Blind Blake: King of Ragtime Blues

During the mid 1920s, strong sales of 78s by Papa Charlie Jackson and Blind Lemon Jefferson led Paramount Records to sign Blind Blake, a swinging, sophisticated guitarist whose warm, relaxed voice was a far cry from harsh country blues. Some of Blake’s 78s cast him as a jivey hipster sitting in with jazzmen, while on others he walked the long, lonely road to the gallows. The man with the “famous piano-sounding guitar” is still regarded as the unrivaled master of ragtime blues fingerpicking.

“Lord have mercy, was he sophisticated!” says Jorma Kaukonen, who helped introduce Blake’s guitar style to rock audiences during the 1970s. “He would have been sophisticated in any era. I really like the completeness of his piano-style playing, his left- and right-hand moves. He could play a complete band arrangement by himself. That appealed to the lone-wolf mentality that I aspired to when I was learning his songs. Later on, it gave me depth for playing double-guitar and piano-guitar stuff with other people. It taught me a lot about putting music together.”

“Blind Blake is a great player, a great musical figure,” echoes Ry Cooder. “In the years where he was on top, he was fabulous. Blind Blake just had a good touch. He played quietly, and he didn’t hit the guitar too hard. He had a nice feeling for syncopation. He’s from down there in the Geechie country, and all those people have a real nice roll to what they do. He was a hell of a good player, and he had a lick that was great. And Blind Blake played all over the place, with all kinds of people, including Johnny Dodds, which is just way too much for me.”

Besides his music and session details, not much is known of Blind Blake. His single surviving photograph shows us a dapper bantamweight in a neatly pressed three-piece suit and bow tie, fingerpicking a small guitar beneath closed eyes and a frozen Buddha grin. (With its deep body and distinctive bridge, the guitar in the photo is likely a Chicago-made Harmony, a good guitar back then.)

In 1927, Blake’s label published The Paramount Book of Blues, a promotional booklet with sheet music and full-page bios of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charlie Jackson, Ma Rainey, and Ida Cox. Their Blind Blake page contained this strangely punctuated write-up:

“We have all heard expressions of people ‘singing in the rain’ or ‘laughing in the face of adversity,’ but we never saw such a good example of it, until we came upon the history of Blind Blake. Born in Jacksonville, in sunny Florida, he seemed to absorb some of the sunny atmosphere – disregarding the fact that nature had cruelly denied him a vision of outer things. He could not see the things that others saw – but he had a better gift. A gift of an inner vision, that allowed him to see things more beautiful. The pictures that he alone could see made him long to express them in some way – so he turned to music. He studied long and earnestly – listening to talented pianists and guitar players, and began to gradually draw out harmonious tunes to fit every mood. Now that he is recording exclusively for Paramount, the public has the benefit of his talent, and agrees, as one body, that he has an unexplainable gift of making one laugh or cry as he feels, and sweet chords and tones that come from his talking guitar express a feeling of his mood.”
Paramount’s ads in the Chicago Defender, a popular African American newspaper, emphasized Blake’s unparalleled guitar playing: “He accompanies himself with that snappy guitar playing, like only Blind Blake can do” read the ad copy for “Bad Feeling Blues.” The company claimed that “Blind Blake and his trusty guitar do themselves proud” on “Rumblin’ & Ramblin’ Boa Constrictor Blues,” while “Wabash Rag” was “aided by his happy guitar.”

Some believe Blind Blake was born Arthur Phelps, but during the record “Papa Charlie and Blind Blake Talk About It,” Papa Charlie Jackson asks him, “What is your right name?” Blake responds, “My name is Arthur Blake.” The name on the copyrights for “C.C. Pill Blues” and “Panther Squall Blues” is Arthur “Blind” Blake, which strengthens the case for Blake being his given name. He had a pronounced Southern accent and reportedly worked in south Georgia, Kentucky, along the East Coast, and in Bristol, Tennessee, before landing in Chicago.

“No matter where Blake was from, he ranks as a musical curiosity,” wrote Steve Calt and Woody Mann in the liners for Yazoo’s Blind Blake collection. “His records betray no basic musical orientation, and it’s anyone’s guess as to whether blues, guitar instrumentals, or even pop ditties were his original specialty. How he actually made his livelihood as a performer is another enigma. While most blind guitarists were soloists who used the helter-skelter phrasing of the street dancer, Blake’s blues phrasing had the strictness of a dance or band musician. It is likely that ensemble playing (perhaps with a jazz band) had a real impact on his music.”

Blind Blake made his first records for Paramount during the summer of 1926, playing solo guitar behind Leola B. Wilson’s lazy vaudeville blues. “Mayo Williams, the Paramount scout, says that Blind Blake was sent up from Jacksonville by a dealer,” reports blues researcher Gayle Dean Wardlow. “That’s how he first got on record, and his records sold very, very well.” Blake showed nerves of steel his first time before the recording horn at Chicago’s Marsh Studios, playing outstanding solos on Wilson’s “Dying Blues” and “Ashley St. Blues.”

A month later Paramount cast him as a solo artist. “Early Morning Blues” was a grim “leaving blues” reminiscent of Lonnie Johnson. The 78’s flip side, the brilliant “West Coast Blues,” was a ragged dance tune injected with spoken asides such as “Whoop that thing” and “I’m gonna satisfy you if I can” [to legally download this and other Blake tracks, visit www.archive.org].

Blake’s releases no doubt astonished and influenced other blues guitarists, such as William Moore, who patterned his Paramount 78 of “Old Country Rock” on “West Coast Blues.” Blind Gary Davis likewise studied Blake’s 78s. “The guitar was being played like a piano in almost all the areas of America except the Delta,” explains Stefan Grossman, “meaning that the left hand was literally doing that boom-chick, boom-chick pattern. Blake was able to use his right-hand thumb to syncopate it more, like a Charleston. He was very, very rhythmic and incredibly fast – I don’t know anyone who can get to that speed. That’s Blake’s real claim to fame, because his chord progressions are nothing fancy. But the thumb work is fantastic, and what he’s doing with his right hand set him apart from everyone. Rev. Gary Davis said Blake had a ‘sportin’ right hand.’ Davis took that and got into even more complicated modes.”

“I suspect Blind Blake was a three-finger picker,” offers Jorma Kaukonen, “and I have a sneaking suspicion he wore picks, because he had such a snappy, percussive sound and he’s not popping the strings the way bare-finger players do. His favorite keys were C, G, and E, although I’m pretty sure he could play in any of them if he wanted to.”

At his next session, October 1926, Blake balanced down-and-out blues songs with the good-time hokum of “Too Tight” and “Come On Boys Let’s Do That Messin’ Around,” which has an early example of a scat solo. He flexed his guitar prowess on his next 78, “Skeedle Loo Doo Blues” and the double-time sections of “Stonewall Street Blues.” Paramount summoned Blake and pianist Jimmy Blythe to Leola Wilson’s November session, which produced a pair of fine 78s. Less than six months after his entry into the record biz, Blake was playing behind the great Ma Rainey on “Morning Hour Blues,” “Little Low Mama Blues,” and “Grievin’ Hearted Blues.”

