Chuck Goering better known as Barrelhouse Chuck passed away on December 12, 2016. He was a first rate musician, a blues music scholar and a gentleman of the highest order. Perhaps no other blues musician on the scene today has immersed himself as a student of this music as deeply as Barrelhouse Chuck.

Chuck Goering was born in Columbus, Ohio, on July 10th, 1958. He learned to play drums as a six year old and soon switched to piano. A turning point in Chuck’s life took place when he first heard a Muddy Waters record. He became fascinated with the pianist in Muddy’s band, Otis Spann. He began a quest to get his hands on every blues record he could find and learn about this music. 

By the time he was a teenager Chuck had formed his first band and opened up for Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, B.B. King and others. He even played with Bo Diddley. It was during this time Chuck started following Muddy’s band around the south and trying to pick up on what his piano player at the time, Pinetop Perkins, was laying down.

Chuck said, “We used to follow Muddy all around the South. We would wait in parking lots for the van with Illinois plates to roll up. Pinetop Perkins and Willie Smith would recognize me and get me into their concerts. They would invite me to be backstage to hang out with Muddy and the band. Afterward, I'd go out to breakfast with them. I was just in awe.”

It was then that Chuck realized if he was going to progress as a blues musician, he would have to go to Chicago and see the other fine players that were playing in the windy city in the late 70’s. In 1979 he drove twenty four straight hours to see Sunnyland Slim at Blues on Halstead.

Barrelhouse Chuck would spend the next sixteen years studying with Sunnyland Slim, who is generally considered the most important blues pianist in Chicago’s emerging post war scene. Chuck called Sunnyland Slim the Great Granddaddy of all the blues piano players. Chuck also befriended piano legends Blind John Davis, Big Moose Walker, Detroit Junior and Erwin Helfer who were all based in Chicago.  It was these players’ tutelage and friendship that was instrumental in Chuck emerging as a world class talent in his own right.

It was however the relationship Chuck formed with Little Brother Montgomery which was the most significant for Chuck.  Montgomery is one of the truly great pianists who ever lived and Barrelhouse Chuck paid tribute to his friend, mentor and teacher every time he sat down at a piano. As Chuck said, “Little Brother Montgomery was like a grandfather to me.”

Barrelhouse Chuck continued to develop his immense mastery of blues piano. He performed with some of the most renowned Chicago blues musicians such as Jimmy Rogers, Eddie Taylor, Otis Rush, Louis Myers, Buddy Guy, Big Smokey Smothers and Hubert Sumlin, just to name a few. His recording credits are as long as my arm and read like a virtual who’s who of modern day Chicago blues.

During the past three decades Chuck has played piano all over the world. He has also played more than a dozen times at the Chicago Blues Festival. Even though his teachers had passed on, Barrelhouse Chuck had become one of the bearers of the flame, and kept both their spirit and music alive, passing it along wherever he played.

His recording career continued to be just as busy. In 2008, Chuck was asked by Kim Wilson to play piano for the soundtrack to the movie Cadillac Records. Wilson and Chuck play with Larry Taylor, Billy Flynn and others on this soundtrack, giving authenticity to the music of the halcyon days of Chicago blues and the famed record label founded by Leonard and Phil Chess.

In 2011, Chuck released an album of mostly solo acoustic numbers called Blues Calling. In 2012, Chuck released an ambitious CD box set entitled 35 years of Chicago Blues Piano. This three disc package is a must have for any serious fan of the blues. In 2013, he released a great album featuring Kim Wilson’s Blues All-Stars entitled Drifting from Town to Town. 2014 saw him release an album’s worth of material entitled Combo Classics where he is featured playing the Farfisa Compact Organ.

This time was a prolific period for Chuck and, as it turned out, the final years of his life. He not only put out these fine solo albums and continued to be a full time member of Kim Wilson’s All-Star Blues Band, but he was also a member of Chicago’s own Cash Box Kings. They released one fine album after another. His piano can also be heard on two albums by the Swedish blues band, Trickbag on their releases With Friends Volumes One and Two released in 2013 and last year, 2016.

His most recent album, 2016’s Remembering the Masters is classic Chuck in that he pays homage to his mentors and friends, Pinetop Perkins, Little Brother Montgomery and Sunnyland Slim. They are given a fine tribute and the royal treatment from Chuck.

Now that Chuck has left our mortal coil, who will give him the royal treatment? The piano, which is one of the most important instruments in the blues, is disappearing. I have been to blues festivals where there wasn’t a piano on stage all day. Not one... When this regal instrument is taken out for a spin it is often treated with as much disrespect as one might expect from the modern day “blues musician.”

Chuck, on the other hand, was no interloper who pandered to an ever increasingly uneducated audience. He spent a lifetime studying his instrument. He learned from the masters and even accomplished that most elusive trait, he developed his own style. Chuck was a terrific singer as well. However, this aspect of his arsenal is never mentioned...ever. The human voice, the single most important instrument in the blues, is given even less consideration and respect  than the piano in this new, upside down blues world.

The last time I saw Chuck he was gracious and modest as most of the true greats tend to be. He was also a lot of fun. He even invited me over to his home in Chicago where he said I could stay for a few days. He wanted to show me his blues museum of memorabilia and artifacts that he had collected through the years. He knew I would appreciate that almost as much as settling in to some blues listening and bull sessions with a like-minded individual, a true blues music historian and raconteur.

One of my great regrets is that I never took him up on that invitation. I wish I could have bid him a fond farewell. Such is life...and death.

- David Mac