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The love of music is a powerful thing. It cuts across racial,
socio-economic and international boundaries unifying music fans all over
the world. Music from Chicago, especially the blues has been a calling
card for the city of big shoulders since the mid-twentieth century.
Several generations of Chicago blues musicians and record labels have
taken the music and its message to the world. From Muddy Waters, Howlin'
Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson and Big Bill Broonzy to Buddy Guy, Junior
Wells, Koko Taylor and Otis Rush, Chicago based blues artists have made
an impact. Now there's a changing of the guard as a younger generation
of performers reach middle age and become the face of Chicago blues to
the world.
One such artist is Ronnie Baker Brooks, who with his brother
Wayne, was raised under the influence of their famous father,
internationally renowned blues man, Lonnie Brooks. Lonnie is retired now
but the Brooks brothers have taken the blues baton into the next
century. When we talked with Ronnie recently before his new record
release party and show at SPACE in Evanston, Illinois, it was inevitable
that we would speak of the past as well as the present. The near future
is bright for Ronnie as well with the release of a fine new album,
Times Have Changed, and a
starring role at the upcoming 2017 Chicago Blues Festival in June, which
will relocate to Millennium Park for the first time. We found a quiet
place backstage at SPACE before the show and began to talk.
Greg: You just
got back from The Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise. How did that go?
Ronnie:
It was awesome man. I had the pleasure of spending my fiftieth birthday
on a cruise with a bunch of blues musicians and fans so it turned out
great!
Greg:
If you like what you are doing, that's the main thing.
Ronnie:
I love it but I can feel a difference. Where I used to be the young guy
in the blues all the time here in Chicago, now you see another
generation coming up. I can see the older generation fading away a bit
and now it's my generation with another coming. It's an adjustment for
me though.
Greg:
Do you have the experience of
talking to people now who are not as aware of your father, Lonnie
Brooks, and are more focused on you?
Ronnie:
Most of the people know my dad. It is seldom that I meet those who don't
know.
Greg: He cast a
long shadow for quite a long time. I have this vintage Capitol Records
compilation from
the late Sixties which includes a song from your dad, who was billed
back then as Guitar Jr. The name of the song is “Broke 'n Hungry.”
Ronnie:
I played that record to death! I grew up on that one and I know it like
the back of my hand. That was one of the first songs I tried to sing,
“Broke 'n Hungry.”
Greg: It was a
long time between that record and the albums he did for Alligator
Records years later.
Ronnie:
He did some singles in between. There was one for Chess Records, “One
Sunny Day” and “Let It All Hang Out”. It was a local hit here in
Chicago. Then he got with Alligator and did four tracks on the
Living Chicago Blues series
of albums before recording his own solo albums,
Bayou Lightning,
Turn On The Night,
Hot Shot and
Wound Up Tight.
Greg: Did you
play on any of those records?
Ronnie:
I played on the live album recorded at BLUES, Etc. in Chicago called
Bayou Lightning Strikes. That
was the first record I played on in 1987. Thirty years ago. I wasn't
technically in his band but I was that night.
Greg: Such a
great memory there. Let's talk about your new record now. You released
your previous albums on your own label.
Ronnie:
Watchdog Records.
Greg: Taken from
a song title on your dad's Bayou
Lightning album! But now you have an arrangement with a Dutch label,
Provogue for your latest. So is this a one-off kind of thing?
Ronnie:
We're going to see how it goes. We've got some options and we'll see
what this one does. This is the first time I've teamed up with another
label. They are from the Netherlands and they have a strong presence in
Europe. And are getting a decent one here in the United States.
Greg: I first
saw Provogue's name on an album that guitarist Robben Ford put out. Or
at least they distributed it because that's the way it is these days,
right?
Ronnie:
The game has changed. Times have changed! I'm just happy to have some
help.
Greg:
People love American blues over
in Europe.
Ronnie:
There is a little more appreciation over there because they know you may
not come that often. Here in Chicago you've got tons of musicians and
you can say I'm not going out tonight, I'll go out next week and catch
something. Over there it's more of an event. I better catch him because
I don't know when he's coming back. They treat you pretty good over
there. But there's no place like home (laughs).
Greg: It's true
and that's gracious of you to say that. But of course we know that
African American musicians have been treated better over in Europe for
years or at least in the past when things were worse.
Ronnie:
Yes, as you know Greg, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and Led
Zeppelin were playing what's right around the corner here in America.
Greg: They
couldn't wait to visit Chicago and see Chess Records.
Ronnie:
They opened up the doors.
Greg: It's been
ten years since your last record,
The Torch -- passing the torch from one generation to another. But
because things have changed so much you're not so focused on doing new
albums all the time these days. Yet you have been busy the last ten
years.
