The Ann Arbor Blues Festivals: Performer Quotes

[Michael Erlewine]

The Ann Arbor Blues Festival: The First of Its Kind

by Michael Erlewine

There is no doubt that the first North American all-out blues festival for modern-electric, city blues (in fact, all types of blues) was the Ann Arbor Blues Festival, held in the late summer of 1969. It featured blues artists like Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, B.B. King, Otis Rush, J. B. Hutto and the Hawks, Howlin’ Wolf, T-Bone Walker, Magic Sam, Freddy King, and many other modern-electric blues players. The festival also featured traditional blues artists like Son House and those in between, like Clifton Chenier, Roosevelt Sykes, Lightnin' Hopkins and many others.

In Ann Arbor at the time, the accent was off folk and country blues and on modern, big-city, electric blues artists. While the Newport Folk Festival featured more than folk music and to a degree helped blues to segue from folk and country blues to more modern blues, it was in Ann Arbor that the first all-out extravaganza of modern-electric city blues was born.

There is no record of any blues festival of any similar scope and extent that predates that first Ann Arbor Blues Festival, which was organized in 1968 and held in 1969, much less one that endures to the present day.

The Ann Arbor Blues Festival: What it Was

The Ann Arbor Blues Festival was just that: a festival of blues, including (and featuring) modern electric city blues -- the first of its kind. It helped to mark the discovery of modern blues music and the musicians that made that music. However, the festival was something more than just Black music for White people. It was somewhat of a celebration for the Black musicians themselves and the list of great blues artists present, on or off the stage, reads like a “Who’s Who” of blues musicians of all types alive at the time. They came from all over, to play of course, but also just to be together, to hang out.

Those first two Ann Arbor Blues Festivals in 1969 and 1970, sponsored by the University Activity Center (UAC) of the University of Michigan and the Canterbury House, were organized by a small group of University of Michigan students. Their leader was John Fishel, a young student who just happened to really love the blues.

Late in 1968, Fishel and a small group of students formed an exploratory committee to create a blues festival, tentatively scheduled for the fall of 1969. Among other things they traveled to Chicago and heard some of the great blues men in the South Chicago bars and clubs. They came back from that trip with their eyes opened, more convinced then ever to organize a festival that next fall.

Their chief worry was whether, in the commotion of the returning to school, students would have time to grasp what a blues festival was all about. Therefore, they decided to hold a warm-up concert in the spring of 1969, so that everyone on campus could preview the music and build an appetite for the coming festival. The preliminary concert was held in the University of Michigan Ballroom, featuring the Luther Allison Trio, a young blues group from Chicago. It was very much a success and the larger festival was scheduled for the Fall. The University of Michigan approved a budget and Fishel and his group set about making the festival a reality.

1969 Ann Arbor Blues Festival

And what a festival it was! That first Ann Arbor Blues Festival in 1969 included such great blues artists as B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Otis Rush, Magic Sam, Freddy King, T-Bone Walker, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and many others. The 1969 Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival even made a small profit. It was an enormous artistic success and it was decided to make this an annual event. A proposed budget for the 1970 concert was formulated and accepted by the university.

It has been said by way of criticism of the first two Ann Arbor Blues Festival's lack of monetary success (mostly by the producers of the subsequent Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival), that the choice of talent was too esoteric and that these artists were not known to the general public. It was pointed out that the roster of those first blues festivals were too focused on the blues, and not designed to best market the events with a wide range of performers, including also jazz or some national act, such as Ray Charles, thereby bringing many more people to the events.

What these critics say is very true, but that is just the point. In those first two blues festivals, there was no sense of marketing or taking advantage of the event to establish a larger audience. It was a lot more like the movie E.T., where one group of beings came to meet another group, about which they knew precious little. It was not unlike some sort of religious experience. There were widespread acts of kindness in coming to know one another. And it was not just the Black performers sharing with their newly-found White audience. The Black performers were also there for themselves, as the following quotes by some of them at the time testify to.

Magic Sam (August 3, 1969)

This festival is like an all-star game.

Louis Myers

This blues festival is a big family reunion.

