Your Complete Guide to the Chicago Blues Scene
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Interview with Bobby Rush
Or The “I Really Couldn’t Interview This Guy” Interview
by
Terry Abrahamson
The setting: the lobby of The Southland Hotel. Exactly where I'd
expect to meet a guy who spent last night (February 13, 2014) fronting
more band members than you'd ever believe he could possibly pay, through
more sets and costume changes than most performers half his age could
muster the sweat for, at a Bernie Mac Foundation benefit at 87th and
Cottage Grove. And now we
found ourselves at The Southland Hotel in Markham, Illinois at 159th and
Sacramento.
Meeting Bobby Rush here was kind of like being with a legend
inside a legend inside...like the Russian nesting dolls, but bluesier.
Markham had first appeared on my radar half a century ago as the site of
Kingston Green: the South Suburban development of tomorrow, sold in
black & white commercials a tract at a time by the Olympic hero of
yesteryear, Jesse Owens. Jesse was sharp. He was earnest. He was
articulate. And he was right on the money! We should’ve bought! Back
then, as Jews, we could’ve been living side by side with the scourge of
Hitler. And today, as a Blues fan, if I'd stayed, I'd be a stone's throw
- in virtually any direction - from royalty: the widows, children and
grandchildren of the gods of Chess Records.
Bobby Rush had known all the gods. Bobby the boy, knew their
music; heard it thumpin' and wailin' down to Homer, Louisiana on the
cracklin' signal of Nashville's KLAC. Bobby the man knew their
friendship; amusement and amazement as he drenched their Mississippi
Blues in enough grease, sauce and pomade to slide it out of the juke
joints, through the rhythm & blues lounges, across the rock and roll
stages and back again.
I came to interview Bobby Rush, who’s up for three Blues Music
Awards including Artist of the Year, and I was totally unprepared. I'd
dug deep into his catalogue, and thought I knew it well enough to pose
poignant questions that would yield not just revealing answers but
impressed, validating nods from fans and musicians - most notably Bobby
Rush. But those songs gave no clue to the places he'd been, the people
he'd known and the things he'd seen and done. I was lucky, though.
Bobby's van - soon to be crammed with more musicians than clowns
in a Volkswagen - was being loaded for a ride to Memphis and he had no
time to wait for questions. With a few exceptions, and generous assists
from his keyboardist, producer and longtime collaborator Paul Brown, and
from Blues publicist/producer Lynn Orman Weiss, Bobby started talking.
And the stories - tales I'd be damned if I was gonna compromise with
anything as petty and unBluesy as fact checking - sprang forth like
Markham's Jesse Owens tearin' out of those blocks at Munich.
It
was Down in Louisiana....
Terry Abrahamson:
How
old were you when you were picking the cotton on your father’s land?
Bobby Rush:
I
started when I was about 6-7 years old. From sunup to sundown.
There was ten of us kids and I was the kinda kid that was quick
to learn, so my daddy tells me
"You kinda bright. You gotta come outta school because you need
to help me plant this cotton. That keeps the other kids in school. And
somebody gotta do it."
I understood it. Apparently, he saw in me what he didn’t see in the
other children. So he told me “Well, you can survive it. You’re a smart
kid. Come on with me. You go to school three months out of the year, and
those kids go nine." See, I was this kid who understood. My daddy bein’
a preacher, he would take me with him to the Sunday school. And I was
pretty smart. I would love the biblical study.
I
remember he was preachin’ about the Lost Supper, and he was talkin’
about how the disciples didn’t understand when the Lost Supper was gonna
be. He said “You go down to
the fork in the road"....this is Christ talkin’ now...."go down to the
fork in the road, and you’ll see a man with a jug and follow him and
find some information and find out where the Lost Supper gonna be.”
Another situation, he was talkin’ about how Christ was comin’ back, and
he said “Now you go down to that pasture, to that open field. You'll see
this horse. And one book says ‘You'll see this ass’ and one say ‘You'll
see this colt. And if anybody should ask you about him, tell them I have
need of him'." That ain’t much information. But now I understood my
daddy. So when he said to me “I want you to get a job at the cotton gin,
bring me information,” I said “Daddy, I understand. I’ll do it.” He
didn’t tell me anything else. But I understood it. Biblically: where he
was comin’ from. So I went down to the gin. He said “You know they
gonna pay you six dollars a week.” I said “I know.” Six dollars a week!
