Key to the Highway
2020-02-23 Mardi Gras edition 7-11PM
Blue Lu Barker
Lonesome Sundown
Three various artist sets
Ron Thompson memorial set
*************************
Just as I was about to
post this, I saw this note about a benefit
concert Sunday from 4-8PM from our friend Johnnie Cozmik and his J.C. Smith
Band: myself, and the San Jose Moose Lodge have put together a fundraiser for
Leslie Rubulcaba Muniz. As you have probably seen in the news over the past few
months, their family was a victim of a devastating fire and they lost
everything. We are putting together this fundraiser and all we’re asking is $20
to show up, listen to some music, send well wishes and have a few drinks. It’s
the best way I know I could try to help the family so hopefully you guys can
show up and help me help them. It is at the San Jose Moose Lodge, 1825 Mt.
Pleasant Road in San Jose. The event will be from 4 PM to 8 PM so please come
by; they can use your help. Thank you in advance.
I’m not sure exactly who Leslie Rubulcaba Muniz is but I do
remember Jerry Rubulcababa was one of Johnnie’s early guitar playing
buddies. If I didn’t have the show I
would be there. Please consider going
and having some fun while you help out within the Blues community.
*************************
I just heard on Wednesday that Ron
Thompson had passed away eight days ago and I wanted to pay tribute to him with
the time left over from the show I had planned.
Right off, I’d like to acknowledge the Mercury News obituary, All Music’s
online biography and Ron’s own website for the factual material and quotes in
my tribute. I have a full eighty minute
CD prepared that I will transition to after our two disc Mardi Gras show, so let’s talk about the main portion of today’s
show. Since Mardi Gras is February 25th
this year, it’s about time we get ready with a good variety of the musical
flavors of the New Orleans vicinity. I love
this first set, especially the first six songs!
To me, someone who has never been even close to New Orleans, they convey
the feelings I would expect to find that day and that place. If I could make the entire show feel like
this, I’d be ecstatic. What better way
to kick off the festivities than with the great horn bands Rebirth Brass Band
and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. I have
to confess to getting the two confused, but I was lucky to see one of them
quite a while back at the San Francisco Blues Festival. Although obviously not purely a Blues band,
they set a raucous, unmatched precedent for the acts that followed as they came
off stage and tromped through the audience, not an easy task in the tightly
packed crowd.
In New Orleans’ traditional parades, the
locals dress up in elaborate takeoffs of Native American garb with the various
neighborhoods forming their own tribes, and the Wild Tchoupatoulas are one of
these. If you are about my age, you
probably remember a commercialized version of a bayou standard, Iko Iko, by the
Dixie Cups; Dr. John gives the tune a more traditional taste.
Red Tyler was one of the most in-demand
horn players around the New Orleans recording studios and he chose a Dizzy
Gillespie instrumental here, followed by a Gospel pick by Irma Thomas, one of
the area’s Grande Dames. We close the
first set with another instrumental by probably the area’s most prolific
composer, Allen Toussaint, probably better known for his authorship and
producing than his piano playing.
This set was mostly sourced from disc one
of Rounder’s Louisiana Spice and Rhino’s New Orleans Party Classics. Rounder’s disc one also provided most of the
later piano set while disc two was entirely responsible for our middle set. We have short write-ups to follow for the two
featured artists (there is not that much info available about either one), and
as much as I really enjoy the Zydeco / Cajun music, I don’t have a good enough
handle on its history or artists to try to explain it, so just kick back and
check out this up tempo third set. Just try to not move your feet!
A Mardi Gras show would be incomplete if I
failed to throw in a good dose of their piano players, or as they are known
locally, professors. I believe Marcia
Ball is actually from Texas but her style definitely crosses the border, and we
open our last set with probably my favorite of her tunes. I was fortunate to catch her one early
evening at the FREE outdoor “Jazz in the Plaz” midweek summer concert series
in Los Gatos; despite the name, they seem to have one Blues artist a season (I
also saw Chris Cain the other time I went).
The most influential of the piano players
was Professor Longhair and the song here is the reason there is a popular music
venue named Tipitina’s. He is also the
author and originator of the show’s opening track, Mardi Gras in New
Orleans. Henry Butler is a more recent
favorite; his number came from the album Blues After Sunset.
