Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues

by Peter Guralnick

  Skip James at the Newport Folk Festival, 1964

  A year or so later, I heard that Skip had found Jesus, hung his guitar on the wall, and was preaching somewhere. I also read in a book that he was a murderer—a cold psychopath of a man who still carried a pistol everywhere. Maybe it was all true, maybe none of it, but for those few moments in the Lehigh Valley, time had stopped in the presence of a transparently beautiful music in the hands of a pure artist.

  CLIFFORD ANTONE ON LIVIN’ AND LOVIN’ THE BLUES

  Clifford Antone founded one of America’s preeminent blues clubs, Antone’s, in Austin, Texas, during a time when the blues had been cast aside in the public consciousness. Antone’s zeal helped to create a Texas blues scene that produced national sensations the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Stevie Ray Vaughan—who cut their teeth at the club playing with such heroes as Albert King and Muddy Waters during the great bluesmen’s residencies at Antone’s.

  Seeing Bobby “Blue” Bland and James Brown at the National Guard Armory as a teenager in Beaumont, Texas, changed my life. You’d hear all this music where I lived: Louisiana blues, like Slim Harpo, Lightnin’ Slim, Katie Webster, Lazy Lester, Guitar Slim; and the Texas blues—Junior Parker, Bobby Bland, Johnny Ace. But I didn’t hear the Chicago blues till I was in my later teens. When I heard that, that was it—that became my thing.

  During the hippie days, when I was listenin’ to Fleetwood Mac when it was a straight blues band with blues guitarists Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer, a guy at the record store said, “I just got this weird import thing, Fleetwood Mac in Chicago, a double record. Here, take it.” I put this record on, and it was Fleetwood Mac with Willie Dixon and Otis Spann, and I said, I’m gonna find out who these guys are, so I went to the record store. There was a record on, Otis Spann, and an Elmore James record. I heard Otis Spann playing the piano, and Elmore James. That’s the first time I really knew myself. I said, “This is how my mind is!” I could never explain it to anyone. This music is me—that’s how I think. The other stuff on the radio was just music. The whole thing was good; there was no bad music. But this was my own thing! When I heard those guys’ voices—Otis Spann and Elmore James—it was like, That’s what I been trying to explain to people, teachers at school. I can’t explain myself: “Why’re you not listenin’ in class?” “I dunno.” The music always had a hold on me, but when I listened to that, those voices, that was mine. It still is. The only thing I listen to is the blues. No jazz, no rock. I always wonder, Why me?

  Back then, there was still a twelve o’clock drinking law. In 1975, they made two o’clock the drinking cutoff. Soon as they did that, I knew that opening a blues club was what I wanted to do. The first Antone’s opened on July 15, 1975. It was on Sixth Street, then a completely dark, deserted street. It was a six thousand-square-foot building, six hundred dollars a month. It’d be ten thousand dollars today. I been blessed to do this. We were kids, opening this club with no money. People started coming and bringing us stuff: A plumber comes in, says, “Lemme do this for you.” Air-conditioning man with big ol’ units says, “Lemme put this in for you, pay me later.” Turns out his partner bought an old church in the country with this old wood. Came in and designed the back wall with wood and mirrors. Just brought it to us, let us use it.

  The first week we opened, we had Clifton Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band—Clifton and his brother Cleveland, the best scrub board player ever, and Blind John Hart on sax. Unbelievable band. Got us off to a good start. Then we had Percy Mayfield and Ray Charles for a week. We had pianist Sunnyland Slim and harmonica player Big Walter Horton the third week we were open. Then Sunnyland went back to Chicago and told everyone about us. Jimmy Rogers, Eddie Taylor, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy—everyone started calling me and came down to play. Sunnyland turned everyone on to us. He was like your grandfather and godfather rolled into one.

  Also in ‘75, the Thunderbirds started. Harmonica player Kim Wilson came down, and vocalist Lou Ann Barton was an original Thunderbird. Jimmie Vaughan and Stevie Ray Vaughan were two guitar players. Stevie didn’t sing at all then. Thirty percent of what Stevie played, he owed to Albert King. He was as good as you get, but he borrowed everything from Albert King—in a great way.