He said “But you can bring me the information, be worth way more than
the money.” I said “I understand.” So, what I would do in the gin, I
went into the gin and looked at the situation and went back outside, put
sand in my pocket and a rag hangin’
from my pocket. And there was a bunch of White guys who was
sittin’ around a table. At that time, the Black people didn’t know a
thing about no Dow Jones. But these White men was talkin’ about what
they gon’ sell, how much they gon’ sell it for and when they gon' sell
it. “The peas we gon’ sell for two dollars a bushel. The cotton we can
sell for so much a pound. And the peanuts we can sell for so much a
bushel. But this we can’t sell, this we can’t sell; we gotta wait for
the demand.” And I would be around the table and I would listen, and I
would throw a little sand on the floor (motions
throwing sand) so I had a
reason to be there wiping it up and I would listen to all they said. And
my daddy said “What ya hear today son?” I said “You shouldn’t sell no
cotton. But you can sell the beans. But you
shouldn’t sell no soybeans, ‘cause in two weeks, they goin’ up.” And my
daddy would call a meeting at the church Sunday morning, like the Martin
Luther King of the
neighborhood. Sunday school was at 9:30. He would call a meeting at
8:30, tell all the farmers what to sell, what not to sell. Because of my
information. He would tell the Black guys “What we gonna do, we gonna
dig a hole." And every other week or two, they would bury a bale of
cotton, so when the cotton went up, they would sell it. You follow me?
And my daddy almost got killed because they say “Where this man gettin’
all this cotton from this time a year?” ‘Cause I done told them what
they had to do; they had to bury it. And they’re comin’ up with cotton
in January and February when there was no cotton, and they’d dig it up
and get a good price for it. You follow me?
And I did that all the way up til I got through school. Where it
took you 12 years to get through school, it took me 14. Because I was
gettin’ the information. And my daddy got smart enough and wise enough
so we wasn't pickin' cotton by the pounds. We was pickin' it by the
fields.
TA:
So, is this some mythology, or when you were picking the cotton
for your dad, were you singing in the cotton fields?
BR:
(broad, faraway smile)
Yeah. Oh man, you'd be out there singin'....
TA:
What
were you singing?
BR:
Whatever I could hear from WLAC. Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed.
Oh yeah, and "Hound Dog." (sings) "You ain't nothin' but a hound
dog." And Louie Jordan. "Ain't
Nobody Here But Us Chickens!" That's where that comes from!
(Bobby Rush's "Chicken Heads.")
Chicken Heads! Not the song, but the idea about the animals. My favorite
song was "Straighten Up and Fly Right." That started me to writin'. I
was a little boy and I could relate to the two animals in the song - the
Monkey and the Buzzard - bein' friends. And Louie Jordan like to write
about those kinda thngs.
TA:
So you're
actually singing while you're picking the cotton?
BR:
Oh yeah.
TA:
Are you listening to KFFA (West Helena, Arkansas)?
BR:
Yeah, Sonny's (Sonny Payne) real sick;
he's been on that station like 56 years.
TA:
So you're out there singing the Blues. And your father is a
preacher. What's your father think of the Blues?
BR:
I don't t know what he thought of the Blues, but he probably
thought a lot of it because my father, who was a preacher, never told me
to sing the Blues, but he never told me not to.
The
Chit'lin' Circuit King
TA:
So
you move to (Pine Bluff) Arkansas...
BR:
In
1947,
TA:
And you're listening to this music, and you're thinking "I could
do this."
