From that controversial, satirical, and funny online “news” magazine, The Onion:

Delta Blues Poised For Biggest Revival Since 1915

September 28, 2005 | Issue 41-39

NEW ORLEANS?Blues historians report that Delta blues, an early blues form that arose in the Mississippi Delta region, is poised for its biggest revival since 1915. “Death, loss, heartbreak, isolation, hard luck?that’s what the blues have been missing for decades,” said music critic Joel Kushner. “But now, even the most sheltered, derivative Delta blues musician should have enough material to cut an album.” The revival is heralded by the recent singles “FEMA Don’t Come ‘Round No More,” “Category Five Woman Done Me Six Kinds Of Wrong,” and “Talkin’ Drownded Kin Blues.”

This has been a bad month for the blues. On August 4, 2005, Little Milton Campbell died at 70 years of age. On September 1, 2005, R. L. Burnside died at 78 years of age. And now we mark the passing of Clarence Gatemouth Brown

I was wondering how long it would take for the first Hurrican Katrina - related blues death to be reported. I now have my answer. I wonder how many more lesser-know or long-forgotten old bluesmen perished in or as a result of Katrina. The typhoon struck the heart of blues territory in Louisiana and Mississippi. I am guardedly optimistic that no more deathsof bluesmen or blueswomen have been reported.

That having been said, Gatemouth Brown was perhaps the greatest bluesman who never wanted to be a bluesman. He had phenominal music skills both on numerous instruments and on vocals.

The follow is the AP report on the passing of Gatemouth Brown:

BATON ROUGE, La. - Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, the singer and guitarist who built a 50-year career playing blues, country, jazz and Cajun music, died Saturday in his hometown of Orange, Texas, where he had gone to escape Hurricane Katrina. He was 81.

Brown, who had been battling lung cancer and heart disease, was in ill health for the past year, said Rick Cady, his booking agent.

Cady said the musician was with his family at his brother’s house when he died. Brown’s home in Slidell, La., a bedroom community of New Orleans, was destroyed by Katrina, Cady said.

“He was completely devastated,” Cady said. “I’m sure he was heartbroken, both literally and figuratively. He evacuated successfully before the hurricane hit, but I’m sure it weighed heavily on his soul.”

More than a bluesman
Although his career first took off in the 1940s with blues hits “Okie Dokie Stomp” and “Ain’t That Dandy,” Brown bristled when he was labeled a bluesman.

In the second half of his career, he became known as a musical jack-of-all-trades who played a half-dozen instruments and culled from jazz, country, Texas blues, and the zydeco and Cajun music of his native Louisiana.

By the end of his career, Brown had more than 30 recordings and won a Grammy award in 1982.

“I’m so unorthodox, a lot of people can’t handle it,” Brown said in a 2001 interview.

Brown’s versatility came partly from a childhood spent in the musical mishmash of southwestern Louisiana and southeastern Texas. He was born in Vinton, La., and grew up in Orange, Texas.

Brown often said he learned to love music from his father, a railroad worker who sang and played fiddle in a Cajun band. Brown, who was dismissive of most of his contemporary blues players, named his father as his greatest musical influence.

“If I can make my guitar sound like his fiddle, then I know I’ve got it right,” Brown said.

Cady said Brown was quick-witted, “what some would call a ‘codger.”’

Brown started playing fiddle by age 5. At 10, he taught himself an odd guitar picking style he used all his life, dragging his long, bony fingers over the strings.

In his teens, Brown toured as a drummer with swing bands and was nicknamed “Gatemouth” for his deep voice. After a brief stint in the Army, he returned in 1945 to Texas, where he was inspired by blues guitarist T-Bone Walker.

Brown’s career took off in 1947 when Walker became ill and had to leave the stage at a Houston nightclub. The club owner invited Brown to sing, but Brown grabbed Walker’s guitar and thrilled the crowd by tearing through “Gatemouth Boogie”, a song he claimed to have made up on the spot.

He made dozens of recordings in the 1940s and ’50s, including many regional hits “Okie Dokie Stomp,” “Boogie Rambler,” and “Dirty Work at the Crossroads.”

But he became frustrated by the limitations of the blues and began carving a new career by recording albums that featured jazz and country songs mixed in with the blues numbers.

‘An absolute prodigy’
“He is one of the most underrated guitarists, musicians and arrangers I’ve ever met, an absolute prodigy,” said Colin Walters, who is working on Brown’s biography. “He is truly one of the most gifted musicians out there.

“He never wanted to be called a bluesman, but I used to tell him that though he may not like the blues, he does the blues better than anyone,” added Walters. “He inherited the legacy of great bluesmen like Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker, but he took what they did and made it better.”

Brown, who performed in cowboy boots, cowboy hat and Western-style shirts, lived in Nashville in the early 1960s, hosting an R&B television show and recording country singles.

In 1979, he and country guitarist Roy Clark recorded “Makin’ Music,” an album that included blues and country songs and a cover of the Billy Strayhorn-Duke Ellington classic “Take the A-Train.”

Brown recorded with Eric Clapton, Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt and others, but he took a dim view of most musicians and blues guitarists in particular. He called B.B. King one-dimensional. He dismissed his famous Texas blues contemporaries Albert Collins and Johnny Copeland as clones of T-Bone Walker, whom many consider the father of modern Texas blues.

“All those guys always tried to sound like T-Bone,” Brown said.

Survivors include three daughters and a son.

In a ironic, but sad, twist of serendipity, while I was writing about blues in the movie “The Skeleton Key”, I got sidetracked and ended up reading a small blurb about Johnny Farmer and Mississippi Fred McDowell on the Fat Possum Records site. While doing that, I got sidetracked again and began reading about country blues legend R. L. Burnside, which in turn led to a minor listening marathon of Burnside’s music. A few hours later, there were headlines on CNN, MSNBC, and other major news media that R. L. Burnside had died.

R.L. Burnside’s Death comes less than a month after the death of Little Milton Campbell. The old bluesmen are going and it seems that they are going quickly. If not all, then nearly all of the old acoustic bluesmen are dead and gone, and a lot of the original electric blues have joined them. With the death of R. L Burnside, the world has lost a true blues character.

Click here to listen to an mp3 of R.L. Burnside doing “Shake ‘Em on Down.”

Read the biography of R.L Burnside from Fat Possum Records at Fat Possum Records.

To get a feel for whatw Burnside was like, here is a transcript of an interview he did for Perfect Sound Forever in 1999:

PSF: Tell me a little bit of what it was like growing up in Mississippi in
the ’30’s and ’40’s?

RL: Well, it was rough. I grew up in the rough times, ya know. I grew up on a plantation (doing) sharecropping. It was a lot of hard work but it was good
times then.

PSF: When did you start playing guitar?

RL: When I was 16 when I started trying to play, ya know, but I was 21 before I started getting out in the public playing.

PSF: So what made you want to play the guitar?

RL: I grew up around Fred McDowell and Rainie Burnette and I just always have wanted to play. I started on harmonica first but I never could get that to work. I just give it up and said I’m gonna try guitar. I just kept trying, didn’t nobody never teach me nothing, I just kept trying it and watching people till I learned.

PSF: What was it like playing with Fred McDowell?

RL: He was a big influence on me. He started me. I watched him and he was the first guy I saw play the blues. We didn’t live over half a mile from him at one time. And then, for ten or twelve years we lived about a mile and a half to two miles from him. We’d be going to gin some cotton and my grandaddy and we’d be coming back in the middle of the night or in the evening and we’d stop by there and listen to Fred. When I got up to where I could play I’d go out with him on Saturday nights at them house parties, ya know.

PSF: How old were you when you played with Fred?

