Primer has been amazingly productive over the years; he’s recorded and toured with everyone from Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon to Junior Wells and James Cotton. I lost track of the number of albums he’s listed on at around 87 or 88. John just smiles at me “probably more than that.” From a sharecropping family to a legendary blues man, John Primer is the real deal so we started our conversation with his first instrument.

Is it true you made your first instrument…a diddley bow and what did you make it from?

“Yeah, I did. I used some wire that came out of my grandmama’s broom. A piece of wire from a broom or we’d burn up a car tire and get the wire outta’ there. That was the best one, the best one to make a diddley bow out of. But my uncle and cousin had one made up already and I learned from that and started making my own.”

Tell me about your first musical memories or when you first heard the blues?

“My grandma’s record collection is where I first heard the blues and stuff like that; it was from a record, yeah. We had 78s and 45s. I had a cousin that lived down the hill from me, she had a wind-up phonograph. So my cousin had it and I’d get up in a chair like this, so I could reach it and play it. I’d play Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters. Get in that chair and wind it up and listen to it play those 78 records. Muddy Waters, ‘Can’t Be Satisfied’ John Lee Hooker…” (John breaks into song) ‘…my baby got somethin’ I sure do love…my baby got something.'”

Was the church a big influence on your music?

“Yeah, a lot of church music…gospel, yeah.”

You grew up working.

“I did, yeah. We couldn’t go to the fields until we got twelve years old, I started in the field then. But picking cotton and stuff wasn’t my…I never wanted to do that kinda’ stuff, I wanted to play guitar and be a musician. I didn’t think I could do good picking cotton or pullin’ corn; too rough for me. But I did it, yeah.”

‘Hard Times’ John Primer

Do you remember the first time you played on a guitar?

“Uh, I was about three or four years old. I had a cousin who had one, it was an acoustic guitar but I don’t remember what the name was, I was too little to know. I couldn’t read then, I was too young.” But you knew you wanted to play with it. “I wanted to play guitar, all my life I wanted to be a musician.”

Tell me a little about Chicago in 1963?

“I came to Chicago when I was eighteen years old. It was great! Music was everywhere, comin’ all out of people’s houses, bands playing and rehearsing in houses.”

You spent time on Maxwell Street?

“In 1963 I used to go down there all the time, every Sunday. I used to see a guy named One Arm John (Big John Wrencher) and you’d see Muddy Waters down there and John Lee Hooker. I just wasn’t familiar with all these guys because when I was in Mississippi, I was familiar with Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed and Howlin’ Wolf and Lightnin’ Hopkins. You know Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup… all the old guys, Big Bill Broonzy.”

When you listen to John Primer’s blues, you hear influences from the Delta, there’s some funk and R&B as well. How do you get all these styles to flow through your music?

“I learned when I started to play guitar and I learned it when I came to Chicago. I could play the blues when I was down in Mississippi but when I came to Chicago I studied all types of music.”

Let’s talk a little about Pat Rushing and the Maintainers.

“Well that was the first band, yeah. It was a good thing; I had a friend that lived across the street and his dad used to be the road man for Elmore James, he was called Big Jim. I met some of those guys and we created a band later on. I remember when Elmore passed, they were getting ready to go do a show and he had a heart attack. They found him in his room, I think he was out of town, laying across his bed; he’d had a heart attack. So he was gone but I still knew his music from when I was in Mississippi. When I lived in Mississippi, I thought all those guys had passed away…Muddy Waters and all of them, Jimmy Reed (laughing) I didn’t know. When I got to Chicago I found they were all still alive.

See, when I grew up I came up with all that music. All the blues, the old-time blues they were creating it back then, everybody was playing it. That’s why I know so much old blues from way back. I’m just like an elephant; I don’t forget nothin’…I remember!”

The clubs and bars in Chicago in the 50s and 60s were pretty rowdy places to play.

“Yeah it was insane. They’d be fighting in there or they get drunk and some of the men would get jealous because some other man was talking to his woman. I remember when Little Walter played, he was a handsome dude and the women were crazy about him, so there’d be a fight even before the show was over. Little Walter was crazy.”

Snooky Pryor told me about a place called the ‘Bucket o’ Blood’ you ever play there?

