BLUES JUNCTION Productions
7343 El Camino Real
Suite 327
Atascadero, CA 93422-4697
info
Some Background
David Mac (DM): Where are you from?
Kid Andersen (guitar/main man at Greaseland Studios in San Jose, California): I am from a very small town in Norway that even most Norwegians haven’t heard of, Herre.
DM: When you were a child did you want to be a Viking?
Kid Andersen: No those thoughts came later in life.
Joe Arnold (saxophone/studio musician Stax Records/Fame Studios/Muscle Shoals Sound/Atlantic Records/Capricorn Records): I was born February 16, 1945 in Shelby County Mississippi. The place where we lived was called Snake Creek. It was in the Delta, way out in the country. We then moved to Charleston, Mississippi. We lived just outside of town in a house with land where we had some poultry and grew some vegetables. My Dad worked as a butcher. My Mother and I would pick cotton. She made me a bag out of a potato sack.
Chico Blues (founder and President Chico Blues Records): I am from a small rural village in the state of Paraíba. It is in the northeast part of Brazil. I was raised on a farm where we planted and picked cotton.
Steve Freund (guitar/singer): I was born in Brooklyn in 1952.
DM: What part of the borough?
Steve Freund: I grew up on Kings Highway and East 13th street.
“Big Harp” George Bisharet (harmonica): I was born in Topeka, Kansas. We first moved to California in 1955 when I was just a little kid. My dad, who immigrated to this country from Palestine, was a medical doctor before coming here. He was drafted into the U.S. Navy and was stationed at Treasure Island which, as you know, is right in the middle of the bay, between Oakland and San Francisco. He was the Lieutenant Commander of outpatient services for the entire 12th Navel District. So the man who got sea sick on the boat coming over to America got a job in the Navy on a little island.
Eddie Stout (bass/founder and President Dialtone Records) : I grew up in a music city that is for sure. Before Austin became known officially as the Live Music Capitol of the World, it actually was just that.
Michael Arlt (guitar B.B. and the Blues Shacks): We come from a small village in the southern part of lower Saxony, Germany. We still live in that area in a town called Hildesheim. Some blues musicians may be familiar with this town as there is a blues club here called, “Bischofsmühle”.
Joel Paterson (guitar/singer): I’m from Madison, Wisconsin, two hours north of Chicago.
Hegle Tallqvist (harmonica): I’m from Helsinki, Finland. I now live about 25 kilometers outside the city in the countryside. I own a small house near a lake. It is a great place to raise kids and to play blues music.
Billy Watson (guitar/singer): I was born and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey. That’s where I learned to surf. Then I moved out here in 1988 and I began to surf out here.
DM: What brought you out here to California?
Billy Watson: Better surf.
DM: As the editor of, “Duh Magazine” I should have guessed that.
Early Exposures to Music
Greg Piccolo (saxophone/singer, Waverly,Connecticut): When I was kid we used to listen to my parents Hi-Fi which was in their bedroom. My sister and I would just jump up and down on the bed while listening to music.
Chico Blues: Initially in Brazil we had very few blues records. It was very difficult to find any material. One day however I was looking around an imported disc store. I found three LPs called, “Chicago: The Blues Today, Volumes 1, 2 & 3”, from the Vanguard label. I bought them and fell deeply in love that day. The blues came like a “vein virus” into me. From that moment forward, I got immersed in a never ending search for the blues music.
DM: Who were some of the names of the blues musicians that you first heard on those records that inspired this never ending search you mentioned?
Chico Blues: Junior Wells, Otis Rush, J.B. Hutto, Otis Spann and James Cotton among others.
Greg Piccolo: One of the first tunes I remember latching onto was Happy Organ by Dave “Baby” Cortez. I started a band when I was thirteen. I loved the sax solo in the song The Wanderer by Dion. I found out that it was a tenor sax on that record and it sparked my interest in that instrument.
“Sax” Gordon Beadle (saxophone, Boston, Massachusetts): I was a teenager in the late 70’s. You still heard soul music on the radio. I don’t know quite how it happened, but I think I was just hearing the sound of American saxophone and I don’t mean jazz. You heard it on Little Richard songs. You heard it on all those great Stax Records, on Aretha Franklin’s Respect with King Curtis. There was a lot of sax out there.
DM: Joe, do you remember some of the players you were exposed to?
Joe Arnold: Gene Ammons comes immediately to mind. He was, and still is, one of my favorites.
Jimmie Vaughan (guitar/singer, Austin, Texas): Hey Dave, you got a Gene Ammons tune on your phone. I love Gene Ammons.
DM: I do too, but was actually listening to Willis “Gator Tail” Jackson when you called.
Jimmie Vaughan: Willis Jackson is great. Have you ever heard the song Pool Shark?
DM: I don’t know that I have.
Jimmie Vaughan: You’ve got to check that song out man. It is unbelievable, but I think it is so cool that you’ve got Gene Ammons on your phone.
Joe Arnold: When I first heard Honky Tonk that was it... I pretty much knew what I would be doing for the rest of my life.
