Blues With a Twist: Over 50 Years of Behind the Scenes Blues Adventures

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Well, I finally did it. People have been telling me for years I should write a book about my experiences playing the blues in Chicago. In 2015, I had the misfortune of breaking my foot, so I was immobile for a good 6 months; this gave me plenty of time to compile some of the better stories that happened to me in my 53-year journey as a working musician. I will lead you through my life in the blues, and along the way there are a lot of entertaining anecdotes to be told about some of the greatest bluesmen and women that ever walked this earth— the bluesmen and women of Chicago and beyond.

I began my journey in Seattle, Washington, where I was raised, and from there I ended up spending nearly 40 years playing the blues in the south and west side ghetto clubs of Chicago.

I first got totally hooked on blues after seeing Albert Collins play at my local high school dance. From that moment on, I knew this would be my life’s path. A couple of years later, I began working with the only African American bluesman in Seattle, Isaac Scott. After two years with Isaac, I thought I knew everything about playin’ the blues. Boy was I wrong! I didn’t know shit; in fact I knew so little that I didn’t even know I didn’t know.

I moved to Chicago in 1975 and headed straight for the ghetto where all my idols were working. By the time I was 20, I’d done gigs with Jimmy Reed and Howlin’ Wolf’s band minus the Wolf himself. By the time I was 23, I had the most prestigious gig in Chicago, as the drummer for the Junior Wells band at the world famous Theresa’s Lounge. By 25, I’d worked with Buddy Guy as well as numerous Grammy winners and nominees. I pretty much spent every night moving from one ghetto club to the next, sitting in and learning from my idols. I became one of the guys. Totally accepted. These were my friends; I’d do anything for them and they’d do anything for me. This was the world of the blues and I was gonna be a bluesman if it killed me.

In Seattle, I only knew about the blues from the white man’s perspective. In Chicago I was welcomed to see the blues world from the black man’s perspective. They taught me well; most were like a big brother or father to me. Sometimes I might have thought they were being too harsh on me, but I was later to find out that they were schooling me on what was right and what was wrong, teaching me how to live my life, how to be a man, and how to play the blues.

Sadly, most of my friends have long since passed. There are few to teach the younger generation like we were schooled. We sure had a lot of fun, though, and I hope some of these anecdotes bring a smile to your face.

The Beginning

I was born in Seattle in the mid 50’s. We lived in a very small two-bedroom, one-bath house. I don’t remember much about the early years growing up. This period was pretty uneventful in my life. We were poor; my dad owned a laundry/dry cleaners bought for him by my grandparents, which, by the time I was nine, had gone bankrupt. I didn’t really know we were poor at the time; by some miracle, we always had food and a roof over our heads. My mom was your typical housewife and later secretary, and my dad was a workaholic/alcoholic small business owner. I didn’t really see that much of dad; he got up at 4 am to drink coffee, (and vodka or whiskey I was later to find out). He’d be long gone before I got up, and usually didn’t return from work until after 9 pm when my brother and I were already asleep. I don’t think he really worked till 9 pm. I think some of the employees would hang after work, staying to drink and gamble. I know for sure that’s what they did when he worked at another laundry (where I unknowingly folded sheets with Jimi Hendrix’s stepmother). By this point my dad was drinking a 5th of whiskey and a case of beer a day, so maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t see him much. I never really saw him drunk that I could tell, maybe only once or twice, but it still changed him, and not for the better in my eyes.

Summers were my favorite time of the year and I had lots of neighborhood friends. It would be sunny sometimes for two or three days in a row. Unlike the children of today, we would go play in the woods unsupervised, build forts, ride bikes, walk wherever we wanted; no cell phones, no computers, no video games, B&W television with only four channels and no worries.

The troubles for me began with my little brother, who was the reason my parents argued all the time. My mom wanted to do everything for my brother and give him everything he wanted. My father didn’t want him to be spoiled, but mom won. There was always a big scene at the house with him nearly every day for years. My dad was always at work, so I kinda ended up being the responsible one and got tossed to the side and did my own thing. I was grown enough to take care of myself. By the time my brother was 14, he had become totally dependent on drugs and alcohol. This caused even more problems at home and eventually contributed largely to my parents’ divorce in 1975; he eventually committed suicide in 1983 at the age of 26.