While Longhair was the most successful,
the most technically proficient was James Booker. Booker’s career was hindered immensely by his
drug habit. I find it difficult finding tracks to play because he often
strayed mid-number from a Blues tune to classical, all good but not really
fitting my presentations, but the Rounder CD gave me a piece that was not
previously in my collection. I have more
CDs by far by Champion Jack Dupree than any of the other piano grand masters
and I hope the included song tells you why.
Another artist I was fortunate to see, at JJ’s in Mountain View on one
of his last visits since moving to Europe in the sixties or seventies, that
evening Jack played solo and infused his performance with a large dose of wit
and general good feeling.
I don’t know a whole lot about Tuts
Washington except that he was a strong influence on many of those who followed
him, nor do I know much about Eddie Bo other than that his included track fits
in well. And I’m not going to even try
to say anything about Fats Domino other than that our set closer is taken from
his portion of Proper’s four disc set Gettin’ Funky. enjoy
*************************
Our first featured artist was born Louisa Dupont in
New Orleans on November 13th 1913.
Her father ran a grocery store / pool hall but certainly made most of
his money during Prohibition off of bootleg liquor. At the age of thirteen, she ran off with
guitarist / banjo player Danny Barker, landing them in New York City in 1930
after their wedding as the couple had their own groups, but Lu could sometimes be
found fronting for Cab Calloway (with whom Danny had a long run as part of the
orchestra) or Jelly Roll Morton. The
fact that Danny was already a highly desirable jazzman certainly enhanced Lu’s
opportunities. The couple most often
performed together from before their marriage right up to his passing in March
1994.
1938 saw her first vocal recording session (for
Vocalion) where some PR guy came up with the Blue Lu Barker moniker. Her
1938 number, Don’t You Feel My Leg, was revitalized in 1970 by Maria Muldaur. Despite occasional criticisms about her
limited range, no less a luminary than Billie Holiday stated that, “Blue Lu
Barker was my biggest influence”.
In the forties, the couple was signed to the Apollo
label who had two other major R&B vocalists in Wynonie Harris and Dinah
Washington. One of the sessions even
featured Charlie Parker, although Danny never embraced the new Bebop style,
preferring to play in the Dixieland revivalist style of the time.
After thirty-five years in New York City, they went
out to California in 1965, giving Lu the opportunity to record an album for
Capitol. Soon after, they returned to
New Orleans because her mother had health issues, allowing them to put their
careers back on track.
The songs we hear today all come from a 52CD set which
I highly recommend, the ABC of the Blues, spanning from the twenties into the
fifties, a great bargain that is still available for less than $60. I purchased it almost seven years ago so it
has been pretty much overlooked for a while, but each time I pull up the
booklet I am reminded that it is likely the best purchase I’ve made in my
memory. A few of the artists fully
consume the allotted 20 tracks per disc (Bo Diddley, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Howlin’
Wolf, Robert Johnson, B.B. King, Little Walter, Leadbelly, Bessie Smith and
Jimmy Yancey, all of whom were already well represented in my library), which
makes it an even better buy for the uninitiated Blues fan, but for the other
forty-some discs two artists get ten tracks apiece. For me, the earliest acoustic and classic
style of singers fill vacancies in my collection as well as a bunch of artists
from the thirties and forties that I either had never even heard of or just had
not had the time (or finances) to look into.
This set is a good example of the quality of most of those acts. I’m sorry, but I just cannot over-emphasize
the value of this box set!
I came across mention that our opening track, A Little
Bird told Me, stayed on the Billboard chart for fourteen weeks, peaking at #4
after its late 1948 release, so it should be safe to presume the rest of our
set is from the same time period. Lu
continued her long career right up to her recorded performance at the 1998 New
Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
Since starting this essay, I picked up a copy of their
performance at the 1989 New Orleans Jazz Festival. I was disappointed with Lu’s performance;
there was really nothing up tempo, but I should have known better to expect the
same vocal tone forty years after the recordings heard here, not to mention she
was likely still recovering from a recent tracheotomy as part of her throat
surgery. It was pleasurable to get a
glimpse of Danny’s music (he sang five numbers following Lu’s opening five),
mostly banjo rather than guitar, with a six-piece traditional jazz backing
ensemble.