Jimmie Vaughan: The first thing I learned was Honky Tonk. I started with that little riff and took it from there. I have been playing ever since. I was off to the races right away. I just loved it.
Big Jon Atkinson (guitar/harmonica/bass/drums/singer, San Diego, California): I got really lucky. I grabbed three blues records off the shelf at random. I got a Little Walter record. I got a Howlin’ Wolf record that had some of his very early Sun Recordings that had Willie Johnson on guitar. I also got a Lightnin’ Hopkins record. From there I started putting the pieces together.
My biggest influence of the three records was the guitar of Willie Johnson on those early Wolf records. I was really into trying to get everything down he did, note for note. I was trying to get his tone down. His playing really blew my mind. He was my favorite and still is. He played on all the early Wolf records before Wolf hooked up with Hubert (Sumlin). I love those super distorted, nasty licks Willie Johnson was laying down.
Kid Ramos (guitar, Anaheim, California): I remember getting into B.B. King Live at the Regal. I would listen to that over and over again. I would try and figure out how to make those sounds. That’s how really I learned, by picking up the needle and moving it back to a particular spot over and over and over again. I would just wear that record out.
Otis Grand (guitar, London, England): One of the first records I bought was B.B. King’s Live at The Regal. It knocked my socks off. In my opinion the sheer energy and rawness that was captured on B.B.’s first live recording has never been surpassed nor even duplicated by any other blues artist to date. As the years passed, I literally wore out three or four copies of that album. In the days of old, the more you listened to your vinyl records, the more you destroyed them.
Kid Andersen: The first load of music I took home was BB. King, Live at the Regal, Buddy Guy, Hold that Plane, Otis Rush The Essential Cobra Recordings and Right Place Wrong Time, Albert King, Born Under a Bad Sign, Freddy King, All His Hits and a compilation of some early T-Bone Walker stuff. There was that double record Howlin’ Wolf box set that came out back then and a Little Walter record. I asked the teacher about that one because it doesn’t have any guitar solos per se. He told me, “You have to learn how to play behind a harmonica. You will probably meet guys who will want you to play this stuff.” Boy was he right.
Joe Marhofer (harmonica/singer, Itajai, Brazil): I remember the first two CDs I bought. One was from Muddy Waters, the other Sonny Boy Williamson 2. It changed my life forever.
DM: Do you recall what it was in those recordings that had such a profound impact on you?
Joe Marhofer: It was the voices. They sound so entrancing. It was fantastic. There was something inexplicable that messed with me.
Duke Robillard (guitar/singer/producer, Pawtucket, Rhode Island): When I was six I heard a lot of western swing and country music, Hank Williams, Ray Price and people like that. Soon after that, when rock and roll came into being, my brother, who is 10 years older than me had collected all the records of the great rock and roll artists of the time, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis. I got into that really early. By the time I was six or seven I started seriously wanting to play that music.
Tony Coleman (drummer, Portland, Oregon): I listened to everything and whoever the drummer was, that is what I was dialed into. If it was the Beatles than I am trying to pick up on what Ringo Star is doing. If it was Sam and Dave then I am listening to Al Jackson Jr., but when I heard James Brown’s band and his drummers, whether it was Jabo Starks, Clyde Stubblefield or Melvin Parker, that blew me over the top. That was it. I thought that I definitely have to be a drummer.
Early Exposures to Live Music
Kid Ramos: I got my driver’s license when I was sixteen. I bought a 62’ Chevy Impala for $200. Then I could drive a half hour or so down to the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach. That was such an incredible place. The Golden Bear changed my life.
DM: How so?
Kid Ramos: It is where I first saw B.B. King, Albert King, Freddy King, Muddy Waters, Mike Bloomfield, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells. I could then see how they were making the music. I would think, ‘So that’s how they do that.’ It just was a natural progression in the educational process for me. I remember you could get in to see the first set if you were under age because they served food. Then they would clear you out before the second set.
Joe Arnold: I used to hang out outside local clubs in South Memphis. I wasn’t old enough to get in. That's where I first met the drummer, Al Jackson, Jr. He was with the Willie Mitchell Band at the Manhattan Club on Hwy 51. We would listen through an open door. They would come outside on breaks so we could hang out together. That is when I first noticed how a band could control their volume and still have punch.
Steve Freund: I would hear doo wop groups that would actually play on my street corner. They were made up of three or four guys. In the winter they would light a 55 gallon drum on fire to keep warm and just stand there and sing.
Otis Grand: I drove to The Soap Creek Saloon were The Fabulous Thunderbirds were playing. Jimmie (Vaughan) was so cool. He was using a Super Reverb coupled to a Vibrorverb with a single 15” speaker. He was amazing. The T-Birds were playing authentic black music with incredibly authentic tone and feel. It was not like those long haired blues bands from California.
Nico Duportal (guitar/singer, Paris, France): When I was twenty years old I saw the amazing Jimmie Vaughan. This was a big thrill for me and it had a real impact on me.
