When you grow up in a family where your father is known as Lil’ Howlin’ Wolf, the chances are pretty good that you may end up as a bluesman. If you come of age on Chicago’s Southside and your band is forced to practice in the basement laundry room of the projects, you may end up as a bluesman. But when childhood memories include your dad taking you by the hand into some of the Windy City’s most legendary bars and you witness B.B. King live for the first time at the Burning Spear on State Street, damn you have to be a bluesman!

That’s exactly what happened to Michael Stone; you and I know him better as Stoney B. The twist and turns of his musical road, including four years in Army khakis, have taken him from the streets and bars of Chicago through a maze of clubs and juke joints across the entire South. Over a decade of that period he honed his performance and entertainment skills around the Big Easy. Those years of dedication would pay off with an invite to the New Orleans Jazz Festival. It would take Hurricane Katrina to force him to leave and with a short stop in Texas, Stoney B would eventually find his way to the West Coast and San Diego. And that’s where we caught up with him.

Let’s start with your childhood, born in Chicago…when did you realize who your father was and what he did for a living? “First of all.” Stoney says. “My father was the friend of a guy named Earnest Stone and they were good friends. Earnest Stone was with my mother and they broke up. When Earnest left, my father and mother got to be friends and I was the first product of that. My father, Lil Howlin’ Wolf (Jessie Sanders) has five kids by my mother, and I’m the first one. My mother had four girls and when she met my father, I was my mother’s first son. My mother and father broke up when I was eleven years old. We were living in Chicago; in the projects on the Southside of Chicago.”

Did you ever have the chance to meet Howlin’ Wolf? “I didn’t know Chester Burnett, ‘the Howlin’ Wolf’ and it’s in question, whether or not my father was Howlin’ Wolf’s illegitimate son. When Howlin’ Wolf left Mississippi and went to Chicago, my father followed him and the word I got through family is that when my father went to Chicago, Howlin’ Wolf didn’t want him because Wolf had his family with him. You see my father sounded, vocally just like Howlin’ Wolf! Let me tell you, my dad and Howlin’ Wolf had the same kind of vocal chords and it wasn’t a put-on that was my dad’s natural voice. I don’t know if Chester Burnett is my biological grandfather, all I know is they were close. Back in Mississippi they went down to juke joints and my father would follow him when he could.”

“Jimmy Reed, Elmore James, B.B. King and Muddy Waters were my main influences. You even say their names and I lose my mind.” — Stoney B.

You said your mother and father broke up when you were young? “My father left when I was eleven and it was about two years later when I got into music because of my upstairs neighbor. We lived on the thirteenth floor and my friend Derek, lived on the fourteenth floor. His father was into gospel music and had bought him a bass guitar. I’m sitting at home and I hear this boom, boom, booma, boom coming through the walls and I go upstairs to find out what’s going on. Derek had a bass guitar and I was really infatuated with it. I was thirteen and said let me try it. It was the first musical instrument I had ever tried to play in my life. I would go up to his house everyday…let me play on that bass. After a couple of months, Derek’s dad said let me buy Derek a guitar and let Michael Stone play the bass and that’s what he did. One thing led to another and we learned to play by ear. Everything that Derek learned, I learned. We practiced it. The first song I learned to play was ‘Get Ready’ by the Temptations. You couldn’t tell me shit! I knew how to play that!” (laughing)

Any special memories stand out from that first band? “When Derek and I were learning about music, Derek on guitar and me on bass and my next door neighbor, Gregory Hunter turned out to be our drummer. We were called the 4947 Laundry Room Band. We were kids, 14 or 15 years old and our parents loved that we were interested in music but nobody wanted us in their house.” (laughing) “You all go on down to the laundry room in the middle of the building where the elevators were. And later on my brother, Larry started singing and he had a fine voice. We entered a music contest at the Regal Theater in Chicago and one of our competitors was the Jackson 5. Michael Jackson sang ‘Who’s Lovin’ You’ and boy the women just went crazy. Joe Jackson really pressured them, they had to dress, they had steps, they had the music lined up and they were professional. We were amateurs. I mean, they just came and blew everybody else away…three times in a row. During that time we were known as the Rayshons and we had these little purple and red outfits that Derek’s father had gotten for us. I remember one night when Jermaine Jackson showed up and something was wrong with his amp and he borrowed mine. At that time I had no idea that these guys out of Indiana would go on to be world famous.”

Did your father ever take you to meet some of his musical friends? “I remember the first time my dad took me to see B.B. King at the Burning Spear club on State Street in Chicago. He got me in because everyone knew he was Lil’ Howlin’ Wolf. He started taking me out to Silvio’s and Theresa’s and people got to know me before they knew I even played music.”

Your father lived a good portion of his life in Memphis? “He was still doing shows but he had touches of Alzheimer’s and my dad would talk to anybody, he was friendly like that and everybody knew him. At his funeral, all of the kids one-by-one would get up say something and thank people for coming. I loved my dad and that was the first time I admitted to myself that I wanted to be just like him. I never said that before, I’m looking at him in his casket; the music, the personality and the character, everything that he was…was inside of me.”

He played with Jimmy Reed, Little Junior Parker…“Koko Taylor, the list is endless. Billy Branch, Sugar Blue, everybody in Chicago.”

It’s little wonder why your sound is so diverse. You play Delta and Chicago style blues, but there are traces of R&B, Soul and even Gospel in your current sets. “It was fed into my ears and remember I’ve never had a music lesson in my life. Blues and Gospel music has a feeling to it. It’s an emotional real thing. You either feel it or you don’t. My favorite number one Gospel group is the Mighty Clouds of Joy. I used to go right across the street to the DuSable Auditorium when I was living in the projects; the DuSable High School was directly across the street. And on Sundays they had the Gospel show and at the time I think it was $1.25 to get in. And I would go listen to the Gospel music, sometimes they would have the Mighty Clouds of Joy, the Jackson Southernaires and all these groups traveling out of Memphis and Mississippi.”

Let’s talk about influences outside of the family. “Jimmy Reed, Elmore James, B.B. King and Muddy Waters were my main influences. You even say their names and I lose my mind. They got that beat and the music goes right along with it. You don’t even know your feet are moving. The blues will grab you.” (laughing) “The last two times B.B. came out to San Diego, I got to open for him at Humphrey’s main stage.”

Had you met him before? “When I was living in Atlanta, B.B. was playing somewhere downtown and I was playing at a blues club called Blind Willie’s in Virginia Highlands. I went to the show and when it was over and everybody was leaving, I walked up toward the stage and the security guy was there. I said look here my man can I go back and see B.B. and he said I can’t let anybody back. I went in my wallet and got one of my business cards and put a twenty dollar bill with it. Do me a favor and just tell B.B. Little Wolf’s son is here to see him. He said stay right there and he went in the back. In two minutes he came back and said follow me. I went in the dressing room and B.B. was in there with a couple of women and when I came in he said, ‘Who is your Daddy?’ I said Lil’ Howlin’ Wolf. He said, ‘Oh man!’ And another thing I was told to say hi to you from somebody in Leland, Mississippi. And when I said Leland, Mississippi B.B. sat straight up and asked, ‘Who said to say hi?’ I said, ‘Lil Bill.’ And he clapped his hands and smiled. (Alex ‘Lil’ Bill’ Wallace) taught B.B. how to play. Lil’ Bill was a used car salesman in Leland, Mississippi and when I was living in the Delta area I knew him; I got to play in the Mississippi Delta Blues Festival twice.”

Music has been such a big part of your life, how did your military service affect that? “I played bass from the time I was thirteen until I was twenty and then I went into the Army. In the Army I bought a guitar. I took my second military pay check and bought a Fender Stratocaster guitar. I taught my little brother Lonnie how to play the bass. When I came out of the Army, Lonnie was better on the bass than I was. I sat on the edge of my bed trying to figure out what to do with them bottom two strings.” (laughing) “The bass has four strings and a guitar has six. No amplifier but I could hear it and put things together, little by little and when I got out of the Army after four years, I went back to Chicago with a guitar and they were laughing at me…until they started listening to me. All of the blues music my dad influenced me with coming up, stayed with me.”

