Jas Obrecht Music Blog

Otis Rush: The Living Blues Interview

2010-07-02T13:37:00.041-04:00

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.

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.

Rush's very first recording, a heartrending rewrite of Dixon's "I Can't Quit You Baby" delivered with a fever-and-chills vocals, 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).

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 unhappy 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 Right Place, Wrong Time 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 Cold Day in Hell 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."

In 1994, Rush ended his studio hiatus to record Ain't Enough Comin In 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 passionate pleas to gritty soul and sanctified screams. The title track was the album's sole Rush composition.

Rush says that his latest release, Any Place I'm Going, 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.

Through the years, Otis Rush has been characterized as a brooding, intensely guarded man who's extraordinarily reticent during interviews. 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.

* * * *

When you were beginning to play, did you solo right away or go through learning chords first?

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.

Did you own an acoustic guitar when you were young?

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.

Was this in Philadelphia?

Yeah, Philadelphia, Mississippi.

You once described that town as being so small you could throw a baseball across it.

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.

Why is that?

Just the things you had to go through. This was back in the '40s and '50s.

This 1938 Mississippi Highway Map lists the population of Philadelphia as 2,560.

Was there a lot of racism?

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.

You've said that your hard times started around the time you were five years old.

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.

Did you ever work in a field?

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.

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!"

Were you aware of lynchings?

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.

Nowadays most people are unaware that thousands were lynched in the South before World War II.

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.

When is the last time you went back to Philadelphia?

I went back eight or nine years ago. I played out there in Hollandale and went to see my brother.

When you were a kid, did you ever see anyone playing a one-string or diddley-bow?

One-string guitar? No.

Did you know people who played blues music?

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.

That's spending some time with the music.

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.

Did you get that from playing along to the record?

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" ["Chitlins Con Carne"]. I do a little of Wes Montgomery [hums a riff] – that's "Bumpin' On Sunset." I used to play that. George Benson, man, but he came up late from these guys.

Did you ever hear of Charlie Christian?

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.

Did you copy any blues guitar records, like "Boogie Chillun"?

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.

Did you teach him?

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.

Are they hard-headed?

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.

Was your mother strict?

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."

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!"

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.

Was your mother churchified?

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.

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.

Were you ever inclined to be violent toward others?

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.

After you moved out on your own, were you close to your mom?

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.

Did your mother have any problems with your playing blues music?

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.

Where did you learn about Eddy Arnold and the Blue Grass Boys?

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.

Did you have electricity at home?

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.

What kind of church did you attend?

Baptist, up in the hills in the woods. That's where my church was.

Did you sing in church?

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.

Are you the only professional musician in your family?

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' Hopkins. 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.

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.

At what point did you say, "I gotta get out of here, and maybe music's my way out"?

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.

Did you grow greens and other vegetables?

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.

That's a hard way to live.

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.

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."

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.

How old were you at the time?

I don't know. I was in my teens.

Where did you see Muddy?

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!"

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.

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.

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.

Did you go back to Mississippi?

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.

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.

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?"

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.

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.

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. 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?!"

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.

Sounds like you had an angel riding alongside you.

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."

Did you make it down to Philadelphia?

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."

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.

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.

Is this when you started putting a band together?

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.

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.

Back in the '50s, were there different blues scenes on Chicago’s West and South Sides?

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.

Is it true that Muddy tended to play the South Side while Howlin' Wolf played the West Side?

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.

Were your Cobra sessions the first time you played with a decent band?

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 Muddy. Muddy had Little Walter playin' with him, but Little Walter had made "Juke," and that was a hot record. Walter went on his own.

What kind of guy was Little Walter?

Walter, they tell me, was rough.

Did you ever hear the rumor that he was murdered?

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.

Did you know another of Muddy's harmonica players, Henry Strong, who was also known as Pot?

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.

When was the first time you saw a record with your name on it?

That was "I Can't Quit You, Baby." I got copies from the record company.

What was your reaction?

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.

Did you send copies home to Mississippi?

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!"

Didn't Muddy give you some advice after your first hit?

Yeah, yeah. That was at the 708 Club, parked right out front. He said, "Otis, I want to talk to you." Him and 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.

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'.

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?

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.

What kind of amp did you use on the Cobra singles?

It was an amp called Challenge. I bought it at Lyon & Healy.

Were you playing with a guitar pick then?

Usin' fingers. But after a while, I began to use a guitar pick, then thumbpicks and all that stuff.

You once said that working for Eli Toscano at Cobra was "heaven," and working for Chess was "hell."

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.

Even though he gambled away your royalties?

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, you 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.

Were there a lot of hangers-on after you had a hit?

Oh, yeah. Everybody knows you, you know what I mean? Everybody want a piece of the pie.

What's the first popular song you wrote on your own?

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."

And "Double Trouble" became one of your big records.

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.

How did you write "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)"?

[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?

What about that middle riff?

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.

What did you think of Eric Clapton's cover of "All Your Love" with John Mayall's Blues Breakers?

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 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.

Did you like Eric's version?

Eric plays nice, man.

And then he did "Double Trouble" later on.

Yeah, I can't say nothin' but they sound good. But they ain't me.

Have you ever met Clapton?

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.

Do you have any favorites among the songs you've written?

"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.