Early the next year Paramount featured kazoo – possibly played by Blake himself – on “Buck-Town Blues” and brought in a bones percussionist for “Dry Bone Shuffle” and “That’ll Never Happen No More." Blind Blake cut another seven songs during October ’27. The smoothly syncopated “Hey Hey Daddy Blues,” the hip horn imitations of “Sea Board Stomp,” and the tour de force “Southern Rag” suggest that he woodshedded on guitar during his half-year recording hiatus. “I’m goin’ to give you some music they call the Geechie music now,” Blake announced at the beginning of “Southern Rag,” which he laced with images of planting rice, sugar cane, cotton, and peas. Some authors suggest that Blake slips into the Geechie and Gullah accents of Georgia’s South Sea Islands during the track, but Wardlow disagrees: “I don’t think he intentionally goes into the Geechie accent, but he was down from around that part of the country – South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.”

In November '27, Gus Cannon joined in on banjo for the minstrel tune “He’s In the Jailhouse Now.” During the 1950s Sam Charters asked Cannon for his memories of Blake. According to the book Sweet as the Showers of Rain, Cannon responded: “We drank so much whiskey! I’m telling you we drank more whiskey than a shop! And that boy would take me out with him at night and get me so turned around I’d be lost if I left his side. He could see more with his blind eyes than I with my two good ones.” Mayo Williams also reported that Blake would get drunk and fight.

During the spring of 1928 Blind Blake cut his most ambitious records. Jimmy Bertrand manned xylophone for “Doggin’ Me Mama Blues” and warbled slide whistle on “C.C. Pill Blues,” while the great Johnny Dodds soloed on clarinet. “Oh, that record!” enthuses Ry Cooder. “That’s it, see. That’s the whole thing right there. That’s all you need to hear. And then you know: There’s a whole world we’ve all missed and will never know.” (The “C.C.” stood for “compound cathartic.”)

Dodds and Bertrand provided more crazy horn and percussion accompaniment on Blake’s raggy “Hot Potatoes” and the swinging “South Bound Rag.” Bertrand, Dodds, and Blake were also teamed on “Elzadie’s Policy Blues”/”Pay Day Daddy Blues” with Elzadie Robinson, a cabaret singer and former chorus girl from Logansport, Louisiana. Blake was soon back in the studio with blues moaner Bertha Henderson and gospel crooner Daniel Brown. Bertha’s “Let Your Love Come Down” featured Blake playing stride piano with rocking solos. Working solo, Blake simultaneously played guitar and harmonica on “Panther Squall Blues.”

Although Blind Blake may have been earning up to $50 per Paramount side, Little Brother Montgomery claimed that the guitarist’s regular source of income during the late 1920s came from playing South Side Chicago house rent parties. With its piano in the living room, Blake’s apartment at 31st and Cottage Grove became a gathering place where Montgomery, Charlie Spand, Roosevelt Sykes, Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy, and other musicians could drink moonshine and jam blues. But not everyone could keep up. “I met Blind Blake in Chicago,” Ishman Bracey told Gayle Dean Wardlow, “but I couldn’t second him. He was too fast for me. Blind Blake, Tampa Red, Lonnie Johnson, and Scrapper Blackwell – all of them guitar players was buckin’ one another. Blind Blake was too fast.”

Blake’s 1928 releases “Ramblin’ Mama Blues,” “Back Door Slam Blues,” “Cold Hearted Mama Blues,” and “Low Down Loving Gal” suggest he had bitter feelings toward women. His anger took a scarier turn on “Notoriety Woman Blues,” during which he sang, “To keep her quiet I knocked her teeth out her mouth.” By contrast, Blake’s final recording that year, “Sweet Papa Low Down,” was a bouncy Charleston with piano, cornet, xylophone, and Blake’s happy jiving.

The bluesman journeyed to Richmond, Indiana, in June 1929 for a series of sides with Alex Robinson on piano. “Slippery Rag” rocked the house with driving chords and mind-boggling solos. “Fightin’ the Jug” reinforced his reputation for being a heavy drinker:

“When I die, folks, without a doubt,
When I die, folks, without a doubt,
You won’t have to do nothin’ but pour me out”
Blind Blake was at the height of his powers on August 17, 1929, at what was to be his last great session. During the course of that Saturday, he recorded several of his most enduring songs. While some of these songs were played in the bluesier keys of D and E, Blake relied on his favorite ragtime tuning, C, for “Georgia Bound.” Blake blasted toe-to-toe with Charlie Spand, Detroit’s premier piano boogieman, on “Hastings St. (Hastings St. Boogy),” named after a street in the city’s old black section. I played this track for John Lee Hooker, who’d never heard it before, and he reacted by calling it “the real blues.” John speculated that Blake must have lived in Detroit at some point, since Blake mentions a specific address, 169 Brady, during the song and then says, “Must be somethin’ there very marvelous, mm, mm, mm. I believe it’s somethin’ that’ll make you feel oh boy and how!” “Yeah, Brady was right off of Gratiot,” Hooker said. “Detroit was jumpin’ then, and Hastings Street was the best street in town. Everything you wanted was right there. Everything you didn’t want was right there. It ain’t no more now. It’s a freeway now, called Chrysler Freeway. But that was a good street, a street known all over the world.”

Blake’s next selection, “Diddie Wa Diddie,” is classic ragtime blues, each break a minor masterpiece. Blake masterfully heightened the song’s rhythmic intensity by rushing to the root of a new chord an eighth-note before the next downbeat. With its beautiful lines, harmonic chimes, and bluesy bends, “Police Dog Blues” likewise showcases his consummate guitarmanship. Kaukonen and Cooder have both recorded inspired covers of this song. Blake also recorded “Chump Man Blues” at the session. “Blind Blake was basically a ragtime guitar player,” notes Stefan Grossman, “but then he had things like ‘Chump Man Blues,’ which is a blues in D. It’s not as exciting as his playing in C or G, but it has an almost Bahaman, Joseph Spence sound.”

Blind Blake made a few more sides in Chicago later that summer – a 78 featuring Tiny Parham or Aletha Dickerson on piano, the agile instrumentals “Guitar Chimes” and “Blind Arthur’s Breakdown.” “Papa Charlie and Blind Blake Talk About It,” the first Blake 78 recorded at Paramount’s new studio in Grafton, Wisconsin, joined two musical giants in a stuttering shuck-and-jive routine. With its exaggerated vocals and Jackson’s utilitarian banjo strums overwhelming the arrangement, the song wasn’t far removed from blackface minstrelsy.

Blake was in fabulous form backing Irene Scruggs (billed as Chocolate Brown) during his next Grafton trip. Her “Itching Heel” no doubt struck a resonant chord among many women attached to bluesmen: “He don’t do nothing but play on his old guitar / While I’m busting suds out in the white folks’ yard.” Blake, in turn, responded to her verbal jabs with sped-up guitar parts.