James Cotton (August 3, 1969)

I've never seen nothin' like this in my life. This is the beatifulest thing I ever seen in my life. This is so beautiful.

Luther Tucker (August 3, 1969)

As for the blues festival, I can dig it. I enjoyin' it.

Lightnin' Hopkins (August 3, 1969)

Well, I been looking forward for this for a long time. And I thought this would happen in the future and it did, so now I hope it lasts long. Fact of business is, I believe it will.

Sleepy John Estes (August 2, 1969)

When all the children get together, Oh that will be a day.

And one young festival volunteer wrote this:

“What a sight for me! There was my dad, the controller of a small Michigan college and blues-great Roosevelt Sykes, sitting on folding chairs, leaning back up against the chain-link fence, swapping stories and beers all afternoon. They just liked each other and were having a ball. That’s the way it was all around – one big getting-to-know-one-another party. It was special.”

It was not a media event, not leveraged for maximum anything, other than maximum communication between performers and their newly found fans. In defense of the early festivals, it is only fair to point out that at the time of those first two blues festivals, these performers were indeed almost completely unknown to White America. That is a major reason why the original Ann Arbor Blues Festival was undertaken: to bring these artists to general attention, which it did, mainly to our attention, those who put it on and who attended it. More than anything else, everyone involved in the early festivals wanted to hear this music live and see and hear the performers up close.

Discovering these great blues artists, alive and living all around us, but never previously accessed or known, was a revelation to all present at that time. Here was not a dying or antiquated music, as was the case with certain styles of folk music. Modern-electric blues was very much alive and well in cities across the United States, only separated from White America by a racial curtain.

Removing that curtain exposed a vast wealth of music to be experienced and absorbed. What happened in that first blues festival in 1969 was a revelation to those in attendance, and not just to the White members of the audience. It helped to launch a new era of blues discovery and acceptance.

Held at the Fuller Flatlands, a small field along the Huron River in Ann Arbor, most often used for softball games, the First Ann Arbor Blues Festival was held in August 1-3, 1969. The tickets cost $14 for access to all four concerts (and the intervening workshops) over the three day festival.

My band, the Prime Movers Blues Band, was the only blues band in the area, and we were automatically looked to as blues experts. From a relative standpoint, I guess we were. We had taken many trips to Chicago and seen some of the blues giants playing in the Southside and Westside Chicago clubs. We had worked since 1965 to study and play the blues, as best as we could. It fell to us to be in charge of feeding and serving "beverages" to the blues entertainers, backstage. What fun! I was lucky enough to be selected to interview as many of the performers as I could, using a simple audio recorder.

What follows are excerpts from those interviews. The original tapes were dutifully turned over to festival officials by me, never to be heard from again. I have tried in vain to find them. However, luckily I had taken the trouble to transcribe some of the highlights, for my own interest, and it is these selections that appear below. Most of these quotes are the performers response to being asked what the blues are and how do they differ from jazz. Here is all that remains from a very great many hours of interviews. I am sure you will enjoy what survives, as I do. In particular, the more extensive interview with Howlin' Wolf is unforgettable.

Howlin' Wolf: (August 2, 1969)

Some of them said years ago. "We will never make it to the moon." I said: "You never know." Today, we settin' on the moon and got a flag up there. You understand? But they told me that we couldn't do that. Don't never say what we can't do.

Next thing, I'm looking for a man walkin' down the street with no head on his body. And if they say they can't do it, I'm gonna' tell 'em, "You're wrong" He gonna' come down sooner or later." That's right. This is of the day. He will have no head and be all heart, just one big heart.

Because these performers probably have the biggest hearts in the entertainment business, and there were thirty or forty thousand kids here trying to learn about heart, about understanding, about developing their hearts. Thousands of hippies, hipped up children, with great big heads and tiny hearts, trying to lose that big head and get that big heart. The big head and the hard heart of modern rock and roll and psychedelic music has gone as far as it will go. The heart just has to be developed and this, the first of all the blues festivals, promises much to cross the generation gap and bring the old and younger Americans closer than they have been for the last decade. Because blues performers have big hearts.

