--- In intimateblueslounge@yahoogroups.com, "Rick" <tmacfans_02@...>
wrote:

--- In intimateblueslounge@yahoogroups.com, "Rick" <tmacfans_02@>
wrote:

This Week in BluesWax: {intimateblueslounge}

Billy Boy Arnold


- In the E-zine: BluesWax is Sittin' In With Billy Boy Arnold. Phil
Reser caught up with harmonica ace Billy Boy Arnold to discuss music,
learning from Sonny Boy Williamson, and more.
- On the News Page: Frankie Laine Passes; Eric von Schmidt Passes;
Traditional Acoustic Blues Festival News; Happy Birthday Blind Pig;
Guitar
Workshops; and more News That's Blues!
- On the Photo Page: Live shots from the International Blues Challenge
courtesy of Don "T-Bone" Erickson.
- On the Blues Bytes page: The BluesWax Spotlight is on Brad Webb. Kyle
Palarino takes a closer look at Memphis' Brad Webb and the CDs that he
has helped bring to the Blues audience around the world. Be sure to
check out Buddy and Hopkins, the world's greatest Blues comic strip!
- On the Blues Beat page: The 2007 International Blues Challenge was
the biggest yet with more than 150 acts competing for great prizes and
the title of 2007 International Blues Challenge winner for Best Blues
Band or Solo/Duo act. Check out T-Bone's report from Memphis then check
out all the great photos on the Photo Page.
- Under BluesWax Picks: Kyle Palarino reviews Sauce Boss' Florida
Blues; James Walker reviews Barrelhouse Chuck's Got My Eyes On You;
Beardo
reviews Jeff Healey's It's Tight Like That; Rick Galusha reviews Paris
James' Death Letter; plus reviews of Eric Deaton's Gonna Be trouble Here
and Big Bill Broonzy's Amsterdam Live Concerts 1953.
- One Year Ago Today In BluesWax: BluesWax was "Sittin' In With Tom
Principato." Bob Margolin caught up with his old friend Tom Principato
and
talked about the past, present, and future of the Blues.
- Don't forget to play the Blues Trivia Game: Remember, everyone who
plays is in the drawing for the prize! This week's prize: The vault has
been tapped and we are giving away a ton of cool CDs. Play today for
your chance at five Blues CDs!


BluesWax Sittin' In With Billy Boy Arnold

Part Two

<P>
By Phil Reser


We continue our conversation this week with harmonica ace Billy Boy
Arnold (if you missed Part One click HERE to read it now in our
ARCHIVES).
We pick up the conversations between Phil Reser and Billy Boy Arnold
with...

Phil Reser for BluesWax: What are your thoughts about how Blues music
today compares to the Chicago style that you grew up with and became a
part of?

Billy Boy Arnold: That's interesting because at that time, Muddy
Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Elmore James had not made their mark. The
guys we
know today. At that time it was John Lee Sonny Boy Williamson, Tampa Red
Whittaker, Big Maceo, Big Bill Broonzy, Diana Washington, Charles
Brown, Eddie 'Clean Head' Vincent, people like that. Well, the Chicago
sound, which came out of the many clubs in the city, it was an acoustic
sound first. Most of the clubs had piano and most of the records in the
beginning had piano. Piano was the dominant instrument in the early Blues
music in Chicago; guitar was an accompaniment instrument. T-Bone Walker
made the guitar the solo instrument it is today and then B.B. King took
it a step further and made it the number one instrument. The harmonica
at that time wasn't even considered an instrument in Blues music until
1937, when John Lee Sonny Boy Williamson made "Good Morning School
Girl." That put the harmonica on the map. After that, Muddy Waters, Jimmy
Rogers, Eddie Boyd, all those guys, got into the harmonica because "Good
Morning School Girl" was such a success and Sonny Boy's fame.

BW: So, as things moved along in your own development on the harmonica,
who influenced you after Sonny Boy?

BBA: Well, when Sonny Boy got killed, of course his unreleased records
came out for several years after that. But Snooky Pryor did a couple of
records that I considered really good, but Little Walter became the
dominant harmonica player, he took off where Sonny Boy left off. He took
the harmonica several steps higher like B.B. King took the guitar up
from where T-Bone had taken it.

BW: You had some association with Little Walter, what did you think of
him as a harmonica player?

BBA: I think Little Walter made his first record with Muddy Waters in
1950 and it was some beautiful harmonica playing. In fact he made two
sides with Muddy and two sides with Jimmy Rogers. His harmonica playing
stole the show on both records. If you listen to Jimmy Rogers' record
"That's All Right" and subtract Little Walter's harmonica playing there's
really not much left. His harmonica made the record; so much that Jimmy
Rogers didn't use Little Walter in his next session because he stole
the show. He went and got a piano and sax player. You see Jimmy Rogers
was a pretty weak guitar player. He had a really nice voice, but he
didn't have any fire on the guitar. Now Muddy Waters was a great
artist, but
if you listen to some of his music with Little Walter, like "Screaming
and Crying," and flip side "Where's My Woman Been," you'll hear that
Muddy's music went up a higher degree. I would say that Little Walter's
harmonica playing was 75 or 80 percent of Muddy Waters' success on his
recordings. When he stopped recording with Muddy his records declined.
He got James Cotton and some other guys, but none of them could do what
Little Walter did for his music. I would say that Little Walter made
Muddy Waters. That's my personal opinion, I'm sure a lot of people
disagree with me, but if you listen to Muddy Waters' records from 1950
until
late '59 or '60, you'll see that Little Walter stole the show every
time.


"I would say that Little Walter made Muddy Waters."


BW: So how would you describe how the harmonica took the lead in Blues
music like that?

