. But doing these others gigs, you’d go home feeling dissatisfied, because you’d be badly treated in some cases with monitors and amount of stage room, lights and stuff.<br /><br /><em>Time onstage. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg43cvm3bw7GYmzB2-snGLjp_Q46tSw8fKc7Xa1vS57RJsuDLRl6MCAZyQbub1J9-sjN45UCWC6L0xGWyLbxWdk3x37F4tPELd_B3OhOcosMS7BmRvRTePvWQVdVOyTRxaYIt0S_pfyazc/s1600/rory+gallagher+7x9.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 150px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481964911223084386" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg43cvm3bw7GYmzB2-snGLjp_Q46tSw8fKc7Xa1vS57RJsuDLRl6MCAZyQbub1J9-sjN45UCWC6L0xGWyLbxWdk3x37F4tPELd_B3OhOcosMS7BmRvRTePvWQVdVOyTRxaYIt0S_pfyazc/s200/rory+gallagher+7x9.jpg" /></a><br /></em><br />Time, indeed.<br /><br /><em>American audiences aren’t always kind to opening acts, especially if it’s a different genre.<br /></em><br />Indeed! And that was the problem. It wasn’t so bad when we were on the same bill with, say, ZZ Top or somebody in that line. But then we happened to be on a couple of bills that were totally alien to our kind of stuff. We weren’t booed or anything, but you felt you’d wasted a couple of weeks of your life when you could be playing clubs or small theaters. I regret we didn’t come back in the meantime, but it gave us a chance to reassess what we were doing and we got very busy in Europe and so on. And then I developed a flying problem, to make matters worse.<br /><br /><em>Fear of flying?</em><br /><br />Yeah. I had a couple of bad flights and I got my Buddy Holly complex. It got so bad, I couldn’t even fly to Ireland, which is only an hour away [from London]. Then to play on the Continent, I would have to fly out the night before so I’d be okay on the date. It was not so much a fear of death thing, but a mixture of claustrophobia and a few other things.<br /><br />This is a miracle – I flew from London to Tokyo, Japan to Australia, Australia to L.A., L.A. to San Francisco, and so on. We’d have to make our way cross country and then back to London. So far, so good. My prayers have been answered, then. To beat that flying phobia was quite an ordeal for me, I can tell you, because it’s the last thing I needed after all those years of touring and flying two times a day. So that compounded my problems of not being able to get to the States. </div><div><br /></div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 265px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481961904500330722" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsciTZ9nhR_uG7ss4UCxPatnEn-SqFRJ90qhrK8qwYDNXr7QV3JBEStYNx36u7GjBiD2fQjT8iXF3OiBsEMsOUYs-HravZtkwgLqEFifZlFFe7L1yv7l6p7qP54oc3e25Y9wBHMo32yvw/s400/Rory+sideshot.jpg" /><br /><div><em>Do you have advice for keeping your sanity or staying centered while on tour? It’s such an unusual life.<br /></em><br />It is, indeed. There’s also a terrible danger – between travel and other things and getting to the gigs and so on, you get little time to play on your own in the hotel, and you can get lazy about playing. So I make a point of playing every day in the hotel room and bring a little cassette player and record what I’m doing, and try and write songs as well, just as a by-product of that. But to keep your sanity, I don’t know, it takes you about twenty years to find out. You know what all the ABC’s are to begin with, but there’s an awful lot of time to wear down the nerves of a musician. It’s just your attitude, really, in terms of traveling and flying, for hotels, for remembering where you are, and trying to keep all that group feeling every night to try to put on a good show. I mean, every musician has to go through that. You just have to develop a sense of humor and patience and just keep it cool, you know. I think the old cliché of deal with tonight’s gig and not worry about the one next Tuesday or the end of the tour. It’s a classic, but it’s true.<br /><br /><em>If people who knew you from your records heard what you play in the hotel room, would they be surprised?<br /></em><br />[Laughs.]<br /><br /><em>Are you a closet country player or a bluegrass guy or a flamenco player?<br /></em><br />Flamenco, definitely. No, I do actually do some country licks. I’m quite keen on the playing of Roy Nichols, who used to be on Merle Haggard’s records, and some of the players that have worked with Waylon Jennings and Johnny Paycheck. I don’t like this commercial country. I can’t really play flamenco that well – I can fake it, but just for my own ears. I do a little bits of jazz things and ragtime – anything that will loosen you up. Also it’s good for your mental health – not necessarily to do what you play onstage. And also even if you’re playing cassettes in your room. I play a lot of folk things, like Martin Carthy and some Irish music and some Django and things. Particularly if you’re doing a very long tour, it’s quite hard to listen to similar kind of music in your room then, I find. So it’s good to play something slightly different. And country and folk is quite a departure. That’s not to say I don’t play blues in the hotel room – I do. It depends what phase you’re going through and what year it is and what mood you’re in and all those other things.<br /><br /><em>I am continually re-amazed at what a universal language the blues is, how it speaks across borders to so many divergent people.<br /></em><br />Particularly this recent interest in it. I was despondent in the late ’70s up until the mid ’80s – I thought we’d gone right into the age of technology, and that was the end of it. Drum machines, techno pop. So there’s this interest in the blues now in the early ’90s, thanks to Stevie Ray and all the people who kept playing it, like Albert Collins and Thorogood and all those people, to this peak that’s happening at the moment with this interest in Robert Johnson and John Lee Hooker and so on. And Bonnie Raitt<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-kIb3eZTyS92O7ykYP7JS1AfJycO9QTKYUiW-aT4_xIxJH94PgmeVhuyRcSV1Syii0joA_LFiieJVEp7bAq_OA0Ff1iqEe7OakyRsCmkSm2jjyK9idOQefAW2bgqYHRT-yktCK1HT9NA/s1600/Rory+on+Midnight+Special.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 258px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481962781806425858" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-kIb3eZTyS92O7ykYP7JS1AfJycO9QTKYUiW-aT4_xIxJH94PgmeVhuyRcSV1Syii0joA_LFiieJVEp7bAq_OA0Ff1iqEe7OakyRsCmkSm2jjyK9idOQefAW2bgqYHRT-yktCK1HT9NA/s320/Rory+on+Midnight+Special.jpg" /></a>’s come back, if you like. Who would have predicted that? So that makes me very optimistic for the ’90s. I mean, if it gets better and better. Maybe it’ll fade away again, but I don’t think so. I think there’s going to be a nice, serious interest in the years to come, which would be great, you know?<br /><br />A lot of people are interested in zydeco as well, and African music. And of course the whole world music thing is fresh for the ears, because people have had enough of mainstream pop. A lot of teenagers will surprise you. They say, “Oh, we love real drums. We love real bass guitars.” They get fed up with all that space-invaders machine music. That’s all it was, to my ears anyway. Because all that metronomic heartbeat stuff – I have a theory that’s bad for you. It’s like ticker tape, it’s like tele text. Because the heartbeat and the mind and everything doesn’t work digitally.<br /><br /><em>It’s more like reggae.<br /></em><br />[Laughs.] Something like that, yeah. That’s a good way to put it, yeah. Somebody ought to check that out and see. It’s like some people have that theory about digital echoes – even though it’s in time, it’s different. You get tape echo that’s not entirely to the second. I don’t know – somebody had a ridiculous theory, but I kind of believe it.<br /><br /><em>I believe the time is coming when music will be used more to physically heal.<br /></em><br />That it can do. Music can heal. It can cool down the savage breast, as they say. It does have that power. All kinds of power. By the time you subtract the music business and all of the good and bad things that go with it, you’re left with a piece of music and the player, and it’s important that that should remain fairly – not precious, but organic and true.<br /><br /><em>What do you like to hear at the end of a show?<br /></em><br />Our shows tend to become very rocky some nights – people jump around the place and all that. I can accept that, as long as they’ve listened to the slow blues and the acoustic and the blend. I like it to be fairly up at the end. You can’t pick and choose, but I don’t want it to be a recital where people politely clap. You have to create an atmosphere. But at any one show, I like, if I can, to hit about two or three different bases, in terms of reaction and performance. We try and create dynamics in the set, so it’s not just too predictable. “Oh, that’s going to be another number like that.”<br /><br /><em>You change the set around from night to night?<br /></em><br />Oh, we do, yes. We rarely use a set list – only if it’s gone to the airtime on a TV program, where they have to have cameras ready for whatever. We never use a set list. Occasionally, at a big festival where your time is limited, it doesn’t hurt to have a list just to guide you a bit. But nine times out of ten, I just work off of the top of my head, and we move from album to album. Particularly on this tour, because we’ve been away so long, we’re not just only playing the new songs, we’re doing some old ones as well, just to refresh people’s memories.<br /><br /><em>You’ve been using the sa<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgk70ZLMu4kUGPXMvhXyWRdPAWtbTK2ABnDcRDTINh_1Clfr6wtU-AxGrPRDz67rUXJeLXUOTaQIfeSNzMz1Z4rQ5m5rBxNLonjXCcFVIky55rOcY6d7Prx8IMNQ8xqbsklJ-g2dpRApc/s1600/rory+gallagher+postage.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 195px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481943201217215650" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgk70ZLMu4kUGPXMvhXyWRdPAWtbTK2ABnDcRDTINh_1Clfr6wtU-AxGrPRDz67rUXJeLXUOTaQIfeSNzMz1Z4rQ5m5rBxNLonjXCcFVIky55rOcY6d7Prx8IMNQ8xqbsklJ-g2dpRApc/s200/rory+gallagher+postage.jpg" /></a>me musicians for a long time.<br /></em><br />Yeah. The bass player since ’71 – Gerry McAvoy. Drummer since about 1980 – that’s Brendan O’Neil. The harmonica player for about six or seven years, Mark Feltham.<br /><br /><em>Not to make you self-conscious, but if someone were to put together a compact disc collection called “The Essential Rory Gallagher,” are there tracks you feel should be included?<br /></em><br />I suppose so. If I were to do a best-of from the old days, things like “Cradle Rock,” “Million Miles Away,” “Tattoo’d Lady.” There’s lots of songs that I’d like to re-do and remix, things like “Race the Breeze” I was very fond of myself. I’d like to re-record that, and try to get a Staples Singers-type gospel feel to it.<br /><br /><em>Pops Staples is another underrated guitar player.<br /></em><br />Indeed! Particularly on the early records, with that tremolo on that Jazzmaster, you know. To record a guitar like that, there’s so much room for it to breathe, you know.<br /><br /><em>Back to the record.</em><br /><br />“Loanshark Blues” is a song I like a lot – that’s a track from the new one. It’s very hard for me. I mean, if we’re going to do a box set or something like that later this year or if not early next year, that will be the real testing point of going back and seeing what’s there and what wasn’t released. So that will be interesting.<br /><br /><em>What’s the scope of your current tour?</em><br /><br />In America, we started in the West Coast. We worked all around San Diego, two or three dates, and we played the Roxy in L.A. And then we’re playing in this area, Santa Cruz. We played Oakland last night, we’re playing San Francisco tomorrow night. We’re playing San Jose. And then we’re moving across to Minneanapolis – I can never pronounce that name!<br /><br /><em>Prince’s home town.</em><br /><br />Yeah. We’ll do “Purple Rain” for him there. Actually, he plays good guitar, I think. He’s a very underrated player. And he’s clever to have that old Hofner Tele copy – they were good, and no one spotted them except one guitarist in Nashville who uses one. I think it was the guy who played on Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away.”<br /><br /><em>Was it Reggie Young?</em><br /><br />I think it was Reggie Young. They have reissued these copies, but they’re not as good. But I must keep my eye out for one.<br /><br />We’re doing, obviously, New York, Boston, Detroit, Chicago. We’re going into Canada to do Toronto. We’re missing out on Washington, Dallas, and all the Southern area, but we’re hoping to come back in two or three months and cover that. We have commitments in Europe after Easter, so we have to go back. Ideally, we should stay here for two or three months, but given that we were in Australia and Japan before this – and this is a fairly hard month’s work – we’ll be glad to get back and get a week off.<br /><br /><em>Where’s your home?</em><br /><br />Well, I’m based in London at the moment.<br /><br /><em>Do you get back to Cork?</em><br /><br />Oh, I do. Because of the flying, I haven’t been there for a while, but if that’s over, I’ll go back as it was for a while. I’d go back every third weekend or every second month. At one stage I was nearly commuting, which was great, because I like to keep my Irish connection. London’s a good town to work out of, but naturally it’s not home, you know what I mean? But all the musicians live there and the studios and so on. But now since the Irish rock thing has boomed, it’s quite feasible to record and <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim_7KOUCb94cKjOnEdrFGTLhl_LdD_z7OyI6ZTWjqVpR6Bs0V3oHz4NtG8AkAlpgZtQoVfgjryFA_tajq8VQC5r_pQqx2wTtSzYRSNGZMGp7-YaUrPTou8ZvG2Crfg6anzsDNd5dYyIYI/s1600/The+Sounds+of+Ireland+poster.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 224px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481942222107800370" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim_7KOUCb94cKjOnEdrFGTLhl_LdD_z7OyI6ZTWjqVpR6Bs0V3oHz4NtG8AkAlpgZtQoVfgjryFA_tajq8VQC5r_pQqx2wTtSzYRSNGZMGp7-YaUrPTou8ZvG2Crfg6anzsDNd5dYyIYI/s320/The+Sounds+of+Ireland+poster.jpg" /></a>do things in Dublin. It’s become quite a rock and roll city.<br /><br /><em>Is that because of U2?<br /></em><br />Well, U2 ultimately, yeah, but it was building up before they because of Thin Lizzy and the Boomtown rats and so on. The music industry took Irish musicians more seriously, whereas in the early days of Van Morrison and when we came out, it was quite hard to cut through the image. Everyone thought you were like the Clancy Brothers or just a dance band. There were very few serious rhythm and blues or rock people from Ireland at that stage. So it was hard to cut through, initially, but it’s great now. I’m half tempted to record the next album in Dublin, just to see. I did three tracks on a Davy Spillane album – he’s a uilleann pipe player – and I enjoyed working in the Dublin studios. But for an Irishman, with the exception of the Irish Tour Live album, I’ve never recorded in Ireland. It might be the X-factor, you know. Whatever that is.<br /><br /><br /><div>****<br /><strong>Epilog </strong><br /><br /><em>Rory’s long, stellar set that evening at the Catalyst included many of the songs and artists we’d talked about during the interview – his own “Continental Op,” “Tattoo’d Lady,” “Kid Gloves,” and “Million Miles Away,” as well as covers of Robert Nighthawk’s “Going Down to Eli’s,” Lead Belly’s “Out on the Western Plain,” Son House and Robert Johnson’s “Walkin’ Blues,” Blind Boy Fuller’s “Pistol Slapper Blues,” and Junior Wells’ “Messin’ with the Kid.”<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5PJcRTt4EfUxWy3L4X3Ovk25wp8jsPnGgv8oGZ5hi9-FhZKOqPG4HjtNMfk2LWBwFF4LF_iB4nSa148SlSMwsBykwZ_0bt5C0zf3R9GQqsISkvTA-qBhMoR48xpKXNk3OwIC-wlXs5o0/s1600/Rory+tombstone.jpg"></a><br />Fresh Evidence was the last album Rory completed, and 1991 marked hi<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZJ4grO5kZrrl6gGv3L6lkI4pgmlb8B72d1hQ1wiX5ta8MUignOlnFvG4ICjvgwk_Yx5h39F2PslwDeH_qNETRU8tPSFnr2NMYDtTf85nqit6VGjrYQjgm-0NlSWnywSbIL4T9OA4qVG4/s1600/Rory+tombstone.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 134px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481941292025803378" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZJ4grO5kZrrl6gGv3L6lkI4pgmlb8B72d1hQ1wiX5ta8MUignOlnFvG4ICjvgwk_Yx5h39F2PslwDeH_qNETRU8tPSFnr2NMYDtTf85nqit6VGjrYQjgm-0NlSWnywSbIL4T9OA4qVG4/s200/Rory+tombstone.jpg" /></a>s final tour of America. On June 14, 1995, he died of complications following a liver transplant. He is buried in Saint Oliver’s Cemetery on Model Farm Road in Cork, Ireland. I gave the master tape of our interview to his brother, Donal Gallagher, who featured portions of it in the BBC’s 2005 radio documentary on Rory’s life.<br /></em><br />###<br /><br /><strong>Do the right thing! Support this blog by clicking on an ad link or two.</strong><br /><br />### </div></div></div></div></div>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-49731650835427351892010-06-07T16:00:00.047-04:002010-07-24T15:19:54.792-04:00Mamie Smith: The First Lady of the Blues<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1KMJ_JUJPESzlMlmoHw5Hd-1CKOT888QGoikfHE1FUYrRCypMYJEdCtpHQNlIOxgY7jrEwTiSGcOLbIxLYhZMeSIGn_xJM7owYRNXs_X91pOjRPdMObqBPJTX5hCMNzC_PnXyXjn_O28/s1600/Mamie+Smith+fur+collar.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480144603660468914" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1KMJ_JUJPESzlMlmoHw5Hd-1CKOT888QGoikfHE1FUYrRCypMYJEdCtpHQNlIOxgY7jrEwTiSGcOLbIxLYhZMeSIGn_xJM7owYRNXs_X91pOjRPdMObqBPJTX5hCMNzC_PnXyXjn_O28/s320/Mamie+Smith+fur+collar.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 227px;" /></a> Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues,” the first recording of an African-American singing the blues, revolutionized pop music. Witnesses claimed that after its release in 1920, the song could be heard coming from the open windows of virtually any black neighborhood in America. “That record turned around the recording industry,” remembered New Orleans jazzman Danny Barker. “There was a great appeal amongst black people and whites who loved this blues business to buy records and buy phonographs. Every family had a phonograph in their house, specifically behind Mamie Smith’s first record.”<br />
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While blues music had been performed in the American South since the very beginning of the twentieth century, no one had made recordings of it before, largely due to racism and the assumption that African-Americans couldn’t – or wouldn’t – buy record players or 78s. “Crazy Blues” changed all that, sparking a mad scramble among record execs to record blues divas.<br />
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The stars they promoted in this short-lived era of “classic blues” were not the down-home country singers who’d record later in the Roaring Twenties, but the glittering, glamorous, and savvy veterans of tent shows, minstrel troupes, and the vaudeville stage. These mavericks defied stereotypes, and there wasn’t an Aunt Jemima among them (with the possible exception of Edith Wilson, who became <em>the</em> Aunt Jemima on the radio). Their lyrics were often erotic, frank, and cynical. Those who’d become most influential – Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Ida Cox – had been performing blues for many years before their first recording sessions. Others emerged from black vaudeville and found quick fame and riches, only to be plunged back into obscurity and poverty. By the close of the 1920s, most of the classic blueswomen would see the popularity of their records eclipsed by male artists such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Big Bill Broonzy, Lonnie Johnson, and Tampa Red.<br />
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Unlike country blues, the rural South’s party music, classic blues were conceived for the professional stage. Singers bedecked themselves in sumptuous gowns and paid careful attention to diction while belting out their woes to the accompaniment of a hot jazz ensemble or capable sideman. Whereas country singers could string together random verses as long as they wanted, most classic blueswomen relied on stately tunes by successful songwriters such as Clarence Williams, Porter Grainger, and the wily Perry Bradford, a key figure in the Mamie Smith story. A few of the best, though, wrote their own.<br />
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A veteran of v<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkzLGMfR-MB0GKqwdO72QoSPDBDu0vKyPlY5Gv2U0Y1JyaEzda7ogbQXSJrW_2r2KwfYvYNzKlsIYdQgjlLbH7-8QcOPRCmein1Dov8r64kbHHEHSIuvaPmqGZvotsPPfDdwSK_cbaD5s/s1600/Mamie+Smith+fur+collar.jpg"></a>audeville and the chorus line, the lovely Miss Smith was 37 years old when she made her historic recording o<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzUnrxwkqkQGYfPbKgaMxnNZCN_5AoY2PHaxhROa0vAtnfNlrYvY6t4kSUDOvPa19gm_DocDXL1wykgC2jU5Yvo7Lwt5AQ8QNzaDPxXhyphenhyphenKiIkjnN0wvYTAFxX1JV3_hTxa8AUg2bpv0sM/s1600/Mamie+Smith+opener.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480143868864260386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzUnrxwkqkQGYfPbKgaMxnNZCN_5AoY2PHaxhROa0vAtnfNlrYvY6t4kSUDOvPa19gm_DocDXL1wykgC2jU5Yvo7Lwt5AQ8QNzaDPxXhyphenhyphenKiIkjnN0wvYTAFxX1JV3_hTxa8AUg2bpv0sM/s320/Mamie+Smith+opener.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 320px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 262px;" /></a>f “Crazy Blues” in New York City. She had left Cincinnati’s tough Black Bottom neighborhood when she was ten years old to go on the road with The Four Dancing Mitchells. Five years later she joined the chorus of the Smart Set company, which landed her in Harlem. Mamie settled there and married her first husband, comedian Sam Gardner. Perry Bradford spotted her singing at a cabaret and gave her a spot in the musical Maid of Harlem at the Lincoln Theater. Her big number was his song “Harlem Blues.”<br />
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Bradford, who spent his afternoons working out new songs on the piano at Harlem’s Colored Vaudeville and Benevolent Association, had long dreamed of having African Americans record blues songs. According to his 1965 autobiography, Born with the Blues [Oak Publications], most New York musicians didn’t care for blues, which seemed to symbolize everything they tried to leave behind in the South. “Whenever I began drifting into the lowdown, melancholy strains of the levee-camp ‘jive,’ someone would yell to detract my attention,” Bradford remembered. “Anything to keep me from whipping out those distasteful blues.” A Southerner – Mississippi by way of Georgia – Bradford was certain blues could be alchemized into gold by creating a market in the South. For months he had been making the rounds of record companies, trying to sell them on his songs and his protégé, Mamie Smith. His persistence earned him the nickname “Mule.”<br />
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His first nibble came from Victor, one of the biggest labels in town. On January 10, 1920, Mamie Smith was ushered into a studio to cut a bare-bones trial recording of Bradford’s song “That Thing Called Love” set to her own piano accompaniment. Victor rejected it. The break Bradford had been searching for came soon afterward, when he caught the attention of Fred Hager, recording director for the fledgling OKeh label. “There are fourteen million Negroes in our great country,” Bradford told Hager, “and they will buy records if recorded by one of their own, because we are the only folks that can sing and interpret hot jazz songs just off the griddle correctly.” Asked what songs he had in mind, Bradford handed Hager sheet music for “That Thing Called Love” and “You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down.” Hager was impressed. He initially wanted Sophie Tucker, a white singer, to record the songs, but Bradford asked him to consider giving a black singer the chance. Mamie Smith, he promised, “will do more with those songs than a monkey can do with a peanut; she sings jazz songs with more soulful feeling than any other girls, for it’s natural for us.”<br />
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Hager’s decision was as brave as it was historic. In Born with the Blues, Bradford recounted: “Mr. Hager got a far-off look in his eyes and seemed somewhat worried, because of the many threatening letters he had received from some Northern and Southern pressure groups warning him not to have any truck with colored girls in the recording field. If he did, OKeh Products – phonograph machines and records – would be boycotted. May God bless Mr. Hager, for despite the many threats, it took a man with plenty of nerves and guts to buck those powerful groups and make the historical decision which would echo aroun’ the world. He pried open that old ‘prejudiced door’ for the first colored girl, Mamie Smith, so she could squeeze into the large horn – and shout with her strong contralto voice.”<br />
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The recording session was scheduled for Valentine’s Day, 1920. Hager had Mamie perform with his all-white studio band, credited on record as the Rega Orchestra. Mamie poured bluesy feeling into the pop tune “That Thing Called Love”:<br />
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<em>“That thing called love has a sneaky feeling,<br />
Being too sure of yourself sets your brain a-reeling,<br />
You lay in bed but just can’t sleep,<br />
Then you walk the streets and refuse to eat”</em><br />
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“Man,” Bradford enthused, “I was overjoyed when Mr. [Charles L.] Hibbard, the engineer, said, ‘It’s okay.’ . . . After Mamie finished recording ‘That Thing Called Love’ and ‘You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down’ that snowy morning in February 1920, I was itching to jump up and yell, right there in the studio, ‘Hallelujah, it’s done!’”<br />
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The Chicago Defender, the most widely read black newspaper, covered the event in its March 13, 1920, iss<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBuHcuuHOC_-FBzRLLowEAZoOlDAKEzQu4E6rAMdwzI0EC5B37AWsPuRFK5Ili7uZvXDgTVjkDDg-RVMfuJsQpadFJIQm5a4eCpC_gel1CgbVLbVRxI2EhM30Dt25ildQ-TTBfm7Q_zZc/s1600/Mamie+Smith+Blues+ad,+11-15-20.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480134871384734482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBuHcuuHOC_-FBzRLLowEAZoOlDAKEzQu4E6rAMdwzI0EC5B37AWsPuRFK5Ili7uZvXDgTVjkDDg-RVMfuJsQpadFJIQm5a4eCpC_gel1CgbVLbVRxI2EhM30Dt25ildQ-TTBfm7Q_zZc/s200/Mamie+Smith+Blues+ad,+11-15-20.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 138px;" /></a>ue: “Well, you’ve all heard the famous stars of the white race chirping their stuff on the different makes of phonograph records. Caruso has warbled his Jones to the delight of millions; Tettrazini has made ’em like it heavy and Nora Bayes has tickled their ears with a world of delight; but we have never – up to now – been able to hear one of our own ladies deliver the canned goods. Now we have the pleasure of being able to say that at last they have recognized the fact that we are here for their service; the OKeh Phonograph Company has initiated the idea by engaging the handsome, popular and capable vocalist, Mamie Gardner Smith of 40 W. 135 Street, New York City, and she has made her first record, ‘That Thing Called Love,’ a song by Perry Bradford, published by the Pace & Handy Music Co., and apparently destined to be one of that great company’s biggest hits. The OKeh records can be played on all phonographs and they do say that the one in question is a real dream.”<br />