BR:
Oh yeah. I went to a place called "Jitterbug" on Third Street in
Pine Bluff. I went to the store and bought me a fake moustache. You
could glue it on. And the man at the Jitterbug let me in. See, you could
buy em, and you stick em on, and it make you look older. See, you could
get in the club when you was 18, but I wasn't even 18. I went in this
club, and I had already been playin' at this other club called Drums
‘cross town. But I wanted to go in Jitterbug on Third Street; that was
the top of the line. So I went into Jitterbug, got this job, He give me
25 cents, and four hamburgers. And I sell them for 25 cents. I got so
good, he would pay me eight hamburgers; I'd sell seven of ‘em and eat
one. At 25 cents a piece. So I'm makin' money! That was all my pay. And
that was the time the Chit'lin Circuit came in. He'd say "Bobby Rush,
you gon' be the king of my Chit'lin Circuit.” Now, I didn't know what he
was talkin' about then, but I found out. There's a book on the Chit'lin
Circuit, but let me set the record straight on the Chit'lin Circuit. I'm
not the first one that played the Chit'lin Circuit, but I'm called the
Chit'lin Circuit King. Because the Chit'lin Circuit was really named
from chit'lins. From a hog (intestines). Because up til 1947 or '48,
chit'lins wasn't sold. You could go to the slaughter pen, they would
give you all the chit'lins you want. Especially if you were Black. And
the Black men who owned the chit'lin joint went and got the chit'lins
and cooked em and gave ‘em free to the musicians for no money. And you
played for chit'lins. That's why it's called "The Chit'lin Circuit."
TA:
Because that's how the musicians were paid.
BR:
Exactly. Now, you might make two fifty or four dollars a night,
but you got to split that with all the musicians that’s workin' with
you. You makin' a dollar a
night, workin' three or four days a week, makin' three or four dollar,
instead of workin' in a cotton field makin' eight dollars a week, that's
about all you're gonna get. My first gig in Illinois, in
’55
or ’56, in Argo, Illinois, me and Freddie King, I don’t remember the
name of the club at that time,
but it became The Cotton Club. I was gettin' $7 a night. And I,
as the bandleader, paid the band four dollar and fifty cents. Early
'50s, that's what I'm makin'. And Muddy Waters was makin' $15 a night.
Fifteen dollars a night! A Superstar! I come to Chicago in 1951. Muddy
Waters was there. Little Walter was there. Willie Dixon was there. In
1953 or '54, Pigmeat Markham and Moms Mabley came. In 1955, Chuck Berry
came. In 1957, Etta James came. I was drivin’ a taxi, picked her up at
the bus station, took her to Chess. I didn’t know her; pure coincidence.
Also in 1957, the last of '56, Howlin' Wolf came. In 1957, Buddy Guy
came. In 1957, John Lee Hooker came. Smokey Hogg and Lightnin' Hopkins
had already been there.
Ike
Turner and the Girl with the Violin Case Shoes
BR:
I
remember I went to Rock Island for the first time.
Ike Turner and I were playin' The Habana Club. And I remember
this 'cause it was me and Ike Turner. Tina wasn't there. We was buckin'
heads with Little Richard. He was playin' an auditorium. He was a bigger
act than we was. But we had fires settin' in this little club. I was
really cocky in that area. I was about 20, 21 years old. Ike's about the
same age. We both thought we was good lookin', thought we could pull
every woman we saw. So I walked in the bar,
Fats
Jenkins – he was the owner, and I got the gig through his nephew, Curtis
Jenkins who was a friend of mine - Fats is sittin' at the bar and he
says "Hey Bobby Rush! How you
doin'?" And I say "Fine." I say "What time do you start?” He say "Well,
we'll start in a few minutes.” I had Earl Hooker on gui-tar for me.
Moose John (Walker) was on keyboard. And I went up to do my little set
and came back and this lady was sittin' down with her legs crossed like
this (bar stool "show a lotta
leg" position). And man, she had some legs on her. And I say "How
you doin', baby?" and Ike Turner say "That woman ain't gon' talk to you,
'cause I been tryin' to talk to her all night, and she won't talk to me,
she ain' gon' talk to you." And that's what Ike said, 'cause Ike thought
he was the King of the Pretty Guys. I thought I was too. And my drummer
was named - my drummer was a big guy - "Tony," And she was talkin' to
Tony and Tony would buy her a beer. You got to see Tony. Tony
looked like a moose! I say to
Ike "How'd he beat us out?" and Ike say "I don't know, man. This drummer
got us beat out." So I go back up on the stage and Ike came to sit in
with me, and at this point she been sittin' there a couple hours. And I
look down and she got feet like this (spreads
his hands waaay apart) and this is God's truth...the feet was so big
like violin cases.