  The Texas blues sound is different from the Chicago blues sound. You can’t get Buddy Guy and Albert Collins in a jam together. It doesn’t work. The Texas shuffle is hard to explain—these Texas blues drummers can’t back up the Chicago guys, generally speaking. An exception is Memphis harmonica player Junior Parker: He’s a guy who plays Texas style, Memphis style—on Sun Records as Little Junior and the Blue Flames—and Chicago style. He did all three styles. That’s rare. Not a lotta guys like that.

  One time I had guitarists Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, and Albert Collins all together. They had a jam and [Texan] Albert couldn’t fit in with them. He would play, but he wasn’t comfortable. That’s when I first realized how different the Chicago and Texas styles are—especially the drumming. Chicago drummers like S.P. Leary just play a different kind of feel than the Texas shuffle.

  Seeing Muddy onstage was so exhilarating—like a religious experience, like seeing God. I was so young and so totally dedicated to the blues. That was the only thing in my life. Muddy would come to my house, my mother would cook for him. Albert King, too, was so nice. They were just like family. Our shows were for five days, Tuesday through Saturday. So I got to know the musicians, and the local guys got to hang out with the old-timers. You can’t imagine in ‘75: Jimmie and Stevie playing a gig together couldn’t draw a hundred dollars. But Stevie got to play with Albert King, his hero. Jimmie and Kim [Wilson] got to be onstage with Muddy Waters. To me it was like, we gotta make it happen. This has got to be recorded. Where we gonna get the money? These guys are dying! We never had the funds to record this stuff the way we wanted to, still don’t. I ain’t got nothin’. I threw everything I had away. But that’s okay. I’ve got their friendship. I can tell you this: Muddy Waters is with me wherever I go.

  Some of the great bluesmen from the state of Texas

  JIMMIE VAUGHAN ON BEING BORN INTO THE BLUES

  Guitarist Jimmie Vaughan left home to play the blues when he was fifteen. His brother, Stevie Ray, joined him in Austin, which the two turned into a new blues capital.

  My mom and dad moved us around a lot when we were kids, going from town to town all over Texas. My little brother, Stevie, and I were in the backseat watching the world go by. We’d stop for a Dr. Pepper, and there’d be a black man with a guitar, playing his heart out. I’d wander over and just watch. I was mesmerized. I wanted to know how he made that thing talk. It sounded so personal, like he was revealing all his secrets.

  “How does he do that?” I asked my mom.

  “He’s blessed,” she said, “with talent.”

  “What’s he singing?” I asked Dad.

  “I got to work with Lightnin’ Hopkins in Los Angeles. Warner Bros. set that up. They knew he was a big hero to me. I had ‘Polk Salad Annie’ out at the time. I played acoustic guitar on his LA. Mudslide LP. He came in the studio with his wife, and I was already there by the microphone. He had a paper sack with a big jug of wine in it. Gave the sack to his wife, walked by me, and said, ‘You playin’ wit’ me, boy?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ and I played a couple of his licks, and he said, ‘Hey, all right, all right.’ He just looked up at the engineer and said, ‘Turn it on.’ And he played twelve songs and didn’t hardly stop between songs, except for a sip of wine. He wouldn’t even look at me. I just felt what to play. If you didn’t feel it, you’d be quiet till you did feel it. Then he got up, shook my hand, said, ‘I sure like the way you play, man.’ Went in there in the studio, held out his hand, a guy in a suit put ten one-hundred-dollar bills in his hand. He put the thousand dollars in the paper sack, and him and his wife walked out. No royalties, no paperwork-pay me now, bye-bye.”—Tony Joe White

  “The blues, son. The man’s singing the blues.”

  That’s when I understood that the bl
ues are a blessing. Later, I also understood that growing up in Dallas, where the blues are so strong, was an added blessing. Blessings were all around me. Dallas was home to Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lil’ Son Jackson. T-Bone Walker, who invented big-city electric-blues guitar, led Blind Lemon around town and was called Oak Cliff T-Bone. Oak Cliff is the section of Dallas where I was raised—guitar country.