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OKeh released “That Thing Called Love” in July. Bradford reported that they sold 10,000 copies “just as fast as the Button-Hole Factory at Scranton, Pennsylvania, could press and ship them all over the South.” In his autobiography Father of the Blues, W.C. Handy described, “In Chicago, large crowds of domestic servants and packinghouse workers waited outside Tate’s Music Store on South State Street to hear us demonstrate ‘That Thing Called Love’ and ‘You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down,’ as sung by Mamie. All over the country music stores sprung up like mushrooms and our folks were begging for OKeh agencies in vain. . . . We bought the records, shipped them and received a prompt check. This was followed by repeated orders of comparable size. Finally the Negro dealers got their agencies.”<br />
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Reports of strong sales down South – to whites and blacks – were no surprise to Bradford, who was certain Southerners would buy blues 78s: “They understand blues and jazz songs, for they’ve heard blind men on street corners in the South playing guitars and singing ’em for nickels and dimes ever since their childhood days.” In its July 31 issue, the Chicago Defender called on liberals to support the record’s release: “Lovers of music everywhere, and those who desire to help in any advance of the Race, should be sure to buy this record as encouragement to the manufacturers for their liberal policy and to encourage other manufacturers who may not believe that the Race will buy records sung by its own singers.”<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_nvHjASQLLKqSUAzHnpD2Pp3RnQcOqh_hvQYoVSTbHmZrudgSVjD4d5VOX7a2VaMuYE5g85IRjlFza2BSMieLRqf3wrSM1TAO_bfxJaByWcfS1m9eAh-_TWM2tb4Sov-JZ0-epulYr1E/s1600/To+Hear+Is+To+Buy+ad,+10-15-20.jpg"></a><br />
A couple of weeks after the record’s release, Bradford stopped by Hager’s offic<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaVbNE_wMluONOA-smzamyzV-43NjJ6xv1R0gbtcu7k2yLpEZJwHSyUJ7tFC214_xAEj9XZczOnVLvjDxJDwgJ9FCqIUhKz6QPiSjmptIf1VPPOflgjGDYwG_jdm_phIItfIqJUb1DWro/s1600/To+Hear+Is+To+Buy+ad,+10-15-20.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480138621810280354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaVbNE_wMluONOA-smzamyzV-43NjJ6xv1R0gbtcu7k2yLpEZJwHSyUJ7tFC214_xAEj9XZczOnVLvjDxJDwgJ9FCqIUhKz6QPiSjmptIf1VPPOflgjGDYwG_jdm_phIItfIqJUb1DWro/s320/To+Hear+Is+To+Buy+ad,+10-15-20.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 218px;" /></a>e. “I’ve got news for you,” Hager told him. “Mamie’s record is selling very big in Philly and Chicago; the South, as you said, has gone head over heels for it, and down in Texas, Birmingham, and over in St. Louis, they are falling for the record just like leaves fall in Autumn-time.” Bradford informed Hager that Mamie had just been booked to perform an East Coast vaudeville tour and suggested that OKeh record her singing another song, “Harlem Blues,” before she left town. Hager told him to have Mamie and her musicians in the studio at 9:30 the following Monday morning.<br />
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Bradford rushed off to assemble a band, which he named the Jazz Hounds, and to tell Mamie the good news. “At the time,” he wrote, “Mamie Smith had a five-room apartment on the top floor of Charlie Thorpe’s building at 888 West 135th Street, so I walked up to the top floor to her apartment and buzzed, ‘Mamie, we got a date set for you to record with our boys playing for you,’ and told her to come downtown to Bert Williams’ office tomorrow for a rehearsal. When Mom Smith heard the good news she jumped up and shouted, ‘The Lord Will Provide.’ Mamie’s husband Smitty started dancing all over the place.”<br />
<div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><br />
<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480134245561789394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh036LWy9lBihuPoAimmqluHZT8QzwMm3RSlkf8qZieick7YG2nBXZxUcOQyhdIN3Nfas6N83H_nGHOnhijbBeWaUAi8ZcKzNwkSLS0Uto8MBxA6zALwMfgGgTRAPM8XgQzWQ3_orzc61I/s320/Mamie+Smith+and+Her+Jazz+Hounds.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 291px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" />A few days later, on August 10, 1920, Mamie Smith and Her Jazz Hounds convened at the OKeh studio near Times Square. Bradford decided to change the title of “Harlem Blues” to “Crazy Blues.” While Bradford took credit for writing the song, James P. Johnson insisted its melody was derived from an old sporting-house ballad called “Baby, Get That Towel Wet.” Mamie’s lineup consisted of seasoned black musicians – Dope Andrews on trombone, Ernest Elliott on clarinet, Leroy Parker on violin, and Johnny Dunn on cornet. In their autobiographies, both Willie “The Lion” Smith and Perry Bradford claimed to have played the piano. The musicians fortified themselves with their favorite prohibition drink, blackberry juice and gin – Mamie didn’t join them – and then got to work. Bradford remembered that there were no written charts: “They were what I called ‘hum and head arrangements.’ I mean we would listen to the melody and the harmony of the piano and each man picked out his own harmony notes.”<br />
<br />
“As we hit the introduction and Mamie started singing,” Bradford continued, “it gave me a lifetime thrill to hear Johnny Dunn’s cornet moaning those dreaming blues and Dope Andrews making some down-home slides on his trombone, while Ernest Elliott was echoing some clarinet jive along with Leroy Parker sawing his fiddle in the groove. Man, it was too much for me.” Her voice drenched with emotion, Mamie began with a theme that would echo through countless blues songs to come:<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEismVTpoid8B0I7mim4z27a2x2aTLD8LQdetnbhqk4x1CS2nOtCjL_sBv9EVSImtdKvjLs5C88qZPfY8pZFCRrHLn1kRdEf-YOLPSBDigndLRfKWK59RlTqME6-BJhhInfiiDHaEFvuJfk/s1600/Crazy+Blues.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480133886199368066" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEismVTpoid8B0I7mim4z27a2x2aTLD8LQdetnbhqk4x1CS2nOtCjL_sBv9EVSImtdKvjLs5C88qZPfY8pZFCRrHLn1kRdEf-YOLPSBDigndLRfKWK59RlTqME6-BJhhInfiiDHaEFvuJfk/s200/Crazy+Blues.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 188px;" /></a><br />
<em>“I can’t sleep at night,<br />
I can’t eat a bite,<br />
’Cause the man I love,<br />
He don’t treat me right”</em><br />
<br />
Her performance built to a heartbreak climax:<br />
<br />
<em>“I went to the railroad<br />
To lay my head on the track”</em><br />
The musicians gave it everything they had, and Mamie sang in grand vaudeville style. After about twelve test takes, they finally produced a final take. “Tears of gladness came into my eyes after the first play-back and the feeling that grabbed me just wouldn’t go all during our eight-hour session – from 9:30 until 5:30,” Bradford wrote. “It was like a pleasant dream that came from heaven, because mental telepathy must have directed the band. We were playing just as we felt, with these home-made ‘hum and head’ arrangements, for I forgotten about leading the band and kept on playing the piano, as I’ve never played before – or any time since.” After recording the 78’s flip side, “It’s Right Here for You (If You Don’t Get It – ’Taint No Fault of Mine),” everyone called it a day. The musicians headed over to Mamie’s apartment, where her mother cooked a celebratory meal of black-eyed peas and rice.<br />
<br />
And thus Mamie Smith earned her place in history as the first African American to record a blues song.<br />
<br />
But is “Crazy Blues” a true blues? My best answer is that parts of it are and parts of it <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibLt4awKD92h-5VJajQGZKXEFL1o8EY6sBl1w-0k5mpJlDuw9g2kY5Gvftb0UA09Sld8hKNnXuTw14db2wGBbdNDZe3v4L9QsIWOidhptJDeD2cxVTIE0bjEJRwadkYZ9kaMNHed1CT-U/s1600/Crazy+Blues+sheet+music.jpg"></a>aren’t. The song’s ingenious structure mixes three verses of 12-bar blues with three verses of 16-bar professional songwriting that uses a harmonic idiom similar to what might appe<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN97SEbtuPajM8NAyinHH_S04ETfWeRulucsElSGFYshnnzzk-sUdndIt9gORXl5M-eIOv52YVC9o1HYII-lTT35Aoq5hnPrSDJhJFdlbZ0eHKc82MepHu24tdwVCbahs_f4wAMyB8XVk/s1600/Crazy+Blues+sheet+music.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480142252799456130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN97SEbtuPajM8NAyinHH_S04ETfWeRulucsElSGFYshnnzzk-sUdndIt9gORXl5M-eIOv52YVC9o1HYII-lTT35Aoq5hnPrSDJhJFdlbZ0eHKc82MepHu24tdwVCbahs_f4wAMyB8XVk/s320/Crazy+Blues+sheet+music.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 269px;" /></a>ar in a Scott Joplin rag or World War I pop song. The recording is in the key of E, and verses four and five are straight 12-bar blues. Verse two is a slightly modified 12-bar blues, going to the dominant in its second bar. Verses one, three, and six are 16-bar structures with trickier chord progressions and some chromaticisms, such as the descending bass line in the ninth through eleventh bars of verse one. Verses three and six feature secondary dominants that sound relatively “sophisticated” next to simpler blues verses two, four, and five. Listen to it here and judge for yourself: <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/MamieSmithHerJazzHounds">www.archive.org/details/MamieSmithHerJazzHounds</a>.<br />
<br />
Issued as OKeh 4169, “Crazy Blues” was credited to “Mamie Smith and Her Jazz Hounds” and described as a “Popular Blue Song.” Sales of the 78 skyrocketed beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. In Harlem alone, 75,000 copies were reportedly sold in less than a month. “Pullman porters bought them by the dozens at a dollar per copy,” remembered Bradford, “and sold them in rural districts for two dollars.”<br />
<br />
Mamie and her band were back in the studio on September 12, 1920, for a follow-up 78, “Fare Thee Honey<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTmAhx_XCnOwYCr-rFMQoqqMxAoGoUwegsUvHYQFt4OsQxu9Py6RY5oNlDpJdWhW8VV83eeRpfsP2hNQOUgl21Rz1J_dloKJdVkSZves_3q1Stqa-ezYBdndpCqD0BrpWpuExdcB7boiw/s1600/An+Enormous+Demand+ad+8-15-22.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480131352637506674" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTmAhx_XCnOwYCr-rFMQoqqMxAoGoUwegsUvHYQFt4OsQxu9Py6RY5oNlDpJdWhW8VV83eeRpfsP2hNQOUgl21Rz1J_dloKJdVkSZves_3q1Stqa-ezYBdndpCqD0BrpWpuExdcB7boiw/s200/An+Enormous+Demand+ad+8-15-22.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 136px;" /></a> Blues” backed with “The Road is Rocky (But I Am Gonna Find My Way).” In his autobiography, Bradford writes that this was his final recording date for the OKeh label: “On this last session Mr. Everhart, a big dealer from Norfolk, Virginia, was in the studio and booked Mamie Smith and the Jazz Hounds for a one-night performance at a salary of $2,000. Then he, Mamie and the Hounds, sold over ten thousand records, because he had ten helpers handing out the records (at one dollar per copy) so fast during that half-hour intermission under Billy Sunday’s big Gospel Tent that it looked like Barnum & Bailey giving away silver dollars.” Mamie and her band – sans Bradford – soon cut two more 78s, “Mem’ries of You Mammy” b/w “If You Don’t Want Me Blues” and “Don’t Care Blues” b/w “Lovin’ Sam from Alabam.”<br />
<br />
With all this Mamie Smith mania, New York City suddenly became the blues recording capital of the world. Singers and orchestra leaders, publishers, talent scouts, record execs – a<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9RPLPn0Y7nLbGOMmlDerleYL_NDS4caZQzQPtZnfDFnG26w5s-gqyaoraataR-1juAJ_brhUmmXdYw1wQZt4d6riPEMeZmbmZANwAIotX6q-XS8UAFrb5jcKyS74shp8F_tY8avYO9-g/s1600/Connorized+Music+Rolls,+12-20.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480130969512866594" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9RPLPn0Y7nLbGOMmlDerleYL_NDS4caZQzQPtZnfDFnG26w5s-gqyaoraataR-1juAJ_brhUmmXdYw1wQZt4d6riPEMeZmbmZANwAIotX6q-XS8UAFrb5jcKyS74shp8F_tY8avYO9-g/s200/Connorized+Music+Rolls,+12-20.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 154px;" /></a>ll were ready to cash in. “Everybody tried to sing the blues,” explained Thomas A. Dorsey, “because the blues was paying off.” Variety noted that Mamie Smith’s records had “caught on with the Caucasians” and that “Perry Bradford and the Clarence Williams Music Co. are among the representative Negro music men cleaning up from mechanical royalties with the sheet music angle negligible and almost incidental. . . . Colored singing and playing artists are riding to fame and fortune with the current popular demand for ‘blues’ disk recordings and because of the recognized fact that only a Negro can do justice to the native indigo ditties such artists are in demand.” By December 1920, Mamie Smith music rolls were being advertised; for people with player pianos, these rolls were the equivalent of modern karaoke backing tracks. <br />
<div><div><br />
</div><div></div><div><br />
</div><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480142592941224658" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv-a3Fu7_aNfEWk-YrrCGCPvIEx88jwxGlzG8irK9-D1H7S9Mn2MHh3VeLb6epPhsvHTlZlohb88Q3ViXKtiRG9cNEMjDR7TJwJ2RYHzKYOfdNoEJzQw_EKO4yawN0zyJ56T2qbg4b5bY/s400/Jazz+Hounds+1922.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 222px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /><br />
<div></div>The singer became an immediate concert draw. Mamie Smith and Her Jazz Hounds initially earned $400 to $500 net per weeklong appearance, but her fees would soon rise. Bradford recalled that Porter<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgismQ9N2wnUfEz2_L_ZaiSX9o_pkQbaNAPSerohAd4NiKL6kl8VG_4jDAuFVPK0O_Qbrxo9qG-BpCbj3uLDV-hmH3-_M3_AGtvH61QYn20YcQrZL0RK5TCUqnxzu5T9GbyXpagC-mpBH4/s1600/Putnam+Theater,+11-29-20.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480131805421782946" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgismQ9N2wnUfEz2_L_ZaiSX9o_pkQbaNAPSerohAd4NiKL6kl8VG_4jDAuFVPK0O_Qbrxo9qG-BpCbj3uLDV-hmH3-_M3_AGtvH61QYn20YcQrZL0RK5TCUqnxzu5T9GbyXpagC-mpBH4/s200/Putnam+Theater,+11-29-20.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 178px;" /></a> Grainger always played piano at Mamie’s appearances.<br />
On November 29, 1920, the Putnam Theatre in Brooklyn ran a newspaper ad for Mamie Smith and Her Jazz Hounds, proclaiming her an “Attraction Extraordinary.” Smaller print declared that Mamie “just finished a record breaking engagement at the Lafayette Theatre, N.Y., and the Dunbar Theatre, Philadelphia, Pa. Do not fail to hear this sensational singer, who has been made famous by her new phonograph records.” Onstage, Mamie tried to duplicate her records, explaining to the Washington Post on December 19, 1920: “Thousand of people who come to hear me . . . expect much, and I do not intend that they shall be disappointed. They have heard my phonograph records and they want me to sing these songs that same as I do in my studio in New York. Another thing I believe my audiences want to see me becomingly gowned, and I have spared no expense or pains . . . for I feel that the best is none too good for the public that pays to hear a singer.”<br />
<br />
Lucille Hegamin was the first Mamie Smith competitor ushered into a studio, cutting an unissued Victor test of “Dallas Blues” on October 11, 1920, with Fletcher Henderson on piano. In November, backed by Harris’ Blues and Jazz Seven, she cut her first hit, “The Jazz Me Blues,<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhofcO2SQOYOfELBob5Og7pPQlmUiCHLPOhXeS8ZIgWRsxgp8N_f4UnUiNC-4fwQ5_VoyYSOZev3kHmKjSq80H8khAiD1L5EVG5-p1gX1Xofs8JdZFaeTWIrCdtnxfs_QOGwze5hWjzDeI/s1600/Lafayette,+1-1-23.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480130612671831922" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhofcO2SQOYOfELBob5Og7pPQlmUiCHLPOhXeS8ZIgWRsxgp8N_f4UnUiNC-4fwQ5_VoyYSOZev3kHmKjSq80H8khAiD1L5EVG5-p1gX1Xofs8JdZFaeTWIrCdtnxfs_QOGwze5hWjzDeI/s200/Lafayette,+1-1-23.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 152px;" /></a>” which eventually came out on more than a dozen labels. By 1921, blues recording sessions were going full-swing. Mary Stafford, advertised as the “First Colored Girl to Sing for Columbia,” launched her recording career in early January 1921. In February, Lucille Hegamin had a hit with “Arkansas Blues.” In March, Cardinal Records recorded Ethel “Sweet Mama Stringbean” Waters’ first record, and Emerson Phonograph proclaimed Lillyn Brown “not only a favorite with her own people, but with white audiences as well.” In April, Gertrude Saunders became Mamie Smith’s labelmate at OKeh. Stage star Edith Wilson began recording for Columbia in September. Lavinia Turner cut for Perfect and Pathe Actuelle, Esther Bigeau made 78s for OKeh, and Lulu Whidby, Alberta Hunter, and Katie Crippen records came out on Black Swan.<br />
<br />
Among the first wave of classic blueswomen who recorded in 1921, only Alberta Hunter, Ethel Waters, and Edith Wilson would have enduring success. Mary Stafford cut a half-dozen 78s by the year’s end and made a single side for Perfect in ’26 before vanishing from the scene. Lavinia Turner’s days in front of the horn were over by October ’22, with six 78s to her credit. Lillyn Brown cut only two; Lulu Whidby made variations of only one. Gertrude Saunders had a career total of three 78s. Katie Crippen’s four titles with Fletcher Henderson’s Novelty Orchestra <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK7R45QPbbGWaZZskuUjro9ExfsAx1fSScAhJ7p8CCyEfKaLmK4t8REvYEg3kl3ZYUTNFAijxzKHLI24j6qxreFdj_jCRfdTLUMe31wyZV7pDhLunx4hu5BwBxZeWzYxzbiL9Q1mjB7nE/s1600/Mamie+Smith+side+shot.png"></a>helped her land a vaudeville tour, but she was soon working outside of musi<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoWKhvlyYt2-heJLn8FRLHY-NWps6Tpx7QAb6AhABMr3AnpuUrAGroZbLWeEAEYWBDF2N-iMwewHNh1xaIFRI2zUDIw0475vusr_yFhJvghRrgT__QywY77akOgso06lqfVkQTb1XJeC0/s1600/Mamie+Smith+side+shot.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480143246661676866" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoWKhvlyYt2-heJLn8FRLHY-NWps6Tpx7QAb6AhABMr3AnpuUrAGroZbLWeEAEYWBDF2N-iMwewHNh1xaIFRI2zUDIw0475vusr_yFhJvghRrgT__QywY77akOgso06lqfVkQTb1XJeC0/s320/Mamie+Smith+side+shot.png" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 253px;" /></a>c.<br />
<br />
In truth, no one could touch Mamie Smith in 1921. The February 15, 1921, issue of the trade journal The Talking Machine World conveyed some of the national fervor for the singer in an article titled “Has Designs on the Preacher”: “The advertising department of the General Phonograph Corp., New York, received recently an interesting letter from a Mamie Smith enthusiast in North Carolina. Evidently this admirer of the Mamie Smith records has studied jazz music more carefully than the English language, but the letter itself is an indication of the popularity that Mamie Smith OKeh records have attained in all sections of the country. In fact, this letter is only one of many of similar tenor that the General Phonograph Corp. has received during the past few months. It reads:<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGJ-IjJa1SvQZjBXNiZCvhNuvWhKpgpekHzhbkKjvFFY8xqhfDznAp5O3x1GUdXLrzOhX2NYKZl7QgfhOOO1_Zo6KUirIuQgPkshRfuIOT5RmMKdVl3BxnLH_xckipIDyytCRDReuCCpI/s1600/Mamie+Smith+engraving.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480129714466563186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGJ-IjJa1SvQZjBXNiZCvhNuvWhKpgpekHzhbkKjvFFY8xqhfDznAp5O3x1GUdXLrzOhX2NYKZl7QgfhOOO1_Zo6KUirIuQgPkshRfuIOT5RmMKdVl3BxnLH_xckipIDyytCRDReuCCpI/s200/Mamie+Smith+engraving.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 124px;" /></a><br />
“‘I rite you to please send me one of your latest catalog of latest popular songs and musical comedy hits popular dacing numbers I got the Crazy Blues all ready and if you have any other latest Blues sung by Mamie Smith and her jazz hounds send along 2 or 3 C.O.D. with the catalog. I want something that will almost make a preacher come down out of the pulpit and go to dancing and hang his head and cry I want all you send to be Blues.’<br />
<br />
“The Mamie Smith OKeh library is being steadily augmented by new records made by this popular artist, and the phenomenal success of these records is reflected in the enthusiastic reports of OKeh jobbers and dealers throughout the country who state that the demand for Mamie Smith recordings has far exceeded all expectations.”<br />
<br />
Mamie Smith cut twenty-two songs in 1921, including “Jazzbo Ball,” “‘U’ Need Some Loving Blues,” “Mamma Whip! Mamma Spank! (If Her Daddy Don’t Come Home),” and the jazzy “A Little Kind Treatment (Is Exactly What I Need)” (<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/JosephSamuelsJazzBandVmamieSmith-ALittleKindTreatment1921">http://www.archive.org/details/JosephSamuelsJazzBandVmamieSmith-ALittleKindTreatment1921</a><a href="http://www.archive.org/details/JosephSamuelsJazzBandVmamieSmith-ALittleKindTreatment1921">atment1921</a> ). Between sessions, she kept a grueling schedule of concert appearances. The March 15, 1921, issue of The Talking Machine World covere<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWydZZZjsmGdyv5Us5pQy-n92wbtGCwDo2y0K6rM55uztp5KTYz4K1rN7II_mxFS_nIgsTO7x-QXy6MLNL16eqZlFd6VEE5-8OPJH6I24Ln1E0coavKwYDUILnAcGyYy4NUo-gG0OfZZU/s1600/The+Records+Most+In+Demand,+4-15-21.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480141395837422274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWydZZZjsmGdyv5Us5pQy-n92wbtGCwDo2y0K6rM55uztp5KTYz4K1rN7II_mxFS_nIgsTO7x-QXy6MLNL16eqZlFd6VEE5-8OPJH6I24Ln1E0coavKwYDUILnAcGyYy4NUo-gG0OfZZU/s320/The+Records+Most+In+Demand,+4-15-21.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 220px;" /></a>d her appearances in Chicago: “Mamie Smith and her jazz hounds came, saw, and conquered in Chicago during the month of February. She played to large audiences on the South Side at the Avenue Theatre with immense success. The Chicago Defender, a newspaper circulating among the colored people of the city, carried large advertisement featuring the OKeh stock, ‘Hear this world-famous phonograph star,’ read the advertisement, ‘sing ‘Crazy Blues’ and all h<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAWLgB8h9LVJZ3bFjdRKEKAQWcNlAgSXtoDcECYaIqev8HUmHFCqEzx3mxPpGatesXrK0pokqvlNOKNiKSXD-4lvExv_bE2raFTWcZ1AnpPYZhNQVfoNcXS5-8TjITGn7zoUf_qGPVSvA/s1600/The+Records+Most+In+Demand,+4-15-21.jpg"></a>er latest hits, and then hear her popular OKeh records, the greatest blues records of the century. Mamie Smith records have enjoyed tremendous sale in all parts of the country.’”<br />
<br />
A month later, in a full-page ad in The Talking Machine World, OKeh Records reported that “Mamie Smith, assisted by her All Star Revue, a large company of well trained artists, is giving concerts in all the large cities throughout the country. Due to her popularity, capacity-filled houses are guaranteed. And the enthusiasm created, in turn, has in every instance stimulated the sale of her records. She has recently filled engagements in Chicago, Indianapolis, Evansville, Lexington, Memphis, Little Rock, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Waco, Beaumont, New Orleans, St. Louis, Chattanooga, Atlanta, Savannah, Richmond, Norfolk, Wilmington, Philadelphia, and numerous other cities.”<br />
<br />
Meanwhile back in New York City, Perry Bradford was beset with problems. Not long after the Pace-Handy Co. publ<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja8oFAxnzR2YeqmSzqdoeLwpGN82vme3hwjIaVg_dJD6ZfYjwTWhvvlnCsXfbayTDFkELrl_xT5whVIyvWmVnHFbL4apLq4XXv26Q-oWJXcN-DjXKqxYvV8oJzXnOjpa_SXNr4AtdLup8/s1600/Perry+Bradford.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480128801755580434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja8oFAxnzR2YeqmSzqdoeLwpGN82vme3hwjIaVg_dJD6ZfYjwTWhvvlnCsXfbayTDFkELrl_xT5whVIyvWmVnHFbL4apLq4XXv26Q-oWJXcN-DjXKqxYvV8oJzXnOjpa_SXNr4AtdLup8/s200/Perry+Bradford.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 164px;" /></a>ished “Crazy Blues,” he was sued for having previously sold the same song to Frederick V. Bowers, Inc., under the title “The Broken Hearted Blues,” and to the Q.R.S. company as “Wicked Blues.” Bradford settled out of court. He had legal problems with Mamie Smith as well. His book recounts that in May 1921 Mamie’s “new boyfriend,” Ocie Wilson, gave Bradford a “mouth-full of his large fists” when he showed up at their door with a process server. Bradford sued them for assault and battery, and lost in court. “From then on,” he wrote, “I didn’t bother Mamie anymore.” Covering another copyright case, The New York Clipper reported in January 1923 that Bradford had instigated others to perjure themselves on his behalf, and that the songwriter had served four months in the Essex County Penitentiary.<br />
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Mamie Smith continued to fare much better than her former partner. An ad for “Sax-<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMbrPyxcnQVwJBlmSkXEbVa7tuoeBdATYN399xEw1lWYM3WeE7Z0CXFrNwwUl1LOLA-cgoGw4R6JeqvTax_lQUacQAZCi-EVrAIkKRT6pSanbnL8IwQh-aHqBQxdslAsEaean3ixiZqL8/s1600/Sax-o-Phony+ad,+10-15-21.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480140801679080738" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMbrPyxcnQVwJBlmSkXEbVa7tuoeBdATYN399xEw1lWYM3WeE7Z0CXFrNwwUl1LOLA-cgoGw4R6JeqvTax_lQUacQAZCi-EVrAIkKRT6pSanbnL8IwQh-aHqBQxdslAsEaean3ixiZqL8/s320/Sax-o-Phony+ad,+10-15-21.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 226px;" /></a>o<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCdhMNS2nPEJ2aLxAMconcFuzfwgYfkAI4KxGuHAEwhLKS2QjQwpJBeHZ4274GdX0WzTAeZkGExIBIrU8_bw1L44lQAc0IdrjEc6OzwIL0XvX2vVY0QcDOPAQztmcgwCnZcnLsgqVvhbk/s1600/Sax-o-Phony+ad,+10-15-21.jpg"></a>-Phony Blues” in the October 15, 1921, issue of The Talking Machine World stated that “September 24th marked the opening date of Mamie Smith’s concert tour for the coming season. Her personal appearances in all the large towns will be a tremendous boom to her records. Her first engagement will be in the New England territory. She will tour as far South as Florida. Sax-O-Phoney Blues looks like the feature hit in her song review. This means big business for every OKeh jobber who has sufficient stock on hand to meet ready requests. Mamie Smith is working Sax-O-Phoney Blues hard.”<br />
