Texas Blues

Texas Blues
The Rise of a
Contemporary Sound
Alan Govenar
Texas A&M University Press
College Station

John & Robin Dickson
Series In Texas Music
Center for Texas Music History
Texas State University
Greg Hartman & Gregg Andrews
General Editors


I was about to sit down and add a bit or two to the ol' blog here, when my wife came in the front door with a UPS delivery from Amazon.com that trumps anything that I was about to write and that everyone reading this blog needs to go out and buy (or push a few keystrokes and buy). Now, having had my copy for less than a couple of hours, this won't be much of a review--I just know how great of a book that it is going to be for anyone that relishes the blues.

At my side is a copy of Alan Govenar's Texas Blues-The Rise of a Contemporary Sound. It is sort of his continuing saga that began with his Living Texas Blues and Meeting the Blues: The Rise of the Texas Sound. With over 400 photographs and at 599 pages, it offers us a marvelous culmination of his research that began over 25 years ago. There ain't much that he hasn't managed to uncover as far a tracking down the blues from its beginnings in the state up to interviews with blues artists that are taking the stage tonight. The key word here is interviews. These are stories told by the artists themselves, either in interviews conducted by the author or collected from others and reproduced for our enjoyment and education.

He travels from the early blues of East Texas and the Deep Ellum of Dallas, through the progression of electric blues, the importance that the saxmen played on the creation of the sound, the influence of the state's musicians on the West Coast, and along the way we find out oodles about musicians from San Antonio, Austin, DFW, Houston and the Golden Triangle of Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange.

I'm ecstatic that a couple of darned fine musicians (both of whom I consider friends) are getting their due. It's about time that a major publication is giving a bow to Sonny Boy Terry's importance to the Houston blues scene for the last 20 some-odd years. As much as I know about Sonny Boy (because I've written about he and his music back in the day), his interview gave me a slice of his history with the city and the bluesmen that he hung with that I didn't know. Sonny Boy's current guitarist and one of this state's finest, Little Ray Ybarra, gets to tell his tale also and it's a fascinating read. Didn't know that his given name was Alphonso. Next time I see him, I'll have to call him Little Alphonso. I reviewed his band's CDs back in the day and they're somewhere, in the meantime go to his myspace site under my links and check out what real blues guitar playing is all about.

It's good to also see Frank Robinson's story in print. Blues musicologist, record company owner, musician, etc.., Tary Owens pulled him from obscurity in Crockett, Texas (my birthplace) and got him featured at the first couple of Navasota Blues Festivals in honor of Mance Lipscomb and also provided Frank with his first recording opportunity. Since Lightnin' grew up just down the road in Centerville and played Crockett jukes frequently back in the day, the younger Robinson often sat and picked with him and picked up his style, his and Frankie Lee Sims, who also frequented the area. Listening to him play was like witnessing a blues time warp kind of thing. His inclusion at that first 'fest was a real treat and got him back into the game. His inclusion in this book shows just how deep Govenar got into the outback of Texas blues.

I'll come clean and admit that I knew that Sonny Boy and Little Ray would be included in Govenar's book, but it was just an added carrot to entice me into getting my hands on it. I did read their interviews before I sat down today and I may not get back to the blog for awhile because I plan on spending some time reading the words of the legends (and those not so legendary, but just as vital) presented within this massive example of Texas blues history. So, I'm gonna stop and read a bit and quit hitting these keys for a spell.

I'm not sure who John & Robin Dickson are, but hats off to them and the Center for Texas Music History at my Alma Mater, Texas State University (I might have to forgive the regents for changing the schools name now.)

Anyway--

P.S.--Update (10/27/08) Quibbles: Now that I read a few more pages of the book, I think I should pass along what irritates me about it. The value of the contents of this volume outweigh my peeves by a long shot, but I think there are some things that could have made the book even better:
1. Better editing--In the table of contents, Doyle Bramhall II is listed as the entry on page 521. Turn to page 521 and it is titled Doyle Bramhall III with a very nice photo of Doyle Bramhall II and Charlie Sexton from their Arc Angels days. There are three additional pictures of he and Charlie together (one of which is erroneously mis-labeled). Is the interview about Doyle Bramhall III or II? No, it is about his dad, Doyle Bramhall, there is no III. Well, the table of contents had it right as far as photos go and there is one photo of Doyle Sr. from back in the day in Dallas. And speaking of photos, I realize that with over 400 photos that the real work comes with writing the captions. There are a few that could have identified the subjects a bit better or a bit more correctly.