Beginning with his May 1930 solo sides, the sheen was mostly gone from Blind Blake’s playing and singing. “When he started to drink too much – you can hear it towards the end – it just doesn’t work anymore,” observes Cooder. “He’s physically past it, because you’ve got to be sharp to sound that good.” He rekindled the old fire in “Righteous Blues” that December, and made his final appearance as a sideman in May ’31 behind Laura Rucker. Blake cut three 78s under his own name that year, but no copies of “Dissatisfied Blues”/”Miss Emma Liza (Sweetness)” are known to have survived. “Night and Day Blues”/”Sun to Sun” are among his most lackluster performances, while the more intriguing two-part “Rope Stretchin’ Blues” tells the woeful tale of a man who catches a stranger in his house, busts his head with a club, and winds up hanging for it.

The final Blind Blake release, the old Victorian music hall standard “Champagne Charlie Is My Name” backed by “Depression’s Gone From Me Blues,” which recycles the “Sitting On Top of the World” melody, was recorded in Grafton during June 1932. But is it Blake? “Even though it says Blind Blake on the label on both sides,” says Gayle Dean Wardlow, “it seems like that last record’s a split side – one side is him, and one side is not him. ‘Depression’s Gone From Me Blues’ – that’s Blake. I think ‘Champagne Charlie’ is by someone else – it doesn’t sound like Blake to me.” Grossman concurs: “That 78 doesn’t have his taste, his feel. Who knows? It might have been somebody else, even a different Blind Blake.”

The bluesman’s final fate is uncertain. “Blind Blake – now, that’s another one that’s a mystery,” reported Georgia Tom Dorsey during the 1960s. “How he got out of the show [business], I don’t know. But he was a good worker and a nice fellow to get along with, as far as I’m concerned.” After Paramount folded in 1932, Blake never recorded again. “I figure he went back to Jacksonville when his recording contract was over,” says Wardlow. “No one’s ever found out what happened to him. Gary Davis said that Blake was hit by a streetcar, and that’s the only rumor of his death that I know of. Maybe he got robbed and killed, because he was blind.”

For a while, though, Blind Blake’s records sold almost as well as Blind Lemon Jefferson’s, and he had a tremendous impact, especially in the Southeast. Personally, I’d like to believe Blind Blake lived the lines he sang in “Poker Woman Blues”:

“Sometime I’m rich, sometime I ain’t got a cent,
Sometime I’m rich, sometime I ain’t got a cent,
But I’ve had a good time everywhere I went”

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Thanks to Jorma Kaukonen, Ry Cooder, Stefan Grossman, Gayle Dean Wardlow, and the late John Lee Hooker for agreeing to be interviewed for this article.

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George W. Johnson: Forgotten Black Superstar

Today, most music fans have never heard of George W. Johnson. Asked to name the first black singing star, even knowledgeable collectors will typically cite Bert Williams, the 1910s Broadway star, or Mamie Smith, the diva who kicked off the 1920s blues craze with “Crazy Blues.” But Johnson was making and selling tens of thousands of records – cylinders, mostly – three decades before Miss Smith conjured her magic, making him the direct forerunner of Bert Williams, Sammy Davis, Jr., Michael Jackson, and other performers who've come to be known as "superstars."

In Johnson’s bio, tragedy trumps triumph. Born a slave on a Virginia plantation, he was forced to work within long-standing racist stereotypes, and spent most of his career singing the same song over and over and over again.

George Washington Johnson probably made his first records in 1890 for the New York Phonograph Co. and the New Jersey Phonograph Co. The following June, he began making experimental records for Edison. Orchestra leader Edward Issler provided piano accompaniment as the entertainer described as “burly and coal black” whistled and sang for two-and-a-half hours. Among the selections was one destined to become his signature tune, “The Laughing Song.” Its choruses of infectious belly laughs no doubt accounted for the enduring success of what was otherwise an egregious "coon song" typical of the minstrel era:

"As I was coming around the corner,
I heard some people say,
'Here comes the dandy darky,
Here he comes this way.
His ears like a snowplow,
His mouth is like a trap,
And when he opens it gently,
You will see a fearful gap.'

"And when I laugh . . . [laughs uproariously]
I just can't help from laughing . . . [laughs uproariously]
I just can't help from laughing . . . [laughs uproariously]

"They said, 'His mother was a princess,
His father was a prince,
And he'd been the apple of their eye,
If he had not been a quince.
But he'll be the king of Africa
In the sweet by and by.'
And when I heard them saying it, why,
I laughed until I cried
[chorus]

"So now, kind friend, just listen,
To what I'm going to say.
I've tried my best to please you
With my simple little lay.
Now, whether you think it's funny
Or quite a bit of chaff,
Why, all I'm going to do is
Just to end it with a laugh"
[chorus]

[This 1891 version of “The Laughing Song” and other Johnson tracks mentioned in this blog can be legally downloaded at http://www.archive.org/.]

In his book The Music Goes Round, Fred Gaisberg, an 1890s studio pianist who knew Johnson, described the milieu in which Johnson made his recordings: "The late nineties can be rated as the 'high spot' of the phonograph cylinder as an entertainer, brought about, strangely enough, through the vogue of the slot machine. Automatic Phonograph Parlors, as they were called, sprang up like mushrooms on the busy streets of most towns in the United States. They did a flourishing business for just two years, and then the craze vanished."

With no method of duplicating cylinders available in the early 1890s, artists would re-cut a selection over and over until there was no longer a demand for that particular title. (As technology improved, master cylinders could be copied by a pantograph.) Brass bands could play into as many as ten recording horns at once, while singers with strong voices could simultaneously produce five original records. Johnson had such a voice, producing thousands of fresh takes of "The Laughing Song" and "The Whistling Coon" for the minimum scale of twenty cents a performance.

Music Trades Review reported that Johnson once sang the same song 56 times in one day, and "his laugh had as much merriment in it at the conclusion as when he started." The U.S. Phonograph Co.'s 1894 catalog listed Johnson's "Two Great Specialties" – "Laughing Song" and "Whistling Coon" – and claimed that "up to date, over 25,000 records of these two songs have been made by this artist, and the orders for them seem to increase instead of diminish. Mr. Johnson's laugh is simply irresistible. Whole audiences are convulsed by simply hearing these songs reproduced. No exhibition box is complete without these two records." Gaisberg wrote that "George achieved fame and riches with just these two titles. His whistle was low-pitched and fruity, like a contralto voice. His laugh was deep-bellied, lazy like a carefree darky."

Although he often returned to the same themes, Johnson was no two-hit wonder. In one of the earliest examples of integration on record, he waxed the "Laughing Song Minstrel" skit with white comedians Len Spencer, Dan W. Quinn, and Billy Williams for the U.S. Phonograph Co. sometime between 1890 and 1894. He cut his first flat disks for Berliner during October 1895, singing and whistling his two most famous titles, and the following year cut "The Mocking Bird" for the label. During August 1896, Johnson's records were listed for the first time in Columbia's catalog, which described him as "the original whistling coon" and claimed that "The Laughing Song" and "The Whistling Coon" have "a wider sales than any other specialties ever made." The following year Columbia and Edison issued Johnson's "The Laughing Coon" and "Whistling Girl." In 1898 Johnson signed an exclusive one-year contract with Columbia and recorded "The Laughing Song Minstrels" – probably meant to be read as "The Laughing Song [performed by] Minstrels" – with white performers Henry and Len Spencer.

