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Jimmy Burns @ Rosa’s Lounge, Chicago
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Jimmy Burns Band :: Stop That Train
Jimmy Burns, born in Mississippi in 1943, is a contemporary blues musician. He moved to Chicago as a child and became involved in gospel and folk music. With his unique blend of Delta blues, R&B, and soul, Burns is known for his melodic guitar style and expressive lyrics. His 1996 debut album won “Best Blues Record of the Year” and he continues to perform worldwide.
Jimmy Burns
| Jimmy Burns | |
|---|---|
| Background information | |
| Born | February 27, 1943 (age 81) Dublin, Mississippi, United States |
| Origin | Chicago, Illinois, United States |
| Genres | Soul blues, electric blues[1] |
| Occupation(s) | Guitarist, singer, songwriter |
| Instrument(s) | Guitar, harmonica, vocals |
| Years active | 1960–present |
| Labels | Various |
| Website | www.jimmyburnsband.com |
Jimmy Burns (born February 27, 1943) is an American soul blues and electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter.[1] Although he was born in the Mississippi Delta, Burns has spent nearly all his life in Chicago. His elder brother, Eddie “Guitar” Burns, was a Detroit blues musician.[2]
Biography
Jimmy Burns was born in Dublin, Mississippi, and raised on the Hilliard Cotton Plantation where he learned to play one-string and 12-string guitar. He was the youngest of eleven children.[3] He sang in a church choir when he still lived in the Delta and he was influenced by the blues he heard on the streets. His favorite blues musician was Lightnin’ Hopkins.[4] Burns’s father was a sharecropper who performed as a singer in medicine shows.[2] At the age of 12, Jimmy Burns moved with his family to Chicago and four years later joined The Medallionaires who recorded a couple of doo-wop tracks. Recording mostly solo in the 1960s, Burns issued singles for the USA, Minit, Tip Top and Erica labels.[5] He toured the Midwest with his backing group, the Fantastic Epics, and with another outfit called Jimmy Burns and the Gas Company into the early 1970s. Burn’s 1972 single, “I Really Love You” was named in the top 500 singles of Northern soul in 2000,[6] and it is sought by collectors.[7] Burns took a long break from the music industry after the early 1970s to raise his family and run a barbecue stand.[1][3][5]
He performed infrequently until the early part of the 1990s, when he started a long residency at Chicago’s Smokedaddy Club. It was there that Delmark Records boss Bob Koester first heard Burns perform, and agreed to record him after hearing only one set of music. His debut album for Delmark in 1996, Leaving Here Walking, was produced by Scott Dirks, and was awarded the ‘Best Blues Record of the Year’ title by the National Association of Independent Record Distributors, and received two W.C. Handy Award nominations. Burns then began touring internationally.[5]
The more recently formed Jimmy Burns Band includes Anthony Palmer (guitar), E. G. McDaniel (bass), and James Carter (drums).[5]
Jimmy Burns played guitar on his brother Eddie’s 2002 album Snake Eyes.[2]
Burns’s wife, Dorothy, died on February 12, 2010. They had six children.[5]
Discograph
Studio albums
- Leaving Here Walking (1996) – Delmark / P-Vine
- Night Time Again (1999) – Delmark
- Back to the Delta (2003) – Delmark
- Stuck In The Middle (2011) – Velrone
- It Ain’t Right (2015) – Delmark
Live album
Singles
- “Forget It” (1964) – USA Records
- “Give Her To Me” (1965) – Tip Top Records
- “You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone” (1966) – Tip Top Records
- “I Don’t Need (Your Help)” (1966) – Tip Top Records
- “I Tried” (1970) – Minit Records
- “I Really Love You” (1972) – Erica Records
- “Can’t Get Over” (1980) – Dispo Records EP[9]
POSTED ONMAY 27, 2024 BY PETER HURLEY
Featured Interview – Jimmy Burns
Cover photo © 2024 Peter Hurley
We met the man at his apartment on the 2nd floor of a 2-flat, only a couple miles due west of where his family landed when he first came to Chicago in 1955 at the age of twelve. Since migrating from Mississippi, he had spent most of his life living on the Near North side and surrounding communities.
“Come on up,” he bade us on the intercom. “I forgot about the interview so I have a pot goin’ in the kitchen that I have to tend to.”
