C
Goree
Carter
b: Dec. 31,1930,
Houston, TX. d: Dec.29.1990,Houston,Tx.
T-Bone Walker inspired a legion of
young Texas blues guitarist during the years following World War II with his
elegant electrified riffs and fat chords. Among his legion of disciples was
Houston's Goree Carter, whose big break came when Solomon Kahal signed him
Houston's Freedom Records circa 1949.
Carter's best
known waxing, the torrid "Rock Awhile" (billed to Goree Carter & His
Hepcats) emerged not long thereafter, its sizzling opening lick sounding quite a
bit like primordial Chuck Berry. Freedom issued plenty of Carter platters over
the next few years, and he later recorded for Imperial/Bayou, Sittin' in with,
Coral, Jade, and Modern without denting the national charts. Eventually he left
music behind altogether.
W.C.
Clark
b: Nov. 16,1939,
Austin, TX.
Guitarist, singer and songwriter W.C. Clark was one of Austin's original
blues musicians, and is considered the godfather of that city's blues
scene.
Wesley Curley Clark was born and
raised in Austin and grew up surrounded by music, since his father was a guitar
player and his mother and grandmother sang in the choir at St. John's College
Baptist Church. By the time he was sixteen, he played his first show at
Victory Grill and was introduced to local legends T D. Bell and Erbie
Bowser. He began playing bass with Bell's Band, honing his blues chops on
guitar on his own time. While east Austin's club scene flourished in the
late 50's and early 60's, white students from the nearby University of Texas
campus began to patronize the blues clubs, and after taking a regular gig at
Charlie's Playhouse, he met R&B singer Joe Tex and joined his band as
guitarist.
After leaving Tex's band and retuning to
Austin, Clark was surprised and encouraged by the infusion of young white blues
players on the local scene. Bill
Campbell, Angela Strehli, Lewis
Cowdrey, and Paul Ray and the Vaughan brothers were attracting growing crowds to
their shows and forming close bonds with the black blues players who had already
been on the scene.
In the early 70"s Clark teamed up
with guitarist and piano player Denny Freeman and vocalist Angela Strehli to
form a group called Southern Feeling. With this group Clark was able
to blossom as a song writer, but after a record deal fell apart, he took a job
as a mechanic at a local Ford dealership. However, a young guitarist named
Stevie Ray Vaughan kept visiting him at the garage. Vaughan was putting
his own band together and insisted that Clark be a part of it. Calling
themselves the Triple Threat Review, they eventually took to the road with Lou
Ann Barton as lead vocalist. Clark and keyboardist Mike Kindred wrote
"Cold Shot" which went on to become one of Vaughan's biggest hits in the
mid-1980's.
Clark has recorded three albums -
"Something for Everybody" (1986), released independently on his own label, and
two albums for the New Orleans - based Black Top Label, 1994's Heart of Gold and
1996's Texas Soul. On Texas Soul, Clark is accompanied by a band of
Austin-area blues veterans, including Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon of
Vaughan's Double Trouble, producer and guitarist Derek O'Brien and saxophonist
Mark "Kaz" Kazanoff.
In March 1997, Clark and his
band had an accident while returning to Austin in their van. He lost his
fiancée and drummer. Clark was uninjured, but the experience slowed him
down for awhile. However, Clark continues to be active on the Austin blues
scene, of which he is affectionately referred to as "The
Godfather".
Gary BB
Coleman
b:
1947,Paris,Tx.
After a career as a local bluesman and blues promoter in Texas and
Oklahoma, Gary Coleman found his niche when he signed over his first album, a
self-produced outing originally issued on his own label, to the fledging Ichiban
company out of Atlanta in 1986. Since that time, both Coleman and Ichiban have
made their mark in the blues field- not only has Coleman released half a dozen
of his own albums, he has also overseen production of the bulk of Ichiban's
hefty blues catalog, bring to the studio a number of artists he'd booked or
toured with in his previous career (Chick Willis, Buster Benton, and Blues Boy
Willie, among others). A singer/guitarist onstage, Coleman has often taken on a
multi-instrumentalist's role in the studio. His music remains true to the blues
and to the King legacy saluted in his "B.B." moniker and in his acknowledged
debt to fellow Texas Freddie King.
Coleman began
listening to the blues as a child and by the time he was 15, he was working with
Freddie King. Following his association with King, Coleman supported Lightin'
Hopkins and formed his own band, which played around Texas. Coleman also began
booking blues musicians into clubs in Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado. He continued
to play gigs and book concerts for nearly two decades. In 1985, he formed Mr.
B's records, his own independent label. Coleman released his debut album
Nothin' But The Blues the following year. The album was popular and
gained the attention of Ichiban Records, who signed Coleman and re-released
Nothin But The Blues in 1987.
