First Impressions

David Mac (DM): Was there a recording or show that you heard that sent you on your path to be a blues musician?

Janiva Magness - Singer/Los Angeles, California: I was very lucky to have seen B.B. King and Otis Rush as a young person. I was riveted. Otis Rush performed like his life depended on it. I saw Etta James when I was in my early twenties. It was a total game changer for me. She sang like she had everything to prove and not a goddamn thing to lose. I wanted more of that. I wanted to be part of whatever that intensity was that these great artists were conveying to their audiences.

Igor Prado - Guitar/Singer with the Igor Prado Band/Sao Paulo, Brazil: I went to my first blues festival in the late 90s, when I was fourteen years old. It was a huge international blues festival called "Nescafé & Blues". Charles Brown, Otis Clay, Wilson Pickett, Roomful of Blues, Luther Allison and Pinetop Perkins all played. It was the first big blues festival here in Brazil. It had a huge influence on me.

Karl Cabbage - Harmonica/Singer with Red Lotus Revue/San Diego, California: Yes there was. I was at a record store in the South Park neighborhood of San Diego. I was 17 and was looking at the blues bin. I saw an LP that had a picture of a gentleman with a large chromatic harmonica. The album was, “The Best of Little Walter”. They let you go to a listening station and spin it before you purchased the record. I listened, bought the record and that was it.

Tommy “Big Son” Eliff - Singer with The Mighty Mojo Prophets/Long Beach, California: Absolutely! In those days I could hear the great Johnny Otis show. He played the records of the west coast masters. It was great. He played everything from Big Joe Turner to Floyd Dixon…all the greats. He had a show on Monday nights for years on KPFK. Later on it was Bernie Pearl who opened my ears. The great new (at the time) west coast cats like the Hollywood Fats Band, Junior Watson, Rod Piazza, James Harman and William Clarke could be heard on Pearl’s Saturday and Sunday afternoon program.

Al Blake - Harmonica/Guitar/Singer/Founding Member of the Hollywood Fats Band and The Hollywood Blue Flames/Solo Artist/Costa Mesa, California: I do. I was nine years old. I had this little orange Sears and Roebuck, Silvertone radio with white knobs. I turned it on and heard Ray Charles singing the blues and it sent chills up and down my spine. It gave me goose bumps and I said I want more of that. I’ll never forget the feeling that came over me.

Getting Started

DM: Jay, How did you hook up with Johnny Otis?

Big Jay McNeeley- Saxophone/Los Angeles, California: I got up and played on an open mic night at his club in L.A. called the Barrelhouse. He liked what I was doing up there. So I joined his house band. That was 1948. By 1949 I had a 6 piece band: bass, drums, guitar, piano, myself on tenor and my brother on baritone.

DM:…and it was off to the races

Jay McNeeley: Oh yeah. We played everywhere. I’ve worked with so many people in so many places. I’ve played with everybody from Lionel Hampton to James Brown. I played with Bud Powell, Dizzy, Errol Garner, Little Richard, the Five Keys, the Ink Spots and Big Joe Turner. I played Birdland, the Celebrity Club and the Apollo Theater in New York City.

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DM: Charlie, how did you get into the music business?

Charlie Lange - Founder and President of Blue Beat Music/Radio Show Host/Santa Cruz, California: The business end of it started for me as a researcher and a writer for boutique blues labels in the late 1970’s. I worked for Route 66 Records out of Sweden. I worked for Specialty Records during the transitional period between the original owner and Fantasy Records. I worked and did liner notes for the Verve label, Rounder, and a few others. During that period I was going out into south central Los Angeles and doing oral histories with a lot of these guys that were still alive back then.

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John Nemeth - Harmonica/Singer/Oakland, California: I started playing when I was 16 years old.  We had a little band going, we were playing gigs and the guitar player didn’t want to take all the solos all night. It could become a little boring after a while because we were playing real long sets at the Grubb Steak Saloon in Horseshoe Bend, Idaho.

DM: Grubb Steak Saloon at Horseshoe Bend?

John Nemeth: That’s right. I mean you want to talk about a rough town. That was a rough town. It was a logging town. It was pretty rough and tumble (laughs).

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DM: Joe, I have read your bio on your website and it said you played with Freddy King while still a teenager. That is pretty serious.

Smokin’Joe Kubek - Guitar with The Smokin Joe Kubek Band Featuring B’Nois King/Dallas, Texas: I played with him for just a second. I was 19 and was with him for a very short stint. I played a gig and did some rehearsing with him. Unfortunately, that gig was Christmas night at a place called the Eagle ballroom in Dallas. It used to be the old Ascot Room on the Southside of town. It was kind of a dangerous part of town. You know the place had a real bad reputation.  Anyway, we played Christmas night there...

DM: Oh man.... THAT Christmas night...

Joe Kubek: Yeah, THAT Christmas night. He died like a day or two later. He was fine on stage. His last performance was unbelievable man. We were over at Deacon Jones’ house in Dallas, rehearsing when we got the phone call saying he passed away. Needless to say we were in shock.

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DM: Al, tell me about meeting Hollywood Fats.

Al Blake: The first time I met him was at the Ashgrove in L.A. I was introduced to him by Freddy King.

