Articles
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on this page: Paul Geremia, Bob Hall...
Paul
Geremia lives the blues
By
Tony Lioce
Providence
Sun Journal 7/2/82
Paul
Geremia walks into a record store in Chicago, a small store that specializes in
music by obscure bluesmen. The clerk, a serious blues lover who's never met
Paul, recognizes him right away.
All
the serious blues lovers know who Paul is.
A
Rhode Island native who lives by himself in a Newport apartment, he spends a lot
of time travelling around the country working the folk/blues club circuit, and
he gets great reviews. One critic has said, "When Paul plays Leadbelly
tunes, you can close your eyes and swear that it is Leadbelly himself."
He's respected by and on a first-name basis with, people like John Hammond,
Odetta, Dave Van Ronk and Taj Mahal.
Still,
at 37, with 15 years as a professional bluesman and three albums behind him,
he's travelling around in an 11-year-old Dodge with 136,000-plus miles on it, a
car that needs oil as often as it needs gas.
Loading
it with two guitars and four harmonicas, a small suitcase, a cooler, a box of
tapes and a small, portable Norelco cassette player, he's his own roadie. He
crashes on people's couches. He can, on a really good night, pull in as much as
$250, but there are nights when he finds himself working for a small fraction of
that. And sometimes he only gets work one night a week.
Ten
years ago, when the blues revival of the '60s that inspired Paul already was a
thing of the past, Rolling Stone praised his music but note his "precarious
position as bright young newcomer to a wornout, tottering branch of the music
industry," asserting that despite Paul's considerable talent, his career,
from a commercial viewpoint appeared "generally unrewarding and
unpromising." It wished him luck in what it saw as an inevitable race
against "frustration and cynicism."
Things
are far worse now than they were then. Interest in pure, old-time, country blues
like Paul's - in all folk music, for that matter - has continued to wane. Later
today Paul will learn from a club owner that even people as well known as Richie
Havens and Ramblin' Jack Elliott aren't "drawing flies anymore." These
days, there aren't as many blues clubs as there used to be. Meanwhile, Paul's
expenses have skyrocketed.
The
price of gas, of course, has more than tripled, but that's only part of it;
harmonicas that used to cost $2 now cost $10. The neck of his six-string guitar,
a 40-year-old Gibson, needs to be filed down and refretted, and he's just
learned that it's going to cost $125, and he's not sure where that's going to
come from. He no longer can afford to change his guitar strings as often as he
would like.
But
as far as that race with frustration Rolling Stone was worried about, Paul's
still so far out in front that it's hard to tell if the race is even on. Paul
Geremia is simply in love with the blues, passionately in love with them. Oh
sure, it would be nice to have more money and comfort and security and stuff,
just like it would be nice if club owners didn't pay Paul with bad checks as
they sometimes do.
But
stop playing the blues? "Actually," he says, "I do think about it
from time to time. But only for about five minutes." The blues are the one
thing in the world (well , except for women) that makes his eyes light up. His
eyes are practically on fire right now, here in the record store as he spots an
album of songs recorded in Chicago and New York between 1930 and '36 by a
guitarist named Charlie Jordan and a pianist named Peetie Wheatstraw.
"Wheatstraw
used to call himself the devil's son-in-law," Paul says with a giggle - not
an "isn't that funny" giggle, an "isn't that tremendous"
giggle. Often when he's listening to or talking about the blues, he breaks into
that giggle.
Paul's
got today off. He arrived in Chicago around noon from Grand Rapids, where he'd
gone to visit some friends after arriving at a club in Ann Arbor - after leaving
his parents' house in Johnston in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner and driving
and driving and pulling over to the side of the road and sleeping in the back
seat of the Dodge and driving some more - only to find out the guy had made a
mistake and didn't want Paul to play after all.
The
guy paid him anyway. "It's the first time I ever got paid for not
working," he says, still not quite able to believe the whole thing
happened. His first stop in Chicago was a bar called Dirty Dan's on Lincoln
Street in the club district, where he drank four cups of black coffee and
checked the newspaper to see who was playing in town.
