More Rambling B*llsh*t About My Life in Music (n'@)

I've only ever copped one guitar solo from a record. I prefer to improvise, and this goes back to when I first started playing. I doubt I'd ever even heard of improvising at the time. I'd already tried my hand at various instruments, to varying degrees of success. I started on piano. Too much sitting still. I tried violin but for some reason, after a few weeks I was pushed to the cello. This was fine by me...until I broke a cello. So I next opted for something a bit more durable. TRUMPET! (coronet, to be precise) I enjoyed this but again, my thoughts on the subject were never really involved in the equation. Our school's marching band had quite a reputation, and my brother played tuba, so it was assumed I too would excel on tuba. Wrong. 2 or 3 weeks in and I skipped my happy ass out of the school band. 

Next up was drums. Having spent most of my childhood listening to classical music, I was starting to pay attention to songs on the radio, or stuff I heard blaring from my brothers' room. (my sister's taste in music was horrifying...Bobby Sherman & Shawn Cassidy! No thanks!) Of the rock and roll and R&B stuff I heard; I was drawn to the drums originally. So, I talked mum into buying me a kit. A friend of my sister was selling a kit for $100, and I took possession of a very standard 4-piece trap set. I took the money that I had saved up and bought a couple of cymbals and began to terrorize the household. The drums eventually got moved from the basement to the garage. Maybe this was designed to quell my passion for rhythm, but it didn't. What did was my own realization that I was not a good drummer nor was I likely to ever be one. By the age of 12 or 13, I discovered guitar. My life direction changed drastically in one 24-hour period.

Long story short, I was hooked. I was teaching myself and having the time of my life! Some of the chords, I was pretty sure, were designed by the Marquis de Sade himself but I persevered. I played first thing in the morning, after school, and well into the wee hours. Dad was less than thrilled. Mum was infinitely more supportive (she too being a musician) It became all too clear to my parents that I wasn't going to stop, so I was forced into lessons. 

If you ever want to kill a child's passion for music, send them for lessons after they've already started teaching themselves. I had been playing full chords and lots of old folk songs and standards, and my first lessons were basic bitch bullshit. Nothing against my teacher, Kevin, who I'm still close friends with. Learning to read the notes to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" wasn't going to cut it. It was already easier to just pick out the notes. I could read music already, from having played other instruments. It was just a matter of figuring out where they were on the guitar. (FYI, the coma I was in, in my late 30s, wiped out most of my ability to read music...it hasn't stopped me. It was a skill I, sadly, rarely used.) Kevin did, however, teach me some very valuable lessons. He taught me how to tune a guitar, how to string one, he made me use a pick (which my hands still try to fight off) and taught me the rudiments of finger picking. He taught me about power chords and using harmonics (which I still probably over-use). Had he stuck to pushing the kiddy songs and single string sight reading exercises, I probably would've walked a mile from the guitar. Thankfully, he didn't. He knew I was well on my to being a lifelong guitar junkie, so he got me headed in the right direction. (THANKS AGAIN KEVIN!)

This was the late 70s/early 80s and most of the popular music you heard on the radio had guitar. The problem was the sound. It was electric, which was fine...but there were all of these weird sound effects! I knew nothing about that stuff! I was a big fan of Queen at the time, and had sussed out that Brian May was using, at least, a fuzz box. But where did one get such a thing? For my 13th birthday, my parents got me a decent BRAND-NEW electric guitar. A Fender Musicmaster. I'd play it through an old Gibson amp that we had at the house (from a short-lived attempt by one of my brothers to master the guitar years earlier). I found that if I turned all the knobs all the wayto the right, I'd get a natural distortion. OVERDRIVE!!!! I loved it. My family did not. Our dogs did not. The neighbors, their pets, and I'm guessing the local constabulary, also did not approve of this level of volume. So, deals were made. I could play loud, after school until dinner time. After that, NO LOUD STUFF. As you can guess, I ignored this deal any chance I could, especially as the amps I used got bigger and louder. I also had purchased a fuzzbox! An ElectroHarmonix Mini Muff Fuzz! Greatest $20 I've ever spent! By this point, my music of choice was The Ramones and Sex Pistols. This shiny little box got me close to that, even at infuriatingly low volumes. 

I was never big on trying to learn other people's music. I would figure out the basics of what they were doing and take it my own direction. Some friends of my oldest brother taught me some rudimentary blues stuff and told me about this thing called improvising. I could, if I chose to, make stuff up as I went along! Yet another life-changing event, courtesy of the guitar! If I wanted to play a certain song, I'd ask someone to show me how to play it. I was a quick learner. Show me once, I usually had it. Then I'd record myself playing it, play it back, and improvise over top of it. Thank God for that old GE cassette deck! 

