|
Post by Admin on Jul 22, 2014 9:41:33 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by AlanB on Jul 22, 2014 11:19:41 GMT -5
Magic Sam talks to Mark Schoene (Jazz Journal November 1969 p 5-6)
M) Sam, how do you like being in England? S) As long as I’ve been here it’s been beautiful. It’s nice. You know, London is big. I didn’t know it was this large. No kidding, it’s out of sight. I can say one thing about London—how come the rooms are so small? Wow I got a room that’s elevator small. You know, lifts. Ouee! You put more than two persons in and it’s crowded. M) Where you going on the tour, after London? S) Let’s see. Wait a minute, I don’t know. Let’s talk about something else. Look, I’m over here. Now I don’t know a bit more where nothing is from nothing. Oh! Here’s a list—we’re going to Southern Denmark first, then the rest of these places (mostly Scandinavia, Germany and Switzerland). M) So you’re staying in Northern Europe? S) Is this in the north? You could have fooled me. But I like what I see. One good thing about it is I’m going to get a chance to see these places I’ve never seen, only heard about. Maybe seen them flashed on TV a few times. Now I’ll be able to put my foot on that ground, too. M) Were you touring the States a lot before you came over here? S) Yes I was. I even got sick on the road— coming out of Portland, Maine. Oh, I went all over. I was all over Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard. I even went on that Kennedy ferry. Beautiful over there. I liked it. M) What do you think about the Chicago Blues scene today? You’re one of the youngest black bluesmen in Chicago. The only people who are really young and playing the blues are white kids. What do you think about that? S) What I feel about white kids playin’ the blues is that it doesn’t matter. It’s how they feel and how the people they’re playin’ for feel that matters. I keep my opinion to myself about how they play and what they do because you never know. But I can say this about a lot of the white kids. A lot of them are really playin’ good. Get it. That’s no lie. You got a bunch of phonies but you got some out there that are not phonies. I call no names, because if I tell you who aren’t phonies, then you’ll know who the phonies are. M) For the first time now, the blues have be come popular on a mass level. Do you think this is going to hurt the blues? S) I’m afraid of it. I don’t like the way it’s happening because a lot of people gonna get it and they’re gonna ruin it. Unless someone stays away from that gimmick thing and keep it going so someone can remember how it really goes. I’m just afraid for the blues the way it’s being handled, you know. But it might not get out of hand. You take the black person that’s playin’ the blues. He’s not going to let it get out of hand too far. The ones that love the blues and play it, they gonna stick up for it like myself. Like myself and all the rest of the blues guys, they gonna stick up for it like it was their own wife. That’s the way I defend it. I think that’s what happens, if it slips away. It will be dead by someone else—I don’t think it will be dead by the black man. M) Why don’t we talk about your personal development as a bluesman. You were born in the south weren’t you? S) Right. I was born in Mississippi, a place out from Granada, (in 1937). I wasn’t born in Granada the little town there, I was born in the rural part and moved from there round about after I was thirteen years old, and came to the big city and then I started more into my guitar. You know I really liked it then. Oh yeah . M) When did you start playing the guitar? S) At 13 I was messin’ around with the guitar. At 14 I really wanted to learn, so I bought me one. M) Electric? S) No acoustic. Started messin’ around with it, playing around with it off and on. Then I tore that one up—had my mother buy me an other one. Messin’ around with it, I’m all the time gettin’ bigger now. Tore that one up. Then I seen one that cost 5 dollars in a pawn shop that I wanted. That was pretty. Oh yeah! I wanted that one. So she told me she would get this one. And she said: ‘after you get this one you’re on your own brother, because I’m not going to buy you another one. You’re going to have to earn your money and buy your own’. Oh, boy ! Well, I said O.K. So that’s when I started. So I started buyin’ pickups and puttin’ ‘em on this one. You know, for electric. I treated this one a little bit better, because I had gotten bigger then and I really wanted to play. M) You knew you wanted to be a musician? S) I knew then. Yeah ! So after I did that for a while and got the pickups and things, then you know Mac (Sam’s present bass player) and I and all the rest of the guys and his brother we started playin’ some together. M) On Chicago’s west side? S) No, on the South side around 27th and Calumet. I’m a big west-rider now. After I recorded I moved out there. Gettin’ back to what I was sayin’ about the guitar. Then I got a little bigger, and that wasn’t good enough. Went to work, Mac and 1, made enough money to buy us some new equipment, you know, electric the real stuff. Then we went from there. And after we got our thing together, how to play all these tunes—what was goin’ on then, what everybody was playin’—then we started giggin’ with Shakey (Jake). We had a good time. A lot of places we weren’t old enough to be there, but the man wouldn’t say nothin’ because we were playing’. M) Where was that? S) This was on the South Side. We were playin’ around the South—where the money were, it didn’t matter. Just get a little money. We’d go to show the next week. Or get drunk. Ha! Around the neighbourhood, a bunch of the kids. Hal So this got to be nice and then plus you know we got popular with the girls, and all that. It was fun. We got separated from Shakey then. I started to have the band then. That’s when I wanted to start thinkin’ about recording. ‘Cause I started writing songs. M) When was that? S) This was back in ‘56. We started this in the last part of ‘56. Now in about the spring part ‘57, I really wanted to record. Then I went out and made a dub. People had been telling me to record—’why don’t you go record?’ But I had to make up my own mind. To see was I ready. Check myself. And then when I felt like I was man enough and ready enough to record that’s when I did it, The first were was with Eli Toscana—that’s on that Cobra label. Yeah! Out on the West side. After the company was over there on the West side and I played some on the West side, I moved to the West side. No more South side. I put ‘em down. At that particular time they were both good, but the West side wasn’t popular like the South side at that time, because there wasn’t so many clubs and there wasn’t many musicians over there, only at Silvio’s. That was his first place at Lake and Oakley. At that time he would have Elmore James, Muddy Waters, and Howlin’ Wolf and all those big name bands, the biggest blues in the world, whenever they would be in town. That’s what was goin’ on for the West side. O.K., then some more clubs came up—so I moved over there and started workin’ at those and took over. Then Otis Rush came over. Yeah! Boy, we had it. Both of us workin’ on the same street. But I was on one end, and he was on the other. He was far west in the 4000 block west, and I was like back east in the 1400 block west. Oh Boy, we had a ball. People could just ride up the road go here a while, go there a while. Wow! M) Can you talk about the development of your guitar style for a while? Why do you play the way you do? S) Well that’s just the way I am. I guess I have to say that. I guess I’ve always been that way. I never wanted to get into somethin’ somebody else is into. Maybe say you might be copyin’ or somethin’ like that. No, I don’t want to do that. So when I sing: I might hit a chord here or there, what have you, get out of it, get right back into it, play somethin’ and then go right back to it. I never thought about it. Not really. M) Is there anyone in particular who has influenced you? S) No, I wouldn’t say. Because that would add up to a lot of guys. A lot of guys, who’ve influenced me. Sure, I know who it were, but I won’t call no names. You know. I won’t specify nobody. Everybody that’s influenced me is all the blues artists. All the blues artists influenced me. M) You see yourself only as a bluesman? You don’t see yourself going off into anything else? S) If I had to change and go off into somethin’ else, it would be somethin’ like rock or some thin’ like that. M) Your choice is the blues then? S) Man, yeah! I do this anywhere, any part of the country, I’d go and play the blues. M) Do you want to get out of Chicago more and tour around? S) Sure! Yes I do! M) You going ~o be doing that a lot in the next couple of years? S) Right! Long as I’m in good health, I’ll try. You can say one thing: I try. M) Anything else you’d like to say about you music? S) Well that’s about all, I guess, about my music except that you should pick up on my next album. M) It’ll be a good one? S) I don’t want to brag on it, but I think it better than the first one. I’m not sure. It might be and it might not be. M) Just out of curiosity, Sam, where do you see yourself in society? As an entertainer? Are you trying to change people? S) I’m not tryin’ to change nobody. That somethin’ I never do—try to change you from whatever you are, that’s your business. I just play the blues.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jul 22, 2014 14:20:16 GMT -5
Love it Alan...thanks.
Love this album:
|
|
|
Post by JamesP on Dec 1, 2015 8:03:47 GMT -5
Remembering Magic Sam on the anniversary of his passing - Dec 1, 1969 From "FindAGrave Birth: Feb. 14, 1937 Grenada Grenada County Mississippi, USA Death: Dec. 1, 1969 Chicago Cook County Illinois, USA Blues musician. In 1950 he relocated from his birth place Mississippi Delta, Grenada, Mississippi to Chicago, Illinois. His singles from 1957 to 1959: "All Your Love", "Easy Baby" and "She Belongs to Me". In 1963 he recorded and gained national attention for his recording "Fellin' Good (We're Gonna Boogie) ". He recorded and produced "West Side Soul" and "Black Magic" in 1967. He performed with such greats as: B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Big Mama Thornton, Big Joe Williams, Otis Rush and Freddy King; his performance at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival won him many bookings here in the United States and Europe. His "Sweet Home Chicago" which was performed by the Blues Brothers was dedicated to Magic Sam. Magic Sam died of a heart attack in Chicago, Illinois. (bio by: Babe) Cause of death: Heart attack Burial: Restvale Cemetery Alsip Cook County Illinois, USA Plot: Section D, Lot 106, Grave 3, Look for the 'Graham' marker nearby Maintained by: Find A Grave Record added: Dec 13, 1998 Find A Grave Memorial# 4161 Here's a great article from Gibson.com www.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Features/en-us/the-hard-luck-story-of-blues-g.aspx
|
|