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In Mamie Smith’s prime, her stage appearances netted her up to $1,500 a week. Bedecked in diamonds, plumes, and a shimmering gown, she could get a standing ovation just by strutting across the stage. Bubber Miley, Coleman Hawkins, and many other promising young players passed through her band. She released nine more vaudeville-style blues and pop 78s in 1922, including “Wabash Blues,” “Mamie Smith Blues,” and “Mean Daddy Blues,” featuring Coleman Hawkins on tenor sax. By 1923, though, her record sales were being eclipsed by those of other singers, notably Bessie Smith, Alberta Hunter, Clara Smith, Ida Cox, and, by year’s end, the South’s favorite blues singer, the great Ma Rainey. After recording four 78s in July and August 1923, Mamie Smith was dropped from the OKeh label. She made three 78s for the small Ajax label in 1924, and two more for Victor in 1926. Mamie <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3FxogVqnp9Zaf82yLOmz37hW-zqPtIWPFgtfQ3MkOz324HexFuZHtnR8pIckwJ0hIXl5F4PFfF4j-SDyddExUiSrHhx1U8zW239fviF83J88FFawQ8SGy6ARQ0c-225SXfGOiyvFUEsQ/s1600/Mamie+Smith+full+length.jpg"></a>Smith’s glory days were over. All totaled, she earned an estimated career royalty of $100,000.<br />
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For a while, Mamie continued to be a draw in theaters. Thomas C. Fleming, a writer for the Sun-Reporter, San Francisco’s African-American <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGJVV5_WgIkUtfgI_we-mrfqhvZKkOWp0Z0mZ6AVKbIF5MrLSNgUKOEKFXKuKVAsZxBFGbR6PmEV7btJtDx4OD_tanvzYIzco4LciiIQtHVtAb0Tug3IQ2NOvwvebP13Ur5AyFSwXVSts/s1600/Mamie+Smith+full+length.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480140393131297186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGJVV5_WgIkUtfgI_we-mrfqhvZKkOWp0Z0mZ6AVKbIF5MrLSNgUKOEKFXKuKVAsZxBFGbR6PmEV7btJtDx4OD_tanvzYIzco4LciiIQtHVtAb0Tug3IQ2NOvwvebP13Ur5AyFSwXVSts/s320/Mamie+Smith+full+length.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 320px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 148px;" /></a>weekly, described seeing her onstage for <a href="http://www.sfmuseum.org/">http://www.sfmuseum.org/</a> : “In 1924, a musical revue that starred Mamie Smith, the great blues singer, had a long run in San Francisco. After closing, it toured some cities in the Sacramento Valley, including Chico, where it appeared at the Majestic for two nights. I attended both nights, fascinated with a show of that size playing in the hick towns. Chico had a tiny black population, so most of the audience was white. The cast, which was all black, included Smith, an orchestra of about eight pieces – saxophone, clarinet, piano, drums, trumpet, trombone, banjo -- a chorus line of maybe six girls, all good-looking, and a number of comedians. One I recall with pleasure was Frisco Nick, who staged a hilarious dance while he sang ‘Three O’Clock in the Morning,’ a great waltz hit, with a broom as his partner. Except for Smith, the entire cast was from the San Francisco Bay Area. Mamie Smith was about on a level with Bessie Smith. She played the black circuit theaters in the Middle West and the East Coast. The black circuit didn’t exist on the West Coast, because they didn’t have separate theaters for blacks and whites, although in some places, such as Portland, Oregon, blacks coul<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfzyfCYdN2PTaEHnkFwvzqhdZad3IYmlymGwIv0hek2roEKeoGqBC_UHyzH6XD8xXAQ5TS2-DFIG2csX80-9woHWYBkS0xdGuH85TnMW9gjgHn8Y8fNAQxW-bkiO6F0CVsI6S-N20CFyY/s1600/Lincoln,+1-15-28.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480127406299502034" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfzyfCYdN2PTaEHnkFwvzqhdZad3IYmlymGwIv0hek2roEKeoGqBC_UHyzH6XD8xXAQ5TS2-DFIG2csX80-9woHWYBkS0xdGuH85TnMW9gjgHn8Y8fNAQxW-bkiO6F0CVsI6S-N20CFyY/s200/Lincoln,+1-15-28.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 134px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>d sit only in the balcony.”<br />
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Mamie was still drawing crowds four years later, when in January 1928 the Lincoln Theatre in Harlem ran an ad for “Harlem’s Own Record Star, Mamie Smith and Her Gang,” with the subtitle “You’ve Seen the Rest, Now See the Best. ’Nuf Sed.” That September, Mamie opened at the Lafayette Theatre in the musical comedy Sugar Cane.<br />
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In March 1929 OKeh Records recalled Miss Smith to the studio. She was in grand form belting out pistol-ho<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTLtZ4dsB6ALSbenIO3tFsc_fvuW3vmo7_xTz2PH7eO_opK0YfSkzGzKXZolOt2RqERYLYwgpqwsg-Af14Qeb4ax36TzUjsuTSSE-0zdNC3YW6lIDErlqfm4DVHcvi9F1sWRcl5qfwBmA/s1600/Alhambra,+5-30-29.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480126737537839954" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTLtZ4dsB6ALSbenIO3tFsc_fvuW3vmo7_xTz2PH7eO_opK0YfSkzGzKXZolOt2RqERYLYwgpqwsg-Af14Qeb4ax36TzUjsuTSSE-0zdNC3YW6lIDErlqfm4DVHcvi9F1sWRcl5qfwBmA/s320/Alhambra,+5-30-29.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 320px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 134px;" /></a>t, risqué blues, but OKeh shelved all five recordings. In its March 23, 1929, issue, the Chicago Defender carried a two-line note reporting “Mamie Smith will soon make her debut in talking pictures in The Blues Singer.” No film of this title was released, but later that year Columbia released Jail House Blues, a silent film short with accompanying musical discs. Oddly dressed in a huge Tam-o-shanter, plaid skirt, and tight sweater with a feather boa collar, Mamie can be seen singing “Jail House Blues” on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb4tyPjxHdE">www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb4tyPjxHdE</a> .<br />
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Mamie Smith’s recording career ended a decade after it began with four OKeh tracks in February 1931. All of these were songs were released, with “Jenny’s Ball” becoming the most popular. Miss Smith reportedly retired from music after their release. I’ve been unable to find any account of her goings-on during the 1930s.<br />
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Eight years later, Mamie Smith attempted a comeback – in films. She sang an expressive, slowed-down version of “Harlem Blues” with Lucky Millinder and His Orchestra in the 1939 black gangster musical Paradise in Harlem (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AN3pxrRzMM&feature=related">www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AN3pxrRzMM&feature=related</a>). Her co-stars included Edna Mae Harris and the Juanita Hall Singers. The film’s press book called it “The ‘Gone with the Wind’ of Colored Pictures,’” with “The Greatest Colored Cast Ever Assembled in One Picture.” In addition to singing, Mamie had a featured role playing – who else? – Miss Mamie.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBYoKMf5I6nM_lriKS2lG-7nCUI-tojPoOQXTt12jdUH2sBZ-Dqk_OKl_mrTZSAbfMy1o6Ks-U7yqegMcLHOG2_frdpc_VhBW9Q_c-MF7mrCkYtgLJfnnlvgZ5CPGvoTS2jLy7nJlmvh8/s1600/Sunday+Sinners.jpg"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYIL7BB_cLcaW4v76shCqyZEiJ5N7FDVbqVNUbi-QOGHfM8D5-c0YQ-gP1jstcWl7Pf1brQurgyBQ-Pkevw3BDX6w2mjImug0dQTbaAgJxv3KfXgHpaWzzA6qn2DmshvAJhppgjvvbQKM/s1600/Sunday+Sinners.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480139891599805730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYIL7BB_cLcaW4v76shCqyZEiJ5N7FDVbqVNUbi-QOGHfM8D5-c0YQ-gP1jstcWl7Pf1brQurgyBQ-Pkevw3BDX6w2mjImug0dQTbaAgJxv3KfXgHpaWzzA6qn2DmshvAJhppgjvvbQKM/s320/Sunday+Sinners.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 320px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 225px;" /></a><br />
The following year Miss Smith played a small part in the Aetna Film’s all-black Mystery in Swing. She appeared in two films in 1941, both produced for International Roadshows Release by Jack Goldberg, who’d staged road shows for Mamie in the 1920s and was reportedly her husband when these films were made. Sunday Sinners was described in its press book as “A Dramatic Thunderbolt – A Conflict of Riff Raff and Righteousn<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNYWRjo8MPu3CoSFr21-wf3E5JP-5Lk_N0ZDVYC-PAWMnrtQ79QloOjb4A7-y9uSSUyXtnkn-IcGb584lt_Pi_T9ft40oZURa66JqSB0bNCXz89BfoKzLCVI_qCLg0myH6dQeSByqcdgE/s1600/Murder+on+Lenox+Ave+big.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480125683756386322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNYWRjo8MPu3CoSFr21-wf3E5JP-5Lk_N0ZDVYC-PAWMnrtQ79QloOjb4A7-y9uSSUyXtnkn-IcGb584lt_Pi_T9ft40oZURa66JqSB0bNCXz89BfoKzLCVI_qCLg0myH6dQeSByqcdgE/s200/Murder+on+Lenox+Ave+big.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 136px;" /></a>ess,” and Mamie received top billing over Edna Mae Harris, Alec Lovejoy, Norman Astwood, and “A Brown Skin Chorus of Beauties.” Her other film, Murder on Lenox Avenue, was touted as “A Modern Story of Harlem Life” with “Donald Heywood’s Most Singable and Danceable Score.” Astwood, Lovejoy, and Harris rejoined Miss Smith in the cast. (Murder on Lenox Avenue can be legally downloaded at <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/murder_on_lenox_ave1941">www.archive.org/details/murder_on_lenox_ave1941</a> .) Her final celluloid role was in the 1942 soundie “Because I Love You” with Lucky Millinder. From here, Mamie Smith’s trail disappears.<br />
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</div><div><div>She reportedly died penniless on August 16, 1946, and was buried in an unmarked community grave. Seventeen years later, musicians in Iserlohn, West Germany, organized a hot jazz benefit to buy her a tombstone inscribed “Mamie Smith 1983-1946 First Lady of the Blue<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizSPTQFN0H1SoUGKSQetrafgWjCbmIJj1PRvtq2dwFFOqi09LA059WnTajdWD589O9kju5m1hXd8_BBFk0wjSTmvdw6qNTxBO8ivQ1zWZoOPfMEKkLmApRIvUVnpM4hCfv7tNHhosIyKc/s1600/Celebrity+Club+Gala,+1-27-64.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480139198225849458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizSPTQFN0H1SoUGKSQetrafgWjCbmIJj1PRvtq2dwFFOqi09LA059WnTajdWD589O9kju5m1hXd8_BBFk0wjSTmvdw6qNTxBO8ivQ1zWZoOPfMEKkLmApRIvUVnpM4hCfv7tNHhosIyKc/s320/Celebrity+Club+Gala,+1-27-64.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 213px;" /></a>s.” T<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBTJVrfoftrsViKRvsUjSgpEkj_3dMuQQYjadajRj6rucVXnuy2jQKuhaOEd3U9u3-UwU11zyW6jOE_QfxVp71GNeQqdDfq4ejDR_PRQii6NK6KwrDA3c4CjrAOwL3I3w9Kny7JZcnSmw/s1600/Celebrity+Club+Gala,+1-27-64.jpg"></a>hey shipped the stone to New York, where Victoria Spivey, herself a classic blueswoman, and Len Kunstadt, publisher of Record Research magazine, arranged to have Mamie Smith re-interred in the Frederick Douglass Memorial Park in Richmond, New York. They celebrated the event with January 27, 1964, gala honoring Mamie at New York’s Celebrity Club. Among the attendees were several of Mamie’s peers from the early 1920s, including Lucille Hegamin, Alberta Hunter, Gertrude Saunders, Lillyn Brown, Rosa Henderson, and organizer Victoria Spivey. In 1994, “Crazy Blues” by Mamie Smith and Her Jazz Hounds was honored with the Grammy Hall of Fame Award.<br />
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Thanks to Bill Ferris and the University of Mississippi’s Blues Archive and to Tim Gracyk for their assistance with research and graphics. Tim’s website, www.gracyk.com, is an excellent source for learning the basics of buying and selling 78s. </div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-54698150400389756742010-06-04T09:53:00.035-04:002010-07-24T15:21:29.153-04:00Blues Origins: Spanish Fandango and SebastopolHow did fanciful European parlor music influence the creation of the blues? In a more profound way than most fans realize. What follows is one of the most fascinating and least understood chapters in blues history.<br />
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In times before radio, records, and electric lights, people often played music to amuse themselves after dinner and at social gatherings. “Parlor guitar,” a favorite European musical fare during the late 1700s, caught on in America. Played with bare fingers on small-bodied instruments, parlor guitar became immensely popular, as evidenced by the stacks of musical scores published during the 1800s. Many of these compositions called for the guitar strings to be tuned to an open chord. The most common of these tunings, open C (with the strings tuned C, G, C, G, C, and E, low to high) and open D (D, A, D, F#, A, D), clearly had Europe<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-PjHYkwIDj5HC2wY_S2KHFbTkag7MnN1R76QyfinqWe0hktPsib5f_lExaBQtB4fE5GIn3sU3ibIk3N2mZ0OdWvBeSYuEjMr4M8lQkIKeluUhkwA1CBFQRfh1ybPYFZI5RgkcBbCP4rA/s1600/Henry+Worrall+circa+1850s.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478920346235500098" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-PjHYkwIDj5HC2wY_S2KHFbTkag7MnN1R76QyfinqWe0hktPsib5f_lExaBQtB4fE5GIn3sU3ibIk3N2mZ0OdWvBeSYuEjMr4M8lQkIKeluUhkwA1CBFQRfh1ybPYFZI5RgkcBbCP4rA/s320/Henry+Worrall+circa+1850s.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 237px;" /></a>an origins. The origins of open G, a favorite banjo tuning, are more difficult to trace. Two parlor compositions in particular would play a crucial role in the development of the blues.<br />
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<div align="center"><strong>At right: Henry Worrall with parlor guitar.</strong></div><div><br />
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</div><div align="left">Our journey begins with Henry Worrall. Born in Liverpool, England, in 1825, Worrall moved to the United States in 1835 and eventually settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. For a while he worked as a glasscutter’s apprentice, but his passion was guitar music. A skilled performer and composer, he became a music professor at the Ohio Female College. One of his prize guitar students, Mary Elizabeth Harvey, became his playing partner and wife. In 1856, he completed Worrall’s Guitar School, or The Eclectic Guitar Instructor, which remained in print through the 1880s.<br />
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On June 29, 1860<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLKbDRsDgpqs2Y47OLVHxd8pI4LCMm_sJhsjPAQasZLp_s2L9IQA7NqaE45PJZvzgQt1zg3dHmNzm4uJYVN3-zDYOnga9AyjLKMdcaxfjab1n1wAEgjSKsTNEnzrGCvrmcpwfAqefDBG4/s1600/Spanish+Fandango+1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478920102756466050" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLKbDRsDgpqs2Y47OLVHxd8pI4LCMm_sJhsjPAQasZLp_s2L9IQA7NqaE45PJZvzgQt1zg3dHmNzm4uJYVN3-zDYOnga9AyjLKMdcaxfjab1n1wAEgjSKsTNEnzrGCvrmcpwfAqefDBG4/s200/Spanish+Fandango+1.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 149px;" /></a>, Worrall walked into the Clerk’s Office of the Southern District Court of Ohio and filed copyrights for two instrumental guitar songs. “Worrall’s Original Spanish Fandango” called for the guitar strings to be tuned to an open-G chord (D, G, D, G, B, D, from low to high), with the explanation that the music was to be read as if the guitar were in standard tuning. Some of the song’s flourishes sounded like watered-down versions of earlier nineteenth-century European music. Its little alle vivace finale, for instance, could have worked as a Rossini opera coda. But with its lilting melody and easy chord changes, this song is clearly the direct ancestor of one of the most common blues strains.<br />
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Two words stand out in Worrall’s title. “Fandango,” thought to be of African origin, first appeared in the English language in the 1760s, used to describe a “native ball,” or dance. Then the term was applied to a lively 3/4 time dance that originated among Spanish-speaking people. An April 1796 playbill for New York’s John Street Theatre, for instance, advertised a “Spanish Fandango” between the play and the afterpiece, listing four dancers and five singers who did not appear in the play. Eventually the word was used to describe the music itself. Of far more interest to blues sleuths, though, is the word that precedes “Fandango” in Worrall’s title, “Spanish.” In the decades to come, this word would echo in the vocabularies of seminal bluesmen such as Charlie Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson, and Muddy Waters. More on this in a moment.</div><div align="left"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-R5BYtzKol0vLcKepe9OKcVIKDrr44CNuZN5wQ8hdNsZrW6td3fhftlc4N5UzQ7XfR-yGjPw4Mqjff8HKHwp_TPrXs4VWN92kpmvYFEsDlNlAvR8iJDeL8IyjNk4g9sSnG8TwZYdNH1U/s1600/Spanish+Fandango+2.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478918348520846386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-R5BYtzKol0vLcKepe9OKcVIKDrr44CNuZN5wQ8hdNsZrW6td3fhftlc4N5UzQ7XfR-yGjPw4Mqjff8HKHwp_TPrXs4VWN92kpmvYFEsDlNlAvR8iJDeL8IyjNk4g9sSnG8TwZYdNH1U/s200/Spanish+Fandango+2.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 154px;" /></a></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI3yGv8OjUeWKsm0oKRHQ5rnJbi31l_OIKs4T0VR8h0z-xU3FJFK4COicg1Y3u3ejrBGYUsHSyapMwMZukDavwSFVy9ZMESExlIwv8TbXr7nE7mLPNhqBBz78jWL_PbyHD5_YCVP1Mwrk/s1600/Spanish+Fandango+4.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478919317246560066" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI3yGv8OjUeWKsm0oKRHQ5rnJbi31l_OIKs4T0VR8h0z-xU3FJFK4COicg1Y3u3ejrBGYUsHSyapMwMZukDavwSFVy9ZMESExlIwv8TbXr7nE7mLPNhqBBz78jWL_PbyHD5_YCVP1Mwrk/s200/Spanish+Fandango+4.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 154px;" /></a><br />
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</div><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478965026732204994" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJi3NnufLKaPU61hJ2G1xwI2ITH7zrZ5N_U9JoXGXY4ChKRrBMovlCbjXKCmvkJIKhjLvWu6SptEf_PmzRXkZoIIDWF96PoGLiMZrfMJeLy6pB0epNUnXC11xYEcRVt_-CcsB1bybLQQA/s200/Spanish+Fandango+4.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 200px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 154px;" />Worrall’s other copyright entry that day, “Sebastopol,” was composed several yea<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZuGASlgIpxsTvxcLqBo6hFKK5Hd253OCIdtq6RaaY1e4fLmUzRivILzp_2lw3Mm_c7EjY5Nc-TQzSGIX5mZBqUjdrcK0WiuuZMZbxdwTQIQLNoly3BZCiflTEzqpxrs2SV_35sUINpsE/s1600/Sebastopol+1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478919020107069858" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZuGASlgIpxsTvxcLqBo6hFKK5Hd253OCIdtq6RaaY1e4fLmUzRivILzp_2lw3Mm_c7EjY5Nc-TQzSGIX5mZBqUjdrcK0WiuuZMZbxdwTQIQLNoly3BZCiflTEzqpxrs2SV_35sUINpsE/s200/Sebastopol+1.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 153px;" /></a>rs earlier, when the Crimean War was raging. To commemorate the lengthy siege of the Russian city of Sebastopol (later spelled Sev<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCRdlyU5EAGwk1Qs2_lvgiWeimjj-9kZfYdaAnc_h3SDjpGHRngqXsz9DjbIQYbCkFQFM5fxhXJ-HpDNgj1XYDrE70YCioeSy0M2bUomzIN7jgxmIexFaWtGms5II6XJMYFihMRprniFo/s1600/Muddy+Waters+in+Mississippi,+1941.jpg"></a>astopol), Worrall composed a stately march that imitated a bugle and military marching band. He subtitled his piece a “Descriptive Fantaisie for the Guitar.” This time, the music instructed players to retune their guitar to open D so the song’s elegant treble-string melodies and chiming harmonics fell easily under the fingers. In its 1860 form, “Sebastopol” has little harmonic variation and sounds decidedly un-African, but its main melody and voice-leading approach to chords became staples for blues and folk performers as varied as Libba Cotten, Robert Wilkins, Mississippi John Hurt, and Furry Lewis.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjToaU2kOOzLvzrCwvsGwK-8FTOwVEEeu6qDNjz0K7jWiGja-0f4y4nu26EkFIbBsTnXUSy5YY3aCN-bs7leO6yhldOGDDvJcYARNALWiBsEe9Jz-1dye1YhQTEEduwv7cgOIurRGsKX6Q/s1600/Sebastopol+3.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478964374862104978" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjToaU2kOOzLvzrCwvsGwK-8FTOwVEEeu6qDNjz0K7jWiGja-0f4y4nu26EkFIbBsTnXUSy5YY3aCN-bs7leO6yhldOGDDvJcYARNALWiBsEe9Jz-1dye1YhQTEEduwv7cgOIurRGsKX6Q/s200/Sebastopol+3.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 150px;" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDHrQcJTL1E5_8Q52P8UCWvoOQFxjHspwA14Q4vF94wLf-y30SJp32N-JMI77WUG67B7gQjcYpoqsU1BmFFljdFrKlyHJQW9sAIAB-SSIVbQA1PfEBJ46KI3kbBJ5aArb3tZ-rAI0qFpU/s1600/Sebastopol+2.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478964137649668402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDHrQcJTL1E5_8Q52P8UCWvoOQFxjHspwA14Q4vF94wLf-y30SJp32N-JMI77WUG67B7gQjcYpoqsU1BmFFljdFrKlyHJQW9sAIAB-SSIVbQA1PfEBJ46KI3kbBJ5aArb3tZ-rAI0qFpU/s200/Sebastopol+2.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 148px;" /></a><br />
<br />
<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478966753344990562" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhww93bChRzrybH5zqfFfAQ82NzXfHL4b2oHmAT4abMxby-FGhL4_nEE9cGOToHacNudRNO7t_Pv-xypt98UaWXfd-nFVoFTj_QS1UNUMPly22GptrY48jLN8O86GPDxetvkpfVps0_jPU/s200/Sebastopol+4.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 200px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 153px;" />But how did the songs Worrall copyrighted in 1860 enter the blues and folk wellsprings? The answer probably lies in dusty old guitar cases.<br />
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Credit for this research goes to John Renbourn, esteemed British fingerstyle guitarist and avid student of American parl<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDNNeNx5x8-6UObWxPeeT-pX2bwxp5WXsR2YwpewDYRMSnfv5ksHLfK80Vu7wqtbpDI3esmtDaHzdnCbkO2sz8srd1pccsStCAjb1ThJ4T2mMTtBA6MMWYoRg_U31h1pLQdFETg7SD4Do/s1600/John+Renbourn+c1980s.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478918042641721762" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDNNeNx5x8-6UObWxPeeT-pX2bwxp5WXsR2YwpewDYRMSnfv5ksHLfK80Vu7wqtbpDI3esmtDaHzdnCbkO2sz8srd1pccsStCAjb1ThJ4T2mMTtBA6MMWYoRg_U31h1pLQdFETg7SD4Do/s200/John+Renbourn+c1980s.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 126px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a>or guitar. In 1992, John sent me the copies of “Spanish Fandango” and “Sebastopol” shown in this blog, along with these revelations: “I have many other parlour pieces in open tunings from around the same time. I am in the process of comparing these with early recorded ‘folk’ versions to see how much of the originals have been retained. It looks as if a great deal has been retained, so much so that these old pieces seem to me to have laid the foundation for the emerging blues and fingerpicking guitar styles. ‘Sebastopol’ and ‘Spanish Fandango’ were both outstandingly popular solo pieces and their availability in print continued beyond the turn of the century. It seems clear that these pieces lent their names to the folk terms ‘Spanish,’ for open-G tuning, and ‘Vastopol’ for open D or open E. But the connections are not limited to the tunings, they go on in terms of harmonic content and even specific right-hand patterns.<br />
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“What probably happened was this: When guitars began to be mass produced and widely distributed by mail order in the 1890s, they came complete with little tutor books. The most common ones were by a man called Septimus Winner, who almost invariably included versions of ‘Sebastopol’ and ‘Spanish Fandango.’ These fairly simple pieces then would have been the starting point for thousands of rural players around the turn of the century.<br />
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“Most authorities seem to agree on the various strands of Afro-American music that contributed to the makeup of what we recognize as the blues – the field calls and work songs, etc. – predominantly linear music characterized by what has become known as the ‘blues scale.’ What has never been satisfactorily explained is the origin of the basic harmonic format that distinguishes the blues from these other types.<br />
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“If you can imagine a field hand sitting down after work and trying to fit an arhoolie [field song] across the basic chords of ‘Spanish Fandango,’ then you would be close to the moment of transformation, in my opinion. In early recorded blues – i.e., Charley Patton and his school – the harmonic language (right down to specific chord shapes but with bluesy modification usually of one finger only) is straight from parlour music. The same is true for early blues in open D compared to ‘Sebastopol.’ It’s fascinating stuff and fairly controversial, but it fills in the missing gap between the steel-string guitar coming in to circulation and the highly developed styles that appeared on recordings in the 1920s.” The first American guitars designed for steel strings date to around the turn of the century. In its 1902 catalog, the Gibson company stated that their guitars could be strung with steel or gut strings.<br />
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A prime example of an early recording of “Spanish Fandango” is John Dilleshaw & The String Marvel’s 1929 version (hear it here:<br />
<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/JohnDilleshawTheStringMarvel-spanishFandango">http://www.archive.org/details/JohnDilleshawTheStringMarvel-spanishFandango</a>). <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSrbs-MBCGlS2uIpKnqReZpEB3jRjrpLYOfWJajgiu9CVbV3GZ-t0y5MVKs1jfsDXAds2iINA3_oSNKY5wLhQLmgdewzcZxHhlA1E9AmD3eSWQg4bSaLPZ8YTZRjPepeaEwHeJOXXM5Ag/s1600/John+Dilleshaw.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478917643601694946" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSrbs-MBCGlS2uIpKnqReZpEB3jRjrpLYOfWJajgiu9CVbV3GZ-t0y5MVKs1jfsDXAds2iINA3_oSNKY5wLhQLmgdewzcZxHhlA1E9AmD3eSWQg4bSaLPZ8YTZRjPepeaEwHeJOXXM5Ag/s200/John+Dilleshaw.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 150px;" /></a>Dilleshaw, a 6’7” giant of a man, had learned the song while growing up in north Georgia’s rural hill country. On the recording, one guitarist fingerpicks leads in open G while the other flatpicks basic accompaniment. The musicians have changed Worrall’s sedate 6/8 to a more swinging 2/4 and added alternating bass and bluesy bends, but the final chorus’ droning bass recalls the feel of older parlor guitar pieces. Another early version was released by Bo Carter, the main guitarist with the Mississippi Sheiks and an influence on many Delta guitarists. Carter based his song “Country Fool” on “Spanish Fandango” chord progression, but altered the open-G tuning by keeping his highest string tuned to E. This allowed him to pick distinctive treble patterns while retaining a deep, powerful bass. A recently recorded banjo version, played and explained by Patrick Costello, can be heard here: <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/TheDailyFrail2310">http://www.archive.org/details/TheDailyFrail2310</a>.<br />
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For Stefan Grossman, who’s devoted his career to playing and promoting prewar country blues, the existence of Worrall’s parlor music challenges long-held notions of blues development: “That boom-chick, boom-chick bass of parlor music appeared in tons of sheet music from the 1850s straight up until the turn of the century. It was being taught by white middle-class guitar teachers to white middle-class women. How did that switch over into the black field? Nobody’s sure. But it does take away from that mystique that we want to put into black music, that it’s completely from black origins. Black church music was obviously greatly influenced by the white music, but it was sped up. Child ballads from England showed up in the repertoires of Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lead Belly. There was probably more interweaving of the cultures’ music than we realize. Nevertheless, the blacks played it much better. When you think about the fingerpickers in the 1920s, you’ve got Frank Hutchinson and Sam McGee in the white camp, and that’s it. Among the blacks, you’ve an endless barrage of great fingerpickers.”<br />