Ronnie:
I've been working man, producing. I produced two or three records. Eddy
Clearwater's West Side Strut
on Alligator in 2008 and another group out of Holland. I did an album
with Eric Davis, a guitar player from Chicago here who got murdered
about three years ago. I produced about two or three songs on his album.
He was an up and coming figure here, gone too soon. I did a record with
Tommy Castro, Magic Dick from the J. Geils Band and Deanna Bogart. We
did two or three years of touring together after meeting on a blues
cruise. I just had another opportunity to do something like that with
Big Head Todd, Billy Branch and Mud Morganfield. We did a disc called
Way Down Inside, all Willie Dixon songs and toured from September to
December of last year.
Greg:
Times Have Changed, your
brand new record has the feeling of having been recorded over a number
of years rather than just being pushed out in the studio in a relatively
short period of time. How many years?
Ronnie:
We started the record in January of 2013.
Greg: This album
just goes through a lot of different moods. It's not just a straight
contemporary blues album. You got your soul and rhythm and blues roots
in here. There's your original songs and a lot of cover versions too.
It's a lot of fun to listen to. You've got two Joe Tex songs, “Show Me”
and “Give The Baby Anything The Baby Wants”.
Ronnie:
I grew up on Joe Tex. I couldn't wait to see him on Soul Train.
Greg:
To start the album, you've have the legendary Steve Cropper's
guitar solo on “Show Me”!
Then you go into a solid original song called “Doing Too Much.”
Ronnie:
Me and Todd (from Big Head Todd & The Monsters) wrote that one here in
Chicago.
Greg: And that's
not about somebody trying to do too many good things, right?
Ronnie:
No, you're doing too much, you're asking for too much attention.
Greg: On many of
these tracks, you are not under any major time constraints. You let it
groove for six minutes, six and a half minutes, whatever...
Ronnie:
That's (producer) Steve Jordan, man. My first time working with him and
he's a groove master (laughs). And he let it go the way it goes.
Greg: Did you
just meet Steve?
Ronnie:
No, I met Steve when I did the first inaugural for President Obama. It
was right after they did the film Cadillac Records (based on
Chess Records). Steve was the musical director for that movie. The actor
Jeffrey Wright who played Muddy Waters in the film wanted to put on a
Chicago theme inaugural party in D.C.
Shemekia Copeland was on the show and she connected me with
Jeffrey and Steve. They brought Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin and a host of
other musicians from Chicago. Steve was the musical director for the
party too and that's how I met him.
Greg: Steve goes
way back anyway...the Blues Brothers and also Keith Richards' band
X-Pensive Winos.
Ronnie:
He knew my dad and tried to get my dad on the David Letterman show back
in the early Eighties.
Greg: Steve was
in the band on the Letterman show.
Ronnie:
Yes, the World's Most Dangerous Band with Paul Schaeffer. They were bad
too. Steve did John Mayer's records and Buddy Guy, Robert Cray...I gave
Steve a CD back then and said I'd love to work with you. Then we ended
up doing the next inaugural party! Mayor Emmanuel put on a Chicago show
in D.C. Me, Buddy Guy and Keb' Mo. Steve came in for that and that's
when we started doing this record. He's a walking encyclopedia. He knows
his gear and the music. Who played on a song and what they had for
breakfast that day! (laughs).
Greg: Back to
the album, your remake of the dusty “Twine Time” is like an instant
party!
Ronnie:
That was one of the key songs from the whole session for me. We were
down in Memphis at Royal Studios, Willie Mitchell's studio and I'm
caught up in this dream. Lookin' over here we've got Willie Weeks on
bass, all these great musicians, Charles, Leroy and Teenie Hodges from
the Hi Rhythm Section on Hammond organ, bass and guitar, and Michael
Toles also on guitar. Steve had asked me what cover songs would I like
to do. The first one I wanted was “Old Love.” I wasn't thinking when I
said it because Steve was playing with Eric Clapton at the time (that
the song was originally recorded) and then I said we can't do that song.
He was yeah, we can do it.
Greg: Eric and
Robert Cray wrote that song together (for Eric's
Journeyman album).
Ronnie:
And then Steve asked me to name any other songs I'd like to do and I
said I love Curtis Mayfield, I would like to do “Give Me Your Love” from
Superfly. Angie Stone came in
that day and we cut the track. She started out as a rapper and then
became a singer. She was on the show
Reality Divas. But she was
telling me her dad was a blues musician so I was honored to hear that.
After that Steve said we need an instrumental. I'm thinking Freddie King
or I wrote several instrumentals. But he said nah, we need something
broader that people can recognize. How about “Twine Time” by Alvin Cash?
I looked at Steve and said, c'mon you're kidding me!
Greg: That's
from the Fifties or Sixties, isn't it?