Johnson's songs remained popular well into the new century. Around 1905 the Edison company had him record "The Laughing Coon" and "The Laughing Song" with orchestral accompaniment. The following year, Columbia issued "The Merry Mail Man," describing: "This jocular record depicts the postman (Len Spencer) delivering letters from door to door until he finally encounters George W. Johnson (The Laughing Coon), whose merry laugh concludes the record." Recording manager Victor H. Emerson reported in the October 1907 issue of The Columbia Salesman that when he was finally allowed to make a new laughing song by Johnson, "our stock increased 100%." The U.S. Everlasting Company hired Johnson in 1908 or '09 to record yet another version of "The Laughing Song." While the technology to produce four-minute records was well established, George usually stuck to the two-minute length of his earliest versions.

How were these early recording sessions conducted? In a 1907 interview with the San Francisco Examiner, Richard Jose, recorder of sentimental parlor tunes, was asked if there were any secret to singing into a record machine. "Secret!" exclaimed the countertenor. "It's the most secret thing in the world – for the singer. You're locked all alone with the band in a big bare room. Your back is to the musicians and your face to a bleak blank wall through which protrudes a solemn horn. A bell rings – one. That is to get ready, for the receiving instrument is so sensitive that if you moved your sleeve against your coat the sound would register. Somebody outside presses the button – two. The band starts the prelude, then you sing, turning neither to the right nor left, always looking and singing into that protruding horn. And you can't even let out a breath after your last note; you must close your lips on it and wait for the little whir within the horn to cease." The playback, added Jose, could be heard almost immediately. Jose's experiences recording for Victor were doubtlessly similar to those of George W. Johnson.

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As the 1900s unfolded, African American performers “borrowed” Johnson’s laughing routine, much to his dislike. One such instance was reported in a 1906 article in Music Trades Review: “A talking machine man tells of Johnson that he was in a Western City one day in a gallery at the theatre. A black comedian came out and did a laughing song. Johnson snorted after the first chorus. He moved about restlessly and at the end of the second verse shouted a protest. ‘You ain’t singing dat song right!’ ‘What’s the reason I ain’t?’ declared the singer from the stage angrily. ‘P’raps you can sing it better.’ ‘I sure can,’ declared Johnson. ‘Well, come down and try it.’ Johnson left the gallery, slipped into the stage entrance and took up the dare. He scored his usual success.”

On record, white recording artists were also covering his songs, notably Billy Murray and S.H. Dudley ("The Whistling Coon") and Cal "Uncle Josh" Stewart ("The Laughing Song"). In his book, Fred Gaisberg described how Burt Shepard, a white comedian raised in New Orleans and based in England, had worldwide “million sellers” with “Whistling Coon” and “The Laughing Song.” “I brought those songs over from America, having transcribed them from memory, and taught them to Burt.” Gaisberg followed with this cryptic line: “I had acquired them from George W. Johnson, the tragic Negro who was hanged for throwing his wife out of the window when in a drunken frenzy.”

George W. Johnson hanged for murdering his spouse?! Say it ain’t so, Burt.

Victor H. Emerson, producer of some of Johnson’s later sessions, provided a different account, describing to The Columbia Salesman, October 1907, “the famous case of the State of New York versus Johnson in which he was arrested for murdering his wife. Two wives prior to this last one had met with violent deaths, and in New York when the third wife meets with a violent death, the police sometimes become suspicious, so the poor man was arrested. Johnson was always sober, industrious and gentlemanly, and nobody believed Johnson would do it on account of the risk involved." According to Emerson, a day into the trial, the district attorney recommended Johnson's acquittal. For decades, though, rumors persisted that Johnson had been hung for murdering his wife. Jim Walsh, whose "Favorite Pioneer Recording Artists" columns in Hobbies magazine provide much of what's known of George W. Johnson and other artists, speculates that the arrest occurred in the 1890s.

Fred Rabenstein, Edison's longtime paymaster, told Jim Walsh that Johnson had actually spent his final years with his old recording partner Len Spencer in New York: "When Len opened his Lyceum he had a doorman in full regalia – he was none other than George W. Johnson (who made the old laughing song records). George was something to behold in his full dress admiral (or was it general?) uniform. It was all right for a while – George had a room at the Lyceum, but after they moved from 14th Street up to 28th Street things caught up with George. He used to run errands and always being a little short of cash he used to borrow money from clients. He never paid back and after a while he was afraid to go to some of the places. George could only do the 'Laughing Song,' and therefore it was hard for him to pick up extra money. Then he liked to drink. After George died Len started to clean out the room and in the closet they found remains of many lunches (bread, bottles, ham, etc.), including roaches and other livestock. Len didn't get another doorman, but had an office boy. We understood that Len treated George all right, but was afraid to let him have much money because the 'doorman' would be indisposed for several days afterwards." The exact date of Johnson's death is unknown, but it was most likely around 1914.

While not much else is known of George W. Johnson, one thing is certain: He deserves credit for his brave and pioneering efforts in what was then a white man's industry. Among the 42 people in a 1900 photograph of Edison recording artists, he is the only African American.


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Thanks to Tim Brooks, Frederick Crane, Tim Gracyk, Dick Spottswood, and the late Jim Walsh for their contributions to this article. The pre-captioned graphics were scanned from 1971 issues of Walsh’s Hobbies – The Magazine for Collectors.


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Nick Lucas: America's First Guitar Star Reminisces

I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Nick Lucas, America’s first guitar star.

During the Roaring Twenties, Nick made stacks of 78s, including 1922’s “Pickin’ the Guitar” and “Teasin’ the Frets,” the first notable guitar solos on record. Framing his warm, pure tenor with agile guitar parts, he scored his first major hit with 1924’s “My Best Girl”/“Dreamer of Dreams.” Nick won rave reviews on Broadway, played for royalty in Europe, and co-starred in the 1929 Technicolor film Gold Diggers of Broadway. Then he had the biggest hit of his career, “Tip-Toe Thru the Tulips With Me.” [To legally download this and dozens of other Nick Lucas tracks, visit http://www.archive.org/.]

By 1930, Nick Lucas was America’s most famous guitarist. His name appeared on instruction books, guitar picks, and an elegant Gibson guitar. As Nick’s popularity and influence were eclipsed by players such as Eddie Lang, Django Reinhardt, and Charlie Christian, he continued to make records and headline nightclubs. During World War II, he starred in several Soundies, the forerunners of the modern music video. The 1950s and ’60s found him gigging in casinos and appearing on TV variety shows. When pop sensation Tiny Tim married Miss Vicki on the Tonight Show – to an audience of 40 million – Nick was there, performing “Tip-Toe Thru the Tulips” in the background.

As an editor for Guitar Player magazine, I made it my mission to interview all the guitar pioneers I could find. When I located Nick, he was living in semi-retirement at 1811 North Whitley in Hollywood. From his apartment, he could see students toting their guitar cases to nearby G.I.T., totally unaware that they were walking past the man who’d paved the way for everyone from Eddie Lang to Eddie Van Halen.

Nick enjoyed our interview and stayed in touch with me for the rest of his life. I loved getting his phone calls and letters. Always full of life and the perfect gentleman, this wonderful guy passed away on July 28, 1982. The interview that follows took place on September 3, 1980.


****

Are you up for doing an interview now?

