It's All About The Music
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I heard legend Steve “Guitar” Miller on July 14th at St Michelle in Woodinville along with 4,250 other fans, during his latest international tour. I first listened to The Steve Miller Band in the afterglow of the “Summer of Love” in 1969 and bought every album since. He help pioneer the transition from blues to rock and roll and wrestle the musical ownership back from the British Invasion to where it belonged. Steve’s 2010 itinerary has taken him from Mississippi to Florida, California to Washington and all points in between. On this current tour Steve also plays in Canada, the UK, Belgium, Italy, France, Germany and the Netherlands. At 67 years young, he’s still a hardworking man. Steve was lavishly featured front page on two publications lately, the prestigious Vintage Guitar and Guitar Player. On tour to tout his newest CD to sold-out shows, he’s firing on all cylinders. I went with well-known pickup industry artists, Jason and Stephanie Lollar, to deliver some pickups, hear his sound check, and interview him in his RV. Miller recently released an all blues effort BINGO! and I wanted to share some of the latest blues news from The Steve Miller Band.
BINGO! is full of vintage Steve Miller sound, fat and sweet toned. His voice is reminiscent of his earlier recordings and the signature licks are spot on. It has covers of some new songs, nails some old standards and has a host of great artists with these sessions. Expertly engineered and produced with superb fidelity at Lucas Films’ Skywalker Ranch on analog by Andy Johns (he engineered Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street, Led Zeppelin II, III and IV among others) who is the younger brother of famous Olympic Studios engineer Glyn (who also engineered Miller’s Children of the Future, Brave New World and Sailor), BINGO! is an excellent CD. BINGO! is by far and wide the best all blues CD to come out this year! It’s full of happy, driving, up-beat music. Featuring the powerfull-o’soul vocals of Sonny Charles with harmonies from Norton Buffalo, Steve, Kenny Lewis, Joseph Wooten, and Billy Peterson and Norton’s classic harp, it is rockin’ blues at its FINEST! Norton Buffalo performed with The Steve Miller Band for over 32 years and passed away last year from lung cancer. BINGO! was his last contributing effort and was dedicated to him. I never tire of listening to it especially at high volume! It is very hard to pick a favorite from a CD so full of them, but the Jimmie Vaughan cover “Sweet Soul Vibe” with its complicated Holmes Brothers-like harmonies and Steve’s signature lead is my pick of this pack.
BINGO! is full of vintage Steve Miller sound, fat and sweet toned. His voice is reminiscent of his earlier recordings and the signature licks are spot on. It has covers of some new songs, nails some old standards and has a host of great artists with these sessions. Expertly engineered and produced with superb fidelity at Lucas Films’ Skywalker Ranch on analog by Andy Johns (he engineered Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street, Led Zeppelin II, III and IV among others) who is the younger brother of famous Olympic Studios engineer Glyn (who also engineered Miller’s Children of the Future, Brave New World and Sailor), BINGO! is an excellent CD. BINGO! is by far and wide the best all blues CD to come out this year! It’s full of happy, driving, up-beat music. Featuring the powerfull-o’soul vocals of Sonny Charles with harmonies from Norton Buffalo, Steve, Kenny Lewis, Joseph Wooten, and Billy Peterson and Norton’s classic harp, it is rockin’ blues at its FINEST! Norton Buffalo performed with The Steve Miller Band for over 32 years and passed away last year from lung cancer. BINGO! was his last contributing effort and was dedicated to him. I never tire of listening to it especially at high volume! It is very hard to pick a favorite from a CD so full of them, but the Jimmie Vaughan cover “Sweet Soul Vibe” with its complicated Holmes Brothers-like harmonies and Steve’s signature lead is my pick of this pack.
The early establishment of Steve Miller’s enormous talent has been the subject of many writers. He was given credit for “being the image of the “guitar god” before Stevie Ray Vaughan appeared on the scene”. In the book Escaping the Delta by Elijah Wald, Steve Miller was mentioned along with Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Mike Bloomfield and Jimi Hendrix for setting a standard in the ‘60’s which has been rarely bested.
One of the original Steve Miller Band members, Pacific Northwest Blues in the Schools founder James “Curley” Cook, lives in Seattle and has played at Bad Albert’s in Ballard for more than a decade. Steve also has a home in Washington State. Steve started out mentored by none other than Les Paul, and Texas Blues great T-Bone Walker, and by age 14, Steve was backing up T-Bone in a Dallas Texas nightclub, Lou-Anne’s. Before moving to Chicago in the early 60’s, he had many small bands that worked constantly. He played with the all-time giants of Chicago blues before moving to San Francisco in the mid-sixties to form the group that Curley joined The Steve Miller Blues Band. Playing with the same cats in the Bay Area as he did in Chicago, but for legendary promoter Bill Graham at the Fillmore, his career sky-rocketed. He dropped one word in his band title and the rest, as they say, was history. Hit after hit kept us entertained and devoted to his music for decades. Knowing some of his world class pedigree, I wanted to learn about Steve’s blues influences. I had only two carefully crafted questions ready, The Space Cowboy gave me and blues readers a generous insight to his past and future.
THE INTERVIEW WITH STEVE MILLER
Rocky: Welcome back!
Steve Miller: Good to be back! I love playing here too.
Rocky: Thank you so much for allowing the Washington Blues Society to take a little of your time. My first question concerns your blues roots. Many European fans I have talked to are interested in your history with America’s great blues musicians. Your Godfather is Les Paul, and as a very young man, you played with T-Bone Walker. That’s some pretty heavy stuff. When your folks finally cut you loose, you headed up to Chicago and you ended up playing with Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters. What was it like working with both of those blues giants so early in your career?
Steve Miller: The situation was their careers were pretty much over, they had their hit records and blues was going out of fashion and quickly. James Brown and people like that had moved in. Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters were playing in five clubs in Chicago. There was the Blue Flame, Pepper’s lounge, Sylvio’s, Big John’s and Club Melody. They just rotated between those five clubs. When I got to Chicago and put my band together I competed with Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf or James Cotton for these club dates. There wasn’t a lot of blues bands around. There was (Paul) Butterfield and he had Big John’s wrapped up and whenever Butterfield left, Muddy would come in, or then Howlin’ Wolf. It was great because it was a room that held like 90 people and you could just sit and listen to muddy waters and Otis Spann was playing piano or James Cotton or Buddy Guy was there. They played from nine at night ‘til four in the morning. Otis Rush was there and Otis was the first guy who took notice of me and he was really sweet to me. If I walked into a club and Otis was playing, he would ask me to come up and hand me his guitar and he would just sit and I play guitar with him. Wolf and I became pretty good friends, he was really, really special. I got to hear these guys play and it was like, WOW! For me I had grown up in Texas and T-Bone Walker taught me how to play and I was nine years old. Here, let me give you the recordings my dad made in 1951 when T-Bone would come over to the house and play. (Steve hands me a CD of those rare first recordings)
Rocky: Thank you sir. Could you put your life’s history into some kind of chronological order for our readers?