Ronnie:
The early Sixties, yeah. I knew Alvin, he used to come down and see
Billy Branch on the South Side. That was his thing, what you call your
walk on song. But we got into the groove man and Michael Toles was in
the studio. I just hit a
chord and you could feel it gellin'. Steve was like yeah Michael, keep
playing, that's happening! I could see Steve and he could see me but he
couldn't tell if I was playing or not. Michael said that's not me, I'm
still tuning up! Steve said, Ronnie, that's you? He got up off his
drums, came in the booth with me and said, that's what I'm talking about
man. Let's groove that. And that just generated another energy for me
and made everything go a little easier. To be honest, I was a little
intimidated working with Steve Jordan with his history and I'd never
recorded at Royal before either.
I feel like I
connected with Steve right there and that song “Twine Time” was key.
Greg: You can
hear your dad talking at the beginning of this track too.
Ronnie:
When we got done recording it, I said to Steve, we gotta get my dad on
this because he was probably in the studio when they cut the original.
He was friends with Alvin Cash, they used to hang out with Muhammad Ali
together. Steve asked, how are we gonna do it since dad was here in
Chicago and we were in Memphis. So I called Big Head Todd, he was living
here at the time and I asked, get my dad to your house, cut this track
and send it back to us. That's how it happened.
Greg: Is your
dad's guitar on it?
Ronnie:
Yeah, he's playing solo on it. At the end of the song, we are trading
off.
Greg: Then we
get to the title track, Times
Have Changed, with that “The Thrill Is Gone” blues ballad kind of
feel. You keep going, putting Al Kapone with the rap on there and it
totally works. Perhaps this is not an album for the blues purist who
only wants to hear a certain type of thing. It's so cool that you do a
variety of styles on this record.
Ronnie:
Thank you man. If you listen to all my previous records, all of the
elements for this album are there. We just amplified it a little more
here.
Greg:
Times Have Changed is the
title and the obvious centerpiece of the album. How did it come about?
Ronnie:
I was on tour with my dad when I wrote it. We were riding down the
highway. That was right when computers were becoming more popular and
the game was changing as far as emails, texting and downloads. That had
an effect on me when I was recording my first record. I saw people
making these play lists at home. They took a reggae song and a blues
song, then maybe rock, R&B or soul and made a play list to listen to
while driving around in their cars. That was my thought back then.
That's why I put all these different styles with different sounds into
my albums because those are the sounds I grew up listening to and
influenced me as well. My dad was a walking jukebox. He had to play
whatever was on the jukebox back in the day so what he had to learn, I
was listening at home too. That was my concept. I wanted to keep it
authentic enough for the blues people but fresh for the younger folks. I
previously cut “Times Have Changed” for my “Take Me With You” album. I
recorded an acoustic solo version of it. I showed it to Steve and he
loved it. I wasn't thinking about strings or a rapper.
Greg: It's got a
B.B. King ballad kind of feeling with the strings.
Ronnie:
That was the thing that made the song blossom after that for me.
Greg: There's
people out there who say they don't like rap or hip hop but when you can
fuse those styles together with blues or jazz, it can really work
sometimes.
Ronnie:
It's like the Hamilton play. Same thing they are doing with that.
Greg: What you
are doing with “Times Have Changed” might reach a different generation
that you wouldn't get otherwise.
Ronnie:
Yeah, times have changed!
Greg: Has Al
Kapone been successful as a rapper?
Ronnie: Yes,
he's got a huge following and is from Memphis. He's one of the icons
down there for rap. Al was on my last record,
The Torch, as well.
Greg: “Times
Have Changed” is kind of an instant classic. If it could only get the
radio exposure and get out there somehow. If you could get it in a film,
who knows?
Ronnie:
Well, thank you man.
Greg: Then on
the heels of the title track, you've got another great sounding extended
track, “Long Story Short.”
Ronnie:
I wrote that coming from a club here in Chicago. I was hanging out and
talking to a friend of mine. It was like, we all got the blues. I could
sit here and tell you about them all day long. But to make a long story
short, I got the blues! I heard that and it was like, whoa! I
immediately picked up my phone and put it in. When I got in the car,
going home, I wrote the song.
Greg:
Then you get back to Joe Tex but in a very James Brown kind of groove
for “Give The Baby Anything The Baby Wants”. Big Head Todd is back with
you on this one and so is Eddie Willis, both playing rhythm guitar. Who
is Eddie?
Ronnie:
He's one of the Funk Brothers from Motown from back in the day. One of
the original Funk Brother guitar players and he was in the documentary,
Standing In The Shadows of Motown.
Greg: The eighth
cut on the album is “Old Love” which begins with an opening vocal from
the legendary Bobby Blue Bland. How much does he sing on this track?
