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.

The post The T-Boy Society of Film & Music’s Domestic Bucket List Destinations appeared first on Traveling Archive.

Never-the-less you are determined and focused, and find yourself in a band full of grownups “playing lead” guitar and you get gigs opening for the very players you so admire. Suddenly, you’re hanging backstage with Johnny Winter, Joe Perry, and Elliot Easton. Your band releases a regional hit and local radio WBCN invites you in to talk about your music… sounds like a fairy tale, something that only happens in the movies, right? Yet, that is exactly what happened to San Diego guitarist, Jimmy Zollo.

Although he is rarely thrown out of clubs anymore, Zollo’s resolve and ‘never say die’ attitude is still apparent. He continues to play with different musicians in multiple bands and actively generates new music and original material. So, when we finally had a chance to sit down and talk, we started with those early years.

Was your family musical? “My dad played saxophone a little bit.” Jimmy says. “And my mom was an artist and she’s responsible for all my musical influences. She was actually a graduate of UC Berkeley and was double promoted from high school. She went to college really early and was up there during the Monterey Pop festival. Her main thing was abstract art but she did all of it and then became an art teacher in the school system. Once we were old enough to go to school, she went back to work and became an art teacher in the high school that I attended. She used charcoal and paint and she sold a lot of her pieces in La Jolla.

She took me to my first concert; Boz Scaggs, the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac back in Foxboro. Thanks to her I got to see Queen six times, Thin Lizzy and there were many concerts I missed because by that age I had already been playing and had a band. She tried to get me to go see the last tour that Bon Scott did through Boston and I said, ‘Mom, I’m playin’ a party.’ Even though I wanted to go… I missed that, and then he was gone. She took me to go see Prince on his first tour, and then she told me about this guitar player from Texas that you need to see… Stevie Ray Vaughan! She was a major influence on my direction and my biggest supporter.”

How about siblings? “My younger brother Drew is a great bass player. We’ve played together in the past. When growing up he would snatch my guitar away from me.” (laughing) “I would beat him.” (laughing) “I finally got hip one day and said, ‘if you’re going to keep doing this, then you’re going to play bass.’ I gave him my guitar and showed him some bass lines and got him going on that. And I have a sister, too. She never played professionally, but she can play the drums.”

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“That’s the thing about blues music, it’s all based on the love of the music
and the people we revere the most.”

– Jimmy Zollo

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Originally from the East Coast, you must have known early it would be music? “I grew up in Boston and left when I was twenty. When I left that area, I was already a veteran of that scene. I played professionally from the age of fourteen and I opened up for Johnny Winter, Gregg Allman, Frank Marino, Metallica… Hanoi Rocks and a lot of others I can’t remember. I was in a little band and playing with some guys from high school; ‘Scorcher’ and we had our own little regional hit song, ‘Dreamers’ and ‘Let the Nation’s Burn.’ It was kind of hard rock stuff and we got airplay on WBCN-Boston and did interviews on that station.”

WBCN is nation-wide exposure… who else were you running into around Boston at that time? “When I was young, around 1978, I got to meet the Aerosmith crew, the Cars… I met Elliot Easton, Joe Perry and Steven Tyler. Where I grew up, there was a super high bar for guitar players. Even as a kid, you knew there were kids that were already pro players.”

The Northeast is known for its outstanding guitarists. Did you ever run into Duke Robillard? “Yeah…Roomful of Blues! They used to play within walking distance of my home so I would go over and stand outside and listen and then sometimes sneak in and get thrown out… Ronnie Earl, too!”

So you leave the East Coast in 1985… “I went right to Hollywood! It was a great time to be in your twenties and be in Los Angeles. I had just turned 21 and was just kicking around in a couple of bands with some of the guys that I moved out there with, and then eventually my brother and I stumbled into some other guys that came from the Pittsburgh area and we formed the group called ‘the Betrayed’ and we got picked up by EMI. It was a rock band and we were really into the Stones and blues stuff. Basically what happened, we got signed to a big record deal with all these plans and ‘Nirvana’ came out and everything changed!” (laughing) “That was the story for a lot of bands during that time, everything shifted towards that. The people that signed us… they were gone! The next thing you know, we just have a deal on a label with people that don’t know us or have any background with us… and that’s how that went.”

You started playing professionally so early, it sounds like you really didn’t play in that many garage bands. “Well, at 14 I started playing and about six months in, I was in a band with grown-ups… playing lead. It was pretty wild because I didn’t know keys or chords, I just played by ear and nobody could understand how I could learn and play. When I tried to go back and figure out what I was doing, it just ruined it!” (laughing) “You know what I mean? It stopped me from growing, because I started thinking about it instead of just playing intuitively. I could watch friends play… I had some neighbors and their dad was a Bluegrass and Dixieland Jazz musician, so they had instruments. And his son was my age and the drummer. We would play and I’d get tips on how to tune it up, how to make bar chords and cowboy chords and stuff. So that was kind of how I started.”