It's
a Tuesday, and Tuesdays are slow nights in the clubs. He grabs a newspaper and
reads that Blind John Davis, an old bluesman and old friend, will be playing
with S.P. Leary, Howlin' Wolf's old drummer - but not until tomorrow when Paul
will be playing in Milwaukee. Damn, he'd really like to see John again. Paul
goes to a phone and calls John to see if he'd be around this weekend when Paul
will be back in town playing at Holstein's up the street. He calls Blind John
Davis, an old bluesman and old friend, to see if they can get together.
Paul
spends a good amount of his time on the road looking up old bluesman "to
talk about the old days and learn about the music." The first time he
looked up Blind John Davis he found him living in a garbage dump. "This guy
had been a giant. He'd played with the greats - Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Bill
Broonzy, all kinds of people. He's made some really significant contributions.
And there he was, living in slop."
Paul
talked some club owners into booking Davis. These days Davis is doing much
better. Davis’s grandson, who explains that the old man is sleeping, answers
Paul’s phone call. Paul says he'll call back later.
Paul
asks the clerk in the record store if he knows anything about a guy named John
Embry, whose name he'd spotted in the paper at Dirty Dan's in an ad for a club
called B.L.U.E.S. The clerk tells Paul that Embry is a bass player, an old guy
who's been around for years and who has played with lots of the giants. Paul's
eyes light up.
Paul
jumps into the car and drives through the rain as the weatherman on the radio
warns of a snowstorm that left three-foot drifts all over Nebraska and now is
headed this way. Paul thinks about all the miles he's got to cover in the next
few days.
He
gets to Emily Friedman's, where he'll be staying in a spare room. Emily is a
writer in her mid-30s who was graduated from Berkeley and who now puts out a
magazine. Come for to Sing, about the local folk/blues scene. A lot of the
musicians who come through town stay in her pin-neat basement apartment, packed
to the ceiling with books, records and tapes.
She's
not home from work yet. Paul calls Blind John Davis back and reaches him this
time, and they decide to get together Saturday afternoon. He takes his
six-string out of its case and practices a while, coming up with a new lick for
one of his songs. Then he puts the Jordan-Wheatstraw record on Emily's
turntable. He's especially interested in the guitar-piano sound right now
because when he gets back to Rhode Island he'll be going to the Normandy Sound
studios in Warren to record a new album - his first since "Hard Life
Rockin' Chair" in 1973 - with Del Long, a pianist he works with at the
Colony Club on Thames Street in Newport on Monday nights. Paul DelNero, a bass
player from Newport, also will be on the record, which will be released on
Flying Fish, a Chicago-based label. Jordan sings a lyric about a man who
mistreated his woman and wound up eating out of a garbage can. Paul giggles that
giggles of his.
Emily
arrives, and she and Paul head for a Mexican restaurant in the neighbourhood,
where the mariachi band kicks things off with "Feelings." Emily's got to get up early in the
morning, so Paul heads out without her to hear John Embry.
The
club is long, narrow and dimly lit, and drinks are cheap. Embry, who has
processed hair, is playing with three sidemen, two electric guitarists and a
drummer who wears a fedora. The crowd spans a wide age group and is racially
mixed. Some of the people recognize Paul, and Embry announces him from the
bandstand.
The
band is out of tune but plays with so much spirit that is doesn't matter. Paul
orders a whiskey as Embry sings about women and tears that fall like rain. One
of the guitarists, a young guy who calls himself "the Chocolate Kid"
some nights and "Little Nick" other nights, is playing up a storm,
dancing around with his guitar up on his shoulders behind his head, pushing
Embry on to all kinds of heights.
"Can
we play it like we feel it?" the Kid/Nick asks the crowd. 'YEAAHHHH!"
the crowd roars. "Well, that's good," says the Kid/Nick, "because
we gonna anyway, tee, hee. You can't play it like you feel it, you shouldn't
bother."
The
band launches into "19 Years Old" by Muddy Waters, a song about a girl
who's "got a waist just like a baby chile," and it's hard to imagine
the blues ever sounding better than they do right here, right now. Paul is going
nuts.