“I remember that. There was a place called the ‘Bucket o’ Blood’ and we weren’t allowed to go in there. My friends…it was in Chicago and my buddies, you know I’d hear them talk about the Bucket o’ Blood and I knew where it was, but I was too afraid to go in there!” (laughing)

Tell us about your association with Sammy Lawhorn.

“I got the chance to play at Theresa’s Lounge with him. I didn’t know nothin’ about Sammy and I started working at Theresa’s in 1972 and Sammy was the guitar player ’cause Muddy had fired him. He fired him because he’d always go onstage and get drunk and be playing, you know? Muddy was frustrated and would say something to him and Sammy would cuss him. F you MF. And Muddy got tired of it, so he said it again a few times. Muddy pointed his finger at him and said, ‘you got one more time to say that to me.’ So, they were at a college playing, Sammy got drunk, drunk and Muddy looked down and Sammy had peed all over himself. Muddy was playing and just stopped! He told everybody, ‘Excuse Me!’ and Sammy was sitting on his amp playing and Muddy slapped him off the amp! POW! And the bouncers came in got Sammy by the foot and pulled him off the stage and he was fired. He played with Muddy for 15 years.

He’d get drunk at Theresa’s when I got down there, he’d get drunk and I’m a rhythm guitar player and that was the worst time. When he’d get drunk, I was so nervous and scared, what am I gonna do?”

What did you learn from that relationship?

“Oh man, I learned…7 years. He told me, ‘learn what I play, but you can’t be me.’ Learn what I play, but I won’t be here forever and you’ll be playing this. I started learning slide by listening to him.”

Theresa’s Lounge for seven years?

“Seven years, seven nights a week!”

With Junior Wells and Sammy Lawhorn, that’s crazy.

“Yeah, Junior Wells and Sammy Lawhorn. I’d just stay in the back and watch people drink and get drunk.” (laughing) “…drinking whiskey and stuff. I’ve never been a drinker and put myself through that. And when I did try it, it was a down for me and made me sluggish and I couldn’t play nothin’ right. Playing music for me was more important than drinking. You don’t have to get drunk to play music.”

You seem to always enjoy sharing your stage with others. Inviting people up to play with you and the band, it’s like mentoring in real time.

“It don’t bother me when other people come up and play. You know why? Because they can’t play what I play.” (Sammy Lawhorn 101) “And I can’t play what they play. So I don’t worry about it, let’ em go ahead…I like for them to shine. The better they play, the better I sound! Sammy Lawhorn told me, ‘look, don’t worry about what the next person is playing, ’cause I was playing rhythm. When someone comes up and starts playing that good lead and stuff, play that good rhythm and people are going to be paying attention to you. And they do, ‘how do you play rhythm like that? Hey, if you stand up there and play with all them drunk people for seven years…”

Junior Wells had a pretty wild reputation.

“I never had a problem playing behind Junior. Junior was very good to work with. When I met him they was playing in this club called ‘Peyton Place.’ Sam Goode took me down there, because he knew the band needed a guitar player. He introduced me on a break and he said, ‘when we go back, I’ll call you up.’ They went back to playing and they called me up. They were playing blues or whatever, I knew it anyway. I stayed and played with them all night. Junior told me, ‘Hey man, you sound great I like the way you play. I tell you what I got this gig down on 48th Street and Indiana called Theresa’s Lounge.’ I’d never heard of the place, ’cause I never went to the Southside. Junior said, ‘You meet me down there Sunday, I’m gonna’ be rehearsing ’cause I fixin’ to quit…’cause I’m tired of this shit.'” (laughing) ‘Three o’clock!’

So, I’m on the Westside and caught the L to 55th Street and caught a bus over to Indiana Street and caught another bus…at that time the Blackstone Rangers, they ruled the Southside. Their club was on 4801 So. Indiana and I got off the bus a block before because I didn’t quite know…and the bus didn’t stop there you had to go to 47 Street. I got off at 49th. And when that bus pulled off, man…Ohh! I was so afraid, when the bus pulled off, I pulled off, too! And when that bus got to 48th Street, I was at Theresa’s. I ran all the way there with my guitar! I wanted to play, you know?”

Did you ever run into Hubert Sumlin in those days?

