or understandable musical reasons, folks tend to identify Charlie Musselwhite with Memphis, Tennessee, and Chicago, but he is a longtime wine country resident, and played both the Uptown Theatre and BottleRock in each of their inaugural years. The harmonica blues master and his band will return to the Uptown Friday, Feb. 19.
Musselwhite has been a dominant force on the American blues scene for a half-century. The Grammy winner has recorded 30 albums and won the Blues Music Award in the harmonica category an incredible 25 times. Though his harp playing gets most of the attention, he is a first-rate blues vocalist, a bandleader, and as a sideman in concert and the recording studio, a perennial favorite of a who’s who of blues and rock stars.
On the phone from his Sonoma County home last week, Musselwhite talked about how, as a barely of-age kid who’d come up from Memphis in the mid-1960s, he immersed himself in the black blues scene on the south side of Chicago.
“I didn’t even know anything about Chicago, as far as blues,” he said. “I’d been told that people in the entertainment business either lived in New York or Hollywood. I only went up to Chicago because I heard that there were good factory jobs that paid well.
“The South was really economically depressed, and a friend of mine had gone north and gotten these good jobs and had new cars and stuff, and that’s why I went to Chicago. Luckily, the first job I got was a driver for an exterminator, which meant driving all over Chicago, so I learned the whole city real fast.
“I saw posters in the windows of bars advertising people like Elmore James and Muddy Waters, and I couldn’t believe it. Here were all my blues heroes, right in Chicago. I’d make a note of where these places were and I’d go back and just hang out.”
“I did get a job in a factory,” Musselwhite said, “and I would talk to the black guys there. We talked about what you did on the weekend. I’d say, ‘I went to hear Howlin’ Wolf,’ and they just couldn’t believe it. They’d say, ‘That’s old folks music, man. You got to get up with the times.’ I’d say, ‘Well, I like Howlin’ Wolf’s music. I like Muddy Waters, too.’ ‘Muddy Waters,’ they’d say, ‘man, what’s wrong with you?’
“I wasn’t promoting myself at all. I was happy to just be hanging out and listening and I’d request tunes. They just thought of me as a fan. Then one night, this waitress I had gotten to know real well told Muddy, ‘Hey, you ought to hear Charlie play harmonica.’ He’s like, ‘What, Charlie plays harmonica?’
“He had me sit in, which wasn’t unusual. People sat in a lot, because if you weren’t working, it was a place to hang out and make connections or whatever. Other guys heard me sitting in there with Muddy and started offering me gigs, and that got my attention. They’re going to pay me to play this music? Well OK, let’s go.”
Musselwhite said that Little Walter (Marion Walter Jacobs), the harmonica ace in Muddy Waters’ band, took a liking to him. “I knew Little Walter real well,” he said. “I’d go to see him and hang out with him, and he would buy me drinks and give me a ride home often. He would look out for me.
“There’d be some trouble or something, he’d be right next to me, watching my back. I remember one night there was a fight in this club, and he walked me to the bus stop and waited there until the bus came, just to make sure I got out of there safely. I thought it was a little unnecessary, but that’s what he wanted to do.
“He was real nice to me, and he would have me sit in. He’d be playing. He’d have the microphone with a long cord on it, and he’d come up to me and just hand me his harp and his mic and say, ‘Play boy,’ and just take off and go talk to some woman.”
Fifty years down the road, 72-year-old Musselwhite credits his success and longevity to taking care of himself physically and being true to his music. “I try to watch what I eat and get the exercise, and I have regular acupuncture treatments, and drink Chinese herbs,” he said. “I try to be conscious of what I’m doing, and I think good thoughts.
“Musically, you can’t really please everybody, so you might as well just please yourself. If you play what you really have your heart in and believe in, there’s going to be some people who like it. Maybe not everybody, but you’ll have an audience, and you’ll be good at it because you’re doing something you love.”
At the Uptown, Musselwhite’s bandmates will be Matt Stubbs on guitar, June Core on drums and Randy Bermudes on bass. The popular blues rockers North Mississippi Allstars will open the show. Asked if the two acts would perform together, Musselwhite’s manager teased, “No plans, but you never know.”
I saw Charlie play last week in Seattle as part of Mark Hummel's Harp Blowout (also Curtis Salgado, Jason Ricci, Little Charlie, Anson Funderburgh, R.W. Grigsby and Wes Starr) - phenomenal show! Anyway, Charlie briefly told a story kind of like the one above where he was in a club, went to the restroom, and heard a big commotion like a fight. Little Walter popped his head in the door and told Charlie not to come out until the noise died down.
Around 1990, he stopped in Virginia City, NV for a show. The venue was a bar/casino downstairs and he and his band played upstairs, well insulated from the din below. The room was plain with Victorian pillars to break up the monotony of emptiness. It had a ballroom feel and if there was a stage the elevation was mere inches. There was no seating at all from what I recall. If there was ventilation we did not benefit from it.
My date (Anne) and I stood and tried to enjoy the show. It was nearly impossible to hear him over the bands large brass contingent. After one set, during which we wandered the room for better acoustics, we descended to the bar for the peace and quiet of the slot machines and some fresh air.
As we sat at the bar, close to the front entrance, Anne elbowed me and gestured toward Charlie who was making his way toward us, smiling and the shaking hands of those who were sitting or standing at the bar. He shook Anne's hand gracefully and when my turn came we made eye contact. In my best Brooklyn accent I said, "Chahlee, how-ah-ya?". He seemed to swoon, backed into his entourage, and headed straight out the door.
For years I wondered about this. Did I remind him of a NY goon with whom he had a problem in the past or is he just shocked when he sees people who look funny?
After reading here and other places about his graciousness towards fans, I now believe he was even more miserable than I was in that upstairs room. After all, he was working and had no escape! Perhaps he caught a whiff of the outside, so close to that open door, and simply wobbled at the finish line of a long race.
Virginia City is a ghost town in the middle of nowhere. It's 40 minutes up the hill from Reno and not much farther from Tahoe. The only 'name' acts I'd seen in VC during the years I lived there were residents (most of them retired) or friends of business owners who would put on shows to promote their business. I admire Charlie Musselwhite's touring tenacity and his longevity. So, kudos to him in lieu of my handshake.