Steve Miller: I come from a musical family. My uncle was with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra and he played hot jazz violin. Another uncle was a guitar player. Another uncle was a banjo player. They played in bands during the Depression. When the Depression got too deep they all stopped playing, went to medical school and became doctors. My mother was a singer, my father was a tape recorder nut and he was a pathologist. There weren’t many pathologists back then. They were pretty esoteric kinda hipsters. We had gotten to know Les Paul and Les married Mary Ford. They married while they were hanging out with my parents. My mother was their maid of honor and my father was the best man. They spent their honeymoon at our house. I saw them putting their act together. They came to Milwaukee where I lived and worked a supper club called Jimmy Fazio’s, and my dad took me down there. He brought his Magnacorder which was like something from outer space. The Germans had invented tape recorders and how he got it I never knew but he got one and took it to Les and said, “I know you guys are going to be here and I want to record you.” Les said “absolutely,” and they started to come over to the house. I got to see Les Paul, Red Norvo, Thelonius Monk and Tal Farlow and all of that. All kinds of people were coming over to our house and hanging out. Spending Sunday afternoon drinking and partying and I was listening to music. Then we moved to Texas and one day my parents brought home a piano and I immediately got sick and stayed home from school because there was a piano in the house and I never been able to get my hands on a piano! I had already gotten my guitar from my uncle and I had seen Les Paul I had already figured out tape recorders, speed them up, slow them down, get to sing multiple harmony with yourself. To promote single records they’d send us packets of postcards already addressed to the radio stations. I got all of that from Les and Mary. So 9 years old I’m living in Texas, I’m watching the Big D Jamboree on television and my dad is taking me to the Big D Jamboree and I’m watching this country stuff. And he is going around recording Sister Rosetta Thorpe and I am just surrounded by professional musicians. North Texas State was just beginning to have a jazz band. James Moody is coming over to the house playing blues and stuff like that. T-Bone comes over and shows me how to play the guitar and it really impacted me.
Interview notes: Miller formed his first band at age 12, the Marksmen, played around Dallas, then moved to Wisconsin to enroll into college where he taught William “Boz” Skaggs to play guitar. They formed another group, the Ardells, and played fraternity parties. Miller then left music to study Comparative Literature in Copenhagen but missed playing and left school to return home.
Steve: I had just finished doing four years of school and had fallen six credits short of graduating. My parents were not pleased. They asked me what I wanted to do and what I was going to do. I said, “I wanted to go to Chicago and play the blues”. My dad didn’t like it but my mom said it “was a great idea. You’re 21 years old. Get out of here! Go before your life changes and see if you can make it.” When I got to Chicago, I run into all of these people and I see Paul Butterfield. They’re writing about him in Time magazine and he has a recording contract! Up to that point I had been playing professionally since I was 12 years old. I had been playing gigs all the time at Lou Anne’s. We had done a show where we backed up Jimmie Reed and Benny King was there, Lightening Hopkins was around and we were serious working musicians.
Rocky: But your early influences were jazz.
THE INTERVIEW WITH STEVE MILLER
Rocky: Welcome back!
Steve Miller: Good to be back! I love playing here too.
Rocky: Thank you so much for allowing the Washington Blues Society to take a little of your time. My first question concerns your blues roots. Many European fans I have talked to are interested in your history with America’s great blues musicians. Your Godfather is Les Paul, and as a very young man, you played with T-Bone Walker. That’s some pretty heavy stuff. When your folks finally cut you loose, you headed up to Chicago and you ended up playing with Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters. What was it like working with both of those blues giants so early in your career?
Steve Miller: The situation was their careers were pretty much over, they had their hit records and blues was going out of fashion and quickly. James Brown and people like that had moved in. Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters were playing in five clubs in Chicago. There was the Blue Flame, Pepper’s lounge, Sylvio’s, Big John’s and Club Melody. They just rotated between those five clubs. When I got to Chicago and put my band together I competed with Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf or James Cotton for these club dates. There wasn’t a lot of blues bands around. There was (Paul) Butterfield and he had Big John’s wrapped up and whenever Butterfield left, Muddy would come in, or then Howlin’ Wolf. It was great because it was a room that held like 90 people and you could just sit and listen to muddy waters and Otis Spann was playing piano or James Cotton or Buddy Guy was there. They played from nine at night ‘til four in the morning. Otis Rush was there and Otis was the first guy who took notice of me and he was really sweet to me. If I walked into a club and Otis was playing, he would ask me to come up and hand me his guitar and he would just sit and I play guitar with him. Wolf and I became pretty good friends, he was really, really special. I got to hear these guys play and it was like, WOW! For me I had grown up in Texas and T-Bone Walker taught me how to play and I was nine years old. Here, let me give you the recordings my dad made in 1951 when T-Bone would come over to the house and play. (Steve hands me a CD of those rare first recordings)
Rocky: Thank you sir. Could you put your life’s history into some kind of chronological order for our readers?
Steve Miller: I come from a musical family. My uncle was with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra and he played hot jazz violin. Another uncle was a guitar player. Another uncle was a banjo player. They played in bands during the Depression. When the Depression got too deep they all stopped playing, went to medical school and became doctors. My mother was a singer, my father was a tape recorder nut and he was a pathologist. There weren’t many pathologists back then. They were pretty esoteric kinda hipsters. We had gotten to know Les Paul and Les married Mary Ford. They married while they were hanging out with my parents. My mother was their maid of honor and my father was the best man. They spent their honeymoon at our house. I saw them putting their act together. They came to Milwaukee where I lived and worked a supper club called Jimmy Fazio’s, and my dad took me down there. He brought his Magnacorder which was like something from outer space. The Germans had invented tape recorders and how he got it I never knew but he got one and took it to Les and said, “I know you guys are going to be here and I want to record you.” Les said “absolutely,” and they started to come over to the house. I got to see Les Paul, Red Norvo, Thelonius Monk and Tal Farlow and all of that. All kinds of people were coming over to our house and hanging out. Spending Sunday afternoon drinking and partying and I was listening to music. Then we moved to Texas and one day my parents brought home a piano and I immediately got sick and stayed home from school because there was a piano in the house and I never been able to get my hands on a piano! I had already gotten my guitar from my uncle and I had seen Les Paul I had already figured out tape recorders, speed them up, slow them down, get to sing multiple harmony with yourself. To promote single records they’d send us packets of postcards already addressed to the radio stations. I got all of that from Les and Mary. So 9 years old I’m living in Texas, I’m watching the Big D Jamboree on television and my dad is taking me to the Big D Jamboree and I’m watching this country stuff. And he is going around recording Sister Rosetta Thorpe and I am just surrounded by professional musicians. North Texas State was just beginning to have a jazz band. James Moody is coming over to the house playing blues and stuff like that. T-Bone comes over and shows me how to play the guitar and it really impacted me.
Interview notes: Miller formed his first band at age 12, the Marksmen, played around Dallas, then moved to Wisconsin to enroll into college where he taught William “Boz” Skaggs to play guitar. They formed another group, the Ardells, and played fraternity parties. Miller then left music to study Comparative Literature in Copenhagen but missed playing and left school to return home.
Steve: I had just finished doing four years of school and had fallen six credits short of graduating. My parents were not pleased. They asked me what I wanted to do and what I was going to do. I said, “I wanted to go to Chicago and play the blues”. My dad didn’t like it but my mom said it “was a great idea. You’re 21 years old. Get out of here! Go before your life changes and see if you can make it.” When I got to Chicago, I run into all of these people and I see Paul Butterfield. They’re writing about him in Time magazine and he has a recording contract! Up to that point I had been playing professionally since I was 12 years old. I had been playing gigs all the time at Lou Anne’s. We had done a show where we backed up Jimmie Reed and Benny King was there, Lightening Hopkins was around and we were serious working musicians.
Rocky: But your early influences were jazz.
Steve Miller: Yeah, it was all jazz. Some blues and country music too. We were in Texas and we loved all of that. By the time I got to Chicago, I had already played every weekend since I was 12 years old. I had probably done about a thousand gigs. We never thought anything more than “how was you going to make a hundred and twenty five dollars a night?” You pay a nightclub, you play fraternities or private parties or whatever it is you know? Never thought we would ever be in the “show bid-nuss” or make records. We come to Chicago and Butterfield’s making a record and they’re writing about it in Time magazine and that’s when the light bulb went off and I thought, “wow, maybe we can do that”! That’s when my mother said maybe you should go. So I went to Chicago ran into Barry Goldberg, put a band together and got a contract right away. We went to New York and did a Hullabaloo with the Supremes and the Four Tops.