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Anson Funderburgh - Guitar/Founder of Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets featuring Sam Myers/Dallas, Texas: (on getting started) When I was a kid I got this old cheap guitar. It was really just a box with a hole in the middle with strings.

Then In 1969 I went down to a club in Dallas called The Losers Club. I saw B.B. King play and got a chance to meet him and hang out with him for awhile. The whole experience rocked my world. Musically it was the greatest thing I have ever seen. It was a real special moment for me. He made me feel important. Here is a guy who is a huge star and yet he was gracious with his time. I’ll never forget it. That’s the way you are supposed to treat people.

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Shawn Pittman - Guitarist/Multi-Instrumentalist/Singer/Kyle, Texas: (on early exposure to live blues music) My Uncle took me to a club in Dallas called Schooners which was a legendary joint. It was like the place to go. Sam Myers would be there all the time. All the good players would be hanging out. Pat Boyack was doing his thing. Hash Brown was always there. It was a different time back then in the early 90’s

DM: Sam Myers was one of my favorites. I really miss him.

Shawn Pittman: Oh yeah…He was playing with Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets in those days but when the band wasn’t on the road he was always hanging out at Schooners. He would just sit at the bar all night long and at the end of the night, he’d come up to the bandstand to sing and blow harp. Sometimes he’d get up and play drums. It was great to hear someone that good.

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DM: Anson let’s talk about Sam for a minute. I know that was special relationship. Not just professionally but personally.

Anson Funderburgh: We were like family, like brothers…we could say anything to one another but if someone tried to put one of us down or say shit about one of us the other would have their back. I don’t know if we ever had time to stop and think about how special the relationship was. We were just too darn busy, traveling, loading in, playing, loading out, traveling and doing it all again the next day. When you have to leave a gig and travel 12 hours in the middle of the night to get to the next club or your bus is broke down on the side of the highway somewhere you don’t think about how lucky you are.

Listening

Scott Daniel - Harmonica/Singer with the Scottyboy Daniel Blues Band/Liberty, Missouri : Well let’s start with The Hollywood Fats Band. I mean listen to disc 2, the live discs on Road to Rio and Deep in America. Holy shit! That is some serious stuff man. They even have Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson and Roy Brown playing with them. The level of musicianship is just so high. As a harmonica player, I really dig what Al Blake is laying down. I mean we have been doing the Fats Band version of the Baby Face Leroy tune, Red Headed Woman in our sets for years now.

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Al Blake: Oklahoma City back in those days was segregated and if I wanted to hear this music in the jukeboxes or performed live I had to go to the black section of town. It is where I first saw Freddie King. I was 17 years old.

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Smokin’ Joe Kubek: I used to sneak into these clubs and catch a band called, Storm with Jimmie (Vaughan). His playing, even back then, was just jaw dropping you know. He was always cool man. Jimmie decided early on he was going to play blues.  

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Igor Prado: I just love the old masters of swing styles like Charlie Christian, Tiny Grimes, Bill Jennings, T-Bone Walker, Teddy Bunn and Clarence ‘Gatemouth” Brown. I also love the more traditional blues masters like Buddy Guy, Johnny “Guitar” Watson, Pat Hare, Willie Johnson, Robert Nighthawk, Luther Tucker, Robert Lockwood Jr., Guitar Slim, Albert Collins, the three Kings of course, Mickey Baker, Earl Hooker, Magic Sam and others. There are just so many out there and I try and listen to as much as I can and absorb as much music as I can.

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DM: Charlie, do you remember some of the first records you used to listen to?

Charlie Lange: Thrifty’s drug store had these cut out racks of vinyl and I remember picking up these Crown LPs that had these black women with the red lipstick on them. One was a Howlin’ Wolf record. Another one was a John Lee Hooker record and one was a B.B.King record I think. Hearing that stuff, especially Howlin' Wolf just set me off. It sent me on a quest to find more stuff like that and that’s really where it started.

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Shawn Pittman: When I was fifteen or so I started to tape the local blues radio station and I didn’t always know who I was listening to. I would record it right off the radio. I liked Stevie back then. I don’t know any teenager that didn’t. I got into Jimmie Vaughan a lot when I was like 19 or 20 when the Strange Pleasure album came out. He took me into some deeper things. That turned me on to guys like Johnny “Guitar” Watson, Guitar Slim, Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin, Magic Sam, Otis Rush, Albert King and others.

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Anson Funderburgh: A woman gave me a small crate full of 45’s. In it were some songs I heard for the first time. Hide-A-Way by Freddy King, Snow Cone by Albert Collins and Honkytonk by Bill Dogget, with Billy Butler on guitar, these were the first songs I recall that had an impact on me.

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Lynwood Slim - Harmonica/Flute/Singer/Placentia, California: I was like a lot of kids, I used to listen to the radio a lot. In those days Jimmy Reed actually crossed over into main stream radio. He had chart hits and so on. I just always loved his sound and I always liked the harmonica.

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Mark Mumea - Guitar with The Elgins/San Pedro, California: There were numerous occasions that Johnny Dyer and myself would come back from a gig together and we would sit in the cab of my truck listening to Little Walter and Jimmy Rogers. He would point out different things. I’d grab my guitar and I’d start some Jimmy Rogers intro and he would sing. It was the greatest! Johnny is so good.