Chicago
was the first city in the Midwest that Paul ever played, back in '68 at a place
called the Quiet Knight that isn't there anymore. His first album had just come
out, and he'd been booked in for two weeks.
He'd
been playing for five years, having started at 19, shortly after he heard
Mississippi John Hurt at a Newport Folk Festival. "I wasn't even sure what
he was playing," he recalls, "but I sure wanted to play it, too."
Deciding to "let everything else slide," he dropped out of the
University of Rhode Island where he'd been majoring in agriculture, borrowed a
friend's guitar and started teaching himself how to use it.
Three
years later he made his professional debut at the Tete a Tete, a coffeehouse
that used to be on Thayer Street in Providence. Before long he was working
Boston, Cape Cod and "basket houses" in Greenwich Village where he'd
pass the hat. His first job for real pay in New York was at the Gaslight where
people like Dylan had played.
Since
then he's played all over the country and has made two tours of Europe. Learning
about venues from musicians he runs into on the road, he books his own jobs,
making phone calls several months in advance.
He's
appeared at major folk and blues festivals and also has appeared - literally -
underground, in "clubs" people without liquor and entertainment
licenses operate in the cellars of their homes. The beer's in the refrigerator
so leave a buck, throw some money
in the other box for the guy up there playing guitar.
Paul
listens to John Embry's band until the last gun is fired and doesn't get up
until 12:30 the following afternoon. He makes himself a pot of coffee, and
listens to some records - Jack Elliott, Willie Nelson, Professor Longhair,
another New Orleans pianist names Joe Robichaux - before throwing a can of oil
into his engine and starting the 87-mile drive to Milwaukee.
It's
cold and grey outside as Paul travels the straight, flat interstate, passing gas
stations, all-night diners and, as he crosses the Wisconsin line, what looks to
be millions of cheesestores. He takes the downtown exit in Milwaukee and goes to
John Strope's house, where he'll be spending the night.
Stropes,
who's about Paul's age, is a guitarist who teaches on the faculty of the
Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and serves a director and president of the
Milwaukee Classical Guitar Society. he and his wife, Frankie Ullenberg, an
artist and photographer, invite Paul to dinner, after which everyone listens to
old 78s by Enrico Caruso (the first music Paul ever heard was Italian opera, at
his grandparents' house) and Emmett Miller, one of Paul's real favourites, the
man who wrote "Lovesick Blues" and "Big Bad Bill's Just Sweet
William Now." Paul decides to include a Miller song, "Lovin' Sam the
Sheik of Alabam", in his performance tonight at the Blue Ridge Cafe, a
200-or-so-seat bar in a first-floor corner of a downtown office building.
The
Blue Ridge used to be a place for coffee, beer, wine and traditional folk music,
but since the last time Paul Played there it has switched to full booze and
added punk rock to the bill of musical fare. Business is business.
It's
about two-thirds full tonight when Paul walks in, grabs a coffee at the bar,
tunes his guitars and proceeds to the bandstand. He opens up with "Stomp
Down Rider" about a woman who's "much too drunk for me," by
Blind Willie McTell, who wrote songs in Georgia back in the '20s.
Another
McTell number, a slower one called "Broke Down Engine" follows, and
already it's obvious that Paul deserves his notices. Throughout the evening, his
strong, spunky voice drips with wry humour one minute and jitters with tension
the next as he sings of ramblin' and police dogs and jelly roll and undertakers
and the devil and stealing chickens. Of women he surely loves but whose ways he
just can't stand, of people who get in trouble just to pass the time. Of doin'
the best you can.
He
switches back and forth between his six-string guitar and his 12-string, which
was made in the '20s and was in pieces when Paul found it; he glued it back
together himself. Playing in a variety of tunings, he sets up real conversations
between guitar and harmonica that, along with his voice, reach every corner of
these songs and reveal them as the eloquent statements they are.