In the mean time, I had always had a love for music, specifically drums. I don’t know why drums, but I was drum-crazy. I’d build drums from big tubs or pots and pans, and beat on them with wooden spoons. As early as 1959, I’d been begging my parents to get me a drum set. I don’t know how I knew it, but I really think that from day one that’s what I wanted to do with my life. In 1963, Wipeout by the Safaris was released and our neighbor’s band would rehearse it in their backyard. Luckily they’d let me watch (which was much more fun than watching their fat mother play Gus Cannon’s Walk Right In on the accordion in between hairdressing appointments)! I really started pushing my parents for drums again after hearing the neighbor’s drummer play Wipeout. Finally in 1964, they gave in and started me on drum lessons at school and rented me a nice Rodgers snared drum. I got my first full set in around 1967.

By 1966 I was in my first short-lived band, which consisted of a guitarist friend and myself. I think the only song we learned was Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones. After that, I joined several bands in my Junior High School years and began gigging with them at little parties and dances. The best was yet to come.

Why the Blues?

Why the blues? I’ll be damned if I know. I began digging blues long before I knew it was blues music. I know that for sure. I had no idea the artists were African American. All I heard was music, music that I liked.

As a kid, my dad had a lot of old 78 RPM records he had collected while in college and it just so happened that there was a Boogie Woogie craze around that time. It’s not surprising that in between what seemed like a 1,000 lbs of Bing Crosby 78’s, there was some real music hidden in the pile. My two favorite records as a very young child of maybe 3 or 4 were Pinetop Smith’s Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie and Pinetop Smith’s I’m Sober Now; the latter I must have listened to 10,000 times as a child. I can still recite it word for word and haven’t heard it in over 50 years!

At one point, my dad decided we needed more storage space in our little house, so he built a stairway up to the attic. He laid down some plywood on the rafters to give us more room. It was a tiny little space, but that’s where the 78’s were. I used to drag a little portable record player up there and sit for hours listening to all the records. Surprisingly, all the ones I liked were blues even though I had no idea what kind of music I was listening to. I didn’t know blues from pop; I just knew good and bad. My favorites were Big Joe Turner, Louis Jordan, Meade Lux Lewis and of course, Pinetop Smith.

As a very small kid, I used to sometimes get to spend the day with my dad at the laundry. Besides hiding in the laundry baskets and scaring the girls working there, I was digging a lot of the music they were listening to. There were no black stations in the area until the 70’s, so the Top 40 stations of the day played a good share of R&B, too. My favorite record I remember hearing, probably back in ’57 or ‘58 was Guitar Slim’s The Things I Used To Do. I had no idea the name of the song or who made it. I just loved the song. I didn’t learn until my teenage years who it was or that it was blues. In high school I found a copy of his Ray Charles produced LP at a used record store I would visit every day after school. What was really cool about this place was that you could get really nice blues LP’s cheap. They had a record player there, and you could listen to the records to see if you liked them before you bought them. In later years, we got friendly with the old hippy that worked there. He’d save all the good stuff for myself and my two friends/musical cohorts at the time Jack Cook and Daddy Treetops. Whoever got there first got first pick, so it was always a race after school to see who could get there first.

This brings up the subject of how I totally got turned on to blues and really learned what it was. I had been in this band back in ’68 with record producer Dick Shurman’s little brother Danny. I didn’t know it but I guess the guitarist’s friend and neighbor Jack Cook who lived two doors down had been peaking in the windows when we were rehearsing. I never really knew him but I did meet him briefly once or twice. Jack gave me a ride home from rehearsal at least once. I didn’t think too much about it, and I didn’t even know he was a musician.

Long after the band dismembered, I was hanging at the house one day after school and there was a knock at the door, it was Jack Cook. Apparently Jack was looking for a drummer and had been driving around neighborhoods for weeks looking for my house because he couldn’t remember exactly where I lived. He said he liked my drumming and he wanted to start a blues band and asked if I would be interested in joining his band. I really didn’t know 100% what blues was, but I agreed to come to his house and give some LP’s a listen. I liked most of what he played me. I remember him playing some Muddy Water’s from the Fathers and Sons LP and not much else of what I heard that day, maybe some Jimmy Reed. What really got me hooked was yet to come.

In my sophomore year of high school, Jack told me that Texas bluesman Albert Collins was performing at an upcoming all city high school dance at his school. I’d never heard of Albert before, so he played me something off Truckin’ with Albert Collins. I believe it was the song Frosty and I remembered thinking this was really cool. I had to go to this dance. Hearing the record and hearing Albert in person were two entirely different things. The only way I can describe what I heard that night was that it was like an atomic bomb had been dropped on that little high school gymnasium. It was better than a three-hour orgasm, that’s for sure! I don’t think those poor kids knew what hit them, but that’s what did it for me. I was hooked.