“You know in seven years, I never saw Hubert, he was too famous with Howlin’ Wolf. He never came down there. But I played with Louis Myers and Dave Myers, the Four Aces, Fred Below all those guys. They come down there and play sometimes.”

Didn’t you play on Louis Myers last recordings?

“Right, sure did. It was good, it was tough because he was kinda’ sick, but it was good, man. I knew his music because they used to come in Theresa’s and sometimes him and Dave would play the whole night on a weekend. I learned a lot from them, I learned a lot from those guys, man. And they taught me a lot, showed me what to play and when to play it.”

You also played on James Cotton’s ‘Take Me Back’ album. (laughing)

“Aw man, James Cotton was something else, man. When he’d come back in town, that’s where he’d come; Theresa’s. And they’d hang out all night and be out until daylight…Whiskey and cocaine. I toured with him all over, Phoenix, Denver he was trip, man.”

How did your association with Willie Dixon’s All-Stars come about?

“I was playing at Theresa’s and Willie Dixon came down and I’d be singing all the Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters stuff. I was lookin’ who is this big guy sittin’ there? I didn’t know who he was. In 1979 he needed a guitar player to go to Mexico.” (Willie Dixon’s All-Stars) Primer in his best low growl Willie Dixon impression… ‘Hey, I like the way you play. You know my stuff and I need a guitar player to go to Mexico, you interested?’ I said Yeah! ‘Do you have a passport?’ I said no. ‘Tell you what, I’ll be by your house on Monday and we’ll go downtown and get you a passport. You got any money?’ I said no. A passport cost $80 bucks, man. ‘You can just pay me.’

That late 70s All-Stars tour had some talent.

“Koko Taylor, Muddy Waters, Big Bill Broonzy, the guy that had the guitar strings all tied up there.” (laughing) “Larry Davis. That’s when Muddy heard me play…with them. Before they came up to play, Muddy and Dixon were back there talking and Muddy ask him (Primer in his best Muddy impression) ‘who-who’s that young man…playing that guitar…up there?’ (Primer does Dixon’s growl) ‘That’s John Primer…he works down at Theresa’s.’ Muddy responded, ‘That man sure knows my music.’ So, in 1980 when Muddy’s band quit, he called Willie Dixon and asked for me.”

You worked with Muddy till he passed?

“Yeah, about two and a half years.”

From listening to Muddy when you were a child, then getting that call to come play with him…I just can’t imagine.

“It was my dream; I had a dream when I was in Mississippi at about 14 years old about playing in Muddy’s band. So my dream came true. I was jumping for joy when they came down there and got me. Mojo Buford came down there.” Primer in his best Mojo impression… ‘Muddy needs a guitar player, he sent me down to ask you, did you want to join the group?’ “What? Man, I jumped for joy. Lovie Lee playing piano, Jessie Clayton was the first guy to play drums, but he didn’t want to go out of town, he didn’t want to leave his wife. So I took Lovie Lee and we went and got ‘Killer’ Ray Allison and a guy named Rick Kreher. Rick is playing on my latest CD, ‘Hard Times.’ The last guitar players to play with Muddy Waters was him and I. So, I gotta’ chance to play with Muddy, man. I was full of joy; I didn’t even go to sleep that night, waiting for Mojo to come get me.”

Then came the Holt’s…

“Magic Slim! It was right on time for me ’cause Slim was another guy like Muddy; workin’ hard, a workin’ man and workin’ all the time. Thirteen years.”

Your first recording under your own name was with Michael Frank in the 90s, ‘Stuff You Got to Watch.’

“He was the first guy who came to me to record me. I was doing stuff with ‘Wolf Records’ people coming from Europe to record me. But ‘Stuff You Got to Watch’ was my first American record…with Michael.”

There are so many people that you’ve played with, but the Stones with Muddy at the Checkerboard Lounge…that’s just wildness.

“That one video, it helped me out, a lot.” John remembers. “People didn’t really recognize me too much when I was playing with Willie Dixon but when I got with Muddy Waters; it really put the icing on the cake for me. The thing I learned from Willie Dixon was how to write blues.”

Primer’s latest release, ‘Hard Times’ is a testament to that. John wrote all thirteen songs on the new record. “All originals.” he smiles. “I wrote everything on there, except one song. My daughter has one on there.” The new project also debut’s John’s daughter, Aliya Primer. “She’s seventeen years old and she can sing.” He beams. “We used to take her on tour with us everywhere…she was two or three years old and traveling around.”