Did your appearance on the 1966 Chicago/The Blues/Today! anthology do you any good?

Not really.

Are your Atlantic sessions for Mourning in The Morning with Duane Allman a good memory?

Well, I had [co-producers] Mike Bloomfield and Nick Gravenites there.

It's been reported that Nick showed your song "Right Place, Wrong Time" to . . .

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.

If you could do your career over again, what's the first thing you'd do differently?

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.

Do you consider this record disrespectful?

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.

Would you open a show for John Lee Hooker or B.B. King?

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.]

If you could somehow magically put together your dream blues band, who'd be in it?

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.

Earl was so clean.

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.

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.

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.

Did you ever try to restring a guitar with the skinny strings nearest your toes?

I have did it, but it don't make no sense to try to learn over again.

Whereas a lot of players show off during solos, you tend to tell a story with your guitar.

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.

Do you know the names of all the notes on the guitar?

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.

Are you always aware of what key you're in?

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."

The guitar is such an expressive instrument . . .

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'.

Among all your albums, which are your favorites?

I did a thing live in San Francisco with the Bobby Murray band behind me – Tops, 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.

Do you have positive feelings about Ain't Enough Comin' In?

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.

What are your feelings about managers?

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.

What's the most stressful thing about today's music business?

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.

Do you believe in spanking kids?

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."

Is success hard on marriage?

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.

What are your feelings about drinking liquor?

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 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.

Are you a happy or surly drinker?

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.

How do you deal with your anger?

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.

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.

Do you believe in God?

Of course I do.

Is there a heaven and a hell?

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.

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.

That flying dream must make you feel good.

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!

Does playing music ever give that exhilarated feeling?

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.

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.

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.

Do you love the guitar as much today as you did at the start of your career?

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.

###

Support this blog by clicking on one or two of our advertisers.

###

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 http://astore.amazon.com/jaso01-20.

###

Rick Nelson Remembers the Rockabilly Era

2010-06-22T18:11:00.028-04:00

In the early days of rock and roll, Ricky Nelson’s singles rocketed 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.

Originally a 1940s radio show about a real-life mom, pop, and their 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. No mere teen idol, Ricky Nelson created some of the era’s finest rockabilly and pop records.

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 “Garden Party.” 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.

****

Who are the best guitarists you’ve worked with?

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.

When James Burton joined your band, how well known was he?

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, 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.”

Your promo material mentioned that you recorded “A Teenager’s Romance” after your girlfriend said she liked Elvis.

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: www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwSwlkxHSnY.)

Were you interested in rock and roll before then?
Yeah, very much so. I remember the first truly rock and roll record that I ever heard was with Carl Perkins. It was “Blue Suede Shoes.” (Here Carl performs the song in 1956: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79CJON8fv6c m/watch?v=79CJON8fv6c. Dig those crazy legs!)

What other influences did you bring into the studio?

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.

Did Ozzie have much to do with your getting signed to Verve?

My dad? Well, he was involved, because I was just 16 at that time. And sure, he was very much involved.

Do you remember which musicians you used for the Verve sessions?

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.

Do you remember how those early sessions were done?

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-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.

Was there a natural echo in the room, or was the echo on those records done electronically?

It was a real chamber, upstairs.

What were the recording techniques?

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.

Compared to today, what was the turnaround time between the sessions and the records being released?
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.

Did you pick the tunes yourself?

Yeah, I did, which was a real luxury.

Did you make suggestions to your guitar players, like to emphasize the country influence?

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.

Being 16, how clear of a vision of the final product did you have?

Very clear, because I tried to emulate Sun Records. It was when Music City was happening, and I used to buy up all of Sun Records down there. Because I love that sound.

Did you play guitar when you were young?

Yeah, I did.

How old were you?
Let me see – I think I was probably about 14.

When you moved from Verve to Imperial, was Joe Maphis your guitarist for a while?

Yeah, he was. On the first album, Joe played all the leads, like “Boppin’ the Blues” and “Waitin’ in School” – all those things.

How did Joe get involved?

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.

Who were your backup singers on the early records?

It was the Jordanaires.

Did being compared to Elvis create pressure?

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.

Being that young, did you have much artistic control over your career?

Yeah, I had complete control over it.

Did you go on many tours?

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!

Did you see the film The Buddy Holly Story?

Yeah, I did.

Was that an accurate portrayal of what it was like back then?
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 never really had to do that.

At right: Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent

Did you do much jamming with Gene Vincent?

Oh, yeah. A lot.

Was what he played with you the same as what he played in public?

Yeah, pretty much. And we were real good friends.

Compared to today, what was the concert scene like back then?

It was really the very beginnings of rock and roll, and people were getting their clothes torn off. It was very physical.

The Rock 'N' Roll Trio, 1956: Paul Burlison with Johnny and Dorsey Burnette.

How did you become involved with the Burnette brothers?

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 them 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: www.youtube.com/watch?v=diH71kQNna8]

How much freedom did you give James Burton on your records?

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: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQNkg4dOsRk.)

What are your favorite cuts from the late ’50s and early ’60s?

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.

Over the years, have you embraced new technology as it’s come along?

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 generation-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”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLkCWT2neuI)

Do you find it easier to put together an album now?

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.

You self-produced the Garden Party album.

Yes.