I'm not a smart man. You see, I got a little head and a big heart. Because blues is based on the common ground shared by all people, black and white, young and old. Blues is the story of the human life, of its loves and struggles. All rock and roll, all jazz, all American music finds its roots in gospel music and in blues. Blues is not unhappy music.

A lotta' people sing, but they don't sing with no understandin'. When you repeats your words, make sure to make some understanding of what you're sayin'. Those men played a clear guitar. They made clear notes.

I've been pushed way back. I don't know why the people wouldn't let me up to the front like they did. I was just dirt. I felt like I was just dirt, so I stayed back, because I was able to back up my own self. I didn't think I had no right to be out there trying to push and scrap. I didn't think I had no right to be out there tryin' to push and scrap up no few nickels, you know, which I needed… never get too many of them.

But, I'm a funny kind of person. I don't never want to take advantage of nobody, and think I'm takin' advantage of… you know what I mean. Let the peoples have it. Then if anything for me, it will come by, and I'll get that.

Well, now anytime anything is pushed back, sooner or later, they gonna' bring it to the front. They can't keep it hid always.

I'll tell you. when people can't make or use you, they don't need you.

There ain't gonna be no trouble. Somebody gonna' come on up to the front and say "I am the man. I'm sorry," That's right. There ain't gonna' be no hard feelings. He didn't come for no trouble, but he gonna' sure let you know that he are "the man." Supposed to be.

Just like a flower. You see, we're trampin' on this grass. We stay here a couple months and tramp right around here, we gonna' kill it. Just as soon as we stop trampin', the first warm sunshine, and then the grass gonna' start a growin' again.

You don't never learn it all. You just learn some portion of it, and be able to, you know, entertain. And I play a certain portion of harp and a certain portion of guitar. I'm not a smart man. You see, I got a little head and a big heart. That's all I need. You take people. When they got a big head, they don't make it far.

You're supposed to make it pleasin' to the peoples ears, then they don't mind listening to the tune.

I heard a negro, howlin' and moanin'. I said: I take it from you. He was an old man. I said: I'm gonna' take that someday and make something out of it. I took that howlin' and that yodelin' and put it together and made me a thing of my own.

You got to get in the right position to where you can control your voice. I'm not a smart man. You see I got a little head and a big heart.

You got to know your keynote. You got to know your notes from staff to staff. If you don't know your notes from staff to staff, I can tell when you pick up your guitar, you really don't know what your doin'.

I don't mean to be funny, but if you let me, I'll show you, and tell you, if you will accept it. But if you think because I'm a Negro, and you're not supposed to be told nothin', you understand, you're wrong. You're supposed to be told somethin' by anybody, when you're doin' wrong.

Take a learnin' from anybody. Somebody can always tell you something it's fit you.

I hope I don't talk too much. No, I don't know. I'm just tryin. Soo, now that's a lotta' ground your covering, when you say you know better than me. I just know some of the things that are supposed to be done. When you say you know it, that covers the whole world.

Some people don't want to tell you how it is, but I'll tell ya.

If we were playin' in a key, tell me your tonic and I'll tell you what else your supposed to do. All I want to know is your tonic. I'll build the rest of it. See, but you got to have your tonic. That's your startin' off. Without that tonic, when you get ready to stop, you stop somewhere else. Anytime you start on your tonic, when you end your song, you got to be right back on your tonic.

I don't have no education, see. Now you can take my sense and put it in a paper bag and it'll rattle like two nickels. But you see, understandin', that's all I need. Common sense, that's all a man needs now, common sense. Just get your some common sense and pass on by.

Some of the music is too loud today, because it knock the eardrums to your ear. Them high speakers, tall as that fence there, is blastin' your ear down, all the time. Boom. Bam. Bing. You know what I mean?

