Chicago blues veteran talks to Blues News
As a boy you were born and raised in Mississippi, can you remember the first blues song you ever heard?
That takes me way back. To figure out the first one... as a matter of fact I didn't really listen to very much music at that time but blues. Well the first one that I really taken to was Lonnie Johnson, way back down that time. Lonnie Johnson, Bessie Smith was playing records back during that time and the next I paid attention to was Roosevelt Sykes. And on up the line then was Tampa Red Big Maceo, Big Bill Broonzy, a host of other cats - Bukkah White; lots of 'em that I was playing, listening behind, listening to their music. Robert Johnson, I heard quite a few - I didn't ever meet him in person - but I heard quite a few of his records back then, after he came in. I was somewhere about a teenage boy at that time.
Did you model yourself on anyone of those, was anyone a hero for you?
Well I tell you Robert Johnson, he stood out more, Robert Johnson did. He worked for me in sound, but I never got a chance to meet him. Big Bill Broonzy was another guy that I really looked up on. Big Bill and also Memphis Minnie, Tampa Red, Big Maceo, most of those people back during that time. I listened to their blues.
Do you play finger style like some of those guys did or do you play plectrum, use a flat pick?
I played a lot of finger style, that's the way I really started playing, a lot of finger style, a lot of finger action. For it carried more harmony with a band, play a more heavier sound. When you pick the strings that way you get more of a tone.
You got to Chicago in 1939, I believe...
Around 1938 or '39, somewhere along o' there, yeah.
What was Chicago like at that time?
Well I was a young man, glad to see the bright lights and everything. Things were all really nice, then, because I been living here ever since! Things were real nice. And really now I don't have too much time at home here, in Chicago, but my neighbourhood where I'm living is OK. There's lots going on around Chicago now that really wasn't in the cards during the time that I were growing up here. But that don't bother me, I just stay away from it and keep on keeping on at what I'm doing. That's the way I live, I don't bother most times if I'm in town, here in the city, if you call for me, nine times out of ten you'll catch me at home or just left and be on my way home. I don't be hanging in the street too much I never did.
I think what we'd like to hear about, just a little bit is your spell with Muddy Waters. How did you firs t meet up with Muddy Waters?
Muddy Waters, yeah, first cousin Dan Jones and I were working on the same job and it was like in 1940, '41, we were working an the same job together at that time and he said he had a first cousin wanting to came to Chicago but he was a blues player in the south and he was trying to get him hooked up on a day job, that he wouldn't have to travel too far from where he lived, because it's a big city and he didn't know anything about big cities. So finally he did get him up an the job close to home and he did get him to Chicago in 1945. That's when I met him in 1945. We got to be friends.
Did you play house parties, rent parties, that sort of thing in the early days?
Well that's what we first start doing, when he first came to Chicago. We started playing house parties, birthday parties.
So how did those things work, Jimmy?
Well we were practising then, every day, just about every chance we get, we would practice together, it wasn't too hard, for us to play a party together, they come natural to us. And then people started wanting us to play in clubs, at the time. Then we started playing in small clubs around Chicago. And then one thing leads to another and we got to playing much bigger clubs, and on and on like that. And eventually Sunnyland Slim turn us on to Chess recording company and Muddy did a couple of numbers there with Sunnyland on the piano. Then after that he pulled me in on guitar and then we brought Little Walter in, so we kept adding to the unit. Then we got Otis Spann in the group with us and we start making pretty big blues records after we got the foundation built. We had a pretty good unit, a heavy blues unit at the time. Muddy was doin' the biggest of the vocal, then the next one started singing was me, I got on record, I started singing, then we got Little Walter on.
What was Muddy Waters like as a band leader?
He was a nice guy, we respect each other. He was about nine or ten years older than I was but we got along real good because so many things that was going on in the big city, Muddy wasn't really familiar with and I would tell him what was going on. We would hang together a lot. One thing led to another and another, finally we got a break. We all become blues vocalists. We had a nice band going there and I miss those guys and I'm sorry that they're not here with us right now but we still keep the ball rolling, we keep playing these blues.
Jimmy, one thing that really interests me, at that time the real lead instrument at that time was the harmonica, whereas nowadays the blues is a guitar music. How did you feel about it then; is that the right way to play blues?
Well to my opinion about it I still have a harmonica player with me. Right now, every time I play I have a harmonica player in the band. I like piano and harmonica. Bass is OK. Guitar, piano and harmonica - and drums - is the instruments that I really like and started up in the foundation of that type of band and I constantly keeps them that way.
Just tell us about Little Walter, how good was he?
He was a nice guy. He was one of us. He had a lot of different things about him, but he was young, just like we all once were young, wild, and he were that way. So no much different to him and nobody else. He was a good guy as far as I'm concerned. We worked together and talked together, we were just friends, like. What he do when he was on his own, that's a different thing. We got along real good.
I understand he was a bit of a fighter, wasn't he?