I was also listening to The Beatles a lot. I was almost obsessive about their records. They didn't sound like most of the other stuff I heard. What were those chords? How could someone sing like that? All of the songs were catchy! There were all sorts of guitars too! Plain, clean electric guitars, acoustic guitars, nylon string guitars, 12 strings (damned right I had to get me one of THOSE! Thanks AGAIN to Kevin for selling me an Epi 12 for a dirt-cheap price!). Sometimes there were effects, sometimes there weren't. I was intrigued to say the least. 

One day, a friend gave me an old Jimi Hendrix record. MIND BLOWN! This was somewhere between blues (which I already knew and loved) and crazy, psychedelic rock. I saw footage of Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival, playing "Wild Thing". What were those chords? What was that sound? 13-year-old me figured he may never know! But it didn't stop me.  

Somewhere around this point, I had sold the drums, used that money to buy a REAL electric (Fender Telecaster DELUXE...which I still have) and had traded the Musicmaster for a bass. I had heard it was easier to find gigs as a bass player, so I got to work on that as well. I had been asked now and then to sit in with bands and play Hendrix-y sort of stuff (once I learned the magic chord). I was forever trying to start a band. Now and then, I'd get a crappy little basement punk band together and maybe play a house party. Small town Ohio wasn't ready for those sounds. At least not from me. But I kept playing.

My improvisation skills got better and better. I figured out a few patterns that I could go to over most chord progressions. Using the stuff I learned on piano, violin, and cello, I kept up with my scales too. One day, a guy told a friend and I a great trick about guitar. If you hit the wrong note, bend it until it sounds right. I started bending strings every chance I got. It sounded better. I tried bending chords...didn't usually sound better. Lesson learned. 

My friend Tim Fair gave me a hard truth one day. He worked at the local guitar shop, and I was there often, bugging him. He was in a working band and could really play! He had fancy gear and lots of effects pedals. I had recently scored a box of pedals and needed to know what they all did and how to use them. So damned many knobs and gadgets. It was becoming overwhelming. Tim put it to me bluntly: Effects (especially distortion) hide a multitude of sins. To demonstrate, he plugged a guitar into a fancy solid-state amp with built-in effects and played an eye-opening fast riff. Then he played it again without the effects. I could hear everything that wasn't perfect. He pointed out that effects hid all of that and the real skill was in becoming an accurate player. Learn to play how you want it to sound, even without effects. A big order to fill, but I wanted to be able to do that!

There was another guitar store in town, and one of the guys there was a jazz player. He played those big ol' hollowbody guitars (which were NOT cool at the time) and used strings as fat as phone cables. I figured if he could play that fast, fancy, CLEAN jazz stuff, he might have some tips on how to become an accurate player. I started bugging him on a regular basis. He could play stuff like Joe Negri, so I was definitely impressed. He'd show me some weird chord, and suggest things to play over it, and how I should probably learn and PRACTICE modes (fancy scales!) and to practice WITHOUT effects. He suggested only using effects if you really needed them. Since I was mostly playing punk, which was barely even music to him, maybe it would develop my ear and get me playing 'real' music. "Like some of those Beatle chords?" I thought to myself.

When I was maybe 15, I heard The Blasters for the first time. SWEET SHIRLEY BASSEY IN A COCKTAIL DRESS!!!!! Those guys were on fire! They were every bit as fast as any of the punk bands, had as much if not more energy, and their guitars...so natural sounding! No fuzz, no phasers, no wah wah pedals, just pure tone! It wasn't long before I threw all of my effects pedals back in the box and put them away. I wanted the energy The Blasters had. I soon 'borrowed' (stole actually) a record from my brother (BB KING LIVE AT THE COOK COUNTY JAIL) and started trying to find more blues records. My brother eventually got the record back from me. I think it went back and forth between us for a couple of years. I eventually found some John Lee Hooker records. At 16, I was asked to join a friend's new band. They were playing "rockabilly". Never heard of it. So, I asked him what it was. "Like Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins stuff" was his answer. To me, this meant stuff that The Beatles had covered, and stuff I'd hear on a Sunday night 'oldies' station. Sure, I could play that. He was all into a new band called The Strat Cats. I thought they were OK but didn't have the energy of The Blasters. Our record hunting led us to finding acts like Robert Gordon, SUN Records compilations, a lot of Elvis wannabes, and too many bands with 'Cat' in the name. Shortly after joining the band, the bass player quit. I owned a bass so guess who got to be the bass player. You guessed it. While not thrilled at the time, I eventually started to get a lot of work due to it, so it all worked out. 