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DM: It has been my observation that every good player is a good listener. It has to be through recordings since at least for me growing up in suburban Los Angeles in the 60’s and 70’s this music was not part of my surroundings.

Dennis Gruenling – Harmonica/Radio Show Host/Tea Neck, New Jersey: Amen to that! Those were the exact thoughts I had when I first got into this music. If I’m going to try to be good at this and I want to try to get maybe as close to as good as some of these great players were, then listening to the recordings is the only way that I have a chance to have that happen. The people who made this music in the old days were around this music 24/7.  Maybe their parents played musical instruments. There were fish fries. There were house parties. There was music on the streets. There was this music in clubs and on the jukeboxes. I mean it was around them all the time.  I couldn’t do that growing up in central Jersey in the 80’s. I had to get my hands on the records and LISTEN.

Making Music

DM:  Alex let’s talk about the new album.

Alex Hernandez - Saxophonist with the Royal Rhythmaires/Fort Worth, Texas:  The CD is called, Shuck and Jive. It was recorded live in the studio on February 18^th and 19^th of this year. It came out on April 6th. The album was recorded straight, live in the studio in a day and a half. Every recording on that album is all of us standing in one room. We had one mic for the two horns, one mic on Jai, two mics on the piano, one on the bass and a couple mics on the drum set. Every recording is just one take from beginning to end, nothing is overdubbed. It is just us live playing together in one room.

DM: That’s the way they used to make records.

Alex Hernandez: Exactly! We wanted to capture that sound. Back when this style of music was originally recorded they all did it in one shot.

DM: That is what made those old timers such great musicians.

Alex Hernandez: Absolutely....they had to do it right and a lot of things they didn’t do right made it onto those old records. It makes it interesting. You listen to the old recordings and you can hear all the little nuances and all the little things that maybe if they had the chance they wouldn’t have put on there. It gives those recordings that authentic sound you know.

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DM: Your new album Fred, in my view, is an old school, modern masterpiece. It is the kind of recording you just don’t hear anymore.

Fred Kaplan - Pianist/Organist/Founding Member of the Hollywood Fats Band and the Hollywood Blue Flames/Solo Artist/Camarillo, California: It was kind of a dream project for me. I had to finance it on my own because all the record companies that I talked to thought I was crazy for wanting to record the way that we did. Had I not met and befriended Bharath Rajakumar, I probably wouldn’t have made the record. Just for the record, no pun intended, the band is recorded live and it’s recorded with vintage equipment like a quarter inch tape recorder that uses mono tape, built in the 40s. We used microphones from the 30s, 40s and 50s. We used outboard gear, mixers and stuff from the 40s and 50s.

We would just turn on the tape recorder and hit record and the rest is just us playing. When you hear the band playing softer, that’s us playing softer. When you hear the band playing louder, that’s us playing louder. When Sax Gordon wanted to take a solo, he would just lean into the piano mic a little bit. That’s the way it used to be done.

DM: Why aren’t more records done this way?

Fred Kaplan: That’s easy. It is because they don’t know how. This type of recording process is a lost art form since the advent of modern technology. It is like somebody who knew how to write hieroglyphics and then they died. It is as if they took the knowledge with them. That’s kind of what happened in the world of recording.

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DM: Mark, let’s talk about the sound and feel that you have achieved with the album, Back to Chicago.

Mark Mumea: As far as the sound goes we like to use small portable recording equipment like Alan Lomax used on his field recordings. In those days they recorded in the back of record shops and all kinds of places.

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DM: Anson, what do you apply to producing these days that you picked up from Hammond Scott at Black Top Records or your experience producing the albums you did with Sam.

Anson Funderburgh: One of the things I think about when I produce a record is something I thought about back in the day. Let’s say I wrote a song or Sam wrote one…maybe it’s one we did together or one of those Hammond Scott obscure gems we talked about, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s a good song. If it’s not a good song, don’t put it on the record. I don’t care who wrote the song If It’s not good, why bother. I don’t care how good the musicians are, you can’t compensate for bad material.

DM: One of my favorite records over the past few years came out in 2007…

Anson Funderburgh: Magic Touch by John Nemeth.

DM: Bingo! How did that project come about?

Anson Funderburgh: John filled in for Sam on dates when his health was starting to fail. John is a terrific singer and a good harp player. There just aren’t that many great singers out there these days. John and I just hit it off. He asked me if I would produce his next record. I said sure. It was in and around the time that Sam passed and I was diagnosed with cancer. It was a real tough time for me. I put the band together. John Street who had played keyboards with the Rockets for some time was on the record as was Wes Starr on drums who I’ve worked with forever. I brought in Ronnie James Webber to play bass. He had been with Little Charlie and the Nightcats, with Kim (Wilson) and the T-Birds and now is with Jimmie (Vaughan). I got Kaz (Mark Kazanoff) on sax. He has played with everybody. I brought in Junior Watson to play guitar. I love Junior’s playing. He is the greatest. It is a solid record. I like it and am very proud of it.