Your music is so diverse, all the bands you play in… styles and genres, you literally play a little of everything? How did that come about? “Well, I’m glad you noticed that!”(laughing) “It basically goes back to my mom, because she had her record collection and I learned all the stuff in it. From Van Morrison, Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, Janis Joplin… I mean everything that everybody had out in the late 60s and early 70s, Creedence Clearwater. And then my things; I was listening to Sabbath and Zeppelin, and Queen, you know? The Beatles, Rolling Stones.”

Who were some of your blues influences? “Oddly enough, it would have been the second generation of players, Jimi Hendrix, the rock stuff. Some people might not associate that with a blues thing, but then I worked backwards.”

Bet mom had something to do with it? Jimmy smiles. “She was the one who told me to go back and listen to Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and all that stuff, Chuck Berry. I’m like, ‘who are these people you’re talking about?’ And she would get me the records and that’s how I got into it.”

I think most musicians have been influenced in some way by Wolf and Robert Johnson… Muddy. “Clapton is a good example, he plays everything. He plays hard rock, pop and deep blues and all that stuff and she (mom) literally told me ‘if you can emulate Clapton’s career as far as the range of music…’ I was 14 but it didn’t take long until I realized what she meant and just how much Clapton and the Stones did for the blues and for all those people.”

Sounds like you followed her advice? “You realize everything came from that (blues). All the roots of everything rock & roll was laid in that era. Take Johnny Shines who traveled with Robert Johnson and Johnny could emulate Robert’s playing and singing and the next thing you know it’s virtually like Robert Johnson had a band because there’s a drummer and a piano player and now there’s a back beat… and it’s rock and roll!”

The first band I remember seeing you play in was the Red Lotus Review with Karl Cabbage, Pete Fazzini and Kurt Kalker. How did that band come together? “I had been out of the music scene for a little bit because I had recently been married and had a child coming, so I kind of dropped out to concentrate on that for a minute. And then my wife at the time told me, ‘you know you can go back and start playing music again if you want.’ After my daughter was a year or two old, I started playing with Chillboy (Raffesberger) and he had a little cast of revolving musicians who were available and always great. A woman Charmaine Tam, a bass player was playing with Karl in another band and she mentioned that I should meet him because he would love my playing. In Chill’s band we were playing blues and I was playing a little more traditional style. He was great at what he did but I had a different style, maybe more primitive compared to what he was doing. Charmaine thought that would fit in with what Karl was doing. The first thing I played for him was a Robert Johnson song and he was hooked.”

After Red Lotus Review you started another band with Karl, ‘Holla Pointe.’ “When Red Lotus was like six or seven years in, we actually had a record deal with the Rip Cat label. I was putting together material and we were getting ready to record and a couple of the guys didn’t want to continue in that direction, unfortunately. It was a great lineup and very unique: two guitars, no bass, drums, harmonica and vocals. We wanted to inject original material into that format. I decided to still do these songs and I asked Karl, ‘I’m going to do this band, ‘Holla Pointe’ if you want to be a part of it and he was like ‘Yeah, I’m in!’

Musically, how was it different from the RLR? “It was similar but what happened, we added a bass player and a few different rhythms and I tried to incorporate a hill country and more of a Delta feel, amped up a little bit. Trying to save that traditional vocabulary but adding a twist to it.”

You’re playing with so many people and in so many bands currently… Joe Wood and the Lonely Ones…”It’s basically the same lineup as ‘Change Today.’ It’s Joe’s nightclub act, his working band. I wasn’t really interested in doing more night club acts. I’ve been in maybe 20 bands over the past 10 years and worked hundreds of days a year. But I said I was really interested in getting in to his (Joe Wood’s) back catalogue and maybe writing some new stuff, so we agreed on that and that’s where we are…with ‘Change Today.’

You also played with vocal dynamo, Casey Hensley. “At that time I was playing in the Six-String Outlaws and that’s where I met Evan Yearsley. He and I clicked musically and we had the same interests… so let’s do something together, you know? He said, ‘Well, I’ve got this girl singer, Casey.’ At the time I didn’t realize, but I had met Casey four or five years before when she was like… 14! She sang on a concert that I was playing with Chill (Raffesberger) for ‘the Best of San Diego’ or something. She came in and sang an Aretha Franklin song and I was all, ‘this girl’s good!’ So, I ended up being in the first rendition of her band.”

Are you spending any time in the studio? “Yeah, I’m making this ‘Change Today’ record right now which is really great. It’s a pretty wide-ranging sound, Joe’s a great songwriter and I got to contribute. It was a chance for me to collaborate with someone who’s a proven, great songwriter.”

