Brues
and Blews
What
goes better with the blues than beer? OK, you got me right away, probably rot
gut whiskey and moonshine, but, for the long haul, it's beer. Cheap wine
you say? Probably if you are way down IN the blues, but for
getting WITH the blues, beer, at least for me.
Back in
the day, or at least my day, Minneapolis
had among the funkiest blues scenes anywhere at all. We'd think nothing of
stopping in the funky piano bar side of the Silver Dollar Bar at Lake and
35W almost any night to see Lazy Bill Lucas, often with Spider John
Koerner or Li'l Sun Glover, and that just couldn't happen in any other US
city. Sometimes Snaker Ray solo, my all time favorite of this scene;
sometimes Spider John solo or duo with someone like Lazy Bill, sometimes Li’l
Sun Tony Glover.
Of
course Koerner, Ray, and Glover probably created a blues scene that could be sort
of accessible to the very funky among white America with their Blues, Rags, and
Hollers records. They also influenced others across the sea, namely an emerging
group starting with B. I never saw them together at the Silver Dollar or
anywhere, but singly or as duos they loomed far above, setting the tone for
Blues Heaven. They were also very nice to Lazy Bill who was one of
the coolest people I've ever seen. Lazy Bill played with all sort of luminaries
before settling in Minneapolis
in 1962, maybe most notably a young Sonny Boy Williamson.
The
Silver Dollar was an old time C&W ballroom and I don't even have any idea
who moved it along to the blues scene. There were all kinds of crazy
characters hanging out there almost any night; it was around about 1970 after
all. Hippies, sharkskin suit blues guys, pot dealers - mostly guys
as best I can remember, but there were also crazy dancing nights with local
R&B stars, Willie Murphy and the Bumble Bees, and various visitors who were
recording with, or being produced by, Willie. Not least by far was a young
guitar star called Bonnie Raitt, whose first record was recorded with the Bees
and Junior Wells out on Lake
Minnetonka. It
remains one of my all-time favorite blues records. Murphy and Koerner recorded
the fabulous Running, Jumping, Standing Still record that one reviewer said
was, “…perhaps the only psychedelic ragtime blues album ever made.”
All
sorts of folks could be found playing the Silver Dollar. I saw the classic harp
superstar Charlie Musselwhite, with Robben Ford on guitar. Mojo Buford, Muddy
Water’s harp man for some time, had his own Minneapolis-based band and played
often. The original hard core blues version of the famous Lamont Cranston Band,
led by still another harmonica great, Pat Hayes, was a staple, and they could
hang with the absolute best. One crazy funky week I spent many nights in a row
with a Schells Deer Brand in my hand watching the fabulous Muddy Waters and
band. Mud was booked in for a one nighter, and the legend says that they had
too much fun and nowhere else to be, so they just stayed. Luther Johnson, Pinetop Perkins, and all. Mojo
sat in several times. I think this was about $5 a crack and unbeatable.
I was
in a college hiatus after completing my eligibility as a wrestler, and had
spent those years in Winona on the banks of the Mississippi, just above
Lacrosse, home of G. Heileman Brewing at the time. For a reason I never
knew, Lacrosse was kind of a Miller town at the time, but I dug Old Style,
and it's still a great ice cold lawn mowing beer. Hungry for something more
distinctive in a day when there weren't many options, I got into Heileman's
Special Export, known to us as the Green Death because it was easy to
swill too many of those green bottled slightly skunky tasting bad boys.
Maybe we'd see some Anchor Steam once in a while, but that was really exotic. X
was a rice adjunct super refreshing one that wasn't for everyone. It's
still good in cans fished from a chest of ice on a smoking hot humid Minnesota
afternoon.
When I
landed in Minneapolis
and found the Silver Dollar and the other funky blues scene places like the
Triangle and 400 there were other possibilities. The freaks were becoming aware
of the origins of their night time nectar, and of course most locals at that
time originated with a key ingredient from just across the Minnesota
River in Shakopee at Rahr Malting. There was even a loose
collective R&B/Blues group called the Rahrs and Js after everyone's two
favorites.
My
memory may be clouded - that's ridiculous - there's no maybe about
it! Anyway I can't recall that the SD served anything but Schell's Deer
Brand, maybe because of the cool graphics, but it doesn't matter. It was a
richer, more malt forward, slightly addictive brew, and I liked looking at the
deer while thinking about where Lazy Bill's blues came from. Schells originated
this one before the prohibition, and it featured their own yeast. It had the
added advantage of often being found on sale at three cases for under ten
bucks!
My own
blues? Well, my head sort of blew up at age fourteen in 1963 when I first
heard Mr. John Lee Hooker Boom Boom Booming, Mr. Jimmy Reed bitching about the
Big Boss Man, and Mr. Bo Diddley grooving the Bo Diddley Beat. Just a little
bit later The Animals came at it from the Isles by way of the St. James
Infirmary, and Bob Dylan blew minds and speakers at Newport with Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper.
The Stones, who once opened for Bo Diddley, shook things up further still as
they were also channeling McKinley Morganfield, better known as Muddy Waters.
Once people got over the shock and awe, Dylan’s Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat had
white college kids looking for where it all came from. And of course, those
kids discovered it with...you guessed it, beer.
A
little later the rising hardcore blues band, Canned Heat, with Blind Owl
Wilson, and Bob, the Bear, Hite, did Living the Blues, probably the seminal
hippy blues record that I went to sleep with for years in college, and shortly
after that, got hooked up with John Lee to complete the bridge from Woodstock
back to Clarksdale Mississippi.
In
those days it wasn’t lost on anyone that this scene was just a boat or train
trip straight up the Mississippi Valley from New Orleans
by way of Clarksdale Mississippi. However, it was also a car, or
hitchhike trip along Dylan’s Highway 61.
I think a lot of folks believe that Dylan’s 61 had more to do with where
he is from physically, but conceptually he is from the intersection of Highways
61 and 49, and I believe that’s where it is at. That is Robert Johnson’s
crossroads of course, and way more likely source place than Tofte Minnesota.
So
Brues and Blews. Many, many, many, blues players have proved that whiskey and
heroin don’t make for a long and lovely life. You just can’t hang in with that
intensity of experience. Beer will fill you right up and put you to sleep
before you can do anything too radical, unless you just plain want to of
course. If you are looking for a great musical ride as you get along the way
with a long and lovely life, enjoy your blews with a few brues. Enough is
sometimes just right.