“I’ve been on the stage since I was fifteen years old, but I didn’t actually start singing and fronting a band until after I came out of the Army. When I was a bass player in Chicago, I wasn’t singing I was just playing bass. That’s why they were laughing at me when I came out of the Army because I got a guitar and I’m singing. Then when people came out to see…just who the hell is Stoney B blues? One year after I got out of the Army, I formed the first Stoney B blues band. We played from 1979 to 1986. At the same time, I was playing behind so many musicians in Chicago, it wasn’t even funny. I could sing, open up the show, play guitar, and MC. I was with Queen Sylvia Embry. She was a bass player out of the church and she could sing like an angel. Johnny ‘Guitar’ Embry was her husband and they broke up and got back together, broke up and got back together. One of the bands was Johnny ‘Guitar’ Embry and the Blues Kings and Sylvia saw me playing with him one time. Then when she found out I could play bass and guitar…AND sing, she pulled me aside. So, I was playing with Queen Sylvia and Johnny’s Blues Kings and some months I only had four days off. I was playing music every damn night. My own band played every Monday at Lee’s Unleaded Blues with Buddy Scott and the Rib Tips. He started me off at the club’s Blue Monday party.”

It would be a fan who recorded one of those ‘party nights’ that Stoney says, turned him around. “I did not like what I heard because I was drinkin’ and smokin’ weed. I thought I was feeling my own, like King Kong higher than a MF’er. My singing wasn’t clear, my guitar playing was sloppy. So, I quit! No drinking and performing.”

Did you play around Chicago with your dad? “I didn’t play with my dad much. All together, I maybe performed with my dad just three times. My dad had his own band and they were all seasoned musicians. Musically, my father was my biggest influence because he took me from the beginning until he passed away. I looked up to my dad and admired him.”

Some of those Chicago clubs are still considered legendary. “Kingston Mines, B.L.U.E.S. Yeah, I played at Wise Fools, Biddy Mulligan’s…” Did you play at Silvio’s? “No, but my dad did, my dad played Silvio’s a lot. And there was Theresa’s. Junior Wells gave me a harp one time. It was a C harp and I’ll never forget it. And I tried to play it and it made my lips sore and I never put another harmonica to my mouth again. And Junior Wells used to call me, ‘Lil’ MF’er!’ (laughing) “Junior would walk around saying, ‘Where’s that Lil’ MF’er at?’ (laughing) “I admired Junior Wells so much. First of all, he was one of the sharpest dressers and he’d always sit at the end of the bar, by himself. He got to liking me because I respected him. He was so much older than me. Junior Wells and Buddy Guy knew my dad very well.”

You had a chance to work with Son Thomas and Roosevelt ‘Booba’ Barnes? “Son Thomas I met and played with and I had the chance to talk with him a little bit, but Son Thomas was one of the older guys. And another guy named T-Model Ford…and Roosevelt ‘Booba’ Barnes. When I left Chicago in 1986, I went to Greenville, Mississippi. I was living in a little motel right outside of town and a cab driver told me, I see you’ve got a guitar. You know they play the blues down on Nelson Street. I waited till Friday night and the cabbie took me down to Nelson Street to Roosevelt ‘Booba’ Barnes’ Playboy Club. I walked in carrying a guitar and Booba had a bass player, a drummer and some other guy who could play guitar a little bit and Booba said, ‘I’m gonna’ get you to come up and play a couple of songs.’ You know, to see if I was worth a damn. So I got up and played and people liked it. Booba asked me, ‘what’s your story?’ I said look man, I just got in town I’m stayin’ in a hotel out by the highway and I’ve got no place to stay, no money and no job. He said, ‘Well man, I could use you in my band.’ He was living in the back of the club, so I was sleeping on the pool table!” (laughing) “I was playing with Booba for a couple of months and sleeping on the pool table and I’d help him at night when the club closed, cleaning up and emptying the trash, mopping the floor. Right down the street was a place called the ‘Flowing Fountain’ and that was Little Milton’s hangout. The guy who owned the ‘Flowing Fountain’ was named Perry Payton and he was a mortician, he had his own funeral home business.”

Your music and most blues is based on storytelling…are you a storyteller? “When my dad was singing and playing the blues in the house, he’d be singing and playing like it was real. Even though it was nothing but a song, I was young and impressionable and I’m learning and you can have me believing anything if you know how to do it. And the blues, every song that I sing, when I sing it, I put myself into that song. I’m going to try and make you believe. Whatever I sing, I want you to believe me. You can feel me better if you believe me and I like that connection. That’s why I love playing for the senior citizens over at St. Paul’s…they’re not drinking, they’re not dancing, they’re sitting there listening. They tell me, ‘Oh, I was so into what you were doing, I listened to every syllable that came out of your mouth; I listened to you!’ No distractions. You know that meant a lot to me.”

The early 90s you find your way to New Orleans and you meet a blues guy by the name of Bryan Lee. “Bryan Lee! That’s my boy! Blind Bryan Lee, man he was playing the Old Absinthe House on Bourbon Street. One of the first nights I got there, I was walking down the street and I heard the blues and I walked up and looked in this place and Bryan Lee was up there playing. I didn’t know at the time he was blind. About six or seven month later I was opening up for Bryan Lee at the Old Absinthe Bar. When I first got to New Orleans I was a street musician. I’d been ripped off and didn’t have a guitar, but someone gave me one but it didn’t have any strings. I took that guitar and right off of Jackson Square on St. Peters Street, I got up on the wall and with no strings on this guitar I put my tip box out and told people I can play any song you name. How can they tell if I’m right or wrong, I didn’t have any strings on the damn thing? It was like I was a comedy act out there.”

Stoney demonstrates and sings ‘My baby left me’ and strums an invisible guitar without strings. ‘I got the blues, pretty baby.’ “And people just stopped they’d never seen anything like that before. Even other musicians were wondering what the hell is going on? Here’s this black man down there with a guitar and no strings on it and there’s a damn crowd around him and a half a box of money. What is the world coming to?” (laughing)

After establishing yourself in New Orleans what were some of the clubs you played in? “The first club I performed in on Bourbon Street was called, The Funky Pirate. I also played the Famous Door, the R&B Club, Tropical Isle…”

I’m amazed at the number of clubs and bars you’ve played all over the South, From Blind Willie’s in Atlanta to the Mean Woman’s Grill in Lubbock. “Man, I done played so many of them Chitlin’ Circuit juke joints and I’m talking about the real juke joints, down in Mississippi, I played Clancy’s in South Carolina, Spartanburg and people were comin’ up in there, man. People were comin’ from other clubs to come to Clancy’s to see this black guy playing the blues. It was full on the inside and people lined up outside with people looking in the windows.”

You also played the Jazz Fest in 2008. “Yeah, I can’t remember the year but me and Grandpa played there.”

Talk a little about Grandpa Elliott (Elliott Small). “Grandpa was the leader of an a cappella group in New Orleans and every now and then would pass me when I was playing in Jackson Square. I had Chili Groove on the tub bass, you know the No.#2 foot tub? He had a string in the middle of it and connected to a pole. He would hit that string and pull on it and change the tone. When we started playing together Grandpa and I were with each other almost every day for 12 years and we never once practiced or rehearsed…and every year we played at the Washington Parish fair, we were small stage specialists. There was never a better harmonica player; he was the best in town, period. There was no harmonica player in New Orleans better than Grandpa. Smoky Greenwell was No. #2. The first time Grandpa and I played together all I had to do was tell Grandpa what key the song was in. And he would know which harp to get. When we started playing, I had perfect vision and Grandpa had perfect vision. Slowly, glaucoma took his vision away and Grandpa went blind. Now here I am with glaucoma…man, I went through nine months of depression.”

Stoney B and Grandpa Elliott

You were evacuated out of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and eventually made your way out to San Diego. You put together your own blues festival; tell us how the Blues Summit came to be? “The Blues Summit was a gathering of blues musicians, performers and blues lovers. If you like the blues, this was your event. First of all, I wanted it to be free and I wanted it to feature all the blues musicians in this area. The origins are from when I used to run the blues jam at a place called, Hennessey’s Speakeasy at Fourth and Market. And on Monday’s blues musicians had a place to come out and play.”

You’ve been very active with a number of charitable events in Southern California. “My wife is involved with the Blues Society and the Blues in the Schools programs along with the Blues Summer Camps. I got to play in the Blues in the Schools program with Michele Lundeen and Fuzzy Rankins. We’d do presentations explaining to the students what the blues were about and where they came from and how they originated. I was proud to be a part of that because I fit right in. I could speak the language they could understand.”

You’ve also worked with the Doors of Change, a program designed around homeless kids in Southern California. “In Ocean Beach there was a church organization that had us teaching homeless kids how to play music. I was teaching blues to the kids and after they came, I think it was six times, that would gift the kids a guitar. I loved that, man. And I worked with Rachelle Danto. Just a few weeks back I ran into a young person who said, ‘you don’t remember me, but you showed me the Jimmy Reed style.’ When he said the Jimmy Reed style…I knew that was at the church!”