“Shall we meet you in the front room, then?” we asked.
“Yeah, that’s good, I’ll be with you in a minute; I’ll leave the door open,” he replied.
After a quick ascent up the stairs, we turned left to the large living room facing Potomac Avenue with two wide couches, a computer nook with an office chair and a fireplace topped with an enormous mantle filled with dozens of framed family photos. Bluesman Jimmy Burns joined us presently, dressed in home clothes: a black tee shirt with a random band name emblazoned on the front, blue jeans, and comfy slippers.
“I hope I’m presentable. You know, I really did forget you were comin’,” he laughed.
“Just glad to be here, Jimmy. You’ve given a thousand interviews, but maybe we can touch base on some things not yet explored,” we posited.
“Well, ask away,” he replied with a grin. “I’ve done so many of these, but I’m happy to accommodate.”
The Jimmy Burns Blues saga is not a typical one. Delta born and raised on a cotton plantation until his father moved his large family north, he possesses all the credentials of a bonafide Chicago bluesman with roots in the Deep South. His story, however, takes an unexpected turn from the standard migratory tale after it wends its way into the Windy City.
“You know I was really a doo-wop singer in my early days, not a Blues artist,” he asserts. “Me and the neighborhood kids, we used to gather at the Seward Park Fieldhouse to work out our harmonies. I had come from a Gospel singing tradition growing up in the South and this was close to that. It was a natural step.”
He clearly was a precocious talent. Fresh from the fields, he established himself as a formidable tenor voice in his new city environment with little difficulty.
“Were you a standout vocalist? Is that the way that you assimilated into a new social circle?” we inquired.
“It was just a way of life, you know, all the street corner groups that were cropping up everywhere. This was the ‘50s, mind you. I didn’t live far from the original Cabrini Greens. Not the high rises, but the original neighborhood was row houses. Still is. Curtis Mayfield used to live over there, I used to hang out at his house. We both attended Wells Community Academy. Everyone sang in those days, as I recall. In church, in vocal clubs, under lamp-posts—I can’t remember whether I stood out or not,” he replied modestly.
Modesty is a recurring theme throughout the interview. The man’s remarkable vocal talent is never a subject for braggadocio. But his voice was so good that by the tender age of 16 he had joined an established vocal group, the Medallionaires who had a few 45’s under their belt.
“You can find them on Youtube,” he says. “I’m not on those Mercury label recordings but I did record with them. The ones I’m on were never released. I was 16 at the time and they were 19 so, yeah, I was the youngster of the group.”
We settled into an easy Q and A for the next hour or so.
Peter M. Hurley: Let’s go to further back, Jimmy. What are your first memories and how did music come into play
Jimmy Burns: Well, my father was a sharecropper. I was born in 1943 in Dublin, Mississippi, the youngest of nine. Not far from Clarksdale where the family would drive to on some weekends. That was the place for serious shopping. I ended up going to grade school in Clarksdale for two years. But we moved from farm to farm in my childhood. I think I can track three moves, three farms. My father drove a tractor on at least two of those farms, but I don’t remember him coming in from working the fields, per se. Daddy played some guitar, some piano and some harp. I read somewhere where they said he performed at medicine shows but someone made that up. He’d play at gatherings at the house, probably. My Mama played a little too.
PMH: And you?
JB: My daddy showed me how to play the diddly bow. He strung it up on the front porch on a post. One string, you know, but I loved that sound. It’s got that Delta sound, I’ll always have that in my blood. It got me acquainted with playing a stringed instrument. Later on, by the age of 9-10, I got a guitar. Now I had 6 strings. Open tuning.
PMH: Open tuning? What chord, what key?
JB: I have no idea. What I do know is that I just knew how to play it automatically. It came out of me like—I just knew how to play it. Though I play in some open tunings today, I couldn’t replicate that one if I had to. I just picked it up and made music.
PMH: Was it blues?
JB: That’s what my folks were playing and listening to. I remember them talkin’ ‘bout Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blues musicians from that era. And Lightin’ Hopkins was on my radar, I still appreciate him today.
PMH: Your music roots seem to have been established so early in you. And yet it was not until many, many years later that you returned to the Blues. You had pursued Doo-Wop, R&B and Soul Music, even Folk in the interim.