Rocky: Wow, on black and white television, right out of the chute!
Steve Miller: (laughs) Yep, right out of the chute. That was over just as fast as it started. (snaps fingers) Bing, Bing! So we went back to Chicago and it was beginning to just dry up. What happened was the white audiences had rediscovered the blues. Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters started going to the European audiences doing tours and the Newport Jazz Festivals. So things were coming back to them in a very different way with different audiences. Pretty soon they were playing colleges and stuff and making money. Nobody wanted to stay in Chicago and play the nightclubs. It was a dangerous and mean place. The Mafia controlled the nightclubs, the police shook everybody down. The Detective Department shook everybody down for money. There were people being beaten and stabbed every week. Dope was being sold all over the place, it was a tough ass place and I was making a hundred and twenty dollars a week working nine in the evening ‘till four in the morning.
Rocky: Was that good money then?
Steve: you know, more for me it was enough so I could eat, have a room and a bed and insurance and gas for my car. We all wanted to get outta there and the scene dried up and the last thing I did before I left Chicago and moved to San Francisco was I played rhythm with Buddy Guy’s band. Junior Wells had gotten a recording contract and he was with Fantasy Records. He immediately disowned the blues and made a bad James Brown record. He went from playing the blues in Chicago to like “Pappas got a brand new bag”! Overnight he left Buddy, you know, “bye, I got a contract and you don’t”, split and did a thing that failed miserably (laughs) so I get the job playing rhythm with Buddy. Buddy’s rule was one shot of bourbon before each set for everybody in the band. That was the rule.
Rocky Nelson: …and the problem was?
Steve Miller: (laughs) I was 21 and a half and let’s see that was…like eight shots of bourbon a night, one shot every forty five minutes and after the end of a month I told Buddy (laughs), “you know man, I can’t do this ‘cause it’s killing me! I’m going to California!” And Buddy says (laughs) “well, call it the Steve Miller Blues Band because you are sure to go through a lot of Blues musicians”! He gave me a lot of advice! I really enjoyed working with him; we had a lot of fun. Then I went out to California and all of a sudden WOW you could make 500 dollars…A NIGHT! You play at the Fillmore Auditorium for 1200 people and everything got a little bit better. But being around Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf was like getting a doctoral degree in Music. Playing with Muddy and Howlin Wolf wasn’t like people trying to act like rock stars and stuff it was absolutely the real deal. They were the GIANTS! Junior and Buddy were not giants. Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf were THE GIANTS!
Rocky: What was the difference between you meeting them in your early youth in Chicago and then playing with them again in San Francisco years later?
Steve Miller: When I first met Muddy Waters, I hung around with him and there were jam sessions. The first time I saw Muddy play at Big Johns I weaseled my way getting up on stage. It was kinda funny. I was different than the other guys because I was really cocky. I wasn’t there to like carry Muddy Waters’ water, I was there to impress him and play good. So I just got up on stage, turned it up and played. I wasn’t like standing in the back getting his drinks or polishing his shoes. I remember (laughs) the first time I played with him and did about three numbers. The band kinda looked at me because I was different from those guys who learned all their stuff off of records. I learned my chops from the real stuff growing up in Texas and played differently. I remember Muddy said, “Hey. That was real good! Let’s have a big hand for… what did you say your name was again?” (we both laugh) Knocked me down two notches you know and later we became good friends. When I got out to California and I got out there before they did, we were going to Bill Graham and telling him, “Hey man, you gotta get James Cottons Band out here, you gotta get Howlin’ Wolf’s band out here!” “You need to get all these people out here” and Graham would listen and he would do that. When Howlin' Wolf first came out here I picked him up at the airport in my Volkswagen Van, helped him load his gear and drove him around to the Matrix and some club over in Oakland. We played over there and over at the Fillmore. I helped HIM get into town. It was really strange. When James Cotton and his band came out to California, he and his band stayed in my hippie house.
Rocky: I'll bet that was a sight!
Steve Miller: (laughing) well it was a really cool, big old house. I had like 7 or 8 bedrooms and we had this big upper floor. I said, “yeah man, stay with us”. I remember going up to their room after they had been there like a day and a half, and we had played a gig that night. All of these guys were peeing in coke bottles because they didn’t think they could use our bathrooms. I said, “James, it’s not like that here. This is the way it is…”. We heard that, A LOT! They were not ready to just RELAX. The guy who was the most relaxed guy, the funniest guy, the guy who made the transition from the Delta, Mississippi and Chicago to California was John Lee Hooker. I played with John Lee Hooker the first time that HE came to town and we had him up at the Family Dog. He came in and it’s like, we had patchouli oil everywhere and the light show was on, and John Lee Hooker shows up with a suit that was like radiated snake skin and two hookers and the pimp hat and everything (we both laugh) it was just sooo wrong! Just wrong, wrong, wrong! No, no, no John, this is like peace, love and happiness! So I was backing him up, we had a really good time and two weeks later he had a goatee and a beret on and five white girls in a hot tub going, “Steve why don’t you just come on over and have a party”. He just instantly goes: I get it, I got it I’m here. You know Muddy was very dignified and Howlin Wolf was just a really amazing guy. Very soft, very nice, very sensitive guy. You know off stage in the afternoon he looked like the linebacker coach from the Oakland Raiders. He was a real gentleman, a sweetheart. One of the funniest things that ever happened to me was at the Matrix. My first gig, I was broke. I had no money at all. I borrowed five bucks from Paul Butterfield to eat. That was as low as I got, I was really embarrassed. I got a job playing bass for Lightening Hopkins, at the Matrix which is not a fun job.
Rocky: What did that pay? (I wanted to ask him if he re-paid the five bucks back, sadly I didn’t)
Steve Miller: It was ten dollars a night. I needed that ten dollars very badly and we’re playing and we’re going along and about thirty minutes into the set…and it’s just Lightening and me…and he says, “wait a minute, wait a minute! Everybody just STOP! NOBODY PLAY NOTHING BUT ME!” Then he does like a thirteen and a half bar blues. I was really angry, I was embarrassed and I needed that ten dollars.
Rocky Nelson: So, you sucked it up and just stood there?
SM: (laughs) yeah, sucked it up and finished the week with him and about twelve years later he was on Austin City Limits and he’s playing a Stratocaster! There’s some great black and white tape somewhere of him playing a Stratocaster and he’s just KILLIN’! He has the great all black band and they’re just KICKIN IT! I was sitting there watching this at home and I said, “This is really great”! All of a sudden, he goes, “wait a minute, wait a minute…everybody stop! NOBODY PLAY ANYTHING BUT ME!” (we both laugh) and I go, Oh I get it! But we are back in the Matrix, it’s my band that’s playing and we are making 15 bucks a night and I was doing Mercury Blues you know off of roadside recordings…who’s the guy that did those roadside recordings?
Rocky: Alan Lomax
Steve Miller: Oh yeah Alan Lomax! I heard it first off of those records and I have been doing it since I was twelve years old. I’m getting ready to play Mercury Blues and I tell everybody about it and (Steve yells out to people in the RV) Hey, WHO WROTE MERCURY BLUES?, anybody? (Someone answers) KC Douglas of course! HE shows up at my gig. I finish the song and KC Douglas comes up and is so proud and thanks me. He says, “Thanks man that was a really good version” and he was a high school coach in Oakland. He had come from the Delta from roadside recordings and his whole life had changed and these guys went through incredible change in their lives you know from obscurity, almost cotton picking slaves to having a real life on the west coast. California was much more open, much hipper; it was just a great, great scene. Then we all started touring together. I toured with Muddy, Howlin Wolf and James Cotton and I probably did a hundred and fifty gigs together.
Rocky: I have one last question for you. What do you listen to at home?
