{"id":4086,"date":"2018-01-03T07:01:54","date_gmt":"2018-01-03T07:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/?p=4086"},"modified":"2018-01-03T18:35:29","modified_gmt":"2018-01-03T18:35:29","slug":"runnin-tomcat-tomcat-courtney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/runnin-tomcat-tomcat-courtney\/","title":{"rendered":"Runnin\u2019 with the Tomcat: Tomcat Courtney"},"content":{"rendered":"

How does a person earn the nickname, Tomcat? The story goes that a girlfriend of Courtney\u2019s in Waco, TX, who ran a little house out on the range, had just bought him a Cadillac. One day she got angry with him and chased him through the house with an axe! Yes, I said Axe! He jumped out one of the third story windows, broke his leg, hobbled over to the Caddy, and drove as far West as he could…Ocean Beach. Tom says, \u2018Man, that woman was MEAN! She had a graveyard of her own!\u2019 <\/strong>The nickname stuck and Tomcat Courtney has the scars to prove it.<\/p>\n

\"Tomcat
Tomcat Courtney lays it out during a regular weekly gig. Photo: Yachiyo Mattox<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Courtney is currently preparing for his 89th<\/sup> birthday musical celebration at a local San Diego haunt, Proud Mary\u2019s. As in years past, he\u2019ll once again be surrounded by friends, fans and some of the best musicians in Southern California<\/a>. 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\u2019s most revered and respected blues elders.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s earliest memories are the stuff of legends. Another well known name from Marlin was Blind Willie Johnson? \u201cYeah, I knowed him,\u201d <\/strong>he nods. \u201cBut 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\u2019t no money, man. Robert Johnson was playing in San Antonio, Texas and Dallas, that was about 1937 or \u201938. 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.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

Who were some of the other musicians you remember from that time? \u201cSonny Boy Williamson.\u201d <\/strong>Tomcat says. \u201cMy 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\u2026yaaaahh!!! <\/strong>He laughs! \u201cIt was loud, but tin was cheap.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"CD
Tomcat\u2019s CD, Downsville Blues<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You were just a kid, were you allowed to attend shows at your father\u2019s juke joint? \u201cWell they had windows and they opened them up and bolted them up and I\u2019d sit in the window. Especially when Lightnin\u2019 <\/strong>(Hopkins) played. I was more enthused about Lightnin\u2019 than Robert Johnson. I didn\u2019t think about it until years later. Robert was kind of a drunk, he wasn\u2019t jolly\u2026you know what I mean? He played <\/strong>(breaks into song) \u2018Went down to the Crossroads, fell down on my knees\u2026\u2019<\/em> like tears all the time, but Lightnin\u2019 was jolly. You know the spirit they put into it. I remember that and the boogie he put into it. He had that \u2018don-ta-don\u2019<\/em> <\/strong>(cadence) to it. He used that quite a bit more than he do on his records, \u2018cause peoples dancin\u2019.\u201d <\/strong>Tomcat begins to smile as the memories flood back. \u201cSo then when I saw him, I wanted a guitar. You see I had a harmonica, I used to try to blow a harmonica \u2018cause I saw Sonny Boy Williamson blowing it, you know? <\/strong>(laughing) \u201cHe 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\u2019 his woman and kissin\u2019 at night and this and that and makin\u2019 the harp play the thing, make the harp cry.\u201d <\/strong>He sings. \u201c\u2018Mama!\u2019<\/em> and all that, you know?\u201d <\/strong>(He laughs and breaks into song) \u2018Now call your mama\u2026Mama, call your mama\u2026Mama!\u2019<\/em> <\/strong>(laughing)<\/p>\n

How did you come by your first guitar? \u201cActually,\u201d <\/strong>he smiles. \u201cI 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, \u2018I sure would like to have that guitar.\u2019 He said, \u2018I tell you what, you help me get these weeds outta\u2019 the garden and I\u2019ll give you this guitar.\u2019 Man, I pulled up every weed out there. I had a pile of weeds that high.\u201d <\/strong>He raises his hand above his head. \u201cHe gave me the guitar and I put some old strings on it, and that\u2019s how I started.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Larry
Larry Teves aka Chickenbone Slim, Bruce Stewart, and Tomcat rip it. Photo: Yachiyo Mattox<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Texas Swing music was extremely popular back in those days; did you ever play that style of music? \u201cWhen I started in a band, I played up tempo music and some swing stuff. I just didn\u2019t get into it that much. I was mostly into the boogie style. You know Lightnin\u2019 and John Lee was so prominent and when you go around in those joints in Texas the juke box had Lightnin\u2019 Hopkins and later on John Lee Hooker they were just so prominent on the country jukebox. In \u201948 or \u201949 when John Lee Hooker put out \u2018Boogie Chillen\u2019 he\u2019d just about taken over the country blues jukebox. And then Little John Jackson followed about 1950 and put out \u2018Rock Me, Baby.\u2019 They all recorded right there together about \u201948 or \u201949.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You also knew Ray Charles very early in his career? \u201cWhen I first saw Ray Charles all I heard him play was Charles Brown and Nat King Cole. I talked with him, I said \u2018Ray, play something different.\u2019 He\u2019d tell ya\u2019 \u2018Man, I can\u2019t see and I got to live and people seem to like it.\u2019 He said, \u2018I got to live,\u2019 you know?\u2019 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\u2019!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