Blue
Lu was inducted into the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame in 1997, one year prior
to her passing on May 7th 1998 at the age of 84. The last great event for Blue Lu occurred
after her death when the celebration of her life New Orleans style was
documented in a video broadcast
*************************
Cornelius Green was born December 12th 1928
on the Dugas Plantation outside of Donaldsonville, Louisiana, one of twelve
children. He first learned basic piano
in his teens, then began on the guitar with lessons from a cousin in 1950. After a year in Jeanerette, Louisiana, working
as a truck driver, he moved to Port Arthur, Texas in 1953, finding employment
at the Gulf Oil refinery as he acquainted himself with the local music
nightlife. Here, he signed on to Zydeco great
Clifton Chenier and his Zydeco Ramblers as second guitarist behind Philip
Walker in 1955 for gigs at the Blue Moon Club, leading to tours going as far as
up to Chicago and out to Los Angeles, as well as a recording session for
Specialty Records. Green was even
responsible for Chenier’s recording The Cat’s Dreaming after the guitarist fell
asleep at a session.
Since I’m so fond of mentioning artists I have had the
privilege of seeing, I should bring up the fact that my first exposure to
Zydeco was through Chenier and his Red Hot Band at the Mountain Winery (it went
by another name back then) in the Saratoga hills around 1981. Lightnin’ Hopkins was to headline the show
but was ill and replaced by Johnny Hammond.
Later in 1955, after failing to get Specialty to sign
him up on his own, he left Clifton and Port Arthur for Opelousas, Louisiana,
getting married in the meantime, all in all a busy year.
In Opelousas, Green was playing with Lloyd Reynauld
and began to write his own material. He
also heard about producer J.D. “Jay” Miller, the man who would become known for
bringing out the Swamp Blues sound with artists like Lightnin’ Slim, Slim Harpo
and Lazy Lester, so Green prepared a demo tape and took it to Miller at his
Crowley studio. Miller was impressed
enough to have Green bring in his band he had been gigging with at the Domino
Club in Eunice and they put together his first single, 1956’s Leave My Money
Alone backed by Lost Without Love, but before leasing it out to Excello
Records, Miller gave Green a more suitable professional name. “I gave Lonesome
Sundown his name. . . . Well,
Cornelius Green didn’t sound too commercial.. We’d always try to pick out a
fairly commercial name.”
The follow-up release was Lonesome Whistler b\w My
Home is My Prison, the latter not making today’s airing but based on the fact
that Sundown’s wife kept calling the studio to find out where he was. Miller saw what this did to his singer and
quickly wrote and recorded the song “with Lonesome Sundown singing it like
every word meant something to him”, according to the liner notes for I’m a Mojo
Man: The Best of the Excello Singles, which contains both sides of twelve of
the sixteen 45s put out.
The second release fared better than the first, but
nothing made it onto even the local charts.
While the list of players is not well documented, we do know that harp
blower Lazy Lester, pianist Katie Webster and sax man Lionel Prevost each were
among the musicians who participated in the Crowley sessions. Still, Sundown and Miller stayed the course
through nine years until the disappointed singer decided to leave the industry
to join the Apostolic Church in 1965, around the time of his divorce. Sundown, about his Christian conversion,
where he would become a minister: “it gave me a beautiful mind concerning my
life and the things around me – things to be enjoyed, things to be admired,
things to be appreciated.”
Sundown came out of retirement in 1977 to record an
album reuniting him with Philip Walker, Been Gone Too Long for the Joliet label. Even after a re-release by Alligator in 1979,
the album just really never caught on.
Sundown then did a few concerts, including a performance at the 1979 New
Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and he and Walker did tours, the farthest
being to Japan and Sweden, before moving back to Louisiana finding work outside
of music.
Lonesome
Sundown passed away on April 23rd 1995 in Gonzales, Louisiana, after
a 1994 stroke took away his ability to speak.
He was inducted into the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame in 2000. Hopefully, this set will make you wonder why
he was so relatively underappreciated.
*************************
One of the Blu Lu Barker tunes, Here’s a Little Girl, just
kept running through my head, particularly the verse with “she can drink a lot
of Hadacol”, and I was compelled to
look into the product mentioned. I was
already aware of one song, Hadacol Bounce, by the legendary New Orleans pianist
Professor Longhair, but apparently it was the subject of many songs, not
exclusively by Louisiana artists, and crossed into just about every popular
musical genre around as long as the product existed, from about 1943 into the
50s.