RL: Oh, about 18 or 19.

PSF: I read that you were also related to Muddy Waters?

RL: Yeah. Well, I went up into Chicago in the ’40’s. My father and mother separated when I was real young and he married again and he went up to Chicago. He’d been up there about 10 or 15 years. And I went up there just to stay with him awhile just to try and make some more money, ya know. Got up there and I’d heard Muddy Waters music and I liked it. I got up there and he was married to a first cousin of mine, Anna Mae.

PSF: Did you guys play together?

RL: No, I wasn’t playing then. I just lived and listened to the music. I’d go over to his house about every other night. We worked at the same place, over at the Howard’s Foundry and I’d go over at his house about every other night and listen to him play. There was a place there in Chicago where they called the Zanzibar he played on Friday nights, ya know. And I go up there with him to play every Friday night. Sunday we’d go down on Mackerel Street, you know, where a lot of blues players was at. I’d get to listen to them.

PSF: Who would you say are the biggest influences on your style of the blues?

RL: Muddy Waters and Fred McDowell. I like Lightning Hopkins too.

PSF: During the ’70’s and ’80’s, you did some touring in Europe. What was that like?

RL: I been touring since 1969. My first tour was in ‘69 to Montreal, Canada. That was the first time I saw Lightning Hopkins and John Lee Hooker. They was playing on the same day and me and Robert Jr. Lockwood and Robert Pete Williams from New Orleans went up there. I knowed Robert Jr. Lockwood but I didn’t know Robert T. Williams. We was riding up together and I asked him where he was from and he said New Orleans, and I got to talking with him. He couldn’t read and write so we messed around and got late and had to ride in the subway to get out to where we was playing at. We got lost and messed around. Finally got there and when I get to the place, I’m playing solo then, ya know. When I get to the festival they started yelling “RL Burnside from Coldwater, Mississippi.” I’m walking up and this six piece band is just coming off the stage. I walks on up there to the stage and I see Robert Jr. Lockwood and his wife sitting over there. And he said, “hey man.” I walk on the stage. So I go on and do the show, ya know. But I’m playing some stuff behind Hooker like, “Boogie Chillin” and “When my First Wife Left Me” and some stuff behind Lightning too. But when I first started off, I was nervous, ya know, cause I was drinking. After I played about half way to the song people got to patting and hollering. Man, I went to feeling good then. I rocked the joint.

After I came off the stage, I went over there and talked to Robert and his wife. “Yeah RL Burnside, you sure sound good. But I tell you what. You got an ass-whuppin’.” I said, “What you mean?” He said, “Lightning Hopkins and John Lee there in the dressing room,” I didn’t have a chance to go in the dressing room, ya know cause I was late. I walked in there and they were sitting in there and it’s the first time I ever met ‘em. “Hey man, Burnside. I didn’t know nobody could do that but us. I don’t mind nobody playing my music long as they play it like that. I just don’t want ‘em to mess my damn music up.” (Much laughter) Man, I was scared when I went in there. I was playing their music when I went in there. (more laughter). And I never have met ‘em, ya know.

PSF: What were those tours of Europe like? What kind of reaction did you get?

RL: Oh, its great over there. The first time I went over there I was playing solo. I was playing with the Mississippi Delta Blues Band. I’d do 15 minutes solo and then I’d play slide with the band, ya know. And then the guy asked me, “RL, it ain’t none of my business but how much are you making for this?” I said, “I make $200 a week.” He said, “$200 a week? Would you come over here by yourself for more money?” So about a year later I started to going over there by myself playing solo til my sons got big enough, then we went to going over there, ya know. That started it all going then.

PSF: So the record you did with your sons, Sound Machine Groove was really good. When did that come out?

RL: I think it was around 1979. Name of our song was “Bad Luck City.” A lot of people don’t know that cause they ain’t never been there, ya know.

PSF: So the crowds in Europe gave a good reaction, even though they didn’t speak English?

RL: Oh yeah. The first time I was over there with my sons we did the Blues Festival in London, England. Done the Red Car Blues Festival and come back through Frankfurt, Germany and the guy was carrying us around, ya know translating for us, I said, “How them fellas like the music? They hollering and carrying on and 99% of ‘em can’t speak English. He said. “Oh they just like the rhythm.” I got them ol’ words that I use, “Well, well, well” and after then and up to now when I go over there anywhere, when they holler “RL Burnside from Holly Springs, Mississippi. Well, well, well……”

PSF: I gotta ask you about A Ass Pocket of Whiskey. The record you did with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. That was big for you wasn’t it?

RL: Yeah, it was a good one. It started more young people to coming to the shows. That was the first thing I ever did anything like that out in the public, ya know. I’d always be telling them old stories but I’d be sitting back in the dressing room. ‘Cause we went out three time opening for the Blues Explosion. They asked me, cause we’d be sitting up talking, “RL we need to make this.” And I said “no, I can’t do nothing like that out on stage.” And they begged me to do it. So I went home and been there about four or five days and the phone rang. I was sitting there in the backyard with some of my friends drinking some beer. “Daddy telephone.” I said who is it? “Some John.” I said Jon Spencer? “Yeah” I said bring it here. So they brought the phone out there and he said, “Hey, RL. You ready to do that album?” I said hell yeah, come on down, we’ll do it. If it don’t hurt me none. Two days he was down there and he rented one of them big hunting clubs ten miles from my house. He rented that and we did the album in 4 hours.

PSF: 4 hours? You guys did that album in 4 hours?

RL: Yeah. The we went out on another tour after the CD and t-shirts came out. And we was over in France, London, England, Germany, Holland and Switzerland, ya know. Every night Jon would say, “RL, lets do “Ass Pocket of Whiskey.” And I’d say no, man. I can’t do that out in the public. And we done did three shows and sold 1 CD and 2 t-shirts. We got to Amsterdam and he said, “RL. let’s do that “Ass Pocket of Whiskey tonight.” I said, “I don’t give a goddamn.” I’d done got about high, ya know. Got up there and did it and man, we sold out of CD’s and t-shirts, everything. We had to send back to get some more.

PSF: Then the crowd reaction was great then?

RL: Oh, yeah. They loved that. About 2 weeks ago, we was down in Australia and they said “RL, we need to do the “Ass Pocket of Whiskey.” And I said, “Man, you know we can’t do that at no festival. A bunch of young kids and things out there. He said “hell yeah, that’s what they want, man. I’ll show ya. I’ll ask ‘em.” So Jon got on the mic and said, “Ya’ll heard tell
of RL Burnside and the “Ass Pocket of Whiskey.” Ya’ll don’t care about him talking about fucking and that kinda stuff do ya? Pussy and yer dick?” I went out there man and people got to jumping and hollering and jumping all up on the stage. Jon was up on a speaker jumping all over the place. He jumped down and cut a flip and the people stood a-hollering, “More, more,
Ass Pocket…”

PSF: That is one fine record.

RL: Ya think so. I didn’t think they was gonna like it, ya know. It’s got a lot of young people to coming to the shows. We done been on five tours and every place we been was sold-out but once. Every show but one.

PSF: That record really helped your career, with it selling so many records.

RL: Yeah, it sold well. That and the last one, Come on In. You heard that?

PSF: Yeah, I heard it. I was just going to ask you about it.

(Interrupted by one of the employees bringing RL a bottle of Old Grandad Whiskey. Part of his contractual agreement, ya know.)

RL: Well, well, well. Thank you, I mean spank you. (Laughter)

PSF: Back to Jon Spencer for a second. How did you music differ before Ass Pocket?