***************************<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk a little about how you ended up in Los Angeles. \u201cI was living and working in Flagstaff, AZ in the late \u201850s and playing for lumberjacks,\u201d <\/strong>Tomcat says. \u201cIt was nice but in two or three weeks it started snowing. And I was so surprised!\u201d <\/strong>(laughing) \u201cI didn\u2019t know but Flagstaff was worse than Chicago, man. I didn\u2019t know that. Ain\u2019t 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 <\/strong>(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, \u2018I gotta\u2019 get a guitar player because Wayne is so sick.\u2019 So anyway we went to L.A. and I knew a lot of his songs. He had \u2018Further On Up the Road<\/em>,\u2019 \u2018I Don\u2019t Want no Woman Tellin\u2019 me What to Do.\u2019<\/em> I couldn\u2019t play it like Wayne, but shit, nobody could play it like that. Anyway, we went to L.A.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Did you experience any memorable gigs in Los Angeles? \u201cThe Five-Four Club <\/strong>(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.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Tomcat
Tomcat sits in with Chickenbone Slim and the Biscuits. Photo: Yachiyo Mattox<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So when did you start coming down to San Diego? \u201cWe played down here about three or four<\/strong> 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\u2019t make it were crooks. So many people went there looking to try to make a living\u2026 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, \u2018Man, these gigs are scarce here\u2019 and I went out on Ocean Beach and a place called, \u2018Peoples\u2019 in \u201969 or \u201970. I walked in there and it was a hippie joint. I said, \u2018Looky here man, I\u2019m a blues player.\u2019 He said, \u2018I close here on Sunday, I just clean up on Sunday. I\u2019ve got somebody playin\u2019 \u2018bout every night.\u2019 Like a folk singer or one or two people and put up a tip jar and a percentage of the bar. And I said, \u2018Well, I\u2019ll do that. I\u2019m here.\u2019 He said, \u2018Well if you want to set up and play, we don\u2019t have anyone here on Sunday. And I\u2019d like to hear what you sound like.\u2019 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 \u2018em an idea what I\u2019m doin\u2019 \u2018cause when I tell \u2018em Texas country blues, you know? They want to know what it sounded like.\u201d <\/strong>(laughing)<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I got up there and started playin\u2019 and I saw the guy using the phone. He called like four people and the guys in the back cleanin\u2019 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\u2019 know if I\u2019d be coming back next Sunday? I said, \u2018Yeah, I\u2019ll 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\u2019s how I stayed here. It started out as \u2018Peoples\u2019 and a guy bought it and called it the \u2018Texas Teahouse.\u2019 I played there about 24 years, all together. At one place.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

You\u2019ve got to tell us a wild bar or club story before we stop. \u201cAh man, I played in so many places and there were a lot of them. Well, right there in Flagstaff, they started fightin\u2019 them lumberjacks and stuff. The police come in there and almost closed the place up. Man, them dudes\u2019d be big. I played in places where people were pulling guns and emptied the place. At Peoples\u2019 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.\u201d <\/strong>(He points to the scar on his arm) \u201cA nut come in there man, about six or seven years after I started playin\u2019 there.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Tomcat
Tomcat Courtney and a fan. Photo: Yachiyo Mattox<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tomcat\u2019s fan base now circles the globe and he starts to laugh as he recalls touring Europe. \u201cMan, that was somethin\u2019 else. I went there a few times, Amsterdam and Switzerland. What happened is I made a CD, \u2018Downsville Blues\u2019 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.\u201d <\/strong>(laughing) \u201cLooky here man, but when you go to lunch, O-O-O-O lunch and dinner, unbeatable them people\u2019s cookin\u2019. And they got a big thing of wine sittin\u2019 up there. I say, \u2018Goddamn, this shit don\u2019t taste like Night Train!\u2019 <\/strong>(laughing) \u201cThey have good wine there, man.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amazingly, you still write so much music, nine of the songs on Downsville Blues<\/em><\/strong> were originals? \u201cI just write it\u2026and sing it\u2026shit.\u201d <\/strong>(laughing) \u201cI saw so many things and lived the way I lived. I went through some hell and stuff, the joints I played.<\/strong><\/p>\n

How do want history to remember Tomcat Courtney? \u201cI don\u2019t know, man. I think about all these people like Leadbelly, Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone and I hope they\u2019ll think of me that way\u2026 He was a bluesman.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How does a person earn the nickname, Tomcat? The story goes that a girlfriend of Courtney\u2019s in Waco, TX, who ran a little house out on the range, had just bought him a Cadillac. One day she got angry with him and chased him through the house with an axe! Yes, I said Axe! He …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[31,662,660,32,661,658,176,659,657],"class_list":["post-4086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-blues","tag-downsville-blues","tag-lightnin-hopkins","tag-music","tag-ray-charles","tag-robert-johnson","tag-san-diego","tag-sonny-boy-williamson","tag-tomcat-courtney"],"yoast_head":"\nRunnin\u2019 with the Tomcat: Tomcat Courtney<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Tomcat Courtney is a living, breathing American treasure and is one of San Diego\u2019s most revered and respected blues elders.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/runnin-tomcat-tomcat-courtney\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Runnin\u2019 with the Tomcat: Tomcat Courtney\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tomcat Courtney is a living, breathing American treasure and is one of San Diego\u2019s most revered and respected blues elders.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/runnin-tomcat-tomcat-courtney\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Traveling Archive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-01-03T07:01:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-01-03T18:35:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Tomcat-Courtney.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"850\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"656\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"T. 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