Did you enjoy doing that?

Yeah, I really did, because when I wrote the song, I wrote it in one night. It was 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.

Would you recount the story of that song?

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: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6S9dCGwB8M&feature=related )

What do you view as the best period of rock and roll?

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.

Who would have thought rock and roll would reach the proportions it has?

Oh, yeah! When I first started, people we’re saying, “Well, it’s gonna be out in three weeks anyways – it’s a fad.” Really!

And now it’s probably the classical music of the future.

Oh, sure.

What venues do you play these days?

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.

That must be fun.
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.

Any contemporary rock and roll that you enjoy listening to?

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.

What do you look for in a sideman in your own band?

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.

Who’s the guitarist in your current band?

A fellow named Bobby Neal.

How did you find him?

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.

Do you play much guitar on the Playing to Win album?

I just played rhythm, you know? Just acoustic.

What guitars do you own now?

I have a Martin.

Do you know the model?

Let me see – it’s a D-35. I’ve had it since I was 17.

Do you play lead at all?

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.

Do you go on the road much nowadays?

Oh, yeah. Really a lot. 200 days a year, on average.

How do you keep your sanity?

Well, that’s a good question! [Laughs.]

Do you play your guitar much outside of performing?

You mean at home? Oh, yeah.

Do you use it to play yourself in and out of moods?

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.

Have songs ever come to you at odd times?

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.

Any advice for young performers?

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.

###

Epilog

After our interview, Rick Nelson continued to tour. In 1984 he participated in 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.”

###

Detroit Blues: The Eddie Burns Interview

2010-06-17T16:33:00.042-04:00

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.

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!”

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 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.

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.

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 Street 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.

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 couple 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, The Real Folk Blues, 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.

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, 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.”

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 Tommy 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 Burns’ early singles and a pair of 1982 performances.

Burns recorded his first CD, Detroit, in 1989 for the Ohio-based Blue Suit label. Backed by a tight band led by longtime accompanist Joe 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.

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 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.

This interview originally appeared as the cover story of Living Blues magazine, issue #156, in March/April 2001.

****

Your brother Jimmy Burns plays some fine blues.

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.

How much older are you than Jimmy?

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.

You were born in Belzoni, Mississippi?

Yeah, but I don’t know anything about it because I didn’t grow up there. I grew up around Clarksdale, Webb, and Dublin.

Did you live on a farm?
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.

Left: Tommy McClennan

Did your grandparents have a collection of 78s?

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 soulful, 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.

Right: John Lee Williamson, aka Sonny Boy Williamson I

Did you see many blues performers while you were living in Mississippi?

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.

Did you ever play piano?

No. That’s my main instrument, though. I like piano. But I think I really could play if I put my mind to it.

Was your first instrument a harmonica or one-string?

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.

In some communities, people frowned on blues music. Did you run into that in Mississippi?

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.

While living in Mississippi, were you aware of racism?

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.

Were you aware of violence aimed at black people in Mississippi?

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.

Did you run into Rice Miller, Sonny Boy Williamson II, when you were young?

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 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.

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.

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 house. 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.

Was there a favorite brand of harmonica back then?

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.

Were players doing anything special to make them sound good, such as dipping them in water?

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.

What key would you buy if you only had one?

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.

So the guitarists would be playing in G?

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.”

Why did you leave Mississippi?

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’.

How did you wind up coming to Detroit?

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’.

Soon after you arrived in Detroit, you and Smith cut a single as the Swing Brothers.

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.

Is this before he’d cut “Boogie Chillen”?

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.

Was this for “Burnin’ Hell”?

Yeah. That’s when we did “Burnin’ Hell” and all them tunes. That was for Bernie 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.

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 tune, “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.

What inspired “Notoriety Woman”?

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.

Did you and Hooker do much womanizing?

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.]

Did she let you stay with her?

Mm hmm. One of the best ladies I ever had, and I was young too. She had a lot of kids.

You learned guitar fairly quickly right around this time.

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.

Did you learn chords and solos at the same time?

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.

Ever learn bottleneck?

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.

Many of your records through the years have had a similar guitar tone. You’ve stayed true to the way you hear the instrument.

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.

When is the first time you saw an electric guitar?

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 Lee 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.

At right: John Lee Hooker with his pickup-equipped Stella.

But once Hooker put that DeArmond soundhole pickup into his Stella, his sound was popping.

Right. Oh, yeah!

With his feet keeping time.

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.

What kind of amplifiers were you using?

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.

What about for harmonica?

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.

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?

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. They 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 wasn’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.

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.

Which record company treated you the best?

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.

When was the prime of Detroit’s Hastings Street blues scene?

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.

You read about the Silver Grill, Jake’s Bar, the Mars Bar, Joe’s Tap Room. Do any of these ring a bell?
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.

Where would you make money playing?

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. 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.

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.

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.

What did you think of Little Walter’s style?

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.

How did you mike the harmonica? You see photos of people with those big microphones.

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.

Let’s listen to one of your first recordings.

[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.

How did you get the reverb on your voice?

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.

Did you write this?

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.]

Did you use a guitar pick on your early records?

At that time I did. I don’t now.

It also sounds like you didn’t crank the amp very loud.

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.

Some of those Deluxe recordings you mentioned featured Washboard Willie.