  I’d lie in bed every night listening to Jim Lowe’s Kat’s Karavan, a local radio show that played Jimmy Reed. In Dallas, Jimmy Reed was God. The sound of his harmonica, the sound of his voice, the sound of Eddie Taylor’s guitar—those were the sounds that shaped my childhood. Jimmy Reed encompassed everything—he was low-down, he was simple, he was sensuous, he was easy to copy, and he was popular.

  Lightnin’ Hopkins is another towering influence. Lightnin’ is beautifully simple and deceptively sly. I felt the elegance of his touch. Lightnin’ penetrated my soul and helped form my musical character. So did Freddie King. In Dallas, radio played Freddie’s “Hide Away” more than the Beatles. I bought tons of records—every B.B. King record in the store. I’d take those suckers home and wear ‘em out. I studied them until I knew them. Every last lick.

  Stevie was sitting up in the bed next to me, watching my every move. Like all little brothers, he was dying to do everything Big Brother did. The minute I brought home a Lonnie Mack or Jimi Hendrix record, Stevie was right there with me, studying me as I studied the music. That’s how we both learned to play. Off the records. No reading, no writing, no training. All by ear.

  SOMETHIN’ THAT REACH BACK IN YOUR LIFE

  By John Lee Hooker

  [As told to Paul Oliver, from Conversation with the Blues, 1965]

  John Lee Hooker, circa 1965

  Way back before you and everybody else and all the peoples was born, spirituals was the thing. Nobody can reach way back and find out just when it was born. But when spirituals was born it was born on the blues side. You can compare spirituals and blues almost along together because both of them got a very, very sad touch. Because that’s why you could take some spirituals and some blues and compare them together and you get a sad feelin’ out of each one. So that’s why I sing the blues. I used to be a spiritual singer. But I get just as deep a feelin’ from the blues as I would from the spirituals, because I do it sad and I do it to satisfaction until the whole thing reaches me, what happened to other people, and I get that real deep down sad feelin’.

  There’s a lot of things that give you the blues, that give me the blues, that give any man the blues: It’s somewhere down the line that you have been hurt someplace. I mean, it’s no certain type of hurtin’, but you have been hurt someplace and you get to playin’ the blues that reaches. And so that’s why when I sing the blues I sing it with the big feelin’. I really means it. It’s not the manner that I had the hardships that a lot of people had throughout the South and other cities throughout the country, but I do know what they went through. My mother, my daddy, and my stepfather, they told me these things and I know that they must have went through those things themselves. And so when you gets the feelin’ it’s not only what happened to you—it’s what happened to your foreparents and other people. And that’s what makes the blues.

  GODFATHERS AND SONS

  Directed by Marc Levin

  What’s unique about this documentary series is that there’s an overall historic narrative on the blues, but unlike the more traditional approach, here we have all these directors picking a part of that story and that chronology and then diving in and somehow personalizing it. Chicago blues and Chess Records have always been my love, since I was a kid. The first Paul Butterfield Blues Band album originally got me into the Chicago blues during the summer of’65. We used to look at that album cover that showed one of the first interracial bands. Sam Lay, the black drummer, was the coolest—it was like, “That’s what we want to be like.” So with this film, I got to come full circle and go back to where it all started.

  For me, rock & roll comes out of the Chess Records sound—Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Koko Taylor, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley. That whole world was a revelation to me. I was thirteen, fourteen years old and listening to rock & roll, but I didn’t realize where it came from. Rock & roll had an element of danger, and it was sex, it was liberated, it was bohemian, but I didn’t realize it came out of Chicago.

  Marshall Chess, the son of Chess Records cofounder Leonard Chess, has obviously been radioactively supercharged by being exposed at a young age to all these great blues artists. He had to calm down by being the Rolling Stones’ manager for ten years. This story of Chess we tell in the film is his personal story—his family’s story. We decided to take his personal story, which encompasses all this great music, and hook it up with today’s younger generation. We wanted this music to come alive—not come across as a thing of the past. This music is now; you feel the beat, you feel it in your gut.