JB: This is interesting. It wasn’t until years later that I recognized that Blues music was in all those forms. I eventually realized that Blues was the source. That’s why, when I did “rediscover” the Blues in the early ‘90s, it came to me so naturally. I was a Bluesman by birth and I had sung forms of music with the Blues as inspiration. Funny, I wasn’t so conscious of it the time. Music was just music and there’s only two kinds: good and bad. I told Billy Branch once that the first time I heard him with one of his Sons of Blues lineups, it hit me that that form was within reach for me too. It sounded right. That must have woke up the Blues in me.
PMH: And now, with your Blues that you play today, you fold in all your other influences too.
JB: That’s the beauty of it. I hear arrangements. I hear a Blues song and I might feel it differently than it had been recorded originally. But I feel its power and I feel its message. And I can only reinterpret it in my own way. My years as an R&B singer helped me develop my arranging and songwriting skills.
PMH: I’ve been listening to your first Delmark Records album repeatedly to prepare for this interview. It is so fresh. You have the vocal chops of an R&B man and the soul of a Bluesman. And at least five of the songs were written by you. It’s no wonder this release was revered as a breakthrough album and won awards. (“Best Blues Record of the Year’ by the National Association of Independent Record Distributors and two W.C. Handy Award nominations.) How did this come about?
JB: Long story short, after all the singles that I had recorded in the ‘60s and the early 70’s, I decided to concentrate on my family and I quit trying to make it in the business. I settled into a life of running a BBQ joint of my own I called Uncle Mickey’s. This went on until the early ‘90s and I was invited by Johnny Burgin to join him on his weekly slot at Smokedaddy’s on Division. That was a good band. He was playin’ the Blues right, in my opinion. My own way of playing Blues, my years of growing up with the Country Blues, really came through in this context. After some years in residency at this club, Bob Koester of Delmark came in to hear us. He signed me right there and then, and before you know it, I was in his studio up on Rockwell recording that album “Leaving Here Walking,” released in ’96. I’ve been with Delmark ever since, including this new era with Julia (A. Miller: C.E.O.) and Elbio (Barilari: A&R.)
PMH: We recognize this room from your private weekly stream-casts during Covid. You played live from this apartment. Those were great.
JB: Yeah, I did those from right there on that couch. That was a tough time with no work, man. I never want to see that again. But since I play guitar every single day anyway, I decided I might as well play for the public while I was at it. It kept me in the minds of the people and I’d get responses from folks who were listening from all over the world. And I’m still learning guitar, it never ceases.
PMH: You do have a remarkable history of traveling.
JB: I’ve been all over Europe and into Russia. I’ve traveled extensively in South America too, especially Brazil. I have friends down there and have stayed all over. I still travel to Blues fests all over. In fact, I’m leaving for Germany in a couple of days with my band. We’ve been together for some time now. Good guys. And we know each other quite well musically. I’ve got James Carter on drums, E. G. McDaniel on bass, and Anthony Palmer on additional guitar. I do love to travel. When all is said and done, though, I always say that my two favorite places are Chicago and the United States (chuckles.)At that point, Jimmy’s adult grandson named after him popped in. “Look after that pot, James?” instructed Grandaddy. Later on, his oldest child walked in and gave Daddy a kiss. “Hi, I’m Velvet. It’s really Blue Velvet but it got shortened over the years.” Mr. Burns’ family is a source of great pride and the myriad aforementioned photos attest to it.
PMH: So, after some time with the Medallionaires, you began to record on your own. Those were some great records. Collectors’ items, I hear.
JB: Last I heard, my Soul number with the Fantastic Epics that was released in the early ‘70s, “I Really Love You,” is so rare, an original copy sells for something like $6000 in the U.K. But I sure don’t get any of that,” he chuckled. “You see, these records are now seen as falling into the category of “Northern Soul” in contrast to Southern Soul, out of Memphis and the like. Northern Soul would be recorded in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, New York, places like that. But we didn’t think to categorize it back in the day because, of course, we were just playing our music.
PMH: Did you tour behind the early recordings in the early to mid-‘60s? Were you ever on a package tour?JB: No, I pretty much played Chicago is all, record hops and the like, where I’d lip-synch. That was common in the late ‘50s and ‘60s. To have a record, you still needed promotion behind it and there wasn’t much to go around from the labels I was with: Tip Top, Dispo, Erica, and later on U.S.A. Records, like that. I do remember the first time I played in Milwaukee, however (laughing). I’d never been that far north!