Discography, I lost track after about 87 albums. You are a prolific session player. You’ve been featured on or have performed on 87 recordings? That’s incredible in itself.

“Probably more than that.” John grins. “That’s just where I lost count. I did all the Wolf stuff, all the guys that had been forgotten and they got them and took them in the studio and recorded them.”

(Authors note: Wolf Records is out of Vienna, Austria and what’s really fascinating about the label and probably why they are still so popular; it was started by blues music fans with an appreciation of all things blues; from the early originators to the contemporary Chicago blues sound.)

You played with Magic Slim on a Tribute album to ‘Hound Dog’ Taylor.

“That guy was amazing. He had like six fingers on each hand. He cut one of them off…or tried to cut it off.”

No…why? Why would he do that?

John just shakes his head “guess it just got in his way of playin’!” Bluesmen, you gotta’ love ’em!

From your perspective, as a long-standing participant and knowing so many of the younger players coming up, how do you feel about the state of the blues today?

“To me, I’m loving it and it’s looking good.” And if I ask you about your own musical direction? “I’m not going to change the state of the blues; I’m going to keep it real…the original sound and keeping it as close to the original stuff that I learned and I don’t try to change it. Everything you see me playing on stage is going to be real close to the original stuff. All I need is a four-piece band, maybe a keyboard. I would always have a harmonica in my band. I would not have a band without a harmonica player.”

Speaking of playing on stage and harp players, you’re on the road now with Bob Corritore, what’s that like?

“Bob is great to work with, he ain’t gonna’ fuss atcha’!” (laughing) “But he’s a hard working man and he’s gonna’ make you do it right!”

You have a new album out, ‘Hard Times’ that you’re touring behind. You’ve been nominated for Grammy’s twice, you’ve received not one, but two Lifetime Achievement Awards and you’re in the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame. What’s left to accomplish?

“Well, I’m just going to keep on pushing, keep on trying. I’m doing what I love to do, so if I don’t get it, I ain’t going to sweat it, I’m going to keep on doing it, till I get it.”

You always look like you’re having fun on stage, does music keep you young?

“No, my wife keeps me young!” (laughing) “She keeps me in good health and everything.”

As you look down the road do you see a future with blues in it?

“Well, I hope people will pay more attention to the blues, just to see what it’s all about. There’s not many people around now playing the real stuff. You can put whatever you want into the blues and I say this all the time, you cannot change the blues. You can add rock and roll players and call it blues. It’s not the real blues, but I like what they do and I’ve got nothing against it because… they’re keeping the blues alive! So I give them the respect.”

Last Call, describe John Primer’s blues.

“It’s the traditional blues, the way it was played, the way it was made. That’s the way I play it. I don’t try to change it. Not just blues, but all music has got to have a feeling. You don’t get up there for the hell of it or to just show off. If you don’t have the feeling of it, you just can’t do it. My feelings come from hard times and hard living and that’s the way I play…from my heart.”

Amen.

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Courtney is currently preparing for his 89^th birthday musical celebration at a local San Diego haunt, Proud Mary’s. As in years past, he’ll once again be surrounded by friends, fans and some of the best musicians in Southern California. His face may reflect a little more wear and tear, but he has the work ethic of a performer half his age. His mind is still sharp, his wit is still quick, and his blues can cut you clean to the bone. Tomcat Courtney is a living, breathing American treasure and is one of San Diego’s most revered and respected blues elders.

Born in Marlin, Texas in 1929, Tomcat Courtney is one of a very few surviving bluesmen that grew up in the depression era Texas cotton fields. Some of Tomcat’s earliest memories are the stuff of legends. Another well known name from Marlin was Blind Willie Johnson? “Yeah, I knowed him,” he nods. “But I was small, you know? I saw him play. I saw Robert Johnson when he was playing in this little old place out in the country. Most of them people played in the fall of the year, when cotton work was plentiful. They had a little change rattling around in their pockets. Back then there wasn’t no money, man. Robert Johnson was playing in San Antonio, Texas and Dallas, that was about 1937 or ’38. Right after that he died, I remember that, heard people talking about it, but I was just a kid about 8 or 9 years old.”