RL: He just asked the record company if we could open for him, ya know. And we just went out and opened for him two or three times before we did the album. But we’d be sitting back in the dressing room drinking and talking and I’d be telling them ol’ dirty stories. And that’s when he said, “RL, we need to make an album outta that, man.” And I said, “Oh man, ain’t nobody gonna buy that.” And he said “yeah they will. That’s what the people wanna hear.” But I hadn’t ever did nothing like that out in the public, ya know. And didn’t think it was gonna work but it went over really good.

PSF: Did ya’ll have a good time making that record? Did you drink any of that whiskey?

RL: What? A bunch of whiskey.

PSF: Did you turn Jon on to any of that local “home brew” down in Mississippi?

RL: Oh man, he drank home brew, corn whiskey and everything. He got so drunk one night he passed out in the yard asleep. I said, “where is Jon?” Had my son and my daughter out there looking for him. Couldn’t nobody find him. He come back in and they said he was out there curled up under a tree asleep. I said, Goddamn!

PSF: I want ask you a little bit about Come On In.

RL: Yeah that was the record companies’ idea. Which I didn’t think I was gonna like it but after they sent it and had it remixed, he asked me could they remix it, ya know. I said yeah. But I didn’t know what it was gonna sound like. But after I heard it, I love it.

PSF: So whose idea was it to do the remixes?

RL: The record companies’ idea.

(Interrupted by the same employee passing through.)

RL: You ain’t got no tomato juice do ya? I like to make me a Bloody Motherfucker, ya know. A lot of people like to drink a Bloody Mary. When I go to a bar they say, “don’t you mean a Bloody Mary?” And I say, “no I’d rather have a Bloody Motherfucker!” Tomato juice and Old Grandad. Cookin’ with gas now.

(I proceed to mix RL the first of many Bloody Motherfuckers.)

PSF: Did you actually work with Tom Rothrock, the guy who produced the record?

RL: Na-na. I never got a chance to meet him. He just made it and sent it.

PSF: Did you talk to him about it afterwards?

RL: I talked to him twice since it came out.

PSF: What do you think of the remixes? Was that any of your idea?

RL: No that was the record companies idea. They said, “RL, we oughta do something like we did with Jon Spencer.” And I said, “well, I don’t give a damn. Let’s do it.” And we went on and did it.

PSF: What kind of reaction have they fans of your music had?

RL: Well, its great. People love it. That and Ass Pocket have brought more crowds to the blues. They love it.

PSF: They should because it seems like you’re just trying to make people dance to the blues again.

RL: Yeah and that’s what they going by.

PSF: Has anyone been in touch with you about doing more records lately.

RL: They’ve been talking to me to see if I wanted to do another one. We was thinking about getting together to do another blues album, ya know. And we may do one of them on down the deal. I don’t know.

PSF: Did you get along good with Jon and the Blues Explosion?

RL: Yeah, them is good guys once you get to know ‘em. Like I told ‘em what they playing ain’t the blues but what they playing puts on a good show, man. And they play more like the blues now since I did that album with ‘em.

PSF: I really like your Mr. Wizard record too.

RL: It was selling good till these come out but it’s still selling.

PSF: My favorite song off that is “Alice Mae.” You gonna do that tonight?

RL: I might get around to it. I have to talk about Mama every once and a while, ya know.

PSF: “Georgia Women” is good too.

RL: Yeah. I don’t know, but I been told. They tell me they got a sweet jelly-roll.

PSF: Did you ever meet any of the old rock ‘n’ rollers like Chuck Berry?

RL: Yeah I met Chuck when he wasn’t popular. In the ’40’s when he was living in Chicago he was sleeping in his car, ya know. Couldn’t even pay for a room. I knowed him when I was up there for three years. I met him there.

PSF: Did he play with Muddy then?

RL: Yeah. He be up there playing with Muddy and on that stuff and he couldn’t even pay for a damn room. Sleeping in his damn car. Until they took his car. Then he didn’t have nowhere to sleep.

PSF: Do you have any rock influences? Or any rock bands you’d like to play with?

RL: Well no. Like I say I listen to a lot of they’re music but I always just stay with the blues. It’s all the roots of music. That’s where all the music started from, the blues. And we got to try to keep ‘em alive.

PSF: It seems like you guys are the last of a generation of blues musicians.

RL: That’s what I’m talking about. We got to try to keep it going. Don’t want it to end right now. There’s a lot of young people going back to the blues once they found out that the blues is the roots of all the music. They going back to the blues. It took ‘em a long time to find out where the music started from. But once they found that out its good now.

PSF: What gives the blues such staying power?

RL: The way people was treating it back in those olden days. That’s what the blues is all about. Working for the man, you couldn’t say nothing but you could sing about it, ya know. Couldn’t tell him what he done wrong.

PSF: Where are the blues heading as we go into the next century?

RL: They’re heading right now.

PSF: With you steering the ship?

RL: I’m steering it. And I’m gonna steer it right on down.

PSF: Did you ever get to meet Elvis Presley?

RL: Yeah. See I don’t live but about 20 miles below Graceland. We never played t together but I went to where he was playing. He was a good guy. He was doing the blues and he did it. Then he took the blues and made rock ‘n’ roll out of it. And he give an account of everything he did. He said this is so-and-so’s music. You know down in Birmingham, I can’t think of the guys name, but Elvis did one of his numbers. Had it on a record, ya know. He went down there where Elvis was playing and walked up and his car had quit on him on the highway. He bought him a brand new car. After he got done with his album, he bought him a brand new car. He would do things like that. He made 2 or 3 people down in Atlanta and Birmingham rich, ya know. He had been doing they’re music and they didn’t think they was gonna get nothing out of it. He went down and found ‘em and give ‘em some money. Bought ‘em homes and everything.

PSF: What you gonna open with tonight?

RL: Well, I reckon “Poor Black Mattie.” She ain’t got a change of clothes. Girl got drunk and throwed her clothes outdoors. That was cold, wasn’t it?

PSF: One last question. Can I buy you a drink?

RL: OK… I’ll take a Bloody Motherfucker.

I went to the movies over the weekend. The summer movie season in Korea is quiet uninteresting this year. By default, I went to check out a movie titled “The Skeleton Key.”

The story was boiler plate summer horror plot: Old house in the swamps of Louisiana. Creepy goings on. Mysterious and spooky black folk. A healthy dose of Hoodoo. And a few rather predictable plot twists.

It wasn’t a bad film. It provided a good way to kill a couple of hours. That having been said, this is one of, if not the only, movie I can think of where the soundtrack totally eclipsed the movie.

The soundtrack was laden very heavily with the blues. Old blues. Among the gems of the soundtrack that I could pick out were:

Robert Johnson’s “Come on in my Kitchen”
MIssissippi Fred McDowell’s “61 Highway Blues”
Some incredible slidework from Johnny Farmer, including “Death Letter”

The orchestration was typical horror at times, but a lot of it was single note acoustic and electric slide guitar work.

The only thing that struck me as odd was the inclusion of “Iko Iko” by The Dixie Cups at several points in the movie.

It was good to hear the old blues used in such prominence in a movie. During the past week I have had several discussions with people regarding the soundtrack to the movie. That has lead to longer conversations and long listening sessions with people who have never heard real blues music. I have really enjoyed sharing my love of the blues with new listeners.

I recommend seeing the movie, if for no other reason that to hear how the blues was intricately woven into the fabric of the movie.

As we approach the 15th Anniversary of the death of Stevie Ray Vaughan, we mark the passing of a blues legend who never really got the wide-spread respect and attention that he deserved. Milton Campbell (aka Little Milton) died this past week at the age of 70 following a stroke. To quote from Aaron Neville’s tribute to Stevie Ray, “Heaven done called another blues stringer back home.”