Steve Miller: Not much has changed for me. I love Cannonball Adderly and I listen to a lot of Jimmie Vaughan. I’ll leave it at that. I’m in love with Jimmie Vaughan. I can’t get enough of him. We should talk about Dillon and maybe he could say a few words. That would be very helpful.
Rocky: Yes, I would like that. What is KIDS ROCK FREE?
Steve Miller: KIDS ROCK FREE is this music school that’s hooked up with the Fender Museum. Linda, Dillon’s mom, and a few other people and I have been working there for 11 years. 12,000 kids have gotten free lessons in 104 cities and five different counties. We are taking it national now and we have the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts with us and they have given us an advisor for the last two years. It’s a school where if your child wants music lessons, bring the child to the school, and we give them 8 hours of free lessons if the parents will give the school 8 hours of their time. I’ve challenged the school (laughs) to build 1500 more!
Rocky: It’s a 501-C-3 and it originated where?
Steve Miller: Yes and it originated in Corona California at the Fender Museum and the school is a part of the Museum. Fender helped set it up and the school now runs itself. Dillon is 15 years old, he’s going to come out on stage with me and play Rockin’ Me and Fly like an Eagle. He’s going to play some great blues licks tonight. He’s been stealing the shows from me and is getting some great reviews too. I am cutting him back and fining him 20 dollars if he gets another good review (laughs)! They tell you not to perform with children or animals and he comes out and plays and just steals the show from us! (laughs) He and his mom are on the road with us for 19 shows. We are raising funds to help build schools in your community. You can text: ROCK50555 hit a button and donate 10 dollars. Go to kidsrockfree.com
and you can get all the information on it. It costs about the same to build a school as it does to build a Wendy’s but you can have a music center, a community music school, and it teaches kids to work together, how to play together, how to get something done together. It improves their thinking and balances their brain. It’s all of these things that music and art adds to their education that is now missing from education. These kids are not sitting around Twittering all day long they’re playing music and their brains are growing. Dillon is a good example of this and he’s really a great little blues player.
Rocky: Tell me Dillon, what is your role in this organization, KIDS ROCK FREE?
Dillon Brown: At first I was just playing in the program and now I am helping to support the program by playing with Steve Miller and showing how Fender can affect a kid. I am taking lessons from other people and that’s how I am learning all my stuff.
Rocky: Do you understand that you could be a great role model for a lot of kids and a lot of aspiring musicians? How does that make you feel?
Dillon Brown: It makes me feel awesome and this is all just amazing. It’s been my dream forever.
Rocky Nelson: Well kid, I gotta tell you that you are a chip off the old block because there is one person in this room right now that started out similar to you by having somebody great show them how to play.
Steve Miller: He just keeps getting better every night too, that’s the great thing about it. He is such a good guy to travel with and to play with. Rock, you are right, he IS inspiring a lot of people and you will see tonight when we do the show and he comes out at the end of the show. We start out telling people about this school and there this reaction, (groans) “ahhhhggg!” What do we do? We’re tired, we’ve been playing hard for everybody, there’s no music in schools these days and we just go “damn” you know? We start out saying, “the trouble with you people is…” and then I go, “…but, I brought one of these students with me tonight” and then Dillon comes out and just plays beautifully and the crowd goes, (shouts) “YEAH!!!”
Rocky: NOW I understand what you were talking about at sound check when you said you and Dillon would walk off the stage under all of that applause and then you can come back and hammer them for money. Shameless promotion Steve I think that’s fair to say.
SM: (we all laugh) It's child labor and we are abusing his privileges as much as we can get away with! We really need to build 1500 of these schools and there should be one in this neighborhood. There should be 50 of them in every state.
Rocky: Good job Dillon and thank you very much Steve.
Steve Miller: you’re welcome man.
For more information about Steve Miller videos, links to music and current world tour go to stevemillerband.com
If you would like to know more about the exciting Northwest Blues scene go to the Washington Blues Society website today! www.wablues.org
AND DON'T FORGET - kidsrockfree.com
PART 2.....WE MEET AGAIN IN PARIS
By Rocky Nelson
Steve Miller Europe Tour!
Globe Trotting and with the preverbal “snowballs chance in hell”, we hit the apogee of The Steve Miller Band’s planet, BINGO!, at Le Zenith in the heart of Paris, France as his guest for a night out on the town. Backstage passes got us through the throng of packed, fashionably hip International blues aficionados. Stephanie Lollar and I sat with Steve and Kim Miller to rekindle the fires brought on by our first mercurial meeting with Steve at St. Michelle in Woodinville Washington this last summer. Songs like The Joker, Abracadabra, Fly like an Eagle and (Keep On) Rocking Me put Steve Miller on the top ten of American pop charts and sold millions of copies for him. The high energy in his new CD, BINGO!, is immediately evident and addictive still. Buying BINGO! Will be the best use of $20 dollars you have ever spent!
Rocky Nelson : Bon soir Steve. Here we are back where our first meeting began with that question from your huge fan base here in Europe. Many readers of our article on your blues roots wanted me to thank you for sharing with them. As a follow-up Steve, inquiring minds want to know. Just WHO is Maurice, which incidentally sounds like a Sigmund Freud-French alter ego, and what EXACTLY is the Pomitus of Love?
Steve Miller: Let's see, Maurice is just a character I made up, sounds nice and smooth and French when you are in the studio rhyming and creating verses stuff happens as is the case with the Pompitious of Love. The perfect example of this is the song SPACE COWBOY, it was written in 15 minutes as a lark, I didn't want to put it on my album and everyone said are you nuts of course you have to put it on the album, here I am 42 years later THE SPACE COWBOY. These things just happen in a creative atmosphere sometimes without much fore-thought.
Rocky Nelson: What album did you have the most fun making in your entire career? What’s your favorite?
Steve Miller: Fly Like an Eagle, Book of Dreams and Bingo, all were made in similar fashion in great sounding studios with great engineers and all of them involved a lot of guitar playing.
Rocky : How’s the response to BINGO! because of course WE love it!
Steve Miller: It’s been great and the tours have been received with great response.
That was evident at Le Zenith. They were rockin’ the house. They hit them hard with much Love, Peace and Happiness. It was beautiful, magnifique! The Steve Miller Band had the crowd up on their feet for at least the last six songs. Crushing the stage near the end, they sang his songs out loud word for word. With shouts of “Maurice!” he ended the show with that encore: The Joker. Kim had knitted me a BINGO! blanket and a scarf to keep me warm against the cold Afghan winter winds where I am scheduled to return this December. He had a handful of signature guitar picks. We exchanged gifts and said our goodbyes. The Space Cowboy had another city and another planet to conquer. Au revoir Steve and Kim, Thanks for the memories! Bon Chance!
EDITOR'S NOTE:
New 2010 Tour Set!!
| Myspace Music Videos
###
Rocky: Wow, on black and white television, right out of the chute!
Steve Miller: (laughs) Yep, right out of the chute. That was over just as fast as it started. (snaps fingers) Bing, Bing! So we went back to Chicago and it was beginning to just dry up. What happened was the white audiences had rediscovered the blues. Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters started going to the European audiences doing tours and the Newport Jazz Festivals. So things were coming back to them in a very different way with different audiences. Pretty soon they were playing colleges and stuff and making money. Nobody wanted to stay in Chicago and play the nightclubs. It was a dangerous and mean place. The Mafia controlled the nightclubs, the police shook everybody down. The Detective Department shook everybody down for money. There were people being beaten and stabbed every week. Dope was being sold all over the place, it was a tough ass place and I was making a hundred and twenty dollars a week working nine in the evening ‘till four in the morning.
Rocky: Was that good money then?
