Otis Rush

I remember the first time I heard Otis Rush's "I Can't Quit You Baby." Few recordings have ever stunned me like that one. In the late 1980s the Slamhound Hunters, the band I was in, had the awesome privilege to open for and back up Otis for a three nights at the Fabulous Rainbow in Seattle. For me, standing three feet from Otis when he sang and played his upside-down guitar was a thrill of a lifetime. He was incredibly nice during the entire run and his performances were really joyful and musically cosmic. Otis Rush was born to play the blues, that is for sure. RIP.

Matt "Guitar" Murphy

RIP Matt Murphy. Saw him many times in the '70s when he was with James Cotton. I opened for those guys once in Belllingham and had a nice long chat with Matt in the dressing room. We got around to the topic of harp players and I figured that Matt, with his jazz chops and sensibilities, would be a big Little Walter fan. "Walter was great," he said, "but Sonny Boy could get stuff out of the harp that nobody else could." The records Matt did with Memphis Slim are really choice. A wonderful player.

Happy birthday to Isaac Scott, a Big Time Bluesman if there ever was one.

Isaac owned the Seattle blues scene for several decades. He didn’t like to travel and he never had the management to acquire an international reputation, but he certainly had all the musical prerequisites necessary to make it big. Isaac taught himself piano and the guitar as a boy and by the time he was in his early twenties he was touring with the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi. He left that experience as the owner of a surpassingly gorgeous, church-infused voice. It was passion for the guitar playing of Albert Collins that drew him closer and closer to the blues. Collins was based in California in the 1970s and played Seattle often, and he and Isaac became thick as thieves. Isaac adopted Collins’ technique of relying solely on an insanely heavy thumb—no picks or other digits for those two guys. Isaac was always searching for new sounds, so he related to Jimi Hendrix right away. At any rate, Isaac’s gospel vocal style and his rocket-propelled approach to the guitar made him an absolutely unique kind of blues musician.

I met Isaac through drummer Twist Turner, who was playing with Scott at the time, in 1975 and joined his band for the next couple of years. In those days were only two clubs in Seattle that regularly booked blues bands—the Boulder Lounge on First Avenue, and the Place Pigalle (“Pig Alley”) right around the corner in the back of the Pike Place Market. Pig Alley was a classic waterfront dive favored by an eclectic clientele that included local degenerates, sailors on shore leave, aging beatniks, and young hipsters. Isaac had the house gig there. The Boulder was much more upscale with its padded black-and-red leather booths and go-go dancers in cages. Tom McFarland had the regular slot there.

Most of my memories of playing with Isaac revolve around Pig Alley. Isaac would often indulge himself in endless shuffles or slow blues workouts with acres of guitar solos. Isaac had copped Albert Collins’ 60-foot-guitar-cord trick and would often stroll through the club while he was playing. The Pig had a phone booth at the end of the bar, and Isaac would squeeze himself in there with his guitar (no small feat, as Isaac weighed about 300 pounds in those days). Once inside the booth, he would snap the door shut with his elbow and the light inside the booth would pop on, bathing him in a heavenly light from above.

Isaac was a very sweet guy by nature, but he could get hard core when the situation called for it. Once some young hippie “promoters” booked us on a Tuesday night at a local bar for surprisingly big money. Such surprisingly big money that we all grilled Isaac about whether this was a real gig or not. He assured us that he had made a solid deal. We played the entire night for about four people and the promoters didn’t show up until closing time at 1 a.m. They approached Isaac and asked him to step outside for a consultation. This didn’t look promising, and we watched through the windows as the two hippies huddled with Isaac on the sidewalk. Isaac listened to each man in turn as they obviously pleaded with him, gesturing nervously all the while. Isaac’s face became more solemn by the second, finally settling into a frightening scowl as he began to shake his head: "No, no, no…” One of the booking agents made what would prove be a final attempt to placate the big man; it was cut short by Isaac’s big right hand making contact with the side of his head. This initial victim instantly took the form of a crumpled heap on the sidewalk. Isaac turned toward the other promoter, who, in a desperate surge of adrenalin driven by fear of impending doom, bolted up Second Avenue. We all piled out onto the sidewalk just in time to watch Isaac, in a grisly, big-city version of a cheetah running down a defenseless gazelle on "Wild Kingdom," take off at an incredible velocity for a man of his size and make quick work of his second prey. But Isaac wasn’t done yet. He grabbed a hand truck out of the van, rolled it into the bar and proceeded to unplug the club’s expensive new jukebox from the wall, heave it onto the hand truck, and head for the door. He was stopped by the bar owner, and we got our money. Now THAT’S how a real band leader does it, people!

There were other memorable nights (like the time when Albert Collins pulled a knife on Isaac in the back room at a Pioneer Square club) and better venues (like a memorable opening slot at the San Francisco Blues Festival in Golden Gate Park), and I always enjoyed not only playing with Isaac but just being around him. He loved to play and he liked to have a good time. Unfortunately, even when I was in the band he was beginning to suffer from health issues that would take him from us far too early at the very young age of 56.

Isaac was justly famous for his six-string pyrotechnics, but my favorite recording of his is his brilliant and reworking of the Beatles’ tune “Help,” which I never get tired of because it shows off Isaac’s skill, his soulfulness, and his creativity. He probably had more musicality in his little finger than any other talent I’ve ever worked with. RIP, Isaac. None of us have forgotten.

Jimmie Vaughan

Happy birthday to Jimmie Vaughan. I had the great good fortune to move to Austin in 1977, just in time to drop into the middle of the blues community centered around the original Antone’s club on Sixth Street. Jimmie was the inspirational force who drew many great blues players to that remarkable scene.

Jimmie was in his mid-twenties but had already been a Texas guitar legend for nearly a decade. After seeing Muddy Waters at a Dallas club in 1968, Jimmie had an epiphany that the blues was his natural home, and ever since he has relentlessly pursued the best aspects of the blues—space, tone, playing behind the beat, and telling a story. The original T-Birds were a quartet, and Jimmie mesmerized audiences and fellow musicians with his ability to play rhythm and lead simultaneously. Blues legends like Buddy Guy and rock stars like Billy Gibbons and Eric Clapton thought of him as a peer.

When I met Jimmie and Kim Wilson in the late ‘70s, I was just as impressed with their attitude as I was with their heavy chops. I knew other white bluesmen with unique talents, but they tended to buy into the entire blues lifestyle and the professional limitations that came with it. Kim and Jimmie were absolutely convinced that the way to become rich and famous rock stars was to only play the real blues shit. And then they proceeded to demonstrate that their preposterous notion was dead right.

After quitting the T-Birds and taking a few years off in the ‘90s, Jimmie re-emerged with a very different approach. He fronted his Tilt-A-Whirl band as the singer, added a rhythm guitarist, and carved his guitar style down even further to lean hard on the soulful, elemental basics that make the blues so irresistible.

Jimmie is still out there playing the real Texas blues and adding new aspects to his mastery. Most recently he’s been working a lot with an organ trio. Whatever he does, Jimmie’s less-is-more approach is always nothing less than the real deal. He’s a national treasure. Every time I listen to Jimmie I remember why I fell so hard for the blues so many years ago.