Looking in the Window
Steve Freund: I went to the local music store, Sam Ash in Brooklyn and they had this red bass. It was like thirty five bucks. I had a job as a busboy so I went back to the job and I worked for couple of weeks until I had enough money to buy the bass. When I went back it was sold. Instead of that red bass they had a regular six string guitar, same brand, same price except it was a guitar. I figured I’d get that and get the bass later and I just stuck with the guitar.
Kid Ramos: In the summertime I would just walk down Anaheim Boulevard and check out all the pawn shops. I was enamored with the whole thing. I loved the look of the musical instruments. By the time I was fourteen I saved up enough money to buy my own guitar.
Jimmie Vaughan: There were two or three record shops on Jefferson Avenue in the Oak Cliff neighborhood where I grew up. They had pawn shops and music stores and everything down there. I would take the bus down there and buy records and just stare at the guitars in the windows of the music store and dream.
Influences and Mentors
Otis Grand: Ike Turner and Johnny Otis were and still are the main influences in my life. Johnny Otis is a huge inspiration because he was a Greek-American who melted away into the black communities of Oakland and Los Angeles. He produced the best R&B recordings ever made. His double album “The Johnny Otis Show Live at Monterey” is a milestone in rhythm and blues live recordings. I still listen to it to this day. It should be compulsory listening for all bands that want to play blues. Big Joe Turner and Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson were supreme on that record. It was their comeback chance and they gave their best performances ever. It also helped to have that excellent Johnny Otis Big Band behind them with young Shuggie Otis just killing it on guitar.
Ike Turner however was the one who really dazzled me when I was young. I was listening to all his recordings and learning his guitar style. Then one day, I am in his band, touring and recording. What a genius. I still have great respect and love for him and his music. I called him my Pappy because he was like my second father. He took care of me and I took care of him during the bad days. I was his assistant, band member and trusted friend. I was with him until he passed on December 12, 2007. Ike Turner was a mentor to me in so many ways.
Nico Duportal: My brother was a big influence. I do remember when he came back home with a couple of blues CD’s. They were very cheap compilations. They were a mix of black American artists such as Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, Bobby Bland, Bo Diddley and 60’s era English blues boom bands such as the Yarbirds, The Bluesbreakers and Them. I should say that I preferred Afro-American selections over the British stuff. This is where everything really began for me.
DM: Did you have any music teachers and/or mentors that helped you as a young person?
Nico Duportal: NOBODY!
DM: You also seem to have an affinity towards contemporary West Coast Blues. Is that a fair assessment?
Nico Duportal: Of course. In the 80’s and 90’s I discovered the Hollywood Fats Band and William Clarke. In recent years I have been very fortunate to play with Junior Watson and Lynwood Slim when they came over here.
Duke Robillard: T-Bone was the biggest role model to me musically. He has got that jazz feeling in his playing. His soloing had a bit of a jazzy edge. Really in the beginning all the really very bluesy and jazzy electric guitar players were coming from Missouri, Oklahoma and of course Texas. The southwest was where electric guitar really got its start. Whether it was Charlie Christian, T-Bone Walker or Elvin Hamblin with Bob Wills, there were so many from that area and that’s really my inspiration for guitar right there, all of those people. T-Bone and B.B. King are pretty much my biggest idols as far as blues guitar is concerned.
JW-Jones (guitar/singer, Ottawa, Canada): Little Charlie Baty and Anson Funderburgh were a big help. They put me on the right track as to what to listen to and what to work on. My first exposure to blues prior to that was kind of that Hendrix to Stevie Ray thing. The Stevie led me to Jimmie Vaughan and that last step was an important one, obviously, if you want to be a serious blues guitar player.
DM: Did you have any kind of training or teaching?
Tony Coleman: No I didn’t. If I can hear it, I can play it. That’s the story of my life. I can feel it. I can hear the patterns and I can play them. I was just a natural. It is a gift. Music chose me. I didn’t choose it.
Getting Started
Nikki Hill (singer, Saint Louis, Missouri): I sang in the gospel choir as a kid. I started doing that when I was around 6 or 7 and that really kind of helped me develop my voice and technique. I kind of did it because my dad made me but it really was a cool experience. It kind of teaches you the ins and outs of show biz without even knowing it.
Kid Andersen: I had an older cousin who lived right down the street who was a local guitar hero. He told me if I got a guitar he would teach me how to play. I did and he did. I was eleven.
Jimmie Vaughan: The first experiences were playing at school dances in the gym. In the summertime we would play at a place called the Hob Knob Lounge. We had a trio. The paid us $150.00 a week. That’s fifty bucks a piece per week! There was no P.A. so we played through the jukebox. You just plugged your 664 microphone through there and that was it. The drummer, Phil Campbell sang. Ronnie Sterling was on bass. We were just a little kid band. We were all just thirteen years old.
DM: $50.00 a week in 1962 for a thirteen year old! That’s a lot of dough. I’ll bet I know what you were spending your money on.
Jimmie Vaughan: Records!
Joe Arnold: I was having lunch one day with my wife, Sue, at Lil' Abner's. She was a waitress there. Duck (Dunn) came by and told me to go get my sax and be at the Stax studios in thirty minutes. I was barely 20 years old. This was in 1965.
DM: Do you remember what session it was?