Steve: you know, more for me it was enough so I could eat, have a room and a bed and insurance and gas for my car. We all wanted to get outta there and the scene dried up and the last thing I did before I left Chicago and moved to San Francisco was I played rhythm with Buddy Guy’s band. Junior Wells had gotten a recording contract and he was with Fantasy Records. He immediately disowned the blues and made a bad James Brown record. He went from playing the blues in Chicago to like “Pappas got a brand new bag”! Overnight he left Buddy, you know, “bye, I got a contract and you don’t”, split and did a thing that failed miserably (laughs) so I get the job playing rhythm with Buddy. Buddy’s rule was one shot of bourbon before each set for everybody in the band. That was the rule.
Rocky Nelson: …and the problem was?
Steve Miller: (laughs) I was 21 and a half and let’s see that was…like eight shots of bourbon a night, one shot every forty five minutes and after the end of a month I told Buddy (laughs), “you know man, I can’t do this ‘cause it’s killing me! I’m going to California!” And Buddy says (laughs) “well, call it the Steve Miller Blues Band because you are sure to go through a lot of Blues musicians”! He gave me a lot of advice! I really enjoyed working with him; we had a lot of fun. Then I went out to California and all of a sudden WOW you could make 500 dollars…A NIGHT! You play at the Fillmore Auditorium for 1200 people and everything got a little bit better. But being around Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf was like getting a doctoral degree in Music. Playing with Muddy and Howlin Wolf wasn’t like people trying to act like rock stars and stuff it was absolutely the real deal. They were the GIANTS! Junior and Buddy were not giants. Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf were THE GIANTS!
Rocky: What was the difference between you meeting them in your early youth in Chicago and then playing with them again in San Francisco years later?
Steve Miller: When I first met Muddy Waters, I hung around with him and there were jam sessions. The first time I saw Muddy play at Big Johns I weaseled my way getting up on stage. It was kinda funny. I was different than the other guys because I was really cocky. I wasn’t there to like carry Muddy Waters’ water, I was there to impress him and play good. So I just got up on stage, turned it up and played. I wasn’t like standing in the back getting his drinks or polishing his shoes. I remember (laughs) the first time I played with him and did about three numbers. The band kinda looked at me because I was different from those guys who learned all their stuff off of records. I learned my chops from the real stuff growing up in Texas and played differently. I remember Muddy said, “Hey. That was real good! Let’s have a big hand for… what did you say your name was again?” (we both laugh) Knocked me down two notches you know and later we became good friends. When I got out to California and I got out there before they did, we were going to Bill Graham and telling him, “Hey man, you gotta get James Cottons Band out here, you gotta get Howlin’ Wolf’s band out here!” “You need to get all these people out here” and Graham would listen and he would do that. When Howlin' Wolf first came out here I picked him up at the airport in my Volkswagen Van, helped him load his gear and drove him around to the Matrix and some club over in Oakland. We played over there and over at the Fillmore. I helped HIM get into town. It was really strange. When James Cotton and his band came out to California, he and his band stayed in my hippie house.
Rocky: I'll bet that was a sight!
Steve Miller: (laughing) well it was a really cool, big old house. I had like 7 or 8 bedrooms and we had this big upper floor. I said, “yeah man, stay with us”. I remember going up to their room after they had been there like a day and a half, and we had played a gig that night. All of these guys were peeing in coke bottles because they didn’t think they could use our bathrooms. I said, “James, it’s not like that here. This is the way it is…”. We heard that, A LOT! They were not ready to just RELAX. The guy who was the most relaxed guy, the funniest guy, the guy who made the transition from the Delta, Mississippi and Chicago to California was John Lee Hooker. I played with John Lee Hooker the first time that HE came to town and we had him up at the Family Dog. He came in and it’s like, we had patchouli oil everywhere and the light show was on, and John Lee Hooker shows up with a suit that was like radiated snake skin and two hookers and the pimp hat and everything (we both laugh) it was just sooo wrong! Just wrong, wrong, wrong! No, no, no John, this is like peace, love and happiness! So I was backing him up, we had a really good time and two weeks later he had a goatee and a beret on and five white girls in a hot tub going, “Steve why don’t you just come on over and have a party”. He just instantly goes: I get it, I got it I’m here. You know Muddy was very dignified and Howlin Wolf was just a really amazing guy. Very soft, very nice, very sensitive guy. You know off stage in the afternoon he looked like the linebacker coach from the Oakland Raiders. He was a real gentleman, a sweetheart. One of the funniest things that ever happened to me was at the Matrix. My first gig, I was broke. I had no money at all. I borrowed five bucks from Paul Butterfield to eat. That was as low as I got, I was really embarrassed. I got a job playing bass for Lightening Hopkins, at the Matrix which is not a fun job.
Rocky: What did that pay? (I wanted to ask him if he re-paid the five bucks back, sadly I didn’t)
Steve Miller: It was ten dollars a night. I needed that ten dollars very badly and we’re playing and we’re going along and about thirty minutes into the set…and it’s just Lightening and me…and he says, “wait a minute, wait a minute! Everybody just STOP! NOBODY PLAY NOTHING BUT ME!” Then he does like a thirteen and a half bar blues. I was really angry, I was embarrassed and I needed that ten dollars.
Rocky Nelson: So, you sucked it up and just stood there?
SM: (laughs) yeah, sucked it up and finished the week with him and about twelve years later he was on Austin City Limits and he’s playing a Stratocaster! There’s some great black and white tape somewhere of him playing a Stratocaster and he’s just KILLIN’! He has the great all black band and they’re just KICKIN IT! I was sitting there watching this at home and I said, “This is really great”! All of a sudden, he goes, “wait a minute, wait a minute…everybody stop! NOBODY PLAY ANYTHING BUT ME!” (we both laugh) and I go, Oh I get it! But we are back in the Matrix, it’s my band that’s playing and we are making 15 bucks a night and I was doing Mercury Blues you know off of roadside recordings…who’s the guy that did those roadside recordings?
Rocky: Alan Lomax
Steve Miller: Oh yeah Alan Lomax! I heard it first off of those records and I have been doing it since I was twelve years old. I’m getting ready to play Mercury Blues and I tell everybody about it and (Steve yells out to people in the RV) Hey, WHO WROTE MERCURY BLUES?, anybody? (Someone answers) KC Douglas of course! HE shows up at my gig. I finish the song and KC Douglas comes up and is so proud and thanks me. He says, “Thanks man that was a really good version” and he was a high school coach in Oakland. He had come from the Delta from roadside recordings and his whole life had changed and these guys went through incredible change in their lives you know from obscurity, almost cotton picking slaves to having a real life on the west coast. California was much more open, much hipper; it was just a great, great scene. Then we all started touring together. I toured with Muddy, Howlin Wolf and James Cotton and I probably did a hundred and fifty gigs together.
Rocky: I have one last question for you. What do you listen to at home?
Steve Miller: Not much has changed for me. I love Cannonball Adderly and I listen to a lot of Jimmie Vaughan. I’ll leave it at that. I’m in love with Jimmie Vaughan. I can’t get enough of him. We should talk about Dillon and maybe he could say a few words. That would be very helpful.
Rocky: Yes, I would like that. What is KIDS ROCK FREE?
Steve Miller: KIDS ROCK FREE is this music school that’s hooked up with the Fender Museum. Linda, Dillon’s mom, and a few other people and I have been working there for 11 years. 12,000 kids have gotten free lessons in 104 cities and five different counties. We are taking it national now and we have the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts with us and they have given us an advisor for the last two years. It’s a school where if your child wants music lessons, bring the child to the school, and we give them 8 hours of free lessons if the parents will give the school 8 hours of their time. I’ve challenged the school (laughs) to build 1500 more!
Rocky: It’s a 501-C-3 and it originated where?