PMH: I love those records. Your voice was something else. Still is. (Think Jackie Wilson meets Ben E. King, with a little of the rasp of The Temptations’ David Ruffin on the side.)
JB: I’m glad they’re on YouTube for people to enjoy.
A Google search of Jimmy Burn’s early recordings reveals a trove of classic-but-obscure R&B and Soul offerings by a great talent who never reached the Top 40. See: “Forget It,” “Give her To Me,” “You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone,” “Through All Your Faults,” “I Don’t Need Your Help,” “R&B,” “I Tried,” “Used To Be,” “‘I Can’t Get Over,” “Did It Ever Cross Your Mind?,” “Powerful Love” and the aforementioned “I Really love You.” All are under the name of Jimmy Burns, Jimmy Burns & The Casics, or Jimmy Burns & the Fantastic Epics.
PMH: Any chance of a Jimmy Burns’ Greatest Early Hits package some day?
JB: Oh, those labels and their master recordings are long gone. But at least some of the actual discs survived and are in collectors’ hands.
PMH: Any other brushes with stardom in the ‘60s?
JB: I remember when me and the Epics played the old Arie Crown Theater before it burned down. The Yardbirds were on the bill too and Jeff Beck used to hang with us at a club called “Thumb’s Up” on Broadway & Surf. They had bands like Baby Huey & The Babysitters doin’ Top 40 stuff back then. The girls were crazy about Jeff, especially when he’d do that thing with the feedback. Last time I saw him was at Buddy Guy’s old club, he had dropped in. Beck remembered that time with us, we had a nice reunion.
PMH: RIP, Jeff Beck. Much later on, after the success of your first Blues offering, “Leaving Here Walking,” you’ve had some great follow-ups.
JB: Well, my first full album, that did put me on the map. And I immediately began to tour. I was an “overnight success” at the age of 53! But yes, I continued to record and have built up a large repertoire.
PMH: Speaking of age, it seems you surround yourself with younger musicians. And your albums showcase a cross section of Blues, Blues-Rock, R&B, Country Blues, City Blues, the works. Your album “Stuck In The Middle” is about as rocky a Blues album as there is out there.
JB: That one features my man, Dave Herrero, who has recorded with me and has been on the road with me. There’s a YouTube video of our stage performance in Turkey. That’s a great country and they love the Blues there. Keeping the younger Blues players around me keeps me vital. I still host an open mic night every other Wednesday at Buddy Guy’s Legends, I alternate with Brother John, and I still see a lot of youngsters coming on the scene. To be honest with you, the line about what age group plays, what is Blues and what isn’t, who plays it and who doesn’t is somewhat blurred in my eyes. As I mentioned, music is music, good or bad. I gravitate to the good.
PMH: You’ve got a new album in the works, right?
JB: Yes, it’s a little different than most of my others. Elbio at Delmark hooked me up with some jazz cats who go by the name of Soul Message Band. It’s a great quartet, with two horns, drums and organ. The material on this CD, to be called Full Circle, will reflect the instrumentation and the players on them.
PMH: Let’s name-check all of your albums, Jimmy. There’s your debut we’ve mentioned, there’s Night Time Again, Stuck In The Middle, Back to the Delta, It Ain’t Right, Good Gone Bad, Eddie Burns’ Snake Eyes that includes you and a live record at B.L.U.E.S..
JB: Those are all available on Delmark except Stuck in the Middle, which is on Velrone Records.
PMH: What a breadth of material. And with so much original songwriting—classic sounding with great hooks, like they’ve been around forever! And you’ve covered everyone from Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Stealers Wheel, John Lennon, John Hiatt, Willie Dixon, Leroy Carr, Elmore James, your older brother Eddie Burns, and the list goes on and on and on. Not to mention my personal favorite, a solo guitar/vocal cover of “Gypsy Woman” written by Curtis Mayfield. What a magnificent interpretation by a contemporary Bluesman.
JB: I love recording as much as performing onstage. My ears are wide open to everything. Each of us is a product of our age, our eras. And the material I perform is the stuff that hits me, that moves me. I’m happy that people like it, it makes it all so right.