To hear a brief story on the death and life of Little Milton from NPR and a lengthy interview with Little Milton, vist the NPR page by clicking here.

Over his 50-year career, Little Milton wrote many songs that have become blues standards and classics such as the blues anthem, “The Blues is Alright” and “Little Bluebird.” He also wrote “We’re Gonna Make It”, a song that inspired me to keep going through law school when I was literally living 100% off of student loans, when food was scarce, amenities few and far between, and living in the middle of what I affectionately refer to as “Little Gang Land” in the Liberty Park area of Salt Lake City.

We’re Gonna Make It - Little Milton

We may not have a cent to pay the rent
But we’re gonna make it, I know we will
We may have to eat beans every day
But we’re gonna make it, I know we will
And if a job is hard to find
And we have to stand in the welfare line
I’ve got your love and you know you got mine
So we’re gonna make it, I know we will

We may not have a home to call our own
But we’re gonna make it, I know we will
We may have to fight hardships alone
But we’re gonna make it, I know we will
‘Cause togetherness brings peace of mind
We can’t stay down all the time
I’ve got your love and you know you got mine
So we’re gonna make it, I know we will

Our car may be old, our two rooms cold
But we’re gonna make it, I know we will
We may not can spare a roach a crumb
But we’re gonna make it, I know we will
And if I have to carry ’round a sign
Sayin’ “Help the deaf, the dumb, and the blind”
I got your love and you know you got mine
So we’re gonna make it, I know we will
We’re gonna make it

Who was Little Milton? The following biography is taken from his official website

He was born Milton Campbell in a modest sharecroppers home on the outskirts of Inverness, Mississippi, on September 7th 1934. As a child, he was drawn by a very popular radio shows of the day (and still is): The Grand Ole Opry. He found an early connection to Country and western music and later fused it with the other two predominant musical influences of the Mississippi Delta: Gospel & Blues. A youthful ?Little? Milton began studying what he heard and practiced; mastering songs and reciting them, no matter what the style or difficulty. By his early teens, he was performing in local clubs and bars across the Delta.

As Milton grew into a young man, he didn’t waste any time learning the ropes or absorbing all the musical possibilities that existed at the time. He played street corners, alleys, dives, you name it, carefully developing his craft and attracting the attention of established acts and local record labels. By the time Ike Turner introduced Milton to Sam Phillips of Sun Records in the early 50’s, he was a young but seasoned performer with a momentous live show that created a buzz in every town he played. His debut single Beggin My Baby was recorded and released at the same time Sam Phillips was molding the sound of another unknown talent from Mississippi: Elvis Presley.

After recording a series of sides at Sun without great fanfare, Milton moved to East St. Louis? Bobbin Records, where his recording career flourished. He also became Bobbin’s A&R chief and working partner to its owner, Bob Lyons. During this era, Milton signed such artists as Albert King and Fontella Bass to the label. Most importantly, he cut his own first hit, I’m A Lonely Man, in 1958.

Milton’s skyrocketing success soon drew the attention of Chess Records executives in Chicago, who signed him to Chess Checkers label and moved him north. Chess carried Little Milton from southern blues circuit fame to the national spotlight and to white audiences. Milton’s recordings realized only moderate chart success, until he cut We’re Gonna Make It, which hit No. 1 on Billboard magazines R&B singles chart in 1965. On the Checker label, he registered hits from 1962 through 1971 that would become American blues classics and staples of his live shows. His Checker recordings included Baby I Love You, If Walls Could Talk, Feel So Bad, Who’s Cheating Who? and the unforgettable Grits Ain’t Groceries. After the death of label founder Leonard Chess in 1969, the company eventually dissolved and Milton signed with Stax.

At Stax, he joined a virtual who?s who of influential black recording artist of the day including Isaac Hayes, Rufus & Carla Thomas, Booker T. & The M.G.’s, Albert King and, coincidentally, another future Malaco star, the late Johnnie Taylor. Milton?s legend only grew at Stax, where from 1971 through 1975, he stacked up more mega hits?including Walking The Back Streets and Cryin and That?s What Love Will Make You Do.

When Stax filed bankruptcy in 1975, Milton joined TK/Glades Records in Miami, then home to such artist as Betty Wright, K. C. & The Sunshine Band and Latimore. There, he racked up another charted hit, Friend of Mine. But the Glade label also went out of business. Consequently, in 1983, he released his only album for MCA, Age Ain’t Nothin But A Number. The title cut was an instant-charted hit.

In 1984, Little Milton united with Malaco Records and began the longest professional association of his career. He continued his exceptional vocal and guitar styles and quickly became one of Malaco’s biggest selling artists. He swept up such honors as the 1988 W. C. Handy Blues Entertainer of the Year Award and the 2000 Grammy award nomination. He also was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

Over the years, Malaco has released 14 of Little Milton’s albums, including the critically acclaimed, Billboard blues smash hit Cheatin Habit. Cheatin Habit followed his wildly successful Little Milton’s Greatest Hits compilation. Some of Little Milton’s Malaco cuts that have become American blues standards include Annie Mae’s Cafe, The Blues is Alright, Little Bluebird, Room 244, I Was Trying Not to Break Down, Catch You on Your Way Down, Murder on Your Hands, and Comeback Kind of Love.

The year 2001 marked a successful run of sold out shows in the United States and Europe and the release of Feel It. Malaco doubled back in September, 2002, with the release CD number 14, Guitar Man. It’s celebrated cuts include Guitar Man, Still Some Meat Left on this Bone, and Milton’s soulful rendition of My Way.

Little Milton will be missed.

My thanks to Joseph Steinberg for drawing my attention not only to the NPR page, but to the fact that Little Milton had passed on.

Perhaps the first blues artist I ever heard, other than bluesy stuff like George Thorogood and ZZ Top, was B.B. King. However, when I heard him I didn’t associate him with the blues. That is because I had no idea what blues was.

I remember hearing a song called “Nobody Loves Me But My Mother” that had the lyrics, “Nobody loves me but my mother / and she could be jivin’ too.” The lyrics were simultaneously hilarious and heart-rending. After getting to know the blues, I gained a deep appreciation for the simple, but definitely not simplistic, tones of B.B. King.

There was a recent story about B.B. King on CNN talking about his rise from a farm hand picking cotton and driving tractors so to King of the Blues. He also talked abou the lack of attention and respect for blues artists. The US$10,000,000 B.B. King Museum will be opening soon.

Here is the article from CNN:

INDIANOLA, Mississippi (AP) — Through his agile fingers, still soft despite decades of making love to the taut strings of his guitar, B.B. King becomes immersed in his music.

The high-pitched wail of the notes he coaxes out of the instrument, nicknamed Lucille, is salve to the soul of the nearly 80-year-old bluesman, who shows no signs of slowing down as he prepares to kick off a world tour this month in Holland.

It’s been a good year for King, named by Rolling Stone magazine as the third-greatest guitarist of all time. He’s recording a new album of duets with Elton John, Eric Clapton and Gloria Estefan, a memorabilia book bearing his name soon will be released, and he recently broke ground on the B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretative Center in this small Mississippi Delta town.

Yet King, acclaimed around the world, still laments what he believes is a lack of respect for blues music in America, where radio stations mostly play hip-hop, pop and rock.

“We get treated poorly,” he says. “I’m thinking about the younger ones, who are coming along today, not B.B. We’ve had several superstars, like the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, like the young Robert Cray, and they don’t get play. They don’t get exposed.”

Blues music is a historical form, inspiring rock guitarists such as Clapton and Jeff Beck, but radio stations don’t consider it as commercially viable as other genres, says Anthony DeCurtis, contributing editor of Rolling Stone.