Steve Miller: Yes and it originated in Corona California at the Fender Museum and the school is a part of the Museum. Fender helped set it up and the school now runs itself. Dillon is 15 years old, he’s going to come out on stage with me and play Rockin’ Me and Fly like an Eagle. He’s going to play some great blues licks tonight. He’s been stealing the shows from me and is getting some great reviews too. I am cutting him back and fining him 20 dollars if he gets another good review (laughs)! They tell you not to perform with children or animals and he comes out and plays and just steals the show from us! (laughs) He and his mom are on the road with us for 19 shows. We are raising funds to help build schools in your community. You can text: ROCK50555 hit a button and donate 10 dollars. Go to kidsrockfree.com
and you can get all the information on it. It costs about the same to build a school as it does to build a Wendy’s but you can have a music center, a community music school, and it teaches kids to work together, how to play together, how to get something done together. It improves their thinking and balances their brain. It’s all of these things that music and art adds to their education that is now missing from education. These kids are not sitting around Twittering all day long they’re playing music and their brains are growing. Dillon is a good example of this and he’s really a great little blues player.
Rocky: Tell me Dillon, what is your role in this organization, KIDS ROCK FREE?
Dillon Brown: At first I was just playing in the program and now I am helping to support the program by playing with Steve Miller and showing how Fender can affect a kid. I am taking lessons from other people and that’s how I am learning all my stuff.
Rocky: Do you understand that you could be a great role model for a lot of kids and a lot of aspiring musicians? How does that make you feel?
Dillon Brown: It makes me feel awesome and this is all just amazing. It’s been my dream forever.
Rocky Nelson: Well kid, I gotta tell you that you are a chip off the old block because there is one person in this room right now that started out similar to you by having somebody great show them how to play.
Steve Miller: He just keeps getting better every night too, that’s the great thing about it. He is such a good guy to travel with and to play with. Rock, you are right, he IS inspiring a lot of people and you will see tonight when we do the show and he comes out at the end of the show. We start out telling people about this school and there this reaction, (groans) “ahhhhggg!” What do we do? We’re tired, we’ve been playing hard for everybody, there’s no music in schools these days and we just go “damn” you know? We start out saying, “the trouble with you people is…” and then I go, “…but, I brought one of these students with me tonight” and then Dillon comes out and just plays beautifully and the crowd goes, (shouts) “YEAH!!!”
Rocky: NOW I understand what you were talking about at sound check when you said you and Dillon would walk off the stage under all of that applause and then you can come back and hammer them for money. Shameless promotion Steve I think that’s fair to say.
SM: (we all laugh) It's child labor and we are abusing his privileges as much as we can get away with! We really need to build 1500 of these schools and there should be one in this neighborhood. There should be 50 of them in every state.
Rocky: Good job Dillon and thank you very much Steve.
Steve Miller: you’re welcome man.
For more information about Steve Miller videos, links to music and current world tour go to stevemillerband.com
If you would like to know more about the exciting Northwest Blues scene go to the Washington Blues Society website today! www.wablues.org
AND DON'T FORGET - kidsrockfree.com
PART 2.....WE MEET AGAIN IN PARIS
By Rocky Nelson
Steve Miller Europe Tour!
Globe Trotting and with the preverbal “snowballs chance in hell”, we hit the apogee of The Steve Miller Band’s planet, BINGO!, at Le Zenith in the heart of Paris, France as his guest for a night out on the town. Backstage passes got us through the throng of packed, fashionably hip International blues aficionados. Stephanie Lollar and I sat with Steve and Kim Miller to rekindle the fires brought on by our first mercurial meeting with Steve at St. Michelle in Woodinville Washington this last summer. Songs like The Joker, Abracadabra, Fly like an Eagle and (Keep On) Rocking Me put Steve Miller on the top ten of American pop charts and sold millions of copies for him. The high energy in his new CD, BINGO!, is immediately evident and addictive still. Buying BINGO! Will be the best use of $20 dollars you have ever spent!
Rocky Nelson : Bon soir Steve. Here we are back where our first meeting began with that question from your huge fan base here in Europe. Many readers of our article on your blues roots wanted me to thank you for sharing with them. As a follow-up Steve, inquiring minds want to know. Just WHO is Maurice, which incidentally sounds like a Sigmund Freud-French alter ego, and what EXACTLY is the Pomitus of Love?
Steve Miller: Let's see, Maurice is just a character I made up, sounds nice and smooth and French when you are in the studio rhyming and creating verses stuff happens as is the case with the Pompitious of Love. The perfect example of this is the song SPACE COWBOY, it was written in 15 minutes as a lark, I didn't want to put it on my album and everyone said are you nuts of course you have to put it on the album, here I am 42 years later THE SPACE COWBOY. These things just happen in a creative atmosphere sometimes without much fore-thought.
Rocky Nelson: What album did you have the most fun making in your entire career? What’s your favorite?
Steve Miller: Fly Like an Eagle, Book of Dreams and Bingo, all were made in similar fashion in great sounding studios with great engineers and all of them involved a lot of guitar playing.
Rocky : How’s the response to BINGO! because of course WE love it!
Steve Miller: It’s been great and the tours have been received with great response.
That was evident at Le Zenith. They were rockin’ the house. They hit them hard with much Love, Peace and Happiness. It was beautiful, magnifique! The Steve Miller Band had the crowd up on their feet for at least the last six songs. Crushing the stage near the end, they sang his songs out loud word for word. With shouts of “Maurice!” he ended the show with that encore: The Joker. Kim had knitted me a BINGO! blanket and a scarf to keep me warm against the cold Afghan winter winds where I am scheduled to return this December. He had a handful of signature guitar picks. We exchanged gifts and said our goodbyes. The Space Cowboy had another city and another planet to conquer. Au revoir Steve and Kim, Thanks for the memories! Bon Chance!
EDITOR'S NOTE:
Rocky Nelson and this article appear courtesy of the
Washington Blues Society. Rocky has been a personal friend of mine for over three
decades and we have followed each others adventures of life. These past three
years Rocky has served the USA and his fellow man by working in Afghanistan to
improve the lives of many people there. He has frequently sent me e-mails and
pictures of a land and her people that before, I might never have imagined.
While stationed there, Rocky created the very first Armed Forces Radio
"All Blues" program which has been met with wide acclaime. In addition Mr. Nelson
attended the 2010 International Blues Challenge in Memphis Tennessee, also courtesy
of the Washington Blues Society. Rocky has an incredible zest for life and a great
ability as a journalist. As a fan of Steve Miller since 1970,and having played many of his hits in Top-40 bands I thought I knew him. But now, after reading this rare and u-close interview I would have to say I really knew nothing about the man, his roots and his visions for the future of music, especially for kids. Kind of makes me want to go out and buy all the vintage
Steve Miller albums that I lost along the way, and maybe pick up BINGO while I'm at it!
Our heartfelt thanks go out to Rocky Nelson and appreciate him taking the time to contact us and arrange to share this great work.We could only hope that in his travels throughout the world he might occasionally grace us with his love of music and gifted pen once in a while.
Washington Blues Society. Rocky has been a personal friend of mine for over three
decades and we have followed each others adventures of life. These past three
years Rocky has served the USA and his fellow man by working in Afghanistan to
improve the lives of many people there. He has frequently sent me e-mails and
pictures of a land and her people that before, I might never have imagined.
While stationed there, Rocky created the very first Armed Forces Radio
"All Blues" program which has been met with wide acclaime. In addition Mr. Nelson
attended the 2010 International Blues Challenge in Memphis Tennessee, also courtesy
of the Washington Blues Society. Rocky has an incredible zest for life and a great
ability as a journalist. As a fan of Steve Miller since 1970,and having played many of his hits in Top-40 bands I thought I knew him. But now, after reading this rare and u-close interview I would have to say I really knew nothing about the man, his roots and his visions for the future of music, especially for kids. Kind of makes me want to go out and buy all the vintage
Steve Miller albums that I lost along the way, and maybe pick up BINGO while I'm at it!