Oh, sure. I'm ready to go. All you gotta do is ask questions. Everything you have in mind, why, I'll be glad to answer 'em. How far back do you want to go?

To about 1906, with your brother Frank.

[Laughs.] Yeah!

Learning mandolin?

Yeah. 1906 was just about the time. I was in grammar school; I was just about eight, nine years old. First of all, before I started with my brother Frank, he wanted me to study music without an instrument – solfeggio, which I studied from a Sicilian maestro, they called them in those days. That's all they did is teach music without an instrument. They taught the fundamentals of the music, of timing, and things like that. I studied that for about a year, and then he put me on the mandolin because in those days mandolin was the dominant instrument with the Italians and with the general public. Of course, it wasn't a commercial instrument; it was mostly for house entertainment – playing weddings and christenings and things like that. This was in Newark, New Jersey. That's where I was born.

Was your name originally Nick Lucas?

No, my original name was Dominic. My baptismal name was Dominic Nicholas Antonio Lucanese. That's an Italian name. Antonio was taken after some of my relatives; I guess they always like to include them. So actually I had four names. My first name was Dominic, I understand, due to the fact that I was born on a Sunday. "Domenica" means "Dominic" in Italian.

So after that, after I had a little knowledge of the fundamentals of music, he put me on the mandolin. My brother Frank was a very versatile musician. He was a thorough musician. He played the accordion, and in those days the accordion was it. It was a very, very popular instrument. And he wanted me to play the mandolin so that I could go with him on different occasions. I played weddings and christenings, because we did come from a very, very poor family. In those days, money was scarce and the wages were very poor. However, the living in those days was very, very inexpensive also, so there was no problem there. My father was working, of course. My brother would take me along with him, playing at weddings and christenings and saloons, passing the hat around, which I did. And we played in street cars and passed the hat around. We played on street corners – anything to make a dollar, so that we could help the family along.

So Frank was a couple of years older?

Yes. I might say Frank was about five or six years older. He was born in Italy. They migrated from Italy in the early '90s, because I was born in 1897. And he was the first. Then my sister, who passed away about a year ago – she was 85 – she was second, and then I was third. I was number three. There was another sister, and then there was three more brothers. Two of them are alive now. There's only three left in the family – my brother Lib and my brother Anthony, they're both alive. They're musically inclined, but not professionally.

So my brother took me around to play all these Italian weddings and christenings, and we got the big sum of a dollar an hour. All this work that I did for him gave me all the practice I needed, especially on the right hand, to get that tremolo and that technique. I had to study the mandolin under his tuition, and he was very stern. He really helped me. He gave me all the musical education that I ever needed. After that we parted, because he went into vaudeville with an act called The Three Vagrants. And then after I graduated school I was on my own, and I got a job in a nightclub in Newark, New Jersey, called The Johnson's Cafe. This was in 1915.

Were you playing guitar yet?

No. Believe it or not, I was playing . . . . They wanted more volume than a guitar, so I got myself a banjorine, which is a mandolin with a banjo head on it. And in order to get volume, I played the mandolin. That was my basic instrument. My brother, in the interim, he thought he wanted me to play a guitar, so there would be more volume as a background, because the mandolin is primarily a lead instrument. He also started me on the guitar, so I became as good on the guitar as I was on the mandolin. But when I first started, I played the mandolin in the night club and bought myself a banjorine. They were available in those days – anything that sounded like a banjo.

So I played with this big orchestra that consisted of three men [chuckles] – piano, violin, and the banjorine. And we played the revue. They had nightclub revues – like, they had a soprano singer, a comic, a line of girls, and a male singer. And that was the revue. The show lasted about two hours. And we played just with three pieces until eventually it went haywire – they put in a drummer! This was in Newark, and of course Newark is a short jump from New York. Naturally, I got all the work in town, because there was only very few musicians available in Newark who qualified to play for these nightclubs. You had to be a good faker. You had to read quick, you know. And most of 'em was fakin'. They'd say, "Oh, play it in C or play it in D, put it up in F, put it down a key," and if you couldn't do that, the music didn't mean a damn thing. When I went to the musicians union, I had to take a regular musical test, pass an examination, so I could get my union card. Of course, they don't do that today. They give you a card. Just pay your initiation fee, and you're in.

This is where I got all my experience. I was there two years, working with this outfit – the piano, violin, banjorine – and I doubled on the guitar when we had to waltzes and things like that. The guitar just came in handy. From there, I went on to another nightclub in Newark called The Iroquois with another combo. I had the great experience of playing with one of the greatest jazz pianists of that era, Blanche Merrill. She played that boogie-woogie piano. She used to live in New York too. We also had violin and drums. Oh, this was giving me all the experience and the qualifications of becoming a great jazz musician – unbeknownst to me.

Was the money good?

I'll tell you, the salary on the first job I got in Newark when I played in a nightclub was $20 a week. And I thought that was good then. I was in demand in Newark, and Newark was a wide-open town in those days. They had night clubs all over, and everything went – gambling, prostitution, everything was wide open. Then when I got another job at The Iroquois, they gave me $25. I bettered myself from $20 to $25.

And then we formed a unit called the Original Kentucky Five. In those days, they leaned on the South, like Dixieland jazz bands were very famous. So I got myself a group called the Kentucky Five, and I toured the Interstate circuit and the Keith circuit as a backup to the Ziegler Twins – they did a vaudeville act. I had a violin, and I had alto sax, piano, drums, and myself. I would say that was in the years of 1919 and 1920. I got married in 1917, then my daughter was born in 1918, so naturally I couldn't stay on the road too long. I only stayed on tour with this Kentucky Five, which I originated, for about a year because I had to come home. My wife had my only daughter, and I had to get myself a job around town. So I got myself a job in New York with Sam Lanin. And at that time Sam Lanin was the kingpin of New York. He did all the recording dates – well, I wouldn't say all, but most of it. I was working with him at the Roseland Ballroom. I played tenor banjo. I got myself a tenor banjo.

So the volume could cut through the orchestra.

Yeah. And I had the guitar alongside of it at all times for when we played waltzes. It was very difficult to play a three-quarter beat on the banjo, so the guitar came in handy. It blended better with waltzes. I had such great musicians as Jules Levy – that goes way back – on trumpet. We had two bands on the stand. One would stop, and then immediately the other would continue. Those were the days when it was 5 cents a dance, 10 cents. You remember that, way back? You buy tickets and pick up a dame there and dance with her, and that's how they survived. The other band was called Mel Hallett, who was very popular up around the Boston area. And there was a fellow playing piano there with Mal Hellett by the name of Frankie Carle. He became a great pianist.

How did you break into recording?

I did all of Sam Lanin's recording dates. In fact, sometimes I'd do two a day. The sessions were from 9:00 until 1:00, and then from 2:00 to 5:00, and then I still did my job at night. And I had a contract with Sam, getting $90 a week. And the phonograph dates, all they paid was $20 – that was the scale then. So I made $40 a day, and I practically worked there every day – four or five days a week – making those record dates. I was making a pretty good salary. $200 or $300 a week – that was a lot of money!

What was a recording session like in the early 1920s?