I played mostly bass, mostly in rockabilly bands for the next 8 years. I got the occasional gig doing recording sessions, played on a few jingles, etc. I really wanted to get back to playing guitar. Where I was living at that point, almost no one knew I played guitar! I put together a short-lived trio and opened a few eyes. I ended up moving back to Pittsburgh. When I joined The Rowdy Bovines, I was originally supposed to play bass. That was until James heard me play guitar at a party. I was playing some Cliff Gallup and Scotty Moore type stuff, mostly just goofing around. James decided then and there that he'd prefer to have me playing guitar. Again, fine by me. 

I insisted on improvising my solos. I'd worked too hard for too long, really beefing up my skills. I wasn't going to spend hours trying to learn someone else's solos. James was ok with this, and the crowds were more than ok with it. James learned to use my improv skills to his advantage. Forgot the words? Have me take a long solo. Need a beer? Have me take an extended solo. Had a case of food poisoning with explosive diarrhea? Have me take yet another long, drawn-out solo. However, there was one song we played that no matter what, I couldn't sort out a good solo over it. I tried and tried. Nothing worked. So, I sat down with a tape of the song and learned that damned solo note for note. Just nothing else really fits. Hats off to Don Leady of The Tailgators. His playing is deceptive. It flows so smoothly with the songs that you don't realize just how damned good he is. Another goal to aspire to!

A Crippled Bobby Hawkins Story

I've been gigging professionally (meaning I get paid to do it) since 1979. Some shows were better than others, some days I got paid more than others. But a gig is a gig. If you're a musician and you're getting paid to do your thing, it's pretty awesome. For large parts of the 1980s, I made my living gigging. I was mostly playing in punk and rockabilly bands, but as you can guess, that's only ever gonna pay so many bills. So, I played in country, Top 40, funk, wedding bands, whatever was paying. I did some session work when I could. That's a particularly tough gig to get. Unless you live in NYC, Chicago, or LA, your options on that are limited. 

When I was 19, a drummer friend called me about playing bass in a blues band. Let me tell you, Ohio in the mid 1980s was not exactly a hotbed of blues music. Even with the popularity of SRV and the Fab T-Birds at the time, there were surprisingly few blues bands. As a lifelong blues fan, I was definitely interested. One of the guitar players, Robbie Wells, had quite a reputation. He'd made it (briefly) to the 'big time' as the guitar player in Rachel Sweet's band. He was about as good as Ohio had to offer. I couldn't wait to hear him play blues. The other guy, Don K (I never could spell his name), was also no slouch on guitar. His most amazing skill though was his singing. To this day, I have to say he was the best white blues shouter I've ever heard (and I know Phil Alvin!). He was also one of the loudest! Once, at a gig in Rayland, OH, I'd suggested to the soundman that he might want to watch out for Don's vocals; he could get really overpowering. The soundman looked at 19-year-old me with disdain. I shrugged and walked away. They were his speakers. If he didn't mind Don blowing them out, fine. Our first song was "Crosscut Saw". The second Don went to the microphone and bellowed 'I'm a crosscut saw, drag me cross your log' I watched Mr. Soundman dive for his control board. I also heard those Yamaha speakers start to sound frazzled. You live, you learn.

This particular combo (sometimes called Rattlesnake Shake, sometimes The Starlings) gigged around for a while but ultimately couldn't keep it together. Lots of reasons (that I won't go into here) but suffice to say, it was my first taste of playing straight ahead blues. It was valuable. I seemed to have a natural feel for it. Over the next few years, I'd go see any blues act I could, big names or not. When I went back to school, up in Kent, I would go see the likes of Robert Junior Lockwood and Glenn Schwartz. I'd go see (and sometimes jam) with Amos Stokes. Professionally, I was still mostly playing rockabilly and some punk rock. I was starting to do session work again too. But if you caught me just sitting around with a guitar, I was probably playing old country blues, or at least trying to. The blues was, and still is, what my playing is all based around. Even when I try to play something else, I hear the blues in it.