Our heartfelt thanks go out to Rocky Nelson and appreciate him taking the time to contact us and arrange to share this great work.We could only hope that in his travels throughout the world he might occasionally grace us with his love of music and gifted pen once in a while.
New 2010 Tour Set!!
| Myspace Music Videos
###
BLUES IN CANADA
Earlier this year I traveled across the border into the very beautiful Western Canada
as a guest of the Compound Blues Band, a group which is actually based in South Surrey,
just a few miles south of downtown Vancouver BC. There I was treated to a weekend like
none other in my recent history, one which was filled with jamming with the very elite top
of all the musicians in the entire area. Jim Widdifield, the keyboardist for the band has
been a friend of mine for a number of years but I had never been able to go up and see
the boys play until now.
as a guest of the Compound Blues Band, a group which is actually based in South Surrey,
just a few miles south of downtown Vancouver BC. There I was treated to a weekend like
none other in my recent history, one which was filled with jamming with the very elite top
of all the musicians in the entire area. Jim Widdifield, the keyboardist for the band has
been a friend of mine for a number of years but I had never been able to go up and see
the boys play until now.
The members of the CBB have been together for a long time yet they approach music
today with as much passion as when they were just out of High School, and they play
not because they have to, but because they want to. So every song, every note is true
and from the gut, played as it should be - like life itself depended on the delivery!
The Compound Blues Band is currently working on their new CD and I know it's going to
be a hot one, because these guys don't just play the Blues, they Rock it !
Getting to sit in with this band will go down as one of the highlights of my entire career
and I couldn't be happier than to call the Compound Blues Band my friends for life!
Watch for their exclusive world-wide interview right here on damngoodtunes
in the next couple weeks. Find out how these guys have continued on through
so many miles and years, never leaving the flames to be extinguished.
today with as much passion as when they were just out of High School, and they play
not because they have to, but because they want to. So every song, every note is true
and from the gut, played as it should be - like life itself depended on the delivery!
The Compound Blues Band is currently working on their new CD and I know it's going to
be a hot one, because these guys don't just play the Blues, they Rock it !
Getting to sit in with this band will go down as one of the highlights of my entire career
and I couldn't be happier than to call the Compound Blues Band my friends for life!
Watch for their exclusive world-wide interview right here on damngoodtunes
in the next couple weeks. Find out how these guys have continued on through
so many miles and years, never leaving the flames to be extinguished.
Bruce Maier
###
BLUES ATTITUDE
Blues Attitude / Olympia Washington
###
by Kris EdemThey say the Blues has three chords, sometimes a fourth. That the verses are A-A-B and are a one, four, five pattern and always predictable all the way to the end or it isn’t the real Blues. And some say you had to have lived in the South and be from a bloodline where pain and misery of working the fields with the sun beating down on your brow is all your family has ever known, that there’s no money and no way out. And some say that in order to know and to live the Blues there are those who have to make a deal with the devil at the crossroads in exchange for fortune and fame. But I say the Blues knows no borders, fields or crossroads. There is not a color of pigment that predetermines neither destiny in life nor affinity for the Blues. The Blues comes from life. Life in Memphis, Chicago, Doerun Georgia or Shelton Washington, it doesn’t matter. Pain and misery and hard work comes in many forms. Driving a log truck for a living can give one the Blues. Pushing a pencil or making keystrokes all day at the office can give you the Blues. Raising kids, going through a divorce or just trying to make ends meet can bring on the Blues. And yes, drinking and partying and dancing on the table in front of your buddies can sometimes lead to the Blues. But the Blues is not a color, a social class or a reputation or even a bad headache. Anyone can get the Blues, and anyone can live the Blues, everyone can feel the Blues but no one can buy the Blues. Blues is an attitude!
Blues Attitude / Olympia Washington
This is a band of brothers ( in spirit ) who play music that they really love which is a variation on the traditional themes and their own take on The Blues which fuses Rock, Jack Swing, Funk, Country Rock, Ballads and get down, low-down dirty old Blues! With their blazing guitars and bass, T-bone and Jerry set the stage on fire from measure one, but it is drummer and total meter master " Smoke " who lays down the ground rules and sets the pace that you could set an atomic clock to. He plays subtle as a whisper when he want to but then turns around and hits you like a freight train when the cross-arms are broken! Every successful band I have ever loved has had a drummer who never really cared to show off and besides, he was way too busy building the foundation so the other cats could wiggle and pose without breaking the stage!
Seriously, this is a real band. A group of guys who play Blues influenced music not because they have to, but because the want to and they feel it with every heartbeat. They boogie, then they rock and then maybe they take you down, way down. But not for long because they've got a mission to fulfill and that's to rock the house, get it jumping and fill up the dance floor! No one that goes to a Blues Attitude concert, show or club appearance ever comes away with a bad vibe. No, this is the night to " lose the blues " and this is the band that takes you away from whatever you've been through today. Not since a recent opportunity I experienced standing back stage with the one and only ZZ TOP at the Hard Rock in Vegas have I actually heard three guys sound so freakin' tight! Blues Attitude does their homework and is always prepared to give the their best. I highly recommend this Blues band to anyone looking for a great time. Check out their CD at the link below and and also take a little trip through their website for bios, pictures and show schedules . They're not a just a Blues Band, they're Blues Attitude!
Bruce
BLUES ATTITUDE WEBSITE
BUY THE CD
Seriously, this is a real band. A group of guys who play Blues influenced music not because they have to, but because the want to and they feel it with every heartbeat. They boogie, then they rock and then maybe they take you down, way down. But not for long because they've got a mission to fulfill and that's to rock the house, get it jumping and fill up the dance floor! No one that goes to a Blues Attitude concert, show or club appearance ever comes away with a bad vibe. No, this is the night to " lose the blues " and this is the band that takes you away from whatever you've been through today. Not since a recent opportunity I experienced standing back stage with the one and only ZZ TOP at the Hard Rock in Vegas have I actually heard three guys sound so freakin' tight! Blues Attitude does their homework and is always prepared to give the their best. I highly recommend this Blues band to anyone looking for a great time. Check out their CD at the link below and and also take a little trip through their website for bios, pictures and show schedules . They're not a just a Blues Band, they're Blues Attitude!
Bruce
BLUES ATTITUDE WEBSITE
BUY THE CD
###
Born and raised in the gulf area of Louisiana, Benoit brings a deep felt authenticity to the music he has grown up around and been involved in his whole life. He has been recording and touring since 1992 and has a new cd entitled Night Train to Nashville. He was joined on stage by bass guitarist Leon Medica and drummer David Peters. Currently touring with Benoit, both Medica and Peters are members of the Louisiana band LeRoux, well known in their own rite.
Tab Benoit doesn’t just play the music…it flows out of him like hot lava from a volcano, or perhaps I should more suitably liken it to the flowing waters of the mighty Mississippi River itself. His soulful voice is meant to sing the blues, his skillful guitar playing sets his music on fire, and his smokin’ good looks quickly melt this woman’s heart.
He chatted warmly with the audience between songs and soon we all felt as if we were hanging out with an old friend. With his fun loving humor and a Louisiana drawl he made a short task of noting that by Cajun blues standards, the small contemporary college theatre that hosted his concert was far from the type of venue that fits his style of music. We laughed when he first recognized that there wasn’t any popcorn on the floor, and when he noted that there also wasn’t even a dance floor in the place we started catching on to where this was going. With witty charm he helped us visualize a very different culture, one that represents the birthplace of his musical style, Southern Louisiana. We learned about crappie/Sac Au Lait fishing, oyster shell roads, mosquitoes, swamps and bayous.