Hadacol was maybe the last great snake oil, claiming
to be a multi-vitamin remedy for just about anything that could possibly ail
you, from cancer to arthritis, and it contained twelve per cent alcohol to
boost its sales, particularly in the dry counties of the South. It was recommended that one tablespoon should
be mixed with half a glass of water and taken four times daily, but it was clearly
often taken in straight shots or in a cocktail.
The concoction was described by Time Magazine as "a murky brown liquid that tastes something like bilge water, and
smells worse."
Time also reported its creator, four-term Louisiana
Democrat Senator Dudley J. LeBlanc, to be "a stem-winding salesman who knows every razzle-dazzle
switch in the pitchman's trade".
LeBlanc came up with the product in 1943 after asking a doctor to
provide him a pain medication and it is thought that, on a return visit, LeBlanc
took a bottle with him to replicate when the nurse was otherwise occupied. He took the name from the first two letters
of the words in his former Happy Day Company, portions of which had been
ordered shut down by the Food and Drug Administration, adding the first letter
from his last name, hence Hadacol, the col portion intended to bring to mind
alcohol. His little joke when asked
about the name was, “Well, I hadda call it something”.
The American Medical Association was not
impressed with the product, as evidenced by this 1951 statement: "It is
hoped that no doctor will be uncritical enough to join in the promotion of
Hadacol. It is difficult to imagine how
one could do himself or his profession greater harm from the standpoint of the
abuse of the trust of a patient suffering from any condition. Hadacol is not a
specific medication. It is not even a specific preventive measure."
Promotion
was one thing LeBlanc knew how to do. In
addition to testimonials appearing on all the media outlets, his people created
promotional items such as signs and clocks, a "Captain Hadacol" comic book, T-shirts,
an almanac,
plastic thimbles printed
with the Hadacol logo,
water pistols and cowboy-style holsters, glasses for drinking the diluted
mixture, and a stamped metal token (LeBlanc’s likeness on one side and the
Hadacol logo on the reverse) redeemable for 25¢ off their next purchase. All of these, as well as hand bills from the
shows, used bottles and even the boxes that housed them are sought out by
memorabilia collectors.
But
the promotion of the most interest to us would be the traveling Hadacol
Goodwill Caravans of entertainers of all stripes in what must have been the
last of the big time medicine shows. The
1950 version moved in 130 vehicles as it first played one night stands in the
South before heading west. There was
music, dancing chorus girls and circus acts performing with appearances made by
major personalities such as Lucille Ball, Minnie Pearl, Mickey Rooney, Dorothy Lamour, Carmen Miranda, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Judy Garland, Chico Marx, Groucho Marx, James Cagney
and Hank Williams (Williams also hosted the
inappropriately titled, Hadacol-sponsored Health and Happiness Show in 1949),
even separate shows with well known Jazz and Blues artists to cater to the
Black audiences.
For the 1951
tour, LeBlanc booked a seventeen car train named the Hadacol Special. Luminaries this time included Jack Dempsey,
Milton Berle, Jimmy Durante and Cesar Romero, with a full month spent in Los
Angeles. Each night the crowd was bought
to its feet by the closing act, Hank Williams.
The
price of admission was two box tops for adults, one for children, each costing
in today’s money either $10 or $30 for the family size. Musician Weldon "Big Bill" Lister remembers,
"The only way you could get into that show was with a Hadacol box top, And
believe me, we played to crowds of ten, twelve thousand people a night. Back in
those days there wasn't many auditoriums that would hold that many people. We
played ball parks, race tracks - you know anywhere where they had enough big bleachers
to handle those kind of crowds." September
17th 1951 was the final Caravan date after rumors of tax problems
arose. Some of the performers were laid
off while others were left stranded without pay.
In the fifteen months ending in March 1951, more than $3,600,000
worth of the tonic was sold. LeBlanc would
sell the company for $8,200,000, but the company turned out to be bankrupt as
LeBlanc had been spending more on advertising than it brought in (only
Coca-Cola was spending more than Hadacol at the time), combined with two
million in bills and over a half a million in unpaid taxes, not to mention two
million listed as Accounts Receivable, which was actually product out on
consignment and now mostly being returned.