Just like his soon-to-be released CD with a jazz combo, Jimmy Burns is an explorer of many threads that lead back to his birthright sounds. Folding in his gospel roots, teen-age doo-wop, Soul and R&B sounds, he’s found a home in his own brand of the Blues and it is reflected back in his big presence in the world-wide Blues scene. With a warm handshake and a hug, we parted.
“See you ’round when I get back from Germany,” the man said. “Now I got to see to that pot I have on the stove.”
Smooth Chicago bluesman Jimmy Burns celebrates 80 years
He’s dipped into soul, doo-wop, and folk, and he even ran a west-side barbecue joint. Now he’s got a new live album and a birthday party at Rosa’s Lounge.
by Aaron CohenFebruary 17, 2023
Bluesman Jimmy Burns prefers sensitivity over shouting, and since he moved to Chicago from Mississippi in 1955, several sources outside the blues have shaped his fluid guitar tone—including gospel quartets and arena-rock bands. He turns 80 on February 27, and for the occasion he sat for a Reader interview that digs as far back as his childhood and looks forward to his new Live in Copenhagen (to be streamed via Danish music company Krudtmejer Productions). Burns harmonized in the 1950s doo-wop group the Medallionaires and strived for R&B stardom in the ’60s. He also participated in the 1970s folk scene, and from 1989 till the early 2000s he ran a west-side barbecue spot. By the 1990s he’d become a quietly assertive regular on the stages of local blues clubs, and with the help of Chicago label Delmark Records he finally started releasing full-length albums—many of which featured his imaginative compositions, alongside his versions of songs by such former associates as Curtis Mayfield.
Jimmy Burns
Burns will play two sets, two days before his birthday. Admission to the first set allows patrons to stay for the second, but a ticket for the second set does not grant access to the first. Sat 2/25, 9 and 11 PM, Rosa’s Lounge, 3420 W. Armitage, 773-342-0452, early set $25, $20 in advance, late set $20, $15 in advance, 21+
Burns continues to participate in the Delmark All-Star Band whenever a new incarnation convenes, and he’s working on a single with longtime collaborator Rockin’ Johnny Burgin. Meanwhile he’s built a strong European following—he’s been to Denmark often enough to have a regular band there, and British record collectors have long sought out his 1965 soul 45 “I Really Love You.” Burns spoke over the phone from his home in the North Austin neighborhood.
Aaron Cohen: Happy birthday in advance. How do you feel?
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Jimmy Burns: You know, 80 is really something. I thought turning 50 was a big deal. And it was—all of them are a big deal. I don’t have any monetary gains, but I’m happy I can still perform. So far, I’m pretty strong, and thank God for that—that He let me see this.
Do you feel that audiences in cities like Copenhagen are more appreciative of your music than people here at home?
I enjoy the [Danish] band that I work with—I’ve known them for many years, because I’ve been to Denmark quite a few times, and I love Copenhagen. I’ve been all over Europe, but it’s one of my favorites. I love the people; I love to dance. I never really think about differences with the U.S.—people here are appreciative also.
It’s different in Europe in the sense that over there it reminds me a lot of us here back in the day. I remember when I was in Mississippi, when people go to see somebody, it’s a big deal. Same thing when I go to South America. Probably the lifestyle is a little different than our lifestyle.
Your father was also a musician. What did you learn from him?
I used to hear my dad play, but I never really sat down and just talked to him. I remember different stuff he played, and when I hear stuff now it brings back memories: “Oh, my daddy used to play that.” And I remember him and my mama talked about the musicians back in their day: Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Blake. I remember my father talking about Blind Lemon Jefferson and his tune “Matchbox Blues.”
My father was a multi-instrumentalist. He played what’s been called a diddley bow, but we didn’t call it that—we called it a guitar. I learned that from my dad, and he also played piano, harmonica, and he played guitar. He probably played guitar in open tuning. My mama messed with the guitar; I also learned from her. The first music I played was blues, and I didn’t learn how to play standard tuning until later.
When I first started, I was playing open tuning, but I didn’t know what it was. I was in Mississippi, and I asked a guy to let me play his guitar when I was probably about nine. He let me play it, but I couldn’t do nothing with it, because everything I played was wrong because he was in standard tuning, and I wasn’t used to that. I’m used to hitting it where I hit it, and where I hit it was right.
On the cover of your 2003 album, Back to the Delta, you’re walking on a rural road, and you’ve also mentioned working in southern cotton fields as a child.
