Sam Myers, The Blues is my Story Read online

  went ahead and started catching gigs with different musicians. I played the drums when I could, and did less and less on the trumpet. But I

  still know the scales on the instrument.

  I kind of got into blues by accident. I had started out with the

  trumpet and drums, and I liked the big band sound, horns and all that stuff. I listened to a lot of records, and the people who I listened to back then were Louis Jordan, T-Bone Walker with the guitar, Wynonie

  Harris, and then the rest came natural. I kind of gradually got into the blues after I had been spending time in Chicago. I would always rely on learning, getting a great inspiration from the people I would see doing the things I was taught to do.

  Like many of the musicians in Chicago, I played on the street.

  One of the most famous places in Chicago at that time to play was

  Maxwell Street. Robert Nighthawk, the Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters,

  Little Walter, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Hound Dog Taylor, the whole host of musicians played Maxwell Street. They had matinees on Saturday

  and Sunday. That was a big thing in the whole area of Chicago because a lot of the musicians that you heard on records, they played on the streets during the daytime to pay their rent and stuff because they

  made a lot more doing that than when they was playing the clubs.

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  They would play the clubs at night and some of them, if they had a

  recording session to do, they would divide it between the clubs, the recording studios, and doing the street scene.

  I jumped right into the street scene because it didn’t matter what

  age you was. It was a fight between being a kid going to school during the day and playing in a club like a grown-up at night. But the classroom, and playing on the street, it was a whole different thing. I would play the street when I would be out of my class in the afternoon, and then if I didn’t have a heavy assignment or nothing to do, then I would play a club at night. A lot of the students did this, and there was a lot of music played on the school campus. A lot of the guys, that’s all they would do. They’d go to school by day and play the clubs at night, and then a lot of them had just certain days when they would go to school.

  The rest of the time they would have off and do what they wished to do.

  That was basically the same as I was, but I really didn’t have any

  real strict assignments that I couldn’t get out right away because I had a time of day when I would do certain things. After my classes, if I didn’t go right to the street scene, I’d do what studying I had to do.

  Then I’d go play the streets for maybe a couple or three hours, then go back and do my studying again, then go into a club with a guardian. It wasn’t like going to clubs today. Someone in the band would go with

  me to play, as a guardian to see that nothing happened to me and to

  vouch for me to get into the clubs.

  It wasn’t much of a problem to be without good vision in the

  school. In the music classes, they would play the arrangement for me, and I could do most or maybe all of the stuff from memory. It would

  look hard, but by me being surrounded by music like I have for the

  biggest portion of my life, well, it was easy. I was quick to catch on, knowing what the tempos was and the part that I was supposed to

  play. It really wasn’t a big deal. But the biggest problem that I had was playing music with bands that wasn’t equally as good as I was, you

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  know what I mean? When they had the sheet music right there in

  front of them, it looked as if they could just go ahead and jump right into it, because it was right there in front of them to read. But a lot of them would get sidetracked on that. And then a lot of times I would

  have to catch myself. A lot of them would be wondering how was I

  doing it, and they’d be concentrating on what I was doing versus what they were supposed to be doing. Saying how could I do this and do it just as good or better than they were doing, and I couldn’t see how to read it.

  But even nowadays, people look at it like seeing is believing. Well, that’s true. But if you depend on your hearing, that’s a big, important part also. If you hear an arrangement, you lock that into your mind, then the next few bars of the song or the rest of the song, you have all that locked in, and you don’t forget that.

  I couldn’t have gone on to a musical career if I hadn’t attended

  the American Conservatory of Music. I could have played music, but

  I couldn’t have achieved the career that I have over the years. Piney Woods was at the beginning, and the American Conservatory played

  a big part in it. It still is one of the most powerful schools for musical knowledge. I was there for four years, but I didn’t have any particular instructors that stick out as being that important, because I looked at it like instructors were just being instructors, doing their job.

  Of the other students there who had an impact on me, the late

  Wayne Bennett sticks out. He came from Oklahoma City. He played

  guitar with Bobby Bland and a lot of other guys, and he did some

  work with Elmore James. We were close friends. Lou Rawls wasn’t a

  student there, but he was a good friend of mine. Chicago was where

  he was born and reared. And he was really into gospel. He went out

  to the West Coast and sang with a group called the Pilgrim Travelers.

  He would travel back and forth to Chicago from Los Angeles. And

  there was Sam Cooke, from Clarksdale, Mississippi. At that time, he

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  was singing with a group called the Soul Stirrers. Then they renamed themselves the Chicago Soul Stirrers. He and Lou Rawls were two of

  my best friends.

  In March 1952, I happened to be over at a club called Silvio’s when

  Elmore James dropped in. He had just recorded a Robert Johnson

  tune that was a big one for him, “Dust My Broom.” He was working

  on some more material, but he couldn’t get a drummer to do some

  gigs with him there in Chicago. A lot of the people who recorded with Elmore had day gigs and recording sessions already booked, so they

  wouldn’t be able to make a tour with him doing the Chittlin’ Circuit.