  Chuck D (right) and Common

  Marshall called me one day and said, “You’re not going to believe this, but I just got an e-mail from Chuck D. He read Spinning Blues Into Gold, the book on the Chess family that Nadine Cohodas wrote, which is a great book. Chuck D said, ‘It was Electric Mud’—Muddy Waters’ blues-rock album produced in 1968 by Marshall—’that got me into this. I hear you’re going to do this film trying to connect the blues and hip-hop, and I’m down.’“ This was literally an act of fate, and it became the inciting incident in Godfathers and Sons. What personalized the film was the idea that not only is the story intergenerational, but it’s a family story, it’s black and white, it’s blacks and Jews, it’s all these connections, but it’s done in a very real, natural way, and it just happened. We didn’t write it. We were searching for it, wondering what it would be. But Chuck D just sat down one day at his keyboard and sent that message into cyberspace, and that’s what started it.

  When we began talking about the film, we wondered about the connection between blues and hip-hop. Rock & roll and the blues is easy, and there have been many films and books about that connection. The bluesmen were the fathers and the rock & rollers were the sons. But somehow the grandkids got lost, because hip-hop was a whole new thing, and it wasn’t built around an electric guitar. It was built around turntables and beats. It was built around digital technology, not the amplified technology of the electric guitar, which was what blues and rhythm & blues were, so, I wondered, looking at the twelve-bar structure, What is really the connection? But then, in the film, there’s that scene at the Blues and Jazz Record Mart, where hip-hop artist Juice is checking out the old album covers, and you start looking at the personalities, you start looking at the stories that are being told, and the whole vibe. And you see it’s the same as rap music today. When Louis Satterfield says, “My grandmother didn’t want me to play music because she didn’t want me to play them blues.” It was the devil’s music, and it was sex, and it was all that stuff that your parents didn’t want you to do, just like hip-hop and rap. You start seeing the similarities between the different kinds of music, and you see that every generation has got to find it on its own sound. In the world we live in today, which is so instantaneous, there are kids out there who don’t even know who Chuck D is, who think that Eminem is the man who invented rap. We move so fast, you can lose that sense of history.

  I hadn’t realized that Chuck D is a musicologist and historian, and that he also has a tremendous interest in finding these parallels. There was also the indie record-label connection: Chess was an indie record label, and hip-hop and rap were born out of a new generation of indie record labels, which were also built on a new technology, a digital technology. So the basic similarity is that every generation tries to find what you would call that street, raw, real sound. That’s what the Chicago blues had. That’s what lit the imagination of my generation, and every generation has to find its way to turn on and light the fire—that’s the source. “This world may put you down, but no, you don’t have me down. Not tonight, you don
’t!” Koko Taylor said that, which is interesting because we shot a good part of this at her club, and I thought that was an interesting comment. She said, “People say the blues, and you think it’s about the sorrows in your life and the difficulties and the troubles—obviously, a lot of music is that. But my blues inspire you. My blues makes you want to get up and dance.” And I think that is the common bond, and that you want to make that connection. The album Fathers and Sons that Marshall produced back in 1968, which had members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band—Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, and Sam Lay, playing with Muddy Waters and Otis Spann—it was those guys doing it, connecting it. And this generation is just beginning, it’s kind of worked its way back, it’s gotten to funk and soul, and now it is about to discover the blues, the source.

  Another level of this whole thing is that great art, great culture, great music are created sometimes in the craziest ways, in the most spontaneous ways, in the most insane ways. I’ve always believed that blues and jazz have that aesthetic, which is: You find the continuity in chaos, you find the inspiration, and you let go. That influenced me deeply as a filmmaker. It’s what makes it authentic. Meeting a lot of these characters with Marshall and Chuck just reinforced that belief. In other words, that’s what everybody wants to try to get: What is real? As Chuck says, “What was the Chess sound?” It was the raw, real sound. Why did the Rolling Stones want to record in Chess studios? It had that authenticity, that sense that this is really it. And that kind of feeling just can’t ever be truly programmed. In the end there is something spontaneous and alive that moves you. As Willie Dixon says, “The blues are the roots and everything else is the fruits.”