We always had trouble with the recording dates, because in those days they had the old cylinder wax. They had a big box in the back, and they kept all these waxes in the box always heated up. And the wax was pretty thick. We only had one horn to catch all the music into the cylinder to record. We didn't have microphones – this was the days before microphones. And we had the conventional combination, like three saxes and two trumpets and a trombone, piano, tuba, and a rhythm banjo. Guitar was unheard of. And we – that means the tuba and myself – had to sit way back in the studio, because when you blow notes out of a tuba, if it's too loud, that needle would jump off the cylinder and they'd have to start all over again. Very sensitive. And the banjo was the same thing, because it was a penetrating instrument. So I thought up an idea one morning of bringing my guitar to the studio. And Sam says, "What you gonna do with that?" I said, "Well, Sam, I'm having so damn much trouble with the banjo, let me try the guitar." He said, "Well, Nick, they won't hear it." I said, "Well, put me closer to the horn." So he got me right under the horn.

Now, this is a great, big horn. Visualize a great big horn, like you see advertised by the Victor Phonograph Company, the great big one with the dog. Well, that's what we had. So he put me under the horn, and the instrument was there. The rhythm was smoother, and we didn't have any trouble with the needle jumping out of the grooves. So he said, "Gee, Nick, that's all right. Keep it in." So that was the beginning of me playing guitar on record dates. Now, I would say that was around 1921 or '22, something like that.
I still worked with Sam for a while, then I worked with Vincent Lopez at the Peking Cafe on 45th Street. That was a hot spot, and in those days, Vincent Lopez was very, very hot in New York. He couldn't do anything wrong.

Did you record "Teasin’ the Frets" around this time?

No. "Teasin’ the Frets" was done while I was working with Sam with a different group, with a fellow called Don Parker. And on "Teasin’ the Frets" and "Pickin’ the Guitar," I did that all by myself. That was on Pathe Records. The sessions were from about 10:00 until 1:00, and I was all by myself. All I had was the musical director and the technicians in the studio. Nobody else. They were recorded in New York at the Pathe Phonograph Company on 42nd Street.

Did you compose those tunes?

Yes. [Both of these rare original versions can be heard at www.nicklucas.com/pathe.html.]

I've heard that those are the first popular guitar solo recordins.

I seem to agree with you on that. Now, I haven't done any research work on it, but I think they were the first ones.


Do you remember what kind of guitar you used for them?

Oh, yes. The guitar I started on, which was called a Galliano, made in New York by the Galliano Company. It was a small company located on Mulberry Street. I wasn't associated with Gibson until later, when I left New York. I went to join Ted Fiorito, who was an old friend of mine from Newark, and he had a band in Chicago called the Oriole Terrace Orchestra. He was at the Edgewater Beach Hotel there, and he sent for me. He asked me if I would be interested in coming out there, and he offered me $150 a week. And so my wife and daughter and I got in the car and drove out there. This was in 1923. It took us about four days to get there, because in those days they didn't have the route numbers. It was town to town – next town, next town. Of course, that was only day driving – I never drove at night because you'd get lost. You wouldn't know where the hell to go.

At that time I still had my Galliano. And when I went to Chicago, naturally we were a big hit there at the Edgewater Beach Hotel. We were booked for two weeks, and we stayed there almost three years. That was where I got my big break on radio. In those days, radio was the only media of entertainment. WEBH, Chicago – that was the studio. In the interim between sets, I used to go into the studio, which was right adjacent to our bandstand, and fill in some time with my guitar and sing and kind of croon. And that's when I started to get mail from all over the country. This wasn't a network by any means; it was just that they all had these crystal sets and they would tune in and get me all through the night. I got loads of mail, and I started to become very, very popular.

How did Gibson’s Nick Lucas model come about?

The Gibson Instrument Company, which was located in Kalamazoo, approached me. This was in 1924. They wanted me to play their guitar, but I said, "Geez, I got a great instrument now. I'm very happy with it and it sounds good. However, if you can make me a guitar to my specification, I'll be glad to make the change." I had no ties or contract with Galliano by any means, because I bought it for $35. So Gibson said, "We'll do anything to make you satisfied." At that time, the guitar was practically obsolete – it was going out. They had to do something. But by the same token it was coming in, so they made a guitar for me called the Nick Lucas model.


What was distinctive about it?

Well, the distinction was this: The neck board was a little wider. They made the neck board in those days – and they still make 'em today – a little bit too narrow, because you can't get a true tone out of some of your chords because the strings are so close together. I don't have an exceptionally big hand, but I wanted more room between the E and the B string, especially, for when I played a G chord or a C chord. See, then all the notes would come out distinct. I wouldn't get any interference with my flesh on the fingers. So they made a little wider fingerboard.

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What happened to the original Nick Lucas guitar?

I still have it. I still play it! I still use it! It's a gem. It's been fixed about 40 times, but I still use it. I wouldn't part with it. And I also said that I want a little wider body than the usual, and I want it black, and I want it so it don't shine, because the spotlight would shine on a guitar and it would glare all around the people in the audience. So they came up with this Nick Lucas model, which was a beauty!

When did you make the transition from guitar star to singing star?

With the Oriole Orchestra I was becoming very popular through the radio. I wasn't getting any money for it – this was all gratis. So that was my first stepping-stone to becoming a success as a singer and a performer. And then Brunswick Phonograph Company, which was located in Chicago, heard me and they signed me up to record. And I made a record there called "My Best Girl" and "Dreamer of Dreams," which was my first vocal recording – all by myself, in the old horn, no microphones. I sang in the horn and I made this recording, and it was a terrific seller. And then I left the band to go on my own. At the time I was with Dan Russo and Ted Fiorito, and I left them in December 1924. In the interim, I made the record, and the record was catching on all over the country. I was in demand. They wanted me to make personal appearances all over the United States. My first big theater engagement was at the Chicago Theater in December 1924. This was as a solo act. A friend of mine, Bert Wheeler, heard me sing and told his New York agent about me. He said, "Come out and catch this guy – he's great. I know he's gonna become somebody." So he did. We didn't sign a contract, but we had a handshake, and we were together for about 15, 20 years. From then on I played vaudeville.

My next big break from there came when I played the Palace Theatre in New York. That was the epitome of all. That was tops! I went into the Palace of New York, and I was a big hit there. Now, England was big in those days. I played at the Cafe des Paris, and the Prince of Wales and the Queen of Spain were in to see my show one night. Then they had me entertain for them privately about two weeks later. That's when I got publicity all around the world, and from then on, I couldn't do anything wrong. When I came back to America, naturally I had all the work I wanted to, and I continued to play in vaudeville, because that was the only thing around. Vaudeville was it. I played the Orpheum, Keith – I played all the circuits. I was making $3,000 a week. That's like $30,000 today – maybe more! All by myself. All I was doin' was singin'!

Your family must have been happy.

They sure were! As I said, this all came unexpectedly, because in those days, entertainers were far and few between. I used to play a lot of solos, but in those days they wanted to hear me sing. And today they still want to hear me sing. My voice, thank goodness, is still in excellent condition. Because I quit in 1965. I was working steady. I worked for Harrah's Club in Reno and Tahoe for eight years, had my own group. But that was too tough on my throat, so I quit in 1965. My voice today is better than ever. But the people in those days, and even today, they want to hear me sing. The guitar is a part of my act. See, nobody can play for me. When I sing, then I play for myself. I improvise, I play runs in between, and I play a little solo. Like I'll play "Babyface," and maybe I'll play 16 bars on the guitar.