  So this friend of mine, Odie Payne, he told Elmore, “Now I know a

  gentleman from Mississippi, he might would take the gig, but you

  got to treat him right,” just like that. Elmore said, “Yeah, man, a guy from Mississippi, you know, naturally I’ll look out for him, ’cause

  that’s where I’m from.” Odie said, “Well, he could very easily play your stuff. He blows trumpet, too, but you’re in search of a drummer.” Odie asked me did I want to take a shot at it, and I said, “Well, I’ll blast a few with him.” So I sat in with him, and that’s how I got the gig, playing with Elmore off and on throughout the rest of his whole career.

  I did gigs with Elmore for the next four years. We worked around

  in Chicago and sometimes we went out on the Chittlin’ Circuit. Even

  though I was sixteen or seventeen at this time, I was pretty big for my age, and when me and the band would walk in together, nobody paid

  me much attention. Sometimes, a club owner might ask about me if he

  looked and thought I might be a little young. One of the band would

  vouch for me with a piece of paper saying he was my guardian, and

  after we paid the union fee, everybody was happy. I never did have to sit out a gig because somebody said I was too young to be in the joint.

  As time went by, I guess I was about eighteen or nineteen, I

  formed my own group called the Windy City Six. I had sat in with

 
different people during a few club dates by then, playing drums and

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  singing. Then I quit playing the drums, and I sang and blew trumpet

  for a while. We were doing tunes that Louis Jordan and T-Bone Walker did. They were two favorite guys that was in my corner, that stuck in my mind as far as being up into the music world.

  We were playing a weekend gig at a club called the White Rose out

  in Phoenix City, near Chicago, when a well-dressed gentleman walked

  backstage after we took a break. He booked the clubs and he was also a well-known DJ. His name was Sid McCoy. He came back and said,

  “Young man, T-Bone Walker was here about six weeks ago. Louis

  Jordan was here six months ago. Everybody remembers that. You are

  here tonight and supposedly the whole weekend. Who are you? Oh,

  I know you are Sam Myers, but musically, who are you?” That put

  another thorn in my crown, when he asked me that. He said, “Well,

  I just wanted to give you some food for thought.”

  I went back and got the guys together in the dressing room.

  I said, “Now, what we need to do here, y’all play like you been playing all along, we’re not really going to be faking nothing. Play the same song, ‘Chicken Shack,’ and just look to me for the words.” I did that and made it into my own song. Another one of them I did, and I very

  seldom do it now, it’s called, “These Young Girls Are About to Drive Me Wild.” It was an upbeat thing, swing, and the people went for it.

  So we did that same show the whole weekend, and on the last night

  I was coming off stage, getting ready to go back to the dressing room, and Mr. McCoy stopped me in the middle of the floor. He caught my

  arm and said, “Young man, let’s go back to the dressing room, I’ve got some things I want to pull your coat about.” When we got back there, he said, “You did good. What I told you Friday night, it was just something for you to think about. But it seems like you’ve got everything together. Now, we were talking with your manager and we’ve got you

  another booking here starting next week. We’ve got you three weeks

  in a row.” I said, “Oh, really?” He said, “Yes. What I meant about the

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  music that you were doing, regardless as to what you do by somebody

  else, it’s not yours unless you add your own touch to it. You can’t make it your own by doing it the same way somebody else did it. You got to put your own thing to it.”

  And that stayed with me up until the age that I am now, which is

  seventy years old. And I’ve passed that advice along to a lot of musicians: regardless as to what you do by somebody else, or whatever

  tunes you cover, unless you roll it out in a blanket of your own, you haven’t done nothing.

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  C H A P T E R 5

  CHICAGO AND

  JACKSON FAMILIES

  Sam’s career as an itinerant bluesman didn’t lend itself to much of a

  “normal” family life. But he still found time to fall in love once or twice and even fathered four children. Unfortunately, he has not kept in contact with most for them; he has even lost touch with his son Willie Earl, who lived in Mobile, Alabama, with Sam’s father, Ollie, until Ollie had a stroke in 2003. Willie Earl has had some problems with the law, and Sam has lost track of him.

  There’s a girl who lives in Chicago who I know cared more for me than I really did for her, not that I didn’t care for her. Her name is Doris Grisham. We got a little girl together, Sandra Faye, that’s our daughter’s name. I have four kids all told. I haven’t been feeding to the masses a lot, you know; I’ve planted a few seeds and they came up.

  That’s as close as I ever came to getting married, with Doris. I was too much of a hoofin’ horse back then.

