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.

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.