JC: Hmmm...anybody? Sleepy John.

JC: Yeah. He's my favorite. I don't know if I'd want him in that shack. [where Jack visited outside Brownsville]

JC: Long pause, but no answer from Gentleman Jack.

JC: The obvious being portable and cheap?

JC: Well that's it, though.

JC: Well...(laughs)..you know...the guitar...what's interesting is that the banjo dominated in traditional jazz on up into the 20's. But Buddy Bolden's band actually had a guitar player around the turn of the century who sang blues. He's documented singing blues around 1900. That's about the earliest documentation of real blues...twelve bar blues. They say he used the form to sing dirty lyrics. Bolden had two clarinets. How come clarinet disappeared from the blues? That's what I wanta know. (laughs) I think clarinet is great in the blues, but it's always associated with trad jazz.

I can understand the amplified harmonica. It has the same intensity as the trumpet or sax, and it cuts. You know, in the right hands it can cut over the top. So, I understand that. As far as earlier on, as far as the rural players go, the harmonica was...I mean, as you and I know, it's the easiest instrument to play bad. Anybody can play it bad. But I think you can get competent pretty easily if you have some musical sensibilities on that instrument. But horns, whoah. I think you can study a clarinet, saxophone, or trumpet for some time, and still not be able to play shit.

JC: Yeah.

JC: Possibly being able to bend the notes. For sure banjo doesn't have the same timbre or tone.

JC: Oh, wow. The best? Hmmm, hmmm. One performance? Well. Maybe Sleepy John at his house, on his porch with Hammie Nixon. Because it was a one time event. Being in Brownsville, Tennessee, at this shack, with all these kids and relatives runnin' around, and just, just....like being in another world. And John...his singing is my favorite. I can remember crying hearing him play live. But a lot of it was the place and time and everything. The family was all around, but it was strictly for me. I was the audience. It was very personal. I can't compare it to anything else. Visiting other players, down south, I could kinda relate to their lives, but John was just in another world....totally.

JC: Well. I don't really remember that much. He didn't clown around that I remember. Just playin'. Hammie I could talk to, you know. Just like the other guys I visited. But, John was, you know, a brother from another planet.

JC: Blues? I know for electric guitar, hearing Joe Willie Wilkins on those early Sonny Boy records. I think I still play a lot like that. Based off of that. It's a rural approach trying to lean toward a T-Bone type style, but keeping a country feel.

JC: You mean new or old? It doesn't have to be young...?

JC: Well I would say, Bobby Timmons. He's a soul, uhh, jazz piano player. He did a trio album around 1960 called This Here Bobby Timmons. One of my favorite jazz albums for sure. It's sort of sophisticated blues. Yeah. I play his recordings all the time. I'd probably say that I listen to piano players as much as guitar players. In fact, I would have, probably, rather played piano. If we would have had a piano. But, there you go. Portability. Same thing with me. I had pianos, but I moved around so much, I couldn't keep 'em.

JC: Hmmm. Well. He's kind of a focal point. I think between Isaac and Tom McFarland in the 70's...they were the genuine blues voices...around Pioneer Square. Actually Pike Place Market. There were probably six or eight clubs to play, and you couldn't work the North End. You could work the North End, but you wouldn't have anybody show up. Isaac was a "for real" black blues man. It kind of made the scene more real. Isaac's an outstanding vocalist, and I think the fact that he likes to stretch his guitar playing, even though I don't care for it myself, helps him relate to the rock generation. He's been compared to Hendrix, and things like that. He can solo for forty minutes....for some folks, that's it!

JC: Yeah I think so.

JC: I think so. He's fairly special, not just being black. His whole persona...his facial expressions. Yeah. I'd say so. But, I could say the same things about Tom McFarland.

JC: I see his influence as prominent. I saw him, myself, at a high school dance in '71. As a matter of fact that would have been the first actual blues show I'd seen. He tore the place up. I mean it was a high school dance. I don't think anyone knew what was goin' on. I had one record by him on an anthology, so I actually knew who he was. He continued to play around Seattle, regularly, and uhh. You know, you were talking about David Brewer. David backed him up. Yeah. Lotsa volume there. Maybe that helps paralyze the audience (laughs).