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Many early blues and country musicians employed these tunings and almost invariably used the words “Spanish” and “Vastopol” to describe them. To this day, open D and open G remain the most popular open tunings. “These two tuning are the starting gate for most guitarists,” Ry Cooder explains. “They cover most of the territory. You can do most anything you want. One has the timbre and color, of course, and the other has entirely different vibrant points, tighter strings. The D is the blues. The G is melodic, and it’s all triads. The D suggests the modal world of, say, Blind Willie <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvmFy50GJEjjm8aFb21qCIOffoUY9BwHeRVH_s1TpznhxlKORgSThLzntpzCBLG3F8OGVIqSfmMB3-lF1b60ryKx85IAfBndOspVlhx_QhWrL5YP_HeEEYS-zZyoB03w6nxw0_DmuUsEs/s1600/LeadBelly+playing+slide.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478917379959715250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvmFy50GJEjjm8aFb21qCIOffoUY9BwHeRVH_s1TpznhxlKORgSThLzntpzCBLG3F8OGVIqSfmMB3-lF1b60ryKx85IAfBndOspVlhx_QhWrL5YP_HeEEYS-zZyoB03w6nxw0_DmuUsEs/s200/LeadBelly+playing+slide.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 142px;" /></a>Johnson – it’s his tuning. The melody is on the top strings, so it’s very handy. And the G is almost hillbilly tuning. It’s banjo tuning. If you look at it that way, then obviously it’s a different world. I started in G tuning before I knew D. Probably the best song to start with is Lead Belly’s ‘C.C. Rider’ – the thing he played flat [lap style]. He chose a beautiful chord at the ninth fret to start the song on. It’s perfect. He didn’t move around. He played the chord and used the notes he had in that position. It’s all right there. But, man, to start the song on that chord! It jumped off the record player at me. It’s like looking over the edge of some cliff. And then where do we go now? The tonic. Whoo! I used to get chicken skin listening to that. I used to think, ‘Go where it’s dangerous and say <em>yes!</em>’ as the yogis like to say. And once I figured out how to put the banjo G on the guitar, all of a sudden there were all of John Lee Hooker’s chords, although he doesn’t play slide. There was the whole thing. Wow.”<br />
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Long before John Lee Hooker emerged on record in the late 1940s, other Mississippi-bred bluesmen favored open G, notably Charley Patton, Son House, and Willie Brown, as well as their immediate followers Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. Johnson, for example, used S<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje2mcMmiSGnes_ee1cah-kzJ6fXVUbVWyAHoVhWsN86fQiArS5YaWJcgm-PuctzCLVaBxBauf5O5bq4RxFbWXGgjM6Oo9MubMQZKBOl2MDkuF6itUqhwKizwxWKcYuyaUPmrnGcj66d_Y/s1600/Muddy+Waters+in+Mississippi,+1941.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478917109572979954" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje2mcMmiSGnes_ee1cah-kzJ6fXVUbVWyAHoVhWsN86fQiArS5YaWJcgm-PuctzCLVaBxBauf5O5bq4RxFbWXGgjM6Oo9MubMQZKBOl2MDkuF6itUqhwKizwxWKcYuyaUPmrnGcj66d_Y/s200/Muddy+Waters+in+Mississippi,+1941.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 119px;" /></a>panish on his 1936 recordings of “Walkin’ Blues” and “Cross Road Blues.” Five years later, Muddy Waters played slide in open G on his very first record, “Country Blues,” recorded in a country shack by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress. Interviewed on record immediately after he’d completed the take, Waters calmly described how the song had “come from the cotton field and the boy what put the record out – Robert Johnson. He put out ‘Walkin’ Blues.’ But I knowed the tune ’fore I heard it on the record. I learned it from Son House.” Muddy added that he picked up his bottleneck style from Son House, and described the three tunings he played in as the “natural,” “straight E” (a variation of Vastopol) and “Spanish.” (In the photo at right, Muddy is seen in Clarksdale circa 1942, clutching a comp pressing of his first 78.)<br />
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In the 1950s, another Delta-bred, Chicago-based blues guitarist, Elmore James, used an open-D-tuned electric guitar to kick-start “Dust My Broom” with what is surely the most imitated slide riff in all of blues. During the 1960s, “rediscovered” or newly discovered old-time artists including Mississippi John Hurt, Sam McGee, Mance Lipscomb, and Elizabeth Cotten recorded acoustic versions of Worrall’s tunes. Soon Jesse Ed Davis, Johnny Winter, Duane Allman, and others were carrying open G and open D into mainstream rock and roll, and these tunings still thrive today. And whether they know it or not, anyone who uses the<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6YjEx13Hy6-fzCfwiDc46f03JCIf-U7j2iLKP44DsFFlPsCNea18u2JYfJjJSE03ShQgt43_Y0VctgP1QPBIDp71QSlGNfoToeAOuQC9Fl7TDzWqVC8QsVC1gfe4OH_MGWJYt5E67zhE/s1600/Henry+Worrall,+1890.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478916785288634338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6YjEx13Hy6-fzCfwiDc46f03JCIf-U7j2iLKP44DsFFlPsCNea18u2JYfJjJSE03ShQgt43_Y0VctgP1QPBIDp71QSlGNfoToeAOuQC9Fl7TDzWqVC8QsVC1gfe4OH_MGWJYt5E67zhE/s200/Henry+Worrall,+1890.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 160px;" /></a>m owes at least a passing nod of appreciation to Henry Worrall.<br />
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But whatever happened to old Mr. Worrall? I am delighted to report that he led an amazing life. In 1869 he moved to Topeka, Kansas, for his health. For decades he gave guitar concerts and lectures and played organ in church. He became a celebrated painter and illustrator, his artwork appearing in important books on Western history and the nationally popular periodicals Harper’s Weekly and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. His famous oil painting “Drouthy Kansas” convinced people around the country that the great Kansas drought of 1860 was indeed a thing of the past. Worrall carved wood – including the Kansas State Seal – and invente<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikgQCZsvmYi1-BBwWyzjrZ0EHtisk4fy3yqo-_50qQPL9y6r1epUm1pYZbvfZAfG7fFEVAJN0Wh5-QKDlmSbRYbPi73JrjKVTHKLmsaH-TlGT4AqPtCIxc4GnxNoUpp8xFiTYoKwRQgQE/s1600/Worrall+painting+-+Drouthy+1878.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478916556877708242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikgQCZsvmYi1-BBwWyzjrZ0EHtisk4fy3yqo-_50qQPL9y6r1epUm1pYZbvfZAfG7fFEVAJN0Wh5-QKDlmSbRYbPi73JrjKVTHKLmsaH-TlGT4AqPtCIxc4GnxNoUpp8xFiTYoKwRQgQE/s200/Worrall+painting+-+Drouthy+1878.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 125px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>d several wind and hay instruments. He cultivated grapes and kept a large vineyard. He was well known for his pranks, and into old age he enjoyed accompanying male pupils as they serenaded girls in local colleges. This delightful man passed away in 1902. Today, the Kansas State Historical Society makes an impressive collection of original Henry Worrall materials available to researchers. Are you listening, Ken Burns?<br />
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Thanks to John Renbourn, Stefan Grossman, and Ry Cooder for sharing their insights.<br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue;"><em>Help support this blog and independent music journalism by making a small donation via the Paypal button at the bottom of this page.</em></span></strong>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-81127397534577878442010-05-28T15:14:00.031-04:002010-07-24T15:22:29.182-04:00The Rolling Stones: Charlie Watts Interview<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476419533427819122" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy_ptKLrax8j5JJlVSH_PmHhrSDtm0CBsfXumjAWfG9Etvje0iQ6zzT4QLyDLkkXlxfgcEAEK-xHfMIIPPZfRYWgY-e-QSzqKzFpmXpKohyphenhyphen9rKdgwp0hPZWuE7hsLDlltn8HAHh8HOFBg/s320/Opener.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 280px;" />With Keith Richards’ nod, I was hired to put together a one-shot magazine, Inside the Voodoo Lounge, to be sold at venues and newsstands during the Rolling Stones’ 1994-1995 World Tour. The first part of my assignment was to fly to Toronto, where the Stones had taken over a boys' prep school for their rehearsals, and interview each member of the band. I was thrilled to be talking to Charlie Watts, a favorite drummer ever since "Satisfaction" and “Get Off Of My Cloud” hit the airwaves.<br />
<br />
My first glimpse of Charlie was in a van shuttling crew members and musicians from the Four Seasons Hotel to the rehearsal. On the way over, he amused us with an anecdote about a tall Stetson hat his wife had just dissuaded him from buying. When we pulled up, Watts got out first, turned, and offered a helping hand to each of the passengers. As I disembarked, he politely introduced himself. Our interview began shortly afterward in the school’s large cafeteria. Forewarned that Charlie’s modesty makes him a tough interview, I thought it best to begin by asking about musical heroes.<br />
<br />
(As with all of my blogs, this new and complete transcription was made from the original tapes. The interview took place on July 14, 1994.)<br />
<br />
****<br />
<br />
<em>If you could somehow visit any musical period or see any artists, where would you go first?</em><br />
<br />
Good Lord! God, there’s loads of them, isn’t there? I’d like to have gone to the Savoy Ballroom – Chick Webb, I think. I’d <em>loved</em> to have seen Ellington at Cotton Club and have dressed up for the occasion. I’d love to have seen Charlie Parker at the Royal Roost or something like that. Louis Armstrong, probably at the Roseland Ballroom in Chicago.<br />
<br />
<em>Which era?</em><br />
<br />
1930, with a big band behind him. I like Armstrong with a big band. I mean, I like the Hot Seven and all those, but I like him with a big band.<br />
<br />
<em>Were you a fan of Jo Jones?</em> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgArJLwJyOfW0yBGTdmNxihllN55WbgDlZrFYWsDM480khUO2t829tJVz1q05OB9s-BsT_u7sqNwfs1KpjrjiRwsJ2bgN5sPotgBOBasyqqL04C0Ca-6PQnS8tD-UNlzaDXcTEP0A5EZeE/s1600/papajojones.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476414813805270738" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgArJLwJyOfW0yBGTdmNxihllN55WbgDlZrFYWsDM480khUO2t829tJVz1q05OB9s-BsT_u7sqNwfs1KpjrjiRwsJ2bgN5sPotgBOBasyqqL04C0Ca-6PQnS8tD-UNlzaDXcTEP0A5EZeE/s200/papajojones.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 148px;" /></a><br />
<br />
Yes. I just bought a record of Jo Jones, “Shoe Shine Boy,” Jo Jones Special. Yes, I saw him play quite a few times – Papa Jo Jones, you mean, the Count Basie Jo Jones.<br />
<br />
<em>Have you looked up any of the historic jazz drummers, such as Roy Haynes?</em><br />
I know Roy Haynes. I know Micky Roker. I mean, I’ve met them. I think Roy Haynes is a wonderful player. One of my favorite drummers is Davie Tough – nobody knows anything about him, really. He’s one of the Austin High School Gang, out of Chicago in the ’30s. Played with all the big bands, and he played with the famous first Herd, Woody Herman’s. He’s the drummer on “Caldonia” and “Northwest Passage” and all that. He’s a legend. Every band leader wanted him in the ’30s. Skinny guy. And another guy I’d love to have seen play – this is drummers we’re talking about – was Big Sid Catlett, who was around for the same era. They were the two drummers that were famous – Big Sid and Davie Tough. Davie Tough was a skinny white man, really skinny, and was a really loud player, apparently, from what I’ve gathered asking people like Mel Lewis about him. And Big Sid was a huge black man, but very light. So they were totally contrary in their stature to the way they played, which is very strange. Ahmet Ertegun is the only one I actually asked a lot about this. Ahmet is very interesting, and his brother was.<br />
<br />
<em>What can a young drummer today gain from listening to these players you’ve just mentioned?</em><br />
<br />
That there’s nothing really new. Georgie Wettling is one of the great Chicago drummers, a great, great, great Chicago drummer. In fact, Georgie Wettling is better documented than lots of people. He used to play with Eddie Condon. He’s a fantastic drummer, and he is so subtle – it’s like Freddy Below is a great subtle drummer, really, although he’s feet-first and it’s noisy. But it’s actually very subtle, the pick-ups he does. I mean, the thing with blues bands, like records, is you never quite know who’s on ’em, really. It’s all up to whether [Chess engineer] Ron Malo wrote the name down directly on the day. If you go further back you don’t know who’s on ’em. So if Freddy Below is the player on “Smokestack Lightnin’” by Howlin’ Wolf, that’s really clever drumming. That isn’t just straight-ahead. He plays lovely things with his feet.<br />
<br />
<em>What did you think of Odie Payne, the other house drummer at Chess Records?</em><br />
<br />
I don’t know who that is. You’d have to play a record for me to know him. Below, I know of and have seen. But there are a lot of guys unheard of, really, who play wonderfully. I mean, I personally like band drummers. All the drummers that I’ve mentioned or I admire – all the records I have of Roy Haynes, for example – are all rhythm records. You know, the Coltrane thing, A Different Drummer, and he did some wonderful records with Roland Kirk – Out of the Afternoon and all those. It’s not the drum solos I like, it’s the rhythm section drumming. Max Roach is another one like that, who’s a phenomenal player.<br />
<br />
<em>Who was your favorite drummer with Miles Davis?</em><br />
<br />
Miles? Don’t know a favorite. He had a way of putting bands together so you never heard of them.<br />
<br />
My favorite drummer, I suppose, on record would be Philly Jo Jones, and to see play live, Tony Williams – by a long way. And Tony’s more important, really, because he turned drumming around. Nobody played like Tony Williams did when he was 18. When I first sa<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdTxpPv4ZKbYOMw7Z0ushbqEkI6o7xpEDyFsORXZyQug-46ultsrC40MMfjLqt8Iq4dh5AJyoVn0CrmR99NjoEBfr7zqv5z2QkSPavK-TfTiylodsXAjfm2RqfBU9KzlQe_mPPMmFRDo8/s1600/Four+and+More.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476422124573240642" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdTxpPv4ZKbYOMw7Z0ushbqEkI6o7xpEDyFsORXZyQug-46ultsrC40MMfjLqt8Iq4dh5AJyoVn0CrmR99NjoEBfr7zqv5z2QkSPavK-TfTiylodsXAjfm2RqfBU9KzlQe_mPPMmFRDo8/s200/Four+and+More.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>w him he was 18. Nobody played like that. You didn’t drop time. Philly Jo would ride, you know, and it would be straight through. Tony would drop. Have you got the [Miles Davis] album Four and More? That’s a classic example of Tony Williams’ way of playing the drums. The way I play and the way most guys played until he arrived would be to play straight through – you know, one, two, one, two, one, two. Foot, foot. Left foot, right foot, left foot, you know. But Tony would go tt-tt, tt-tt, tt-tt, tt-tt with his left foot, and nobody ever did that sort of thing. They didn’t play time like that. He would drop time, he would halve it. And him and Run Carter invented this way of playing. Important. You know a guy called Scott LaFaro, the bass player? Him and Paul Motian used to do it with Bill Evans. They’d play a time inside the time, and nothing would be keeping time, except one note on the bass would be the anchor.<br />
<br />
<em>During the ARMS Concert, it was telling to see Kenney Jones' gigantic drum setup alongside yours, which is a case-study in simplicity.</em><br />
That’s how I’ve always played. I have a hard enough job playing them; I don’t really want to play more.<br />
<br />
<em>Have you always admired the elegance in simplicity?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. I mean, Micky Roker is a beautiful-looking drummer. He just is wonderful. Philly Joe is. Elvin’s like that. When Elvin Jones gets going, it rolls. It’s like thunder and everything, but to watch him, it just rolls ’round. The arms go. When I was young, my favorite drummer was a guy called Joe Morello. And Joe Morello was all taste and elegance in his playing – superb ears and technique. You know, it’s very hard to play with just a piano. Piano, bass, and drums is one of the hardest things for a drummer to play, to support, because of all the textures you have to use. <br />
<div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqPVQr60cOgp9ePOD_r5TTj79iocmL-hnC2Na7wgROFqcfJ8oFGbx4tmxXXmYawUdr_-pSajI1CcjGnUIT6v0eISDbxDepnk9wjZuDcSyAbyOOzNvVKKBCPjEPbDszFj53MGMXZ8AMyQA/s1600/watts.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476415103444373026" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqPVQr60cOgp9ePOD_r5TTj79iocmL-hnC2Na7wgROFqcfJ8oFGbx4tmxXXmYawUdr_-pSajI1CcjGnUIT6v0eISDbxDepnk9wjZuDcSyAbyOOzNvVKKBCPjEPbDszFj53MGMXZ8AMyQA/s200/watts.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 196px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a><em>Do you play styles your fans might be unaware of? </em><br />
<br />
I’m not aware of it.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you play every day when you’re not working?</em><br />
No. I used to practice every day. I don’t anymore.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you collect historic drums?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. But, see, I collect anything, not only drums. I do. I collect anything. And there’s lovely old drums. I collect snare – most drummers collect snare drums. I have quite a lot of them, and they go back to 1926.<br />
<br />
<em>Have you used an old set on record?</em><br />
<br />
No. I’ve got an old 1926 drum kit, you know, that contracts, with things on the top. I’ve got one of those. I don’t really like those. I like the ’40s type.<br />
<br />
<em>What’s your all-time favorite setup?</em><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjTbbqXuc32z8_r0M1E6W50P4V4dJ7CVtuS6H3xkuQLzdLbSxdE3NPlkrO7BRamQkq_7D7ryvTWhnptgBmsitGNCrojeG5U3uCeK1Plzs5PwqfGzK2WAqtQy2XwNj_wla8KZgcrMnAKcw/s1600/Gretsch.png"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWOv74c3A2YygpM-1qgkwhv9nceG7j5MMkZhAXgxVTqKCOlH_XoNyoeYjqxyHk4EGlVWcmnKzU_3pwKT-FKZTuM_4Btf_X0DH70yQDueSABC9OEEEL54V90XnlEanovWDkIEpb9gqWFWo/s1600/Gretsch.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476414360369689442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWOv74c3A2YygpM-1qgkwhv9nceG7j5MMkZhAXgxVTqKCOlH_XoNyoeYjqxyHk4EGlVWcmnKzU_3pwKT-FKZTuM_4Btf_X0DH70yQDueSABC9OEEEL54V90XnlEanovWDkIEpb9gqWFWo/s200/Gretsch.png" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 142px;" /></a><br />
The make is Gretsh. The one I’ve got behind the curtain downstairs is also very good. It’s a 1960 black Gretsch, a Tony Williams one, 18" bass drum. I bought it about a year ago, and I’ve been playing it here. I’ve been messing about with it myself, with the band. But the one I’ve got now is about my favorite. I’ve used it on my jazz record things that I do, the Stones stuff. A guy from S.I.R. [Studio] brought it along to Ronnie Wood’s when we were making – Ronnie will tell you what album it was, I’ve forgotten – in Los Angeles. And I fell in love with it. It’s a ’58, I think, Gretsch. So I have a few. For snares drums, I’ve got mixtures of Leedys and all that, but most of my kits are Gretsch. I have a green-glitter and gold-plated Gretsch kit from about 1958. I had that done because I saw Mel Lewis with Stan Kenton when I was a kid. Some guy offered me a green glitter – they’re fantastic – and so I had it gold-plated. Lovely thing, but don’t think I’ll ever use it, but it’s a lovely looking thing.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5N3p8jGerOdgZoL2oY187BGjusvAmJkIp2xfifmx7tJ9JiSIONhbtE-FujzfBNQpdj1z1HhBEpu7KV04XuWuLNEiXY5ISD5Zb4OsSKTpGvdv7A_P0PicXEyJiV60HW2tavA5vltcajEY/s1600/Voodoo+Lounge.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476411211601104770" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5N3p8jGerOdgZoL2oY187BGjusvAmJkIp2xfifmx7tJ9JiSIONhbtE-FujzfBNQpdj1z1HhBEpu7KV04XuWuLNEiXY5ISD5Zb4OsSKTpGvdv7A_P0PicXEyJiV60HW2tavA5vltcajEY/s200/Voodoo+Lounge.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a><em>Keith mentioned that you took a more active role in the making of Voodoo Lounge than on past projects.</em><br />
Where did he say that?<br />
<br />
<em>In the pink section of the San Francisco Chronicle.</em><br />
<br />
Oh. I don’t know.<br />
<br />
<em>He mentioned you’d recorded in a stairwell and were more involved with the mix.</em><br />
<br />
Oh, yeah. Well, I don’t know. I wasn’t that involved with the mixing. I was probably just talking to Don Was or Don Smith.<br />
<br />
<em>What’s the monster drum sound on “Thru and Thru”?</em><br />
<br />
That is the stairwell. I think it’s on four or five songs on the album. “You Got Me Rocking.” [Glances at the Voodoo Lounge CD booklet.] Oh, and I play a trash can in the stairwell on “Moon Is Up.” It’s a four-flight stairwell, and I started off at the top, which is “Moon Is Up,” and I landed up at the bottom playing “You Got Me Rocking” and “Thru and Thru.”<br />
<br />
<em>Literally?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. The studio’s at the top. It’s like going down, then? So it’s open all the way down. So we started off out by the door there, and then Don Smith said, “Would you go to the bottom and try it?" It was a bit small down there, but it was all right. The problem is you can’t hear anything down there except drums – such tremendous sound.<br />
<br />
<em>What are your observations on playing with Darryl Jones?</em><br />
Very easy. And I don’t mean that comfortably easy; I mean, he’s very comfortable to play with. He’s a rhythm section player. Well, the role he plays with us, he’s doing that. I don’t know how he would play if he were in a different type of band. Someone as talented as Darryl could play anything. That’s what being a professional musician is about – one side of it is being able to do these things. With us, he’s very quick to pick things up, very much a rhythm section within a rhythm section. He doesn’t play on top of the rhythm; he’s underneath it, which is what we need, really. Foundation. You can’t have someone playing over the top, because there’s no room then. There is nothing at the bottom and no room for anybody else. So I actually find him very comfortable to play with. He’s a very nice man as well, which is half of it. When we did the auditions, I’d never auditioned people before, for anything – I haven’t. We auditioned them, and there were lots of guys, you know. We landed with three or four, and really it was a question . . . You know, there is a certain caliber of musician that could do the job. It’s then a question of, do you think – and then you hope – that you can get on with this guy. For the next two years, you’ve got to be together. And he seems very nice. Well, he is very nice.<br />
<br />
<em>Bill Wyman has said that the difference between the Rolling Stones and other rock bands is that the Stones follow the rhythm guitarist, who is Keith Richards.</em><br />
Yeah. Yeah, I always do. I don’t need to hear the rest of the band if Keith is there. I mean, now it’s different because you have PAs that are so good, but at one time that’s all I could ever hear. I used to have the amplifier right next to me. I still do, but it was essential at one time, when you didn’t have any monitors or they were really not very good.<br />
<br />
<em>Keith’s sometimes been accused of turning the beat around.</em><br />
<br />
That’s because we all . . . I mean, the thing with me and Keith is that we just have a go at things, and sometimes they work. I mean, analyzing it all after is another thing, and that’s for somebody else to do. We just enjoy playing, and I just follow what he’s doing. </div><br />
<div><em>What do you have to do to get ready to tour?</em><br />
There’s no way you can practice doing this. You have to get your hands used to going, but you never really reach that until you’ve done two or three shows. You’re just trying to condition yourself so that your arms don’t ache. It’s not really the aching, it’s actually the cramp that you get. [Rubs edge of hand]<br />
<br />
<em>In your hand?</em><br />
<br />
Anywhere, anywhere. Your body, you know. You’re not doing anything, and all of a sudden you’re doing this for two hours, constantly, very hard. And it causes certain reactions. So I, personally, spend at least six weeks practicing. Most of the time it’s physically getting conditioned so that you get through a two-hour show. You know, sometimes we rehearse eight, ten hours a day – for that reason. I do – I don’t know how the others look at it, got no idea. The problems aren’t the same with a guitar player. Drumming is a very physical thing. Well, I stretch, but see, I do that anyway. I really don’t do anything special, except practice when we are rehearsing. I never practice with drums at home when I’m not doing anything.<br />
<br />
<em>If you had a child . . .</em><br />
I do!<br />
<br />
<em>Who wanted to become a professional rock drummer, would you suggest . . . </em><br />
<br />
No. I would say be a drummer, not a rock drummer. What the fuck’s a rock drummer? I mean, I don’t know what a rock drummer is.<br />
<br />
<em>Bonham, for one.</em><br />
Well, that’s John Bonham playing with Led Zeppelin. Is that rock and roll?<br />
<br />
<em>It’s part of it, sure.</em><br />
What would I say to him? I wouldn’t say anything.<br />
<br />
<em>Would you suggest a course of study, people he or she should hear?</em><br />
Yeah. I would say learn to read music and listen to other people other than John Bonham. Now you’ve got totally the wrong impression about what I just said – I can see it in your face. [Leans forward and speaks carefully.] John Bonham is the <em>best</em> at being John Bonham and doing what he does. Or did – unfortunately, he’s dead. He was the best. There wasn’t anyone better than John like that, and thank goodness we’ve got some records so that you can hear it. But there are a lot of other people. </div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJZ5YLG6xiZbjyaEKTdvLhZlF9ixMLHDKtcKL3v1wibzeEUQKRIby9CoNk4PriJAwNiVNEPhznj_1epB2vl9Lp3nmYr12i0T3iAtEh8r4YaAoZ66B_VAWs6QKbBMRY0p1OXebqIsYVPZA/s1600/Ginger-Baker-Press-Photo.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476413192624945922" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJZ5YLG6xiZbjyaEKTdvLhZlF9ixMLHDKtcKL3v1wibzeEUQKRIby9CoNk4PriJAwNiVNEPhznj_1epB2vl9Lp3nmYr12i0T3iAtEh8r4YaAoZ66B_VAWs6QKbBMRY0p1OXebqIsYVPZA/s200/Ginger-Baker-Press-Photo.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 143px;" /></a>Ginger Baker was a much better drummer than John Bonham, if you really want to know about drumming. Ginger Baker is the best drummer to emigrate out of England. Really, Ginger is. And the guy who Ginger idolized – whatever the word was – we all did – was a guy called Phil Seaman. And Ginger learned everything off Phil. But Ginger can read, you know. Ginger’s not a foal. He can read music, he has wonderful chops, he has rudiments down. Having said all that, I don’t. So I would say to anyone – not only my offspring, but anyone – that’s what you should do, really. Otherwise, you’re locked into doing what I do. Which is fine. It worked for me.<br />