When asked on Groucho Marx’s radio show what Hadacol was good for,
LeBlanc replied, "It was good for about five and a half million dollars
for me last year."
We mentioned that Hadacol was the
subject of numerous songs and, although I have not heard any of these, I
thought this would be some of the more relevant to us: "Drinkin'
Hadacol" by "Little Willie" Littlefield, "Everybody Loves
That Hadacol" by Tiny Hill and His
Orchestra, "H-A-D-A-C-O-L" by Al Terry (Allison Theriot), and
"Hadacol (That's All)" by the Treniers.
But the one that stands out to me is "Hadacol Boogie," most
recently covered by Jerry Lee Lewis (along with Buddy Guy) on his Last Man
Standing album.
"Hadacol Corners" by Slim Willet
might have been the inspiration for the town later known as
Midkiff in Upton County, Texas, to initially request the name Hadacol
Corner, but the U.S. Postal Service refused.
*************************
Every time I thought about Ron Thompson in recent years, I wanted
to kick my butt around the block a few times because I let a golden opportunity
pass me by. It was a no-brainer. Certainly because I feel that I do interviews
terribly, I never got around to inviting Ron to KKUP for an interview although
I knew he was happy to do it. It would
have been such a natural fit because my show ended at 5PM on Wednesday
afternoons and Ron had a weekly gig a coupla miles away at the Poor House
Bistro starting at 6PM. I often stopped
by for a couple of beers and some Blues on my way home, but before I
capitalized on the situation Ron’s health started a strong downhill trend and
he had to give up the gig.
Ron was a big supporter of community
Blues radio. He performed a couple or
three times at KKUP’s Blues marathons and added slide guitar to one of Johnnie
Cozmik’s J.C. Smith Band CDs. Speaking
of Johnnie, there was a time when he was often unavailable as my alternating
host so he made arrangements for Ron’s sister, going by the name Mercy Baby, to
cover the shows he couldn’t make.
I first heard about Ron when I was
living in Ben Lomond around 1978. A guy
I met had him play at a party and, knowing I was into Blues, he was proud to
play a tape from it for me. Later, in
the early 80s when I started tending bar, a friend of mine who knew Ron played
an LP for me because I was a big time Magic Sam fan and he figured I would
verify what he already knew, that it was, indeed, not Magic Sam but Ron
Thompson. I wasn’t very familiar with
Ron, but it certainly was not anywhere near Sam’s style. The album, Just Pickin’, is one of the three
CDs used on today’s playlist, along with Just Like a Devil and Magic Touch. I also have a John Lee Hooker live 1977 recording
from the Keystone in Palo Alto, a 2CD set titled the Cream, which includes Ron
and John Garcia on guitars and the harmonica of Charlie Musselwhite, so it may be
included on a future show.
Ron, one of the most
revered Bay Area Bluesmen in recent decades, was born in Oakland on July 5th
1953 and grew up in Newark. A
multi-instrumentalist, Thompson mastered piano, harmonica, piano and mandolin,
but it was his guitar playing that most set him aside from the rest, whether it
was alone on an acoustic country Blues or in a full band setting headed up by
his vocals and electric guitar, especially powerful in the bottleneck slide
style.
Ron began
learning slide shortly after picking up guitar at the age of eleven. He spent about five years playing the Bay
Area clubs on his own and backing other artists, most notably Little Joe Blue,
in his late teens. In 1975, Ron joined
John Lee Hooker’s Coast to Coast Blues Band where he stayed as bandleader for
at least three years, then formed Ron Thompson and the Resisters in 1980. After signing with Takoma Records, Ron had
his first release in 1983, Treat Her Like Gold.
In addition to his own gigs, Thompson was still a popular backing
guitarist for folks like Lowell Fulson, Etta James and Big Mama Thornton. Ron made a connection with Fleetwood Mac
drummer Mick Fleetwood in the early 80s and came together in Mick Fleetwood’s
Blue Whale, performing when the schedules of both musicians aligned.
His second album,
Resister Twister, was released by Blind Pig in 1987, garnishing Ron a Grammy
nomination, followed in 1990 by Just Like a Devil, a collection of tunes gleaned
from his appearances on Mark Naftalin’s Blue Monday Party radio show and
released on the pianist’s Winner label.
