September 18, 2014: “Red’s Lounge”
In the “Cat Head” (a small, almost heavenly shop, filled with blues books, blues albums and blues C.D.’s!) I buy “The World don’t owe me nothing”, a book about the life and blues of David “Honeyboy” Edwards. To the owner I explain the kind of blues music I prefer. Thus I hope to be in the blues club this evening that fits best to my taste. “Oh”, he says without any hesitation, “then you have to go to Red’s tonight! Robert Walker will be playing there, an old cotton picker. He is 77!”
Red’s Lounge, 395 Sunflower Avenue, Clarksdale.
Robert “Bilbo” Walker starts almost exactly on time. With rigid steps he walks to an amplifier, bends forwards with difficulty to plug in the cord of his guitar and sets himself down on a chair behind the microphone. Sound checking? No need to.
As soon as he beats down the first chords on his guitar and starts singing with unpolished voice “I am a poor boy and I live in Bakerville, California[1]” all his energy is back. From minute one he is so enthusiastic and driven. Does not look like 77 years at all anymore. His voice fits perfectly with the tense and rhythmically stinging guitar licks he always plays in a different blues disposition with verve and conviction. Driving boogie, a mixture of country blues and rock. All the songs are swinging on a fixed, but always compelling rhythm. A fine bass player and Robert’s son-in-law on drums. And how! A high “Chuck Berry” -content, though. (“Long distance information, give me Memphis, Tennessee. Help me find the party[2], trying to get in touch with me”) “Johnny be good” becomes “Robert be good” and -surprisingly- “mixed” with “Little Queenie”.
Robert Walker is a showman, a real performer, never boring. The first set takes almost two exciting hours and during the break I immediately apply at Robert’s girlfriend to buy a copy of three “homemade” CD’s. Robert -tongue between teeth- signs two, after which the felt-tip gives up.
He finds the story -after his question: “Where are you from?”- about my blues travelling from the Netherlands in to the Delta very interesting. “I have been in Italy”, he says proudly, surpassing the average American in European knowledge, beats me friendly on the shoulder, grabs his guitar and there we go again. It is really an unexpected top evening! I must confess that I even danced -with Robert’s charming daughter-in-law: she asked!- to “Dust my broom”, although I still think, that this is not the intention of the song. I prefer to stand or sit, watch and listen.
September 23: “Hambone Art & Music Gallery”
The second gig, now on the small stage of the Hambone Gallery, is fantastic again. A few songs of the first performance pass by. But also a greater number of true gems, that I have not heard yet. This time the band consists of the boss of the Cat Head store, who turns out to be an excellent bass player, with the owner of the Hambone on the stool behind the drum kit. Everyone plays the blues here!
A charming lady, who makes dozens of photos, draws my attention. “I’m doing a project on and with Robert Walker. He is such a sympathetic personality! He has short grey hair, but he does not want to be seen with it!” She promises to e-mail me some of the pictures.
In the gift shop of the Rock and Blues Museum, earlier this week and foraging for collector’s items, I luckily found a “Live” recorded CD of Robert Walker. In the sleeve notes Jim O’Neal carelessly writes, that Robert is the father of 42 (…) children. When I ask Robert if that is right, it makes him smile. “May be some twenty”, he says. The lady wants us on a picture together.
September 25: “Red’s Lounge” again
When I enter “Red’s” -as the very first person again , as I prefer to sit in the front row- and pay a $ 10.00 entrance fee to Robert’s girlfriend on the Cash Desk, it appears that she has done her homework unexpectedly well: “I have found a CD, that you don’t have yet! It is our last one: “Take yo hand’s off me”.
And, proudly adding: “We are working on a brand new one!”
What a show(s), what a guitarist, what a performer! Just that is what I tell Robert. And that it is the last time that I can see and hear him as I have to leave for Holland in a few days. “My friend, I will entertain you tonight!” says Robert. The third gig in a row. Just listening to that magnificent voice and looking at the grips of that left hand on the neck of the guitar, getting into a new (different) fascinating rhythm for each number. In “Truck Driving Man”, the lyric “I put a nickel in the jukebox” in the second verse -with a “fat” eyewink at me- changes in: “I put my nickel in her Jukebox” which once more indicates that many blues songs actually are quite sexist-orientated .
The (Chuck Berry) Duck walk -forwards and in this show even backwards!- is not lacking. And he shows his super act on the instrumental “Hideaway”, playing with one hand at the top of the neck of his guitar while waving with the other at his audience, (“I wanted to play in a way, nobody else does”) two awesome times. By then his chair has been pushed aside a long time ago.
When it is one a.m., the drummer -troublesome, a tired look in his eyes, drooping shoulders- comes up to me and asks in a desperate voice: “What in the world did you tell him? He’s never going to stop!” It is eventually 1.35 hours. Then it is really over.
The best show of those three? The last one!
The “morning after” I am just on my feet again, when there is a modest knock on the door. It is “my” room boy with his daily question: “Is there anything you need, sir?” Because he has already handed out three bath towels yesterday (I told him earlier, that I have to leave next Saturday and that I prefer to make my bed myself in a minute) my answer is: “No sir, nothing today!” That is just the signal for him to come in. Sitting on the bedside he then curiously asks: “What have you been up to yesterday night, sir?” All excited again I tell him about Robert Walker; that this third show was just fantastic and that it surpassed the two previous performances by far: “He played the hell out of that black and white guitar!” and “Robert Walker is one of the high lights of my blues journey! Have you ever heard of him?” He beamed and shines with pride when he says: “He is my daddy!”
[1] Usually Robert Walker lives 6 months in Bakersville, CA and 6 months in Clarksdale (Ms).
[2] Marie, six years, who lives with her mother now.