A fighter? Well he wouldn't really start a fight. If somebody approach him or pressure him he would try to fight his way out, I mean he's just like the average person. He wouldn't stand too much pushing around, I don't blame him for that. He did a lot of running around different places, he met a lot of people. Sometimes it would be his fault and then most times it'd be somebody else's fault but if they jump he, he would try to protect himself. That's the way that were. They said he was a wild young man, that he was hard to get along with but as far as I'm concerned he was not. We always got along real good.
While you were with Muddy Waters, you were still recording your own stuff.
We had the band, we would record with the same band the majority of the time. That was Little Walter, Muddy Waters and myself and Elgin Evans was the drummer. Sometimes we used Willie Dixon or Big Crawford on the bass. It was the regular unit, we would be together.
You did some of your really great stuff at that point. What was Leonard Chess like, didn't he try to take over a lot of what you were doing, some of the time?
Leonard was the guy, he was putting up the money and he didn't know too much about the blues but he were trying to get in, get his foot in the door, he trying to learn the blues. He would come up with some ideas, sometime he could help you out with his ideas and sometime he would be in the way, but we didn't let that bother us too much. He would talk during the recordings or whatever, we would just go on and do pretty well what we had planned to do, anyway. He would say that "he did this" and "he did that", we laugh about it and go ahead. He was trying to make ends meet at the time and he was the man with the money therefore we had to go along with the programme.
Can you remember what sort of guitars and amps you used at the time, Jimmy?
Well, different kinds, we used Gibson amplifiers at that time. Maybe we used a Silvertone or guitars of that nature, Stella and then until Gibson come in and started making the hollow bodied Gibson guitars then, I started on the Gibson and I still plays one right now.
So you've been a loyal Gibson man all that time?
I been a Gibson man for a long, long time, yeah!
Some of your songs have become real blues and R&B standards, 'That's Alright', 'Sloppy Drunk, Walking By Myself for example. What do you think about the way other people play your songs. Gary Moore's done a version of Walking By Myself that's got an entirely different feel...
They change 'em around, they change the style. They out it in a way they can relate to the song the best. That's the way they do it. To them, it was the best opinion they had about it. Those guys, they got through to a lot of white kids and that spreaded us out into the field. It didn't harm us at all, it helped a lot and right now today I have a great white audience of young blues guys that love the blues. They comes wherever I be, they be there. Most every place I play I have a nice house and they seem to enjoy themselves and it's been like that for quite a spell, which I enjoy, I appreciate it.
You had quite a long spell in the 70s when you didn't really gig much. What happened then, Jimmy?
My kids were growing up, see I have six children. They was growing up, now they's 38, 35 and 30, 24 - they all grown men and women, now. I have grandkids but at that time there was just - start off with one then two then I got six! It takes quite a bit to raise six children in Chicago and put 'em through school. The blues wasn't paying off too heavy and so l have to do other things to make ends meet, so I could afford my family and that's what I was doing.
It's hard everywhere bringing up kids, Jimmy.
My problem I had, and I know about it here, and I see kids now, fact I have some grandkids that's coming on now. My wife and I we're here to prop 'em up on every side. I think they don't have too much problems, 'cause one of us is here at all time to look out them like I did my own kids and my grandkids is the same matter. So we gets along alright I enjoy the blues and I we enjoy being out in the field but I never forgets about home. When I gets through my running I come home, we enjoy it.
Jimmy, what's Chicago like now as a blues town, is there a lot of blues being played?
There's quite a few blues players here in Chicago. I understand most are north side of Chicago now. That's the Blues Extension, the Blues Club, Lilly's, Mama Rose and Kingston Mine, The Wise Fool, places of that nature. Those are blues clubs on the north side of Chicago, now. There's a few - Buddy Guy's Legends - that's down town, that's a blues club, it's very nice. There's one on the south side, that's the Chequerboard, well that's a all black club. They have a nice crowd it's still open, but I don't get around to those clubs much anyway, because the time that I'm at home here I be trying to catch up on my rents, take care of my business, because I be moving so fast, in fact I got about three more days here and I'll be gone again for another month, so, I don't have too much time at home.
Your last big record, which was the Antones "Ludella" album...
I got a one now, it's gonna be just as good or maybe better, it will be out soon. That was a good one, it was good enough. Ludella was a real good album.
You got some real good reviews from it and then you started to tour pretty extensively around Europe and I see you played with the Rolling Stones... did you enjoy that sort of thing?
I enjoy anybody that's been playing the blues and if they appear to appreciate the blues, I'm a 100% in there. Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and all those guys we does a lot of stuff together. Every chance we have to get together, we have fun.
What's the future hold for you, Jimmy, what's your next project?
Well right now, I'm in real estate here in Chicago, trying to take care of a few buildings and things of that nature, trying to make things as comfortable as I can for my family. I love to fish I don't have too much chance to go fishing, but I likes it.
Well, were looking forward to having you here in New Zealand, Jimmy, there's plenty of good fishing here...
I will be there in New Zealand, to see you all in the last part of June, right? I will be there, tell your friends to tell their friends to come on out and dig the sound we putting down, because we gonna do the blues for you, and as I said before, if you can't dig the blues you must have a hole in your soul!