“That certainly doesn’t mean it’s not significant. How much jazz gets played on the radio?” DeCurtis says.

Floyd Lieberman, King’s manager, says there’s been a slight resurgence of the blues with the advent of XM Satellite Radio, on which King serves as Mayor of Bluesville.

The blues channel has 4 million listeners, Lieberman says, but “Jackson, Mississippi, stations play more blues than New York. That’s the problem.”

‘I picked cotton. I drove tractors’
At his recent museum groundbreaking, King took a break from his fans, finding a comfortable chair to relax his hefty frame. Family and friends urged him to eat mini muffaletta sandwiches, broccoli and fruit to help control his diabetes.

King gently pushed the food aside; he wanted to talk.

He reminisced about his early years, working as a laborer on a cotton plantation in the heart of the Delta. And without a hint of bitterness, he explained how difficult life was back then for the man born Riley B. King on September 16, 1925.

“I was a regular hand when I was 7. I picked cotton. I drove tractors. Children grew up not thinking that this is what they must do. We thought this was the thing to do to help your family,” says King, who now lives in Nevada.

The interminably humble bluesman envisions his museum, to be located at the site of the brick cotton gin where he once worked, as a conduit for Delta youth trying to escape the cycle of poverty and illiteracy. Many in the community hold King up as the standard of success.

“In the Delta, they think he can walk on water,” says Carver Randle, one of King’s longtime friends.

As a young boy in the 1950s, Randle remembers seeing King drive his Cadillac around Indianola when the musician was in town visiting relatives.

“There was a time when nobody, black people or white people, cared for the blues. And in spite of that, B.B. stuck with the blues,” says Randle, now an attorney. “Anybody, whether they’re in politics, law or education, would do well to just emulate what B.B. has done.”

The museum, to be finished by 2007, will be a $10 million, 18,000-square-foot edifice, showcasing the various phases of King’s career with a state-of-the-art theater, a studio and artifacts. Organizers have raised about half the cost of the project through private donations, no small feat in town of about 12,000.

‘He doesn’t play a lot of notes’
King’s long career took off in 1948 after he performed on a radio program on KWEM out of West Memphis. He’s been cutting tracks ever since, with perhaps the best-known being “The Thrill Is Gone” in 1970 or “Three O’clock Blues” in 1951.

In 2000, he collaborated with Clapton to record “Riding With the King.”

He’s made countless appearances in Europe, where he says the people have long memories.

“Tunes that we made many years ago, they know them today. They don’t belittle you because you sing gospel or you sing blues. We get that at home sometimes,” he says, moments before a group of fans from France had their picture taken with him.

Blues music was born out of the hardships of black people, who sang as they worked on cotton plantations in the Mississippi Delta. King’s single-note playing style sets him apart from other musicians, DeCurtis says.

“B.B. has a very specific kind of style, very lyrical. He doesn’t play a lot of notes. In a slow blues arrangement, you can really hear the kind of elegance of his playing. He’s not down and dirty,” DeCurtis says.

King plays about 150 dates a year, but it’s not because he needs the money.

“He hasn’t had to work since he was 65 years old,” says Lieberman, King’s manager for 41 years. “He’s financially sound.”

Lieberman says the upcoming duets album, to be released prior to King’s birthday, won’t all be blues songs, but King doesn’t believe that should be interpreted as infidelity.

“Who said I’m supposed to do nothing but traditional blues music?” King says. “Blues players like to hear other things like other people.”

The 15th anniversary of the death of blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan is a little more than one month away.  My intention was to write something about SRV around the anniversary of his death.  However, I have been listening to SRV and watching him on DVD for the past five days virtually non-stop.   Thus, his life and music have been on my mind. 

There has been so much written about Stevie Ray Vaughan in print and on the net.  Typing his name into Google returns 190,000 hits.  I could say nothing about him that has hasn’t been said before by other, more knowledgeable, people.  Because of that, I wish to share my thoughts and impressions about him and his music.

I knew of Jimmie Vaughan, the leader of The Fabulous Thunderbirds band. I don’t know when I first heard the name Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimmie’s younger brother.  I do, however, remember when i first became fully aware of Stevie Ray.  It was August 27, 1990, just two months after returning from my first time living in Korea.  Unfortunately, that was the day of Stevie Ray’s death.

I clearly remember all of my guitar-playing friends being quite surprised, shocked and amazed that he had died in a helicopter accident.  I remember seeing pictures of the wreckage and news stories on TV.  To me, it was only a passing news story about a musician I was not acquainted with.

I had missed the SRV heyday.  Although SRV began to make a national and international name for himself with his big break in 1982, I didn’t get turned onto the blues until 1986, the year that SRV went into rehab for a drug and alcohol addiction.  Even then, my interest in the blues was limited to the early acoustic blues of the 30s, 40s, and 50s.  Although I had seen SRV tapes and discs available, I didn’t listen to them because I wasn’t interested in modern electric blues.  Then I was isolated from the blues from July 1988 through June 1990.  Two months later SRV was gone.

Due to other extended stays in Korea, law school, and other things in my life explained in other postings I didn’t get interested in or caught up in Stevie Ray’s music until much later.

During my second stay in Korea from 1991 and 1992, I had discovered Johnny Winter.  As with SRV, I had seen his music, but never took the opportunity to listen to it.  Johnny Winter’s screaming electric blues sucked me in.  The feeling of the Texas Blues, the lightning fast licks, and the powerful slide of Johnny Winter were incredibly intense.  I was instantly hooked.

Later, when I finally got around to hearing Stevie Ray Vaughan, I felt a lot of the same feelings and had a lot of the same impressions that I had listening to Johnny Winter.  I was amazed by the same Texas Blues feeling, the speed, the intensity, the prowess, the intimate knowledge of the fretboard, and the musical flair of Stevie Ray.  I was also interested to note the many similarities between them such as both being hard and fast electric blues-playing white boys from Texas with musical and successful brothers.  They even shared the same bass player, legendary bassist Tommy Shannon.  Shannon, who knew SRV since SRV was 14 years old and played with him for several years until SRV’s death, had also played bass for Johnny Winter in the late 60S.

It was then that I started to backtrack through Stevie Ray Vaughan’s musical career and background to find out who and what he was. One of the first things I discovered was that he had provided the lead guitar tracks for David Bowie’s album Let’s Dance, including the hit songs, “Let’s Dance” and “China Girl”.

Simply listening to his music, you can hear that SRV is a great guitarist.  I was thoroughly impressed by his talent.  However, to only hear SRV and Double Trouble play is to miss out on an important aspect of the musical experience, and that is the visual element.

It is not uncommon to hear people say that concerts are a waste of money because you can spend half as much on the CD and sit home and hear the same songs in a quieter, more listener-friendly environment and the CD performance is better than live anyway.  While this may be the case in a few instances, it is generally not true.  Listening to audio only can be a satisfying and fulfilling experience, but attending a live concert where you get the sights, sounds, smells, psychology, and vibe of the audience and can see the intensity, effort, and body language of the musicians can be a transcendent experience.

It wasn’t until I obtained the DVD “Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble Live at Montreux 1982 & 1985″ that I because truly awed by Stevie Ray.  I had heard it said several times that SRV played every piece of music as if his life depended on it.  Watching the DVD, I saw that people people said such things because it was true.  He did, indeed, play every piece as if his life depended on it.  The absolutely raw and intense emotion he poured into and pulled out of his guitar is breathtaking.  He never gave up or lessened his intensity regardless of how long he played.  Literally soaked in sweat, near the end of a performance, he is still slamming the strings, bending the strings as fast and far, shimmying across the stage as continuously, and growling as loudly as he did at the beginning.