JC: Yeah. Yeah.

JC: No.

JC: There weren't many harmonica players around then. Steve Bailey was another one. I played with Steve around that time. You see, McNeff (Don McNeff was Junior Earl's given name)... Yeah. Junior Earl....The first time I heard Junior Earl was at a high school dance. It turned out that Stan Eike and Howard Hooper were in the band, and they were still in high school. And when I saw him...Earl, he was only a few years older than us. But, he appeared a lot older, he had an attitude, he was an alcoholic, pale and skinny, had the little mustache...he played through this old Gibson amp. You may have heard it. Mike Lynch bought the amp from him. It was one of those accordion amps. Almost a triangle shape. Anyway. He had that thing on a chair. Blowin'. You know this was 1970, and to Twist, Treetops, and me this was the real shit! Look at this guy, ya know. He may as well have been from Chicago, or wherever, as far as we were concerned. A lot of it was his attitude, plus he could sing real soulfully. He sang like a cross between Mose Allison and Lowell Fulson. If that makes any sense. He wasn't that gruff phony white blues singer. It was more soulful with kind of a "Beat" timbre. And ahh...he was playing Big Walter type chops. I don't know if he had it down, but back then it seemed like the guy was the king. He had that blues persona. Later he started writing and listening to Sonny Rollins, a lot. He started taking it in a jazz direction. Still playing blues, but kind of had this jazz influence. He tried playing strange positions, other than the standard blues first and second positions. I remember him talking highly about Paul deLay back then.

WBS: At that time in the Northwest all there was..a young Paul deLay Jr. Earl, and Johnnie Ward. Do you have any thoughts on why the I-5 Corridor, from Seattle to Eugene, spawned so many fine harp players?

JC: Yeah. It's funny, because around 1970 there wasn't hardly anybody. Maybe this is part of it. The availability of these records (good harp records). Before that, the average guy heard John Mayall or the Yardbirds with this wimpy harp. But they put out those Chess records there was access to hearing the real stuff.

JC: That's true. I don't know. I mean, somebody was telling me that at one time there was twelve washboard players in Portland. Which is a strange thing, too.

JC: He was a substitute teacher at Nathan Hale (High School). He met Twist in a class, and Twist had "Blues from Big Bill's Copacabana" stenciled on his notebook. Steve saw it and it got them to talking about Muddy Waters, or whatever. So Steve got together with us...Treetops, Twist, and me. We did some playing, and nothing, immediately, happened. Shortly after that, we got into a band with Steve, and started playing around The Market.

JC: I went down there. I lived in Eugene in 1975 or '76. I had a girl friend who was going to school down there, so we moved down there together. I was trying to get something together with Steve. but, the timing wasn't right. Nothing ever happened. Plus I could never here Robert Cray or Curtis Salgado. The time I was there, I swear they never played in Eugene. I went to Portland to hear them. The first time I heard Cray was in Marysville. He never played in Seattle. I heard about Robert through Steve. Cray played at Harrah's East in Marysville. So we went over to Marysville to hear Robert Cray. It was worth it.