And
I say to Ike: "This woman we been hittin' on,
look what she's walkin' on! (laughter)"
And by that time, she'd been drinkin' and you could see this (motions
to his Adam's apple) "goozlin'." (disgusted
"Ooo's" all around) But
she was lookin' good, though. She was lookin' good. But I told Ike "Man,
I been tryin' to talk to this woman all night." And Ike says "Man,
that's a drag queen." You know what that is, don't ya?
So we goes to the hotel that night.
Three o'clock in the morning. A little old shabby hotel. I'm in
my room, Tony knock on the door. (whispers)
"Bobby Rush, you gotta come here. Man, you wouldn't believe it." I say
"What is it, Tony? What's goin' on man?" He says "That's a man!" I say
"Well, I tried to tell you, man! So what you gonna do?" He says "Well, I
spent so much money.....Why don't you just come in the room with me?"
And I told Ike and we just fell down and laughed about it. Whatever
happened, we was gone the next day. But that was the most beautiful
woman you would ever want to see. Until I saw them feet and I told Ike
"Look at that:" And we walked down there and say "Hello." By that time,
she just says "Goodnight."
The
King Crosses Over
TA:
What
were the first clubs you played in Chicago?
BR:
Skins, in Robbins, Illinois. The Apex in Phoenix, Illinois.
That's where I stood behind a curtain.
TA:
You
stood behind a curtain?
BR:
I
had to play behind a curtain because I was Black and they had this
curtain on
the stage and I had to play behind it. They wanted to hear my music but
they didn’t want to see me. Even here in Chicago in the 1950s. There was
no Black people on Rush Street. They had signs “No colored allowed," and
that was Bourbon Street – that was the club - on Rush and Walton and I
was one of the first Black folks they hired. I was maybe the first and
Sammy Davis Jr. was the second and Bill Cosby was the first Black MC
they hired. Then I hired Redd Foxx.
TA:
Did you ever play the Roberts Motel?
(Lots of laughter from Bobby and Lynn)
LYNN
ORMAN WEISS:
Herm
is still alive.
BR:
You sure? (laughing)
I'm gon' kill him. I didn't know Herm was still alive. He had me, Dinah
Washington. All of ‘em. Brook Benton. He let me book Dinah Washington
myself.
TA:
Unlike most of the guys of your generation who came up from the
South, you've got more than just Chicago Blues. You've got the Louie
Jordan Kansas City thing. Plus
R &
B. You even landed on Kenny Gamble's Philadelphia International label
for a while, alongside Billy Paul and the O'Jays.
So, when you played these clubs, what were you playing?
BR:
Mostly Chicago Blues, but I got a mixture of Blues and another
kinda thing too. I think that's why I worked as much if not more than
Muddy or Buddy. Because of my swiftness of the crossover.
TA:
Did you ever play in a club, and you're playing one kind of music
and the clubowner asks "What are you playing?"
BR:
That come to me a few times. There was one time in Kewanee,
Illinois and the clubowner says "We love you. The people love you.
But what the f**k did you just play?"
A
Guy Walks into a Bar with This Head…..
TA:
A
Blues bar from the ‘50s and ‘60s that you don’t hear much about is the
Zanzibar.,,,
BR:
Right: the Zanzibar. That was on Ashland and around 13th,
just south of Roosevelt. They’d have nights – same night every week.
Muddy would play on this night, Howlin’ Wolf on that night. Little
Walter was a big deal there. But I’ll tell you a
better story. See, I didn’t
live but a few blocks west of there. One night, I’m comin’ home from the Zanzibar with Little Eddie. Little Eddie was a harp player who was a barber by day. He had a barber shop at Roosevelt and Kedzie.
Well, one
night,
Little Eddie and I walk out of the Zanzibar, up Ashland, and we’re
stoppin’ in this
bar
at Roosevelt and Ashland. But we’re walkin’ in and everybody else is
runnin’ out,
like somebody been shootin’ or something. By the time we get inside,
ain’t but one
man at the bar, and next to him, up on the bar, was this woman’s head.
TA:
A
head?
BR:
Just
a head. And this guy next to the head…I don’t know if she was his wife or
his girlfriend…but apparently he walked in the bar, not in a hurry, not
nervous, just
takes the head from under his coat, puts it on the bar, and says “Gimme
a drink, and give
this bitch a drink!” And everybody runs out and the bartender goes
berserk. But not
this guy. He’s just calm. I don’t know what she did to piss him off, but
she did
somethin’.