That was common for everybody. Poor people were poor people. It had nothing to do with color or nothing like that. When you were poor, you were poor. The powers that be were fucking everybody. I think about that because I watch a lot of programs, and it’s like what they do to the migrant workers. They want to keep the people divided, because if they rose up, they’d be against them. Don’t get me wrong, though—I ain’t against my country. The two things I love are Chicago and the United States.
In Mississippi and Chicago, you gained a lot from singing in church. Which churches did you attend?
I went to a bunch of churches. As soon as I got here I got hooked up with a guy who lived in my building, and he was in a quartet—and I still like that music, like Mighty Clouds of Joy. I usually went to church around the neighborhood. Mainly Baptist and storefront churches. Back in Mississippi I would go to town on Sunday, Church of God in Christ. Ever been to Clarksdale? I was always fascinated with guitars, and they used them in Church of God in Christ—Sanctified. Those guys just had the guitars talking. I loved it, and the closest I heard to it since was the guy playing on Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered.” That’s what it reminds me of, the Sanctified music. To me, that’s still the best music.
When you were growing up in Chicago, you sang with the vocal group the Medallionaires and rehearsed in Seward Park near Cabrini-Green. What do you remember about that time and place?
The most important thing was being in Chicago and thinking you got a chance to become a big star. And I chased that dream for years. At first I started off in the church. I left that in 1958 and started hanging out in Seward Park, where everybody rehearsed. It was basically groups, as opposed to bands—maybe one or two with instruments, but it was mostly all a cappella. That’s what I also remember about singing in church. These guys were powerful and could turn a place out even with no guitar, no instrument.
Seward Park was walking distance from where I lived—I was raised around Oak and Wells Streets. Naturally, everybody was good, but everybody didn’t make it. I didn’t know the Impressions at that time, and we were walking distance from each other. Later, Curtis Mayfield’s sister Carolyn became my girlfriend, temporarily.
I got to know Curtis just by hanging out at his house with my group. Everybody in the neighborhood knew him. I don’t know if it was an imposition, but I just started hanging out over at his home. I still remember the address. The building is still there: 966 North Hudson. There was only about a year’s difference between us. We also used to go to the same barbershop on Wells, Dreamland. One time he auditioned with us down at Chess Records, since back in those days you had to do a live audition and we didn’t have a guitarist at that time. He was just a nice guy, but he probably knew more about the business than me, was probably more mature than me at that time.
I was the youngest guy in my group. I was tenor. Sometimes we could do three or four different parts, depending who was there. I could do tenor, baritone, second tenor. I didn’t do bass. I have a song on Night Time Again [Delmark, 1999] where I’m doing all of the parts, “1959 Revisited: A Tribute,” and this is a tribute to the group.
Late-1960s Chicago went through some big changes. What were your experiences?
When Dr. King was killed, I was out there that night when it happened. I remember it quite well. It was a Thursday evening, and I used to be a driving instructor—I was on Roosevelt and Sacramento and I had a student, a white lady, from that Italian area near there, and for whatever reason the radio was on. I usually didn’t have the radio on when I had students. As soon as I heard that, I knew what was going to follow. But nothing happened that night. That Friday, all hell broke loose, all up and down Roosevelt Road, they were burning and looting and taking shit, and I didn’t approve of that. They fucked up everything in the hoods—they tore up a lot of stuff. I remember seeing all that. I never will forget it. A lot of things were happening in 1968—the riots in downtown Chicago, the Weathermen. At the time, I was militant too. I knew a lot of guys who had been in Vietnam, and I knew I wasn’t going. I supported Muhammad Ali, a lot of that stuff. Not that I was active—I was just running my mouth.
When did you switch from singing primarily R&B and folk to blues?
Truthfully speaking, I’m not a true bluesman in my playing or my singing. I get by with it, but I know the difference. First of all, I play blues pretty good, but I ain’t really raising no hell with it. I’m what you would call an R&B singer singing blues, similar to Johnnie Taylor. A bluesman’s voice is a little bit different. I don’t have a voice like Muddy Waters. I wish I did. Or John Lee Hooker, who can run rings around me. I love the music, and I wish I could do it like them.
Yes, but your strength is that you have your own approach.