<br />
The most important thing of all of it is to be you. There’s a load of people who play brilliant drums, but there’s only one Billy Higgins. There is only one Elvin Jones. There’s only one . . . And the reason there’s only one of them is their personality. Elvin is a huge black dynamo, you know. Naturally when you listen to him go, that’s what he sounds like. And it doesn’t have to be fast. It is this machine going. It’s not a machine that’s clicking regular; it’s what Miles used to call “between the beats.” It’s African. It’s what he is, man. Ginger is the same. Ginger is this skinny, huge white man who plays monstrous. But Ginger played like that when he was 20. I used to see him play.<br />
<br />
<em>Before Cream.</em><br />
<br />
Yeah! God, he took over for me with a band in England, Alexis [Korner’s Blues Incorporated], but I used to know him before that – 1960. I first heard Ginger playin’ in 59, I think. And he was bloody good then. Don’t mean good – I mean bloody good. Him and Jack Bruce used to play in one of the best – well, the most exciting, if it wasn’t the best – jazz groups in London. And you don’t get in those bands by being half good. They were very good. ’Cause there’s a lot of guys who are very good.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you hear Ginger on the Masters of Reality record?</em><br />
<br />
No. I kind of lost track of Ginger’s recording career because he disappeared to Italy at one time. I wanted him to play in an orchestra I had, but I could never track him down.<br />
I speak to Jack Bruce quite a bit.<br />
<br />
<em>Are you a fan of African drummers?</em><br />
Yeah! Any drummer should be a fan of African drummers. It’s like saying, “Do you like Brazilian music?"<br />
<br />
<em>Could you recommend records for the uninitiated? </em><br />
<br />
Not really. They’re unpronounceable, lots of the names, and I just know the record, you know. Mustapha Tettey is one. There’s loads of them. I don’t really know, but nearly everyone in Africa can play something like that. When you get into the realm of good and very good, they are so incredible. It’s like in Brazil. Those guys play a tambourine like nobody else. If you stand next to a Brazilian at Carnival playing a tambourine, it’s like Count Basle going. It is! It’s incredible. I’ve seen them, and there’ll be twenty of ’em doing it and it’s amazing sound. They walk like that, you know. Africans walk different than what I do, and that’s how they play.</div><div><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh-Wy5P2x4S464KPOfOt6U7GVM15hnU2D404coDJ6l4hHciN7x6g827n0kT7QDyiuyUk7mIORxMy-XNt90lME9bneC94_QE5aM7j41Hqfjmb4xXPw1IgSDQcWIZY8yl6jZPou4bBYspLY/s1600/Tumbling+Dice.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476413798856071346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh-Wy5P2x4S464KPOfOt6U7GVM15hnU2D404coDJ6l4hHciN7x6g827n0kT7QDyiuyUk7mIORxMy-XNt90lME9bneC94_QE5aM7j41Hqfjmb4xXPw1IgSDQcWIZY8yl6jZPou4bBYspLY/s200/Tumbling+Dice.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 156px;" /></a><em>Imagine what New Orleans’ Congo Square ring dances must have been like a hundred years ago, with a hundred people pounding out rhythm.</em><br />
That’s the second line. Yeah! Entertainment was like that then. In Brazil they start rehearsing for the Carnival nine months before the Carnival. They all submit songs and play them – each little society – and they’re fantastic. It’s like a huge great band of musicians just playing all these songs that everybody else has submit, and you have to choose the winner. And that winner goes on and on and on, and they rehearse it all with the dancers, and they land up at the Carnival, trying to win the Carnival. They do it in Trinidad as well.<br />
<br />
<em>When you were young, did you share Mick and Keith’s enthusiasm for blues music?</em><br />
<br />
No. I learned the blues through a man called Cyril Davies, and Alexis Korner. From them two I met Mick and Keith. Brian [Jones] first, then Mick and Keith. I used to play in this band with Jack Bruce, and Keith a<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWDnixy3w1NbG43CVDwnrw-VyHiDqZoq4KMPwEoe4bEE_VSc2Kl978yOUhofFyIqS-XHc9KBMSq0_GTkuIbG5u4ojouDzqGqtSRU7pyS2eC7Y5M7WDbdk6ZSDlJZzF2us85MI-miIBYgs/s1600/rs+gif.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476419624911549986" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWDnixy3w1NbG43CVDwnrw-VyHiDqZoq4KMPwEoe4bEE_VSc2Kl978yOUhofFyIqS-XHc9KBMSq0_GTkuIbG5u4ojouDzqGqtSRU7pyS2eC7Y5M7WDbdk6ZSDlJZzF2us85MI-miIBYgs/s200/rs+gif.gif" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 198px;" /></a>nd Mick used to sit in sometimes. Brian would come down. I used to play with a lot of other bands as well. When I joined the Rolling Stones I used to sit around, and Keith and Brian taught me Jimmy Reed. Well, they used to play it all the time; we used to do a lot of those numbers. So I learned it through them. They also taught me to enjoy Elvis Presley, through D.J. Fontana, who I think is a wonderful player. But before that, I never used to listen to him. There was only one record I ever liked of Elvis’ before. The blues, to me, before that was “Now’s the Time” by Charlie Parker – that was the blues for me – or “West End Blues” by Louis Armstrong. That was the blues. If you’re talking about sort of rural blues, Chicago blues, no, I didn’t know any of them, really. Cyril was the first one to play me Muddy Waters.<br />
<br />
<em>You went on to record with Howlin’ Wolf.</em><br />
The London Sessions. We’d met before that. We’d done Shindig with him. He was good then.<br />
<br />
<em>Keith remembered Wolf as being gentle.</em><br />
Oh, yeah. He was great. But the guy with him was a guy called Hubert Sumlin, and Hubert is a dream of a guy – wonderful guy. I had a great time. I did a whole album with him. Well, Ringo did one thing, and I did the rest of the album, me and Bill. Eric’s on there. </div><div><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBJsoIYBBSyB1bc0WHRksvirIQ7qchjalLI873-ovJYcaiUAEdhxbtCiYGu0xdEqjpeUMAKU8G2Ggnr7ztnYoiSS-8ief2ORECZ2OaY0Cu9G9Yeid1rn3ZK2L5NE3byCAIw9gf0fivBQo/s1600/howlin+wolf+session.bmp"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476408499165522226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBJsoIYBBSyB1bc0WHRksvirIQ7qchjalLI873-ovJYcaiUAEdhxbtCiYGu0xdEqjpeUMAKU8G2Ggnr7ztnYoiSS-8ief2ORECZ2OaY0Cu9G9Yeid1rn3ZK2L5NE3byCAIw9gf0fivBQo/s200/howlin+wolf+session.bmp" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 196px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a> <em>That’s where Howlin’ Wolf is teaching Clapton to play “Little Red Rooster” on slide?</em><br />
Yeah, yeah. He was great. The only drawback was the silly ass of a producer. He was a stupid college kid.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you have many encounters with Muddy?</em><br />
Yeah.<br />
<br />
<em>Keith has mentioned that the first time you went into Chess Records, Muddy was painting the ceiling?</em><br />
<br />
I don’t remember that. We played with him a few times. He was lovely. For me, one of the greats. If you asked me to choose one of my favorite blues records, it would be the one that’s either called “Louisiana Blues” or “Louisiana Calling.” “I’m going down to Louisiana and get me a mojo hand.” It’s that slow one with the slide. He was a real country player. And the great album he did – the only time, I think, that a cover of an old blues record was done better than the original – was Hard Again with Johnny Winter. I think his version of “Mannish Boy” is better than the original. Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
<em>With Willie “Big Eyes” Smith on drums.</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, he was great, he was great.<br />
<br />
<em>Given your broad taste for jazz, has being in the Rolling Stones ever seemed restricting?</em><br />
No.<br />
<br />
<em>Or frustrating?</em><br />
<br />
No. Rock and roll is restricting. It’s on the whole time. There’s no budging. If you budge, it’s wrong. It doesn’t work. But jazz breathes, you know – or improvised music breathes. It’s got an elasticity to it, which is very, very hard to do well. But it does have this air about it. All of it – even Louis Armstrong does. And there’s different volumes you play. Most rock and roll, especially now, is totally on top, especially now with machines and monitors like they are. Volume the whole time.<br />
<br />
<em>Have you used drum programs?</em><br />
<br />
I’m not sure. Probably. Not properly. Not like Prince would use it.<br />
<br />
<em>I can’t help but feel that the sound of drum machines will probably cause some of today's music to sound dated.</em><br />
Probably. Well, there’s a whole other side to music, which is the emotion of when you hear it – what you’re doing, who you are, whatever. It applies to me. Micky Roker, to me, is seeing him one night, him and my wife, at Ronnie Scott’s. I’d seen him before; I would sit talking to him. But that’s not how I remember him playing, that’s how I remember him. Mel Lewis is the same. I’ve gotten so many records that I think he’s wonderful on, but my memories of Mel are of talking to him the few times I met him and how nice a guy he was.<br />
<br />
<em>Were you ever nervous meeting musicians you admire?</em><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPe1bPhAxJiSea0YbsUCfPXnSrBUXoxpigp2FRQfwhbcTMOddfU8LsLkArlkrsBE37bWvCi4vb9h0pI4mA6fHCuCWM2De23lwsqVp_q5hjxquaSNi10AVEG319x7ZRJbwC1cbZYNAaSV8/s1600/tony-williams.jpg"></a><br />
Oh, yeah. I’ll never forget the first time I met Tony Williams. I was frightened<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx_MocD2Yjt_ZW3n7gDZYmQLJVnPz7tniuAt_JIjOe5-zfc9Xm2YLC_RK7AGYM1bgY4c5xPcGG0o-TbSM8oMKbtD89xAKsoMcokgo26-zGKau4uV93vH65PMWuGp6xj5_BLqPah3TGWqg/s1600/tony+williams+cover.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476419219396964802" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx_MocD2Yjt_ZW3n7gDZYmQLJVnPz7tniuAt_JIjOe5-zfc9Xm2YLC_RK7AGYM1bgY4c5xPcGG0o-TbSM8oMKbtD89xAKsoMcokgo26-zGKau4uV93vH65PMWuGp6xj5_BLqPah3TGWqg/s200/tony+williams+cover.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a> to say hello. He actually came up to me and said hello. It was at the Village Vanguard. I’d been to see him play before with Mick Taylor, and he was with a band called Lifetime, with Larry Young and John McLaughlin. And he left immediately afterward, so I didn’t get to see him then. And I’d seen him with Miles before he’d left to form this band, which was fantastic. And then I saw him at the Vanguard soon afterward with a piano player called Hank Jones – Elvin’s older brother, actually, fantastic piano player. I think Ron Carter was with them. I was standing there, and I thought, “Should I go and say hello? Should I go and say . . .” And he actually came and said hello to me, and I was so <em>thrilled!</em><br />
<br />
But what I’m saying about music is that it can do that to you. So you might say, “Oh, ‘1991’ [Prince’s “1999”] is just gonna disappear into the blue yonder.” But it won’t for a lot of people who remember it from their first date, it might have been the first time they got drunk, it might have been whatever. But to them, it’s more than Prince singing “1991.” By the way, I happen to think Prince is probably the best of all the newer people.<br />
<br />
<em>The Minneapolis Mozart.</em><br />
I think he is. Yeah! In that world. There are people outside that world that are just as good – you know, they’re worried about the relationship of one note against the other, with the harmonic. In other words, for their composition. Yeah, there are. But other than that, in his position, doing what he does with what he does, he’s by far and away the best, I think. Most exciting, Prince is. I like Spin Doctors, actually. I’m sure they’d be great to go and see. I wouldn’t want to see a [drums] machine going. But I don’t think Prince does that live, does he? I mean, he has a band. I’m sure he’s a good player, as well. When you’re that good, you don’t start nowhere. You can’t be half of these guys unless you’re grounded and, on top of that, have very good natural ability.<br />
<br />
<em>Have you heard Virgin’s reissues of the older Rolling Stones records?</em><br />
<br />
No. Oh, no. I never play our records. I hear them when Keith plays them. I haven’t played this one [points to Voodoo Lounge]. I’m sure they sound good. They’re probably a lot cleaner, I suppose. Are they remixed?<br />
<br />
<em>Yeah.</em><br />
<br />
God, takin’ a chance. I don’t know if I’d know if it was . . . I’ll tell you what, a couple of times downstairs Keith said to put up a song, and it sounded remarkably good to what I thought it was gonna sound like. And they’re off the new CDs, because we have them all downstairs for reference, you know. If you call a song, it’ll be back there. It probably is. You’re right. I must have another listen, actually.<br />
<br />
<em>As far as your playing goes, have you got favorites among the tracks you’ve recorded with the Stones?</em><br />
<br />
Not really.</div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgIDsFuPz0f7IeonY2EmocIjWoGJ6M7ozqljvAoFQo1ZkJsSUo9vDDMGIaywqHwAwPMixJEyVMAdB_HZcYK4LcZrFSDvW0X9jdjatQgJlf8KRfge4Ii3JJc8t3HPLXw42PNw_ofabeCQ8/s1600/charlie-watts-profile.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476416715228453586" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgIDsFuPz0f7IeonY2EmocIjWoGJ6M7ozqljvAoFQo1ZkJsSUo9vDDMGIaywqHwAwPMixJEyVMAdB_HZcYK4LcZrFSDvW0X9jdjatQgJlf8KRfge4Ii3JJc8t3HPLXw42PNw_ofabeCQ8/s200/charlie-watts-profile.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 134px;" /></a><em>Are you self-critical?</em><br />
Yeah. I don’t really like much of what I’ve done.<br />
<br />
<em>What is your biggest musical limitation?</em><br />
Can’t count, really. I must be one of the few drummers in the world who make a living at it who can’t take what’s called “fours and eights.” I have a quintet of fantastically talented musicians and to them taking choruses is nothing. And I mean going one [taps table], and 32 things later, you go [taps table] like that. But it’s never interested me. The alto player with us, who I think is the best, if not one of the best alto saxophonists alive today, says that the reason is I’ve never done it. It could be true. But I do go blank in the middle of it.<br />
<br />
<em>What keeps you grounded while countless people adulate . . .</em><br />
I don’t listen to them, actually. I’m not that interested in it, and I don’t really listen to them. That is not to say that . . . The best thing about doing this is going on, people applauding you when you come off, and having people say how great they thought it was, whether it’s at the Blue Note or at the Shea or Giant Stadium. That is a fantastic reward. But outside of that, I wouldn’t sit and listen to any of the other stuff.<br />
<br />
<em>Could you have been happy in another profession?</em><br />
Well, I wouldn’t know Mick and Keith, or Ronnie Wood, would I? I was happy in another profession. When I was in a [art] studio, I was perfectly happy there, but I always wanted to be a drummer. I always wanted to play with Charlie Parker. When I was 13 I wanted to do that.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you ever see him?</em><br />
No. He wasn’t allowed to play in England.<br />
<br />
<em>Because of heroin?</em><br />
No [laughs], because of the musicians union – a worse drawback! No Americans were playing there between ’31, something like that, and ’53. The last American officially billed on a tour in England was someone like Fats Waller. Duke Ellington did one before, in 1931, and then it was Fats Wailer. And then the first one to come over officially and play [in 1953] was Big Bill Broonzy. And then Lionel Hampton played a midnight concert. They got around it by slotting the thing at midnight, and he tore the place up. I didn’t go, though – I wasn’t a Lionel Hampton fan at that time, but I wish I had gone. A legendary concert now. In London. At that time Lionel Hampton was absolutely – he still is, actually – fantastic. But he was on top then.<br />
<br />
<em>When the British bands first started coming to America, did you sense a rivalry between you, Keith Moon, and Ringo Starr?</em><br />
That had nothing to do with us. We played in bands. It was whether the band got booked there. I mean, Ringo wouldn’t have come here unless he was with the Beatles. I wouldn’t be here unless I was with the Stones, you know. But you can say, "Well, that’s stupid, because you are that.” But at the time, we never thought of it in that way, I don’t think. I don’t know. Keith’s not here to answer that, and Ringo is not either. I don’t know how Ringo feels. There was a paper rivalry between everybody, but that’s bullshit. I used to see Keith around. He was one of the nicest people – crazy nice, but nice, though. I loved Keith a lot, actually. Very sad. And Ringo I’ve always liked and have always gotten on with. We’ve spoken. I really like Ringo. In fact, of all the Beatles, him and John Lennon are the two that I know. I don’t know the other two. I mean, I’ve met them, I’ve had conversations with both of them, but Ringo the most, obviously, really, because drummers tend to do that anyway. [Suddenly Hank Williams’ “Hey, Good Looking" comes over a nearby stereo.] My song! I love this song.<br />
<br />
<em>This covers it. Thanks a lot.</em><br />
Okay. Do you play?<br />
<br />
<em>Yes. I like country blues on acoustic guitar.</em><br />
<br />
What happened to Leo Kottke?<br />
<br />
<em>He’s still very active. He recently played with Rickie Lee Jones.</em><br />
Did he? Oh, yeah, he was a lovely man, he was. Really nice guy. It was great touring with him.<br />
<br />
<em>By the way, I have to say I was more excited about interviewing you than anyone else in the band.</em><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxV6LKDR6duasVgS3rXe850jpxg97JcTU7Y_qcdEWkMnpoqZse2pHW8VllxD4zK7xfa-foc6qJYRxrsRmT1GKozM5Ao-4v3A3sfSjcUDeb__ArI43UFn3AcTctTMYBShnXEbhKniqFzso/s1600/side+shot+end.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5476409068577679954" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxV6LKDR6duasVgS3rXe850jpxg97JcTU7Y_qcdEWkMnpoqZse2pHW8VllxD4zK7xfa-foc6qJYRxrsRmT1GKozM5Ao-4v3A3sfSjcUDeb__ArI43UFn3AcTctTMYBShnXEbhKniqFzso/s200/side+shot+end.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 133px;" /></a><br />
Why?<br />
<br />
<em>I admire your musicianship and love your playing.</em><br />
Have I broken it all now? Have I shattered it all now?<br />
<br />
<em>No. You were kind to the stranger in the back of the van.</em><br />
Well, you never know. He might be your manager next year! </div><br />
### <br />
<br />
<div><em><strong><span style="color: blue;">Help support this blog and independent music journalism by making a small donation via the Paypal button at the bottom of this page.</span></strong> </em></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-31915580623356653362010-05-24T16:05:00.013-04:002010-07-24T15:23:16.301-04:00Ry Cooder – Talking Country Blues and Gospel<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnuCiSBhtV0Kel_gbwYpCqlt6ui1Z6gP7KwIBAT882WMvYCzAH3gR4Sas9XpxkOf8WZmW_0Sj6G5YXHo6RNRU7jNWwikbwRs-m8lxBFC5vUukbSuNHgWMfsvLhrx4eDot5dK6rLfF-7tM/s1600/Ry+Cooder+opener.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474948289352223362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnuCiSBhtV0Kel_gbwYpCqlt6ui1Z6gP7KwIBAT882WMvYCzAH3gR4Sas9XpxkOf8WZmW_0Sj6G5YXHo6RNRU7jNWwikbwRs-m8lxBFC5vUukbSuNHgWMfsvLhrx4eDot5dK6rLfF-7tM/s320/Ry+Cooder+opener.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 257px;" /></a> Sometimes the most memorable interviews happen unexpectedly. Researching Blind Willie Johnson, the sublime prewar gospel-blues slide guitarist from Texas, I was struck by how magnificently Ry Cooder had used Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night – Cold Was the Ground” in his Paris, Texas soundtrack. I sent Cooder a note asking if he’d give me a quote. A few days later, on February 25, 1990, the phone rang and it was the man himself. After talking about Blind Willie Johnson, Ry suddenly moved on to another Johnson – Robert – and unraveled one of the great myths surrounding the legendary Mississippi Delta bluesman. Read on.<br />
<br />
<br />
****<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjoIAC27ZjFxgeGSmHhwQiYEvwBlWUzgoWnDY-n3_4SEWFst3HgMvdLuTs0ESRuyPFdTT_BrwBXihDXSjxPwsRze76JDuyzLP71fYb2jioBE7yDVr38Av5KzXsH_oh0cT7tbyWtraP2kc/s1600/BlindWillieJohnson.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474945007601380962" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjoIAC27ZjFxgeGSmHhwQiYEvwBlWUzgoWnDY-n3_4SEWFst3HgMvdLuTs0ESRuyPFdTT_BrwBXihDXSjxPwsRze76JDuyzLP71fYb2jioBE7yDVr38Av5KzXsH_oh0cT7tbyWtraP2kc/s200/BlindWillieJohnson.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 162px;" /></a><br />
<em>You come closer to sounding like Blind Willie Johnson than anyone I’ve ever heard.</em><br />
God almighty!<br />
<br />
<em>How do you think he physically played the instrument?</em><br />
Well, I’m playing his music the way I know how to play bottleneck, which is to hold the guitar upright, wear a bottleneck on your finger, and fingerpick the thing, and play in the tuning that I’m certain that he used. But I have no idea how he played what he played. I mean, who knows? It’s so far back into the distant past that anything is possible. I’ve seen this guy, Rev. Leon Pinson – he’s a blind preacher from Mississippi – play holding a bar in his finger and thumb on his left hand, reaching around underneath like you would, and fingering the thing that way. And getting a very similar vibrato to Blind Willie Johnson. He has the quality of never quite coming up to the note and hitting it. In other words, that’s a very inexact technique that I just described, but it does give you the quarter tones and all of the strange nuances. When I’m playing, I’m so used to playing the very note. Look, it’s sad that no one ever thought to take a picture of the guy while he was playing, because he played in two styles. He played normal guitar, just strumming and rhythm, which you can hear him doing with his thumb. I don’t have any idea how he played, and I don’t know what he looked like when he played. You know, two seconds of observation would answer every question you could ever have.<br />
<br />
<em>People who saw him playing on the streets of Beaumont in the 1940s said that he played with the guitar on his lap and used a pocketknife.</em><br />
Played flat?<br />
<br />
<em>Like a Hawaiian guitarist.</em><br />
I can’t imagine how he could have played what he played doing that. There is one thing about when you play that way – the same with this guy Pinson, who’s playing not flat, but holding the thing, rather than wearing it – there’s something that happens when you wear it, and there’s something else that happens when you hold it. Now, Blind Willie Johnson had great dexterity. He could play all of these sparking little melody lines. There’s fabulous syncopation. He’d keep his thumb going real strong. But when I saw this guy Pinson down South last summer – even though he’s nowhere near the guitar player Johnson was – I had an ear to what he was doing that sounded like Johnson. I don’t know, it’s just a different sound, and I can’t quite say why. But I have a feeling when you play bottleneck and you’re wearing the thing, your hand is there on the strings, either damping them or not damping them. It’s more of a controlling sound when you hold the guitar and nothing but the bar or the knife blade, maybe, touches the string. The guitar tends to ring more. It tends to keep the strings released and open, see. And more sound is happening. Because Johnson’s sound is very active.<br />
<br />
I never could figure out how in the world he got such a busy sound playing so little. I used to think, why are all the strings going all the time? Because the recording is so horrible – the quality of the recording is the worst in the world, on one of those horrendous little machines which is eliminating all but the most spikey sound that the guy is producing. You’re not hearing any of the real aural ambient effect at all. I’m sure that in person, this guy sounds a thousand percent different. All the recording is showing us is the lowest-common-denominator type of sound, the most direct thing. The struck notes are all that you’re hearing. But even through that, you can hear that the strings are moving all the time. And I used to think that he’s making a lot of work to move all these strings around. And I know that old, primitive players, street guys and blues players, do nothing to work too hard. It seems like, to me, when I met these guys, the few that I’ve met, they’re very efficient in the style. If it takes too much effort and physical work, then you’re doing something wrong. So when I was young, I didn’t know. I used to go to tremendous efforts to try to do this stuff, only to realize later that I was probably barking up the wrong tree.<br />
<br />
<em>Are you suggesting that he didn’t damp behind the slide?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, I know he didn’t. Now, he could have used his picking hand. Because if you’re playing flat, you can, with the side of your hand in the manner of steel players, stop resonance just by approaching the strings, barely touching them. But you can do a lot that way. But I personally cannot see how . . . Of course, I don’t play flat.<br />
<br />
<em>Another account says he held his guitar normally and used a jackknife for his slide.</em><br />
I don’t know, because I haven’t researched or read – I’m sure you’ve looked into this way further than I have – but I have a feeling that all of the primitive players who were not in Mississippi and who played slide played flat. Lead Belly played flat. Guys from Texas did play flat. Because when the Hawaiians came through in an early World’s Fair [1893’s Columbia Exposition], everybody saw these guys and everybody was influenced. There was tremendous impact. And they all played flat. So most people would have said, “Right<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKQVtDjDnzONO3QNF-oKheljv4Gntk-PTDBlCvjRPanuPVCN0Z5ZyQCQYed2dJz1fSN86oLzvXe8z-lSTR3X_YYJuFxtWoc7vy1mEWd01oPd4zRzrOnoS19yFq-1N4kuPPXH6Dm1_I40A/s1600/blind+willie+johnson+with+tin+cup.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474945229077396802" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKQVtDjDnzONO3QNF-oKheljv4Gntk-PTDBlCvjRPanuPVCN0Z5ZyQCQYed2dJz1fSN86oLzvXe8z-lSTR3X_YYJuFxtWoc7vy1mEWd01oPd4zRzrOnoS19yFq-1N4kuPPXH6Dm1_I40A/s320/blind+willie+johnson+with+tin+cup.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 281px;" /></a>, I play flat.” Now we know Blind Willie played regular, because there’s that one picture of him. And you know that that’s the way that the guitar was used. But then when you go to play the sliding style, why, then you’re playing flat. It’s just natural that everybody would have done what the Hawaiians did. It’s just human nature – except in Mississippi, where for some crazy reason they didn’t. In Mississippi they seemed to play regular, but with bottlenecks and bones and things. Some people held a jackknife between the fingers, as though it were another finger. But outside of Mississippi – and I don’t know about any scholarship or historical investigation that bears this out – but you can hear the difference. And you can hear when people are playing flat. It’s probably true that Blind Willie Johnson played all that stuff flat, and it is quite amazing, but it would account for how he gets around on the strings.<br />