By the 1990s, I was back in Pittsburgh and spent a few years with The Rowdy Bovines. On off nights, you could usually find me at a blues jam. The Pittsburgh Blues Society used to have a weekly jam at HoJo's in Oakland, hosted by Mike Sallows and The Rockin' Reptiles. Always fun cutting heads with that bunch! Thursday nights were the weekly jam at Excuses, hosted by The Hell Hounds. That's where I first met Crippled Bobby Hawkins. He and his brother would often show up and play some loud biker blues stuff. We would cross paths here and there, just like most musicians. We became friendly in the way that guys in a bar do. Both of us sharing a rather jagoff sense of humor, I would usually greet him by calling him a 'pizza-twirling, olive oil-guzzling WOP' (due to his Italian heritage) and he would usually greet me by calling me a 'beer-swigging, cabbage licking kraut' (due to my German heritage). This would often resolve to us calling each other 'faMIGlia'. 

Over the next few years, I'd hang out and jam with guys like Jimmy King, James 'Doc' Dougherty, Gil Snyder, Chizmo Charles, etc., all playing the blues. Chizmo could have taught a master class in showmanship. Pittsburgh, at the time, had a lively and healthy blues scene. And I was mostly playing what most folks called rockabilly (I personally thought The Bovines were more akin to punk rock, but I digress).

After The Bovines split, I gigged around with a band called Monkey On A Stick, while I was piecing together my band The Tremblers. My buddy Johnny Motto was in this band. Yinzers of a certain age will remember Motto as the man behind such bands as The Lugnuts and The Polish Hillbillies. Johnny was great at putting bands together. What many might not have known, he was also pretty damned good at blowing blues harp. 

One day in maybe '96-'97, Motto called me up saying that Crippled Bobby Hawkins was looking for a
band for a few shows. Always up for paid work, I told Motto to get me in touch. The 3 of us got together, probably had a few drinks, and Hawkins explained to us that he had 'just fired his band and had a handful of shows booked and wanted to honor the contracts'. I note that because it wasn't the last time I heard it!

I talked to my drummer and bass player, and as they thought it sounded fun we became Hawkins' de facto backup band for these shows, with Motto blowing harp. We never had a rehearsal. It was pretty much here's the song, here's the key, GO!

Our first show was at a little joint in McKees Rocks, down in the bottoms. I think it was called Larry's Bar or something. I drove past it 3 or 4 times trying to find the place! Talk about non-descript! It was small but the place was packed! And we got paid. OK, it wasn't a king's ransom, but it was on par with what we were making most nights. Then came the funny bit...those original handful of shows came and went, and Hawkins was still booking gigs. We spent the next couple of years gigging with him! Some nights we had Southside Jerry Mellix on sax. Some nights, Fred 'Freddie Mack'/'Uptown Slim' MacIntosh on harp. At least once a month, you could find us at Harley's or Dolly B's in McKees Rocks. 

We had our own shows as well. As MEMPHIS MIKE & THE LEGENDARY TREMBLERS, we were gigging often and managed to put out a handful of releases. We started getting press all over, even as far away as Italy (this was the pre-internet days for most of us). In one Italian magazine, there was an article about us AND Hawkins. At least a few nights per month, we were gigging with Hawkins. Another night, another Jimmy Reed song. We were playing lots of different places. Lots of small, out-of-the-way joints, biker bars, private parties, benefits, you name it, we played it. And we always got paid. I joked that we were on our McKees Rocks Tour. 

We did a bunch of shows at a weird little joint called The Riverside. I'd driven past it hundreds of times and always thought it was closed down. It looked deserted and run down. Apparently, the entrance was through a side door. Not exactly upscale clientele, but they paid well. I'll always remember that the place had a hidden doorway that led upstairs to what was essentially a green room. We did a lot of partying up there. At one show, a black guy (who I think was a trucker) said, "Man, if they call you Memphis, let's hear you play some slide guitar!" This wasn't something I did much of back then. But ask and ye shall receive, right? I had a slide with me, so I gave it a go. I was unimpressed but the audience seemed to dig it, so I started doing more of it. Just another one of those things I can blame on Hawkins. 

We always had a colorful crowd. Lots of bikers, rednecks, black folks, white folks, junkies, you name it. We played after hours joints for pimps and hookers as well as Christmas parties! (I still have a Harley Davidson Santa pin on one of my guitar straps from one of those shows) There was the night that Hawkins disappeared after the first set, only to reappear a few days later. His reasoning was he "musta had a bad beer." It was never dull, that's for sure.