Right. Washboard Willie started out at the Harlem Inn also. He used to come there. He was funny, because he 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!

Do you have copies of your early singles?

Somewhat, but not on 78s, no.

When records started coming out with your name on it, did you send copies home?

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.

Why didn’t you move to Chicago, given that it had such a happening blues scene?

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.

Did you ever play in Detroit’s Eastern Market?

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.

Let’s talk about a few of the old Detroit bluesmen. Do you remember One-String Sam?

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.

Bobo Jenkins.

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].

What was your relationship with Eddie Kirkland?

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.

Did you ever hear of Sylvester Cotton?

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.

How about Detroit Count?

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 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.

At right: Bob "Detroit Count" White in 1948.

L.C. Green.

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!

Whatever happened to your first partner, John T. Smith?

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.

When Motown started becoming Detroit’s primary music, did the blues scene drop off?

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.

Was recording for Harvey Fuqua in the early 1960s a good experience?

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.

What inspired you to compose “Orange Driver”?

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 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b03TyYf5oo4.)

How did Marvin Gaye happen to play drums on “Orange Driver” and “Hard Hearted Woman”?

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.

What happened to Harvey Fuqua?

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.

Do you have favorite keys to play in?

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.

Or they use a capo.

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.

Do you have children who play music?

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.

If one of your grandchildren wanted to play professionally, what advice would you offer?

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 me, 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 blues. 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 understand 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.

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 know 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.

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.

What are your favorite gigs these days?

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.

You hear the expression “the blues will never die” . . .

It won’t. May not make no money, but blues music don’t ever quit sellin’. You die, but the music lives on.

Is the album called Detroit your most recent CD?

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!

That’s the end of it.

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.

And he’s making a fortune.

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.

It’s not like when you were playing with him on “Miss Sadie Mae,” “Black Cat,” and those songs.

Oh, no. That was Hooker then. That was Hooker.

Are you ready to record another album?

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 fairness is what I’m looking for, and I don’t want to get married to no label.

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.

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.

When you’re playing around the house, is it mostly blues music?

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.

If you could somehow see any musician who’s ever recorded, who’d you want to see first?

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.

Among all the bluesmen you’ve known, who were your favorites?

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.

Do you ever hear from Eddie Kirkland or John Lee Hooker?

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.

I’d like to ask you a couple of spiritual questions.

Okay.

Do you believe in heaven?

The hereafter? Yes.

Will you be able to see others again?

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?

I remembered John Lee Hooker saying that he thinks God’s going to wipe the earth clean of disbelievers.

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.

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.

###

Epilog

Nine months after our interview, on September 12 and 13, 2001, Eddie Burns recorded an album of new material, Snake Eyes , 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 Williamson 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, 2nd Degree Burns, on the Blue Suit label. His tracks from the old days in Detroit continue to appear on anthologies.

###

For an outstanding illustrated Eddie Burns discography, visit http://www.wirz.de/music/burns.htm.

###

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 http://astore.amazon.com/jaso01-20.

###

Please take a few seconds to support this blog by clicking on a couple of advertising links.

###

Rory Gallagher: The 1991 Interview

2010-06-12T13:11:00.042-04:00

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.

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.

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.

****

You’ve stayed true to the music that inspired you in the beginning.

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.]

You seem to gravitate toward roots American music.

Yeah. Even though I grew up in Ireland, where there’s a lot of folk music and traditional music is very close at hand, it didn’t initially appeal to me, even though I can see traces of it creeping in over the years in 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 fifteen 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.

Are there records you'd recommend for young players who aren’t acquainted with Son House and other early bluesmen?

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.

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.

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.

We hear that on your performance of Son House’s “Empire State Express.”

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.

That’s Son House’s Death Letter album?

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 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.

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.

What year was Defender?

Two years ago.

It was released in England?

Released in England and all over Europe. It will be released here in two weeks’ time, in fact, so it will be running concurrently 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.

Although there is definitely a Rory Gallagher feel. For example, there's a continuum between songs like “Slumming Angel” and “Living Like a Trucker.”

“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].

They’ve obviously never heard Taste at the Isle of Wight.

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.

When you’re recording solos, what do you expect from yourself? What should a Rory Gallagher solo be about?

I try to split the difference between being fairly clever and technical, and still primitive. Because I think if it’s just a technical 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 the 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.

Has technology impacted the way you make records? Was recording the new album different than, say, recording Blueprint or Tattoo?

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. 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 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.

Did you try to avoid layering tracks and go for live as much as possible?

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 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.

Do you still have the old Stratocaster that you used on the early records?

Yes. It’s super-glued together.

Like Albert King’s Flying V guitar – it recently fell into a river and had to be super-glued back together.

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.

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.

God almighty!

Dan asked Albert why he did it, and Albert told him it was too good a case to risk having anything happen to it.

[Laughs.] That’s funny. That’s strange.

That’s Albert.

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.

Have you lost instruments?

I did actually have the Stratocaster stolen in Dublin in the ’60s, and I got it back after two weeks because they had a police 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.

Do you know the year it was made?

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.

It must have been a happy day for you.

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.

Do you still travel with it?

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 didn’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.

Muddy played that Tele to the very end, as far as I know.

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.

You were lucky to have worked on The London Muddy Waters Sessions.