Vee-Jay,
The DJs and Chicken Heads
BR:
Calvin Carter and Vivian Carter had this record company out of Gary.
Calvin, that was Vivian's brother. Calvin Carter was my best friend.
That was my running buddy; my sho' 'nuff friend. In 1953, she met Jimmy
(Bracken) who had Jimmy Records. And they got married and changed the
name to Vee-Jay Records. Don't nobody know this but me and Chuck Berry.
They got in trouble in ‘65. Calvin Carter had a business partner. His
name was Leo Arsdell. Leo Arsdell was a preacher here in Chicago. He was
a Jehovah's Witness preacher. He was his money banker. So he say "Bobby
Rush, I need a song to cut." I say "I got a song." They say "What's the
name of your song?" I say "Chick Heads." He says "Bring it by me and my
partner, let us listen to it."
So I bring it by. And Leo says "Whatcha got there, boy?" And I
say "I got a song." I had my guitar. And I played it. 1968. He say
What's the name of it? I say "Chick Heads." He said "No boy, you can't
call no record like that." And I say "What I mean by it is 'Chicken
Heads'." He say "Chicken Heads?” Where you from boy?" I say "Down
South." He say "Oh yeah, they eat chicken heads down there, don't they
boy?" Now at that time, he musta been 60, 65 years old. Wasn't an old
man, but to me, he was old because he was much older than I was. He says
"Oh yeah, I remember: they eat chicken heads and feet down South." He
says "How's your song go?" I told him "Daddy told me on his dyin' bed:
'Give up your heart, but don't lose your head.' You came along and what
did I do? I lost my heart and my head went too." Didn’t have nothin' to
do with a chicken. But he bought it and he said "But we need a A and a B
side. What else you got?" And I said "I got a song: ‘Mary Jane’." He
said "Oh yeah, a girl like that did me wrong." I say "I'm not talkin'
about a girl at all." I was
talkin' about the smoke (laughing)
you know? And I was talkin' about that because Muddy Waters had this
song when he's thirsty give him champagne, when he wants to get high,
give him reefer. If he could get away with it, why couldn't I? So we
went in the studio. Tyrone Davis went in the studio with me. So Calvin
Carter, Tyrone Davis and I and two or three musicians, I was takin' my
guitar and showin' ‘em how to play the lines. Now what they did with
this session: Betty Everett
and Tyrone Davis and I had four hours. I'm payin' for the four hours. I
didn't know Calvin Carter was cuttin' two other artists on my money.
TA:
You're paying to rent the studio time?
BR:
I'm payin' four hours studio time to cut my record and they
recorded Betty Everett and Tyrone Davis: two other artists before me on
my time. So when we got there, about 45 minutes was all we had.
This was my money. I'm payin' for this. So I had Ralph Bass
the producer from Chess and he says "Well, we got about 45
minutes." So I say "I don't have much time, let me show you how this
go." So I show ‘em....(sings the
groove) They couldn't catch it. And Tyrone Davis is cussin' and says
"Man, you play the damn thing yourself." I say "Okay, let me show you
this one more time." And I play it on my guitar, from the top to the
bottom. I'm singin' and playin'. I say that's what it is. Let's do it."
And Ralph Bass says "Good take." He cut it while I'm showin' him how to
play it. Never cut it again. So let me tell you what happened.
We
go to the disc jockey convention in Miami. So I go and rent a suite. The
suite was a couple hundred dollars. A lotta money They went down with
me. They had my record and a Betty Everett record. Now, Calvin Carter
was in trouble with the record companies. And a lady come with me, says
"Let's go rent this suite for the disc jockeys." So I'm tryin' to invite
promoters and record company executives to make me a record deal. James
Brown is there, and he's down the hall and I go visit him and I tell him
what I'm doing. And he was a business man. And he says "Bobby Rush, I
ain't got time right now, but I'll head on there and give it a listen.”
So, I'm in this room,
sittin' back there in the corner with the light off, and I'm sittin'
there and I'm kinda dozin off and Calvin Carter and Leo came in with
these White guys from Fantasy Records.
So when they come in, they put the record on....it's a Betty
Everett record. And they said "We like that!" And then they say "But
where's that Bobby Rush guy at?" And Calvin says "He's at James Brown's
room, I'll go get him." So
when he left, the two White guys say (moanin'
and groanin') "We don't like this sh*t."