Naftalin is probably best known from his part on the early Paul
Butterfield Blues Band albums before he, like so many other white Chicago Bluesmen,
moved to the Bay Area. (Think Michael
Bloomfield, Elvin Bishop, Charlie Musselwhite.)
In 2007, Ron’s album
Resonator showed him as an acoustic solo performer. His last album, Son of Boogie Woogie,
came out in 2015 on keyboardist Jimmy Pugh’s Little Village Foundation label and
Pugh’s 2018 comments to the Marin Independent are poignant. “Not
only can he play the blues, he can sing it in a way that’s more convincing than
practically anyone these days. He grew
up in tough circumstances in East Oakland, and I don’t think you can find a
better example of someone who’s that believable, that authentic. He’s the real
deal.”
It takes a lot to impress
Tom Mazzolini, longtime Blues DJ and for decades mastermind of the San
Francisco Blues Festival (in its last year the longest running Blues festival
in the country), but Ron managed to pull it off. “He played a long time with John Lee Hooker,
and really got the Hooker style down. When
I heard him play slide (guitar), I thought he was the reincarnation of Elmore
James.” And, more explicitly, "I've always felt
Ron is the most talented blues guitarist I have ever seen. He can do it all.
He's extraordinarily gifted. What many folks aren't aware of is that Ron was a
huge asset in the re-emergence of John Lee Hooker. He was the foundation for
that boogie sound."
The
enthusiastic praise continues from Andy Grigg, music critic for Real Blues
magazine, who wrote: "If you haven't experienced Ron T. live, I can't even
begin to convey the absolute go-for-broke Blues rave-ups and sweat-soaked
pandemonium Thompson and his Resistors dispense on a nightly basis. When it
comes to slide guitar workouts, I would say he's the Best in the World, and yet
the man sings his ass off too."
In addition to the Bistro,
in recent years Ron played local venues such as Biscuits & Blues in San
Francisco or Fremont’s Mojo Lounge, even San Jose’s JJ’s in its heyday. He honed his sound in East Bay clubs like
North Richmond’s Playboy Club and Oakland’s Deluxe Inn or Eli’s Mile High Club.
Among his other domestic performances, which
included many of the major Blues festivals, Ron’s international performances
included the Jazz and Blues Sessions in Berne, Switzerland, as well as stages in
Poland, Mexico, and Belize. The list of
musical luminaries Thompson played or recorded with is extensive, notably
Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Tina Turner, Elvin Bishop, Bill Medley, Huey
Lewis, Dr. John, Bobby Womak, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Robert Cray, Z.Z. Top,
Big Mama Thornton, Bruce Willis, Luther Tucker, Jimmy McCracklin, Pee Wee
Crayton, Carla Thomas, Booker T. Jones, Percy Mayfield, Etta James, B.B. King,
and Jimmy Reed.
When another Bay Area Blues
legend, harmonica man Mark Hummel, assembled a lineup in 2013 for a tribute
tour honoring Jimmy Reed, the Chicago Blues master who died in Oakland in 1976,
with most notably Lazy Lester, Kim Wilson, Rick Estrin, Little Charlie Baty,
Joe Louis Walker and Kenny Neal, Thompson’s long time friend Hummel emailed
that “Ron stole the show!”
On tour after recording Chris Isaak’s San Francisco
Days, Isaak warned the audience, "You might think these crowd barriers are
here to keep you away from the stage. They're not. They're here to keep Ron
Thompson away from you!" Steve
Cropper, guitarist, songwriter and founding member of Booker T and the MGs, stated,
“What this guy knows, you can’t get out of a book”, but perhaps John Lee Hooker
put it best and most simply: “Ron Thompson, he’s my main man!”
Aside from his one Grammy
nomination, Ron didn’t acquire nationwide acclaim reached by many he performed
with, he was held in the highest local esteem, Mayor Gavin Newsom proclaimed
Sept. 5, 2007, as Ron Thompson Day in San Francisco. He twice won Bammies (Bay Area Music Awards)
and a Colorado Blues Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He also made it into the Blues Hall of Fame.
Ron passed away eight days
ago on Saturday, February 15th at the age of 66 after long suffering
the ravages of diabetes. He required a
leg to be amputated in 2017 and had been in a coma for about the last month due to
a hypoglycemic seizure, A memorial is
being planned for April, according to Hummel.