You’re playing a lot, who’s playing with the Stoney B Blues band now? “Paul Carlomagno is my drummer and Joe Torres plays guitar. We have Pat Kelley on keyboards and Karl Dring on harmonica, guitar and bass.”

What’s next for Stoney B Blues? “I’m going in to the woodshed and I might have to disconnect from everything for a few weeks until I get through writing and putting together my next CD. There’s a lot of music that’s original…that’s still in my head. I’ve promoted everything I’ve ever done. I’ve never had a manager or agent; you see growing up in Chicago you couldn’t trust the damn booking agents and managers because they had a bad reputation for ripping people off. I just do it myself.”

You’ve lived a lifetime of blues, do you have a ‘most memorable’ moment or experience? “I was coming off the stage after a performance and a lady about 70ish, came and stood right in front of me. I stopped and put down my guitar and amplifier and she reached out and grabbed my hand and said, ‘I want to tell you something.’ She said, ‘You are my B.B. King!’ I looked at her and didn’t really understand. She said, ‘I don’t have much money, and when B.B. King comes to town I can’t afford to go see him. But I’ve seen you a number of times and I can get that same feeling.’ She said, ‘B.B. is my number one to listen to, and that I was the next best thing.’ The whole time she was holding my hand and she said she just want to tell me that. Then she just turned around and walked away. And for the first time somebody said something to me that I didn’t have an immediate response to. She said it with all sincerity, from the heart. I didn’t have a response; it was like my vocal chords couldn’t hook up, and so I just watched her walk away. And that meant so much to me. I wish I could find that lady and speak with her; it was such an intimate thing.”

Any last calls, any other stories that led you to where you are now? “Do you know I was the first attendee at Muddy Waters funeral? When Muddy had his funeral in Chicago on South Park, its called King Drive now, I only lived a block and a half from the funeral home. When they opened the door at the funeral home I was standing there, by myself. When they pulled the door open and I went in, Muddy’s casket was already open and in the front. I walked up to it and looked down on Muddy. You know how he used to have his hair processed, they had Muddy looking good. I stood there and said, ‘Muddy, one thing for sure I’m going to keep on playing the blues until I join you.’ And when I was walking out there was a line of people walking in…”

Stoney B is a man of his word. He and his band play regularly in and around Southern California so get out and enjoy the show. Check out his website, StoneyBBlues.com for dates and times near you.

The post Stoney B Blues – ‘Like Father, like Son’ appeared first on Traveling Archive.

As a bluesman who had been there and done that, Willie lived his life exactly like he wrote songs; simply, without pretension and at gut level. A huge man both in girth and talent, he became a voice for the broken man and the troubled woman. He had a genuine gift for musical arrangement and composition and is, to this day, still considered one of the blues’ most prolific songwriters. He was incredibly intuitive when it came to pairing songs with musicians and musicians with sessions, then successfully capturing on vinyl, the best from both. Just look through any of the Chess or Cobra libraries.

As a studio producer, songwriter, session player and stage performer, Dixon had few peers. His remarkable body of work remains the watermark for today’s generation of blues players. A keen ear for talent and ribald sense of humor made him versatile, but Willie’s observations of the human condition and flair for innuendo, made him legendary.

Born seventh in a line of fourteen Dixon children, Willie could trace his education and understanding of the blues directly to his family upbringing. “One of the phrases my parents used to teach me, especially my mother, ‘Think twice before you speak once, and think the third time before you act.’ And another thing she always said was, ‘Anybody can get mad, but anybody can’t get smart. It pays to get smart but it don’t pay to get mad.’ When I was a youngster I couldn’t understand it because it didn’t make sense. But today it makes sense because the world can make anybody mad.”

“Another thing, ‘If you don’t listen you can’t learn’ and those are three things in life that a person have to do to really understand and learn to enjoy life, because if people make you angry you will never enjoy it. And these are the kind of things that had a great influence on me after I got grown, even though I knew them as a youngster.” Shaking his head, he admitted, “But many a-times I done things without thinking.”

The True Facts of Life

Willie had the unique ability to relate life’s experience through his music. A twelve bar documentary of the world around him. “That’s why I wrote so many songs, because I’ve been writing about the true facts of life that exist today and what I hope, tomorrow, will be a better future. I’ve been writing songs all my life, you know? I used to walk around with a gunny sack full of songs. I couldn’t get nobody to do them. I used to sell them outright for $10.”

If there has ever been a central figure or seminal root of the blues, that list of names would begin with Willie Dixon. From a dirt-poor youth in Mississippi to the revered and respected elder of America’s only indigenous music, Dixon began his pursuit at the tender age of eight.

“I was a kid in Mississippi and we used to be outside of a place called Zack Lewis’. He had a little tavern; they called it a barrelhouse in those days, and Little Brother Montgomery would be in there playing piano with his band. We used to follow Little Brother all over town. I’d be bare-footed, running up and down the road behind them, they’d be up on a wagon bed or a T-model Ford truck and he had a piano up there. Little Brother was short and little at that time and we always thought he was a kid, but he was several years older than we was. I know every time we chased him all day long, I’d go back home and get a whippin’ for missing school and following the band all day.”

Those first short, dusty steps would begin a lifelong journey for Willie Dixon. A path he embraced with open arms and sometimes clinched fists. Occasional brushes with the law and time spent in reform school exposed Dixon to the serrated edge of life.

I’m Ready

“I used to be a fighter, you know?” I used to train at Eddie Nichol’s Gym in Chicago. Fightin’ is a hard job. Of course, I won the Golden Gloves in 1937 and I fought pro a few times. After I found out everybody was getting money but me, my management company was taking advantage of me, so we got into quite a hassle and it caused both of us to get expelled. Fights get into your system like everything else, you know? Until you finally get beat enough to give up. I got a chance to train with the ‘Brown Bomber’ (Joe Louis) down to Eddie Nichol’s gym I was supposed to go on a tour with them, but I never did go. My manager didn’t want me to get shell-shocked before I got out there too far, you know?”

Shell-shocked is the pivotal word here. As often happens with dramatic and unforeseen turns in life, Willie, while somewhat disappointed, began to contemplate his options. “After sparring with Louis, I knew from that point on, and for the rest of my life, that I wanted to be…..a songwriter. The music don’t fight back and you don’t have to be ducking and dodging and running and keeping yourself together, you know?”

Eddie Nichol’s place may have witnessed the end of Willie’s fight game, but it also provided the catalyst for his next career. A fellow musician and delta native, who was also a ringside regular, would steer the impressionable Dixon in a totally different direction. That fight fan was Leonard ‘Baby Doo’ Caston.

“He was the one teaching me about the musical things, you know? He used to come around the gymnasium where I was training and sitting around there playing guitar and singing all day. The first instrument I started on was a one-string tin can ‘Baby Doo’ Caston made for me. I had been singing bass in the south as a youngster on the spiritual side, I knew a pretty good bass line and I’d learned how to play that on one string, so it wasn’t hard for me to learn.”

As part of the short-lived ‘Five Breezes’ in the late 30’s and later “The Big Three Trio”, Dixon and Caston were fast becoming Chicago’s original blues brothers. The Windy City was experiencing post-war prosperity where jobs were abundant and high-paying. The continuous migration of southern laborers and struggling musicians along with the sudden influx of returning, cash-laden military personnel combined to make the south side of Chicago an entertainment flashpoint.

Venues materialized as quickly as the crowds. Clubs, bars and boulevards (Maxwell Street) beckoned to blues players from every region of the country, especially the talent-rich Delta. Some clubs were more prestigious than others.

“Playin’ in some of them old dives in Chicago, every night when you walked in you was lucky to get out. I could name a lot of places we used to play, you know? Like 708 when they was first gettin’ out, and they used to have a place down on Indiana they called ‘the Hole’. You’d have to look goin’ in and look comin’ out because you didn’t know whether you were gonna’ make it goin’ in or comin’ out. I remember the I Spy Lounge, that was on 43rd street. Richard Stems owned the I Spy. The Green Door was another place; they used to have a lot of those rough places. People now days don’t even know what rough stuff is. A lot of times guys you were workin’ with had their guns and things and I was more afraid of them than I was the folks out there.”

The Gospel According to McKinley

Chicago, in the late 40’s, was Mecca for blues players but their styles were diversifying and experimentation produced a new, amplified city sound. On any given night you could find Willie, Big Maceo, Sleepy John Estes, Sonny Boy, Memphis Slim, Memphis Minnie or Son House hanging out at Tampa Red’s place.