This awe of SRV as a performer and my never-to-be-humble opinion of him as one of the greatest guitarists ever to have lived is not limited to lowly blues musicians such as myself and die-hard fans.  This sentiment was shared by his peers as well as those who came before and went after.  Here are a few comments about Stevie Ray Vaughan from three blues guitarists who are legendary in their own rights:

Jimmie Vaughan:

If you’re a guitar player, or a jazz musician, or any kind of musician that plays from the heart that kind of music, it’s sort of like a radio.  You’ve got to tune it in.  But once you get it on the station, you just sort of receive it.  He could go to that place when he was playing on stage. He would walk out on stage, pick up the guitar, and within a couple of songs, just go to that place where he was receiving inspiration…And that’s not easy to do.

B.B. King:

You stop and think, “My God!  Listen to this guy play!” His Hands! — They seemed to be flawless the way he moved with it.  When I play, I play sort of like talking.  Syllables.  You say a sentence here, a sentence there.  And then I’ve got to stop and think of something else to keep my conversation going.  Be he didn’t seem to be doing that at all. It was fluent.  He flowed when he played….It would just go on and on, and ideas continuously flowed.  I don’t have that.

Eric Clapton:

About three or four times in my life…in a car listening to the radio, where I’ve stopped the car, pulled over and listened, and thought “I’ve got to find out, before the end of the day…not sooner or later… but I have to know NOW who that is”….He never ever seemed to be lost in any way.  It wasn’t ever that he took a breather, or paused to think where he was going to go next.  It just flowed out of him.  It always seemed to flow out of him…

He seemed to be an open channel and it just flowed through him…I sometimes stop every now and then I stop and think, “What am I going to do now” or “I don’t want to repeat myself.”  So I’ll get caught up somehow.  You freeze.  You kind of freeze. Most players do, and I never saw him do that.  He was a channel in some way…

When we were at Alpine Valley [The concert after which SRV was killed].  I couldn’t let myself [surrender completely to his music].  I had to put up a bit of resistance in order to keep my own self-esteem up. Because I wouldn’t have been able to go on otherwise.  I’m not joking!  To have been completely absorbed by what he was doing, I would have thought “What’s the point?” and done a runner, cleared off, run away.

Praise like that could easily go to your head.  During my five years as a radio DJ at some of the top stations in Northern Utah, I attended an unbelievable number of concerts and met many top recording stars of the late 1980S. They ran the gamut from humble, grateful, appreciative artists who realized they were blessed to some of the most self-centered, arrogant people I have ever met.  From everything I have ever read about Stevie Ray, he never lost site of who he was, where he came from, and who came before him.  He appears to me to have be a real human’s human.

He may have been a little too human. Like many great musicians and others, he fell into the trap of alcohol and drugs.  These vices very nearly killed both Stevie Ray and his bassist Tommy Shannon.

Thankfully, Stevie Ray and Tommy Shannon entered treatment on the same day in 1986, thus saving the lives of two great musicians.  Unfortunately, Stevie Ray was preserved for only four more years.  How he used those remaining years to affect the lives of others both through his music and outside of his music is a testament to the heart of a real human being.

One of the most moving statements I have read about Stevie Ray’s last few years was a letter written by Tommy Shannon in October 1996.  The letter can be found on Tommy Shannon’s website at tommyshannon.com.  The full text of the letter reads:

October 3, 1996

My name is Tommy Shannon. I would like to share a brief letter with you about my friend Stevie Ray Vaughan.

I have known Stevie since he was fourteen years old. That’s a long time. There is no way I can say everything I would like to in this letter. However, I would like to share with you what kind of person Stevie was. The books and articles written about him focused mostly on his guitar playing. They never talked much about the depth and beauty of his spirit.

Like I said, I have known Stevie since he was a kid. We became friends then. About a year after I met Stevie, we played in a band called, “Blackbird,” and then later in a band called, “Kracker Jack.” Then, in 1981, I joined him in Double Trouble.

About Stevie:

First of all, I have to say Stevie Ray Vaughan was not perfect. He was a human being like you and I. He had problems just like everyone else. He had to work on those problems like anyone who has the courage to try and live a spiritual life. It’s not easy. Many people dare not to choose that path. It means letting go of an old self and by the grace of God becoming our true selves: that which we were meant to be all along. I do not want to sound like I am preaching. I’m not qualified to do that. However, to write about Stevie and who he really is, I have to write about spirituality.

Stevie is the best friend I have ever known. We shared things with each other that no one will ever know. While I was playing with him in Double Trouble, I lived with him and his wife, Lenny (until I got married). While we were on the road, we always had adjoining rooms, so we could always be in touch. I love him so much, it can not be put into words.

Stevie and I went through a lot of changes together. When we were much younger, (before Double Trouble) we had no money. Sometimes we went without food, and other things we needed. However, we didn’t mind this much. We were playing music…that seemed to be the only thing that mattered.

About my nine years with Double Trouble:

During the first few years, Stevie and I were doing a lot of drugs and alcohol. For a long time, we were having a lot of fun. Sex, Drugs, and Rock n’ Roll…that’s how we lived. Eventually, things got worse. Our personal lives, and our relationships with others kept getting worse, and worse. We reached a point where we knew we were in deep trouble. The truth is, at that time we couldn’t stop. There was no human power that could help us. Our friends tried to help, but they couldn’t. I will always remember one night, we got down on our knees and prayed for help. There was no instant answer. We continued getting high. Was that prayer unanswered because we kept using?

That prayer was answered in the most profound way. That prayer was the turning point of our lives. We had to continue doing what we were doing until the pain became too hard to bear. We were broken inside. First Stevie, and then myself. We had no power, nothing to stand upon. We were beaten. However, that was the best thing that ever happened to us. Even that suffering was a gift from God. We had to reach the bottom, before we could be open to God’s grace.

On October 13, 1986, we checked ourselves into treatment…Stevie in Atlanta, and me here in Austin. After that, we started in a program in which we worked on twelve steps which transformed our lives. I watched Stevie grow and change. Stevie was always kind and helpful to others. Whenever he had a chance to help someone else who was suffering what he had suffered, he was there. His eyes would light up and you could see his love and sincerity.

Stevie helped more people get clean and sober than anyone I know. So many people were blessed by his life. So was I blessed by his life.

All of you reading this know how beautiful his music was, how great his talent. I wish you could have known him, I really do…because his spirit was even more beautiful. He was humble, yet strong. All of Stevie’s life he wanted to do the right thing. Even when he was still using drugs and alcohol, he wanted to do the right things. He was always that way.

I believe that if Stevie could speak to you right now, he would say:

“Take care of each other. Learn to love. Turn to God. He has all power. No matter how bad your condition is, he can and will change it…if you let him. Have faith, no matter what.”

On October 13th, 1996, I will have ten years of living clean and sober.  Each year, in the program, we celebrate by picking up a chip (or medallion) with the number of years of sobriety on it. Stevie had four years of sobriety when he died. Each year, when I pick up my chip, I also pick one up for Stevie. I will do so this year also, and I will do so for as long as I stay sober. When I pick up these chips, I always talk about, and to Stevie.

In closing this letter, I would like to say that Chris Layton and myself are doing fine. We are playing in a band called “Storyville.” We just released a record on the Code Blue/Atlantic label, entitled, “A Piece of Your Soul.” Also, I would like to say Chris is a wonderful person. Stevie loved him as much as any friend. We were all like family. That also includes Reese.

