Vol. 01 No. 02

Roots, Rock ‘n Blues News

Volume 1, Number 2

Here’s your next issue of Roots, Rock ‘n Blues News, the newsletter for fans and players of blues and derivative music. This week we feature one of my favorite bands in a little different light. Those of you who are players will get a kick out it. Those who are not may get some insight into the world of working musicians and those who would like to be. Enjoy, and let’s hear from you!

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“Be careful what you wish for…”
“…you just might get it.” Most amateur musicians with whom I’m acquainted dream of sitting in with their heroes on stage. Actually, most of them would be happy to sit in with anybody playing a gig. It’s an interesting phenomenon that people are so willing to jump in and participate in a musician’s work. You rarely see anybody asking a tax accountant if they can “sit in” and do a couple of 1040′s, for example.It probably has to do with musicians being so accessible and the perception that playing music isn’t really working, not like a “real job”. The fact is that professional musicians are working and the stage is their office.It’s also a dream of many amateur players to someday be up there on stage knocking the audience dead with their astounding chops. Those pros who do allow sit-ins do a great kindness as it fulfills a dream for many of the wannabe’s. Unfortunately, there are those who see sitting in as more of a right than a privilege. They get up on stage and immediately start acting like they’re the star of the show. They have no clue how to play with a band and they’re stepping all over everybody trying to get all their licks in before their 15 minutes of glory is over.There are those pros who will reluctantly allow someone to sit in if that someone happens to be a friend of the club owner or has some similar connection to the musicians’ paycheck. Very often, they will throw the amateur a curve early on as a bit of a test to see if they belong up there with the big boys, so to speak. I witnessed one such incident some months ago at a club in the area.One of my favorite bands of all time is Magic Slim and the Teardrops. I saw they were playing at a club about an hour from my home and went to catch the show. The first set was vintage Slim and he had the place rockin’ by the first break. During the break, Slim’s roadie helped a cat set up his vintage tweed Fender amp to the left of the stage next to Slim’s guitar player. Obviously, this dude was planning on sitting in during the second set and sure enough, after a couple of tunes Slim called him to the stage. Grinning from ear to ear, he set himself up, gripped his mike and looked at Slim who said, “Key of D-flat” and launched into the song.

For those of you who don’t play harmonica, a brief bit of background. Most blues harmonica players, especially amateurs, play in what’s called second position. What that means is that if the song is in the key of E, you use a harmonica in the key of A. Harp players get used to doing this transposition for the common keys like E, A, D, C, etc. Having somebody throw D-flat at them is disconcerting, to say the least, because it’s a very uncommon key for harmonica tunes.

With that in mind, picture our amateur harp player with his jaw scraping the floor, his eyes glazed over as his brain desperately tries to remember what key harp goes with the key of D-flat in second position. It’s sort of like watching a hitter freeze when a baseball is headed right for his head that he wasn’t expecting. So, after what probably seemed like an eternity to him, he leaned over to the guitar player and said “What’s the fourth of D-flat?” The guitar player didn’t miss a beat as he leaned over and said, “F-sharp.”

Now, this particular amateur was fortunate in that he actually had an F-sharp harmonica in his arsenal. Many hopefuls would have gone up there with the standard six or seven keys and been completely lost. His wasn’t the standard Marine Band type of harp typically used for blues, but it was the correct key, so he quickly grabbed it and started playing along with the rest of the band.

Slim let him stay up there through two or three more songs, each in a slightly less obscure key, then he finally tossed him a softball and played the Sonny Boy Williamson classic “Bring It On Home” in E. I can’t say that our hero hit it out of the park, but he at least made contact and got it out of the infield. With that, his “audition” was over.

Now, being a harp player myself, I could definitely feel for this dude, but at the same time, it was pretty obvious that he got up there through his friendship with the club owner rather than any qualifying ability. It was hard not to feel like he deserved to have a few high hard ones thrown at him and had he proved himself to be a killer player, more power to him. Slim had every right to insist that the guy show him some reason that he deserved to be up there. Whether the cat took the lesson to heart is the question.

Web Site of the Week
http://www.randylippincott.com

Randy Lippincott is one of the finest bass players in the blues, and he’s no slouch on guitar, either. Touring for years with Johnny Clyde Copeland, Randy led the band and appeared on 4 of Johnny’s CDs. He appeared on several of Luther “Guitar Junior” Johnson’s recordings, including “Got To Find A Way” which was nominated for the 1998 Grammy award for Best Traditional Blues Album. Randy plays guitar in his current band and on his latest CD “Soul Monkey”.See you next time!