<br />
Of course, I’ve tried all my life -- worked very hard and every day of my life, practically – to play in that style. Not consciously saying, “Today is Tuesday, I will again try to play like Blind Willie Johnson,” but that sound is in my head. And really when you come right down to it, you can sit down and play some of his tunes, and the single-string melody thing that he did, which is so great. He’s so good – I mean, he’s just so good! Beyond a guitar player. I think the guy is one of these interplanetary world musicians, the kind of person they talk about in that Nada Brahma book, where the world is sound and everything is resonating. He’s one of those guys. There’s only a few. Being blind and all, maybe he asked what’s going on, maybe somebody described it to him.<br />
<br />
I wish we had some notion what people thought of these Hawaiians – they must have looked like Martians coming through with their grass skirts and things. And God knows they’re good players. Because they were so good at what they were doing, why, Mexicans picked it up, and the South Americans picked it up. We know that they sold steel guitar from then on, and the stuff was made to be done that way. And along comes a guy like, say, Robert Johnson, whom I <em>hope</em> didn’t play flat!<br />
<br />
<em>Johnny Shines told me recently that he did not.</em><br />
It’s just unthinkable, because there’s too much going on. When you play flat, you can’t do so much. Well, that accounts for some of the simplicity and purity of Blind Willie’s thing, and I cannot do it. I cannot play flat to save my life. I can’t coordinate my body that way. It’s fine with me that he did. When I saw this guy Leon Pinson down in Mississippi, I went home and I found me a metal bar like he had and started trying to do it. It was awkward for me, but after a couple of days I started to see where you could play all this Blind Willie stuff that way. It didn’t occur to me to think, “Therefore he must have played flat.” It’s just what Pinson has gone and done. But if you did, you’d even be closer to that sound. I can see that it’s probably the case.<br />
<br />
<em>Was Pinson’s hand coming around the neck of the guitar the way you normally would?</em><br />
<br />
Yes, because he plays regular too, like they all do. They all make a clear distinction between slide playing and regular playing. They don’t mix them together. Very few people did in those days, or do now. So he says, “I’m now gonna play slide,” and he takes out his bar, tunes the guitar down to a chord – same one as Johnson, same D tuning – and goes on doing this thing, not fretting at all. If you wear the slide, you can fret, but he’s not. He’s just playing the note and very few chords. Now, Blind Willie played hardly any chords. It was years before I realized that my brain was imagining the chords – he wasn’t playing them. He was just playing two or three notes and getting a suggestion of a chord once in a while. He was playing in that modal feel, not wanting to disturb that tonic drone. He didn’t need to. He was doing a different thing. And when you hear this old guy Pinson, you hear him strictly playing quarter notes and not playing the notes straight up and not wanting to create these stacked-up triads and regular harmonic intervals. It’s dissonant all the time. Now, that’s what these old recordings of Blind Willie Johnson don’t show us because you can’t hear anything. You don’t know to what extent this was dissonant or polytonal in that way.<br />
<br />
<em>Didn’t Johnson have a remarkable left-hand vibrato?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, the best! The absolute best. Very light touch – real light and really fast. It’s just a thing that you can’t talk about, almost, because it’s just so perfect. But that vibrato, you can go and do it by wiggling that bar just right. I’m trying to do it these days. I hate doing it – it feels terrible – but I can see that you get a different sound, and that’s the only explanation that I can think of. I’d also like to know what kind of damn guitar he had. He probably used a little guitar. They didn’t have big guitars in those days. Hillbillies did, later in the ’30s when Gibson started making those big jumbos, but back in those days, all those players had smaller instruments.<br />
<br />
<em>What’s your attraction to “Dark Was the Ground – Cold Was the Night”?</em><br />
That’s the most transcendent piece in all American music, the way he used his voice and the guitar. This other tune that I love so much is “God Moves on the Water.” Oh, that thing is like a roller coaster, ma<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOZsgTlFAJMHP6wqVDgR0PhftODs_wbMX85t7gMfmBCDQesfFRJ1hv5mKeKtzYFObt0MVGkrnYu-4qUOYJyHawoW6_LayvN27ZvjtLnwULLo6SQHEB4_QXCb4TXU37yZjfAsbEPYTcj3E/s1600/dark+was+the+night.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474946234518329266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOZsgTlFAJMHP6wqVDgR0PhftODs_wbMX85t7gMfmBCDQesfFRJ1hv5mKeKtzYFObt0MVGkrnYu-4qUOYJyHawoW6_LayvN27ZvjtLnwULLo6SQHEB4_QXCb4TXU37yZjfAsbEPYTcj3E/s200/dark+was+the+night.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a>n. He’s got an energy wave in there that he’s surfing across the face of that tune so mighty! He hits the chorus, and to me it’s like ice skating or downhill racing – it’s an awesome physical thing that happens. But “Dark Was the Night” is the cut – everybody knows that lick. You can throw that lick at anybody nowadays. I threw it up inside Paris, Texas, you know, and everybody relates. And now you play that lick, and everybody knows what it is. It’s like an unspoken word. It’s really amazing. [Legally download these tracks at <a href="http://www.archive.org/">http://www.archive.org/</a>.]<br />
<br />
I’ll really tell you, Blind Willie Johnson is in the ether somewhere. He’s up there in the zone somewhere. But if he played flat . . . And at this point, after talking with you, I’m starting to feel that really would account for it. Because I know that if it was regular, I could be doing it. I can do what he did – I can play those notes now. I mean, I have learned. My co-ordination and understanding have developed to the point where I am capable of executing those passages, but it sounds really different when you play flat.<br />
<br />
<em>Which of the first-generation bluesmen did you observe first hand?</em><br />
<br />
Skip James I barely got to see, because he was sick all of a sudden. But I saw him, and I didn’t know what to make of him because his records really impressed me. When I saw him, he was having such physical trouble and he was so strange as a person that I recoiled from him. I didn’t know what to do. I was pretty young, and the vibe really killed me. But his records I listened to quite a lot. We used to see John Hurt, of course. And then, for me, the big deal was to see Sleepy John [Estes] because I liked his records so much. When I got mobile, I got a little olde<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Q0Iz5xwlVj_WRO2twgu0ZcEHYDH4C9Qj1ixUJfyILKnYRfHqTv6DuvssrosOR0n8C4h0xfpqNNP9pHDzCL2BGH8kfKrwhsUn-IJlYb_1cYh690ll7YGmL-DoGir5agC9iT78CEg3G14/s1600/estes+in+europe.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474943030201101970" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Q0Iz5xwlVj_WRO2twgu0ZcEHYDH4C9Qj1ixUJfyILKnYRfHqTv6DuvssrosOR0n8C4h0xfpqNNP9pHDzCL2BGH8kfKrwhsUn-IJlYb_1cYh690ll7YGmL-DoGir5agC9iT78CEg3G14/s200/estes+in+europe.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 197px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>r, I went down South to see him, and we used to sit with him. I’d go see him in his house up in Brownsville, Tennessee. Take him money and things. By that time I was kind of doing things. But as a teenager, I used to see him come through here.<br />
<br />
Well, the whole thing about guys like that was you weren’t ready for them as citizens of the world. You know, for middle-class white kids in Santa Monica, sad to say, you don’t really know any people like that. Or Rev. Gary Davis – you just don’t know what’s going on. I had these records, although they weren’t easy to get in those days, but people had given me tapes or some 78s. I used to listen to these things and think, “Well, what could this all be about? Who are these people? What are they saying?” It’s a mysterious journey here, like Alice in Wonderland. And then, not understanding anything about the historical, social, economic conditions that produces music – there again, being pretty young and all – all of a sudden, in the folk boom, on the scene in Hollywood, in this folk music club, appears these guys. And they walk to the stage, walk through the audience. I was thunderstruck! I couldn’t breathe, you know. They got up onstage, sat down, and commenced to do whatever it was they were able to do. And of course that really killed me, because I thought, “This is beyond my understanding.”<br />
<br />
After a while I began to gather up courage and go up and talk once in a while. You could sit down and say, “Can I understand this?” or “Can you show me this or that?” It was hard for me, but I did. And then I found out it was good, because they didn’t mind. They liked talking; it was not unpleasant for them. I didn’t bother anybody or badger them, like people do these days. But I was always curious and always trying to understand. Then it became obvious that it wasn’t so much the music as it was the people. If you could figure out where the people were and how they were as beings, why when the music was very clarified. Because what’s totally mysterious on record and inexplicable, why, in five minutes of watching a guy play, you got it. You understand body rhythm and how the instrument is approached, which is <em>entirely</em> different than how I’d seen it done. It was not linear, it was not patterns – they’d play out of patterns. They don’t play the horrible boom-chicka-boom thumb-finger, thumb-finger thing, you know. Everybody I knew did. That mad adherence to a mechanical thing that you set yourself up like a robot and play and think that’s what it is. I don’t know how that ever got started – banjo, maybe. But these guys didn’t play patterns, they didn’t play tuned. They were probably mostly out of tune. The whole thing was a revelation in what the instrument really could do in terms of personal expression. It’s a great gift to be able to have seen those people. Poor people today can’t see anybody.<br />
<br />
<em>Back in the earlier days, there wasn’t the attention to Western musical traditions of timing and tuning.</em><br />
Not at all.<br />
<br />
<em>This is evident on the Bristol Sessions and other early country recordings – no studio sync-up here.</em><br />
Oh, forget it. They’re coming from an entirely different way of life, an entirely different background. It’s just so radically different. If you go to Mississippi today, even, it’s a different place. You feel it’s a Third World country, a whole other scene. And back then, think of what it must have been like.<br />
<br />
<em>What impressed you about Sleepy John Estes on record?</em><br />
<br />
Well, he had a great group – that piano player and the jug and the harmonica and him, all playing in different rhythmic emphasis. Everybody has a different take on what the rhythm is. Some of it’s half-time, some of it’s double-time. But the jug band idea, I think, is the greatest idea in terms of ensem<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWMBp93AwnUKMG2Lp6iJjJEeOQx6GZ3fLTTvZMjOPPy0kASoMZT-sjCTeRZR_bZOyfkciI2kgPWGznFXY4PDZ5NvrLBubhNojVkex24TuEeLfZQelsUOcEaHleAzIDyDxfuEpL2iSeyKs/s1600/estes+black+78.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474943313674959522" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWMBp93AwnUKMG2Lp6iJjJEeOQx6GZ3fLTTvZMjOPPy0kASoMZT-sjCTeRZR_bZOyfkciI2kgPWGznFXY4PDZ5NvrLBubhNojVkex24TuEeLfZQelsUOcEaHleAzIDyDxfuEpL2iSeyKs/s200/estes+black+78.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a>ble, applied in whatever way you want to apply it. In other words, primitive guys playing what they think is right and what they probably heard on somebody’s uptown record and trying to do it themselves. Or just what they hear music as sounding like, see, because they all listen to records too. Robert Johnson trying to sound like Lonnie Johnson makes perfect sense. And then saying, “Well, this is my version of Lonnie Johnson. This is what I think’s going on.”<br />
<br />
Sleepy John Estes, of course, was a natural. He just put his hands on the instrument and opened his mouth. And then somebody would play piano and make it up out of nothing. I mean, out of nothing at all. Having no education, musically. It’s not like New Orleans, where everybody was schooled and there was a standard of reference. God almighty, down in the country, there is not standard of reference. You just did whatever your body would do. That’s the beauty of it. And Yank Rachel on mandolin – the whole thing is just fabulously interesting to me. From the sound point of view, I just used to bathe in those records. It’s like sit down and let it wash all through you. Pretty fascinating. Jesse Fuller – same thing with him. He used to come in, set that stuff up, and then sit down and play it and just wind it up. It would just unspool at you. It would take you away from your environment, that’s for sure.<br />
<br />
<em>Did Rev. Gary Davis ever give you playing tips?</em><br />
Oh, I used to sit with him. He was a guy who gave lessons, actually. Now, how he got started and what made him turn to doing that in his age, I don’t know. But it was known that if you wanted to pick up from him, why, all you had to do was give him five or six dollars and go sit with him. So I used to go to where they put him up in some little house down here in L.A., someplace near Hollywood, when he’d come into town. And I’d sit there and say “I like this song” and name one of his tunes – because he had songs. He wasn’t just playing 12-bar blues, he was playing songs, and they had structure and all. Of course, he had this bizarre chordal sense and crazy right hand, and that was interesting. So we’d sit there for an hour or however long he wanted to stay – because when you’re in the company of a master, time is not a thing of the clock. The clock is not ticking, necessarily. If you want to stay all day, that’s okay. If you get tired, you leave. It’s kind of that sort of a thing. So we used to sit there. I never could play it back to him. A month later, it would come to me, what he had shown me or what he had done. He would just play, and then you would try to remember. I’d stare at his hands and try to figure it out. But I couldn’t make anything sound like that, and I never could play his way. I found that it was beyond my ability to do the thing that he was doing.<br />
<br />
<em>From a physical standpoint, what made it so difficult?</em><br />
<br />
I don’t know. I mean, he had a bizarre technique. And you had to commit to it. It’s not a technique that flows into another person’s technique. In other words, Gary Davis is all by himself, in my experience, and if you committed to learning and being a student of his and a follower of his guitar mannerisms, you had to do that regardless, and everything else was secondary. I didn’t want to do that. I was really interested in something else at the time, and I felt that this was out of my range. I used to love to play his tunes, but I didn’t play them with any deep satisfaction because I realized it wasn’t working. This is not doing what he is doing. This is turning out like something else, and I’m not really crazy about it. Although he had some nice chord changes that used to thrill me, and I used to like to play the tunes just to hear those chord changes go down. But it was impossible.<br />
<br />
<em>In the prewar blues genre, do any other people stand out as being transcendental?</em><br />
<br />
Gosh, sure. I mean, so many people. Blind Blake is a great player, a great musical figure. He’s another mysterious figure. In the years where he was on top of his thing, I think he was fabulous.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div></div><div>I think Lonnie Johnson has never been recognized as one of the transcendental peo<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKUfVVRqn7sugUXTdSk4Y8-9jpri_CwI67PV-V8BM60b28P71HPA7Uu3EsPKJmYOjFkzNKky63iTJrgc92LNuXUc40U4KWEF9pNh3lisUo-irqFAJKqOycxvffEmghO7f6R8TI1Z-x6XE/s1600/Lonnie+Johnson+with+9-string.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474942375290686018" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKUfVVRqn7sugUXTdSk4Y8-9jpri_CwI67PV-V8BM60b28P71HPA7Uu3EsPKJmYOjFkzNKky63iTJrgc92LNuXUc40U4KWEF9pNh3lisUo-irqFAJKqOycxvffEmghO7f6R8TI1Z-x6XE/s320/Lonnie+Johnson+with+9-string.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 227px;" /></a>ple who influenced <em>everybody</em>. You can recognize Lonnie Johnson in just about anybody, with his voice and his elegant style. The stuff he did with Louis Armstrong was just incredible. So there he was. And he recorded with guys like Eddie Lang and all that. What he must have sounded like to country black people – they must have thought, “Well, this is somebody else!” You know, he’s up in town, getting this fabulous tone, and he’s real elegant and real top-hatted. It’s a whole other thing. It’s pop music, really. You can see people copying him right and left. Oh, it’s amazing. When I was very young, I heard some of that stuff, and it came through and really killed me. I used to sit and try to do that all the time. Still do. If I want to warm up, get my hands working and discipline my body, I will try to play some of his instrumentals. I can’t imagine what the hell he was doing, but I’m trying for it all the time. It’s just a way of using the instrument, right?<br />
<br />
<em>Did you hear many influences in the music of John Hurt?</em><br />
<br />
That he had heard? Well, who knows? There’s a guy from Mississippi who’s playing in an un-Mississippi style. Very linear, melodic style. What did he hear? He must have heard Geechie music, maybe. Maybe he heard stuff from the Piedmont area. Maybe he thought it up all by himself.<br />
<br />
<em>Explain what you mean by Geechie music.</em><br />
You know, the way the Sea Island people sound. That island thing all in the Piedmont area where Gary Davis, Sonny Terry, and a lot of those people sort of are from. It’s a very melodic style, syncopated in a different way. They play major chords and things, unlike a guy like Skip James, who plays crazy polymodal things and it’s a more open sound. Then Furry Lewis and John Hurt are far apart – maybe that’s Memphis. I don’t know what that is.<br />
<br />
Now, Furry Lewis was in medicine shows. Medicine shows were interesting because they took music all around. They would leave regional areas, which were so distinct in those days. The musicians in the minstrel shows would travel to other areas and influence and be influenced. They were like a rock and roll tour is today, you might say. I mean, the fact that Joseph Spence travelled through the South in ’20s in medicine shows is mind boggling! I mean, that’s just absolutely <em>amazing</em> to me. And God knows what people thought of him, and yet if he went in the Piedmont area, there must have been places where he recognized music like his own. That’s a real interesting thing to think about, because guys like Furry Lewis were on medicine shows most of their early life. Jesse Fuller was travelling in medicine shows. That’s one of the things you could do to make money.<br />
<br />
<em>Were these shows designed to sell snake oil liniment?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, yeah. You know, they would come into town on a truck, depending on how prosperous and how big they were. We’re talking about a countrified version of a minstrel show when minstrelsy had already either died out or was unknown in the countryside where there wasn’t a theater. Out in the countryside, in these little bitty towns – which was most of the Deep South – these damn guys, these quack doctors, would come in with a show and go ahead and do it. They would have a musical interlude, like Blind Peg Leg so-and-so would do his thing. Can you imagine what some of those shows must have been like?<br />
<br />
Have you ever seen this film called Louis Bluie? There’s a little piece of footage about the jug band that’s in there, from like about 1910. That’s your medicine show. That’s hotter than fire. That one guy with the hat plays so much jug, he looks like he’s about ready to blow up! It’s awesome looking. That kind of thing just kills me, because I know they were out there and they were doing this, and it was <em>hot</em>. We think of the old men who could barely do it, but this was not so back in the ’20s and before. This stuff must have been <em>cosmic!</em> All we know is what we’ve got on records and a few still photographs. It’s really a shame. But I think to myself, “Well, that guy [director Terry Zwigoff] found that piece of film footage. I wonder what else is out there?” We’ll never know what it’s like. Or in the alleys off Beale Street. And just everywhere. I mean, music was all over the place. Country suppers and parties and picnics, and then there’s all that piano music, and then these guys get together. Blind Blake played all over the place with all kinds of people, including Johnny Dodds. It’s just really something. Or the zither player who played with Lead Belly.<br />
<br />
But as far as old Blind Willie Johnson is concerned, he just missed the media, even when he died. If somebody would have been paying attention, but nobody thought about it much in those days, I guess.<br />
<br />
It’s just like nobody thought about Robert Johnson. What happened was the engineer who made those records died, and no one ever asked him what kind of guitar did he play. And I’ll tell you something else about this. You know how they talk about how he was nervous and wouldn’t face the room [during his recording sessions]? I don’t believe that. You think that man is nervous? I’ll tell you what he was doing. They say he sat in the corner.</div><div><br />
</div><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474941362128322530" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhckxjMAZZ6-6NnnXmtduJfXs_DdqSIdN1piDDJX0WqVpwfXbe98mVu2TGzYmPuKEdCJXyMMMvWuZMr173JNPPKgMOrpwybQwQ2fCz998UEWP2Jo4FlJn2j56XBswbRk7Dk422BEODMTuM/s320/KingoftheDelta2.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 310px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /> Well, find yourself a plaster corner sometime – all those hotel rooms [where early blues sessions were recorded] were plaster. And I don’t mean wallpaper or curtains. But you go and sit in a corner, with your guitar tight up against a corner. Face the corner and play, and see what it sounds like. Now, what you get there is a thing they call “corner loading.” This is an acoustic principal. What that does is it eliminates most of the top end and most of the bottom end and amplifies the middle. The same thing that a metal guitar does or an electric guitar – it mostly amplifies the midrange, which is where that metallic, kind of piercing sound is what’s left. Now, you take and record that way, and you’ll sound different. Because Robert Johnson sounds funny – let’s face it. It doesn’t sound like anybody playing an acoustic wooden guitar. But it’s not a metal guitar. But if you sit in a corner and stick your face up into the corner and listen, you’ll hear that sound. It ties the notes together. It compresses the sound too, and his sound is very compressed. See?<br />
<br />
Look at Robert Johnson’s picture and listen to his singing and his forceful personality. This is a guy who was afraid of the audience?! Hell, no! This is chew-them-up-and-spit-them-out kind of a guy. I think he was sitting in the corner to achieve a certain sound that he liked. In other words, if you’d have said, “Robert, I’m gonna boost the midrange, take off . . .” – because it’s a dry sound, the acoustic guitar, finally. It’s a boring sound for Robert. He wants to hear <em>wang!</em> He wants to hear the electric. He wants to hear that boosted midrange. And I’ll bet you that if you could have done that for him with equalizing and headphones in the modern era, he’d have been very glad. I’ll bet you if you’d have given him a Marshall amp to play it through, he’d have been <em>extremely</em> glad! But sitting in the corner, he could achieve something like that.<br />
<br />
And with the sound on those records, the voice and guitar is being mooshed together. It sounds like it’s being compressed – and early field recording did compress a lot. If you look at some of that primitive equipment, being tube and having a lot of headroom, it does tend to compress. I’ve never fiddled with that. I wanted to try it for the movie. We found the machine that they were gonna use to shoot the scene with – they got it out of a museum. I said, “Alright, let me take the machine into the room and load up the corner and see if we get that sound.” As interested as Walter Hill, the director, was in that idea historically, he didn’t have time to mess around. Someday I’m gonna try it, because I just know in my heart it will work. Because I have done it – I have sat in the corner, with earphones, and listened to the sound, and it sounds like that. And it’s a great thing, because all of a sudden the whole projection of the instrument is changed radically by a simple thing like that. [See the Epilogue at the end of this blog.]<br />
<br />
I mean, these are the things that Don Law or whoever made those damn records could have answered in two seconds, for Christ’s sake. But nobody asked him. And if you weren’t there, you don’t know. How big was Robert Johnson’s guitar? Somebody said it was big, a Kalamazoo or Gibson – I’ve heard that said. Those are large-bodied guitars. They push some air around. And his hands look funny, bending at the top joint like that. I’m starting to believe that’s him in the photo.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh05QqXZSLKZPWysZ_-wXaQu16sFOqj3tDdVhn-dY87tRZcOZLdctzL-mP6-ARX8IaRiKQifsz33jMoOzwEOaz0ay-f7AdRtcLNV-SD6WZ6W2bnLKoyMQFtv32CescmiGpGsdjDxvM5Pc4/s1600/TampaRed+swaggie.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474939146766704818" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh05QqXZSLKZPWysZ_-wXaQu16sFOqj3tDdVhn-dY87tRZcOZLdctzL-mP6-ARX8IaRiKQifsz33jMoOzwEOaz0ay-f7AdRtcLNV-SD6WZ6W2bnLKoyMQFtv32CescmiGpGsdjDxvM5Pc4/s200/TampaRed+swaggie.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a><br />
<em>Were you a fan of Tampa Red?</em><br />