BBA: You see, the harmonica is a funny instrument, it's a little,
humble instrument, but in the hands like John Lee Sonny Boy Williamson,
Little Walter, Big Walter Horton, and even Sonny Terry, it fascinates
people and they want to play like that. If you hear their music it
will just
blow you away. They get hooked just like I did. It's a beautiful
instrument in the right hands. It can steal a show. And the key to all of
that is the beautiful magnificent sound you can get out of that little
instrument, so much soul and feeling that comes out of it. It can even
overshadow a guitar or piano player. If you listen to Kim Wilson you will
know what I'm talking about.

BW: With your own playing do you feel you've gotten there or close to
that?

BBA: Well, I never have felt that I surpassed or came up to John Lee
Sonny Boy Williamson or Little Walter, personally. I never felt that I
captured that. It's what I wanted to do, but I don't think I could ever
get it to that level. It's one of those things, you know.

BW: What about your playing with Bo Diddley in the Fifties. How did you
feel about your contributions to his recordings?

BBA: Personally I was just playing the harmonica; it was the thing at
that time. In fact Little Walter made the harmonica so popular that
almost every band in Chicago had to have a harmonica player in order
to get
a gig. He made the instrument so popular that people like me were
coming out of the woodwork. Saxophone players were very seldom working
around the clubs at that time, only in Jazz bands, and the piano almost
became obsolete. Up until around 1950 the clubs all had piano and the
newer
clubs wanted two guitars, bass, drum, and a harmonica.

BW: In the 1950s you started your recording work with Chess and Vee-Jay
Records. How important was that to you?

BBA: Yeah, it was very important. My goal was to make records like John
Lee Sonny Boy Williamson. I made my first record when I was seventeen
so I had done what I had wanted to do. I hadn't developed as a musician
the way I wanted to at that point. When I made my first records I had
never sung in public or performed with a band. I didn't have the
experience like Little Walter had. He had the experience of playing with
different people for maybe six or seven years before he made records.
I sort
of like jumped right into it with very little experience.

BW: Did you start singing and writing at that time or did that come
along later?

BBA: Well, I was kind of singing and writing all the time because I
knew you had to write your own material and I knew I'd be more
valuable as
a singer. So when I made my first record I wrote the two songs that I
had on it. When I started playing with Bo Diddley I was contributing on
the harmonica, I didn't do any singing with him. On tour with him I
would only sing one song a night or so because Bo Diddley did all of the
singing. Then when I made "I Wish You Would" for Vee-Jay they told me I
needed to get a band together, because there was a new club opening up
and they wanted somebody who had recorded to play there. I didn't have
any repertoire at all I just started singing anything and everything I
could think of. That's how it happened. But my goal was always to sing.
Being just a harmonica player without singing. Blues is about singing
and telling stories. And that's what has made the best of the Blues
performers they are storytellers. So you got to sing. How else will you
tell the story?

BW: After Chess and Vee-Jay, I understand you cut a really decent album
called More From The South Side.

BBA: It was 1963 with Prestige Records.

BW: Why weren't you able to catch fire with your recordings and spread
your music out there more?

BBA: I was popular in the clubs and worked on a regular basis, but you
had to come out with a record that caught on really big with people. In
the Fifties everybody that had a hit record was not appointed and when
we got into the Sixties managers started appointing who the major Blues
singers or stars were going to be. Junior Wells and Buddy Guy never had
a hit record, but Little Walter and John Lee Sonny Boy Williamson had
hit records. Muddy Waters and Elmore James had hit records. Bo Diddley,
Chuck Berry had hits. You had to have it to make it big out there. I
had more hit records than Junior Wells and Buddy Guy had, they didn't
have hits, people who thought they should be the ones that told folks who
should be the stars of Blues music appointed them. I mean guys like
Dick Waterman, managers who were promoting Blues acts to coffeehouses and
college campuses around the country. They began this appointing
process. B.B. King was not appointed. He had hit records. My name was
known
off of my success of my records, but times changed in the Sixties. They
still do this type of thing today. They can take a guy with some
connections or certain people behind them and shoot them right up to
the top.
I think a guy like that is Robert Cray. I don't think he ever had a hit
record, but was just rubbing elbows with B.B. King and John Lee Hooker
to get where he is. I can't see that he has a history of walking up the
ladder. B.B. King was a major star for black audiences and during the
Sixties they didn't know anything about him, until Mike Bloomfield and
Paul Butterfield said, "Hey, listen to this guy," and B.B. always was
the King of the Blues. The white audiences just didn't know him.

And I want to say this about John Lee Sonny Boy Williamson: from 1937
until 1938, when he got killed, he was the major Blues figure like B.B.
King became. But the white audiences never heard of him because he got
killed before they ever got into the Blues. And, you know, when RCA,
Decca, and Columbia Record companies made recordings, a lot of people say
they put all the black Blues players on Bluebird. But that's not true
because Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, a lot of the white artists were on
that label. What happened was that when you made a record, the company
would say only ethnic people would want to hear this. If you were a
Chinese guy and you made a record for RCA they had a label called Red
Seal
for their Classical and other ethnic music on there. They did not feel
that the popular buying public would buy those records, so it got to the
point that they were saying this is for black consumption only.

Nobody thought that any other ethnic group would want to listen to
certain music. That changed in 1953 when Fats Domino came along. Then Bo
Diddley, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard. Even then, when these guys were
making it big with white audiences they still didn't know who B.B. King
and Muddy Waters were. When they found out about those guys it was
around 1965 through '68. When they heard them, the white audience started
investigating the Blues music. Who was this guy, who was that? It was
the meat of the substance. I believe the Blues would have been incredibly
popular in the 1920s had it been played on the radio.

To be continued...

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