BIG CITY BLUES November 2003 Issue ACE’S ALLEY Paul Oscher Interview By Johnny Ace Thursday, November 13, 2003 3:05:46 PM 1. What do you think of the year of the blues? For the past thirty five years every year for me has been a year of the blues. I love the blues and I celebrate the blues every year. I wondered why it took them so long to come to appreciate it officially. It’s too bad that most of the great originators of the blues are dead. I’m sure Muddy, Wolf, Lightnin, John Lee, Jimmy Reed, Lowell Fulsom, T-bone, Sonnyboy, Little Walter, Junior Wells and all the guys that came before them would have liked to have seen that. This year hasn't been that much different, although I was invited to back up rap artist Mos Def at the "year of the blues" radio city music hall show, but I couldn’t do it because I had a prior commitment. Yeah rap and blues, I can see the connection poetically not necessarily musically, although it probably could work if you added a little more blues to the mix. I could see Muddys "I’m ready" being set to Rap music, as a matter of fact I was sitting in a little restaurant in Brooklyn at the counter and this kid came in and he was rapping along with his walkman he had the phones in his ears. So I said to him you getting your rhymes together and he said yeah, I said what do you think of this, then I rapped. "I got an axe -handled pistol on a graveyard frame, that shoots tombstone bullets wearing balls and chains, Im drinking TNT ; I’m smokin' dynamite , I hope some screw ball start a fight, 'Cause im ready , ready as a man can be. Im ready for you , I hope you ready for me. The kid backed off a little and said Wow! did you write that?, I said hell no, that was written by Willie Dixon and sung by Muddy Waters in the fifties. the kid said" Word , I didn’t know those artists were like that then." 2. What did you think of the Martin Scorsese PBS special. Well one thing I really loved about it was the companion book that came with the series. Martin Scorcese presents The Blues. They used a couple of stories from the book I'm writing called "Alone with the Blues" and edited them together into a story called The Gift by Paul Oscher. Its on page 223 - Holly George Warren was the editor. Then they used a story by my wife Suzan-Lori Parks called “How I met my Husband, that’s another good story. A lot of those stories and photos in the book are pretty good, I like the story by Peter Wolf about Muddy and there's a photo of Willie Dixon with a tear in his eye. But as to the PBS stuff that was aired, I thought it was ok but I would have liked to have seen more footage of the players from the sixties. I did appreciate the JB Lenoir and Skip James stuff and the footage of Muddy with Cotton in Canada in 1966. But I thought if you’re trying to capture a new audience that’s the stuff that could do it. It needed more of that. I'll never forget a show at the Apollo theatre in N.Y. around 1964 or 65. Bobby Bland , T-bone Walker, Jimmy Reed , Lightnin Hopkins, John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters what a show! T-bone stole it, came out in a white suit with his big band, hit a couple of intro chords and sang "they call it stormy monday" and played the fill- in on the guitar one handed, the audience went wild. I think any audience would have responded acordingly. Thats the kind of stuff that hooked me on the blues. Thats the kind of stuff I’d like people to see to get a greater understanding of the blues. I thought the stuff they had about Muddy and the electric mud album wasn’t really representative of Muddy Waters music. It was Psychedelic. Spann was the only one from the band on the record. After Electric Mud was made Muddy said to me and the rest of the band members How the hell we gonna play this stuff?, luckily not too many people requested it on the road. No one in the band knew how to play it, Including Muddy. I would have liked it if they gave more weight to the work Muddy did with Little Walter, Junior Wells, Henry Strong, Big Walter , Pat Hare, Jimmy Rogers and Spann. The blues has changed over the years, the venues have changed and the audience has changed, Blues clubs use to be just black bars with live bands. They were every where you had blackfolks with southern roots. and the bands didnt just play blues, no they played soul music too. Today you go to a so called blues club and there are very few blues artists listed and very few black people in the audience . You go to a blues jam. and you've got a bunch of people playing all kinds of blues styles at the same time. When they had those blue monday jams at Peppers lounge in Chicago, man that was like a blues variety show, who sat in! Little Walter , Junior wells , Magic Sam , James Cotton, Otis Spann, Muddy waters, Hubert Sumlin, Otis Rush, Big Walter , Johnny Young and the list goes on and the house band played each one of those artists styles to compliment the artist singing according to the rules that artist established in his style, his recordings and they knew it. they wouldnt mix BB with Muddy, but times have changed and some players now do anything they want to in those 12 bars but that don’t really bother me. I'm just gratefull to get a chance to play my old school kind of blues all over the country for new audiences -you know pass it on. Dick Waterman said that everybody comes to the blues from a different place, they find the style that resonates in them, you know that turns them on. for me Muddy, Little Walter and Otis Spann was the stuff that I felt, for Muddy it was Son House and Robert Nighthawk and RobertJjohnson thats the way it goes, for some people today its Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton , Stevie Rae Vaughn, different strokes for different folks, but whatever it is, its nice to have people enjoy it. Thats why I got into the music from the get go- I fell in love with it Its a whole lot of fun. The blues helps you get rid of the blues. #3. Do I have any favorite movie about the blues?. I cant really think of any movie about the blues but I really do like to watch the blues documentary of the American Blues Festival in Europe 1962-66, great footage of Hooker, Magic Sam , Wolf and Sonny Boy. for me its funny to see Muddy choke when Sonny boy stepped on Muddys vocal with the harp on “Got my Mojo Workin,” I know Muddy was pissed. That didnt happen too often. its a great video #4 What do you think we should do in 2004? Just keep up the funding of the blues events and fund raising activities and keep up the education, blues in the schools, the blues magazines etc.and keep writing books on the blues, the blues is really a great , great music born in the united States and it is just now getting some of the long overdue respect it deserves. I'd like to see more club owners booking more blues acts, and more people appreciating the deep blues and there are musicians out there that play it. and for all the young people out there that really dig the blues keep going to those shows and keep buying records and tell your friends about the blues and keep playing the blues #5 Do you have anything else to add? Not really, dont get me started, ive already talked too much if you want more you gonna have to buy my book "Alone with the Blues " when it comes out I'm only kidding, I love to talk about the blues to anybody that cares.