Who were some of the other musicians you remember from that time? “Sonny Boy Williamson.” Tomcat says. “My father had a little old joint; it was a barn he made a juke joint out of. Way out in the country you know, it had an old tin roof and when it rained…yaaaahh!!! He laughs! “It was loud, but tin was cheap.”

You were just a kid, were you allowed to attend shows at your father’s juke joint? “Well they had windows and they opened them up and bolted them up and I’d sit in the window. Especially when Lightnin’ (Hopkins) played. I was more enthused about Lightnin’ than Robert Johnson. I didn’t think about it until years later. Robert was kind of a drunk, he wasn’t jolly…you know what I mean? He played (breaks into song) ‘Went down to the Crossroads, fell down on my knees…’ like tears all the time, but Lightnin’ was jolly. You know the spirit they put into it. I remember that and the boogie he put into it. He had that ‘don-ta-don’ (cadence) to it. He used that quite a bit more than he do on his records, ‘cause peoples dancin’.” Tomcat begins to smile as the memories flood back. “So then when I saw him, I wanted a guitar. You see I had a harmonica, I used to try to blow a harmonica ‘cause I saw Sonny Boy Williamson blowing it, you know? (laughing) “He was the first that I saw that sat down and entertained people. He was the best I saw, he talked about so many things, the train… He mostly blowed about lovin’ his woman and kissin’ at night and this and that and makin’ the harp play the thing, make the harp cry.” He sings. “‘Mama!’ and all that, you know?” (He laughs and breaks into song) ‘Now call your mama…Mama, call your mama…Mama!’ (laughing)

How did you come by your first guitar? “Actually,” he smiles. “I got that guitar from a guy who had a garden. Everybody had big gardens and things back then. He had a Stella guitar the kind Leadbelly and them played, but he had a big, nice one but it had a little hole in it and I said, ‘I sure would like to have that guitar.’ He said, ‘I tell you what, you help me get these weeds outta’ the garden and I’ll give you this guitar.’ Man, I pulled up every weed out there. I had a pile of weeds that high.” He raises his hand above his head. “He gave me the guitar and I put some old strings on it, and that’s how I started.”

Texas Swing music was extremely popular back in those days; did you ever play that style of music? “When I started in a band, I played up tempo music and some swing stuff. I just didn’t get into it that much. I was mostly into the boogie style. You know Lightnin’ and John Lee was so prominent and when you go around in those joints in Texas the juke box had Lightnin’ Hopkins and later on John Lee Hooker they were just so prominent on the country jukebox. In ’48 or ’49 when John Lee Hooker put out ‘Boogie Chillen’ he’d just about taken over the country blues jukebox. And then Little John Jackson followed about 1950 and put out ‘Rock Me, Baby.’ They all recorded right there together about ’48 or ’49.

You also knew Ray Charles very early in his career? “When I first saw Ray Charles all I heard him play was Charles Brown and Nat King Cole. I talked with him, I said ‘Ray, play something different.’ He’d tell ya’ ‘Man, I can’t see and I got to live and people seem to like it.’ He said, ‘I got to live,’ you know?’ He always said that. I was a little older than Ray Charles, about a year. But that sucker, man when I was about 15, me and him started about that age, I used to run across him. He was with Lowell Fulson, he had it, man. He had somethin’!”

***************************

Let’s talk a little about how you ended up in Los Angeles. “I was living and working in Flagstaff, AZ in the late ‘50s and playing for lumberjacks,” Tomcat says. “It was nice but in two or three weeks it started snowing. And I was so surprised!” (laughing) “I didn’t know but Flagstaff was worse than Chicago, man. I didn’t know that. Ain’t this a bitch? And it snowed so bad till everything shut down. Bobby Bland was coming through there on their way to L.A. and Wayne (Bennett) got sick. He was the guitar player, the one on all them records, you know? I had met Bobby Bland in Lubbock, Texas years before. But he said, ‘I gotta’ get a guitar player because Wayne is so sick.’ So anyway we went to L.A. and I knew a lot of his songs. He had ‘Further On Up the Road,’ ‘I Don’t Want no Woman Tellin’ me What to Do.’ I couldn’t play it like Wayne, but shit, nobody could play it like that. Anyway, we went to L.A.”