JC: Yeah. I met him in high school, and he really hadn't listened to blues much. At some point I got gung-ho and I'm just going to play this blues stuff. I got more and more into it, just on my own. I didn't have an extensive record collection, but it's what I was buying more, and more, of. I knew Twist through some other people in bands. I asked him one time...actually the first thing that impressed me about Twist, back then, he was the only drummer who didn't do a drum solo. Every drummer did these lame solos. He never did. He just played the groove. Anyway we got together, and he loved it(blues). He got totally into it. Same thing with Treetops. Treetops was listening to the Rolling Stones, or whatever...then Treetops...we all got into country blues. It's funny...Twist plays drums, but he started listening to Charley Patton, too. We tried playing through old tape recorders, TVs, and stuff. Hook up the lousiest speakers we could. Trying to duplicate these obscure records. It was pretty crazy. Let's see. Well, he (Twist) played with Isaac early on. When Isaac first came on the scene...I think he showed up at the Pig( Place Pigalle) when Junior Earl was playing, and sat in. Earl said, "Oh yeah. We gotta do something together." Earl was really into playing bass because he loved Jack Myers (of The Aces). So he played bass and Twist played drums behind Isaac. Isaac was doing nothing but Lightnin' Hopkins and Freddy King type tunes. Low down...low down stuff. Sometime in there Twist took a couple of trips to Chicago, before he actually moved there. He just fell in love with it. You know? Just the whole thing. The clothes. The guns. and uh...yeah, for sure. He's played with everybody you can imagine since. Now, of course, he's recording with his studio. Now, his thing is collecting these microphones. He knows microphones like geez! Unbelievable. Lots of knowledge there. He always liked to tinker with that stuff. He was the one behind us messing with tape recorders and stuff. We were the ones playing through it, he was the one tinkering with it.

JC: Wow. I know somebody that hardly gets mentioned that should be mentioned; that's Lonnie Johnson. But, he didn't sing about the Devil, and so...there's no mystique about him. He's pretty well documented. He had, kind of, a sweeter approach.

JC: Well. I don't know...I'd say Mose Allison. That's who I'd pick. 'Cause he goes back...he's really blues even though he's kind of pushed more toward jazz. His singing is, you know, original. He's totally a one of a kind thing. You know Mose when you hear it. Lyrically he's right up there with Sleepy John and Percy Mayfield.

JC: Yeah. I visited his place in Fort Worth. I remember his wife was pulling up, and I was sitting on the bed, and he's, "Get off the bed! Get off the bed!" She came and said, "Well, I saw that Washington license plate. I thought the president came to see you." He couldn't play anymore. He had arthritis. A really nice guy. He was still doing some song writing. I don't really remember talking to him about history. I should have. I should have asked about Funny Paper Smith, and all that.

JC: There you go. He was, like, something else. Not just his music, but his whole persona. He's the old blues man that I'm closest to. Because, I visited him twice in Memphis, and saw him play in Seattle. He would just hang out, you know, and we'd play and stuff...he'd tell these stories...and we didn't care if it was true, or not. It was just like...give me more. He was the most lovable person. You'd think the guy would be really mean and ornery if you heard his music.

JC: Gus...that voice...that voice. When I saw him he had this banjo. I don't know if it was the original banjo. He was blowing into a coal oil can. He really couldn't play anymore. That was fine. Just to hear him talk. That's the guy with the unique voice. Once again, I don't remember talking to him about the old days. I was just trying to visit. I t was sort of cool to be around his presence.

JC: He was swell. He was in really good shape. An herb doctor. He really had taken care of himself. He'd given up all the carousing and everything, years before. That song "Fallin' Down Blues." Man, it's got this great guitar part. I asked him about it. He just laughed, and he played it for me, but he sang some religious song lyrics over it. He seemed to retain all these guitar parts...music stayed the same, just the text changed.

JC: I visited him on Easter Sunday, and Houston Stackhouse was there at his house. We actually did some playing together. He had his old arch top Gibson. I don't really remember talking to him about history, or anything. His playing has that slow swingy bounce.

JC: He was super. Just an easygoing guy. It's interesting because he never made any 78s, but he was there through the whole deal. Supposedly taught Robert Nighthawk how to play. He's from Crystal Springs...is that right? I remember he told a story about getting really high on Canned Heat. I guess it was two different stories. One was about Canned Heat, and a terrible car wreck, and people getting killed, and....he's laughing. Then this other story about somebody getting blown away on their front porch. I guess he was around so much of that stuff, that he was just telling a story and it seemed kind of funny to him.