Joe Arnold: It was with Otis (Redding). I don’t recall the song.
DM: Let me get my mind around this for a moment, Joe. You are twenty years old and your first work in a studio as a side man is with Otis Redding. I mean that’s like a kid putting on a football helmet for the first time and walking onto the field during the Super Bowl. Did you find that experience just a little bit intimidating?
Joe Arnold: Not really. You have to remember we were all young. Granted, I was the youngest but I knew most of the players. I had played with most of the guys before of course. Also Andrew (Love) was relatively new to Stax as was Issac (Hayes). You also have to remember Dave, Otis wasn’t a big star at that particular moment.
DM: That was about to change.
Making Music
Eddie Stout: That first Little Joe Washington record I did is one of my favorites. I took him out of his element altogether. I stuck him in a car and drove him straight up to Austin and put him in the studio right away. He was laying down such good music. He just blew me away. In the studio he became a real musician.
DM: What do you mean by that?
Eddie Stout: It was the first time I could see why guys like Johnny “Guitar” Watson dug him so much. I could see why he was playing with all these guys like Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown and Joe “Guitar” Hughes.
George Friend (guitartist, Detroit, Michigan) : When I moved to L.A., I thought I was a pretty good blues player. Then I saw Junior Watson, Kirk Fletcher, Kid Ramos and Rick Holmstrom. I was amazed. I knew who these guys were, but I never heard them play live. I was just amazed. I remember when I was auditioning for the gig with Janiva (Magness) It was at that birthday party where we first met in Newport Beach.
DM: June 10th, 2001...I remember it well.
George Friend: She had all these guys in her band previously. They were on the gig at that party. I thought, ‘Oh great I get to go on after Watson, Fletcher and Ramos.’ After that I got deeper and deeper into my studies. I studied Albert King, Freddy King all these different players and how they got their own sound even though they all speak in this very specific language. I learned a lot by taking this approach and by being more analytical with my studies.
Working with Others
DM: Let’s talk a bit about that guitar player in your band. I forget his name.
Nikki Hill: (laughing) His name is Matt Hill. He is my husband. We’re both from North Carolina and had a lot of mutual friends. We had been friends for years. He’s someone I could kind of nerd out with and trade music with. I didn’t really start singing until after we started dating. He would kind of hear me sing and encouraged me for some reason.
Tony Coleman: The great Bobby “Blue” Bland was like the Ray Charles of the blues. He had great songs, incredible arrangements. He also had the best bands. Jabo Starks was Bobby’s drummer before he hooked up with James Brown. He was the guy on Turn on Your Love Light and Don’t Cry No More.... mercy. I got with Bobby in the early eighties. We would listen to some of his old records and he said ‘You need to play that. If you can play that, then you are my man. When we are on stage and you see my leg moving then you know you are playing it right.’
DM: We have talked about this before, but you hold Bobby Bland personally, as well as professionally, in the highest regard.
Tony Coleman: Bobby was a very special person. He was one of the sweetest souls ever to walk the planet. Musically, you couldn’t touch him. His band was not the type of band you could just sit in with. You've got to know what the hell you are doing to play in his band. There are so many chord changes. There are orchestrated parts. If you could play in Bobby’s band you could play with anybody, Ray Charles or Duke Ellington, anybody because there was so much musicality to his stuff. It was arranged that way. It wasn’t just some guy jerkin’ off with his guitar. There was real serious musicality involved.
DM: Yet he had some of the best guitarists in the world come through his bands. Was Wayne Bennett still with the band when you signed on with Bobby?
Tony Coleman: Yes sir! He was just so good. He could play jazz chords, rhythm parts, fills...everything. I played with both Wayne and Mel Brown. They were both awesome guitarists.
Sax Gordon: Everyone does T-Bone of course, or tries, but I don’t think anyone’s in Duke’s league as far as nailing that T-Bone thing. It was great playing with Duke. It was really great for me because, we’ve never really talked about it, but we both had the same interest in trying to preserve or trying to learn from these old records. For me that could be Maxwell Davis or Jack McVee that played with T-Bone, I loved the solos, I loved that style, but the thing is as a saxophonist, you can’t apply that style unless you have the right context.
DM: You can’t even attempt that stuff in most places.
Sax Gordon: You go do that at a blues jam and people just look at you like, “What is he doing?” For instance, Fred Kaplan’s record was the right situation. That’s the situation where the band is hip to everything. The recording situation on that last Fred Kaplan record was the most antique vintage thing ever. So that really brought out that whole concept.
DM: I am glad you brought that up, I think Fred’s record that came out last year is a masterpiece. I really do.
Sax Gordon: I agree. You know he insisted that none of that be rehearsed or decided on beforehand. Everything was on the spot. There was no preparation at all. We just went in and made music. We might do a take, talk about it and we might do another one, but basically it all came out of us right there.