Talkin' about the Betty Everett record. And a minute later,
Calvin comes back in and they smile and say "Hey, Calvin! We really like
this, but we gonna let you know." See when they're talkin' to
themselves, they're sayin' "We don't like it." But when Calvin comes in,
they sayin' "We think you got somethin' there, Calvin. But what about
that.....(snaps his fingers
several times as though trying to summon the name)...that little
longhaired guy...that so and so...." And Calvin turned the light on, and
there I was sittin' in the corner. And they pick up this record and it
says Bobby Rush on it and Calvin didn't want them to hear it because it
wasn't done; it didn't have the mix on it. But they put it on and they
say "Wow! What kinda sh*t is that!" They was all over this record. And I
walk over and they made a deal right this minute, gave me fifty five
thousand dollars! For that record. Right then. On the spot!
And guess what I got? Five hundred!
Totally!!
“Chicken Heads!” Follow me? That was a Gold Record! Vee-Jay Records. But
they released it on Fantasy. Fantasy had the record. The biggest thing
they had. Follow me?
See,
Calvin didn't believe in me. He used my money and all my recording
expectations,
cutting Betty Everett on my money, and wouldn't put my record on there.
TA:
So where'd the fifty five thousand go?
BR:
To him. And I didn't get but five hundred dollars of that. Went
to VeeJay or whoever it went to. But you know, all them peoples’ dead
and gone.
Bobby Rush and Paul Brown Come Together
BR:
Now, I have grown in crossover to a White audience. I have come
to know them as well as a BB or a Buddy Guy. But, by the same token,
there's Black Blues guys who don't know nothin' about this over here.
You know what I'm talkin' about? They don't know nothin' about how to
soothe this Black audience. They don't know nothin' about what I did
last night. I can soothe an audience. They don't know nothin'
about that. So I got to be careful, you know, that I don't get out of
line. That's a hard task: if I want to do an all-White audience, well
that's another story altogether.
PAUL
BROWN:
I mean I don't even know of anybody else who can do that. And to
me, that's somethin' I treasure. How he can do that. And that's so
important to me to not stay in the lines, in that, to keep that goin'.
BR:
Now think about yourself. You wasn't hired to do that, and yet,
you can get with Roy Rogers, you can play with Ann Peebles. Look at
that!
PB:
Well, I'm twisted.
BR:
That's a hard task. You do the same thing I do. You play with the
White guys, and then you go play with Roy Rogers and Ann Peebles and
Shirley Brown. But everybody can't do it. I'll tell you what you do:
take one of my guys and put em over there and see what happens.
PB:
I'll tell you, a good example of that is that I just got off of
one show with you and the day after that, I went down to Florida to play
with Jimi Jamison and Survivor. 80's Rock!
BR:
So why not take advantage of this in the studio?
PB:
I
know. Yeah. Just throw it in the mix and see what happens. But with
integrity, though.
BR:
We sit down, we do a song (sings)
Don't cry baby.....That ain't got nothin' to do with Black Folks per se.
When I do some song, it ain't got nothin' to do with White folks. Like
we did "Down in Louisiana" (the Grammy-nominated album cut in 2013).
When we did the song, I told Paul..for the first 90 days, I didn't send
anything to one Black radio station. And you know what happened? They
asked me and they said "How come you didn't send us this record?"
PB:
Isn't that somethin'? So many Black southern soul radio stations
freaked out. I didn't see that comin'.
BR:
See, that's 'cause we got the groove and we stayed with the
story.
PB:
It's so beautiful and it's so rare.
BR:
'Cause when you got a
story, you don't need nothin' to cover it up.
LOW:
Tell
us about Rock this House.
BR:
Albert King and I had this instrumental, this opening number.
We'd say
"We're gonna rock this house." That's what we used to call this song. It
was a song like that a band has every night,. You know how you do some
instrumental? But I had words for it. After Paul came up with such a
good line, he took the lyrics out of it. That was like a good line.
PB
It's
like when we did “Come Together”....we did “Come Together” on this four
song vinyl ep a couple of weeks ago. Bobby said to me "Paul, the verses
are hard."