I’m a smooth singer. Even if I wanted to be rough or harsh, I couldn’t. Because it’s not me. I can’t compete with a true bluesman. Same thing with my playing. I play what I play, but if you put me up against a regular bluesman, I couldn’t hang with him, playing. Believe it or not, I’m still struggling with that, in my opinion. I do all right, but not like those guys.
The two people I love: Muddy Waters and Lightnin’ Hopkins. I love John Lee Hooker too. But Lightnin’ played guitar so good—he really made a guitar talk and was a hellafied singer too. I’m trying to find out what in the hell they’re doing, even now. You’d be surprised how many tutorials I got here, trying to learn this stuff. Blues is hard music to play. A lot of people don’t get that. I have a smooth voice, so I taper it to fit in with what I’m doing to make it smoother, so it’s more digestible. [Laughs.] I got tricks and stuff I use, but I listen to my buddy John Primer—not only does he play it, he sings it, and it’s good.
When you started recording again in the mid-1990s with Leaving Here Walking, you also wrote its title track. When did you start composing?
If you sing or play, you write. What made me write “Leaving”—I tried to write something that was a cross between Delta blues and early blues that had elements of modern stuff in it, like R&B. I got something from John Lee Hooker. I got other changes from rock. The opening lick is a Lightnin’ Hopkins lick, but you might not recognize it. Working with Rockin’ Johnny and them [on that album], when I heard them for the first time, they were playing all what they call Chicago blues—and they were playing it right. It’s so hard to find people who play that stuff and play it right. So I was definitely impressed with that. Johnny knows all that stuff; he’s the master at it.
You’ve also put your own stamp on a wide range of material, including reinterpreting Foreigner’s “Cold as Ice” on Stuck in the Middle [Velrone, 2011].
When it comes to music, I’m not prejudiced, I’m not a purist. I can never do it like Foreigner did it—that’s a great tune. But they got so much shit going on in there, I can’t do all of that. I figured out a way to strip it down. I started doing it with just me and then with the band. I played it all over the world and people love that tune. But you can’t compare to Foreigner, I loved their version and not trying to outdo them, I’m just trying to do a version that fits with me, that’s all.
Along with music, you also ran Uncle Mickey’s Barbecue.
I had always wanted a barbecue house. I came up with seasoning and my sauce. See, I never liked sweet barbecue sauce. The barbecue I remember down south in Mississippi was more vinegar based. The only place that’s got it like that now is Smoque. I don’t know where he got it from or who showed him, but to me he’s got the right idea. One time I was down at my wife’s home in Arkansas, and the place had the best barbecue. Now I know what it was: coriander. I still use it when I cook. That’s how I learned how to use different spices.
That whole idea of trying out different ideas is what you also do in music.
That’s what it is. I like that Elmore James tune, “Sunnyland.” I took that and [brought it into] a Smokey Robinson tune, “Get Ready” [on Live in Copenhagen]. But I did it as a 12-bar, because Smokey didn’t write it in 12-bar. It’s different, and people seem to like it. Usually when I do stuff, I’m not doing it for the sake of changing it. I’m doing it because I hear it a little bit differently. After somebody hears me do it, they might take it a step further. That’s the way music is.
When you think about automobiles, obviously the first car didn’t have windows. Then they had windows, then they added wipers. Same with music. And that’s a good thing about it. I’m not stuck in the past: “You shouldn’t do this, shouldn’t do that.” If you hear it and it feels good, do it. I’m not a purist. There’s only one kind of music—good music.
What are you anticipating with the upcoming birthday celebration and new release?
I don’t get excited about that, except thanking the Lord for letting me be here. I don’t like to get out front. I want to be here, of course—I like longevity. But I’m acutely aware of the fact I’m at an age when we leave here. Mama would always say, “I’ll see you at such-and-such if the Lord says the same.” I still follow that model. I don’t think too much about where I’m going.
I definitely know where I’ve been and I’ve enjoyed it—don’t get me wrong. I’m not afraid to live. I live, but I don’t take it for granted. I’m not an egotistical guy. I don’t have a big ego—I’m just happy for where I’m at. My thinking is, I’ve seen the first Black mayor of Chicago elected not once but twice. The first Black president of the United States, which I knew was coming but I didn’t know how soon. My niece worked for Oprah Winfrey, one of the billionaire African American women. Back when I was a boy, if you had a thousand dollars you were doing good. If I leave here today, I die a happy man.
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