Tomorrow is Big Bill's birthday. I got to see and hear him once at the RR. Also shook hands with him. I got to shake Muddy's hand in 1976 in Austin. He's is every bit his father's son. Muddy would be proud of Big Bill as well as the rest of his young'ns who have made their way following in the old man's footsteps.This is another week when Constant Contact decided to let my column widths run amok so excuse the weirdness of the page.
I've got tickets to coming to give away for Joe Bonamasa's show in October. We'll be playing Blues trivia to pick winners. This will be a huge show if you're a JB fan. Stay tuned.
Showdown is Sept. 22 and 29 at the RR. Get it together and get in on the fun. Memphis is a very cool place in January (literally). You'll have the time of your life.
Lots of stuff going in in and around town so get out and show some support.
And hug somebody!!
Make it a good week,
Sincerely,
Jim Crawford - PBS
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 Big Bill by Don Wilcock "It's kinda like I'm walking in a fog," says Big Bill Morganfield. "I'm right in the midst of things. My whole career has been just kinda surreal. Things just keep unfolding." Perhaps the single most telling fact about Morganfield's career is that he did not take the stage name Muddy Waters Jr. As most blues fans know, Muddy Waters' real name was McKinley Morganfield. When the late Paul Butterfield inducted Muddy into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, he called him one of the great musical treasures of this century. "Aside from Robert Johnson, no single figure is more important in the history and development of the blues than Waters. The real question as regards his lasting impact on popular music isn't 'Who did he influence?' but - as Goldmine magazine asked in 2001 - 'Who didn't he influence?'" One of six children born to the iconic Delta blues legend, Big Bill Morganfield most certainly was influenced by his father, but he didn't seriously take up guitar until he was 27 and his father had just died. Big Bill took six years to woodshed before he took his performances public and 16 years before he released his first album Rising Son in 1999. His yet-to-be released seventh album sounds authentically Muddy-like with his barbed wire in Vaseline guitar and vocals that are downright eerie in their similarity to Muddy's regal baritone. But even in 1999 Big Bill had no concept that he would still be recording and performing in 2016. "I had no idea I would still be on the road. In reality, all I wanted to do was that Rising Son record and dedicate that to my father, and I would have been good. I coulda walked away and gone back to teaching and doing whatever else I was doing, and I could've been a happy soul, but it just didn't happen that way, but I had no idea. I just knew that I really wanted to make my dad proud. I wanted to be respectable and be respected and just didn't want to be thought of as somebody who is trying to take a free ride per se." Even today, he looks at trying to fill his father's shoes as "almost like being in the Olympics." The sad irony of Big Bill's life is that Steady Rollin' Bob Margolin, Hubert Sumlin, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith and other artists that have performed both with him and his father, knew Muddy Waters better than he did because his dad was always on the road. "Oh, man. Bob (Margolin, Muddy's guitarist from 1973 to 1980), has been instrumental to me. He taught me a lot. My daddy, if he was living today, he would probably run up to Bob and hug him and say, 'Thank you so much' 'cause Bob has been like a big brother to me, not just recording. Every record I ever recorded, he's on. Most people don't know that. There hasn't been a record I made that Bob hasn't been on except maybe Blues in the Blood(2003), but he's been like a big brother. "When I first came out, and we were playing over at the Kennedy Center, everybody (else) was known. You got Phoebe Snow, you got Keb Mo, you got Greg Allman, you got Koko Taylor, you got Buddy Guy, you got Robert Junior Lockwood and on and on. I was the only guy that wasn't known. Only connecting thing was that I was Muddy Waters' son, and I was nervous, really nervous, and Bob would call me. I remember him saying, 'Let's do this for the old man.' I said, 'Yeah, let's do it for him.' "That kinda calmed me down, and he was right there next to me on stage, and he kinda helped me with that walk like a big brother, and I don't know. Bob has been instrumental to my career, and I love him. He's been very instrumental. He's been like a brother to me." In many ways, Big Bill knows his father more through his music than he does from the little time he got to spend with him. "I don't talk about that very much, but there is a certain amount of sadness because my daddy spent more time with the world than he did with me, and when I say that, I'm only saying that he gave more of himself to the world than he actually did to me and some of the other kids because he was always gone, always gone. "As I have gone through my journey, I've gotten to know my father really well. I've gotten to understand the reason why a lot of things were the way they were. It's been more like therapy, me being a blues musician has been therapy, and me being a musician has been therapy, and it's answered a lot of my questions that I wasn't able to ever sit down and talk to him about certain things, and a lot of things were answered as I went through my blues journey about my father, and why this was like this and why that was like that. "It's a place I don't like to go to