“Tampa Red had a big old room back there, he lived right up over a pawn shop on 35th and he had an old, raggedy bed sitting in the corner and a broke-down piano in another corner. Everybody could get in there and could sit on the bed or on the floor or on the piano and they’d all be in there arguing about songs, you know and making songs, like that. Lester Melrose would be in the front room and he’d always have the old lady cooking something; chitlins or something. He’d come back there, ‘What you fella’s got?’ And each one would come up with what he got.”

Creative juices flowed like hot grease down the Melrose stove. Working with Leonard Caston and Ollie Crawford at local clubs, The Big Three would occasionally find themselves on stage with another Delta musician. Willie’s personal association with this one time plantation resident would last a lifetime and their collaboration would become legendary. McKinley Morganfield and Willie Dixon were about to alter the world’s perception of the blues.

“Muddy Waters was one of the first ones that starting doing some of my tunes, you know? I was walking around with 200 songs in a bag and nobody would do none of ’em. I’d go around and sing ’em to him, so he said, ‘Man, I like that song.’ I had a little trio called the Big Three Trio at that time; we had recorded for Columbia and also for Bullet Company. We done that song about the ‘Signifyin’ Monkey’ and ‘Wee, wee baby you sure look good to me’ and other songs.

So this ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’, Muddy Waters liked it, you know? So I started to go out there and jam with him with our trio. He told me, ‘Man I sure like that song, if you let me, I’ll record it.’ Sure enough he got with his manager. I got with Muddy over on 14th Street one night, I took the song over there and he said, ‘Dixon, I’m gonna’ do that song tonight.’ He didn’t know the song, he’d just heard me singing it.

So I took him in the washroom on the intermission, and we practiced the song. He walked out of there and he said, ‘Man, you better let me do it first, so I won’t forget it. By the time he came out of the washroom, he went on the stage and he started doin’ the ‘Hoochie, Coochie Man’ and he done it til the day he died.”

Writing music occasionally created conflicts among Willie’s friends, especially if an artist wanted, or didn’t want to record a certain song. And Dixon was the first to admit that writing the song wasn’t necessarily the most difficult part of the recording process.

“Sometime I just have the idea of the experience that people go through involving themselves in different things, and this is what I write about. And then sometime I try to find people that I feel like can properly express these things, because sometime people can express a thing better than another one… sometime. “

One case in point, ‘Wang Dang Doodle:’ “Oh yeah, Howlin’ Wolf recorded it long before Koko Taylor, but the Chess Brothers wouldn’t release it. In fact, I wrote a lot of things for people they never actually would accept and I’d have to give it to somebody else. And then ten to one after somebody else get it, then they’d like it. I used to always have trouble with Muddy and Wolf because one thought I was giving the other one the better song, you know? So I got to the place I just used a little backwards psychology on ’em. The one I be writing for Wolf, I tell Wolf, now here’s something I wrote for Muddy and that’s all I need to do. (Wolf would say) ‘Man, how come you got to give that to him, that’s better than mine.’ And vice a versa, that’s the way it worked.”

Another case in point, ‘My Babe:’ “I had a hard time in getting Little Walter to do ‘My Babe’. Two years I was trying to get him to do ‘My Babe’. He didn’t want to record it. He just didn’t like it. But after he recorded it and it started going over, it was his top running number.”

I Am the Blues

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

“Learn to respect the wisdom of the blues, because the wisdom of the blues and the blues itself
is the greatest music on the face of the earth. The blues has proved to have more wisdom and
understanding than any other music. And once you learn the wisdom of the story
of the facts of life, it gives you a better chance in all of life.
And I think that’s a great thing for people to do all over the world.”

– Willie Dixon

 ************************

American Folk Blues Festival

As the self-appointed ambassador of the blues, Willie Dixon and a few special friends began spreading the word outside America’s borders. “Memphis Slim and I started the American Folk Blues Festival. We was just working as a duet, we went to Israel and other places trying to promote the blues there. None of these blues organizations was even thinking about them at the time, but everywhere we went we talked about the blues and promoted them. Some of the people got into it before we could complete our thing. I’m glad they did, because today we’ve got the blues thing going.”

During the early sixties the American Folk Blues Festival featured some of the most recognizable names in the genre; players like John Lee Hooker, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Victoria Spivey, Otis Spann, Muddy, T-Bone Walker, Big Mama Thornton, J.B. Lenoir, Lonnie Johnson, Big Joe Williams and the Wolf.

It wouldn’t be until years later that Dixon would discover the profound effect he and his friends had had on a very select group of young British musicians.

“Well when they was young, overseas, me and Memphis Slim was over there and they had their groups going, but that was before they was popular. The Stones, they was kids over there. I didn’t know one from the other because they didn’t have no name then, you know? When I was over in Europe and other places, I would give songs to everybody and a lot of kids tell you, ‘I’m gonna’ do this and I’m gonna’ do that’, and how would I know who’s who?

But when they come back years later they say, ‘You remember you gave us that song here and gave us a song there,’ well I don’t know them but they know me. Some of them gave me their picture when they was young, you know? And when they came to Chicago, a lot of them would come to my house or we’d meet in different clubs and things. How are you gonna’ remember a bunch of kids, man? As many countries as I went into and meet ’em from all over everywhere, I worked with so many different people in so many different places, I can’t remember them all no way.”

A Man with a Mission

Active for most of his life, Willie thought about retirement when he moved to Southern California, but it wasn’t to be. If anything, demands on his time increased.

“Ever since I’ve been out here, it’s been one thing right after another. I try to back off from ’em, but with the Blues Heaven Foundation I have retired away from working for myself, and by being able to reap some of the benefits of some of my own royalties that I should have got years ago. And this is why I started the Blues Heaven Foundation so I could help other people that wasn’t as lucky as me.

Not only does it try to get some of the capital that’s been owed to artists, people who been beat and cheated out of their thing, but we also help ’em to learn how to protect their songs and copyrights. We do this with donated capital and the Blues Heaven Foundation takes not a penny from nobody. I do all of my work for Blues Heaven for nothing. All the people that has passed on and their families didn’t get anything, all they had to do is prove that they are involved or in the family and they can reap the benefits of their forbearers.

You know when you feel like you’re underprivileged, and know you’re underprivileged and not getting your rights, you always want to know why? Believe it or not, (prior to the civil rights movements in the 50’s and 60’s) people didn’t know they had a black law book and a white law book at that time but today most of them know about it. It wasn’t until after the Martin Luther King era and the government ratified the 14th and 15th Amendment, that everybody had to hear us out and give us just dues just like everybody else. My chance for justice as well as anybody else’s is good today.”

Blues Heaven

“That’s the reason I’m trying to expose the Blues Heaven Foundation because you don’t have to die to enjoy the great things of life. You don’t have to get to the place where you have to have this religion or that religion, fighting over ten dollars and then tell me you’re going to a place where the streets are paved in gold. Don’t you know I don’t want to go there if you’ve been raising as much hell over a dollar here? So I figure if we can enjoy the luxuries of life here as we should, everything is here you need. They say if you went to heaven you’d get milk and honey. We got milk and honey here.

It’s just a matter of time because you see, everything have to change, everything changes. People get more experience and understand each other better, but when you haven’t been taught any of the right things, naturally you can go wrong because you’re only thinking about yourself and not others.”

With a chance to reflect on his life and given the option to change the outcome, Willie just smiled. “Frankly with the experiences I’ve had since I’ve been involved in these blues, I wouldn’t take billions for it, but I wouldn’t want to do it all over again for trillions’.”

Through his Blues Heaven Foundation, lovingly minded by his widow, Marie and grandson, Alex, Willie continues to touch the lives of disadvantaged youth and the surviving family members of early blues greats. Whether it’s assisting students through scholarship programs, donating musical instruments, or recouping lost royalties, Blues Heaven continues to educate, perpetuate, and carry out Willie’s most heart-felt wishes.

Willie Dixon lived, worked and breathed the blues. His music conveyed the depth and drive of that battered old upright bass. To use boxing vernacular, it was his combinations. He could double you over with thumping bass lines and drop you to your knees with devastating lyrics. The name Willie Dixon will always be synonymous with the blues, but to paraphrase the late Dr. King, it’s the ‘content of his character’ that we’ll all miss the most.

The post Willie Dixon: “The Pen is Mightier………….” appeared first on Traveling Archive.

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.

The post John Primer: ‘Hard Times’ appeared first on Traveling Archive.