Joe Arnold: One day I was in the studio by myself and I was listening to the radio. The song Light My Fire came on. It was the version by Jose Feliciano. It was a huge hit at the time. I sat there playing my tenor along with it when this young dude came in and sat down next to me and pulled a guitar out of his case and started playing along with me. It was Duane Allman. I had seen him hanging around the building, but it was the first time we met. We were close in age. I might have been a year or two older actually. I don’t know, but it didn’t matter. He had an old spirit. He was very mature musically. He played like he had been around forever. I had been into jazz as we talked about, Dave. Well Duane and I discussed jazz as well. He had just started getting his ears around Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. He was really into that. Anyway, we played together along with the rest of the band on tons of records over the next two years or so.
DM: Do you remember the first record you did with Duane?
Joe Arnold: It was the Hey Jude album we did on Wilson Pickett. Pickett loved his playing. Duane is all over that record. Pickett was going bananas and kept calling him “Sky Man” then some time shortly thereafter that got changed to “Sky Dog.” I think that kind of fit better. He had this kind of scruffy dog kind of look going on. It didn’t matter. He could play. I had been around a lot of very good guitar players but it was the first time I had seen anybody play the bottleneck slide. You can hear him on all kinds of stuff that we played on. He is on some of the Clarence Carter sessions; we were on the Otis Rush album Mourning in the Morning. His playing, along with me and the rest of the horns, is all over the old Fenton Robinson tune, Loan Me a Dime that appeared on a Boz Scaggs album we cut.
DM: Let’s talk about the band you assembled for the record Roomful of Bluetones.
Otis Grand: (laughs) Roomful of Bluetones! I love that. However, that is exactly what it is. It’s a combination of both those two great East coast bands that happens to be the greatest exponents of American rhythm & blues and now firmly trusted friends. All the musicians on this CD are the same guys I have worked with since 1994. They know my style perfectly and I know theirs. The major criteria when producing this CD was always, ‘if it’s not danceable, it’s not recordable’ and that applied to both up tempo and ballad tracks. All the tracks were recorded live in one take, no playbacks or second takes.
JW-Jones: Once I worked with Kim Wilson the doors were open for me to asking guys that were affiliated with him. All I wanted to do is make a record with drummer Richard Innes. He is one of my heroes.
DM: What are some of the things about Richard’s playing that you feel so strongly about?
JW-Jones: Just his natural groove. I mean just his placement of the snare drum alone. Never mind anything else, like how well he grooves on the hi-hat. It is just the coolest. He has just the right kind of snap to it. I mean very, very few drummers have ever achieved what he can do with his left hand. He is not aggressive. He is right behind the beat. He is very supportive and never intrusive. He knows exactly what needs to be played. He can play anything too, from the super traditional stuff to Earl Palmer rock and roll grooves. He can do it all.
DM: I don’t know if you are aware of this but there are those out there that consider you the world’s greatest blues drummer. What is it about your playing that puts you in that discussion?
Richard Innes (drummer, San Bernadino Mountains, California): Let me start off by saying I never thought about myself as being the greatest anything. I will say, I always feel compelled to do my best. When I pick up those sticks I am all there... 100%. I keep it simple and make every note count. I always keep in mind that it is not about me, it is me it is about the song.
DM: Joe, there are many things that make those records so good but what makes a Stax records instantly recognizable for me anyway is the drumming of Al Jackson, Jr.
Joe Arnold: That’s right. Al was the best musician on the floor. He played on all the stuff man. He is as responsible for that sound as anybody. In my opinion he, along with Isaac Hayes and Floyd Newman, were the best musicians in the studio. I don’t think Floyd gets nearly enough credit for his contributions at Stax.
DM: How did you get Charlie Baty to play guitar on the album?
Big Harp George: That was me. Getting Charlie on the record was a huge priority for me. What I wanted to be my brand was a little more of a jazzy blues sound. I didn’t want to make another Chicago style, gut bucket blues sounding record. I wanted to create a sound that had a little more sophistication and for me nobody speaks that language like Charlie.
DM: What was it like working for B.B. King?
Tony Coleman: Let me put it this way, when you were with B.B. King on a gig you never had a heart ache or a head ache, a tooth ache or a belly ache. None of that mattered. It is about the gig. After the show then you could have your heartache or headache.
As far as the music was concerned, if there was problem with the music he would let you know. He would say, ‘For two hours I need your undivided attention on stage. After that you can go back to your room, buck naked and hang upside down from the chandelier with a candlestick up your ass for all I care. That’s your business, but when you are on stage with me, I need your undivided attention son.’
Blues as it Relates to other Forms of Music
DM: You play virtually every style of roots music I can think of….
Joel Paterson: I dabble in everything except, sorry Dave, no surf music.
DM: (laughs) No apology necessary. I have seen the waves on Lake Michigan.
Joel Paterson: That’s the only thing I haven’t dabbled in is surf music. I guess it’s not bluesy enough for me. Everything I play has to be somewhat related to the blues or I don’t really do it.
DM: Yet to a lot of listeners all these different styles you play might seem somewhat disparate from one another, but somehow you manage to find some common ground in your playing. Is that a fair assessment?
Joel Paterson: Yeah that’s what I try to do. I think that’s what actually used to happen back in the day because when I hear those guitars, all those session musicians like Hank Garland for instance, one day Hank Garland is playing an amazing jazz session and the next day he’s playing the guitar solo on Little Sister by Elvis.