Oh, yeah! Love Tampa Red, of course. Now, if you were to say, “Do you think you sound like any of these people?” I would say it’s easier for me to sound like Tampa Red. I think I’ve got that wired. I don’t think I’m so good at these earlier guys, because they’re so idiosyncratic, but Tampa Red ironed out all the kinks and made it a little more accessible. He played it with a little more of a modern, big-band feeling, like a soloist, almost. Very linear and really, really good. He put it all together, as far as I’m concerned. He got the songs, he had the vocal styling, he had the beat. I really think that it’s a straight line from Tampa Red to Louis Jordan to Check Berry, without a shadow of a doubt – a straight line through those three guys. You really can feel it. And he wrote some songs – or assembled them in the manner of traditional music, where you don’t write s<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4RosDcV9cT_yT-khdWMSVL5g-NGArDNM93Q6XYMqGAOr1eJEsGb6ZFTY137NUAlU1FMclyglj3UAFZD18caCm4RpLPSQ6ESnt3_ngDsmJZQ1H-Ihlx-_QkLal6P0JkTcTGfO9yz5OGS4/s1600/tight-like-that.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474938352609117186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4RosDcV9cT_yT-khdWMSVL5g-NGArDNM93Q6XYMqGAOr1eJEsGb6ZFTY137NUAlU1FMclyglj3UAFZD18caCm4RpLPSQ6ESnt3_ngDsmJZQ1H-Ihlx-_QkLal6P0JkTcTGfO9yz5OGS4/s200/tight-like-that.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 93px;" /></a>o much as you assemble or reassemble – like “It’s Tight Like That” and “Sittin’ on Top of the World.” That’s a mind who sees how to refine and flesh-out, drawing from all sources. He’s drawing from sources like the Chatmon brothers and the Mississippi Sheiks, Papa Charley Jackson.<br />
<br />
Tampa Red put it all together, he really did. He changed it from rural music to commercial music, and he was very popular as a result. Look how successful the guy was – he made hundreds of records, and they’re all good. Some of them are incredibly good, with Washboard Sam and whoever was on piano – that stuff is fabulous! You gotta say, “Okay, that’s where it starts to become almost pop.” It’s a very straight line – him, Louis Jordan, Chuck Berry. The development is clear in my mind when I listen to that stuff. It’s good. And he had a great guitar technique too, for sure. Ooh! Non-threatening. I mean, everything about him was fun-sounding. He wasn’t scaring anybody. He didn’t sound like he was gonna eat you alive. He just sounded like we’re all having fun here, like Jim Jackson’s Jamboree and all that stuff. I really love all that.<br />
<br />
<em>What did you think of Robert Wilkins?</em><br />
<br />
Well, he’s a great player, a songwriter. That “Prodigal Son” song is a hell of a song. [In 1929, Wilkins recorded his first version as “That’s No Way to Get Along” and later renamed the song “Prodigal Son.” It's at <a href="http://www.archive.org/">http://www.archive.org/</a> under its original title.] When you get these guys who write from a spiritual reference or point of view, it’s really interesting – like Washington Phillips and all that. Washington Phillips played Doceola [a small keyboard instrument] – different bag, but he had some pretty scary tunes too. Oh, there’s so much. The list goes on and on – it’s amazing, isn’t it? It’s a one- or two-generational thing, coming from almost nowhere. There’s no background for the blues to even exist.<br />
<br />
<em>There’s no reference to real blues before 1900.</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. And where would it have come from, unless it’s that cane-fife stuff, wherever that came from. You know, fife-and-drum bands down in Mississippi, like that guy Napoleon Strickland. That stuff seems pre-blues to me. And that seems to be the only thing that I can think of that is.<br />
<br />
<em>In parts of antebellum Mississippi, Black Codes forbade the playing of drums after they had been used to spread messages among slaves during a revolt. Maybe this helps account for the differences between the development of black music in New Orleans and Mississippi.</em><br />
<br />
Sure. They had a whole schooled musical tradition in New Orleans. Up until a certain point, the kids all learned regular serious music. They learned how to read music. They also had country bands, like in the South Carolina area, those jump bands playing on broken Confederate horns they found in the field, playing hymns and things. That’s a whole other bag. Do you know The Music from the South series that Frederick Ramsey put together on Folkways? One of the volumes was called Country Brass Bands. He went down there and he recorded two coun<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidfhT_NWtgAt-gnEYiAtLmLzXCypXCd7tCyLxhln2fUIYycBw2c5vVIb6x9Rc04Om10QyFTsLQA0Gc8jW6MirRUvCiLYXBZTfhv1ek5NmoPiZ1yh4Zws1DQqcuQ2xvR58u69qR7LsSBBc/s1600/Music+from+the+South.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474937852227290450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidfhT_NWtgAt-gnEYiAtLmLzXCypXCd7tCyLxhln2fUIYycBw2c5vVIb6x9Rc04Om10QyFTsLQA0Gc8jW6MirRUvCiLYXBZTfhv1ek5NmoPiZ1yh4Zws1DQqcuQ2xvR58u69qR7LsSBBc/s200/Music+from+the+South.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 196px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a>try brass bands, which were kind of loose organizations of guys who knew each other and would play on the weekends or for dances.<br />
<br />
Apparently, this started after the Civil War. The Confederate armies all had brass bands and marching bands as part of the morale building. And when they lost, these guys just laid their instruments down in the field and left them. Then after the war goes by and the black people return to the field or their homes, and they actually found these horns in the dirt or left in sheds or I don’t where. In time, they became handed down in families, broken, full of holes, tied together with tape. And they didn’t learn to play like the guys in New Orleans, with proper fingering. They knew only the bugle mouth and a little fingering, all wrong, but they liked these things and so they started playing in bands. You gotta get that record. He found two of these bands – there are about ten guys in each group, and they play some kind of hymns that they know in this style, on broken instruments. They have no chops, they’ve got no mouth embouchure at all. But they play this so it’s strictly from the guts. It’s the life vibration that they live in, a pure expression through a horn rather than, say, a guitar.<br />
<br />
Also, in those days when Ramsey was doing this work, in the ’50s, he did an early news magazine show on CBS called Omnibus. You must see this – it’s strictly important. Ramsey did one called something like, “They Took a Blue Note.” It was an hour show of jazz. They came to Ramsey, being the expert at the time, and he put it together for them. It shows him going down into Alabama. You see a little of New Orleans – that’s a really nice funeral there. Then you’re out there and there’s Horace Sprott, who was one of his discoveries, playing the harmonica and plowing the field – that’s kind of stagey and dumb. But all of a sudden, around the corner come five guys behind a barn, and they have these beat-up horns. They stand up and play this stuff, and you just fall on your knees. I’m telling you, you will have a transcendent experience, because it’s right in front of your face. It’s a thing that you can barely believe, but it’s one of the great documents of pure soul. These guys are field hands in the 1950s, they’re all middle-aged men, hard-working guys, and they play these horns in some crazy way. The sound that comes out is utterly mind-boggling. It’s just too good.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiahQO-es_fcHexflmS9bCdEEqdt08wtdqYwCgGTiH9cMtNZWx-1vrbEbzN9cYN5c5bkReO933-ymllPfgAKB8Jz8x_kkEwKslX5A8MUAIKaFvg0EhZ3rvZ5g7V72zThEN88QWQL9nJjgA/s1600/old+morrisville+brass+band.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474937258069927778" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiahQO-es_fcHexflmS9bCdEEqdt08wtdqYwCgGTiH9cMtNZWx-1vrbEbzN9cYN5c5bkReO933-ymllPfgAKB8Jz8x_kkEwKslX5A8MUAIKaFvg0EhZ3rvZ5g7V72zThEN88QWQL9nJjgA/s200/old+morrisville+brass+band.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 170px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 170px;" /></a><br />
I had given up all hope of ever seeing this – I figured, well, that’s gone – but there are still some of these jump bands, as they’re now called, down in the South. I heard one at the Atlanta Blues Festival, called the Old Morrisville Brass Band, from South Carolina, and they play this way. They can’t finger these horns and they can’t change keys, but they’ll blow you right out of your seat. It is good.<br />
<br />
Try to make the effort to get a hold of the CBS footage – you won’t be sorry. It belongs in everybody’s collection. It is something else to see. You’re talking deep country here, where some of these scenes were filmed – now it’s probably a mall. Man, that thing with the brass players is hot! It’s riveting. You need to see that, because that’s a pre-blues instrumental expression from the countryside, and that’s Civil War-vintage type of understanding on your instruments. [If any readers find or post this footage, please send a link.]<br />
<br />
<em>Besides the fife-and-drum tradition, do other pre-blues forms still survive in the country?</em><br />
<br />
I think that the marching band music is one, because it’s all based on 19th-century music. I think the cane-fife thing is a voice there. And then, of course, we have Joseph Spence, who was a voice from the 19th century – he’s dead now. He was in medicine shows, and he was playing hymns. And have you heard this [1920s] group called the Norfolk Jubilee Quartette with Jimmy Bryant on bass? [Sample track: <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/RideOnKingJesus">www.archive.org/details/RideOnKingJesus</a>.] Well, I believe they are Geechie, Piedmont-area guys. If they don’t sound like Joseph Spence, then I’ll eat my hat. He does the same thing with his voice. And I know in my heart he heard that group, because that group was hugely popular. And Jimmy Bryant on lead bass was a unique expression [Cooder sings one of Bryant’s deep bass parts] – that’s what Spence is doing all the time. He’s singing that part.<br />
<br />
Apparently Jimmy Bryant used to make women fall out and they’d throw their handbags at him and the rest. And he got out in the audience and did the number. So I have a feeling that that minstrel-type gospel shout thing, which we now refer to as quartet style, is a 19th-century style as well. And it sort of survives in pockets down there. There are a few people who still relate to that, but it’s hard to hear anymore. It’s really died out since the era of the soloist kind of wiped it out. But that was a thing that you found in minstrel and church styles way early – I mean, some of those gospel quartet records are way, way early records. So I figure that sort of survives, because church things tend to change slower. People keep their church traditions. And if you went down in the Sea Islands today, where a lot of that music came from, and down around the Norfolk area, you’d hear some of that stuff. I just know you would. It isn’t blues, but there’s blues in it.<br />
<br />
And the blues singers listened to church music too, because almost every black was raised up in church. I don’t care if they end up the meanest, nastiest blues singer, they were raised in church. So they were hearing this stuff as a youth, and it’s got to mean something, especially to country people. What else do they have to do but go to church? There’s a strong musical voice in all black music that comes from their experience in church, whatever that may have been. In the case of country people it’s the singing – they didn’t have anything else. That’s why a lot of early records were of preachers.<br />
<br />
<em>Around 1902, the Dinwiddie Colored Quartette made some of the first recordings of African-American spiritual music. Have you heard these?</em><br />
Yes, I have. They sound like a quartet – it’s quartet style. It’s typical church music. [Sample track: <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/DinwiddieColoredQuartet-StealAway1902">www.archive.org/details/DinwiddieColoredQuartet-StealAway1902</a>.] Look, it was the simplest thing for the recording scouts to say, “Well, we know there’s music in the church. We’ll go down the road to find the church, and we’ll ask who’s good and have them come in and sing.” They did that all the time.<br />
<br />
<em>Why do you think it took so long for record companies to seriously focus on black musicians?</em><br />
<br />
Nobody thought of them as a market, because they didn’t have any money. They’re poor. You don’t count them. This is a technological thing, and technology is linked to affluence. And then somebody was smart. Ralph Peer was one smart guy who went into the hillbilly hills and figured that these people will but their own music. That’s really a leap of genius. First, you had to sell them the record player. What’s the point of having the records unless you’ve got the record player? So it became a product that furniture stores sold – that’s a known fact. And they actually used to make the records in the back of furniture stores. It was a very concentrated idea. Later on, you had centers of recording, and that’s a whole other story. But I don’t think it was until they began to realize if you can sell something to somebody, go and make it, go and do it. But naturally, technology on any level is linked to where they think they can make money off of it.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you think liquor was commonly supplied at country blues sessions?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, because first of all, you do take people into strange, problem-ridden situations, which is to say, “Mr. Charley says sing, I guess I better sing.” And there’s plenty of that that went on. I can only imagine that these records, on up into modern blues, were made under the most nervous, uncomfortable circumstances imaginable. Because these damn guys weren’t psychologists, they were businessmen. They said, “Boy, you sing.” “Oh, well, alright, sir.” And unless the guy was drunk, maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he was too god-damned scared of white people. Who wouldn’t be? “If I don’t sing, they’ll cut my hands off.” I could believe that, so I figure booze was a way of dealing with a primitive person – get him drunk. Not so much in the case of the church people, who have their religion to kind of shield them, but with blues singers it apparently was true. It’s a thing that’s puzzled me – you know, why liquor was such a deal. Is it because their life is oppressing and hard and they’re unhappy and they drink? I just don’t know why people drink like they do, because I don’t like it myself. So I have a hard time understanding that. But on the other hand, they sing about it and talk about it so much of the time that it must have been about the only fun thing that you could do. That’s why in the modern scene, when you go down to the ghetto, what do you got? You got liquor stores. So that’s obvious. So yeah, they probably used it freely, said “Here, drink this and play.”<br />
<br />
<em>I heard that they frequently put pillows under blues guitarists’ feet . . .</em><br />
To have them stop stomping their foot, because that pushed so much air around. I’m sure they did. They went to lengths to kind of balance it out – that must have been hard too. But the genius of some of those records is beautiful. Some of them are terrible. It’s a question of the engineering capability – where they were, what kind of room.<br />
<br />
<em>Plus what kind of 78s survive.</em><br />
Yeah, man. The 78 is a high-fidelity medium, in a way. It’s going around so fast that it does sound good, except that when they get scratched, they don’t sound not so good!<br />
<br />
<em>This interview has been a great help, Ry.</em><br />
Well, good. Do what you want with it.<br />
<br />
<div></div><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474940059876479714" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0IkrtFOxU4Ib7IgI0RYSMKel_n5s8nwJbIL8DyEwyV1q6I9t4_VgyId1e8FKc1hk4svKZMsHo8L4S8RqIIz15J58C9N438OtHQ82-J5iYe9054CYWI3yWFOMX1R01EvcNAmDUaBme_ms/s320/ry+cooder+boomer%27s+story.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 252px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /><br />
****<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy5iESroydEbEYSZp7PunfTocv_g6Y36W1D9dieK5v2RLVMsmoA55yQDX6BzzPWwdWQM_o2vEb7imZeT_cpqQ18oP-jfjTIzjdWN2vkI1ml5GOwn9zjN6ChMrKbOtParPj5JoWMykepys/s1600/Progressive+Architecture.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474936505133395010" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy5iESroydEbEYSZp7PunfTocv_g6Y36W1D9dieK5v2RLVMsmoA55yQDX6BzzPWwdWQM_o2vEb7imZeT_cpqQ18oP-jfjTIzjdWN2vkI1ml5GOwn9zjN6ChMrKbOtParPj5JoWMykepys/s200/Progressive+Architecture.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 200px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 158px;" /></a><br />
<em>Epilogue: We ran the Blind Willie Johnson and Robert Johnson parts of this interview in the July 1990 issue of Guitar Player magazine. Then, in its April 1991 issue, Progressive Architecture magazine responded to Cooder’s theory about why Robert Johnson recorded facing a corner. After four full pages of charts, diagrams, and technological analysis, Technics Editor Kenneth Labs concluded: “Cooder is probably right.” The article’s lead graphic featured the cover of Robert Johnson: King of the Delta Blues Singers, Vol. 2, with its artist’s rendering of Johnson in the hotel room. I’ve also tried recording acoustic guitarists and spoken word artists this way, and it works.</em><br />
###<br />
<br />
<em><strong><span style="color: blue;">Help support this blog and independent music journalism by making a small donation via the Paypal button at the bottom of this page. </span></strong></em></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Jas Obrecht Music Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14102118469016469940noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133771249824938520.post-3605622096080386202010-05-20T13:04:00.008-04:002010-07-24T15:24:11.623-04:00James Honeyman-Scott: The Pretenders Q/A<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHBmlBbSun79Ok4GpDoTnChU7r2bPIyDOuTeg238ImZAdIMih1AzljmH9WKoyAuTfv6WdR8N5B77Lrdx6OXwlVABz1HJ4eTRZVH1N4x4yqNJeEklqnKIoaKQn1Usmm96bndZM3gjK8M6E/s1600/honeyman+scott.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473406693144538946" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHBmlBbSun79Ok4GpDoTnChU7r2bPIyDOuTeg238ImZAdIMih1AzljmH9WKoyAuTfv6WdR8N5B77Lrdx6OXwlVABz1HJ4eTRZVH1N4x4yqNJeEklqnKIoaKQn1Usmm96bndZM3gjK8M6E/s400/honeyman+scott.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 317px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a>James Honeyman-Scott lived long enough to play on just three major releases with the group he co-founded – 1980’s The Pretenders, the Extended Play EP, and 1981’s Pretenders II – but he still holds his place among new wave’s most original guitarists.<br />
<br />
In a 1999 Uncut interview, Chrissie Hynde called him her “musical right hand.” “He really was the Pretenders sound,” she explained. “I don’t sound like that. When I met him, I was this not-very-melodic punky angry guitar player and singer, and Jimmy was the melodic one. He brought out all the melody in me.”<br />
<br />
After the 25-year-old guitarist died of cocaine-induced heart failure on June 16, 1982, Chrissie kept the Pretenders going in his honor: “One of the things that kept the band alive, ironically, was the death of Jimmy Scott. I felt I couldn’t let the music die when he did. We’d work too hard to get it where it was.” She dedicated “Back on the Chain Gang” to his memory.<br />
<br />
I was lucky to have interviewed James Honeyman-Scott after the release of the Pretenders’ debut album. I found his charming, self-effacing personality as appealing as his approach to the guitar, which still sounds fresh today. He was an avid reader of Guitar Player magazine, and was thrilled at having just come in second for Best New Talent in the magazine’s annual Readers Poll. Our interview took place on January 29, 1981. At the time, he was living in Flat 1, Westside, 55 Priory Road, West Hampstead, London.<br />
<br />
Here, for the first time ever, is our complete interview. I've kept the transcript true to his spoken words.<br />
<br />
<br />
****<br />
<br />
<br />
<em>What do you prefer to be called?</em><br />
<br />
Jimmy.<br />
<br />
<em>Let’s start at the beginning. When and where were you born?</em><br />
<br />
I was born in Hereford. Let’s see – 1956. November the 4th.<br />
<br />
<em>When did you start playing guitar?</em><br />
<br />
My brother – he was in the Navy – brought one back from Africa when I was ten years old. That’s right. And then I graduated to a better model when I was 11. That was an f-hole guitar, and the neck fell off. And then when I went to high school, I got a guitar called a Rossetti Airstream. And the next guitar after that was a Gibson three-three-five [ES-335]. I got that when I was 16.<br />
<br />
<em>Which musicians were you listening to back then?</em><br />
<br />
Eric Clapton with Cream and Derek & The Dominos. The Allman Brothers, and Yes. Those are main ones I was listening to at that time.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you take lessons?</em><br />
<br />
No, never. I always wanted to play. There was a group in England called the Shadows, with Hank Marvin. He was the <em>real </em>one – that was it. I’ve met him a couple of time, but I’ve never seen them play live. I met him at TV studios and things.<br />
<br />
<em>What did you think was most important to learn?</em><br />
<br />
Originally, I thought it was Eric Clapton guitar lines, guitar licks. But chords turned out to be the most important – chords and rhythm work, definitely. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibaKeycJ3kpvVazO6F32U_LffVGwTb7iTicZVKrc514jR6WwaLR7mQeY54HTHP5QMsQiXB8rxnosSg1SHPc3wF4luAx0EpG7fuhulLubVWyJcDh4KkxtzZRTpwUnikra0z3mbporCvwHE/s1600/pretenders+extended+1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473406546776375730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibaKeycJ3kpvVazO6F32U_LffVGwTb7iTicZVKrc514jR6WwaLR7mQeY54HTHP5QMsQiXB8rxnosSg1SHPc3wF4luAx0EpG7fuhulLubVWyJcDh4KkxtzZRTpwUnikra0z3mbporCvwHE/s320/pretenders+extended+1.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 253px;" /></a><br />
<br />
<em>Did certain records say a lot to you?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, “Badge,” by Cream – Jesus! “Crossroads,” by Cream. Really, it was anything by Cream for important guitar work. And then came the Allman Brothers after that.<br />
<br />
<em>Like Live at Fillmore?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah! “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” – that was really important.<br />
<br />
<em>When did you start playing keyboards?</em><br />
<br />
I had piano lessons when I was seven, for only about for two years, at the most.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you know formal music?</em><br />
<br />
No, I don’t read a thing, man. I forgot it all. Everything I do now is done by ear. I could never follow the theory of it. I always found it very distant. I used to pretend I could read it, but in fact I’d learned this little number by ear, you know, to fool the piano teacher [laughs].<br />
<br />
<em>When did you join your first band?</em><br />
<br />
I used to play youth clubs, when I was 11. I turned out to be a bass player for a while. I borrowed this Hofner bass, and we were playing “Sunshine of Your Love,” “Hey Joe,” “Sabre Dance” by Love Sculpture. So I was 11 when I had my first band. But it had no name, from what I can remember. It was probably something blues band [laughs]. It turned out to be a blues band – this was 1968.<br />
<br />
<em>Was Mott the Hoople happening yet?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah! Mott the Hoople were just taking big then. They came from a group called Silence that were around the Hereford scene for quite a while. Yeah, Mott happened in the early part of ’69.<br />
<br />
<em>Were you into their music?</em><br />
<br />
No, not at first. What happened was me and Martin, the drummer of the Pretenders, joined up with Mott the Hoople’s keyboard player, Verden Allen, in 1974. That was with a band called the Cheeks. Then I got into Mott the Hoople. It’s a very weird process, but I love Mott the Hoople. I really started to understand them and thought they were a great group then. But at first I don’t think anybody in the Hereford really dug Mott the Hoople.<br />
<br />
<em>What about another of your hometown bands, Bad Company?</em><br />
<br />
Bad Company! Yeah, I love them. They were great.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you know the guitarist for Mott and Bad Company, Mick Ralphs?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, yeah. Mick leant me a guitar for over a year, a little Les Paul Junior, when I ended up not having a guitar for a while with the Cheeks. He came to the rescue and let me use his 1957 Junior. It was beautiful, a beautiful guitar. And Mick Ralphs became a hell of a fucking big influence, because I started to steal a lot of his lead lines and things. I always liked the way he did finger vibrato. So I stole a lot from Mick like that.<br />
<br />
<em>Did other guitar players back then teach you specific things?</em><br />
<br />
No. I don’t think so. The ones I’ve started to pick up on have been recently. In the past year or two, I’ve learned a lot from playing with people like Chris Spedding, and Billy Bremner showed me a few things. Billy’s from Rockpile. And Nils Lofgren. I was jamming for a while with Nils at his house, and he did a few dates with the Pretenders, joining us onstage. He showed me a lot of little tricks.<br />
<br />
<em>What bands you were in between the Cheeks and the Pretenders?</em><br />
<br />
There were only two other groups in Hereford. One was called the Hawks, and the other was named after Emmylou Harris’ band, The Hot Band. And we were called the something “Hot Band” – after some village in Herefordshire. It was like 10 or 12 guys, accordion and all manner of guitars and things. This is pretty sweet, because I’ve met up with [Emmylou Harris’ pedal steeler] Hank DeVito, and we’ve become real good friends, man. But I’ve never told him that. I must tell him I named a group after his group.<br />
<br />
<em>What were you doing prior to co-founding the Pretenders?</em> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc6tBsL6rIaU5cVWwJ8FhYAoq-syY5ndOwd7UDCM0YHuaVN_3OMz8QuB2InDvKfHU0FBG742LsG3H_0AbArhtaSMC-l-uyXSEmfHSoRUFEvcrQgtFgqsgng9a-r18pNHyRQDsgRPNk02Q/s1600/pretenders+1979.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473403195951634322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc6tBsL6rIaU5cVWwJ8FhYAoq-syY5ndOwd7UDCM0YHuaVN_3OMz8QuB2InDvKfHU0FBG742LsG3H_0AbArhtaSMC-l-uyXSEmfHSoRUFEvcrQgtFgqsgng9a-r18pNHyRQDsgRPNk02Q/s320/pretenders+1979.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 254px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
<br />