2. A little more introduction to some of the artist to let the reader know why they count and maybe why they are included. I know enough about a good number of the musicians highlighted in this book, that the interview suffices, but the novice blues fans could benefit with a bit more about the who, what, when, and where. I'm clueless about a few of the folks here, so a bit more info, please.

3. A little updated information on some of the artists that are still with us would have been nice, especially if the interview was from the '80s. This again would be of great benefit to the novice blues reader who just might get the idea that Jimmy Vaughn and Kim Wilson's contributions of any importance to the genre ended in 1987.

I'll stop now, because I don't want to give anyone the idea that I don't and won't treasure this book as being an important addition to the world of blues music. It is well worth the price and adding to your collection of blues literature. Anyway--

Houston Blues

Down in Houston
Bayou City Blues
By Roger Wood
Photographs by
James Fraher
2003
356 pp 122 Duotones


Even though I've offered my written opinion on a couple of books here on the blog and I'm about offer up another, I really have no intention of becoming some kind of book reviewer. Peggy Ehrhart sent me a copy of her book and since there aren't many fictional stories themed around the blues, then I thought whoever reads this blog stuff needed to hear about her. While reading the Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock and just how much of my 'back in the day' days were being captured, I just had to share my impressions with anyone whom might relate. So, I'm not really going to call this or those real reviews.

Where Jan Reid's book gave an account the musicians that were relative to Austin's rise as a music mecca, Roger Wood's Down In Houston Bayou City Blues documents a past that established the city as a blues haven as important as Chicago or Memphis with just as much vitality. More than that, his book is a document to those that are still soldiering on in the city. So, I have to share this just to give Houston equal time and importance, in particular to how it is relative to my experience. Where the scene developing in and around Austin was bending genres and was overwhelmingly inviting to college age students and I was a willing participant to the party-on atmosphere, the blues in Houston was sorta operating out of earshot of us Anglo types. It was there, but we weren't. I grew up in the marvelous little coastal town of Brazoria, which was 50 miles south of Houston. When we got our driver's licenses in the late '60s, it was the bright lights and big city that lured us away--BUT we dared not venture into neighborhoods known as the Third and Fifth Ward. There was a lot of unrest along the racial divide during that period of time and those areas were absolutely not our turf. That was, though, where Houston blues was born, bred and nurtured. We had to wait for the blues to ease out of these neighborhoods and find us and it did, but until then, we went to places like the Love Street Light Circus and the Cellar, bought grape juice and pretended it was wine and listened to psychedelic bands, who sometimes jammed the blues. Quite frequently Billy Gibbons (of ZZTop) would bring his Moving Sidewalks to our teen dances and blow us away and he'd venture off into blues riffed rock for us.

Soul and R&B music was feeding the hit factories of the day back then. Garage bands had to play Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and Junior Walker or get run out of the building. Roy Head and the Traits and B.J. Thomas and the Triumphs were trumping everyone in the region. Our prom committees booked the TSU Toronadoes, who were quite the R&B showstoppers, for both my junior and senior years. There weren't many of us listening to the blues back in those days. So, even though I had grasp what it was I liked about the blues vs R&B/Soul about that time and we were crawling around Houston looking for things to do, we darned sure were not about to drive along Dowling Street or Lyons Avenue looking for anything. Then Liberty Hall opened and Lightnin' struck.

I had actually moved off to college, but was back visiting the folks when a friend of mine told me that Lightnin' Hopkins was playing Liberty Hall (a venue that opened in 1971 and was an answer to Austin's music swagger--the Armadillo had nothing on them with their roster such folks as Waylon Jennings, Bruce Springsteen, the Ramones, Bonnie Raitt, etc..). So, it took Lightnin' being enticed out of his neighborhood to expose me to my first real live bluesman. I didn't know what to think when he came out and had a seat in a folding chair and an assistant came out and strapped his guitar on him. I figured I'd missed him in his prime. I was wrong. He rawked the place. The Liberty Hall had two Lightnin' shows at 8&10pm and when my friend suggested that we hide in the restroom when they ran the first patrons out, I readily agreed to the risk. There aren't too many moments in life such that one, being able to witness greatness in two set. And this is actually where Roger Wood's book picks up--'bout time, huh?