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DM: Magic Touch was a big career breakthrough for you John.

John Nemeth:  It was a great opportunity. Blind Pig is a pretty big outfit with quite a reach in the blues business and of course Anson Funderburgh producing it helped a lot. We had his band the Rockets on the record, the Texas Horns and Watson. 

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DM: Igor, Your last album, Brazilian Kicks, which came out on Delta Groove Music in November of 2010, featured Lynwood Slim. How did you hook up with Slim?

Igor Prado: We are huge fans of West Coast Blues and Slim is one of our favorite artists. We did our first tour together in Brazil in 2008. In 2009 I invited him to produce the album. I then asked him to sing on it and he agreed. This turned out to be a very successful partnership. We played a lot together in South America as well as in Europe. We're planning to work together again next year.

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DM: Slim, how did your association with the Brazilian group, The Igor Prado Band come about?

Lynwood Slim: I got an email from Igor actually and he asked if I was interested in coming to Brazil to produce a record for him. I flew down there. I was in shock. I was literally in shock at how good they were, the drummer, the bass player the guitar player and not one of them was 25 years old. I got in the studio with them and they said “Will will you sing a song” and I said “Well yeah sure, what song do you want me to sing?” Igor looks at me and said, “All of them.”

DM: I’m sure you are aware that, for many fans out there, it is your voice that separates you from the pack. It is unique in the contemporary blues world let’s talk about that instrument.

Lynwood Slim: The human voice is the ultimate musical instrument. There is nothing as pure, far ranging as the human voice. I learned how to sing from listening to all the greats, Ray Charles, Nat Cole, Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday. I learned how to sing off time. I mean not on the beat, like most white people do. I sing off time. Billie Holiday was probably the best of anybody at doing that. A lot of people don’t realize that’s how you do that. A lot of guys sing right on the beat man, they just don’t understand.

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DM: Even though it is called The Igor Prado Band, when I listen to your music I hear a real ensemble sound. It sounds like a true team effort.

Igor Prado: Absolutely! We produce what I call "down-home" music here. We produce the whole thing together. We record in my studio. Rodrigo helps me a lot with the musical productions. He is a big help with some of the mixing and mastering on the albums. Yuri does the album covers and graphics. These guys are incredible. I’m nothing without them. They are two real brothers.

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DM: Janiva, there is a real human quality, a truth if you will, in your live performances, that is very palpable. I think the audience responds to that. I know I do. It is a very powerful thing.

Janiva Magness: Listen, I am not fucking around up there. There are a lot of people and you know who I’m talking about Dave, who are just taking up space on the bandstand. I am not one of those posers who are just going through the motions up there.

People work very hard every day to make a buck and when they come out to spend that hard earned money they deserve something in return. They want the truth. My job is to give them that truth. Making that connection with the audience by telling them the truth is what it is all about.

Blues as it Relates to other Forms of Music

DM: John, you came out of the folk movement of the 1960’s?

John Marx - Guitar/Ojai, California: That’s right. It was during this period that a lot of the blues men like Mississippi Fred McDowell, Sleepy John Estes, Skip James, Son House and others were being discovered by a whole new generation of fans. These guys would play the folk circuit right alongside the white folk artists.

DM: Blues music really has a connection to folk music and other idioms that I sometimes think blues fans don’t fully appreciate.

John Marx: Exactly! There are no lines between the music. Blues history is so much more fascinating and complex than many people realize. Blues runs through it all. It is like the famous quote by Willie Dixon, “The blues is the roots the rest is just the fruits.” Jazz, folk, country they have such a rich history and some of that history runs together. It is an endless journey of discovery. Take for instance Bill’s playing (talking about William Clarke).

DM: There is a lot of jazz up in his sound…

John Marx: Absolutely! He was playing tenor saxophone with his harp. He loved Gene Ammons and Willis Jackson for instance. When Bill died I got his record collection and it was mostly sax players.

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DM: Dennis, I hear a lot of jazz influences in your playing. Is that an accurate assessment? 

Dennis Gruenling: Yes it is. I’m a big traditional jazz and swing fan. I love that stuff. It resonates with me the same way the blues does.

DM: I am always amazed at folks who identify themselves as hardcore blues fans but do not care for and, therefore, don’t listen to jazz. To me both forms are so complementary to one another. Musically ideas come from both places and when those ideas cross paths you have some really great music.

Dennis Gruenling: Absolutely! I think it is kind of sad that these days that blues seems to be absorbing all kinds of influences except jazz. Jazz also seems to have gotten away from the bluesy aspects, the feeling aspect of it, the danceable aspect of it and gotten more based on theory and concept.  As you know Dave in the 1940s all of the blues and jazz guys would record together, and they’d go from band to band.  I love that era.

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Fred Kaplan: (on jazz and blues) I’ve always had a penchant for jazz, even though I play blues, because there are a lot of great piano players who could cross over between jazz and blues and I always dug guys like that.

DM: Like Gene Harris...

Fred Kaplan: Exactly! I was friends with Gene Harris. He was a big inspiration for me because he was a very bluesy, jazz piano player. Take Oscar Peterson for instance. I met him a couple of times, we weren’t friends or anything like that, but he was a very bluesy, jazz player as well. There were a bunch of guys like that. Horace Silver comes to mind. A lot of musicians prior to getting their careers going in one specific direction straddled the jazz world, the rhythm and blues or blues world world because they had to be flexible to be available for as many gigs as possible so they could make a living and feed their families.