That's uncalled for. You hear that? I played on a show one night, and I went home and cut myself all up and down the back, because I heart that thing in my sleep. It's too loud. I'm sorry. Ain't no need in me tellin' you no lie. It's too loud. That go for the white boy, and the Negro boy, and any old mexican, anybody! When it's too loud, it's nothin' but "knockness." Knockness, just some stuff comin' together, and you don't understand what it mean. That's what you call real garbage. That's the worst garbage in town. That's right, but the peoples eats it up. Just like the rabbit eatin the carrot. What's up Doc?

I don't dominize no musician. I hate to hear a man dominize a musician, but I will say: music is too loud. Whether you playin' good or whether you playin' bad, you know it's too loud. Dominize, knockness. Some knockness. Something knockin' together. You know.

Jim Connely (horn player for Otis Rush) -- (August 2, 1969)

Blues and jazz, they are one, yet still they are different, because to be able to play jazz, a musician has to be able to play the blues first. He's got to know the blues, because blues is soul. It's what you feel, and jazz is just a step farther than the blues. I mean it's musically a step up.

You see, blues is just the common ground that you meet on, but jazz you get sophisticated and you move out a little more. But if you can't play the blues, then to me you can't play jazz.

You play the blues and then you go a little farther and you go into jazz. Blues is a simple thing that anybody can understand. Jazz, you have to keep hearin' it, over and over again to really adjust to it, where anybody can understand the blues.

Whereas blues is a story, a story usually of one's life or somebody's life. And jazz is what a man…it's his life, but it's also what he lives in a dream world. And its also what he would like to do outside of his life. And he goes into this world of his own, but they are (blues and jazz) are still close together that its hard to separate the two, like love and hate. You can't have one without the other.

You don't learn how to play the blues. Blues is something that comes natural. You don't go around studying the blues. It's something that comes as natural as a baby sucks his mam'a breast.

Blues is something that's gonna' come natural, anyhow, and the next step you go, you learn to play with rock and roll, and the next thing you know, you are trying to modernize it a little bit. You're tired of that old down feelin' of the blues, and the next thing you know, your gonna' be tryin' to play some jazz.

Blues is me. Blues is the black man. Blues is what we had. Then you move up a step farther, not what we have, but what we want that that's jazz -- this other world we would like to have, when we can set here and imagine what we want. Blues is the

most common thing that you have. It's a thing which will bring all people together, the common ground.

Sleepy John Estes (August 2, 1969)

When all the children get together, Oh that will be a day.

Roosevelt Sykes: (August 1, 1969)

Blues is a part of a man. It's the way he feels. Lot's of people have the wrong understandin'. They think a blues player have to be worried. Thinks the blues player have to been whipped or something, or worried, or troubled or something to sing the blues.

That's wrong. There's doctors. He has medicine. He ain't sick, but he makes stuff for the sick people. So blues players. He ain't worried and bothered, but he's got something for the worried people. With a doctor, your can see his medicine. He can see his patient. Blues, you can't see the music; he can't see the patient, because it's the soul. So I work on the soul and the doctor works on the body. So something for your soul. Do something for your body. All is mixed in one. Two makes one.

I been goin' to Europe since 1960-1961. People all appreciated the blues everynigh I played… eight, ten thousand people a night, in Europe, even in the small towns.

There, nobody could eer become graduated on it, that they can't learn no more music. You just get to think you're finished up and there is something brand new sarted that you didn't get. Son on and on. It's gonna' be that way.

The blues is a talent. You can't learn that. there's nobody teaches that. No schools for it. Nobody can teach it to you. God gives every man a talent. It don't come in schools. It's something you born with. It's a feelin'. Can't nobody give you that feelin'. You have to have it. You can't buy it and you can't give it away if you got it.

Blues is a part of a man. It's the way he feels. Lots of people have the wrong understandin'. They think that a blues player have to be worried.

Freddy King (August 3, 1969)

Jazz gets a little too way out. I can't understand it if it gets too way out. You understand what I mean by too way out? Away from the beaten track, the common ground or bond of all men. Away from the heart. Blues is the heart.

Fred Below (August 3, 1969)

Altogether different beat, difference in chord structure. Modern Jazz is a measured thing. Blues is not measured. There's as much different between blues and jazz as between night and day.