How did you meet Joe? “Well, it’s funny I met him in ’89 and he says he remembers… but I know he doesn’t.” (laughing) “But I’d been working for different record producers as an assistant in the studios. When they make recordings, I would go in and basically take care of all the guitars; insure they’re strung up and intonated, tuned up and working properly. I would go to the studio at nine in the morning and stay till midnight. I worked on a lot of sessions while I was pursuing my own career. I worked in every studio in L.A… Capitol, MCA. Everything from Rod Stewart, Robert Palmer, hard rock records, I was very busy and made a lot of money. Most musicians don’t make a lot of money when they’re struggling. What was nice is that it didn’t interfere with what I was doing. After doing that for a couple of years, I ended up being in those same studios recording my own stuff. Most of the people working there said, ‘Wow! It’s great to see you here and now you’re working on your own thing.’ And that’s how I met Joe. One of the producers working on one of Joe’s last records with his band TSOL, caught wind of me and was interested in hearing me play. So, when he did and I introduced myself to Joe and he said, ‘You can join my band, anytime!’ We did a couple of gigs together and I pushed the ‘Change Today’ thing and that’s really taken off.”

I remember seeing you play with Rod Piazza at one of his birthday bashes in Riverside. “Rod Piazza” Jimmy says. “I look at him with the same amount of reverence that I do with all the blues originators because of his dedication and the purity of what he does. He recognized something and took me aside and gave me this heart-to-heart about what I was doing. I just gained so much respect for him because he encouraged me… who am I, to him? But he heard something in me and gave me some wind in my sails to believe in myself. It’s hard to explain to people who don’t know who he is or the genre and express the feeling and the depth of what that meant to me. That’s the thing about blues music, it’s all based on the love of the music and the people we revere the most.”

It seems blues is more personal; the music and stories handed down generation-to-generation. “I was just watching a Muddy Waters interview and the man interviewing him was Pete Welding. He was a record producer and blues/jazz historian and was very close with Muddy.” Jimmy says, and as to prove a point. “I was taught Robert Johnson songs by Pete Welding, who learned from Muddy, who learned directly from Robert.”  

Details! This was in your studio years in L.A.? “Yes, I was very young when I met Pete, he heard I was into the blues and took me into his office at Capitol and gave me a music and history lesson that day. That was huge in my life at that time. I also had a chance to meet Les Paul there and had my picture taken with him. He was a very nice man and made me feel like I was his friend, even though we only talked for a few minutes.”

Let’s talk about ‘Change Today’ and collaborating with Joe Wood. “Joe isn’t a kid anymore and he’s fully aware of that. And the songwriting that he’s doing now is very deep and he’s really gifted at it. When you hear this record… there’s a couple of edgier tunes on it that will make his fan’s of earlier material feel good and there’s some darker stuff that they’re gonna’ love too. But there’s also some stuff that can stand next to Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson, its real songwriting. Roots-y, pure soul music, and it’s all originals. I just add my texture and color to it. I get credit for arranging some songs but for the most part all the stuff was there. I did contribute two tracks and Joe put it in his blender. Anytime you write something, it’s always a better result when there’s other minds involved that are creative and add to it.”

Sounds like a fun environment. “These bands with Joe Wood and Mark Campbell and Chris Ogard… we all get along so well, it’s almost comical. I’ve never been travelling with a band ever, where it was so light and easy. It’s so much fun because we just laugh all the time and we can’t wait to play. Everywhere we play people are just like, ‘Wow!’ they feel the energy because we’re so excited. We’re finishing up this record, we’ve got all the basic tracks but I have to put my stuff on it and the vocals and we’re trying to put May 30^th as the release.”

Any reflections about life or the road you travel, to this point? “I just go where the music tells me to go.” Zollo says. “I’ve never pursued or pushed myself; I just do my part and make sure I’m ready when that intersection comes. I’ve had the opportunity to play with so many people; I got to play with Jimmy Bain before he died. A bass player and songwriter, he wrote ‘Man on the Silver Mountain’ he was in Ritchie Blackmore’s band with Ronnie James Dio and he wrote all the Dio stuff for ‘Holy Diver.’ I got a call to do a session and I’m standing in the control room with him… didn’t know that was gonna’ happen!” He smiles and shakes his head. “What am I doing there?”

So your message is be prepared and try not to freak out? “I met Cash McCall last time I went to Memphis and he actually performed two songs with me and shook my hand and goes, ‘I really like your playing.’ I was like, ‘That’s enough for me!'”

The post Jimmy Zollo: How Bad Do You Want It? appeared first on Traveling Archive.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post Runnin’ with the Tomcat: Tomcat Courtney appeared first on Traveling Archive.