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DM: Dennis, it is important to remember jazz and swing were the popular music of the day. It was on the radio. It would be hard for young bluesmen not to be influenced by this sound.

Dennis Gruenling: I think about that as I develop my sound. Listen, my favorite musician of all time is not a harmonica player but a sax player, Lester Young. I love the great tenor players, I love baritone as well but tenor sax is probably as far as jazz and swing standpoint the most influential instrument in my development as a harp player.

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DM: You mentioned earlier that music used to be very regionalized. How did growing up and living in Kansas City impact your playing or perspective as it relates to this music?

Scott Daniel: Historically, cats that played blues in Kansas City have a jazzy sound and guys who play jazz have a bluesy sound. I mean listen to Charlie Parker. He has as much blues in his sound as he does jazz, the same with Jay McShann and Count Basie. Then you have guys like Jimmy Witherspoon and Big Joe Turner who are from here as well. Those guys, like so many others, ended up in Los Angeles and brought that Kansas City sound with them. I’m sure that George “Harmonica” Smith, who lived here for a while, picked up on that as well. He had a permanent gig at a place called the Orchid Room here in Kansas City in the 1950s before moving to L.A. I have no doubt in my mind that that’s what helped create the West Coast blues sound that I love so much and that has had such an influence on me.

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DM: Paulie, I get a real kick out of hearing you play the alto sax. I wish there was more of that in blues. Don’t get me wrong I love the tenor but a little variety that wouldn’t kill anybody...would it?

Paulie Cerra - Saxophone/Piano/Singer/Los Angeles, California: I don’t know Dave. When somebody pulls out an alto everybody’s butt closes up for some reason. So many people get their panties in a bunch over the weirdest things, man.

I’ve been on sessions lately where I go out and say “You know what, this song is really crying out for some soprano saxophone.” You know what, soprano sax has gotten such an ass kicking by Kenny G and all the smooth jazz shit that’s out there. They never even want to hear the instrument and it’s a beautiful instrument. It’s a very expressive instrument. I very rarely play soprano, but when I get called for a session I have to go and kind of make a determination as to what the song really needs. Sometimes I say “Let’s try a soprano on this.” and their butts close up. Before Kenny G shit all over the instrument, the soprano was very cool.

Getting back to the alto, I think there’s a real place for it in the blues sound. Hell, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown traveled for years with a great alto player.

DM: Eric Demmer is the cat’s name. He is still based out of Houston.

Paulie Cerra: He is a mother fucker on alto, a real monster player. How about Ray Charles’ Night Time is the Right Time?

DM: Hank Crawford...

PC: Exactly! His playing at the top of that song is beautiful. I play alto on a couple of tunes on my album. One of which is a real nice kind of country, gospel blues kind of thing reminiscent of Sam Cooke.

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DM: Igor, let’s talk about the brand new album. I only heard four or five tracks off the record one time, yesterday on Charlie Lange’s radio show on KZSC 88.1 FM out of Santa Cruz, California. He gave the CD its U.S. radio premiere. I was knocked out by what I heard. The CD sounds like it has a real Memphis soul vibe to it. Is that what you were shooting for and is that a fair assessment of the new album?

IP: YES! The album is called, Blues and Soul Sessions. We decided to do this record for two reasons. First, because we love this kind of stuff and secondly because I wanted to show people, especially here in Brazil, that soul and blues are so related and connected. It’s essentially the same music with the same roots. We chose some old songs by blues artists who recorded a lot of soul stuff like Little Milton, Etta James, Earl Hooker and B.B. King. We also wanted to show people that some of the old soul musicians sounded very bluesy like Al Green, Little Willie John, James Carr, Sam & Dave and so on.

Misconceptions about the Blues

DM: Let’s shift gears for a moment and talk about the misconceptions about blues music that seem to have a grip on people outside the blues community.

Al Blake: Let’s start with the people inside the blues community. I don’t think there are all that many people who say they support this music who give it much more thought than the complete novice.

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DM: Shawn, What kind of misconceptions do you think a lot of folks have as it relates to blues music in general?

Shawn Pittman: Early in my career, I wrote about drinking, and trouble, and a lot of times you get caught up into thinking that that’s what blues is about and what being a good blues player is about. It’s not about being in a bad situation so much as it is about overcoming your situation and being able to laugh at yourself. It’s really about making people laugh and lightening up people’s spirits. When it seems like everything is going wrong and it’s not you, it’s funny (chuckles).

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Lynwood Slim: There are very few guys who can actually play the harmonica and sing. I can count them on one hand here in the United States.

DM: Why is that?

Lynwood Slim: It’s because the harmonica is so esoteric that people cannot really discern what you’re doing. People don’t know the technique, they don’t know the position, they don’t know it because they can’t see it. They can see every other instrument and how the notes are made. With the harmonica they can’t see it so they don’t understand it.

DM: I have always contended that is the reason so many people think it is easy to play. They get over because like you said, ‘the audience doesn’t know the difference.’