I would like to thank Martha Vaughan, Stevie’s wonderful mother. In her, I see where Stevie’s gifts come from. I have no doubt that she lives in the spirit of God. I have never known anyone with more strength and faith.

I would also like to thank Jimmie Vaughan. Without him, Stevie would never have become what he was. Jimmie was Stevie’s biggest influence, and his biggest inspiration.

Thank you, Beverly Howell, for asking me to write this letter. There will be more in the future.

God Bless, and thank you,

Tommy

Although it took a decade or more longer for me than it did for others, I finally came to understand the shock and sadness at the loss of Stevie Ray Vaughan.

I will never be able to play anything like SRV played.  I will never come close.  I take comfort in knowing that his legacy as an icon will be preserved because no one else can or will play like him.

I recently obtained another DVD titled “A Tribute To Stevie Ray Vaughan.”  That DVD contains a song written by Aaron Neville titled “Six Strings Down” performed live by blues and jazz greats Jimmie Vaughan, Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, Robert Cray, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Dr. John, and Aaron Neville.

As I watched and listened to Jimmie Vaughan’s smooth vocals launch into the incredibly touching song about his six-string guitar-playing brother’s tragic death in a downed helicopter after a concert at Alpine Valley in August 1990, backed up by Clapton and Guy, who were also at that last SRV concert, and other great musicians, I did something that I have not done while listening to music in a long time.   I cried.

I choke up now, just reading the lyrics to that song.  They lyrics are:

Six Strings Down - by Art Neville

Alpine valley
In the middle of the night
Six strings down
On the heaven-bound flight

Got a pick, a strap, guitar on his back
Ain’t gonna cut the angels no slack
Heaven done called
Another blues-stringer back home

See the voodoo chile
Holding out his hand
I’ve been waitin’ on you brother
Welcome to the band

Good blues-stringin’
Heaven-fine singin’
Jesus, Mary and Joseph
Been lis’nin’ to your playin’

Heaven done called
Another blues-stringer back home
Lord they called
Another blues-stringer back home

Albert Collins up there
Muddy an’ Lightnin’ too
Albert King and Freddy
Playin’ the blues

T-Bone Walker, Guitar Slim
Little Son Jackson and
Frankie Lee Sims

Heaven done called
Another blues-stringer back home
Lord they called
Another blues-stringer back home

During the next year or so, I caught every performance by Harry Harpoon that I possibly could. I enjoyed every moment of the performances. I made a few more halfhearted attempts at playing the guitar, but nothing ever came of it.

In 1993, I moved to Salt Lake to begin law school. With law school and family obligations I gave up thinking about the guitar. It was about that time my brother hooked me up with the BMG CD club. I joined the classical music program and began collecting classical music CDs. I didn’t listen to or even really think about the blues for a couple of years.

There was a small music shop two doors down from my apartment. During my third year of law school, I looked into the window of the store for the first time in the more than two years I lived next to the shop. When I looked into the window of the shop, I saw a shiny, new, metal resonator guitar hanging on the wall. I stared and felt the musical beast within me starting to stir.

I entered the shop and spoke with the owner of the shop. We talked about the resonator guitar. We talked about the blues. The blues hunger was back. I picked up a beginning blues book and cassette. I played diligently for about three days. But my sore fingers, musical clumsiness from being out of musical condition for so long, and my lack of time contributed to yet another failed attempt at playing the guitar.

I didn’t pick up the guitar again for a very, very long time. I finished law school, took the bar exam, and moved to Korea. I got caught up with my new job at the law firm. I kept promising myself that I would start playing the guitar as soon as I had enough money and time to start again. That never happened. I never seemed to find the time or the money for a new acoustic guitar.

A little more than a year ago in the late spring of 2004, I suddenly had a thought. I am a successful, 34 year old international lawyer. I have money. I will never have more time than I have now. Why not start playing guitar seriously.

I went searching for a new guitar. Through a few people I know and a few connections, I was turned on to my new baby:

I named her Arlene. Arlene is a temperamental broad with a wicked personality. She can be a nasty, ornery, scratchy beast one minute and sing the sweetest lullabies imaginable the next. A girl like that could only be named after…my mother, Arlene.

I picked up a few books on the blues, set aside an hour or so each night, and began to play the blues. Now here I am, 13 months later. Having the time of my life.

I returned to the United States from Korean in July 1990. During my two years in Korea I had stopped playing guitar all together. Due to the lack of blues available in Korea, I had also stopped listening to blues.

Once I was back home, I made a few half-hearted attempts to pick up the guitar and start playing again. However, I had become occupied with college life and didn’t take playing the guitar seriously. I would play for a few days or a week on my classical or electric guitar, but I would become dismayed at the lack of instant progress and the pain of blisters on all of my fingers. Eventually, I gave up the pretense of playing and let my guitars collect dust.

During that time, and shortly after my return from Korea, I felt the urge to do some volunteer work. I drifted into the Helpline crisis intervention hotline at Utah State University. It was there that I met Jaynan Chancellor, the Helpline Director. At then end of that summer, I began my second year of university. It was during my sophomore year that I had the opportunity to return to Korea as an exchange student for a little more than one year. I went to Korea in June of 1991 and returned in August 1992.

During my second time in Korea I accidentally stumbled onto a few Johnny Winter albums in a local department store. I asked the clerk to make a copy of the albums onto cassettes (You could do that back then in Korea). When I picked up the tapes, the clerk had thrown in a Gary Moore tape as a bonus. I can’t count the number of times that I listened to those tapes.

When I finished my second time in Korea and went back home, I started volunteering at Helpline again. It was during that Summer, the Summer of 1992 that Jaynan and her husband Russ, an artist and mountain man recreationist, introduced me to other mountain man types such as “Weird Harold” and his wife. One night, Russ and Weird said that there was going to be someone performing at the White Owl bar that I should see. They said he was a good blues musician.

We went down to the Owl, ordered up some killer burgers and pickles made in jalapeno juice. That’s when he came it. A tall, well-built guy with a goatee and a long braided pony tail. He was wearing a buckskin shirt. He laid out several harmonicas and hooked up a microphone. It turned out that he was a friend of Weird Harold’s and an acquaintance of the Chancellors from various mountain man rendezvous. We were sitting the front table nearest where he would perform. He sat down at our table. That is when I was first introduced to:

When it was time to begin his first set, Harry Harpoon opened his guitar case and took out his guitar. Suddenly, the world stood still. I was transfixed. Harry was holding the most incredibly sexy-looking instrument that I had ever seen. It was what appeared to be a guitar made of polished solid steel with a funky inverted dish on the front. I had never seen anything like it.

I was literally left speechless as Harry picked the first notes on that guitar. It is impossible to describe the tone of that thing other than to say it was crisp, clean, metallic, and loud as hell. That was my first introduction to National resonator guitars. I had heard that sound before on some of my blues recordings, but I had no idea what was making that noise. Then I knew. And I knew I was in love.

I listened to a couple of sets including such songs as a particularly devilish tune about Juan Corona and one about a woman of negotiable affections. After the second set, while we were sitting around the table talking, I thought I would throw out a request to Harry and show off a bit of classic blues knowledge to impress him. I reached all the way back to the early blues of Robert Johnson.

“Hey,” I said, “Can you do ‘Hellhounds On My Trail?”

“No. I won’t,” Harry replied.

By the time the final set finished, I was taken by Harry Harpoon’s music. His deep, resonant baritone sang everything from scratchy, gut-bucket blues, to “She’ll be Comin’ Round the Mountain.” He played an incredibly mean guitar. However, when he began blowing harp, he was absolutely mesmerizing. He reached an altogether different plane when during one song he simultaneously played guitar, sang, played harmonica, and played a drum.