Although his website, rtblues.com, appears to have been last revised
around 2014 you still might want to check it for any updates that may occur. Or maybe his Facebook page @ronthompsonofficial.
Ron told the Bay Area News Group in 2005, “Blues
is like a medicine, or religion to me, It’ll
cleanse your soul.”
*************************
For Your
Information
To listen to KSCU on a computer, use
either iTunes or WinAmp for the media player.
To listen to KSCU on a smart phone use
either the NextRadio or TuneIn apps.
The studio phone number is (408) 554-KSCU or, for the
digitally inclined 554-5728 but, as always, make sure no one is speaking on the
air before you dial.
The
mailing address for sending CDs, et cetera, is:
KSCU
Local Music
500
El Camino Real
Santa
Clara, CA
95053
KSCU radio’s studio is located in the basement of
Benson Hall
KSCU’s Sunday morning Blues rotation has the Jakester,
Mister G, Dave the Blues Dude and the Bluesevangelist between 9AM and 1PM. Sherri Jones does her Blues show between 10:30AM
and 12:30PM on Saturdays. And, of
course, me!
The
best way to reach me is by email at coyledon@yahoo.com
(my computer’s autocorrect adds a letter t, so if that shows up here please
remove it before trying to contact me; apparently, cotyledon is some kind of
botanical term). I do send out my blog
via email so, if you would like to be added to that list, just give me your
address and I’d be happy to do so, otherwise all my writings going back to 2014
are still available at key2highway.blogspot.
I do recommend the direct email to let you know when I will be on,
especially now that I will occasionally waiver from the second and fourth week
of each month format. Thank you all for
your continued support. Feel free to
call me during the show; it gets lonely in the dungeon.
*************************
Mardi Gras in New Orleans
Li’l Liza Jane
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band
Do Whacha Wanna
The Rebirth Brass Band
Meet de Boys on the Battlefront
The Wild Tchoupitoulas
Shoo Fly
Monk Boudreau with the
Rebirth Brass Band
Iko Iko
Dr. John
Peanut Vendor
Alvin “Red” Tyler
Hold to God’s Unchanging Hand
Irma Thomas
Whirlaway
Allen Toussaint 34mins
A Little Bird Told Me
Here’s a Little Girl
Trombone Man Blues
Bow Legged Daddy
What Did You Do to Me?
Leave My Man Alone
I Want Your Husband
Now You’re Down the Alley
Blue
Lu Barker 21mins
Pere et Gargon Zydeco
John Delafose
L’Ouragon
Beausoliel
Laissez Faire
Bruce Daigrepoint
Bayou Pon Pon
Trio Calden
File Gumbo
Zachary Richard
C’est Pas le Peine Brailler
Geno Delafose
T’en as Eu
David Doucet
Outside People
Nathan and the Zydeco Cha
Chas
Snap Bean
Li’l Brian
Think it Over One More Time
Buckwheat Zydeco
Give Him Cornbread
Beau
Jocque and the Zydeco High Rollers
39mins
When I Had (I Didn’t Need)
Leave My Money Alone
Lonesome Whistler
Lost without Love
Don’t Say a Word
I’m a Mojo Man
Don’t Go
Guardian Angel
Gonna Stick to You, Baby
Home Ain’t Here
Lonesome, Lonely Blues
I’m a Samplin’ Man
Learn to Treat Me Better
Lonesome Sundown 31mins
That’s Enough of that Stuff
Marcia Ball
Tipitina
Professor Longhair
Death Has No Mercy
Henry Butler
Three Keys
James Booker
Hometown New Orleans
Champion Jack Dupree
Tee Nah Nah
Tuts Washington
Hard Times
Eddie Bo
Boogie Woogie Baby
Fats
Domino 29mins
Cadillac Walk
Hip Shake
Bullet Blues
R.T.’s Piano
Honest I Do
Just Pickin’
Baby Please Don’t Go
Rollin’ and Tumblin’
Ron
Thompson 30mins
J.T. Shuffle
Silvertone Boogie
Pin-Eyed Woman
Hard Time Train
Just Like a Devil
Gangster Blues
Saddle My Pony
Walkin’ Blues
Ron
Thompson 31mins
E Street Boogie
Murderin’ Blues
Rockin’ and Rollin’ Blues
Little Drummer Boy
Ron
Thompson 17mins