One night at The Riverside, I had to break the news to Hawkins; I wasn't gonna be able to work with him for a good while. My auntie had died, and I had her estate to settle, plus I was being asked to do shows down south and with a few other artists. Between all of that, my day job, and my gigs with The Tremblers, I just didn't have the time. Man, Hawkins was pissed off! He called me every name in the book and some I'd never been called. I understood it though. We had a good thing going. I told him that I'd work with him whenever I could. But we pretty much went our separate ways. 

He'd play shows at a joint called The Orchard, and a friend of mine used to go there a lot. He'd always call me and try to get me to come along. One night when I was off, I finally made it. Hawkins and I picked up where we left off and drove the crowd wild for a few songs. After that, I let his regular guitar player (at the time) take over and I sat at the bar and listened. On break, Hawkins and I gabbed like old buddies. He was long since over being angry about my moving forward. After that, I'd go sit in every now and then if I wasn't booked, which wasn't often.

A few years passed and we'd lost touch for the most part. I'd started touring overseas, ended up having a heart attack, some legal troubles, and slowed way down for a while. My regular bass player, Rob, was doing some shows with Hawkins. One day, Hawkins' drummer, a guy named Jimbo or Jambo or Jumbo or whatever it was, called me to ask if I could sit in on a show. I'm always picky about the drummers I work with. If the drummer ain't up to speed, the band is gonna suck. This guy insisted he was THE BEST blues drummer in the area! He had confidence, I'll give him that. So, I asked Rob if he was any good. He told me he could keep a decent beat, so I agreed to do the show. Jimbo-Jambo literally passed out halfway through a song. OK, it was an outdoor gig, and it was warm out, but I was the guy who'd had a heart attack and I wasn't passing out and feeling woozy. We got him revived and finished the show, Hawkins and I cracked jokes about it the rest of the day. From what I understand, this drummer was excellent at booking gigs for Hawkins. He kept them all busy. He didn't seem too thrilled with me after the one show, probably because of the wisecracks. But that's what you're gonna get when you put me and Hawkins together.

Hawkins and I work well together! Always have. Our guitar styles mesh well, and I keep him on his toes onstage. I will mess with him onstage. If he's singing "Every Day I Got The Blues" I'll lean over and ask, loudly, "Every Day?????" 

Around 2010, I slowed my gigging wayyyy down. My day job had become a night job, and I was OK with that. I was having more health issues (cancer) and was only doing Tremblers gigs. I managed to do some recording, and released a few songs here and there, but I was wondering whether or not I'd reached the end of my gigging days.

By 2012, all of that had changed yet again. I kept The Tremblers going, plus I was playing bass in The Bessemers. I started doing some shows with Danny Kay & The Nightlifers and Devilz In The Detailz. I was keeping busy. In 2014 I switched jobs and took an office gig. Monday - Friday, 9-5. WEEKENDS OFF!

Perfect for a musician, right? Hawkins must've thought so. He called me up one day. Apparently, he'd fired his band and had some shows booked that he wanted to honor the contracts for....and up to 2020 that line-up kept the blues alive! Sure, there are still other blues bands in the area, but none of them play the old school stuff we do, or as well as we do. In 2020, with the pandemic going on, plus the socio-political divide in the country, I decided I was stepping away from it all. I was just worn out, like most people were. Rob did the same. Again, Hawkins was pissed off, but there weren't a ton of gigs for anyone at the time. He was able to replace us, no problem.

2021, I had 2 strokes. Man, I thought I was done for. I got home from the hospital only to find that my left arm/hand wouldn't respond the way I wanted. I couldn't play guitar anymore!!!! Things were starting to open up again at the bars and nightspots and I couldn't play! I was pissed off. I forced my body to relearn everything it lost, at least regarding guitar. My left leg is still a bit of a rogue, but I get by OK. After a few months, I was happy enough with my regained abilities, that I wrote, recorded and released a brand-new song. I wasn't ready to go back to gigging much but decided I'd jump at the chance, if asked to do the right show. Hawkins to the rescue!

He had a show booked at The Bull Pen, a place we'd played bunches of time. His guitar player couldn't

make it...could I fill in? Color me THERE brother man! My better half and I had plans to visit Niagra Falls for her birthday, and this show was scheduled for the day after we were getting home, so the timing was perfect. It went pretty smoothly, especially considering it was my first show back after 2 strokes and having to relearn how to play. That show has since been released as CAN WE GET A HELL YEAH? (a concert film) and as a digital download album. 

Next month, December 10th, Hawkins and I return to the stage once more, out at 565 LIVE. We've always rocked this place! We plan to again! Hawkins hasn't said anything about having fired anyone, so we'll see where things go from there.