James Cotton was born into a Mississippi farming family in the middle of the summer, 1935. As the youngest of eight children, his prospects in the Tunica cotton fields held few opportunities beyond hauling water buckets for laborers or endless hours on a plantation tractor seat in the sweltering Delta sun. Fortunately for all of us, fate and a fifteen cent harmonica placed James in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.

It was an uncle who would coerce the young Cotton to walk up to, and play his harp for, radio personality Rice Miller (Sonny Boy Williamson II) Then there was the small radio spot that turned into a recording session in Memphis for Sam Phillips in the pre-Elvis era of Sun Studios. Oh, it gets better… Junior Wells would quit Muddy Waters’ band in the middle of a southern tour, forcing an immediate search for a replacement harp player. That search ended in Memphis, when Muddy met James. A meeting that began a musical collaboration and friendship that would last decades.

Soft spoken unless it concerned his music and extremely humble, Cotton rarely talked of his awards, Grammy nominations, or his status on the worlds blues stage. He was just a bluesman and his focus remained solely on his music. Our conversation took place backstage at a club in Southern California in the late 80s and began with his early influences in music.

“I used to listen to people.” James said. “Like Memphis Minnie and Charlie Patton. And it was Sonny Boy who kinda’ taught me how to play the harp. Sonny Boy #2, Rice Miller.”

Didn’t you live in Sonny Boy’s house? “Six years!”

How did that happen? “Well, Sonny Boy was on station KFFA in Helena, Arkansas. He had a fifteen minute program everyday from 12:00 to 12:15. I used to listen to it every day. We get out in the field with the radio and listen at that.

My uncle, me and him drove tractors together. He taught me how to drive a tractor when I was a kid. We was getting three dollars a day for driving a tractor. Get paid $36 every two weeks.

So he’d taken me to Helena to meet Sonny Boy. I told him I was orphaned, my uncle told me to say that. I walked up to him and he talked to me, you know? Me and him (Sonny Boy) got to talking, so he took me in. My uncle talked to him also when he seen it was working, you know?”

After your move to Memphis, other than Sonny Boy, who else were you playing with? “Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Love… I played with quite a few people down there.”

Any special memories of those Beale Street years? “Somebody stole my harps one day, that’s what!” (laughing) Somebody stole your harps? Who stole your harps? “I don’t know man. They were hard to come by, too! You couldn’t make no money… I had about ten of them. They ripped me off!”

Did you play a lot on the streets? “Yeah I played on the street a little bit. Not much because I was lucky enough to be in a band with Sonny Boy and we were working pretty good.”

Some folks refer to the blues as a comforter, you ever feel that way? “Well, blues do a lot of things for you, you know? Sometimes they make you sad, sometimes they make you comfortable.” What do they do for James Cotton? “They do a lot of things for me. They make me… they make me cry.” They make you cry? He nods, “Sometimes they make me cry.”

You moved to Chicago in 1954? “Had a job with the late, great Muddy Waters. Muddy brought me to Chicago. He’d been on tour, down through the South and Junior Wells left the band. Muddy was looking for a harp player and he heard about me in Memphis. So when he was coming up from Florida, he came through Memphis and asked me if I wanted a job.”

What was it like playing in Muddy’s band? “Well, I had a beautiful time playing with Muddy. I had the pleasure of working with Muddy twelve years. I had a really good time; he was like a father to me. I learned a lot of things in that band.” Like what? “He was doing a lot more recording than Sonny Boy was. A lot about the studios, things like that.”

One of my favorite albums is Muddy at Newport in 1960. You and Muddy with Tat Harris, Otis Spann, Andrew Stevenson and Francis Clay. What do you remember about that recording? “Well, I got fired the same day!” You got fired? “We did a song called, ‘I Put a Tiger in Your Tank.’ Muddy forgot the words to it and I played the lines and he said I played it wrong!” Did that happen a lot? “About a dozen times, but I always got hired back. I was lucky. I was always trying to do more, you know? Trying to make it better. A lot of things I was doing, by me being younger, Muddy didn’t understand.”

What were regular recording sessions like? “It was beautiful in the studio. But I guess he’d been doing it so long, when I got with him, you know?”

Chess provided a good environment? “Chess had got hip to the blues, man. I have to say this about the Chess brothers. I’ve never been in the studio where they recorded harmonica like the Chess brothers did. They were good at that!”

What do you suppose made them so different? “I don’t know some magic they had with those buttons back there.”

You had recorded at the famed Sun Recording Service in Memphis too, didn’t you? “I did four sides for Sun. This was before Elvis Presley or anybody like that. I did the recording in 1950, but I think it come out in ’51. Uh, I did four sides for them… ‘Straighten Up Baby,’ ‘Oh, Baby,’ ‘Hold Me in Your Arms’ and ‘Cotton Crop Blues.’”

You think you can still find copies of them? He just smiles, “Cost you a lot of money!”

You knew Little Walter? “Little Walter was a beautiful cat, man. I had the pleasure of working in Chicago with him four or five years before he died. I don’t thinks nobody will ever be better than Little Walter. I think he’s so far ahead of his time, you know?”

During the 60s, you played a lot of Fillmore dates. “Well, we probably worked at the Fillmore’s more than any band I know. Fillmore East, Fillmore West, Fillmore East… man, we did that so much till I thought I was going to die between San Francisco and New York!” (laughing) You know that those venues and events introduced blues to a whole new generation of fans, that’s quite the legacy. “I don’t even worry about things like that.” He shrugs. “I just want to be a good musician, do the best I can with it.”

Any one particular Fillmore event that stands out for you? “Yeah, I worked a date with Janis Joplin at the Fillmore West and we were managed by Albert Grossman. And then Monday she was in the office and said, ‘Look, I want to work with this guy again, he makes me work like hell.’ She said, ‘I can’t play around whenever he’s working, so I have to work!’ So, I did quite a few dates with Janis Joplin.”

Are you still having fun playing? “The music does as much for me as it does to the people out there. It makes me get up and go, too.”

How long have you been on the road? “40 years!” Ever get you down? “Well, when it ain’t fun no more, that’s when I quit. I’m certainly not getting rich, so when it ain’t fun, I’ll have to go home then.”

James went home March 16, 2017, he was 81 years old.

The post James Cotton: Super Harp appeared first on Traveling Archive.

Luther Tucker loved the blues. Born in Memphis in 1936 his path in life seemed pre-destined when he moved to Chicago in the early 1940s. His mother played piano and she would eventually introduce young Luther to some of Chicago’s most legendary bluesmen. Luther remembers, “It was very exciting. My mother took me over to the club of Mr. Big Bill Broonzy, he had a club over on the Southside, and my first introduction to the blues was Mr. Muddy Waters.” That meet and greet would leave an indelible mark on Luther’s direction. When we sat down in the late 1980’s, Tucker was touring with the James Cotton band behind Cotton’s ‘Take Me Back’ album.

You’ve been around the music a very long time, what are the blues to Luther Tucker? “The Blues will never die, everybody’s got the blues. I had some pretty good times and some pretty rough times and it’s all in life, every day brings a change.” And when pressed, the most memorable of those two, were of course, “the good times; I had the pleasure of recording with some very famous musicians; Mr. Little Walter, Mr. Muddy Waters, Mr. Sonny Boy Williamson and Mr. James Cotton also. It was a pleasure having the opportunity to express my feeling toward the blues. I loved every minute.”

You were part of Little Walter’s band in the 50s. “He was quite some character, a very lively fellow, outspoken sometimes. A very beautiful musician, he had a beautiful talent for the harmonica. He was one of the best at the time.”

You’re currently playing with James Cotton on the ‘Take Me Back’ tour. And you’ve backed on guitar some of the greatest bluesmen that ever lived. Muddy loved you, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson and more recently Kim Wilson and Charlie Musselwhite? “Yes, I’ve played with Charlie. About ten years ago I was in his band, for maybe about a year and a half. He’s a very fine musician.”

Let’s talk a little about your road. “In my younger days, I enjoyed running up and down the road, you know? It was exciting to see different cities and the different atmosphere. It was great, but now that I’m getting older, I want to settle down and kick back!” (laughing) “I’ve been living in California for the last 22 years since I left the James Cotton blues band. I think Marin County is my spot. I’m trying to get away from that snow!” (laughing) “I lived in Chicago for 29 years.”