Even as teenagers, Jack, Daddy Treetops, and myself began to get familiar with the local blues scene. One of the first bands we saw was a band called the Grey Blues Band led by legendary Seattle bluesman Jr. Earl. Everything about him was just cool to us; he drank, he smoked, he was having sex with women, he was worldly far beyond his maybe 23 years of age. It was through Jr. Earl that I began working with Isaac Scott’s band. I was Isaac’s drummer for the first gig he ever played in Seattle and the first incarnation of the Isaac Scott Trio, as we were called at that time.

Another place we used to frequent was a place just south of the University District called the Jazz Gallery coffee house. It was an all-ages venue and our favorite DJ from KRAB-FM Bob West was appearing there weekly with the Great Excelsior Jazz Band. I wasn’t much into traditional 1920’s Jazz, but this is how I met my friend Bob West. Through Bob I learned more and more about the music. Every week we’d hang out and jam at his houseboat on Lake Union, the jam sessions were legendary. Occasionally when a known artist would come to town, we’d get to meet and play a few tunes with them. Two of the most memorable occasions were when I got the opportunity to jam with B.B. King’s uncle Bukka White, and also during my senior year of high school, I got to jam with Johnny Shines when he came through town as well. I remember going in late to high school the next day on this high from playing with Johnny Shines the previous night. I was on top of the world. One of the teachers caught me in the hall and said, You’re late. I replied, F’ck you. I just played with Johnny Shines last night. That got me in a little trouble, but at that point, I didn’t care. I had met and played with one of my idols. I also got to record with Bay Area bluesman George Hurst. Now 40 plus years later, the recordings are going to be released on Bob’s record label, Arcola Records.

It was through Bob West, who was a mentor to myself and my friends, that I landed a radio show at KRAB-FM. It was a 40,000-watt non-commercial radio station. I was still only in high school when Jack Cook and I began broadcasting on KRAB. I stayed at the station either with or without Jack until I moved to Chicago in 1975. I had a good five-year run spinning blues for the Seattle area.

Isaac Scott – Seattle’s Big Time Blues Man

Despite being underage, I had been getting club work with some of the local blues bands. It just so happened that at this point in my life I had been doing some gigs with Jr. Earl. Jr. Earl was mainly a harp player/vocalist, but he was just learning how to play bass. I believe he had been doing some gigs with Tom McFarland, another of Seattle’s cast of blues playing characters. The story goes that one day, a late twenty-something large black man showed up with a guitar, wearing canary yellow pants you could see from a mile away. He asked if he could play a few tunes. At this point, Isaac had been pretty much working with gospel groups, but he did know a few Freddie King instrumentals. Jr. liked what he heard and he decided to see if he could get Isaac some local gigs. This is how the Isaac Scott Trio was born. I’m thinking this was probably in late ‘73 or ’74 at the latest. The Trio consisted of Isaac on guitar, and occasional vocals, Jr. Earl on bass and myself on drums.

At this point in Seattle, there just weren’t any black musicians out playing blues in clubs other than L.V. Parr who was originally from Osceola, Arkansas. L.V. led the band The In the Groove Boys and was a major influence on Albert King, Fenton Robinson and Son Seals. L.V. played a lot in the BB King/Little Milton vein. Great as he was, he only seemed to get gigs in the absolute worst skid row bars. Although the band was great, they just never got off that circuit. Isaac, on the other hand, was a little more suited to the white blues crowd. He was a guitar playin’ fool, and you can take that to the bank. He played very much in the Freddie King vein, and in time became a good singer as well. Most people don’t know it, but he was one hell of a Hammond organist as well. It wasn’t long before Isaac became the only real major bluesman in Seattle. I do suspect there were some good black players doing house parties in Seattle’s Central area, but if there were, they were totally off the radar.

At some point, Jr. Earl left the band. I really don’t remember why, but for a good little while, we were doing a hell of a lot of rehearsing with bass man Tony Thomas at his Central area apt, where he lived with his wife and kids. Tony was a garbage man by trade and a seriously funny guy, as was Isaac who definitely liked to clown. Put the two together and they’d have you crackin’ up all night. I really