DM: How about Barney Kessell? He is considered a jazz cat but cut those amazing blues sides with T-Bone Walker in the 50’s for Atlantic.
Joel Paterson: Exactly! People have a hard time with that because they don’t understand a lot of the musicians were studio jazz musicians playing all this R&B and rock and roll. All the country guys back in the day could play jazz. Some of the best jazz players ever are these country guys out of Nashville. So I think there’s a tradition of that a lot of folks may not understand.
DM: What is it that makes the Innes/Taylor rhythm section the revered musical institution that it has become? To my ears, it is the best. There really isn’t anything like it out there.
Richard Inness: Here is what it is in a nutshell. I used to play in Little Richard’s band as we talked about. Larry played in Jerry Lee Lewis’ band a decade earlier, so we have a pretty wide scope on 50’s rock&roll and R&B in our background. In addition to that, Larry has a pretty broad range, jazz wise. We are both into jazz. So we both have a strong jazz foundation that we can also work into the blues thing that we do.
DM: There is history of this type of rhythm section in blues that doesn’t much exist anymore.
Richard Innes: Exactly! Thanks Dave for bringing that up. Take Wynonie Harris... he had jazz guys on his records. He had Mingus on bass for instance and guys like Arnett Cobb and all these sax players who were jazz guys. There were a lot of jazz players that were on blues and rhythm and blues records back in the day. Larry and I have some of that. You are right, not too many rhythm sections any more have that in their DNA.
Duke Robillard: I don’t know if you‘ve heard my Tales from the Tiki Lounge album, that was first release on my Blue Duchess record label. It was kind of a tribute to Les Paul and Mary Ford. That’s a very interesting album. That’s one of my favorite recordings that I’ve ever made.
DM: I think it’s an interesting record. I like it a lot for many reasons not the least of which it is so different. There has to be a back story with how you came up with the title of the record and tropical motif of the album art.
DUKE: Well it came from an idea of exotica records; they probably didn’t call them that. In the late 50s there were a lot of records that were kind of stereo demonstration albums. They were all kinds of crazy things, a lot of times they had big bands, a lot of times they had bongos and congas. I don’t know if you’re aware of Martin Denny.
DM: (laughs) I have been interviewing musicians for a long time and this is the first Martin Denny reference ever. Congratulations....he was the guy that made those records with the bird sounds.
DUKE: Right...I kind of grew up in that period and had an uncle who was way into hi-fidelity when stereo was first coming out and would have these kind of records. It was a real novel thing back then. I took that approach in some way. Even Les Paul was kind of recording in that vein when he did his 50s recordings, multi-track recordings of guitar. So I just took a lot of elements of that and the whole tiki thing is part of that exotica motif that was through the late 50s and early 60s. In the old days when people used to open up their houses and have cocktail parties, that is some of the music they would play (chuckles). That whole tiki lounge culture ties into that whole thing.
DM: That kind of vibe seems to fit my neighborhood out here in Southern California but Pawtucket Rhode Island... really.
Duke Robillard: Remember Dave, the tiki lounge is really in your mind. (laughs)
DM: It sounds like handful Handful of Strings is a nod to your fellow Wisconsinite, Les Paul.
Joel Paterson: Yep, absolutely Les Paul and Buddy Merrill made multi-track records and also a guy who is one of my favorite guitar players, Jorgen Ingmann. Not many people have heard of him.
DM: Apache!
Joel Paterson: That’s the guy. He made some pretty tasty records in the 60s, but he also made two jazz records in the 50s that are amazing. He takes the Les Paul style and does something different with it. I just recorded it in a little tiny bedroom here in Chicago. I just wanted to record the guitar with the mic and an amp, very clean, just let the guitar and the amp make the tone, so that’s basically what you hear. I wanted a very pure dry sound.
Jimmie Vaughan: I just never wanted to do the same thing over and over again. It’s not because I didn’t like it, but I always felt like it is good to try different things now and again and keep moving this way and that, if that makes sense.
DM: It makes perfect sense. What’s your next move?
Jimmie Vaughan: Well, I have been playing with this B3 trio here in Austin, Mike Flannigan along with Barry “Frosty” Smith on drums. We are planning to put out an LP album. It will be a B3 trio kind of thing. I really wouldn’t call it jazz, but it is but it is very jazzy. It is more of an R&B, blues kind of thing. We have been playing different clubs here in town when I’m not on the road. It is real fun.
DM: Maybe this takes us all the way back to that discussion of tenor sax players and Gene Ammons. There is an album I have had for years and years. It is Gene Ammons playing with different organ trios. Do you think of yourself and your playing as if you were a sax player?
Jimmie Vaughan: I listen to a lot of sax players as you know. We have talked about that. I get real tired of all the guitar player stuff. So I do find a lot of inspiration from horn players, including trumpet players. Inspiration can come from anywhere. I even get a lot of inspiration from Flamenco music. It doesn’t necessarily mean I am going to make a Flamenco album or anything. I just listen to music all the time and I listen to music that moves me and there is plenty of it. I never run out of music. I am always trying something new. I am always hearing something that will inspire me to try something different. So I say to myself, ‘Maybe I’ll try this.’ Not everything you try works, but you keep trying. The search is fun.