Did you experience any memorable gigs in Los Angeles? “The Five-Four Club (Ballroom) was closing up. It had been there for years and they were tearing all that out. And before they tore it down they had every band in the world come in to play there for a week. So what happened, B.B., Muddy Waters, Lowell Fulson, Joe Turner, everybody was playing there during that week, every night. The place was just packed. A big sendoff, before it went. They had so many good names, though. They had all the blues players, T-Bone, but T-Bone was living around there then and all the Chicago players. Everybody who had a good name was there.”

So when did you start coming down to San Diego? “We played down here about three or four times. The first place was called, the Black and Tan, and that closed and we played a place right next to it called, the Twilight Zone. When I come down here I liked it, but I knew I could get more work in L.A. L.A. and Chicago had more little places you could play in. More little after-hour stuff you could get in. But everybody in Hollywood went there to be movie stars and them that didn’t make it were crooks. So many people went there looking to try to make a living… and so many people went there to be something else. So when I came down here I messed around, I done two or three house parties and had little gigs. I said, ‘Man, these gigs are scarce here’ and I went out on Ocean Beach and a place called, ‘Peoples’ in ’69 or ’70. I walked in there and it was a hippie joint. I said, ‘Looky here man, I’m a blues player.’ He said, ‘I close here on Sunday, I just clean up on Sunday. I’ve got somebody playin’ ‘bout every night.’ Like a folk singer or one or two people and put up a tip jar and a percentage of the bar. And I said, ‘Well, I’ll do that. I’m here.’ He said, ‘Well if you want to set up and play, we don’t have anyone here on Sunday. And I’d like to hear what you sound like.’ He had a little old PA and I hooked up, had an acoustic guitar and I miked it up. I just carried that acoustic with me to audition to give ‘em an idea what I’m doin’ ‘cause when I tell ‘em Texas country blues, you know? They want to know what it sounded like.” (laughing)

“So I got up there and started playin’ and I saw the guy using the phone. He called like four people and the guys in the back cleanin’ up and he orders some beer. So they got a couple pitchers of beer. Another guy uses the phone and about six more people came. I wind up with like 30 people, man. The guy says this night was better than a week night and they wanna’ know if I’d be coming back next Sunday? I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll be back next Sunday. The next Sunday it was almost packed and the next Sunday there was people in line and they stayed that way for 15 years. And that’s how I stayed here. It started out as ‘Peoples’ and a guy bought it and called it the ‘Texas Teahouse.’ I played there about 24 years, all together. At one place.”

You’ve got to tell us a wild bar or club story before we stop. “Ah man, I played in so many places and there were a lot of them. Well, right there in Flagstaff, they started fightin’ them lumberjacks and stuff. The police come in there and almost closed the place up. Man, them dudes’d be big. I played in places where people were pulling guns and emptied the place. At Peoples’ one time a guy come in and cut two or three of us, man. Dude come in there and I liked to got killed. I think he got four of us, stuck one dude in the side and cut my arm, here.” (He points to the scar on his arm) “A nut come in there man, about six or seven years after I started playin’ there.”

Tomcat’s fan base now circles the globe and he starts to laugh as he recalls touring Europe. “Man, that was somethin’ else. I went there a few times, Amsterdam and Switzerland. What happened is I made a CD, ‘Downsville Blues’ and everybody just dug it over there. Oh they really appreciate blues, they really appreciate it. Let me tell you, when I got to France I got up and went down to breakfast and all they had was fruit bullshit.” (laughing) “Looky here man, but when you go to lunch, O-O-O-O lunch and dinner, unbeatable them people’s cookin’. And they got a big thing of wine sittin’ up there. I say, ‘Goddamn, this shit don’t taste like Night Train!’ (laughing) “They have good wine there, man.”

Amazingly, you still write so much music, nine of the songs on Downsville Blues were originals? “I just write it…and sing it…shit.” (laughing) “I saw so many things and lived the way I lived. I went through some hell and stuff, the joints I played.

How do want history to remember Tomcat Courtney? “I don’t know, man. I think about all these people like Leadbelly, Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone and I hope they’ll think of me that way… He was a bluesman.”

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