  I never see my children anymore now. I haven’t been in touch with

  any of my kids in a long time. It’s kind of a little hard for me, since I

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  don’t deal with e-mails and with writing a lot, and a lot of their telephone numbers I don’t even have. That’s just the way it goes.

  The oldest is Sandra. She should be a little over fifty. She was

  about the only one who I was really close to. She grew up in Chicago, and later she went to California and Stanford University and became

  an accountant. The second child was a boy. His name is Willie Earl.

  His mother was just a chick I was hanging out with. She just got

  caught up in it and throwed him in my basket, you know. His mama

  was named Willie Mae Fleming. She’s dead now. He’s somewhere

  down in Alabama or Mississippi. I haven’t talked to him in a long

  time. Those two kids are the only ones I was for. The other two, I

  know them but I don’t ever be around them. Their mothers don’t

  blame me and I don’t blame them. So I’ll just leave it with Sandra and Willie Earl. They are the two who would be present and accounted for just in case that I croak.

  My daughter’s mother, Doris Grisham, I had a hundred chances to

  marry her, but I didn’t, and right to this day she’s not married either.

  Sandra, the last I heard, she makes her home in California and goes

  from there back and forth to Chicago. That’s where her mom lives.

  She is the only one of my kids that really seemed like she tried to make something out of herself. I don’t know why, but I’ve just been somewhat like a semi-black sheep to my family. I never was around any of them much, because I was into a whole lot of different stuff than they were. Music is something that has been a very dedicated thing in my

  life. It’s just that I never was around. I went away to school and wasn’t around that much. For me, it’s been a life like a drifter, so to speak.

  Being a musician, I also was a disc jockey, and I met Doris com-

  ing out of the radio station one day after she had dropped off some

  advertising for Spiegel, where she worked. A girl that worked there at the station, they were good friends. This girl was also a DJ. She worked in the office and had a tape commercial for Doris. After I got through

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  doing my show, I came out to the hallway out of the control room,

  and she introduced me to Doris. I said, “Let me hear that tape com-

  mercial you made.” She said, “Hmph! He don’t seem to be interested

  in meeting nobody.” I said, “No, I just want to hear the commercial. If you have time, I’ll talk with you.” We just sat and talked for a bit, and we hit it off pretty good. She listened to a lot of music, but I was the first guy that invited her out to where live music was being played. She listened to a lot of records and used to go to a lot of big shows and the opera at the McCormick Convention Center. But to be invited to a

  jazz club or where they played blues by local people around Chicago, she never did that. I was going to school and working at Chess

  Records, selling records in their storefront and doing the music scene, too. After about six months we was pretty close to being an item,

  and she knew nearly every musician that I knew because every time

  she would come to a club I would introduce her to them. She got to

  know Willie Dixon pretty good. I wasn’t interested in getting married myself, but I asked her one day, “Doris, would you ever get married?”

  She just told me without even hesitating, “No, and if I don’t marry

  you, I don’t guess I’ll ever get married. Whatever you do is your business, but I believe that we’re going to be together until we decide that we don’t get along and don’t want one an
other.”

  I think a lot about that now.

  There was a gal I was seeing besides Doris, and one Sunday we

  were all getting ready to go to Gary, Indiana. I put my little girl, Sandra, up in the front with Doris, who was driving, and then me and the other woman got in the back seat. I didn’t care. We were going

  along and Doris, I noticed, just kept moving her parasol around, one of them big steel-handled ones. We were coming out of the Dan Ryan

  Expressway, and in the middle of all the traffic, Doris suddenly pulled over to the side of the road and said, “Get out of the car!” I said, “Oh, why?” She said, “You heard me, get out of the car!” She started crying,

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  and I know there’s something wrong whenever you see that woman

  cry. I was slow about getting out of the car, and she reached back with that durned umbrella and she hit me—whop!—with the steel handle.

  And even with the way that traffic was moving, the other woman

  hopped out of the car and just went running. We were going to have

  a showdown right there, when the woman run off and the little girl

  hollered, “Run! Run! Run! Run, Miss Mabel, run!” You know how little kids are. Doris said, “Now, get back in the car!” I said, “Well, are we still going on to Gary?” She said, “Yeah, I just wanted to show you that you wasn’t as smart as you thought you was.” So I got back up in the front seat with her and the little girl, and we went on.

  Her mom and I raised Sandra while I was living in Chicago. She

  was real smart, real good at her books at Austin High School. I don’t know to this day how it happened. Austin High was a long ways from

  the neighborhood where we lived, but she went back and forth to

  school out there every day. When she was fifteen, she could ride the El and the bus transportation system just like any grown-up could. She

  was basically a good kid.

  The last time I actually saw Sandra was about fifteen years ago.

  We were playing in Chicago, and she happened to come by the hotel

  where I was. We couldn’t even have dinner or anything together,

  because I was getting ready to go to the club, and she was getting ready to take a flight back out to California. She was doing good, still single.