The music was fabulous. Benoit’s guitar work is amazing, his command of the blues is inspiring, and his song writing and vocals are intoxicating. We really could have put a dance floor to good use. In the middle of their set Benoit took the stage all by himself and entertained us with his music on a very personal level. It was a great performance all night long. Like most artisans he is very passionate about what he does. This passion shines through not only in his music but also in the message he carries to his audience as a concerned Louisiana citizen bearing witness to the alarming daily loss of the gulf coast wetlands
In 2006 Benoit founded V.O.W., Voice Of the Wetlands, to raise awareness towards the dangerous erosion of miles of the Southern Louisiana wetlands. These marshy areas are extremely important to the protection of New Orleans, world class shipping ports, and a vast array of cultural industries from storms beating in from the gulf of Mexico. He told of how many miles of wetlands have disappeared over the last 20 years explaining that his is why hurricanes Rita, Katrina and Gustav wreaked so much water damage on the cities, homes, and businesses. He made us aware of how this problem affects all of America, not just his state. Benoit takes this very seriously and invites us all to closely look at what is happening, to get involved, and to use our voice.
Benoit revealed many layers of himself during the evening. And for those folks there that night, like my friend, who didn’t know who Tab Benoit was before this, they won’t soon forget him. To learn more about the man, his music, and his causes check out his websites at :
www.tabbenoit.com
www.voiceofthewetlands.com
Kris Edem is not only a world class journalist who has written articles for other Northwest publications for years, but she brings to the table a sense which only a working musician, particularly a guitar player who sings the Blues, Rock, R & B with passion and conviction. Her guitar work is way above average and she would shine in any professional recording act. In fact Kris Edem fronts a popular Seattle Washington area band which has recently released a new CD.
A woman dedicated to her family, a successful business owner, Kris Edem is a rare and shining jewel who is a dynamic individual. We are very happy to have Kris on board here at damngoodtunes! Oh, and also I must ad, I can't wait to get the guitars out again and jam with Kris!Bruce J Maier
www.wisecrackerband.com
of people through the gates for each of the six-day duration and provides live music on four different stages. Many, many fabulous acts have played here over the years. Five star hotels surround the festival grounds for fans in need of such amenities. Numerous workshops and activities are also on the daily schedules for those who can break themselves away from the live music for a bit. Large, multi-decked boats take the festival out onto the Willamette River for scheduled cruises offering live bands on each deck, along with food, spirits and plenty of mojo.
In sharp contrast to that setting is the Winthrop Rhythm and Blues Festival. Winthrop is a charming historical little town in northern Washington State. Located far from any major city, it lies in the beautiful Methow River Valley of the north Cascade Mountains. Once a year this town generously opens it’s doors and offers its hospitality to a three-day blues invasion. This festival claims to be Washington State’s longest running blues fest with a twenty-year history. The Winthrop Music Association operates this party through a combination board of directors, volunteer staff, and sponsors. Several thousand people now flock to this event each third weekend in July. The official festival site is located one mile from town on a fifty-acre field called The Blues Ranch. It sits amid some of nature’s finest scenery. The festival hosts a single stage for all of the scheduled acts, while well-organized stage crews minimize time between sets. This festival may be small in size comparison and its setting may be a long way from the mainstream venues, but the entertainment lineup is first class. In 2007 they hosted such greats as Eddie ‘Devilboy’ Turner, Grammy Award winner John Lee Hooker Jr. (yes, the son of blues legend John Lee Hooker), harp man Charlie Musselwhite, and Eric Burden…and that was just for half of one day! Guests can opt to bring their own tent or RV for the unique opportunity to camp all weekend at the Blues Ranch itself. For the many that choose this option the blues party goes on long into the night, well after the festival shows are over each evening.
As you can see, there are different ways to experience a festival. And there are so many to choose from, they can be found nearly everywhere in the world. So try to make the time to attend one and enjoy a blues experience like no other. Use the Blues Festival Guide to find out where the festivals are scheduled and located. www.bluesfestivalguide.com It will link you to the festival websites for more specific information such as directions, show times and activities. Don’t forget to take your lawn chairs, blanket, backpack, and lots of friends. Get there early, find yourself a spot on the lawn/landscape to call home for the day, and enjoy. Let me add that I have always felt safe and secure at these events and I find them to be clean and organized. It will be a wonderful treat to yourself….and to your soul.
by Kris Edem
Go To Page 2 of The Blues---->
Blues Festivals
If you have never attended a blues festival, let me encourage you to add it to your list of “must do’s” this year. It is such a great opportunity to bear witness to some high quality live blues music in a forum that caters to all of the senses. It will be well worth a day of your time and is always a great bang for your blues buck.
Highlighted by the outstanding live music from top-notch performers, the blues festivals are amazing events produced by committed sponsors and hardworking event planners. Fans are offered a unique opportunity to catch the acts of legendary blues artists along with top quality regional blues acts, altogether in an open casual setting. The sheer number of different musical acts that entertain over the course of a day, weekend, or week long fest is sensational. Each entertainer brings their own personal style to the stage, enriching the whole musical experience with multi-layers of blues definition.
Festival planners work hard to create the right balance of entertainment, atmosphere, vendors, facilities, sponsorship, and support staff for blues fans. However, no two are alike and that is what gives each festival a personality of their own. Success for them is rewarded with return and growing attendance year after year. A number of blues fests have been annual events for decades. Festivals come in all sizes, durations, and locations, too. Some even offer music workshops, blues cruises, and after hour jams. As you can imagine, there’s a lot more than music going on at these gigs. A wide selection of vendors help to keep everyone fed, hydrated, and happy as they help sooth the soul with satisfying food and beverages, artwork, music sales, memorabilia, clothing, and more.
Just to give you a feel for differences between blues festivals, let me share my experiences from two that I visited last year:
I’ve been attending the Waterfront Blues Festival in downtown Portland, Oregon for a number of years. It is put on by the Oregon Food Bank and numerous sponsors. The donated admission proceeds of cash and food go to the state’s
hunger-relief programs. It claims to be the largest blues festival on the west coast and just celebrated its twenty-year anniversary. Held at Portland’s Tom McCall Waterfront Park, the location is gorgeous with manicured lawns sloping right down to the Willamette River.
It draws tens of thousands
If you have never attended a blues festival, let me encourage you to add it to your list of “must do’s” this year. It is such a great opportunity to bear witness to some high quality live blues music in a forum that caters to all of the senses. It will be well worth a day of your time and is always a great bang for your blues buck.
Highlighted by the outstanding live music from top-notch performers, the blues festivals are amazing events produced by committed sponsors and hardworking event planners. Fans are offered a unique opportunity to catch the acts of legendary blues artists along with top quality regional blues acts, altogether in an open casual setting. The sheer number of different musical acts that entertain over the course of a day, weekend, or week long fest is sensational. Each entertainer brings their own personal style to the stage, enriching the whole musical experience with multi-layers of blues definition.
Festival planners work hard to create the right balance of entertainment, atmosphere, vendors, facilities, sponsorship, and support staff for blues fans. However, no two are alike and that is what gives each festival a personality of their own. Success for them is rewarded with return and growing attendance year after year. A number of blues fests have been annual events for decades. Festivals come in all sizes, durations, and locations, too. Some even offer music workshops, blues cruises, and after hour jams. As you can imagine, there’s a lot more than music going on at these gigs. A wide selection of vendors help to keep everyone fed, hydrated, and happy as they help sooth the soul with satisfying food and beverages, artwork, music sales, memorabilia, clothing, and more.
Just to give you a feel for differences between blues festivals, let me share my experiences from two that I visited last year:
I’ve been attending the Waterfront Blues Festival in downtown Portland, Oregon for a number of years. It is put on by the Oregon Food Bank and numerous sponsors. The donated admission proceeds of cash and food go to the state’s
hunger-relief programs. It claims to be the largest blues festival on the west coast and just celebrated its twenty-year anniversary. Held at Portland’s Tom McCall Waterfront Park, the location is gorgeous with manicured lawns sloping right down to the Willamette River.
It draws tens of thousands