Lynwood Slim: Exactly! There is this new guy who is getting over out there, Grady Champion. Oh God, is that guy awful. He’s horrible man, horrible. That guy is rotten, he ain’t no good at all. He needs the woodshed for another five years at least.

DM: (trying to keep a straight face, while tongue is firmly planted in cheek) Yeah, but Slim, he won the 2010 International Blues Challenge.

Lynwood Slim: (laughing) I believe you have a firm grasp on the problem Mac.

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Al Blake: It (blues) is easy to play but extremely difficult to play well. People are turned off to bad blues and I don’t blame them one bit. There is nothing worse than bad blues. The music being passed off as blues in many cases isn’t blues at all.

DM: What is it then?

Al Blake: Anything but blues. Here’s an example. Remember back 20-30 years ago there were a bunch of people playing so called Dixieland jazz. These groups would play at retirement communities and other places. Very often these ensembles weren’t playing Dixieland jazz at all. It was just three or four old dudes playing some kind of music in straw hats. Most folks didn’t know the difference but if you asked someone if they like Dixieland jazz, they might say, “Yeah, I heard Dixieland jazz once. I didn’t care for it.” The fact is they never heard Dixieland jazz, just some nice old white guys in straw hats passing themselves off as Dixieland jazz musicians. Essentially the same thing seems to take place in the blues world today. I think that is tragic.

DM: Posers dressed in Blues Brothers outfits...that type of thing.

Al Blake: Exactly...but it goes beyond that. The larger issue is that no one seems to hold any of these artists to a higher standard. Never in the history of this music has the bar been set so low. No wonder mediocrity thrives in today’s marketplace of blues music.

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Mark Mumea: Listen Dave, When I see somebody on stage, and they have these bright suits on and they’ve got this whole “show” it’s similar to hearing someone play with excessive volume. It’s just a big turnoff and I instantly think “What are they trying to hide?” A lot of guys are too focused on the visual aspect instead of the music. Music is not something you see.

DM: Let me play devil’s advocate for a minute and point out as I am sure you know that T-Bone Walker, for instance, played the guitar behind his head while he did the splits. So this is nothing new.

Mark Mumea: The big difference is that with T-Bone the level of musicianship was of such a high caliber that it supported that showmanship. It has to be in proportion. It’s like a piece of cake. If you have a thick piece of cake it can support some frosting. If you have a thin piece of cake, you can’t pile that frosting on there without the whole thing collapsing. Now all you have is a mess.

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DM: Jay, what is the biggest difference you see out there on the blues scene today as compared to the late 40’s and early fifties?

Jay McNeely: It is harder and harder to find musicians who can play my music anymore. When you say “blues” the first thing they do is put you in a category, like Jimmy Reed or something. If they can play a Jimmy Reed tune they think they can play the blues. I asked them what kind of blues do you play? They say classic blues.

DM: What is that?

Jay McNeely: (laughs) You tell me Dave. You don’t have too many guys out there these days like Maxwell Davis, who understood what I’m about. I loved making records with him in L.A. We cut a bunch of sides for Modern Records. I mean this guy was a songwriter, producer, arranger and a sax player so he understood me. You talk to some people who think they know blues but have never even heard of Maxwell Davis. A lot of guys just don’t get it at all.

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DM: Anson what’s the largest misconception people have about blues music?.

Anson Funderburg: I think a lot of folks miss the point entirely.

DM: Which is...

Anson Funderburgh: The point is blues music can be so much fuckin’ fun. I have spent my whole life watching other people dance. That is fun. The music that I learned to play was designed to get people to dance. When we’re doing it right it’s called skirt poppin’ music. You know what I’m talking about…push dancing we called it in North Texas. They called it whip dancing down in Houston. In other places they called it Shag dancing. The places we used to play were named after the dances. The Whip Club and so on...They call it different things in different parts of the country. I think a lot of folks lost sight of the fact that this music is just plain fun.

The Business of the Blues

DM: Are there any organizations that are supportive of blues music in K.C.

Scott Daniel: Not really. We have a blues society of course.

DM: Are you a member?

Scott Daniel: Hell no! I’ve been my own blues society since I was 13. I actually buy my own records and pay the cover charges which pay for the bands. That’s how I support this music.

DM: That’s crazy talk.

Scott Daniel: Seriously, anytime you’ve got an organization thinking that they’re bigger than the music, you’ve got a real problem. They forget why they got into in this in the first place, if they were ever into it. I think some people like to say that they’re the president of such and such or they’re on the board of such and such, when in reality that’s what they’re in love with and not the music. Most musicians I know resent the hell out of these groups. It seems that they are usually run by middle aged women who want to get into shows for free and get their picture taken with the musicians.

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Charlie Lange: There’s a whole other level of decision making that goes on and it has to do with who’s being hyped. What agent is pushing this? What kind of promo can we get? What kind of corporate tie-ins are there? Decision making of that level has nothing to do with music.

DM: Does this same type of thinking or lack of take place within the blues community?