much. It makes me kinda sad, but it has to do with a young man being close to his father and wanting to be close to his father in more ways than everybody. Everybody wants to know their father, and they want to know their mother. And you want your mother and father to be there, to be around. And when they're not, you ask yourself a lot of questions. First, you ask why. To sum it up in a short brief saying, why he wasn't around is answered for me, not by him, but by my blues journey, that journey that I sought through the blues. A lot of those questions got answered for me hands on, I saw why, and I understood why things were like they were." One of the songs on Big Bill's debut album was "Dead Ass Broke." When he first wrote the song, he called his mother and sang it to her. "She felt so bad," he told me in 1999, "that she sent me a check. I was like, 'Oh, ma. It's alright. It's just that I don't have as much money as I want right now. I'm ok.' I sent the check back to her, but I just felt like here I am. I'm not teaching right now. (He had been an English teacher in Atlanta). I was making a pretty good living there. My wife and I'm doing this music thing here, and now I'm having to wait here, and I'm not playing as much, and I'm really kind of feeling broke." "There are certain expectations," explains Big Bill. "People expect you to know what you're doing and to know it good, and do it real good because you're always going to be compared to him. And let's face it, how many blues guys get compared to Muddy Waters? "You learn what pain is. And then you go about trying to treat people right which is important to me. Be like this and try to do the right thing, not for money, not for this and not for that, but only because it's the right thing to do, and that's an important part of my character 'cause I try to pass along things to my kids, and I touch other lives out there, and I say to myself, the high and mighty didn't put me down for self-gratification to come down and just enjoy this and enjoy that, but hopefully I was put here to be just like my father did, to do like a lot of people have done, and to make a difference in other people's lives. |
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GOT BLUES? If you are a Blues musician, a group, or a club that features Blues music, and would like to be listed, please send your info to info@phoenixblues.org and we'll be happy to list your event in our weekly Out & About section of the newsletter |
Moved? Changed email addresses? Please let us know of any changes in your address, email, or phone number so we can keep you informed about the Blues community in Arizona. Email us at: info@phoenixblues.org or write to: Phoenix Blues Society P.O. Box 36874 Phoenix, Arizona 85067 |
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| OUT & ABOUT
Tues., June 18
Wed., June 19 Paris James, 7 p.m., AZ BBQ Shack, Scottsdale Hans Olson, 7 p.m., Time Out Lounge, Tempe Chuck Hall, 6 p.m., Corrado's, Carefree Thur., June 20 Rocket 88s, 7:30 p.m., Rags, Youngtown Chuck Hall (acoustic), 6 p.m., CheezHeadz, Peoria JC & The Rockers, 7 p.m., Handlebar, Apache Junction Sugar Thieves Duo., 6 p.m., Culinary Dropout, Gilbert Paris James, 7 p.m., St. Armand Kitchen & Cocktails, Chandler Eric Ramsey Hosts OPEN MIC, 6 p.m., Fatso's Pizza, Phoenix Hans Olson EVERY THURSDAY, 6 p.m., Handlebar, Apache Junction Arizona Blues Project, 8 p.m., Harold's, Cave Creek Friday, June 21 Sistahs Too, 8 p.m., Rhythm Room, Phoenix Vanessa Collier, 9 p.m., Rhythm Room, Phoenix Mike Eldred (solo acoustic), 7 p.m., Bone Haus Brewing, Fountain Hills Pop Top, 6 p.m., Mountain View Pub Hoodoo Casters, 6 p.m., Desert Eagle Falcon Field, Mesa Blues Review Band, 7 p.m., Sound Bites, Sedona Rockin Blue Geckos, 8 p.m., El Dorado, Scottsdale Tommy Dukes/Roger Smith, 6 p.m., Charly's, Flagstaff Sat., June 22 Sugar Thieves, 8 p.m., Rhythm Room, Phoenix Rocket 88s, 9 p.m., Maverick Saloon, Phoenix Outback Blues Band, 6:30 p.m., American Legion Post 26, Mesa Bluesman Mike & TJ Dou, 7 p.m., Voodoo Daddy's, Tempe Rockin Blue Geckos, 8 p.m., El Dorado, Scottsdale Paris James, 6:30 p.m., D'Vine Wine, Mesa Leon J, 6 p.m., Moon Valley Grill, Phoenix Mother Road Trio, 5:30 p.m., High Country Conference Center, Flagstaff Sunday, June 23 Three Band Showcase (see poster), 2 p.m., Rhythm Room, Phoenix Mike Eldred, 3 p.m., The Vig, Scottsdale True Flavor Blues, NOON , Copper Star, Phoenix Nina Curri w/Doug Schultze, Noon, Jake's Corner Bar, Payson Scott O'Neal Band, 3 p.m., Birdcage, Prescott Mon., June 24
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| Jams
Rocket 88s JAM, 4 p.m., Chopper John's, Phoenix
Bourbon Jack's JAM w/Kody Herring, 6 p.m., Chandler
JAM Hosted by The Scott O'Neal Band. Every other Thursday, Windsock, Prescott
Sir Harrison, JAM every other Sunday, The Windsock, Prescott MONDAY
Bam Bam & Badness Open JAM, 9 p.m., Char's, Phoenix
Weatherford Hotel JAM, 6:30 p.m., Flagstaff
TUESDAY
OPEN JAM Hosted by Jilly Bean & The Flipside Blues Band, 7 p.m., Steel Horse Saloon, Phoenix
JAM Sir Harrison, 9 p.m., Char's, Phoenix
Gypsy's Bluesday Night JAM, 7 p.m. Pho Cao, Tempe
Tailgaters JAM, 7 p.m., Glendale
WEDNESDAY Rocket 88s, JAM, 6 p.m., The Last Stop (Old Hideaway West), Phoenix
Tool Shed JAM Party, 6 p.m. Gabby's, Mesa
THURSDAY Tool Shed JAM Party, 7 p.m., Steel Horse Saloon, Phoenix Jolie's Place JAM w/Adrenaline, 9 p.m., Chandler
NEW JAM @ The Bench, Hosted by BluZone, 7 p.m., The Bench, Tempe
Friday
Saturday Bumpin' Bud's JAM 2nd & 4th Saturdays JAM, 6 p.m., Marc's Sports Grill |
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