BR:
Let me tell you something about that. Paul called me and he said
he wants to do two originals and two cover songs.I said what songs? He
said he wants to do one Otis Redding song. So, I'm thinkin' about the
Otis Redding song and he said "Well, a Beatles song would be good." I
say "What song?" He said “Come Together.” Now you got to understand: as
big as the Beatles is, and as big as the song was, who's gonna cover a
song like this? You'd be the craziest man in the world try to cover
this. So I was drivin',
learned the song. And I had the song down, 'cause I'm listenin' to it
all the way from Memphis (to Nashville). So, I'm gonna take this in one
shot. Then I'm askin' myself "What can I do? I got it!" So, in the
studio, I walk in, I say "Don't worry, I got it. And I did the harmonica
thing. And that was the story (lyrics). And that's what
happened, It's hard to do a Beatles song. You gotta face the
fact. How you gonna cover "Superstition?" by Stevie Wonder. You tell me
who's gonna cover it. A big
old fool. Unless he take it all the way down like a Ramsey Lewis would
do it. I do the George Benson on it. Now that's slick.
But you can't do it in their line. The song is too big and the
artist is too big.
PB:
Then in the end, in the vamp, what he did was he starts doin'
"Come together! Come together." It was awesome, man.
BR:
It was respect to the music, respect to the Beatles, I didn't try
to sing it.
PB:
It's different.
BR:
It's different.
PB:
And he owned it. He really owned it.
As
soon as he played the first verse, that was it.
BR:
And I played along with it so you could sing along with it with
the lines.
TA:
What did you relate to in that song?
BR:
The song itself. The way they was singin' it.
I had learnt the song. I learnt the song just like I was singin'
it.
PB:
It's one take straight through.
BR:
That's what we did. There's no overdubs. Nothin'. You either know
it or you don't.
PB:
That's it! You learn it, you cut it right there.
BR:
Wasn't no rehearsal, no nothin'.
PB:
(laughing)
Damn! It was classic!
BR:
I rehearsed it drivin'.
PB:
Yeah, everybody kinda did their homework and when we came
in...and we had three horns! Three horns!
BR:
Nashville. Two weeks ago.
PB:
It was the same place they held all the Motown Records release
parties.
BR:
I want to do that. Do you know the story of that?
Nashville tells Berry Gordy "Reach Out, I'll Be There."
BR:
See, back in the day, you know Luther Allison? I cut the first
record he ever had
with
Motown. I took him to Motown. I produced it. I didn't know Berry Gordy
well til after he got established. But after he got established, he used
to come to Nashville and I didn't know where he was comin' to. After
Paul told me about it, then I know the history of it. There was a guy
called Murray: Edward Murray from Arcola, Mississippi, He was a friend
of mine, and he was a good friend of Berry Gordy. And he used to try to
get Berry Gordy credit lines. At that time, Black people couldn't get
credit lines to press records. You can count the people who get credit
lines even now!
Thank God I have a record company and I have a credit line, so I can
press my records and pay him later.
Berry Gordy didn't have no credit line. They wouldn't give it to
Motown. The only one to give Berry Gordy a credit line was in Nashville,
Tennessee.
PB:
And
we were playin' up above where they pressed the records at.
Up
above the plant, the plant where they pressed the records, they had a
little hotel room, what was known as The Motown Suite, Because of the
segregation, the Blacks would stay in there and they had a big party
room and a kitchen and everything.
That was for the Motown parties and that's where we recorded: in
that room....that very room!
TA:
What year was it that Berry Gordy was going down to get the
credit line? like the 60s?
BR:
'59 to about '70.
TA:
'70? That late?
BR:
Yes, because in the mid '60's, people thought you could get
records pressed anywhere. But the deal was you could get pressed if you
had the cash.
TA:
So all the Motown records were being pressed in Nashville?
BR:
Now I didn't know this til Paul called me. See, I'm just findin'
out the reason why myself. I thought it was a business situation where
you're gettin' a rate that was livable. See, I'm pressin' there because
I'm savin' two or three pennies on the price. Berry Gordy was there
'cause he couldn't get no credit line,
See, when you're pressin' a million-selling record, then you need
a hundred thousand on this one, a hundred thousand on that one, even if
you ain't payin' but fifty cents apiece for em, that's a lotta money
when you can't get a credit line.