In those days, the entertainers that were successful and very famous, I could count them on one hand. There was Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, and Bing Crosby. And I was in that era. I was before Bing Crosby, but I wasn't before Eddie Cantor, though. He was way before me, as was Al Jolson, because I was practically a school boy when they were around. But my ambition was to be as good as them, but I never try to copy anybody. Never try to copy anybody. I try to be myself. When I record, I use my own ideas, and I felt I was little unique due to the fact that my guitar and my voice blended. It was one.

My voice is me. My guitar comes second, but the guitar is the one that made me. Without the guitar, I wouldn't be what I am today. Lucas without a guitar wouldn't be Nick Lucas. I'm not saying this in the spirit of conceit, by any means, but I feel that most of these contemporary guitar players studied from my books. I had two books on the market. They came out around '26 or '27, right after I became popular on records. Then when I got to 1929 and played the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles, that's when I got my biggest break, with The Gold Diggers of Broadway. I was working there at the Orpheum Theater, and this was big time. I was on the bill with Sophie Tucker and Jack Benny and myself. That's pretty stiff company, isn't it? But I was learning as I was going along, watching these performers. I was very observative, and I learned how to get on and off stage, and that wasn't easy. It took me 15 years to learn how to take a bow. Today they do it overnight. So that's where I got my biggest break, with "Tip-Toe Thru the Tulips" [http://www.archive.org/details/Tip-toeThroughTheTulips--nickLucascas]. In fact, on April 15th of this year, the Variety Arts Club that I belong to gave me a big testimonial honoring 50 years of "Tip-Toe Thru the Tulips." I never dreamed that a song would become synonymous with my name all these years. And still, no matter where I go, it's "Tip-Toe Thru the Tulips."

And it's such an optimistic song.

Oh, yeah. I only hope to write another on like it. You see, you never know, when you're in show business, about a song until you sing it to the public. I might think it's great – every songwriter thinks every song he writes is great – but not until the public decides upon it, because they are the ones that buy it.

Many famous guitarists credit you with inspiring them to play.

I feel that I helped all these contemporary guys way, way back. Gene Autry said, "Without Nick Lucas, I wouldn't be playing the guitar."

Merle Travis also said he was influenced by you.

Merle Travis – he's a fine guy. I'll tell you another one – Barney Kessel. He's a great musician. And even Roy Clark said that he studied from my books. Now, I'm ignorant of that until they tell me. The first book was for beginners, and then I had a little advanced one. It was a beginning book for ordinary musicians, because contemporary guitar players in those days, they didn't know from nothing. They wanted to become guitar players, and they picked up my books. They happened to be very popular in those days. In fact, when I played Australia for six months in 1937, there was a group of natives waiting for me at the boat – this was right outside the Fiji Islands – because they all had my books and my guitar picks. I had to give them a concert and play every damn thing I knew on the guitar, because they all had guitars.

Now today, as you know, every girl and every boy wants to play the guitar. There's a big guitar school around the corner here in Hollywood, and I see 'em every day, walking around the neighborhood with guitars. So I think I started something. I don't commercialize on it. I don't go around telling people about it, but after I analyzed the whole damn thing, I started to realize the guitar is getting more popular now then ever. Somebody told me there's about 30 million people playing the guitar – not professionally, but they all have a guitar, like having a piano in their home.

This has been a great interview, Nick.

I'm telling you the truth, the whole resume of my life from the beginning. When I played the guitar, when I was eight, nine years old. I'm 83 now, you know. [Laughs.] I hit it August the 22nd. I don't like to publicize that too damn much. What do you think? Does it spoil the illusion? Use your own judgment on that. And I'm in good shape physically. My voice is in terrific condition, and I still can play "Pickin’ the Guitar" and "Teasin’ the Frets" – that's not easy! That takes a lot of fingering.

I still work. I play choice engagements, but I don't get out enough. I don't socialize enough to get acquainted with some of these musicians today that made it big, which I'm happy for. And I had my turn. I had my success, and I thank the good Lord that I still can sing and I still work. I played a lot of fair dates and casual dates. Just recently I played three days in Indianapolis at the Shrine show, and I was there last year. They want me back because they enjoy it. It makes me happy to know that I'm still able. As long as my health keeps up, I'm gonna keep on doing it until I can't do it any longer!


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John Lee Hooker’s Spiritual Side: a Q/A

Asked to name my favorite among all the musicians I’ve interviewed, the first person who comes to mind is John Lee Hooker. John could not read or write, and could barely scrawl his own name, but he was highly intelligent, profoundly insightful, and musically true to himself.

I first saw John Lee Hooker in 1966, playing a solo set at the Detroit-based Jesuit high school I’d just begun attending. That night he did most of the set from a fabulous album he’d just made with Muddy Waters’ band, Live at Café Au-Go-Go, playing an electric guitar and keeping time with his feet. What a way to inaugurate my lifelong love for the blues!

Moving from Detroit to California in 1978, I was blessed to interview John several times during the next two decades. We did two solo cover stories for Guitar Player magazine, as well as joint GP covers featuring John in conversation with B.B. King and Buddy Guy. We listened to old blues records together for a Blues Revue cover story, and did our most in-depth interviews for his 1997 Living Blues cover story. But perhaps my most memorable interview with John was our final one together, in October 1998, for Mojo magazine. It took place in John’s home in Redwood City, California. That day, John pulled out stories that even his longtime manager and friend, Mike Kappus, hadn’t heard before. I'd like to share them as my first blog. (Out of respect for John, I am keeping his language exactly as spoken.)


* * * *


You’ve advised many musicians – especially guitarists – to slow down and play half as many notes. But what’s the best playing advice someone's given to you?

Well, the best advice given to me was from my stepfather, Will Moore, and T-Bone Walker. Both of 'em told me, "Once you start, don't stop. If you really want to do it, don't let people dis-encourage you. Don't let people tell you that you ain't gonna make it. If you're determined to do it, just keep on pluckin'." I found that really paid off for me. Sometimes things don't go like you want to, and you get kind of disgusted and say, "Oh, I'm gonna quit. I'm gonna hang it up." But don't do it. Keep on pluckin'. If you really want it, you'll have it. I found that was the best advice. A lot of time when you're tryin' to start off, people dis-encourage you. "Oh, you ain't gonna do it. Waste of time." That's what happened to me – people tell me I wasn't going to make it. But I'd look at 'em and laugh, because I know what my stepfather and T-Bone told me: Keep on pluckin', you know. And that's what I did.


You've raised several children. What's the most important thing for a father to teach his kids?

That's a good question! Teach your children to be obedient, to love and be with other people. And keep your mind occupied on something that's not trouble. Keep busy and do the right thing. Learn how to get along with people. That's what I teach 'em, and so far it paid off. I tell them not to get out in the street and get with the gang and run around. There are plenty of good places they can go. They can study their music or stay in school or go out with people that are quality and want to live a good life. Stay home. That's what I tell them. And stay away from drugs! Drugs are runnin' this world now. They run kids and grown-ups too. I teach them to keep their minds occupied on the good things in life. My mind is occupied on music and women, my mind is.