When it was made known to people at the table that Harry needed a place to sleep for the evening, my roommate, Courtney, and I jumped at the chance to have Harry over to our apartment. I wanted to hear more about the music he was playing. Courtney wanted him over because he was a rugged, rakishly handsome guy.

After getting to the apartment, Harry settled into a bottle of Meyer’s Dark Jamaican Rum. I put an old Lonnie Johnson tape, one that I had copied from Carl Hart. As we talked, Harry talked about some of the frustrating experiences he has had with guests. At one point, he talked about an experience he had earlier that evening.

“Some jerk,” Harry bemoaned, “actually asked me to play ‘Hellhounds on My Trail’. That loser just had no clue. Some people just don’t get it.”

“yeah. Some people just don’t get it,” I echoed.

I never to Harry that the loser that night was me. Harry was right. I just didn’t get the blues. I knew the emotions that the blues could create in me. I knew how the blues could make me feel when I listened to the music. What I came to understand much later was that I was clueless when it came to the feelings that could be raised while playing the blues. I didn’t know where playing the blues came from. I thought I was clever and knowledgeable. I didn’t know anything.

In addition to introducing me to resonator guitars, and rekindling my desire to listen to the blues. Harry taught me so much with just a few sentences. Unfortunately, it took me about 12 years to learn the lessons.

On my 16th birthday, I did two things. I got my car and motorcycle driver’s license and I got a job bagging groceries at Albertson’s supermarket.

This was about the same time I began to realize that classical guitar is not a big thriller at normal parties attended by normal people. People don’t hold aloft their lighters and demand to hear a hit song form 1584. People would pluck out some lame, three-chord song by Foreigner and others would sing, smile, clap and call for more. I would play Greensleeves beautifully and there would be no sounds other than crickets chirping and tumbleweeds blowing by.

As I got to know one of the checkers (cashiers) at Albertson’s, Joe Maki, I learned that Joe was a guitar player. I would go to his renovated garage apartment and listen to him put on an album and play lead guitar along with the song. That was cool. That gets girls. That is what I thought I wanted to do. I wanted an amplifier. I wanted rock music. I wanted to be a crowd pleaser.

I talked to Joe about this. He suggested that I get an electric guitar and start going with it. It turned out that he had one he was willing to sell. We discussed it a bit further and I ended up purchasing a beautiful Ibanez guitar that was a shameless ripoff of a Gibson Les Paul Sunburst. This was my first electric guitar. Here she is:

20 years later (and 30 years after manufacture), she is still in beautiful condition. All original turning heads, knobs, pickups, etc. Everything is just as she was when Joe let the Old Lady go for $220. The only thing that has changed is that she was rewired a few months ago to replace some old wires. I wonder if Joe misses her. I never would have parted with this great guitar. I know Joe regrets selling her, because he told me so a few years later. I just wonder how much he misses her.

I was now armed with an electric guitar. I bought a $30 Gorilla amp to complete my electric set up. There were a few problems. Joe could play by ear. I couldn’t. I could not just listen to something and figure out how to play it. I had been classically trained and sat through years of musical theory. I was locked into the rigidity of classical music. Also, I had no music.

I solved the musical problem by going out and buying some sheet music for songs from Toto, ELO, Chris De Burgh, and others. However, I lacked someone to show me what to do. I lacked guidance. Thus, I became frustrated with the world of electric guitar. I didn’t play nearly as much as I could have or should have.

I was torn between two worlds, classical and rock. My classical guitar was suffering because I was distracted, and my rock guitar wasn’t doing anything at all becuase I had no idea what I was doing.

As I neared my 17th birthday, I was in a good situation. I was working full time as an overnight DJ at KVNU/KVFM radio stations. One of the perks we got from the station was free movies at a local theater chain. My best friend, Bill Hugo, worked as a ticket taker/projectionist at the same movie theater chain and also got free movies. Thus, it was free movies every day. It wasn’t too long before I met the other ticket taker/projectionist, Carl Hart. Little did I know the impact that meeting would have on all aspects of my life.

Carl was sharp, witty, intelligent, sarcastic, and great fun to be around. One day, i got a good look at his hands and was struck by his immaculate fingernails. That was the first hint that he was a guitar player. The second inkling I had that Carl was a guitar player was when a solid brass guitar pick fell out of his pocket at the theater one day.

Soon, I was over at Carl’s house. Looking at his beautiful vintage tweed tube amp and hearing the sweet distorted sounds and the cool, smooth clean sounds produced by that amp. I was intrigued at the loud, sharp sounds produced by the brass pick. After listening to Carl hammer out a few tunes, he suggested that we listened to some other music.

Carl introduced me to the new sounds of an unknown group called the Replacements and some no-name group called REM. Both bands would hit it big several years later and they would both sell their unique alternative styles for mass popularity and big dollars. After listening to this music for a couple of hours he suggested listening to something that he said was “a bit more wild.”

Then it happened. He put in a tape of a very old recording of something. The music had an unusual guitar rhythm, a driving, rousing harmonica, and some guy hollering, wailing, hooting and making other unusual noises between singing and playing the harmonica. I was instantly spellbound. I had never heard anything like that. Something was moving in me. I couldn’t sit still. I want to know what was and what they were doing.

“What the hell is that,” I asked. Carl said, “that is Sonny Terry on “Whoopin’ The Blues.”

The rest is history.

I left his house with tapes of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, and others. I ate it up. This music was talking to me. It was communicating with my soul. I wanted more. I wanted to play that.

Talking more with Carl, I learned that he played blues guitar. He invited me to bring my guitar over to his place for some instruction.

We sat down for a few sessions of learning the basic blues scales and some shuffles Carl had scratched out on a piece of paper.

That was also the year that the movie “Crossroads” came out. I was enthralled with the soundtrack, through which I was introduced to Steve Vai and Ry Cooder.

I was definitely taken with the blues. The blues had got a hold on me. The raw emotional sounds of the blues, the freedom of movement and meter in the music were awesome and new to me.

Because of my strict piano and guitar training, the years and years of listening to metronomes tick off the beats, and the proddings of “COUNT! COUNT!” from my teachers made me totally unready and unable to deal with playing from my heart, playing what I felt, toying with notes and time signatures, and other beautiful aspects of the blues. I couldn’t play the blues, but I knew that I couldn’t play classical guitar anymore. My heart just wasn’t into it any longer.

I quit taking guitar lessons and started looking for more blues. At that time, there was precious little going on in the world of blues. Old recordings weren’t available, and about the only current blues music available in Logan, Utah was Stevie Ray Vaughn and a few Johnny Winter records. I listened to what I could.

On a side note, Carl and I would have wide-ranging discussions on a huge variety of subjects. At one point, Carl went down with appendicitis, I rode my motorcycle to the hospital to visit him. During that lengthy visit, we got talking about something that led him to comment on my motorcycle and then to recommend that I read a book called “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert Pirsig.

Not having anything else to read at that time, i bought the book. I couldn’t put it down. It hooked me. It was truly a life-changing book for me. Not only did it cause me look at life a little differently. but also, because of that book, I decided to major in philosophy at university.

As another year rolled around I took off, to Korea in 1988 at the age of 19 to spend two years as a missionary, Carl got married during that time and moved away, and we never hooked up again.

Carl Hart is singlehandedly responsible for turning me onto the blues, ruining playing classical guitar, introducing me to a fascinating and life-changing field of study. I am grateful to Carl for all of those things, but in particular for the gift of the blues. If you are ever in the Northern Utah area look for Carl and the rest of The Fender Benders band.

After my return from Korea I met another person that would impact my journey to the blues, Harry Harpoon.