Bet you have some great Chicago club stories? “It was very exciting. When I was getting started my mother took me over to the club of Mr. Big Bill Broonzy, he had a club over on the Southside, 37th and Cottage Grove and my first introduction to the blues was Mr. Muddy Waters. He was playing at this club, Mr. Sunnyland Slim was playing piano, Mr. Robert Lockwood, Jr. was playing guitar and they had some little fella’ named Shorty, he used to be with the band, this was years ago, like 1951 or something like that. And my mom introduced me to these gentlemen playing in this nightclub, Mr. Muddy Waters, Mr. Sunnyland Slim and Mr. Robert Jr. and I loved the way they sound, you know? And I said, ‘Hey, I’d like to be a musician, I like that sound and I’d like to be a part of it.’ That helped me make my decision and my feeling toward the music and it really kept me outta’ trouble, too. I used to run up and down the street, you know? Young and nothing to do, but that gave me something to do, and I started practicing.”

Did you ever play out on the street? “I went to Belgium about five or six years ago and I did it for fun. In the piazza’s to see how exciting it was… and it was beautiful.”

You’re originally from Memphis? “That’s where I started from. I left Memphis when I was about eight years old.” Memphis is known as the ‘home of the blues.’ “I’ve always had thoughts to go back there and check it out just one more time, maybe someday I will.”

You worked with John Lee Hooker a few times? “Aw, he’s another beautiful musician. I worked on two or three of his albums, something like that. It was a pleasure playing with the gentleman. He was a very fine gentleman and very fine musician.”

Your road has taken so many directions; do you feel good about how things have turned out? “Well, I’m still learning. Right now, I’m learning how to learn.” (laughing) “And it feels great. I’m learning how to be a musician and it’s so beautiful to be playing music. I’m learning more each day, practice makes perfect.”

This tour with Cotton you are playing both clubs and theaters? “About half and half and each time it’s different. It’s a good feeling and it seems like every crowd enjoys it more, until the next crowd, and then the crowd after that, it’s just beautiful. We opened for John Lee Hooker last night.”

After this tour, you head back home? “Yeah, each one of us has our own band, mine is the Luther Tucker band and we’re in Marin County.”

The fact that you meet Muddy so early in your career, what do remember the most from that Chess era? “He was a very beautiful musician; he really made an impression on my music playing. It was always a pleasure playing and recording with him.”

How about Willie Dixon? “He was in the studio almost every time I was in there. Every time you look around, Mr. Willie Dixon was there. He was a great producer and wrote a lot of good blues. He wrote for Muddy, he wrote for Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson and so many people.”

You also worked with Otis Rush. “Yes, I played with him about three years. He’s a very fine musician. I love his voice.” And you knew Sonny Boy Williamson II? “Yes, I had the pleasure of recording with him. Quite some harmonica player and had a feeling for it, too. Blues with a feeling? Nobody could do it like Little Walter!” He smiles. “Nobody could do it like Mr. Little Walter.”

How about Big Walter, Shakey Walter Horton? “He was one of the greatest, just like Little Walter. Unfortunately, some people have bigger appetites than the others.”

One more, Otis Spann. “Oh, he was quite some piano player. I worked with him with Mr. Muddy Waters, Mr. Sonny Boy Williamson and Mr. Little Walter. He recorded with quite a few musicians. He and my mom used to sit down at the piano and play together and that was some playing… I’ll never forget that. It really got me interested in playing. My mother she played piano, one of those unknown musicians, you know? That’s the way it goes sometimes.

We lost Luther Tucker from cardiac arrest in June of 1993, he was just 57 years old.

The post Luther Tucker – Everybody’s Got the Blues appeared first on Traveling Archive.

Curated by Ed Boitano

Richard Carroll — T-Boy writer:

The Grand Canyon

I very much have the yearning to hike the Grand Canyon again to enjoy the rocky switch-back trail that leads to the bottom of this incredible national park where the Colorado River is cutting an ageless path leaving in its wake a lasting mark. The fast-moving river was a convenient but treacherous highway for American trappers, mountain men, explorers, Native Americans, and later fun-loving rafting aficionados. The problematic river with tales to share includes the heart-break and disillusionment of the unknown when explorers with overloaded boats had no idea of the advancing challenges.

Throughout my visit I would spend time to fully appreciate the million years of geological history embedded in the towering walls, to understand that the Pueblo people and other Native America tribes have existed in the Canyon when the United States was just a jagged blob on European maps, and that some Native America’s to this day believe the Grand Canyon is a holy site. I would encompass a few leisurely days in the park with notebook and pin in order to fully appreciate the lingering sunsets, the merging colors, and irregular shadows that quickly transpose the massive landscape from a deep red to pastels. I recall the flickering and fading light touching on fantastic shapes, setting the mind’s eye to run wild. The Grand Canyon is both a scenic and historic jewel and on my next encounter I hope to be firmly enlightened.

Ed Boitano — T-Boy editor:

Twin Cities: Minneapolis and Saint Paul

A quick study revealed that the distinct urban cultures of Minnesota’s Twin Cities: Saint Paul and Minneapolis, sit apart by a mere seven-mile-long football pass – that is if the pass was thrown by Minnesota Vikings’ quarterback Fran Tarkenton. Built around the confluence of the Mississippi  and Minnesota rivers, St. Paul is considered the last city of the East, Minneapolis the first city of the West. Saint Paul is renowned for quaint neighborhoods of well-preserved late-Victorian architecture, while the more populated Minneapolis is considered a modern city with a relatively young downtown and trendy uptown. Saint Paul is also the state capital and the birthplace of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. His family home, described as a simple brownstone row house, is where he wrote his first published novel, This Side of Paradise, to prove that he would able to support the wealthy Alabama southern belle Zelda Sayre who would eventually become his bride.

Despite the blistering months of cold and snow, a car journey to Duluth would be in order to see the birth home of Robert Zimmerman (Bob Dylan, 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature). This would be followed by trip north and longer stay at Hibbing, where Dylan (Zimmy to friends), lived during his informative years from ages six to eighteen. Hibbing is famous for its Dylan heritage sites, which includes his family’s modest home, and also the site of the world’s largest iron ore mine. Why winter? For an ice fishing experience. After all, isn’t this the state of 1,000 lakes (actually 14,444 lakes). Imagine fishing in an ice hole in the comfort of a warm fishing shack, compete with a little stove, chairs, food and drink, and with Dylan songs on my phone and Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise in my hand. I guess a fishing pole would be in my other.

Ringo Boitano — T-Boy writer:

Oklahoma City

Often times in the past I would join press trips to places I’d never been or would probably never visit when it was on my own dime. This was true with my experience in Tulsa, Oklahoma and the Cherokee Nation. I had an ignorant west coast conception that the entire state was one big dust bowl, based on Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath and John Ford’s film adaptation. I was proven wrong; the Tulsa area was fresh, green and vibrant, and I learned much at the very progressive Cherokee nation. On my flight to Seattle, I thought of an old NPR broadcast at the time of the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995. Carried out by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, the bombing killed 168 innocent people and injured more than 680 others. The broadcaster spoke of the emotional texture of its people; it went something like this: Very little happens in Oklahoma City that evokes national coverage from the press. The people are used to this lack of attention, but at time of the bombing its citizens displayed resilience, strength and empathy to one another.

Phil Marley — Poet:

Road Trip: Philadelphia to Pittsburgh

James Carville famously described Pennsylvania politically as Philadelphia in the East, Pittsburgh in the West, and Alabama in the middle. But why Alabama? Apparently, it’s due to this part of Pennsylvania’s mountainous central area is known as the Appalachian region where its local people and culture are politically more of the conservative kind than the urbanized East and West. The Appalachian region will be part of the landscape I plan on passing as I depart Philadelphia in my rental to Pittsburgh, the ancestral home of my friend, David. No doubt a stop in Pennsylvania Dutch Country (from German Deutsch), famous for its productive green farmlands, thanks to the Amish and the Mennonites, will be in order. I’ll have only half a day for Gettysburg National Military Park; for Steel Town is my goal of and I had planned on seeing as much of it as I could in two-days.  David has gushed about his city of 446 bridges, more than Venice, Italy, and its three rivers: the Allegheny River and Monongahela River united at Point State Park to form the Ohio River.

I’ve read that Pittsburgh’s ethnic enclaves are slowly disappearing since David’s departure, but still exist with the Germans of Millvale, Italians of New Castle, Slovaks of Munhall, Hungarians of Hazelwood and Ukrainians of the South Side. Plus, there’s hills galore to climb with magnificent views of the city to see.

During a much earlier trip to what would be become Pittsburg’s Point State Park, Lieutenant George Washington of the Virginia militia,  negotiated with the French during the French and Indian War of 1753.  He wrote about Point State Park in his journal.