Yeah, I was. Haunted. Originally 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.

What was it like working with Albert King on his Live LP?

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 no, 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.

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!”

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.

Had you met Jimi?

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.

If you could transcend time to see any musicians play, who would be tops on your list?

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.

Blind Boy Fuller is a fairly obscure figure, even today. How did you happen to come across his music?

The Blues Classics record with Bull City Red and Sonny Terry on it.

With “Step It Up and Go” on it?

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 improved 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.

Do you use open tunings?

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.

What tunings did you use on the record for the slide tunes?

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.

Muddy once said that Earl Hooker was the best slide player.

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.

His slide on songs like “Anna Lee” is just out of this world.

“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].

I had trouble with Earl’s wah-wah – sometimes he went overboard.

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’ Wolf Album, on Chess]

The one with Pete Cosey on it.

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 …”

Howlin’ Wolf’s main guitarist, Hubert Sumlin, was seriously underrated.

Absolutely, yeah. It’s a shame. How is his health? Is he okay?

I’ve heard he’s feeling good lately.

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.

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.

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.

When you’re playing slide, do you use a guitar pick?

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.

Do you hear a difference in tones between the various materials?

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 sort of attack. It’s almost too harsh all the time. Steel is a good compromise. It depends on the guitar you are playing.

Do you use a socket wrench like Muddy, or a steel slide?

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.

Do you set up your action different if you’re going to play slide, or do you have a special guitar for it?

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.

What is your favorite amp?

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.

What do we hear on the new album?

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.

Your fans in America have been waiting a long time for you to tour. What’s been the delay?

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.

We’d see ads in N.M.E. that you were playing over there.

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.

Time onstage.

Time, indeed.

American audiences aren’t always kind to opening acts, especially if it’s a different genre.

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.

Fear of flying?

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.

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.

Do you have advice for keeping your sanity or staying centered while on tour? It’s such an unusual life.

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.

If people who knew you from your records heard what you play in the hotel room, would they be surprised?

[Laughs.]

Are you a closet country player or a bluegrass guy or a flamenco player?

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.

I am continually re-amazed at what a universal language the blues is, how it speaks across borders to so many divergent people.

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’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?

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.

It’s more like reggae.

[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.

I believe the time is coming when music will be used more to physically heal.

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.

What do you like to hear at the end of a show?

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.”

You change the set around from night to night?

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.

You’ve been using the same musicians for a long time.

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.

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?

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.

Pops Staples is another underrated guitar player.

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.

Back to the record.

“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.

What’s the scope of your current tour?

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!

Prince’s home town.

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.”

Was it Reggie Young?

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.

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.

Where’s your home?

Well, I’m based in London at the moment.

Do you get back to Cork?

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 do things in Dublin. It’s become quite a rock and roll city.

Is that because of U2?

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.

****
Epilog

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.”

Fresh Evidence was the last album Rory completed, and 1991 marked his 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.

###

Do the right thing! Support this blog by clicking on an ad link or two.

###

Mamie Smith: The First Lady of the Blues

2010-06-07T16:00:00.045-04:00

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.”

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.

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 the 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.

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.

A veteran of vaudeville and the chorus line, the lovely Miss Smith was 37 years old when she made her historic recording of “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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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”:

“That thing called love has a sneaky feeling,
Being too sure of yourself sets your brain a-reeling,
You lay in bed but just can’t sleep,
Then you walk the streets and refuse to eat”

“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!’”

The Chicago Defender, the most widely read black newspaper, covered the event in its March 13, 1920, issue: “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.”

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.”

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.”

A couple of weeks after the record’s release, Bradford stopped by Hager’s office. “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.

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.”

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.”

“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:

“I can’t sleep at night,
I can’t eat a bite,
’Cause the man I love,
He don’t treat me right”

Her performance built to a heartbreak climax:

“I went to the railroad
To lay my head on the track”

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.

And thus Mamie Smith earned her place in history as the first African American to record a blues song.

But is “Crazy Blues” a true blues? My best answer is that parts of it are and parts of it 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 appear 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: www.archive.org/details/MamieSmithHerJazzHounds.

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.”

Mamie and her band were back in the studio on September 12, 1920, for a follow-up 78, “Fare Thee Honey 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.”

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 – all 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.

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 Grainger always played piano at Mamie’s appearances.
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.”

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,” 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.

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 helped her land a vaudeville tour, but she was soon working outside of music.

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:

“‘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.’

“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.”

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)” (http://www.archive.org/details/JosephSamuelsJazzBandVmamieSmith-ALittleKindTreatment1921 atment1921 ). Between sessions, she kept a grueling schedule of concert appearances. The March 15, 1921, issue of The Talking Machine World covered 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 her 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.’”

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.”

Meanwhile back in New York City, Perry Bradford was beset with problems. Not long after the Pace-Handy Co. published “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.

Mamie Smith continued to fare much better than her former partner. An ad for “Sax-o-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.”

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 Smith’s glory days were over. All totaled, she earned an estimated career royalty of $100,000.

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 weekly, described seeing her onstage for http://www.sfmuseum.org/ : “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 could sit only in the balcony.”

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.

In March 1929 OKeh Records recalled Miss Smith to the studio. She was in grand form belting out pistol-hot, 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 www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb4tyPjxHdE .