Charlie Lange: Sure it does. Take the Blues Music Awards which are a level below the Grammy’s. The pettiness seems to get bigger and the effect seems to get smaller. Who cares? The International Blues Competition, who cares? It’s a world unto itself and it doesn’t really affect people who really care for this music. I mean if Otis Spann were alive today do you think he would give a damn about The Blues Foundation, a blues society, the IBC’s, the BMA’s or any of the other bullshit that has such a negative effect on this music?

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DM: What, in your mind, is keeping great bands like the Mighty Mojo Prophets off the stages out there?

Tommy “Big Son” Ellif: It is the “Keepin’ the Blues Alive!” crowd. They have a very negative impact on the musicians they claim to support. If you keep hollering “We are trying to keep the blues alive” you are implying that the blues is dying. This is not the message a living, breathing, hard working blues man like myself wants to hear.

Not only that, the ring leaders in these cliques, especially here in Southern California, will support any kind of music as long as someone calls it blues. They cheapen the music by presenting lousy bands and say, “Hey check these guys out.” No wonder people get turned off by the blues. People who should know better put on shitty jams for free and get shitty musicians who pass themselves off as real blues cats to play for nothing.

It hurts all of the guys who take this music seriously and try and present a quality product to the people. There is a big difference between the part timer or some person on a trust fund doing this kind of music as a vanity project and real players. It is bad enough we have to compete with karaoke.

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Mitch “Da Switch” Dow - Guitarist of the Mighty Mojo Prophets/Los Angeles, California: Most of the bands now just want to plug in and make noise. With such low quality musicianship, why wouldn’t a club rather have a DJ? It is no longer viable to be a professional musician. We do it regardless, but we’re suffering regardless.

We put a lot of time and money in this to be prepared and write good music, but the people are conditioned to frequent clubs with no cover and listen to a band who is willing to play for tips. We’re treated like busboys most of the time where we play.

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Al Blake: (on corruption) At some point it became about politics in the blues world. The blues today represents a tiny fraction of the music industry. It might as well for sake of illustration be the size of the head of a pin. How many publicists, promoters, organizations, societies, foundations and even musicians can fit on the head of that pin? Not many.

I don’t think the people who are promoting this music wake up in the morning and say to themselves, "How will I go about destroying blues music today?" I am guessing many of these blues advocates are very well intentioned people. You know what they say about good intentions? The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

While everyone is playing politics, the music becomes secondary and gets pushed off to the side. You have to be willing NOT to play the game. You have to have the courage to stick your neck out and NOT play politics with this music. There is a lot of intellectual dishonesty out there in the blues world.

Few people want to confront the truth that is in blues music. It is too difficult. So instead they try and redefine it out of existence. This places more stress on the serious musicians who dare to be advocates of principle. The music industry is in a state of unchecked decadence. When there is a greater degree of decadence it takes a higher level of heroism to fight this because there is much less reward.

DM: You point out that we are in an industry that is very political. With politics comes corruption. Isn’t this just a case of stating the obvious?

Al Blake: I don’t necessarily think it is that obvious to a lot of people. Nobody is holding up a sign saying, “I am corrupt.” Corruption is usually disguised as liberation. Identifying corruption in a time and place where it is the norm, where it masquerades as the standard is a risky proposition. Corruption sits in the heart of the blues industry where the absurd also resides

Faith

DM: Jay, what do you think is the one thing that has contributed to your longevity and success besides your musical education and training, which we talked about?

Jay McNeeley: My faith.

DM: Faith in what?

Jay McNeeley: Jehovah…Listen, faith is hope. You got to have hope. That’s why I never got involved with drugs. Dope destroyed a lot of musicians. They thought if they took drugs they could play like Charlie Parker. When I think about it, I’ve had so many close calls on the road. I should have been dead. I couldn’t have gotten through what I went through at an early age if I didn’t have hope. The hope of living forever sustained me. That’s what keeps me alive.

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DM: Shawn what are some things that folks might not know about you?

Shawn Pittman: I guess that I am a Mormon. A lot of people shy away from that topic but it is part of who I am. My spirituality is important to me. I am not preachy or anything.

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Lynwood Slim: (on dying and faith in people) I was pretty damn close to checking out. I was ready to go. I had lived a pretty good life. I mean I had walked down the Champs de Elysee in Paris with my instruments, and I was thinking “I’m just a kid from Lynwood.” I just gave up. I thought to myself, “I’ve been around the world, went out with hundreds of woman, I’ve had more than my share and I’ve been everywhere.” I have had a very colorful existence. I’ve led quite a life. I’ve been married three times. I was ready man. I’ve overcome a lot of stuff.

DM: Such as...

Lynwood Slim: When I was a kid I was into drugs and crime and incarcerations and all that goes with that lifestyle. Then I got sick and I laid there in the hospital bed thinking about it all. I just gave up man.

DM: What brought you back from the abyss?

Lynwood Slim: One day some of the guys started to come around and hang out with me in the hospital. Mostly Junior Watson and Kid Ramos...they are my true blue pals. Other guys came by, like Larry Taylor and Richard Innes, and all the guys I’ve been playing with for so many years. They are the “A” team. They kept coming in and telling me “Look Slim you’re tough. You are one of the toughest guys we’ve ever known. If anybody can beat this you can.”