DM: Through the years I have talked to a lot of harmonica players who have been influenced by the jazz saxophone. Does this apply to you?
Egidio Ingala (harmonica/singer, Italy): YES! Also I have been inspired by jazz musicians such as saxophonists Gene Ammons and Lester Young. I have always been impressed by their sound that they were able to create with sax. It is a real hot sound!
Greg Piccolo: By the time I was thirteen the Beatles came to America and all the music I loved on the radio from the 50’s was all gone and so were the sax players. The guitar replaced the tenor saxophone as the lead instrument in rock and roll almost overnight. I like the variety and different textures the tenor brings to the bandstand. By the way, Dave did you see that Beatles special they had on T.V. last Sunday night?
DM: No I didn’t.
GP: I did and all I kept thinking was that there is something weird about 60 or 70 year olds listening to ‘Get Back Loretta.’ I mean, can’t you people move on? I can see it if you were a kid or something but that music just doesn’t age that well. When you get real blues, real country or jazz music, age doesn’t matter. The music is timeless. It ages real well. It is music for adults.
Kid Andersen: We mixed a bunch of old surf tunes with a piece written by Edvard Grieg in the 1800’s.
DM: The guy that wrote In The Hall of the Mountain King. You have done surf style instrumentals since then. There was a song on Twisted you did with the Nightcats called Lil’ Earthquake and of course there is The Legend of Taco Cobbler, which has elements of surf music in it as well.
Kid Andersen: I would say there are not too many elements of any kind of music that aren’t in Taco Cobbler. I mean there is a little ska in there and even some metal for about a split second.
DM: Let’s talk about this eclecticism which you seem to throw into the mix now and again.
Kid Andersen: I throw that stuff in there just to confuse the jack asses who call me a blues Nazi. I mean this starts getting into that big philosophical debate. Blues is the language I grew up learning. Blues is like my native tongue. Most people start with rock music and go back from there and discover blues. For me, it was the other way around. So I can get away with a Taco Cobbler once in a while. It grinds my gears when I hear rock people who are fucking hacks, who have no foundation in blues, have no relationship to the music, then try and play it and take a dump all over this music. You know what I’m talking about, Dave?
Keeping it Real
Big Jon Atkinson: If you are looking to be a blues musician you have to have a lot of balls. You are up against a wall from the beginning. The cool part though lies in the fact that if you are true blues, I don’t mean a blues-rocker, but a real blues musician, you are like part of a family. The big reward is the people you meet. The people whose paths we cross out there Dave seem to be of a higher caliber. I mean if you are one of those rocker-blues guys and you are trying to impress an audience with how many guitar solos you take in a night or how loud your amp is, the people you are going to meet who are involved with that or are attracted to that kind of music are going to be a bunch of jerk offs. On the other hand it takes a very special kind of person to understand this music because like you say it is not main stream. If they can hear the things we hear there is an automatic bond and mutual respect. I think that makes it all worthwhile. It makes the hardships that come with this life worthwhile.
Eddie Stout: “Record business”... wow that is an oxymoron. (laughs) But seriously...it is just what I do Dave. I am a record man. It is just a passion, a love and a way of life. I like to document this stuff. I like to get it down. I like the camaraderie of it all, but most of all, I just love the music.
Billy Watson: Take these blues societies. Unfortunately it’s a self-serving thing. We have one down here of course. They claim they’re supporting blues. What a bunch of fucking jackasses. They’re just idiots.
DM: Easy Billy...
Billy Watson: No it’s true. They’re just self-serving blues fans who are just trying to get their boyfriend a gig or husband or their girlfriend a gig somewhere. It’s a huge conflict of interest. All the guys on the board all have bands. It’s just a way for them to get a gig and to get money. They do these stupid blues cruises and send offs. As far as blues music is concerned that’s the music they think they like. It’s a very surface thing for them. It’s a joke to them. They are a bunch of lemmings.
All they like is blues-rock or “block” as I call it. I hate the way that shit is recorded, the way it is mixed the way it is mastered. It is just so limited. James Harman once told me that the reason these people like it is because there is no classic rock any more. So “block” is the closest thing to classic–rock. I hate it.
Kid Andersen: They get into the blues scene because that is the only place where they can rise to the top of the heap. I hate it when people say we have to mix rock with blues to keep it current. That is a bunch of fucking bullshit as far as I’m concerned. We aren’t physicists here who need to create something new. I would rather hear something that sounds cool than something that sounds new, especially if it was created just for the sake of being new. Besides that, what is so fucking new about someone playing blues like Pat Travers?
DM: Here’s the thing Kid, there is nothing new about blues-rock anyway. It is 45 years old. Guys like you and me who embrace all kinds of music are called blues Nazi’s because we don’t happen to like this one particular kind of musical form called blues-rock. I mean who is being the fascist in this equation? The insecurity of these people is rather astonishing when you think about it.