Wood relates as to how he read a funeral notice for Lightnin' Hopkins shortly after he moved to the city in the early '80s to beginning teaching at Houston Community College. He was intrigued enough with the obit that he considered going to the funeral, but didn't and regretted it from that time forward. He quickly became aware of just how historically important the neighborhoods adjacent to his classroom were in nurturing some of the best blues musicians, and hence their music, that the genre had ever seen. He determined that it was his mission to find out what it was all about and share it with the rest of us. Like we all were, back in the day, he was a little leery about wandering around neighborhoods that may not be welcoming--even in this day and age. He sat his mind to it, though, and found that not being welcome was all in his mind as he began to frequent the modern day juke joints that were still hosting blues shows for the working class. He began to hang out in spots like Miss Ann's Playpen where bluesmen with national recognition, such as Sherman Robertson, would play when they were back in the 'hood.

As an aside here--my good friend Sonny Boy Terry decided to record a live album at Miss Ann's a few years ago and invited all to attend. As I said, even at this late date, some have a little trepidation about venturing over to such a place. Even though I was well into blues music by this time, most of the venues that I visited for my fix were own by white folks and inhabited by white fans. On the phone Sonny Boy told me, "Hey, their cool, if you're cool." That was enough for me. I invited my brother-in-law, who grew up in Houston, to come along and he wasn't sure at all if that was the part of town WE should be in, so he invited his bouncer size brother-in-law and before he was through, I had 6 grown men in my pickup truck with me. No one wanted to drive their vehicles down there. Bottom line is--it was all foolishness. EVERYONE was beyond cool and we had a fine time. I even discovered that I had left my truck doors unlocked with a cell phone or two left behind unmolested. So, there you go.

Wood enlisted esteemed photographer, James Fraher, to help him capture the Houston story as they hung with the locals at such spots as Miss Ann's Playpen, El Nedo Cafe, C.Davis Bar-B-Q, Shady's Playhouse, Etta's Lounge and the Silver Slipper. Fraher's photos have graced the covers, and illustrated articles for many publications, including the premier Living Blues magazine and his work here of blues artist captured at work and at home are of the highest quality. Together they reveal a slice of musical life that has existed for decades in one of the nation's largest cities, but has been virtually unrecognized and ignored by most of its population.

Wood spins tales from the mouths of those that witnessed the development of blues as it burst out of the Third and Fifth Wards of the city. Many of the musicians, that were still gigging around town while he was researching this book, played for and on recordings by such artists as Bobby Bland, BB King and Junior Parker. They relate tales of the road and in the studios of Duke-Peacock run by Don Robey, one of the few African-American owned recording companies in the 1950s. Of special importance is his interviews with the classy Evelyn Johnson, who ran Buffalo Booking Agency with Robey and managed artists such as BB. The stomping grounds of Albert Collins, Johnny 'Clyde' Copeland, Gatemouth Brown, Lightnin' Hopkins, Weldon 'Juke Boy' Bonner and Billy Bizor come to life within these pages and you can smell it.

The splendor and hey day of the Eldorado Ballroom is recounted by those that had the privilege to either play there or put on their finest threads and take a swing on the dance floor of one of the nation's finest musical venues booking the most popular African-American bands of the period. The club was the cultural centerpiece for a proud neighborhood and after years of neglect has been renovated for special events. It was the uptown to Shady Playhouse's lowdown, which also receives its due as a breeding ground for some of the best blues ever played. Sadly, many of the musicians that shared their history with Wood have passed in recent years, such as Joe 'Guitar' Hughes, Calvin Owens and Jimmy 'T-99' Nelson. That fact makes this document all that more important and valuable. These were all musicians whom recorded and toured the country back in the day when blues was boppin' and played for their people.