A
good portion of his performance is devoted to faithful recreations of old,
refreshingly and spiritedly raw country blues and jazzy rags with names like
"The Death of Ella Speed" and "Stones in my Passway" and
"The Way to Get the Lowdown" by people with names like Blind Blake and
Barbecue Bob, with lyrics like "I love my whiskey more than some folks
likes to eat" and "rats in my kitchen, mosquitoes all 'round my
screen" and "I know this gal from Dixieland, she musta took lessons
from a sewin' machine man 'cause she move it just right."
"I
wouldn't dream of changing a word of those old songs," Paul has said.
Between tunes, he tells audiences that one of the old songs is called
"Savannah Mama" but the lyric is "I'm goin' to Savannah,
mama," and another one is called "When You Left" but the lyric
is "when yo' left side start to jumpin', I know something's wrong."
Paul giggles that giggle again.
Among
the songs Paul sings tonight is one by a man named Pink Anderson who'd spent 30
years performing in medicine shows before Paul found him living on a dead end
street in Spartanburg, S.C., 72 years old, eating dog food. When Paul had been
just starting out, he'd learned a lot from old Pink Anderson records he'd found
in cut-out bins. Paul decided to get Pink a job in Newport.
When
he got home, he talked to Dan Prentiss who owned a club called Salt that was on
Thames Street then. They decided to drive down, get Pink and drive back with
him. Pink hadn't been on a stage in 25 years. He drove the crowd wild.
"He
did songs he didn't even know he remembered," recalls Paul. "We taped
everything he did and afterwards I played some of the tape for him, and he said,
"I didn't even know I still remembered that song!" Pink made good
money and was able to take a plane back to Spartanburg. He'd never been on a
plane.
Pink
died not long after that.
Along
with the old songs, Paul sings a lot of originals at the Blue Ridge. He's
thinking about putting nothing but originals on his upcoming album. It's not
that he thinks they're any better than the old songs. But he'd like to think
that, by using old time phrases and images in new tunes and lyrics, he might
help keep valuable musical traditions alive at a time when they seem to be dying
off with all the Pink Anderson's.
The
originals tonight include songs about love that's good ("She got ways to
make a preacher hug the devil, make a cripple walk a country mile. Sure does my
heart good just to see that little woman smile") and love that's gone bad
("Well, I tried to be your faithful only one, and I tried to feel like it's
evil I have done").
There's
one called "I Really Don't Mind Livin" which he says was
written for all those people who think anybody who sings the blues must be
miserable all the time, and some that could serve as Paul's state of the union
addresses. One of these, "The Ballad of Ronald Reagan" is set to the
tune of the old "Ballad of Jesse James." "I thought it was
appropriate," Paul explains. "James supposedly robbed from the rich to
give to the poor, while Reagan does just the opposite." The song notes that
"Now the times have changed. The crooks ain't on the range."
The
thing that really worries Paul about Reagan, he tells the audience, is that
"no smart thief is gonna rob from the poor." The audience roars. Paul
wraps things up after 24 numbers with another Pink Anderson tune, playing with
his guitar up on his shoulders behind his head like the Kid/Nick the night
before.
The
manager gives him a little more than a hundred bucks, which is more than Paul
had expected. It's been a profitable night for both of them.
The
next day Paul gets up after noon; he'd been up till 3:30 in the morning going
for whiskey and pinball with John Stropes and then sitting up in John's living
room talking with him about old music.
John
had asked Paul if he'd be willing to teach a guitar workshop at the conservatory
the next time he's in town, and Paul said he'd be honored. John told Paul that
Dave "Snaker" Ray, a great ragtime guitarist, had decided to give it
all up and cut his hair and was selling insurance for his father now. Paul had
shaken his head and said, "Well it's getting tougher and tougher to make
it."
Is
Paul worried about his own future? "I try not to think about it," he
answers. "I don't want to end up being a welfare case. And if I ever tried
to sell insurance, I probably would end up on welfare." He laughs, and then
gets serious again. "I just want to keep doing what I'm doing as long as I
can."
Heading
for the interstate, Paul spots a sign for Brady Street, and it reminds him of
yet another of the old songs he knows. "Must be somethin' maw-velous
happenin' on Brady Street," he sings before putting his cassette deck up on
his dashboard and sticking in a Charlie Patton tape.