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.

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 (www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AN3pxrRzMM&feature=related). 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.

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 Righteousness,” 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 www.archive.org/details/murder_on_lenox_ave1941 .) Her final celluloid role was in the 1942 soundie “Because I Love You” with Lucky Millinder. From here, Mamie Smith’s trail disappears.

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 Blues.” They 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.

###

Do the right thing! Take a few seconds to support this blog by clicking on an ad link or two.

###

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.

###

Blues Origins: Spanish Fandango and Sebastopol

2010-06-04T09:53:00.033-04:00

How 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.

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 European 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.

At right: Henry Worrall with parlor guitar.

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.

On June 29, 1860, 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.

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.

Worrall’s other copyright entry that day, “Sebastopol,” was composed several years earlier, when the Crimean War was raging. To commemorate the lengthy siege of the Russian city of Sebastopol (later spelled Sevastopol), 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.

But how did the songs Worrall copyrighted in 1860 enter the blues and folk wellsprings? The answer probably lies in dusty old guitar cases.

Credit for this research goes to John Renbourn, esteemed British fingerstyle guitarist and avid student of American parlor 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.

“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.

“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.

“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.

A prime example of an early recording of “Spanish Fandango” is John Dilleshaw & The String Marvel’s 1929 version (hear it here:
http://www.archive.org/details/JohnDilleshawTheStringMarvel-spanishFandango). 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: http://www.archive.org/details/TheDailyFrail2310.

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.”

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 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 yes!’ 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.”

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 Spanish 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.)

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 them owes at least a passing nod of appreciation to Henry Worrall.

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 invented 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?

###

Thanks to John Renbourn, Stefan Grossman, and Ry Cooder for sharing their insights.

Support this blog by clicking on an advertiser link!

###

The Rolling Stones: Charlie Watts Interview

2010-05-28T15:14:00.030-04:00

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.

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.

(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.)

****

If you could somehow visit any musical period or see any artists, where would you go first?

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 loved 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.

Which era?

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.

Were you a fan of Jo Jones?

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.

Have you looked up any of the historic jazz drummers, such as Roy Haynes?

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.

What can a young drummer today gain from listening to these players you’ve just mentioned?

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.

What did you think of Odie Payne, the other house drummer at Chess Records?

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.

Who was your favorite drummer with Miles Davis?

Miles? Don’t know a favorite. He had a way of putting bands together so you never heard of them.

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 saw 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.

During the ARMS Concert, it was telling to see Kenney Jones' gigantic drum setup alongside yours, which is a case-study in simplicity.

That’s how I’ve always played. I have a hard enough job playing them; I don’t really want to play more.

Have you always admired the elegance in simplicity?

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.

Do you play styles your fans might be unaware of?

I’m not aware of it.

Do you play every day when you’re not working?

No. I used to practice every day. I don’t anymore.

Do you collect historic drums?

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.

Have you used an old set on record?

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.

What’s your all-time favorite setup?

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.

Keith mentioned that you took a more active role in the making of Voodoo Lounge than on past projects.

Where did he say that?

In the pink section of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Oh. I don’t know.

He mentioned you’d recorded in a stairwell and were more involved with the mix.

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.

What’s the monster drum sound on “Thru and Thru”?

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.”

Literally?

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.

What are your observations on playing with Darryl Jones?

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.

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.

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.

Keith’s sometimes been accused of turning the beat around.

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.

What do you have to do to get ready to tour?

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]

In your hand?

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.

If you had a child . . .

I do!

Who wanted to become a professional rock drummer, would you suggest . . .

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.

Bonham, for one.

Well, that’s John Bonham playing with Led Zeppelin. Is that rock and roll?

It’s part of it, sure.

What would I say to him? I wouldn’t say anything.

Would you suggest a course of study, people he or she should hear?

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 best 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.

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.

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.

Before Cream.

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.

Did you hear Ginger on the Masters of Reality record?

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.
I speak to Jack Bruce quite a bit.

Are you a fan of African drummers?

Yeah! Any drummer should be a fan of African drummers. It’s like saying, “Do you like Brazilian music?"

Could you recommend records for the uninitiated?

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.

Imagine what New Orleans’ Congo Square ring dances must have been like a hundred years ago, with a hundred people pounding out rhythm.

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.

When you were young, did you share Mick and Keith’s enthusiasm for blues music?

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 and 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.

You went on to record with Howlin’ Wolf.

The London Sessions. We’d met before that. We’d done Shindig with him. He was good then.

Keith remembered Wolf as being gentle.

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.

That’s where Howlin’ Wolf is teaching Clapton to play “Little Red Rooster” on slide?

Yeah, yeah. He was great. The only drawback was the silly ass of a producer. He was a stupid college kid.

Did you have many encounters with Muddy?

Yeah.

Keith has mentioned that the first time you went into Chess Records, Muddy was painting the ceiling?

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.

With Willie “Big Eyes” Smith on drums.

Yeah, he was great, he was great.

Given your broad taste for jazz, has being in the Rolling Stones ever seemed restricting?

No.

Or frustrating?

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.

Have you used drum programs?

I’m not sure. Probably. Not properly. Not like Prince would use it.

I can’t help but feel that the sound of drum machines will probably cause some of today's music to sound dated.