I was selling guitars for a living, for a shop in the Hereford. I did gardening too – that was great! And it was during that time – I was out in the garden, you see, digging away, and the radio was on. Nick Lowe came on with [sings] “and so it goes, so it goes,” that number – Elvis Costello’s “Red Shoes.” And they had this big, jangly guitar sound, which is what I’d been wanting to get into for a long while. All of a sudden the radio’s on and there’s this huge guitar sound coming out, like sending out a big Rickenbacker 12-string or something. And I thought, “Ah, my time is here.” So that’s what happened. And then I hooked up with the Pretenders.<br />
<br />
<em>What did you use to get that sound?</em><br />
<br />
At that time I was using an Ibanez Explorer that was fantastic – it was stolen. It was incredible. That went through a Marshall. And to get that sound, I was using the Clone Theory pedal made by Electro Harmonix. That’s how I go the sound. And I’m now using the old Boss pedals.<br />
<br />
<em>We'll get your whole equipment setup later on.</em><br />
<br />
Oh, Christ! There’s tons.<br />
<br />
<em>With the Pretenders, how much does Chrissie play?</em><br />
<br />
She plays quite a bit because her rhythm guitar – I don’t know anybody who plays rhythm guitar like that. So what happens is, because I can’t hear beats half the time – because I can’t count the rhythm – instead I’ll just put a little guitar line over it. Do you know “Tattooed Love Boys,” that little lick on that? I put that because I couldn’t count the timing. I just happened to know that those notes in that order fitted rather well, so I if I kept doing that, I wouldn’t go out of time. Because her time is so weird – that number is something crazy, like 7/13 or something.<br />
<br />
<em>What kind of demands do the strange meters put on you?</em><br />
<br />
[Laughs.] Oh, quite a lot! I bluff a lot of it, and I’ve never told the rest of the group. When they read this, they’ll be amused, because I’ve never told them that I can’t work out those fucking times at all. I just do it my own way. If I come in a bar too late, they are used to me coming in a bar too late, and they think that’s how I play. But it’s because I’ve missed where she’s come in. That’s happened on the new album that’s coming out in April. We’ve done a track called “The Adultress” where I come in a beat too late because I cannot count the timing, and they think it’s great: “Oh, that’s Jimmy’s style.” And the fact is, I don’t know where she comes in with it. So I just bluff it and hope for the best.<br />
<br />
<em>On “Up the Neck,” who’s strumming and who’s picking?</em><br />
<br />
Chrissie is doing the strumming, and I’m doing the single-note stuff.<br />
<br />
<em>Did she use a Telecaster on most of the tracks?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. The only cut she didn’t was on “Kid.” She borrowed my 335.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you use her Tele for the solo?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I used her Tele for the solo. Very observant! Christ, you got that well. She’s got two Telecasters – a little white one and a metallic green one. And the white one is just one of the most fantastic guitars ever made. I love using that. I use it as much in the studio as possible.<br />
<br />
<em>The end of that tune almost sounds like a harpsichord</em>.<br />
<br />
Oh, yeah. That was done with a Gibson Dove guitar, and the bottom three strings were replaced with top three strings again – a real high tuning, you know? It was high strung. We laid all the picking down like that. Then we did it at half speed and doubled that to get the top<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj185stB_5e0nHgUw8PuSG74cx9HdBy_c2BCfH9YkCRVV03elcCwCXTkzMtdzGKTjyKRZ96cIz5TC4WJ5JomQwkrZ2NzpSYetA_068u0JVI9vxOIYi6gwsvvTQtkMS0BiG0lQro5QZXDvk/s1600/pretenders+back.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473405139837535266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj185stB_5e0nHgUw8PuSG74cx9HdBy_c2BCfH9YkCRVV03elcCwCXTkzMtdzGKTjyKRZ96cIz5TC4WJ5JomQwkrZ2NzpSYetA_068u0JVI9vxOIYi6gwsvvTQtkMS0BiG0lQro5QZXDvk/s320/pretenders+back.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; width: 305px;" /></a> notes again. That’s why it sounds like a harpsichord. It’s really difficult to do that, when you’re playing half-speed on a number. It’s done very slow and you have to get each note right on. It’s very difficult, but it turned out great.<br />
<br />
<em>Before you recorded the album, how did the band work out the material?</em><br />
<br />
Well, we’d been rehearsing for quite a while – about a year, I’d imagine. Chrissie had had the material for a long while, and we just did lots and lots of rehearsing, seven days a w<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjalLdbgC9Iis6emcxxWwbGy4vFjVjdBGG4Hb4qpUanY7VQZrPPyVADmecuGFhjJbcZoxct8btlM5XoHKOhMXEoYMnk7Qww9gHLmG3VpVp4eCIQFYr6Rirs6dsyL8K1ynlbOHGr38_kKek/s1600/pretenders+front.jpg"></a>eek, all hours of the day and night. At first a lot of the licks were very heavy – like “Up the Neck” started off as a reggae song. I said, “Let’s speed it up,” and I put in that little guitar run, and that’s how it all really started to come together, by me putting in these little melodic runs that I like doing. Because my main influence is the Beach Boys. That’s how the melodic parts of numbers came about. And then Chrissie really started to like pop music. That’s why she started writing things like “Kid.” I love playing “Kid”! There’s a number we did called “Talk of the Town,” and that’s great to play as well. Pop songs like that – I love ’em.<br />
<br />
<em>Chrissie is an American singer, and yet the band sounds English</em>.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF8Lt1okFUVGTvrlH_13UEB2aGnE-iTJ0wO9KDFh3svBaJMzR63RavMuBd56agmbDBgPZMAKCe3iNo-0aygkvXj-2Yiov0zSwslJl8FHdPQno9AI7wS-tIs2lDGpF1CURhXaSKPO3-ETo/s1600/pretenders+label.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473405440789671666" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF8Lt1okFUVGTvrlH_13UEB2aGnE-iTJ0wO9KDFh3svBaJMzR63RavMuBd56agmbDBgPZMAKCe3iNo-0aygkvXj-2Yiov0zSwslJl8FHdPQno9AI7wS-tIs2lDGpF1CURhXaSKPO3-ETo/s200/pretenders+label.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 188px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 200px;" /></a><br />
Yes! I think that is because she’s been living in England since 1973, and all of her favorite musicians of all time are English. Her favorite guitar player is Jeff Beck, and her favorite songwriters are John Lennon and Ray Davies. She has written that songwriting-wise, the English were always the best musicians.<br />
<br />
<em>How different was your style before you got into the Pretenders?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, very different! I wanted to use the style I was using in the Pretenders, but I couldn’t, because we had the band I was in, if you get what I mean. I was more towards Keith Richards sort of stuff then. And then when I joined the band, I was able to start doing nicer guitar work, more melodic stuff. So yeah, it did change quite a bit. Dave Edmunds had a lot to do with that – I started listening to him and Nick Lowe a hell of a lot, and I liked what they were doing. They always seem to like to do nice little guitar sounds that you can sing along to. That’s what I started trying to do.<br />
<br />
<em>What’s your approach to soloing?</em><br />
<br />
I hate soloing, really. I like to do something that you’d end up whistling. Something short. There’s a solo on the reggae track – “Private Life.” And I really didn’t like doing that, because it’s a long solo, and I think long solos are a pain in the ass, unless you can play them. I can’t play them, but I like watching Albert Lee and people like that play them. I went to see Albert the other week at the Palamino. I like watching people like that because they can do it. I simply cannot do it, but they can play for a long period of time and not get boring, as far as soloing goes. I like to play short solos. There’s a track, “Lovers of Today,” where there’s a big run in there, like a real long run, and that was influenced by [George] Harrison, if anybody – probably pinched off of the Beatles albums! But the solo is just three notes or something that I got from Neil Young.<br />
<br />
<em>“Lovers of Today” has that full, massive sound</em>.<br />
<br />
Oh, yeah! Now, that was the Les Paul through a 100-watt Marshall. And when it came to that solo, I hit the wrong chord in the beginning! That opening chord is a big mistake. But we kept it because it sounded good, and I just tracked that once, that little lick, loud, very loud, and just slightly distorted. And then we tracked it again and again and again and again. And then I did it up at the top of the guitar. And then we did it again and I think we slowed the machine down and used a Harmonizer, so there must be something like eight guitars playing that – all very loud!<br />
<br />
<em>Is there a fuzz effect in the little solo in the beginning of “Private Life”?</em><br />
<br />
No, no. That would have just been the amp.<br />
<br />
<em>During “The Wait,” what are the strange chords that come right before the solo?</em><br />
<br />
That’s Chrissie. I don’t know what it is. Chris Thomas, the producer, asked me to do a solo over that – no, Chrissie played it, that’s right, and it sounded really scruffy. He said, “Jimmy, you do it, but make it cleaner,” but I simply couldn’t, because Chrissie plays that way and I don’t. So I tried playing like she did, and I just couldn’t. So I said, “Look, leave her to do it,” so we did. So that’s Chrissie’s baby, that one. The second part of the solo is mine.<br />
<br />
<em>Does Chrissie play any solos on the album?</em><br />
<br />
Um, I don’t think so.<br />
<br />
<em>Who came up with the “Space Invader” lick?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, Pete wrote the bass lick, and I wrote what people call the “Day Tripper” part of it and the chord run-ups, the major sevenths.<br />
<br />
<em>At the end of it you have that descending growl.</em><br />
<br />
Oh! [Laughs.] Now that was done . . . I hit the bottom E string, and put it right out of tune. Tuned it right down with the tuning peg. I remember I was really drunk when I did this. I said, “I’ve got this idea – just follow it!” And they go, “Yeah, yeah, sure.” And I said, “No, you must listen to me! Play that back and take this.” They played it back and I hit the G string and I tuned the G string up at the same time. So you have one guitar going down and one coming up.<br />
<br />
<em>What is the effect on “Precious”?</em><br />
<br />
That would be the Clone Theory through a Harmonizer. I didn’t use a MuTron then.<br />
<br />
<em>How did you get the siren?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, that is by playing – what key is it in, “Precious”? A. It’ll be an F# and a C, just hitting those notes like that.<br />
<br />
<em>At the end of the “Tattooed Love Boys” solo, did you start flipping your pickup selector switch?</em><br />
<br />
That’s it, yeah, and putting the guitar out of tune at the same time as well.<br />
<br />
<em>One last question about guitar parts. On “Mystery Achievement,” how many tracks did you use for the solo bridge?</em><br />
<br />
I used the 335 on that. I tracked it twice, and then I did a half-speed guitar. That gets the high notes.<br />
<br />
<em>To do the half-speed guitar, you record the part at half speed and then play it back at normal speed.</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, and of course it’s an oct<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI8NaOlb-85fr8DE-VFS3dUttDwNtfi0WQuGN2xf2DOQDTH2hmDdkDsL2nUI3h1TZR_IJCIyEgqsm5x-c8kJPjkIgu3cXxY3RpXBpt0x06rIwCeFHsHJHBugqmzqVH3omoaRioYao34pM/s1600/James-Honeyman-Scott+Hamer+ad.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473409431967639186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI8NaOlb-85fr8DE-VFS3dUttDwNtfi0WQuGN2xf2DOQDTH2hmDdkDsL2nUI3h1TZR_IJCIyEgqsm5x-c8kJPjkIgu3cXxY3RpXBpt0x06rIwCeFHsHJHBugqmzqVH3omoaRioYao34pM/s400/James-Honeyman-Scott+Hamer+ad.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 350px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 250px;" /></a>ave higher.<br />
<br />
<em>When you recorded the first album, was that pretty much your stage show too?</em><br />
<br />
Yes.<br />
<br />
<em>It has the feel of a live set.</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, yeah. A lot of people have said that.<br />
<br />
<em>Which songs were recorded first?</em><br />
<br />
“Stop Your Sobbing” was the first, and we did that with Nick Lowe back in October of 1978 or ’79.<br />
<br />
<em>How did you set up in the studio?</em><br />
<br />
What we did was we set up like a little stage setup. We set up a P.A. in there and everything, and we recorded the numbers live. We used speakers in the studio – big ambient – and we kind of recorded a lot live. That was with Chris Thomas. But with Nick Lowe on “Stop Your Sobbing,” there was loads of guitars. There was Rickenbackers, Ovations, everything, and it was just lay down track after track – “Track the guitar again,” and do different inversions, open tuning, everything. That’s how it works with Nick.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you overdub your solos?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. I would generally use two tracks. What Chris Thomas and I like to do is to lay down a solo and then track it again, note for note. So you lay down the guitar solo, okay, and then you do it again, exactly the same. That gives it a fuller sound. Sometimes we’ll slow the machine down, just slightly, so it sounds like a 12-string doing the solo.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you ever have trouble remembering your solos?</em><br />
<br />
No, not really, because I like to have fixed-pattern solos. Something like “Tattooed Love Boys” was just straight off the wall – I couldn’t have done that again, because I just wanted to go turn nasty on that one, turn the amp up and not care. But in general I like to track the solos note-for-note and remember them.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you splice together parts of different takes of solos?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, yeah. We do that sometimes.<br />
<br />
<em>Are any parts recorded directly into the board?</em><br />
<br />
On “Kid,” one of the guitars on the guitar solo was, I think, because I love doing that. Because you can wind up and get a lot of compression at the board. You can just make it sound slightly like a pedal steel or something. This is one of Edmunds’ favorite tricks, because Dave Edmunds and the boys like to go straight to the board. I do as well. But Chris Thomas doesn’t like me to do it that way. He likes me out in the studio with the amp.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEpIptR9PCNOa572Q6brMHUECFisYvWmFWZJf1P-aidjlqHjBBJT9GVsBULariPrXHxv8XWKPRlR8ErX45zRTbPMViHe8iOyzr1FK-OU59O0hyaR8RfEZk2xQn4-Xjg7YlWzOXUm6UD_I/s1600/pretenders+1+pic.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473406043185001730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEpIptR9PCNOa572Q6brMHUECFisYvWmFWZJf1P-aidjlqHjBBJT9GVsBULariPrXHxv8XWKPRlR8ErX45zRTbPMViHe8iOyzr1FK-OU59O0hyaR8RfEZk2xQn4-Xjg7YlWzOXUm6UD_I/s320/pretenders+1+pic.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 261px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
<em>What’s the difference between your studio and live playing?</em><br />
<br />
Live, I’m more wilder a whole lot. Because you play some of those songs . . . We did five tours this year. We did two American, two English, European. And because you play those numbers night after night, you start to get a bit pissed off at them and then you start to put little things in to keep yourself amused. You start to find new things as well. So probably a couple of those tracks off the album would sound a little different onstage. Or some of the things that we’ve put in, like different steps and stuff, something clever to keep everybody on their toes.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you enjoy being on the road?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, I love it!<br />
<br />
<em>Is it what you’d imagined it to be?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, yeah! Non-stop partying, yes. Yes, it was exactly as I imagined it – it all happened.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you warm-up before a show?</em><br />
<br />
[Laughs.] We usually just drink a lot. No, not really.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you practice?</em><br />
<br />
No. I haven’t picked up a guitar in a long while. I don’t. But when I do, I go overboard. I start to find new ideas and things.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you have a systematic way of doing it, or do you just play?</em><br />
<br />
I guess I just play. There are new little things I’ve found. Like, some of the things Chris Spedding showed me – Chris has got a totally different style from everybody else – and I noticed it’s all built within two frets and using just two strings at one time. You can just play a complete solo like that, and it just never gets boring. Just play two strings within two frets, and you just elaborate over that.<br />
<br />
<em>So your fingers only land on four spaces?</em><br />
<br />
That’s right! And it seems he’s built up a lot of his stuff from doing it like that. So I’ve been trying a lot of things like that lately, so I’m using the minimum amount of work possible.<br />
<br />
<em>Are you always learning?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah! Definitely.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you do much jamming?</em><br />
<br />
Yes, I do quite a bit. I’ve spent a lot of the past couple of weeks in Austin, in Texas, and they’ve got some of the best players in the world there. Oh, my God! And some of those guys have invited me up to play, and it’s been great. I’ve done a bit of recording here and there. I met Billy Gibbons there. Joe King Carrasco – I played with him there. He’s in L.A. at the moment, playing the Whiskey. But yeah, Joe King and the Austin All-Stars, and the Tennessee Hat Band – I played with those guys. I love it down there. It’s great.<br />
<br />
<em>Has success been hard to take?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, it was at first, but it’s fine now. It’s very weird at first, when it happens. What you imagine as a kid, when you’re like eight years old and you see the Beatles at Shea Stadium on TV or in the film A Hard Day’s Night, you think, “My God. That is the answer to everything.” You know, having #1 records and gold disks. But when you get the #1 records and gold disks, you kind of think, “Whoa. Is this it? What happens next?” I think you tend to think the skies are going to open or something.<br />
<br />
<em>What advice would you give musicians wanting to make it in rock and roll?</em><br />
<br />
You just have to stick with it. It just happens. It just turns up. Yeah, you just have to keep fucking sticking with it. It didn’t take me that long. I mean, I thought after a while I would sod it. I just went and started selling guitars and not really caring, although I knew one way or other I was going to get it done. I think you have to be completely determined, though. And I was. I thought “sod it” and then settled back a bit, and then I thought, “No, no.” I was determined, and you’ve got to make a bit of a fight for it. But it just turns up, I think. It just happens. You’ve either got it or you haven’t – style, luck, or whatever’s needed.<br />
<br />
<em>What would you like to accomplish in the future?</em><br />
<br />
Well, I haven’t played with Ron Wood yet. I’d like to play with Ronnie Wood. I don’t know. Make successful albums, and I guess a little studio. What every player would want, I suppose.<br />
<br />
<em>Have you been on albums other than with the Pretenders?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. Nothing really to speak of. Nothing that’s been released in America. In England, an album called Place Your Bets by a guy called Tommy Morrison, and that was produced by Paul Rodgers. One by a guy called Robert John Godfrey, when I was 16. And I forget the title of that. That’s it, I think.<br />
<br />
<em>What are your main guitars?</em><br />
<br />
[Tony] Zemaitis. He builds them for me now. I’ve got three of his at the moment, and the fourth will be ready soon. I’ve got two metal-front Zemaitis, like Ronnie Wood’s guitars. They’re all engraved metal, and Gibson humbuckers on them and ebony fingerboards. Oh, they are just the greatest. One’s a 22-fret, one’s a 24. I’ve also got another 24-fret that he built for me, but all the front is crushed mother of pearl, and it’s got three Mighty Mite Stratocaster pickups, and they’re inlaid in big silver blocks. I mean, these guitars just have to be seen. The one that he’s building for me at the moment has got three humbuckers set in a big silver map of the world. Also, it’s inlaid with mother-of-pearl scorpions and things like that. Pretty much, Tony will build you what you want built. I don’t go for active electronics or any of that, so I just have the normal controls – two pickups, two volume, two tones, and a toggle switch. I like the action pretty low. I use Ernie Ball Slinkies that go from .009 to .042.<br />
<br />
<em>Why did you choose Zemaitis?</em><br />
<br />
Because Ronnie Wood used to use them, and I thought they looked so beautiful. Ron Wood’s a <em>big</em> hero of mine. Oh, yeah.<br />
<br />
<em>Who are your other heroes?</em><br />
<br />
People like Spedding. Keith Richard, I guess. Eric Clapton, still. Albert Lee, the guys in Rockpile.<br />
<br />
<em>Have you other guitars?</em><br />
<br />
I’ve got a Gibson Les Paul – that’s a newish one, a Standard. A 1962 cherry 335 that’s beautiful. Here’s the real killer: I’ve got a ’63 single-pickup Firebird – that’s a beaut – a three-pickup pink Gibson Firebird, a Fender Stratocaster with an Alembic Stratoblaster fitted to it and everything is brass on it. I’ve got a Rickenbacker 12-string, three Hamer guitars, a Yamaha – I don’t know what model. My acoustic is a Martin D-28, and I’ve also got a Guild 12-string.<br />
<br />
<em>Did you collect these since forming the Pretenders?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah. One of the great things about having the success, having a bit of cash, is I was able to pick up these guitars at various places. It was the one thing I always really wanted anyway.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you care for the guitars yourself?</em><br />
<br />
No, I have a guy that looks after them for me. On the next American tour I’m taking Ted Newman Jones, who works for Keith Richards. He wants to come with me. He builds beautiful guitars, fantastic guitars. He made some 5-strings for Keith. He’s great.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you use the same instruments onstage as in the studio?</em><br />
<br />
In the studio I tend just to use the Les Paul and the Telecaster. Onstage, I always use the Zemaitis. But sometimes I just feel like playing a completely off-the-wall different guitar, but I’ve got to yank it out of the case.<br />
<br />
<em>Do certain guitars inspire you to play differently?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, yeah. Definitely! A Zemaitis definitely makes me play a bit more like Ron Wood, whereas the 335 would make me play a bit more like Dave Edmunds.<br />
<br />
<em>Are your guitars stock?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, yeah. When I get a guitar, I don’t like to fuck about with it, unless it’s a new one, where you can get another couple of million like it, like a new Stratocaster. I’ve had mine all re-sprayed black and the Alembic things put into it. But if it’s an old one, I wouldn’t touch it at all.<br />
<br />
<em>Trace your signal from the guitar to the amp.</em><br />
<br />
It goes through three Boss pedals – the little ones that have got noiseless switches. They come in pretty colors. I’ve got a blue one, a green one [laughs]. I’ve got a chorus, an overdrive, and a compressor. I don’t have a harmonizer, but I think I’ll get one. I think I’ll try one onstage. Pete, the bass player, uses one. And then I go right to the amps. I’ve got three 100-watt Marshalls and three 4x12 cabs, but two of those are spare, I think. I just go through the one. They mike that, and what happens is, I always play with the guitar flat-out, and I set the level as it would be for a loud rhythm sound. And then if it comes to showing off and doing a solo, I just flip on an overdrive. That’s how I like to work it. I like a really loud rhythm sound.<br />
<br />
<em>What kind of picks do you use?</em><br />
<br />
Uh, I think they’re Fender Heavy Medium. I hold them in between the thumb and the first finger, with the point sticking out, and I always tend to play down-strokes.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you have any unusual techniques?</em><br />
<br />
[Laughs.] Only in bed. Let me think. I think there’s one thing that I do that’s unusual, but I can’t think of it at the bloody moment.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you rest your picking hand on the guitar?</em><br />
<br />
Oh, yeah, on the bridge. Sometimes I use the edge of my hand to muffle the strings.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you use your left-hand little finger much?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, yeah. Probably not as much as I should, but I do.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you play slide?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, but I haven’t been able to do it on record. Yeah, I love playing slide. I’m very much into open tunings.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDV73M_X0dW6m-ARzzq3SscZl2bzhY2BHZV50dRLcuV8ogPpt0IdrTyijJtqCcj3z80TsApRYeAE4zY70sw1m7A8WvrX4uL5-iLRjdZ1NZInB5EZ9kuFfm3z7bQ-U_-QzyxqalosLcZJA/s1600/pretenders+II+kit+1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473404058310231218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDV73M_X0dW6m-ARzzq3SscZl2bzhY2BHZV50dRLcuV8ogPpt0IdrTyijJtqCcj3z80TsApRYeAE4zY70sw1m7A8WvrX4uL5-iLRjdZ1NZInB5EZ9kuFfm3z7bQ-U_-QzyxqalosLcZJA/s320/pretenders+II+kit+1.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; height: 320px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 254px;" /></a><br />
<em>Did you use any on the album?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, I did. I used some of the strangest tunings. On “Kid,” there’s open tuning on one of the acoustic guitars. That would be tuned down to D, I think.<br />
<br />
<em>Do you play in any styles that aren’t on the LP?</em><br />
<br />
Yeah, country. That’s why I spend a lot of time in Austin – I try to. The thing is, you’ve got to make a good fucking go for it down there, because everyone is a better country guitarist than you. So you have to make a real good go for it.<br />
<br />
<em>Have you finished the second album?</em><br />
<br />
No, we’ll be finishing it [Pretenders II] over the next a couple of months, and the new album will be out in April. There’s an EP coming out in America very shortly. We’ll be back in America in June.<br />
<br />
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