I mentioned how much I could relate to Reid's book because I lived around much of what he wrote he wrote about and actively participated as a fan. I also lived around much that is written here, but had no idea what was going on until they brought it to me. When us Anglos began attach ourselves to the attraction of the blues and the artists began to entertain in places such as club Hey Hey, the Bon Ton room, Fitzgerald's and Rockefeller's, we began to understand that the music was under our nose's the entire time. This is what Roger Wood brings to light and illuminates so brightly within the pages of his book. Once he ventured into the belly of the beast, he uncovered the remarkable sub-culture that had its roots in the beginnings of the music and he provides us with a greater understanding of the when's and where's of Texas blues. After reading through the pages, it is quite clear Houston absolutely has to be included when discussing, dissecting or analyzing cities that are important to the music or intertwined with its development.

I had the pleasure to meet and chat with quite a few of Wood's participants over the last couple of decades. Folks such as Texas Johnny Brown, Milton Hopkins (Lightnin's cousin), Jimmy 'T-99' Nelson, Big Roger Collins, Earl Gilliam,Joe Hughes, Calvin Owens, Big Walter Price and Jimmy Dotson were always willing to share their stories and insights. It is such a treat that their stories, tales and histories are so well documented. All Houstonians owe it to themselves to understand such a valuable piece of their city's cultural history and everyone else should grab a copy to grasp just why Houston should be mentioned in the same breath as Chicago, Memphis or even Mississippi. Anyway--

Check out http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/woodow.html for additional information. Roger Wood has also documented Texas Zydeco as well as he did the blues.

Mystery of the Blues

Sweet Man Is Gone
Peggy Ehrhart
Five Star Publishing

I'm not much in the way of a literary critic, but I do like a good mystery and I do like reading about blues. So, when Peggy Ehrhart sent me a copy of her blues mystery, Sweet Man Is Gone, I looked forward to escaping into both of those worlds and Peggy proves that she has a knack and knowledge for the genres, both literary and musical. I know blues music well enough to spot someone who writes with reference books at their elbows versus having a knowledge bank based in experience and I have a pretty good bluff meter for those professing to know the music. I've read enough mysteries to at least know what I'm looking for in the area of a suspenseful tale. Peggy's got it down on both accounts.

According to the book's jacket blurb, Peggy Ehrhart is a former college English professor and she plays blues guitar. Her website, www.peggyehrhart.com, sheds additional light on both of those sets of credentials that drives the success of this story that revolves around Maxx Maxwell, who is trying to get her band, Maxximum Blues, off the ground. A major complication to this goal arises when her lead guitar player turns up dead on the cement below his apartment window. When his death is ruled as a suicide, Maxx is having none of it and sets out to find out just who threw Jimmy Nashville from his window. Hence, the mystery tale is set and Ehrhart weaves a fine story based around the blues music world in New York City and a string of well drawn characters that inhabit that network. Ehrhart's attention to detail proves that she has been around the practice rooms frequented by the denizens of this sub-culture of not only blues folks, but of the myriad of musicians from every genre that is trying to leave their mark. She also gives plenty of knowledgeable evidence that she knows her way around a stage as she leads Maxx through her paces singing on the bandstand. She throws out just enough song titles of blues standards that Maxx sings to show the reader that the band's goal is to keep the music traditional. She gives enough examples of Maxx's listening habits to let us know that her affinity for the music is for real.

Maxx is certainly a believable character wrapped up in trying to establish a music career. Ehrhart has her balancing the trials of trying keep a band together and moving in the right direction, working as waitress to help achieve and support her goal and solving the mystery of what happened to her guitarist. Female readers will identify with her, not as a musician, but as a female. Choices in clothing, makeup, jewelry, and men are all a continuous thread confronting her. Maxx's Achilles' heel is good looking guitar players and the story opens with her on the rebound from losing one of those loves and the possibility that she could just fall for Jimmy Nashville--until he fell. Maxx's bandmates have just enough conflict going amongst themselves that adding the loss of the lead guitar player could just be the straw that Maxx is intent on not breaking--by finding a replacement that can carry that load. The internal conflicts will be readily recognized by anyone who's been in a band.

Ehrhart's mystery works very well and she drops the right number of hints and twists along the way to keep the interest level high and the reader in suspense, like good mysteries should. The book should appeal to not only blues fans, but anyone who enjoys a good mystery and has a hankering for a tenacious female detective, who can belt them out like Etta James. Sweet Man Is Gone is a great read and it'll add a little insight for those that don't know the blues and be mighty interesting to those that do. Anyway--