Kid Andersen: The people who try and rock up blues and say they are trying to save the blues are doing more to kill it than help it. Blues is not going to die because the music is so strong. It’s like heroin. They haven’t changed it since it came out. It’s still hugely popular.
Tony Coleman: I like to call, “the shitstem.” It is made up of a bunch of people who have no respect for this music. They are the people who take advantage of this music for their own personal gain and not for the betterment of the music. They aren’t real. They are phonies and they make me sick. They make me want to throw up. They are in the blues business to rape it. Then they want you to kiss their ass. Fuck ‘em. I am not part of that crowd. They don’t do anything for me anyway. They know who they are and, I know Dave, you know who they are. These people need to get the fuck out of the way so the rest of us can get back to keeping it real.
DM: So I have to ask you, who cares? Why should anybody care which artists get promoted as blues artists by the record labels, managers, talent buyers, blues societies and so on? Who cares if the best selling artists are ones that have no or at the very least, very little idea about blues music? Why should we care if there are blues publications and D.J.s who can give a rat’s ass about this music? Why do any of these things matter?
Tony Coleman: Because these things represent the wholesale destruction of our culture. I know that there are people everyday rolling over in their graves and saying, ‘My goodness, this is what our music has turned into. People don’t have any more respect for our creation than this.’ I think there are people out there who have no idea what this music means to our culture. When people take a dump on this music it is not only an embarrassment, it is an insult.
Let me ask you this Dave, do you think that I have spent a lifetime playing with B.B. King, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Albert King, Etta James, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, Otis Clay and Katie Webster just to name a few, and expect me to like what is going on out there and NOT say anything? These people were serious about the blues and I am not going to treat this music with any less respect than these people who have contributed so much to the music.
DM: Tony, there are those who have said that African- Americans have turned their back on the blues. What are your thoughts as it relates to that assertion?
Tony Coleman: African-Americans have turned their backs on bad music. Who can blame them? There is nothing worse than bad blues music.
Interests Outside of Music
Otis Grand: I read a lot of books. Not the fictional, crap fairy tale stories, just pure, well researched works by some incredible minds. I have as many books as vinyl records and that is saying a lot. I read mostly books on Archaeology, History and ancient Greek and Egyptian Mythology. One of the greatest books I read was “Empires of The Word” by Nicholas Ostler who is a remarkable and highly technical and unmanageable work for anyone who is not keen on the subject.
Andreas Arlt: Soccer, hey man we are Germans!
Steve Freund: I grow my own organic produce. I am pretty much a vegetarian. I have a big vegetable garden and I grow fruit trees up here. I also like to ride my bike. I try to keep physically active. I like to work on guitars and mess around with amps. I buy and sell amps and guitars when I can.
Kid Ramos: The most important thing for me is my family. They always come first. My two boys are my legacy. This is what sustained me with this recent battle with cancer.
George Friend: I teach music. I have been doing that for a long time. The whole time I was in L.A. I taught underserved kids for a non-profit. I taught in South Central as well as downtown.
DM: Are you doing the same type of thing in Detroit?
George Friend: Yes. For a while I had my own music school. I really, really LOVE teaching kids music. It is one of my favorite things in the world.
And Finally...
Joe Arnold: When I am playing at my best I feel like the spirits of all those who came before me are coming out of my horn. I felt that way when I was recording my solo on the Jack McDuff song, Memphis in June. It is like you are outside your body. It’s like you are watching and listening to yourself from another place. It’s as if all sax players’ spirits are floating around you, getting inside of you and are coming out of your horn. You are connected in some spiritual way, to all that have come before you. It’s a great feeling.
Joe Marhofer: There is something so strong and powerful about this music that I adopted it as a lifestyle. I live it and breathe it. It is music that moves the listener. I am moved when I hear this music. This music speaks to real life. It speaks to truth.
Egidio Ingala: Playing blues is one of the best ways to share my feelings with someone who has the same passion and who speaks the same language like we are doing now Dave. The blues is history and behind the history there is a culture, a tradition. When I play I just want to maintain this tradition and to do this you have to know the culture and history of the blues. This is the most fascinating thing for me.
Tony Coleman: In America, you always had certain people who didn’t like you just because you were black. You were getting put away, beaten, strung up and pushed to the side. We had to deal with all of this and we dealt with it by making a joyful noise. We have a pray to God to save us, we have a paranoia and we have a kiss my ass all at the same time attitude. That’s black culture in America.
We never had a sense of entitlement. We always felt we had to be twice as good just for a chance of survival and a chance we wouldn’t be pushed to the side. All of that comes out of our music. It is pure raw emotion. You just have to let it go. It all comes through our music. If you just give me a chance, I will make you dance and shout.
Big Harp George: As you know Dave, the blues is about the affirmation of life against oppression. Blues is about the absolute refusal to bend in the face of adversity. There is a word the Palestinians use to describe this. It is called “sumud” which literally means steadfastness. It means I will always be here. It means, you are not going to take life from me. I will always come back. I will always sing. I will always rejoice. You can’t hurt me because no matter what you do to me, I will always be here.
The music known as the blues comes from that philosophy. It is part of that determination. Blues not only expresses that resolve, it makes it stronger.
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