If You
Can't Beat Me Rockin', Coleman's second album, was released in 1988. That
same year, he began producing album's for a number of other artists, as well as
writing songs for other musicians and acting as A&R scout for Ichiban.
Between 1988 and 1992, he released six records and produced another 30,
including albums for Little Johnny Taylor and Buster Benton. Coleman continued
to be active in the mid-90's both as a performing and recording artist, and as a
producer.
Albert Collins
b:Oct.3, Leona, TX, d: Nov. 24, 1993, Las Vegas,
NV
Albert
Collins, - "The Master Of The Telecaster", "The Iceman", and "The
Razor
Blade - was robbed of his best years as a blues performer by a
bout with liver cancer that ended with his premature death on Nov. 24,
1993. He was just 61 years old. The highly influential, totally
original Collins, like the late John Campbell, was on the cusp of a much wider
worldwide following via his deal with Virgin records Point Blank
subsidiary. However, unlike Campbell, Collins had performed for many more
years, in obscurity, before finally finding a following in the
mid-80's.
Collins was born Oct. 3, 1932 in Leona,
TX. His family moved to Houston when he was 7. Growing up in the
city's Third Ward area with the likes of Johnny "Guitar" Watson and Johnny
"Clyde" Copeland, Collins started out taking keyboard lessons. His idol
when he was a teen was Hammond B-3 organist Jimmy McGriff. By the time he
was 18 years old, he switched to guitar and hung out and heard his heroes -
Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, John Lee Hooker, T-Bone Walker and Lightin' Hopkins
(his cousin) - in Houston-area night clubs. Collins began performing in these
same clubs, going after his own style, characterized by his use of minor tuning
and a capo, by the mid-50's. It was also at this point he began his "guitar
walks" through the audience, which made him wildly popular with the younger
white audiences he played for years later in the 1980's. He led a 10 piece
band, the Rhythm Rockers, and cut his first single in 1958 for the Houston based
Kangaroo label, "The Freeze". The single was followed by a slew of other
instrumental singles with catchy titles, including "Sno-Cone", "Icy Blue", and
"Don't Lose Your Cool". All of these singles bought Collins a regional
following. After recording "De-Frost" and "Albert's Alley" for
Hall-Way Records in Beaumont, TX, he hit it big in 1962 with "Frosty", a million
seller single. Teenagers Janis Joplin and Johnny Winter, both raised in
Beaumont, were in the studio when he recorded the song. According to
Collins, Joplin correctly predicted that the single would become a hit.
The tune quickly became part of his ongoing repertoire, and was still part of
his live shows more than 30 years later, in the mid 80's, Collins
percussive, ringing guitar style became his trademark, as he would use his right
hand to pluck the strings. Blues rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix sighted
Collins as am influence in any number of interviews he
gave.
Although he would spend far too much time in
the 1970's without recording, Collins could sense that the blues were coming
back stronger in the mid 80's, with interest in Stevie Ray Vaughan at an all
time high. Collins enjoyed some media celebrity in the last few years of
his life, via concert appearances at Carnegie Hall, on Late Night with David
Letterman, in the Touchtone film "Adventures in Babysitting" and in a classy
Seagram's wine cooler commercial with Bruce Willis. The blues revival that
Collins, Vaughan, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds helped bring about in the mid
80's has continued into the mid 90's. But sadly, Collins has not been able
to take part in the ongoing evolution of music.
Pee Wee
Crayton
b:Dec.18,1914,Rockdale,TX. d: Jun.25.1985
Calif.
Although he was certainly strongly influenced by the pioneering electric
guitar conception of T-Bone Walker (what axe-handler wasn't during the post-war
era?). Pee Wee Crayton brought enough daring innovation to his playing to avoid
being labeled as a mere T-Bone imitator. Crayton's recorded output for Modern,
Imperial and Vee-Jay contains plenty of dazzling, marvelously imaginative guitar
work, especially on stunning instrumentals such as "Texas Hop", "Pee Wee's
Boogie" and "Poppa Stoppa", all far more aggressive performances than Walker
usually indulged in.
Like Walker, Connie Crayton was
a transplanted Texan. He relocated to Los Angeles in 1933, later moving north to
the bay area. He signed with the Bihari brother's LA based Modern logo in 1948,
quickly hitting pay dirt with the lowdown instrumental "Blues After Hours" which
topped the charts in late 1948. The steaming "Texas Hop" trailed it up the lists
shortly thereafter, followed the next year by "I Love You So". But Crayton's
brief hit-making reign was over, though no fault of his
own.
Crayton tried to regain his momentum at
Vee-Jay's in Chicago with hits like "I Found My Piece Of Mind", and "Things I
Used To Do". He toured and made a few more albums before his passing in
1985.