And Murray was the guy who set this up. He got Motown in there.
However that connection was, I don't know.
TA:
How
did you two get connected?
BR:
Fifteen, 18 years
ago?
PB:
Fifteen.
BR:
I believe when I
really got into Paul he was at a Blues awards.
Let me tell you: for 20 years, I went to the Blues awards - back
to when it was the (WC) Handy Awards.
And for part of the time, I was the only Blues man in my category
who was there. I paid some dues for all of us to be where we are now. I
paid some dues, I kissed some butt. I was there when nobody was there
but me. You know that. Not a Bobby Bland, not a Buddy Guy, wasn’t nobody
but Bobby Rush. I was payin’ my thousand dollars a year as a membership
to get in the door to see what they was doin’. And I did that. Now its
all of a sudden “We gonna do this.” And I was there for 20 years and
nobody knows that I stayed and wouldn’t go no place. Day in, day out. I
had an ad in that book for a thousand dollars a year for 20 years. The
last couple, I produced my way into the book. There wasn’t nobody there.
I literally went by Bobby Bland’s house. He didn’t want to come. Nobody
wanted to come. They wouldn’t come. I stood there. I’ll tell it on the
Bible. I stood there. And some of the time, I looked like a fool
standing there. For 20-something years. Nobody but me. Standing there,
payin’ to the door. Thinkin’ “Next time be better.” But this particular
night, there was a bondsman called Harper.
He’s a bondsman in Memphis, Tennessee.
PB:
Yeah, it’s funny. We were about to hit the stage with Ann Peebles
and someone comes up to me and says “What’s your last name?” and I told
her Brown. And she says “You better go someplace and hide. The cops are
here lookin’ for you.” I had some outstanding warrants from my ex-wife.
She picked up that I was gonna be there. So they hid me behind the stage
until they called me up on stage and so I get up on stage and I got my
hat on, and I never play with my hat on because it covers my hair, you
know, and so I’m sittin’ there playin’ and I’m lookin’ around and I look
behind me and there’s this wall of cops waitin’ for me and I knew when I
got offstage where I was goin’ and my hat came off I just put it out of
my mind and I’m playin’ like crazy and just as I get off the stage, they
just ushered me right off and oh man, I was gone!
BR:
And that’s the night I really got into him.
He played like there wasn’t nothin’ goin’ on.
PB:
It was the Pop Tunes
15th anniversary. Pop Tunes, the Memphis record store.
BR:
Yeah, that’s what it was.
PB:
When I saw those cops, it was like “Man!”
TA:
So
you were in the show too?
BR:
I was a speaker. Like a host. Like a guest MC. Myself and Dr.
John and Ruth Brown. So I knew they was lookin’ for him, and Harper was
in the audience and I ask him does he know about Paul Brown. I said
"Find him and get him out." And I got into him that night.
TA:
So
you bailed him out?
PB:
Actually, it was Larry Dodson from the BarKays. Here’s what
happened: it was so funny when I got to the jail, I was like this big
celebrity and they let me take off my platform shoes and use somebody's
sneakers and Larry Dodson called the jail and made sure I was treated
okay, and I’ll never forget that. But see, I saw Bobby early on, man,
like ’91.
BR:
Yeah, that’s when I really got into him. I thought “Here’s a guy
that I would love to have in my band."
And somewhere between Pigmeat Markham and Markham, Illinois, Paul
Brown joined the Bobby Rush “Freddie King/Ike Turner/James Brown/Etta
James/Dr.John/ Big Foot Drag Queen Cotton Fields to Chit'lin Circuit to
Miami Hotel Room Caravan,” and played a big old B-3 funky and greasy and
smoky enough to get Producer credit on “Down in Louisiana” at this
year's Grammy Awards. And as Bobby Rush reaches into his pocket for one
more handful of sand, he’ll tell you himself they ain't done.
Terry Abrahamson won a Grammy by writing songs for Muddy Waters. He
helped launch George Thorogood’s career and created John Lee Hooker’s
first radio commercial, which are just a few of his accomplishments.
Terry also is a playwright and author of the photography book,
In The Belly of The Blues –
Chicago to Boston to L.A. 1969 to 1983 -- A Memoir.
Visit:
www.inthebellyoftheblues.com |
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