As I got down before the Canoe, I spent some Time in viewing the Rivers, and the Land in the Fork; which I think extremely well situated for a Fort, as it has the absolute Command of both Rivers. The Land at the Point is 20 or 25 Feet above the common Surface of the Water; and a considerable Bottom of flat, well-timbered Land all around it, very convenient for Building: The Rivers are each a Quarter of a Mile, or more, across, and run here very near at right Angles: Aligany bearing N. E. and Monongahela S. E. The former of these two is a very rapid and swift running Water; the other deep and still, without any perceptible fall.”

Four different forts were built at the forks of the Ohio within a period of five years. In 1754, French forces captured an outpost known as Fort Prince George at the Point that had been erected by a force of Virginians. George Washington led British forces to recapture the fort, but suffered his first and only surrender at Fort Necessity, 50 miles to the south.

Deb Roskamp — T-Boy photographer and writer:

I have friends who vacation once a year to Sanibel Island, located along the Gulf of Mexico, just a short drive from Fort Myers, Florida. Their enchanting description of its sunsets, lighthouse and beaches harkens to  emotional thoughts of calm, peace and rejuvenation. They spoke of the island’s most popular activity known as shelling; Sanibel Island has the 3rd richest seashell beaches on earth. Apparently, you barely can walk a step on the beach without indulging in the so-called “Sanibel Stoop” in search of its shells. Research informed me that the most secluded beach on the island is Bowman’s Beach; there are no hotels in sight and the beach has a “pristine and quiet” atmosphere.

James Boitano — T-Boy writer:

Isle Royale

• Hawaii Volcanos
• Lassen Volcanic
• Gates of the Arctic

US Cities: Just picking 4 random larger cities I have not been to. No particular draw specifically: just that I have not been to them.

• Kansas City, MO & KS
• Wichita, KS
• Little Rock, AR
• El Paso, TX

US towns/Villages

• Barrow, AK (most northern)
• Pago Pago, American Samoa (most southern)
• Derby Line, VT (town divided into two by Canadian border)

Sites

• National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, TN (where Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated)
• Appomattox Courthouse, VA (where Civil War Ended)
• Meteor Crater, AZ

Skip Kaltenheuser — T-Boy writer:

A Bucket List is any trip, anytime, anywhere.

The term “Bucket List” gives me the willies. I’m not ready to strike a bargain, have it fulfilled and shuffle off, none of that “To see Paris and die” stuff, I just want to go on seeing, the list eternal. And I can think of a worse afterlife, the Flying Dutchman finally allowed make any port of call he desires.

But I’ve plenty of domestic locales high up on my wish list for the here and now. Many of them are national or state parks and the environs around them. Some are repeats from when I was young, including places my parents took me that left indelible memories – of places, of them, of my awe. Living in a suburb of Kansas City, we usually headed West in my traveling salesman dad’s Buick of the moment. Car and man joined together as a driving cyborg, or a genie with a bit of flying carpet, gifting an endless flow of national parks and roadside attractions, another day another natural wonder, or two or five.

Many of the roads were pre-Interstate, before fascinating arteries like Route 66 withered, when roadside attractions were still legion. Where water flowed uphill and gravity was iffy. Before the Buick was air-conditioned, summer climate figured in, going across Death Valley at night, though the night sky was still something to gawk at. Kansas could get pretty hot and steamy, so soaking up the cool of the mountains counted. I think we tended to favor the West because we were lucky to have a couple horses we kept in a rented pasture that kept moving outward with the suburban sprawl, and though cowboy was a stretch the image was still internalized, polished up with a Boy Scout’s interest in all things outdoors. Plus, as driving was a parental pleasure, wide-open spaces with sudden, map-inspired detours were magnetic. The serendipity of what looked enticing on a map. No cell phones then, thank God. I still use a map.

Revisiting Jackson Hole with a then-small boy, his first downhill ski, and a dog sled in the Tetons, I realized how many repeaters I’d like to share. That was a lovely continuum stretching from my own childhood visit. Though my kids are now young adults, I’d like to share more of those memories with them, to watch them form their own impressions as they react to the beauty and the menace of places like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone. To watch them explore the Rockies, where I once camped on a mountain ridge for a summer, working down below in Estes Park. When I was young Colorado alternated with the Ozarks as the family default, the excitement of topographical relief coming into view after the hundred mile-an-hour car ride across the Kansas flat. And I’d like to re-experience some of the skiing in the Rockies, the high ground views whispering “Are you sure?”, before my knees go on strike over bad working conditions. Is 69 really rounding the bend, just shy of April Fools? Other things now compete for my kids’ time, so any window of travel opportunity with them is gold.

My family didn’t exclusively drive West. Other child memories I’d like to refresh and share include the Everglades, and the underwater views of the coral reefs along the Florida Keys. These destinations seemed exotic to a boy from Kansas. Because they were exotic. Driving east one Spring, we took in “the educational” in a DC adorned with blossoms, leaving impressions that might have later helped draw me to the city where my family resides.

Beyond the grand repeaters, framed this time with a whiz-bang camera, locales I wish for include sites that will be new to me. Yosemite waits in my imagination with Ansel Adams. California’s skyscraper redwoods, with my hopes that climate-induced fires won’t imperil them. I’d like Death Valley to be well-bathed in rain so I can see a big Spring flower desert bloom. Hiking and biking through some of the canyons in Utah that look so surreal. I’m not a snob for elevation, I’d like to see how the Kansas Tall Grass Prairie has grown, and visit deserts like the Sonoran.

As I write this, I realize my parents also had bucket lists, with me lucky to help fulfill parts. After Dad died Mom lived with us in DC until she passed away at 101 1/2. Nothing excited her more than getting in the car for any trip, anytime, anywhere.

During the microbe onslaught, everything got relative fast. Over the last year, when they could cobble time for a break, I took my kids on local road trip explorations, appreciating the poor man’s Rivieras in state parks and coastal areas, the valleys by the Blue Ridge, a scenic winery, etc… Anything for relief from online study rigors and pandemic isolation, to break up the scenery as best one can do in two or three days or even just a day trip. I just took my son to Solomon’s Island, MD, catching roadside attractions along the way like the northernmost cyprus swamp, (who knew?).

One is never stuck for a place to go as long as the wish list is any trip, anytime, anywhere.

Arthur Lim — IT Professional: 

Colorado Springs, Colorado

Following the arrival of railroads beginning in 1871, Colorado Springs’ location at the base of Pikes Peak and the Rocky Mountain made it a popular tourism destination. The Summer of 1975 was when I visited Colorado Springs, but that was a while back and am primed for a revisit.  Aside from the many mountainous streams, two places of interest stood up in my mind: the Glen Eyrie Castle, and the United States Air Force Academy. Glen Eyrie Castle is a Tudor styled castle built by General William Jackson Palmer in 1871. He founded Colorado Springs. The United States Air Force Academy is nearby. It houses a beautiful interdenominational chapel and has an overall futuristic feel.

Roy Endersby — Philosopher:

The Mississippi Delta: Birthplace of the Blues and Vicksburg National Military Park

In a New Orleans rental car I traveled through Louisiana’s Cajun Country for lunch in Houma at Abear’s Café; a Cajun and Creole mom & pop café, famous for their specialty: alligator piquant and potato salad. The café’s founder, owner, chef and Houma native,  Albert “Curly” L. Hebert ( (1933- 2017) politely shuffled around us, expressing concern that the dish might seem rather funny to us Yankees, before proudly proclaiming that the very dish won an award at a county fair. The next two nights it was Lafayette (pronounced ‘Laugh-yet’) for a little Cajun and zydeco flavor, and then Breaux Bridge; the crawfish capital of the world.

My time was limited in Mississippi, so my final destination was a night in Natchez, home to one of the largest  collection of Antebellum (“pre-Civil War”) mansions, with many open for tours. The next morning, I decided to forego the tours and simply bask in the enchanting ambiance of a Natchez park, hanging high on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. I had a long and taxing day ahead of me; driving to New Orleans for a flight back to L.A. would be tiresome. I measured the distance on my map, and noticed I was close to both the Mississippi Delta and Vicksburg National Military Park. With more time allowed, I would have adored a ride further up the Natchez Trace Parkway  to the Vicksburg National Military Park. And then, further out, Highway 61 would take me to the holy grounds of the Mississippi Delta. Once home to Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield), and singer-songwriter and guitarist, Robert Johnson, considered since the 1960s as a maestro of Delta blues and an important influence on many rock musicians. Yes, they are gone today, but their spirit and music lives on.