The
270-mile drive to Indianapolis takes Paul back through Chicago, where he turns
on the radio and hears his upcoming shows there listed among the weekend's
musical highlights. It's dark as he crosses into Indiana, and the radio tells
him he's about two hours ahead of the snow.
Once,
Paul was driving a stretch of road like this through fog so thick he had to
stick his head out the window to try to spot the dotted white line. Another time
his fan belt snapped on him on the way to a show and he had to replace it, and
he arrived at the club so covered with grease that "I looked like I'd just
crawled out from under a rock."
Even
though he always travels with spare parts, sometimes the car breaks down in ways
he can't fix and he has to go to a mechanic, where he loses whatever profits
he's been able to get from his shows. "The way I figure, though, I would've
had to make the repairs anyway," he says. "If something's gonna
happen, it's gonna happen. Pay now or pay at home, it's the same
difference."
Unless
he's really worried about the car, he enjoys travelling. When he was a kid his
parents moved across the country and back again, and he thinks one of the
reasons he started liking folk songs at an early age is that he'd "seen so
much of the country and could relate to its music." He especially loves
seeing the Rockies pop up after a long haul west across the Plains.
The
thing he likes best about travelling, though, is visiting people, and right now
he's really looking forward to seek Yank Rachel, a blues mandolin player who
recorded with Sleepy John Estes in the late '20s. The chance to see Yank was the
real reason Paul decided to play Indianapolis, where he's only getting paid $50.
Paul
stops to eat at a truck stop 30 miles north of Indianapolis and calls Yank and
tells him he'll be playing the Hummingbird Cafe tonight. Yank says he'll be
there.
It's
raining out as Paul parks outside the Hummingbird, a rustic looking barroom with
150 seats or so on the outskirts of town. Paul will be playing between sets by
Townes Van Zandt, a country/folkie songwriter from Texas best known for writing
a song called "Pancho and Lefty" that was recorded by Emmylou Harris.
The place is about two-thirds full.
Paul,
who knows more songs than he can count, plays a lot of things tonight that
weren't in last night's show, like Lonnie Johnson's "No Hard Times"
and Blind Blake's "Jones Oh Jones" and Jesse Baby Face Thomas's
"You'll Never Find Another Man Like Me."
His
set, highlighted by a tune called "Somethin's Gotta Be Arranged" that
just might be the best song Paul's ever written, is a lot better than the
opening set by Van Zandt whose tunes all sound alike and whose lyrics betray a
tendency to whine about things.
But
the audience, which listened respectfully to Van Zandt, talks through much of
Paul's show. He later says he wasn't disappointed because he'd "sorta
expected it" from a Van Zandt crowd. He is disappointed, however, when Yank
doesn't show up.
Paul
call Yank's house again and learns he isn't home. The bartender, who knows Yank,
overhears the conversation and says, "Well, Yank must've run into one of
those spring-loaded women he knows." Paul laughs and says "Yeah, well,
first things first."
Still,
he decides to hang around waiting. Van Zandt gets back on stage and proceeds to
get falling down drunk, forgetting lyrics, even forgetting melodies halfway into
them. The crowd still pays more attention to him than it had paid Paul.
"It
bothers me," Paul admits, "that people will forgive him because of
where he's from, whom he knows, what he did years ago. I could never get away
with that.
"On
the other hand, that's probably good for me. It keeps me in shape. Sometimes I
think it's a good thing that I'm an Italian kid from Rhode Island. People look
at me and say, 'How can this guy play the blues?' and I've always got to prove
that I can do it. I don't have any of those fake laurels to rest on. That's
probably very good for me."
Worried
about the snow, he decides to drive back to Chicago tonight. He arrives as the
sun is coming up.
The
Blue Front email interview with British pianist Bob
Hall
July 2005
BFBR:
What were your early musical influences?
Winifred
Attwell, Johnny Parker (Bad Penny Blues with Humphrey Lyttleton), Clarence
Lofton, Sonny Terry, Howlin’ Wolf
BFBR: How and when did you get into blues?