Ronnie:
He sang the first verse and half of the second. Then I came in with the
chorus.
Greg:
Bobby was older of course at
that point. Was he sick then?
Ronnie:
No not yet but five or six months later he passed away. He got sick
right after we did that. He was battling for his life in June or July of
that year when he finally passed.
Greg:
I remember playing Eric Clapton's recording of “Old Love” on the radio
from his Journeyman album. A
great ballad.
Ronnie:
I did that song at a place called Bugsy's in Highland, Indiana where I
used to play every Thursday when I first started out. It was a great
platform for me to develop, playing with a band and trying out songs.
That was one of the songs that I would do and people really gravitated
to it. My mother heard it and she was like, ooh I really like that song.
So I thought I have to learn that song, my mama likes it and I like it!
I said if I ever record any covers, I would like to do this song. And it
worked out that we got Bobby to sing it with us.
Greg: Was that
easy to get him to do it?
Ronnie:
Yes, once he knew Steve Jordan was involved. I'm also friends with
Bobby's son, Rod Bland and had met his wife, Willy Mae on a blues cruise
I did together with him. And of course, I knew Bobby through my dad for
years, they knew each other since the 1950s. He heard I was doing the
album with Steve in Memphis, just a hop, skip and a jump away from his
house. He said I'll be there and it worked out.
Greg: Now the
album's next cut is “Come On Up.”.I'm an old Rascals fan but I didn't
notice the title on your album cover at first. Then I heard it and it
was like, wow, it's the Rascals. A great song that really gets you
going.
Ronnie:
The “Come On Up” session was in Nashville. We did half the record in
Memphis and half in Nashville at Blackbird Studios. (Original Rascal)
Felix Cavaliere lives there and so does Steve Cropper. We also did the
Joe Tex songs in Nashville. We got guitarist Lee Roy Parnell to stop by
the studio and play as well.
A really nice man. I ran into him at Gibson Guitars just lookin'
around and he was there.
Greg: That was
another connection. And you have the Memphis Horns on the album too. Ben
Cauley passed since then. Jim Horn is on here too. He used to be in
Hollywood for a long time but he's in Nashville now. The rock and pop
music industry has moved there over the years, not so much of it is in
L.A. like it used to be.
Ronnie:
Keb' Mo is down there too.
We wrote a song together “Wham Bam, Thank You Sam (cut number 10). It's
about a woman who's got her own money, job and home who says, hey, I
don't need you to do all that for me, all I need is “wham bam, thank you
Sam and go home!”
Greg: You close
the album with an original song, “When I Was We,” an interesting
sounding title. What was the inspiration for this?
Ronnie:
I was down in Miami years ago and ran into a friend of mine who had just
broken up with her boyfriend. And I asked what happened with you. She
said, when I was we and I was, whoa, she was thinking of herself when
she was thinking of him. And I'm thinking, that's a song there. I went
to my hotel room and wrote it. That was a long time ago and I did a demo
of it. I cut it for my album
Golddigger with Jellybean Johnson who was the producer. It didn't
fit with the rest of the songs that we had, so I saved it. I sent it to
Steve and he said, I love that song, let's cut it. So that's how that
came about.
Greg: So this
album, Times Have Changed
contains clips and snippets from a number of years that you collected
and put together into one really cohesive album. It's kind of a history
of soul and R&B combined with the blues.
Ronnie:
I wasn't trying to do that but it turned out that way. I knew we were
trying something a little different. Why get a new producer and do the
same thing I've been doing? I wanted to come with a different approach
and see what we could come up with. Even Jellybean who produced the
previous record was like, baby brother, it's probably time to try
something else. Just to keep you interested and to push you. It
definitely pushed me, working with Steve Jordan and gave me a sense of
confidence.
Greg: Do you
think you guys will work together again?
Ronnie:
I hope so.
Greg: It
definitely worked, no doubt about it. The album came out January 20th.
Ronnie:
Just three days before my birthday!
Greg: It's too
soon to see anything on the blues music charts but as we have said, it's
so different now anyway.
Ronnie:
Times have changed!
Greg: Anything
else?
Ronnie: The main
thing is the new record. I'm very proud of it. You can pick it up on
I-tunes, Amazon or go to my website (see link below). We've got a link
to send you where you can get it. This is the first time I've done a
vinyl record. I'm very proud.
Greg: Well you
should be. It's been in my car CD player for the last week. As a matter
of fact, it's still there now. It's great to meet you and thanks for
talking to us today.
Ronnie:
My pleasure, thanks man.
F
Greg Easterling
holds down the 12 midnight – 5 a.m. shift on WDRV (97.1 FM) He also
hosts American Backroads on
WDCB (90.9 FM)
Thursdays at 9 p.m.
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