The Mississippi Delta

About an hour south down Highway 61, you’ll find Clarksdale, Mississippi — better known as the Blues Crossroads. Legend has it that’s where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil. Visit the Hopson Plantation and spend the night at the ShackUp Inn. The evenings are filled with blues at Ground Zero, Red’s or the Juke Joint Chapel. An amazing cultural and musical emersion you’ll want to experience again and again. Robert Nighthawk, Sunnyland Slim, James Cotton, Chester Burnett (Howlin’ Wolf) Bukka White, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Big Bill Broonzy, Carey Bell, Tommy Johnson, John Lee Hooker, Charley Patton, Son House… some made their names in Chicago, some made their names in the South, but all were born in Mississippi.

— T.E. Mattox, Traveling Boy’s Blues Aficionado

Birthplace of the Blues

Courtesy Visit the Delta

The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the United States that stretches from north to south between Memphis, Tennessee, and Vicksburg, Mississippi, and from east to west between the Yazoo River and the Mississippi River. The Mississippi Delta is historically famous for its fertile soil and the poverty of its farm workers. More famous blues musicians have come from this area than any other region (or state for that matter) combined. Today, you can still feel that authentic vibe of Mississippi Delta blues history.

Vicksburg National Military Park (U.S. National Park Service)

Courtesy Vicksburg National Military Park

Gibraltar of the Confederacy

Confederate President Jefferson Davis remarked, “Vicksburg is the nail-head that holds the South’s two halves together.” At the start of the Civil War, Confederates controlled the Mississippi River south of Cairo, Illinois all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. With its valuable commercial port and railroad hub, the city was of tremendous importance. From points west of the Mississippi River, men, food, salt, and weapons, funneled through Mexico, made their way to Vicksburg and Confederate armies in the West.

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It’s been almost 30 years now since I ran into Carey Bell. He was touring through Europe and was gracious enough to sit down and talk for awhile about his friends, his life in music and the road he travelled. Immediately after our conversation, in his typical workingman’s approach, he stepped on stage and proceeded to blow everyone in that Italian theater against the back wall. He was a remarkable talent and genuinely funny human being.

Born in the winter of 1936 and raised on a farm in Macon, Mississippi, Carey Bell Harrington grew up working hard. He laughs, “Damn sure did!” I heard you taught yourself harmonica? “Yeah! I got one for Christmas and started blowin’ on it.” Your mother sang in church, do you think that was your first musical influence? “Yeah, I guess so. That’s what they all say.” He laughs. “I haven’t the slightest idea, you know? 

What was life like for you in a small community like that? “There wasn’t too much to it, I just didn’t want to work on the farm, so I ran away. I learned how to play the harmonica and when I thought I was good enough, I went to Chicago.”

Talk a little about working in Bobby Shore’s Tavern in Meridian? “Oh yeah, that was great! It was a restaurant and a tavern and I was selling bootleg, moonshine whiskey.” (laughing) “But I drank too much! (laughing) Were you playing blues there? “No, Western and Country music and that was great, too! Yeah, that was the first thing I learned but after blues came along, I got into that.”

You grew up around Lovie Lee. “Yeah, he’s still hangin’. But working with him I felt it was too slow because I wanted to get up real fast, you know? Who were some of the people you listened to on the harmonica? “You mean the people I liked?” I nod. “Oh I listened to Sonny Boy, Big Walter, Little Walter, Sonny Terry, Jerry McCain, Junior Wells, James Cotton. They were playing way before I was…Cotton is old as Moses!” (laughing) “Junior, too!”

Like most bluesmen of the era, Bell would busk on street corners; sometimes alone, sometimes with others. “Yeah, I played with a band, Robert Nighthawk, Honeyboy Edwards… shoot, a lot of peoples.”

You played in a place once called the Cadillac Baby Bar with Little Walter, what was that like? “That was okay.” What did you do? “Nuthin’!” (laughing) C’mon, running with Little Walter had to be a high point in your career? “No, it wasn’t.” (laughing) “You see when I went to Chicago I was too young to get into the clubs, I had to go in the back door. I had to sneak around and people would sneak me in.”

I had always heard that Little Walter Jacobs was a scrappy little guy and would fight anyone at the drop of a hat, but Carey set me straight. “Naw, everybody tells that same lie.” Then he says. “Well, I guess he would if somebody would jump on him, but everybody have to defend themselves, you know? There was no doubt that he was an unbelievable harp player. “Yeah he was, he’s gone but he’s still has stuff out, it’s still great stuff.”

I was looking at some of the people you’ve played with and it’s unreal. You’ve played with Big Walter, Earl Hooker, John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters… and the list of venues, what was the rowdiest club or bar you’ve ever played? “The only place I remember was a house party in Mississippi. They got to fightin’ and I went up under the house.” (laughing) “Yeah, under the house, the guitar player got in his car and left. Yeah, people got beat. That was about the rowdiest.”

Charlie Musselwhite and Otis Rush both told me about a place called the ‘I Spy Lounge’ in Chicago? “I didn’t hang out in the ‘I Spy’ that much. I always heard about all the fights and stuff going on in there, that’s one of the reasons I didn’t go in there!” (laughing) You and Charlie Musselwhite are pretty good friends. “Yeah, we used to hang out together, every day almost, every Sunday playing on the street. He’s crazy, though.” He’s settled down now a little bit, haven’t you? “No!” (laughing) “I just ain’t as fast as I used to be!” (laughing)

You toured a great deal with Willie Dixon’s All Stars. “Yeah, he’s a good friend of mine. I was his main man. We used to cook in the hotel, and we’d get busted for it.” (laughing) “Hot dogs, pork chops, potatoes.” You mean like a hot plate in the room? “I had one of those big, old Hoover electric frying pans and we had a good time. They told us to quit but then the hotel manager would sit down and have a bite with us. Willie was good at starting a conversation. After we finished the guy would leave and tell us, ‘Well, you guys don’t do it every day or just put something at the bottom of the door so the smell doesn’t go all over.’ You know those white potatoes and onions you could smell them a country mile…” (laughing) “And the band wouldn’t help round up food with us; we’d sneak off to the grocery store and they’d be sleeping and when they’d wake up they’d smell the food and Willie would lock the door and wouldn’t let them in.” (laughing) “Oh, we had great fun!”

You’ve been on the road a long time, you ever tire of it? “Un-uh!?” Carey shakes his head. “It’s my life…I love it! You know why?” He smiles. “I don’t want to work!” (laughing) Isn’t it tough sometimes? “It ain’t like work!! Man, work would KILL me! If I had to go back to work punching a clock and here come somebody telling me, ‘How come you’re late? I’m docking your money. Well, you’re fired!’”

What kind of work did you do, outside of music? “Oh man, shoot. I worked in junk yards, nursing homes; washing cars…you know that work? I put on a rubber suit at 7 o’clock and wouldn’t get through till 5 in the evening, keeping that yellow suit on. It was yellow. They had those little pads you stick your hands in. Man, I used to say if I ever get out of this here… man that was something else.”

Describe Carey Bell’s blues? “I just DID!” (laughing) “I just did!” (laughing) “The first wife I had, we moved from Mississippi to Chicago with Lovie Lee and a whole band. I didn’t know the city and I had to go look for a job and at that time that had old junk carts that they pulled through the alley picking up scrap and stuff. Her mother’s old man built me a wagon to pull. Now, I had been plowin’ with a mule in Mississippi and man, when I get to Chicago they go and make a mule outta’ me! Owww!” (laughing) “Un-Uh! They put me out! Yeah, that’s when I met Honeyboy (Edwards). Honeyboy took me in. If it hadn’t been for Honeyboy I’d probably woulda’ been dead or something, or in jail!”

You’ve played with everybody, do you have a favorite session or recording that you truly enjoyed? “My favorite was with Muddy, the London sessions. Oh, we had great fun. With Sammy Lawhorn and I can’t remember the other guys. Only three of us left Chicago and went to London and they had musicians there in London. They were big guys but I can’t recall their names.” That album was loaded with talent including Rory Gallagher, Rick Grech, Stevie Winwood, Mitch Mitchell and many more… I totally understand why it was your favorite. Other than the talent, what made it so special for you? “Muddy was funny. They didn’t want to give me no whiskey. Muddy said, ‘you don’t give that boy no whiskey, he ain’t gonna’ play!” (laughing) “You better go out and get him some. It was real funny. And we’d lay up in the hotel all day and do the session at night. It took us a week. In the hotel, we’d order anything we wanted, Champagne… anything we wanted and we didn’t have to pay for it.”

The results speak for themselves.

We lost Carey Bell in Chicago on May 6, 2007 from heart failure. He left us with an incredible library of music. (Check him out — Carey Bell; I know you’ll like it.)

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