BLUES JUNCTION Productions
7343 El Camino Real
Suite 327
Atascadero, CA 93422-4697
info
Brian Lukasavitz is from the part of America that the Cohen brothers are from and refer lovingly to as ‘Siberia with family restaurants’. Lukasavitz makes his home in Duluth, Minnesota, which is a couple of hours north of the Twin Cities. The man who has come to be known as the Blues Attorney is like many of us, first and foremost, a fan of blues music. Like you, he enjoys reading this on-line “publication”. It is through BLUES JUNCTION we first met and have continued a dialogue that I find fascinating. I hope our readers feel the same way. I called Brian the other day. I was interested how a nice young man from the land of 10,000 lakes got mixed up in the crazy world of blues music.
David Mac (DM): Hey Brian have I caught you at a good time?
Brian Lukasavitz (BL): Perfect... I am just driving down to Minneapolis, I have nothing but time.
DM: Cool, so this isn’t a billable hour.
BL: (laughs) No, we’re good.
DM: I want to know what it was that made you want to pursue a career as The Blues Attorney.
BL: A few years ago I read about the lawsuit Willie Dixon brought against Led Zeppelin over copyright infringements on the song Whole Lotta Love, which is a rip off of the song he wrote for Muddy Waters just a few years earlier called, You Need Love.
DM: How was that case settled? I don’t remember.
BL: They settled out of court, but the point is that a famous rock band just rolling in cash felt they could get away with that. They thought they could rip off someone of Dixon’s stature. This case really moved me. Around the same time I was reading about Bonnie Raitt’s work with the Rhythm and Blues Foundation and the recapture of royalties owed to Ruth Brown. Raitt said something in that interview that I’ll never forget. She said, “Someone got paid for all those records, just not the artist who made them.” I reasoned that few people out of law school were getting into this branch of entertainment law. I was a theatre major at the University of Minnesota. After I read about the Willie Dixon case, I enrolled at the Law School of Saint Thomas University in Minneapolis. I was born on April 4th. Muddy Waters and I have the same birthday so maybe it is my destiny.
Not long after I read about the Dixon case, I was in a record store. It was kind of a rundown place called, No Name Records. I came across a section of the store that had books relating to music. I bought the Alan Lomax book, The Land Where Blues Began. In that book, Lomax wrote about the nameless, faceless, itinerant musicians hopping trains and playing rent parties. I was moved by the blues man’s search for his own life and identity.
DM: Now it seems that there are no more faceless individuals as everyone is taking pictures of themselves and has a kind of cyber persona. You can see just about everybody on “YouTube”.
BL: The internet has become the modern day Chitlin’ Circuit in a way.
DM: We have talked about this before in our casual conversations but it might seem to some folks looking in on this conversation that Huntington Beach, California, and Duluth, Minnesota, are a long way geographically, and you and I are even further away culturally, from the heart and history of this music.
BL: That is of course true on the surface but this music isn’t about the surface. It is about what lies deep in the place that connects all of us as humans. My decision to go into this solo practice was inspired by a recent pilgrimage to Chicago, Memphis and the Mississippi Delta. I was able to experience live performances by amazing musicians like Blind Mississippi Morris, Eddie Shaw & The Wolf Gang, Sugar Blue and others. As I got into this music I realized that it is living history.
DM: Some of the people that made that history passed away recently.
BJ: I think it is safe to say I, like so many of us, was deeply affected by the recent passings of legendary performers such as Honeyboy Edwards, Hubert Sumlin, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith and Pinetop Perkins this past year. I feel very fortunate to have seen each of these men perform live.
DM: Who are some of your favorite artists?
BL: There are so many but two always come to mind, because I can listen to both anytime, yet they are so radically different, B.B. King and John Lee Hooker. I love B.B’s old stuff. He is just so elegant. Hooker on the other hand is very raw. The diversity of this music is astounding. I don’t know if enough people understand that.
The commitment these giants have to their music is moving. I saw Hubert Sumlin recently, who as you know, just passed away. He walked out on stage looking every bit his age. I don’t know how he was feeling. He may have had a rough day of travel. I don’t know. Then a guitar tech puts his guitar strap around his neck. It looked like 50 years just melted right off of him. It was an extraordinary thing to see.
DM: What do you like to do outside of work?
BL: I am married and have three boys. That keeps me pretty busy. They don’t know it yet but I am going to pass this music down to them. I also write music, play guitar and bass. I lecture on the blues and am developing a local "Blues in the Schools" program here in Minnesota.
DM: As far as the law profession is concerned, there aren’t too many vocations that are as maligned as yours.
BL: Yes that is true. By the way Dave, did you hear the one about the guy who walked up to a lawyer and said, “How does it feel to be a slime ball, scum sucking lawyer. To that, the man who was the target of the insult retorted, I prefer the term slime ball, scum sucking attorney.”
DM: (laughing) No I hadn’t heard that one, but let’s talk about this element of the equation. I think to a very large degree musicians feel they have been exploited. I am sure that even in the Willie Dixon vs. Led Zeppelin case it was the lawyers who may have received the lion’s share of whatever undisclosed amount was awarded to Dixon.
BL: To that I would say the word exploited is almost always used in a negative context. I would like to exploit musicians in a good way. In other words they should be the ones benefiting from what I hope is the exploitation of their music.
DM: Let’s talk specifics. In what areas of law do you see yourself helping blues musicians?
BL: There are three main areas that I focus on. 1) Contracts 2) Copyrights and 3) Royalty Recapture. There is another area that I think would be beneficial for blues musicians, which is trying to get their music in mainstream films, documentary films, television shows and commercials. By being able to have a mass mainstream market hear this music of course would pay huge dividends to the artist themselves in terms of royalties. I just want to be able to do what I do, so the musicians can do what they do. They are the artists. They should focus their energies in creating art and they should be paid for it. I want to contribute something positive to help blues musicians and therefore the music. I don’t have the ego or audacity to say, “I’m keepin’ the blues alive.” The music will survive in spite of the people who make this ridiculous claim. I however think that by giving the people who are interested in pursuing a career in this music a chance to be treated fairly and with dignity is a worthwhile pursuit.
Editors Note: If you wish to contact The Blues Attorney, you may email him at blukasavitzllg@gmail or by phone at 218-310-4530
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BLUES JUNCTION Productions
7343 El Camino Real
Suite 327
Atascadero, CA 93422-4697
info