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.

Were you ever nervous meeting musicians you admire?

Oh, yeah. I’ll never forget the first time I met Tony Williams. I was frightened 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 thrilled!

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.

The Minneapolis Mozart.

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.

Have you heard Virgin’s reissues of the older Rolling Stones records?

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?

Yeah.

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.

As far as your playing goes, have you got favorites among the tracks you’ve recorded with the Stones?

Not really.

Are you self-critical?

Yeah. I don’t really like much of what I’ve done.

What is your biggest musical limitation?

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.

What keeps you grounded while countless people adulate . . .

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.

Could you have been happy in another profession?

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.

Did you ever see him?

No. He wasn’t allowed to play in England.

Because of heroin?

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.

When the British bands first started coming to America, did you sense a rivalry between you, Keith Moon, and Ringo Starr?

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.

This covers it. Thanks a lot.

Okay. Do you play?

Yes. I like country blues on acoustic guitar.

What happened to Leo Kottke?

He’s still very active. He recently played with Rickie Lee Jones.

Did he? Oh, yeah, he was a lovely man, he was. Really nice guy. It was great touring with him.

By the way, I have to say I was more excited about interviewing you than anyone else in the band.

Why?

I admire your musicianship and love your playing.

Have I broken it all now? Have I shattered it all now?

No. You were kind to the stranger in the back of the van.

Well, you never know. He might be your manager next year!

###

Do the right thing! Support this blog by clicking on our sponsors. It takes just a few seconds and helps feed the blogger.

###

Ry Cooder – Talking Country Blues and Gospel

2010-05-24T16:05:00.012-04:00

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.

****

You come closer to sounding like Blind Willie Johnson than anyone I’ve ever heard.

God almighty!

How do you think he physically played the instrument?

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.

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.

Played flat?

Like a Hawaiian guitarist.

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.

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.

Are you suggesting that he didn’t damp behind the slide?

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.

Another account says he held his guitar normally and used a jackknife for his slide.

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, 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.

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.

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 hope didn’t play flat!

Johnny Shines told me recently that he did not.

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.

Was Pinson’s hand coming around the neck of the guitar the way you normally would?

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.

Didn’t Johnson have a remarkable left-hand vibrato?

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.

What’s your attraction to “Dark Was the Ground – Cold Was the Night”?

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, man. 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 http://www.archive.org/.]

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.

Which of the first-generation bluesmen did you observe first hand?

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 older, 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.

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.”

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 entirely 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.

Back in the earlier days, there wasn’t the attention to Western musical traditions of timing and tuning.

Not at all.

This is evident on the Bristol Sessions and other early country recordings – no studio sync-up here.

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.

What impressed you about Sleepy John Estes on record?

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 ensemble, 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.”

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.

Did Rev. Gary Davis ever give you playing tips?

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.

From a physical standpoint, what made it so difficult?

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.

In the prewar blues genre, do any other people stand out as being transcendental?

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.

I think Lonnie Johnson has never been recognized as one of the transcendental people who influenced everybody. 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?

Did you hear many influences in the music of John Hurt?

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.

Explain what you mean by Geechie music.

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.

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 amazing 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.

Were these shows designed to sell snake oil liniment?

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?

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 hot. 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 cosmic! 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.

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.

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.

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?

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 wang! 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 extremely glad! But sitting in the corner, he could achieve something like that.

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.]

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.

Were you a fan of Tampa Red?

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 so 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.

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.

What did you think of Robert Wilkins?

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 http://www.archive.org/ 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.

There’s no reference to real blues before 1900.

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.

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.

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 country brass bands, which were kind of loose organizations of guys who knew each other and would play on the weekends or for dances.

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.

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.

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.

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.]

Besides the fife-and-drum tradition, do other pre-blues forms still survive in the country?

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: www.archive.org/details/RideOnKingJesus.] 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.

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.

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.

Around 1902, the Dinwiddie Colored Quartette made some of the first recordings of African-American spiritual music. Have you heard these?

Yes, I have. They sound like a quartet – it’s quartet style. It’s typical church music. [Sample track: www.archive.org/details/DinwiddieColoredQuartet-StealAway1902.] 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.

Why do you think it took so long for record companies to seriously focus on black musicians?

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.

Do you think liquor was commonly supplied at country blues sessions?

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.”

I heard that they frequently put pillows under blues guitarists’ feet . . .

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.

Plus what kind of 78s survive.

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!

This interview has been a great help, Ry.

Well, good. Do what you want with it.

****

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.

###

Support his blog by clicking on the advertising links.

###

James Honeyman-Scott: The Pretenders Q/A

2010-05-20T13:04:00.007-04:00

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.

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.”

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.

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.

Here, for the first time ever, is our complete interview. I've kept the transcript true to his spoken words.

****

What do you prefer to be called?

Jimmy.

Let’s start at the beginning. When and where were you born?

I was born in Hereford. Let’s see – 1956. November the 4th.

When did you start playing guitar?

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.

Which musicians were you listening to back then?

Eric Clapton with Cream and Derek & The Dominos. The Allman Brothers, and Yes. Those are main ones I was listening to at that time.

Did you take lessons?

No, never. I always wanted to play. There was a group in England called the Shadows, with Hank Marvin. He was the real 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.