Louis Myers (August 3, 1969)

Blues is a whole lot different than jazz. I think blues is moreso the soul bag than jazz. Jazz is modified from the blues. This [the blues festival] is a big family reunion.

James Madison (August 3, 1969)

Blues is like something that's happened to you. You feel it. You have the blues each and every day. jazz is more or less something you learn. You wake up and are worried about something, try to put it in music, it's blues.

Jack Myers (August 1, 1969)

Improvisation: I think jazz is limited, man. You got certain changes you gotta' make, while if you play the 12-bar bllues, a cat can just express his self. Blues is something that is happening every day, that you can understand.

James Cotton (August 3, 1969)

(Blues festival) I've never seen nothin' like this in my life. This is the beatifulest thing I ever seen in my life. This is so beautiful.

Luther Tucker (August 3, 1969)

Everyday brings a little change. As for the blues festival, I can dig it. I enjoyin' it.

Charlie Musslewhite (August 3, 1969)

Blues is a thing by itself. You can express it through music. You can express it by talkin' or paintin' or just walking' down the street, you know. Blues is a thing, separate. Music is a medium for it. Music just happens to be a very comfortable way to express the blues. Jazz is just like takin a tune, it's just messin with it. You take music and mess with it. takin' a chord and instead of playin' it real conventional, playin' it real crazy. Blues is a thing.

Jimmy Dawkins (August 1, 1969)

I feel like the blues is the truth, because when a guy sings the blues, he sings what happened. Jazz, you can adlib. You can do the little things you wanta' do to please the public. When you're doin' blues, that's the truth, that's the whole story of blues, tellin' the truth. If something happened to you that sets you back, that's the blues.

Blues is standard. Maybe the jazzman makes a little money, so he don't want to be in the bag anymore. So he try to move away from it, but he never leaves blues. He just try to play something else.

When a musician has not paid his dues, he sounds like somebody else. He does not sound like himself.

The blues festival gives breathing space for smaller bands to expand and achieve self-confidence and standing.

When you got the blues, you're always searchin' for happiness, and when I'm up there on the stage, I'm always searchin for something deeper and deeper all the time.

Fred McDowell (August 1, 1969)

You play with understanding. That's the way I play.

Lightnin' Hopkins (August 3, 1969)

Now I just have to tell ya'. I never knowed anything about no jazz, because jazz never affected my life. In my life, the blues always dwell with me. Now, here's what the blues is: that is a good man feelin' ab. You ever heard of that? Now, I'm gonna' show you and it is true. Now you can walk right here and have one dollar in your pocket. You going to the store. You loose that dollar, before you get there. then you walk on by and you turn around. Lord, what happened to me? And now what you got? You got nothin' but the blues.

[festival] Well, I been looking forward for this for a long time. And I thought this would happen in the future and it did, so now I hope it lasts long. Fact of business is, I believe it will.

Bob Koester of Dellmark Records (August 2, 1969)

What is Jazz? The element of improvisation has to be present, blues chord structure has to be present.

Blues is a vocal music and jazz is an instrumental music, and if you have an artist who is a great guitar player, and he does not sing well, he's eventually gonna' wind up in the jazz field, or somewhere else.

Jazz is the ability to get away from that chor structure and the 12-bar language. It's a matter of material. But also I think it is the emphasis on the instrumental aspects of the music, rather than the vocal. Blues is not only vocal, it's verbal, where words mean a great deal.

Big Mama Thornton (August 3, 1969)

Jazz? I don't understand it in the first place. It don't have no endin. Here he is up there blowin' and maybe he blow till he get tired, then he just stop. What about rock and roll? Some folks say: It's nothin' but a hopped-up, fast-up blues. That's all it is.

I like to let my audience be close to me, you know what I man? And I want them to feel that they are close to me, anyway, because I wants to be close to them, because I want to express myself to let them know what I do and how I do it. And if they can do it, good luck to 'em, is all I can say.

Muddy Waters (August 2, 1969)

Blues. I lived them. I lived them musically and I lived them lifewise. Blues is the mother of jazz and all those things. A blues performer stays in blues, when he loves them like I do. To me, I'd rather remain with the blues and not try to move into the jazz field. I didn't even have it on my mind to try a change, to do something else.