A
school friend had the Howlin’ Wolf EP on London and the Clarence Lofton 10”
album on Vogue.
BFBR: What were your early blues influences?
Howlin’
Wolf’s piano players (I now know they were Henry Gray and Hosea Lee Kennard),
Johnny Johnson, Otis Spann
BFBR: Can you remember you first gig?
Camberwell
Green Swimming Baths Hall 1956 - dance
BFBR: What made you decide perform professionally? How did you get
started?
Kept
forming blues band as a teenager but no-one was interested.
Answered ad in Melody Maker for pianist for Dollar Bills 1964 –
subsequently became The Groundhogs. Two
people answered the ad but I was the only one who showed up for the audition.
Met Jo Ann Kelly at Dave Carey’s Swing Shop 1963-64 and became her
accompanist. I’ve never played
professionally (although I like to be paid!)
BFBR: What are your preferred instruments at present?
Piano,
mandolin
BFBR: What are your views on the best types of instruments for
your style of music?
Any
old piano will do although I have a Bechstein at home and use a Yamaha P120 on
stage
BFBR: If you could have any instruments you wanted (past or
present) what
would they be?
A
decent National steel guitar might encourage me to practice.
BFBR: Why do you think you are drawn to performing blues -based
material?
I
came to blues through boogie-woogie, which I found easier than other styles
because I’m left-handed. I had a
lot of romantic pre-conceptions about blues as a young man and had an almost
messianic approach. Now it has
become part of me and, in a small way, I’ve become part of it.
British blues (as distinct from American blues) had its heyday in the
sixties and I was glad to be there. Now
there’s not much difference to my ears.
BFBR: Pundits often express strong views on the merits or value of
contemporary artists either performing 'covers' or 'interpretations' of
blues originals or the artist's own original material (blues-based or not). What
are your current views on this on-going debate?
I
see no merit in covers, although I went through a stage when I thought that was
the only thing to do. Now I think
individual expression is essential to produce anything of lasting value.
BFBR: What do you think is your inner inspiration for writing and
performing your own material or for conveying the emotional content of
someone else's song?
A
lousy childhood and teenage years
BFBR: How do your new songs/material come about?
Hard
to say. I only intermittently have
a good idea for a song, and usually in a situation where I can’t write it down
so it gets forgotten! In the past
I’ve had to write to a deadline, usually an upcoming recording session.
BFBR: How do you feel your playing style has developed since you
began performing, and more recently?
I
used to be very tense and that interfered with my playing and limited what I
could do. In my forties I was ill
for several years and had to retrain my technique.
Now I’m more relaxed and can enjoy it more. Now I’ve mostly retired from my day job maybe I’ll put in
more practice time and write more new material.
BFBR: Have you any thoughts on performing blues
Performance
has to come from within and success in any idiom comes by relating to the
audience. I’m interested in blues
history (as opposed to legend) but it doesn’t dictate what I play.
BFBR: What are you views on playing in UK/Europe/US - the
current scene & gigs?
Both
in the US and Europe blues has returned to its roots – pubs and bars.
Only a few former blues idols can still get the major festivals, as I’m
finding with The British Blues All Stars.
BFBR: How do you see the future for blues in the UK & US
Fairly
bleak until the next revival. Music
is a fashion business and if we all hang on long enough our turn will come round
again.
BFBR:
What advice would you pass on to players and to 'amateur' and semi-pro
performers?
Be
yourself. Otherwise you might as
well get a real job.
BFBR: What music are you currently listening into?
Pre-war
blues and gospel, New Country
BFBR:
Where are you headed musically at present?
I’m
at a crossroads. The British Blues
All Stars seem to be doing well, but I’d like to keep up my duo work with
Hilary (my wife). There’s talk
that she and I my do a tour with Tam White for an organisation called Common
Ground that promotes non-violent conflict resolution.
Other suggestions include a Scottish tour with Otis Grand and some gigs
with The Hoodoo Kings. Also I still
love to guest with The Blues Band when they will have me.
Finally I’m trying to write a new show with the working title “Mardi
Gras in New Orleans”.
Thank you for giving us these insights into you and your music.
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