The benefit you guys put on at the Tiki Bar meant so much to me, not only financially of course, but psychologically and emotionally as well. It was great, it was wonderful. I was overwhelmed to tears man, that all my pals, Rod Piazza, Kim Wilson and all these musicians would take their time and play for nothing. Those guys don’t play for nothing... let me tell you (laughs). They were generally concerned about me man. It just proved to me that I had more friends than I realized.

Interests Outside of Music

DM: Charlie, what were some of your interests outside of music in those days?

Charlie Lange: I have a degree in child psychology. I graduated magna cum laude with straight “A”s in four years from California State University at Long Beach (Long Beach State). I had a black professor of English but he was one of those teachers that had the profound impact on me. I ended up taking five years of classes, mostly independent, classes from him and got enough credits to get a concurrent degree in the “The Harlem Renaissance” period of black literature. He gave me a feel for black culture in kind of a tangential way. It was still something I felt more at home with than a lot of the situations that I was in with my own culture. So much of the writing of those classic black writers of that period was rooted in the Harlem scene and the music scene, which was the social scene.

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DM:  Shawn, we have talked before about a mutual interest we share outside of music…

Shawn Pittman: Oh yeah...my first passion was football. The first thing I learned was how to throw a football. I got a job when I was a kid cleaning up Owens Field after Oklahoma Sooners’ football games. The cleaning crew was admitted into the stadium for free and we would watch the first half on television then they would let us watch the second half from the sidelines. It was great until the game ended and then we had to clean up after 72,000 people.

DM: Do you still follow college football?

Shawn Pittman: Of course, and I am still a Sooner fan. That wasn’t always easy living in Austin with all a million Texas Longhorn fans everywhere.

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DM: Janiva, what do you like to do when you are not working?

Janiva Magnes: This music thing is a 36 hour a day job, eight days a week so it is pretty all encompassing. Touring is very difficult. I have to make very tough decisions every day. It is very hard, not for the faint of heart let me tell you. I love yoga when I get the chance. It calms me the fuck down. When I am home I love to refinish furniture. I don’t think many people know that about me.

DM: They do now.

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John Nemeth: There were a lot of things I used to do, before I became a touring blues guy. I used to fish in Idaho. I used to ski about 50-60 days a year at least. I used to love to go hiking, I still do that.  I’m pretty outdoorsy, like to be outdoors. Now I just love hanging out with my wife and daughter.

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Karl Cabbage: As you know Dave, I share your love of history, politics and public policy but my main focus in life is my family. I am a single parent with two of the most beautiful kids on the planet. Maybe I am a bit biased but that’s how I feel. My daughter has severe autism. She is such a joy to be with. I am active with the Autism Board here I San Diego and am involved in Autism awareness programs. 

And Finally...

DM: What is it about The Royal Rhythmaires that you would like people to know?

Alex Hernandez: We know that the music we play is not main stream. It is a very small niche in the larger music world. We also know there is not much money in playing this style of music but we don’t care. We do it anyway because we love it. We are very glad that we are finding an audience that loves it too.

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DM:  Karl what would you like people to know about Red Lotus Revue?

Karl Cabbage: We would like folks to know that we are just very dedicated musicians playing the music we love. We sometimes feel like we are one of the few guardians out there of this special sound. I think the word guardian might sound a little pretentious and that is not the impression I want to give people because nothing could be further from the truth. Let’s face it our heroes who first made this music are all dead. Very few bands are doing this brand of blues. We are just really doing what we love and we hope others will dig our sound.

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DM: What else would you like people to know about Shawn Pittman?

Shawn Pittman: That there’s no secret to success. It’s only through hard work that you can accomplish anything. I like to beat the odds. Anybody that plays blues sort of has to look at it as a challenge. I like to play good music and want to play the music that I like listening to. I like to work hard and want to be a family man. I got married about 15 months ago. She is still in Texas. Being apart is hard but she knows I’m in Los Angeles for a reason and a purpose. The harder I work, the closer I feel like I’m getting to where I need to be which is taking care of her.

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DM: Al, what are some of your thoughts as it relates to your music?

Al Blake: I like to let my music speak for itself but I often think of a quote by Duke Ellington, who said, ‘I would rather be a first rate me than a second rate somebody else.’

I think about my teachers, Louis Myers, James Cotton, Joe Willie Wilkins and George “Harmonica” Smith. I think about what they went through to make their music. I think to myself, "Who am I to take shortcuts with this music?" I always aspire to honor my mentors. Just think about the hardships they had to endure. I do what I do for them.

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DM: Igor, what is it about American blues, rhythm & blues and soul that moved you to make this music your life’s passion?

Igor Prado: Well that is a good question. It is very difficult to describe. This music feels so natural to me. It was a music that I grew up listening to. It’s so rich with so many styles and so many artists. It’s so simple yet so complex at the same time. I love that!

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Charlie Lange:  There’s this really special music and it’s called blues. There are certain people who can hear it and there’s other people who cannot. It’s like a special little club. When you hear it and you’re with the friends who hear it, it’s an extraordinary experience. When you hear a great performance, you share something together. You have something to talk about for the rest of your life.

DM: That is something special.

Charlie Lange: You’re damn right it is.