Hmm Im not sure they were expecting such a long-winded answer to this online interview... If you could send yourself and the band someplace in a time machine, what kind of places would you go? Id start in the ghettos of New Orleans in the 1910s with King Olivers Jazz band, and stick around a few years while Louis Armstrong came on the scene. Then Id travel around from city to city to visit all the speakeasies during prohibition, catch a set by Bessie Smith, and make occasional detours to to Mississippi Delta and Texas juke joints to visit some of the early bluesmen at work and catch the first sounds from Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Next I would hop on a river boat, stop off in St. Louis and Kansas City for piano blues and ragtime, and straight onto Chicago to catch Muddy Waters. I would stick around Chicago long enough to see Peggy Lee sing with the Benny Goodman big band, and Anita Oday with Gene Krupa. After that I would hit up 42nd street in New York City and stay up all night at the jazz clubs there and listen to Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, and my favorite lady jazz guitarist Mary Osborne. The 50s would be a busy decade split between Chess Records artists Willie Dixon and Howlin Wolf in Chicago, the Louisiana swamp pop sounds of Bobby Charles and Fats Domino, the rock and roll of Big Mama Thorton, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis, and country sounds of Hank Williams and others at the Grand Ole Opry. In the 60s I would head back to New York for the early folk scene, with a trip to Jamaica to see Bob Marley and California to see Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead. In the 70s I would hang out with Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Bonnie Raitt, and Tom Waits. Then I would mostly keep hanging out with Tom Waits while I made trips to England to see the Clash. I mustve forgotten some people and I think I was born too late...
Posted on: Thu, 10 Apr 2014 17:42:08 +0000