For many years now, you've been renowned for being a ladies man. What's your secret?

I'm nice to 'em. Respect them. And good women, they respects that – they watch that, they notice that. I'm not the kind that runs around with anything with a skirt on. Yes, I am kind of a ladies' man, and there's really nothing wrong with it. I don't think so. I would be a one-woman man if I had one that was really true, but right now I'm not a married man. When I was a married man, I was a one-woman man.


You always keep a guitar here at home. What do you play when you're all alone by yourself?

Just messin' around with the blues, just whatever come to me. Try to find different ideas and stuff like that. Nothin' special. Sometimes at home I sit down and play my old songs – the old ones are really the best songs.


Do you believe in God?

Yeah! See, God's looking down watching you. You can't see God Jehovah, but he sees you. He knows every move you make and what you do – I believe that! He the one that created you, created woman. I believe that, and can't nobody tell me different. I'm not an angel, but I live a good life. But I'm not perfect – there's only one man perfect, and that's God. He's perfect.


What's the difference between singing the blues and saying your prayers?

Well, not much. When you sing the blues, you're sincere from your heart. It's a gift that the higher power gave you. The higher power is God, if you believe in God. Some folks don't believe in the higher power of God, but I do. I think it is a gift from God Jehovah that enables you to do that. He created you and gave you the talent. Everybody can't sing – they can sing, but they don't have my talent.

That's a good, good question you asked. When you're sayin' your prayers, you're praying to God to forgive you and to help other people. You pray for other people, to be obedient, to be loyal to people and forgive them. There's bad people, and you pray that they will be a better person. You pray that yourself will be a better person. And when you sing, you hope people catch on to your singin' and it will soothe their mind if they got a worried mind or something is really botherin' them. The singin' will pick them up. There's a song called "The Healer." That was meant to heal people's soul and mind. You don't find many people like John Lee Hooker – I don't think you do – and I sing for the people, to bless the people, to heal their mind. There are people I wouldn't associate with, but I don't hate 'em. I really don't. I pray for them to get over that thing.


You've loved and lost a lot of people in your life – your mother and father, fellow musicians, friends. Who do you miss the most?

I lost a lot of people – I lost my whole family. That's a hard question. I'd have to say my mother and father. I knowed them well, and I knew they wasn't gonna live forever. I know they long gone by now, but I still think about 'em. I don't worry about it now that people have come and gone. I miss 'em, but life must go on and life must end. I don't let it get me down. I don't let it stop my life, because life must go on. No matter how much I love you, you are not going to live always.


What do you think happens when your time is up? Does your spirit go somewhere?

Yeah. Where, I don't know. But that's what the Bible says. I study the Bible. We have Bible study all the time. We go to church, Jehovah Witnesses. We have Bible study in our home, to pray and bless people and ourselves and talk to God Jehovah. We have the Bible. I'm not good on readin', but people read the Bible to me and it soaks in. I'm not braggin' on myself, but I know I'm a good person – a very good person. I care for people. Sometime people get greedy over money and different things, but I don't.


Do you think you'll see your mom again?

That's what I'm hoping. I'm hoping to see her in some beautiful place – and my father. That's a dream and a hope. Nobody never found that out yet, but where you go, I hope that's true. We pray and study the Bible and hope that we come back again as a person. If you pray to God Jehovah, you will relive. This earth is made for paradise. See, God made this planet, and it will never be destroyed. But the filth and the trash and the sin will be destroyed. But not the earth, not the ground, but the bad people and the filth and the evil will be cleaned up. It will become a new world, and new generations will live on with no sadness, no grief. It will be a beautiful place for people.


You're pushing eighty now, and people talk about the "golden years." But are the golden years so golden?

I don't feel any differently. I feel real active. I feel real blessed to be here, to enjoy the younger generation and the older generation, all of it. I'm here for a purpose, I know. For God hasn't taken me away, so I believe that. And I get out here and go about my way. Oh, I have my aches and pains. I know I'm not gonna live forever. I don't think so, being that Armageddon will come. That's the end. You may be here when Armageddon come. You may live through it. Who knows? But that's when the earth be cleaned up, and then only the righteous will survive, through the God Jehovah. They the only ones will survive. If you're a Christian and believe in the God Jehovah, I believe you can live through that. But people against each other and fighting over wealth and doing evil – that's a sin, and I think they'll be destroyed away. That's a sin. I believe in that. But where and when, we don't know. But right now we're living in a world of doubt; it's full of good and it's full of evil. People are evil over money, love, sex, everything.

This is the truth, from my heart: I really don't believe in chasing money. I have enough to survive and live, but I don't go crazy over money. I have just enough to survive like I am now. I'm set. And I don't look to be a double-millionaire or billionaire. I am very generous with money. I'll give you a lot with no regret. I ain't looking for that back, because I give from my heart and soul. I'm not greedy over money. I don't take what don't belong to me. I just live an easy, peaceful life and love people. That's what I want.


You've recently worked on a book about your life. As you were reliving your life, did you think of things you wished you'd done differently?

Yes! But you can't. If I could change things, one thing I would change is for the good. The things I did in my young life – 18, 19, 20 – I wouldn't do. If I could change that, I would. I'm not sayin' I was an angel in my younger days, but I wasn't bad. But I was just wild and would do things that was kind of dangerous then. I wouldn't do that any more. I used to be a wild person – I'd drink and party, whole lot of women. I don't do that anymore. If I had to live it over again, I would reach back and get one lovely woman in my life and stick with her. But back then I didn't do that. I just got a bunch of 'em, screwin' around. I wouldn't do that now. If I had a good wife, a good woman, I'd be like an angel to her – just that one, one woman. I really would, if I could relive that. But I can't find her now.


This is the 50th anniversary of your recording "Boogie Chillen." Did you ever imagine your music would carry you for so long and so far?

I really didn't! I didn't thought I would get this far. I rarely talk about it or brag about it, but I never know I'd be one of the biggest blues singers in the world. The music carried me so far, everything I touch would turn to gold. I never figured that. But back longer than 60 years ago, when I was in Mississippi, I run into this woman at a circus. I was about 10, 12 years old. I'm at this circus, and out of all the young people, the kids, she come straight to me. I never will forget. I was singin' around a little bit then, but there was nothin' to it – just hummin' around in the church and whenever I could. She walk up to me and said, "Young man, one day you will be a great musician – you will be real famous and a very rich man." I looked at her, and I kind of laughed. Then she said, "I read people. I'm a fortune teller." That's what she said. She also said, "You ain't got no money," and I didn't! I didn't have a dime, so I said, "No." Then she said, "You gonna be very famous, young man," and I said, "Yes, sure." Then she walked away, and I never seen her since.

I didn't pay much attention then, but then it dawned on me for years and years and years, and it done happened. I did become famous and a very loving person and very successful with money. This woman looked to me like a living angel – and she could have been an angel, because out of all those people, she came straight to me. I know this woman been long gone, because she was kind of an old lady then. But I still think about it a lot, because it's true what she told me. That's why I believe in certain things – people can read your life's story.

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