What did you think was most important to learn?

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.

Did certain records say a lot to you?

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.

Like Live at Fillmore?

Yeah! “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” – that was really important.

When did you start playing keyboards?

I had piano lessons when I was seven, for only about for two years, at the most.

Do you know formal music?

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].

When did you join your first band?

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.

Was Mott the Hoople happening yet?

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.

Were you into their music?

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.

What about another of your hometown bands, Bad Company?

Bad Company! Yeah, I love them. They were great.

Did you know the guitarist for Mott and Bad Company, Mick Ralphs?

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.

Did other guitar players back then teach you specific things?

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.

What bands you were in between the Cheeks and the Pretenders?

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.

What were you doing prior to co-founding the Pretenders?

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.

What did you use to get that sound?

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.

We'll get your whole equipment setup later on.

Oh, Christ! There’s tons.

With the Pretenders, how much does Chrissie play?

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.

What kind of demands do the strange meters put on you?

[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.

On “Up the Neck,” who’s strumming and who’s picking?

Chrissie is doing the strumming, and I’m doing the single-note stuff.

Did she use a Telecaster on most of the tracks?

Yeah. The only cut she didn’t was on “Kid.” She borrowed my 335.

Did you use her Tele for the solo?

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.

The end of that tune almost sounds like a harpsichord.

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 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.

Before you recorded the album, how did the band work out the material?

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 week, 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.

Chrissie is an American singer, and yet the band sounds English.

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.

How different was your style before you got into the Pretenders?

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.

What’s your approach to soloing?

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.

“Lovers of Today” has that full, massive sound.

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!

Is there a fuzz effect in the little solo in the beginning of “Private Life”?

No, no. That would have just been the amp.

During “The Wait,” what are the strange chords that come right before the solo?

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.

Does Chrissie play any solos on the album?

Um, I don’t think so.

Who came up with the “Space Invader” lick?

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.

At the end of it you have that descending growl.

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.

What is the effect on “Precious”?

That would be the Clone Theory through a Harmonizer. I didn’t use a MuTron then.

How did you get the siren?

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.

At the end of the “Tattooed Love Boys” solo, did you start flipping your pickup selector switch?

That’s it, yeah, and putting the guitar out of tune at the same time as well.

One last question about guitar parts. On “Mystery Achievement,” how many tracks did you use for the solo bridge?

I used the 335 on that. I tracked it twice, and then I did a half-speed guitar. That gets the high notes.

To do the half-speed guitar, you record the part at half speed and then play it back at normal speed.

Yeah, and of course it’s an octave higher.

When you recorded the first album, was that pretty much your stage show too?

Yes.

It has the feel of a live set.

Yeah, yeah. A lot of people have said that.

Which songs were recorded first?

“Stop Your Sobbing” was the first, and we did that with Nick Lowe back in October of 1978 or ’79.

How did you set up in the studio?

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.

Did you overdub your solos?

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.

Do you ever have trouble remembering your solos?

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.

Do you splice together parts of different takes of solos?

Oh, yeah. We do that sometimes.

Are any parts recorded directly into the board?

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.

What’s the difference between your studio and live playing?

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.

Do you enjoy being on the road?

Oh, I love it!

Is it what you’d imagined it to be?

Oh, yeah! Non-stop partying, yes. Yes, it was exactly as I imagined it – it all happened.

Do you warm-up before a show?

[Laughs.] We usually just drink a lot. No, not really.

Do you practice?

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.

Do you have a systematic way of doing it, or do you just play?

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.

So your fingers only land on four spaces?

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.

Are you always learning?

Yeah! Definitely.

Do you do much jamming?

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.

Has success been hard to take?

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.

What advice would you give musicians wanting to make it in rock and roll?

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.

What would you like to accomplish in the future?

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.

Have you been on albums other than with the Pretenders?

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.

What are your main guitars?

[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.

Why did you choose Zemaitis?

Because Ronnie Wood used to use them, and I thought they looked so beautiful. Ron Wood’s a big hero of mine. Oh, yeah.

Who are your other heroes?

People like Spedding. Keith Richard, I guess. Eric Clapton, still. Albert Lee, the guys in Rockpile.

Have you other guitars?

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.

Did you collect these since forming the Pretenders?

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.

Do you care for the guitars yourself?

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.

Do you use the same instruments onstage as in the studio?

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.

Do certain guitars inspire you to play differently?

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.

Are your guitars stock?

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.

Trace your signal from the guitar to the amp.

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.

What kind of picks do you use?

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.

Do you have any unusual techniques?

[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.

Do you rest your picking hand on the guitar?

Oh, yeah, on the bridge. Sometimes I use the edge of my hand to muffle the strings.

Do you use your left-hand little finger much?

Yeah, yeah. Probably not as much as I should, but I do.

Do you play slide?

Yeah, but I haven’t been able to do it on record. Yeah, I love playing slide. I’m very much into open tunings.

Did you use any on the album?

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.

Do you play in any styles that aren’t on the LP?

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.

Have you finished the second album?

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.

###

Help keep this blog free and alive by visiting one or two of our advertisers!

###

Blind Blake: King of Ragtime Blues

2010-05-18T14:06:00.007-04:00

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”

###

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.

You can help keep this blog alive by clicking on an advertiser.

###