JC: He talked a lot! He'd, pretty much, say whatever you wanted him to say. He talked about recording in 1919. The thing I remember most is following him around in Chicago. I was staying at Paul Garon's house. Paul got a call from Big Joe. He was on his way to Japan. He needed someone to run him around town, and drop him at a girlfriend's on the South Side. Here's this old guy, and he's got girlfriends all over the place...down in Mississippi...Chicago...I'm sure St. Louis...probably Tokyo. First of all, we went to a restaurant. Of course, we needed a menu with pictures...Joe can't read. We went to the big and tall men's shop to get him a suit and tie. Joe picked out this suit and tie that, as far as the salesman was concerned, did not match at all. He was trying to talk Joe out of it. He just wouldn't have it. I'm Big Joe Williams, this is what I want to wear.

JC: We did quite a bit of playing, actually. Most specifically I remember being downstairs. I was there with Jeff (unintelligible) and we were getting ready to go to bed and we were playing a little guitar. He came down there...we were doing "Rollin' and Tumblin'," and we handed him a guitar, and he hammered out a Hambone Willie Newbern type version. The most amazing version of "Rollin' and Tumblin'." I mean...he just had it. That's it! Yeah! That's how that song goes!

JC: First of all I drove up. Steve LaVere had given me directions on how to find the place. It was off on this dirt road behind this Quanset hut. There's this big field, and all this dust. Somebody's spinning donuts out there. It was his son going crazy out there. He was saying, "I'm gonna kill that motherfucker. You raped my sister"....or something. Some weird family thing. That was all going on. Then when he saw me that whole thing just dropped. His attention was suddenly on me, and getting him out of Brownsville. Like.."Dontcha need someone to carry your equipment, ...or anything." There was just tons of kids all over, and the shack had no front door. John's guitar was under a pile of clothes. No mattresses on the beds. It was unbelievable. According to LaVere, John just didn't know how to take care of himself, and nobody around was capable or willing to...that's how he lived, because the next year I visited him in a project. They still had a piss-pot, even though they had a toilet. I don't think they knew how to use it. They had a color TV, a fan, and a couple of folding chairs for furniture. Living a certain way all your life...I guess. I don't know how long he'd been in that shack, but that same shack is in the Sam Charters film. That was 1959.

JC: Yeah. He had a bunch of women hanging out. Waiting on his government check, or whatever. It was like the party, you know. He had the whiskey out. My girlfriend was with me, and she got a little drunk, and I think she got him going. She was rubbing on his leg. He was playing really good! I was afraid he'd have a heart attack. He was taking it to the next level.

JC: He worked as a janitor. I don't think he cared, or new about anything going on outside of Mississippi, or Crystal Springs, for that matter. Of course, all his brothers played. I remember going one time, and they were all sitting around watching "Bonanza." They loved Hoss Cartwright, I'll tell you that. We did some playing, and...he didn't have a guitar, though. He did "Bye Bye Blues". I think that was his tune. He really nailed it. His wife said, "Yeah!"

JC: I got the gig just auditioning for Quint Davis, right in his office. Tells you how long ago that was. The Fest was big...now it's just massive. I just wanted to play there. He asked me how much I needed, I just said I wanted to play. I think it was $75.00 for a set. It was this little gazebo stage where Big Joe Williams and Robert Pete Williams were playing. Yeah. I just felt honored. I'd lived in New Orleans a little while, so they considered me local. They were glad to have blues that was local. I can't remember. I think Jerry Lee Lewis was the main person that year. I remember hearing Bobby Bland at that festival. There were these parachutists coming down, and Bobby totally put that into the blues. He just changed the tune right into this thing everybody was focused on. I thought that was pretty good.

JC: I don't think it can get any louder, so hopefully it'll get quieter. More forms will be recognized as blues. I think it started out as New Orleans jazz, which is New Orleans blues, really. There were more forms...what the classic women blues singers sang...progressions and things that constituted blues, and I think it got narrowed down. There was the Bluebird Beat era. In recent years it's been this grind out, mostly electric guitar. I'd like to see it go back to being more styles accepted. Maybe people will go back to manual typewriters, too (laughs).