Video: Charlie Musselwhite in 2012
By Kevin Coughlin
Charlie Musselwhite cannot remember the first time he picked up a harmonica.
“It’s like, people asked me the first time I heard blues. I don’t remember that, either. It was just part of the environment that I grew up in. It seemed like it was always there. It was like breathing.”
Expect Musselwhite to take your breath away on Saturday in Morristown. The 71-year-old bluesman, who has performed with Muddy Waters, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Bonnie Raitt, Ben Harper and Cyndi Lauper, among others, will headline the fifth annual Morristown Jazz and Blues Festival on Aug. 15, 2015.
He and his band will play on the historic Morristown Green at 8 pm, capping a day of free entertainment that swings into action with Swingadelic at noon.
Jazz great Bucky Pizzarelli leads a “Guitar Summit” at 2 pm; Canadian trumpet sensation Bria Skonberg follows at 4 pm and Roomful of Blues takes the stage at 6 pm.
Each act will pay tribute to Frank Sinatra, Les Paul or Muddy Waters — towering artists who would have turned 100 this year.
Musselwhite had the privilege of playing with Waters, a fellow Mississippi native.
“He loved to have a good time, he loved to laugh, he loved a good joke. He was real generous, and real outgoing. He helped a lot of people. He was really helpful to me. He always insisted I sit in, any time he saw me. He was very encouraging and supportive,” Musselwhite said.
During his adolescent years in Memphis, Musselwhite became friendly with an up-and-coming singer named Elvis Presley.
“I had Elvis’ phone number. I could call up and find where he was going to have the party that night. He’d rent the theater, he’d rent the whole Memphis Fair Grounds, a skating rink, wherever he felt like having a party. He’d rent the place from like midnight, till dawn.
“When we went to the movies, he used to make up stuff about the movies. Kind of reminded me of that thing that used to be on TV called the Mystery Science Theater, where the guy with the two robots would make up stories about the movies they were watching.
“Elvis would make up stuff about what was going to happen. He was real funny. He had a great sense of humor. And of course, there were a lot of pretty girls there. That was my main attraction.”
‘BLUES JUST SEEMED SO LOGICAL’
But Chicago blues, not Memphis rockabilly, called to Musselwhite. At age 18, he made his way to a Windy City scene that included Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson.
“I like all different kinds of music. But blues, it sounded the way I felt. I tried to play other kinds of music but I couldn’t get the hang of it. But blues just seemed so logical. It just came to me real natural. I couldn’t help but play the blues. It just made sense.”
Musselwhite’s debut album, Stand Back!, made a big splash in 1967. Surprisingly, he found himself in demand in San Francisco as the psychedelic Summer of Love was winding down.
“I thought I was just going out to do a few gigs and come on back to Chicago,” he recounted.
“When I got out there I saw there was a lot of work for a guy playing blues. Blues out there on the west coast seemed like it was exotic or something. People were really fascinated by it, and wanted to hear it.
“All up and down the west coast, I saw there was lots of places to play, and they paid good money. So I never went back. I stayed in California.”
He’s glad he is not breaking in now. Although the global popularity of blues has mushroomed– Brazilian women are among today’s top practitioners, he said–there are fewer clubs where musicians can eke out a living.
Even Musselwhite’s White House performance in 2013 was an unpaid gig — familiar territory for most bluesmen.
“We’re the bottom man on the totem pole,” he joked.
CHOKE THAT THING!
Morristown Mayor Tim Dougherty doesn’t see it that way.
“We have an unbelievable lineup. It’s going to blow everyone away,” said Dougherty. The festival is possible, the Mayor said, thanks to sponsors who once again have anted up about $70,000. “Hopefully, this triggers people to come to our community and seek out more of what we have.”
Don Jay Smith, who has organized all five of Morristown’s Jazz & Blues Fests with his wife, Linda Smith, said the idea of celebrating the centennials of Frank Sinatra, Les Paul and Muddy Waters was a natural evolution.
The Fifth Annual Morristown Jazz & Blues Festival
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015
On the Morristown Green, rain or shine
Admission: Free. Bring lawn chairs or beach blankets
Noon: Swingadelic
2 pm: Bucky Pizzarelli’s Guitar Summit
4 pm: Bria Skonberg
6 pm: Roomful of Blues
8 pm: The Charlie Musselwhite Band
The Mahwah Museum approached them about honoring Paul, the legendary guitarist and inventor. Sinatra?
“Virtually any song you can think of from the Great American Songbook, Frank has recorded. You can make almost any song a tribute,” Don Jay Smith said. Bucky Pizzarelli has those bases covered; he has performed with Paul and Sinatra.
And Waters’ legacy appears in good hands with Roomful of Blues and Musselwhite. While prior headliners have been guitar aces — Robben Ford, Johnny A., Matt Schofield — the Smiths had no qualms about topping the bill with a harp player.
“Not if it’s Charlie Musselwhite. He is a legend,” said Don Jay Smith, a fan since the ’60s. His wife booked the harmonica giant for a blues festival years ago when she ran Morristown’s Community Theatre, now known as the Mayo Performing Arts Center.
Which brings us to a practical question…
How, exactly, does someone like Charlie Musselwhite, drawing and blowing and bending (“choking”) notes on his Seydel harp at a hundred m.p.h., keep from hyperventilating?
“I never even thought about it,” he said. “It’s just what I do.”
Like breathing, in other words.
MORE COVERAGE OF THE 2015 MORRISTOWN JAZZ & BLUES FEST
Video: Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite at the White House in 2013
https://youtu.be/gLs2YoXSuRU