Arthur Big-Boy Crudup (August 3, 1969)

I'm this a way. If I go to work for you, and just whatever I promise you, that's what I will do. If I promise you that tomorrow afternoon, me and you gonna' fight, we gonna' fight. The reason we don't fight is that I don't meet you, and that's the way I am. I only have nothin' but my word. And through not nothin' being but my word, I have to do as I say. A man's word is his bond. And if a man's word ain't no good, he ain't no good. And I've learned that.

You know the life of a musician is only thirty-three years, if he live it. Somebody will either poison you; some woman will kill him, or some man will kill him. And if you go beyond that, you got to treat everybody nice.

Magic Sam (August 3, 1969)

This [festival) is like an all-star game. The blues has been handed down from generation to generation. Blues came from spirituals. It developed and developed. Jazz is taken from the blues.

T-Bone Walker (August 3, 1969)

Without Blues, there wouldn't be no jazz. Blues is the basis of all jazz.

Clifton Chenier (August 2, 1969)

Blues gonna forever be here. Jazz goes on and off. See? The blues always standard. Jazz is Ok for those who like it, you know.

Otis Rush (August 2, 1969)

Blues is the foundation of all music. They keep buildin' and buildin' on it, just like these cars. They didn't use to look like this, jazz is a thing like I'm saying. They just pep blues up. They speed it up. they cut it up, all kinds of ways and pieces. They got time to go by, nothin' but time, and they can cut it up all kinds of ways. This is what I mean by cutting it up.

Son House (August 3, 1969)

Yeah, Yeah. It's all right I think. Mostly all the old guys, they mostly all are gone. I think Willie Brown was about the last one.

Ann Arbor Blues Festival

Program Schedule 1969

1969/08/01 Friday Night
1969/08/01 Gallup Park Friday Night Roosevelt Sykes
1969/08/01 Gallup Park Friday Night Fred McDowell
1969/08/01 Gallup Park Friday Night J.B. Hutto & the Hawks
1969/08/01 Gallup Park Friday Night Jimmy Dawkins
1969/08/01 Gallup Park Friday Night Junior Wells
1969/08/01 Gallup Park Friday Night B.B. King

1969/08/02 Saturday Night
1969/08/02 Saturday Afternoon Workshops
1969/08/02 Saturday Night
1969/08/02 Gallup Park Saturday Night Sleepy John Estes
1969/08/02 Gallup Park Saturday Night Luther Allison
1969/08/02 Gallup Park Saturday Night Clifton Chenier
1969/08/02 Gallup Park Saturday Night Otis Rush
1969/08/02 Gallup Park Saturday Night Howlin' Wolf
1969/08/02 Gallup Park Saturday Night Muddy Waters

1969/08/03 Sunday Afternoon
1969/08/03 Gallup Park Sunday Afternoon Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup
1969/08/03 Gallup Park Sunday Afternoon Jimmy 'Fast Fingers' Dawkins
1969/08/03 Gallup Park Sunday Afternoon Roosevelt Sykes
1969/08/03 Gallup Park Sunday Afternoon Luther Allison & the Blue ebulae
1969/08/03 Gallup Park Sunday Afternoon Big Joe Williams
1969/08/03 Gallup Park Sunday Afternoon Magic Sam
1969/08/03 Gallup Park Sunday Afternoon Big Mama Thornton
1969/08/03 Gallup Park Sunday Afternoon Freddy King

1969/08/03 Sunday Night
1969/08/03 Gallup Park Sunday Night Sam Lay
1969/08/03 Gallup Park Sunday Night T-Bone Walker
1969/08/03 Gallup Park Sunday Night Son House
1969/08/03 Gallup Park Sunday Night Charlie Musselwhite
1969/08/03 Gallup Park Sunday Night with Freddy Roulette
1969/08/03 Gallup Park Sunday Night Lightnin' Hopkins
1969/08/03 Gallup Park Sunday Night James Cotton