The Beautiful Loser: Keith Ferguson: No Apologies, No Regrets by Josh Alan Friedman

The Beautiful Loser
Keith Ferguson: No Apologies, No Regrets 
by Josh Alan Friedman

This story originally appeared in the Dallas Observer dated March 28, 1996. It was reprinted in the Austin Chronicle dated May 9, 1997. It also appears in Josh Alan Friedman's anthology Tell the Truth Until They Bleed.

                                  With Harmony Bass in 1994 photo by Tino Mauricio

"I have to admit, there's a guaranteed future in dirty dishes, which there ain't in blues," Keith Ferguson concedes. "I seem to be the only one who regards himself as a professional musician. Our lead singer's a dishwasher in the back of some restaurant. If he put half the energy into booking our band that he puts into scrubbin' dishes, we'd be fartin' through silk. But he'd rather do dishes." 

Keith Ferguson, Austin's once-reigning blues bassist, and ultimate hipster, is out to pasture. His pasture is a rustic wooded estate in the hills below downtown Austin. His voice is a dead ringer for that of William Holden narrating Sunset Boulevard. Some wonder whether Ferguson's fall from grace was conspiratorial, orchestrated by the blues Nazis who run Austin. But prison wisdom dictates that you don't fuck with an old wolf. Hear Ye Whomever Keith Has Offended: He offers no apologies or regrets. 

Ferguson welcomes me to his front porch, the center of his universe. His current band is The Solid Senders. Fronted by the singing dishwasher, they rarely work. And Ferguson will only play cities south of Austin--or Amsterdam. With its sane drug laws, and with hardly any cops, crime, poverty, or AIDS, Amsterdam is a tailor-made utopia. The Solid Senders did a blissful tour there. Ferguson pines to return. 

"If I hustled up some job washing dishes in Amsterdam--hell, I'll supply the Palmolive--we'd be back in a shot." 

Ferguson, 49, was the founding bass player of both the Fabulous Thunderbirds and the Tail Gators, and played with a dozen Texas virtuosos in their formative years including Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Junior Brown. "He's a cracker's cracker," Ferguson says of his old boss Brown. "Thinks that Waylon and them are commie fags." Keith Ferguson keeps a band honest. When he departed the T-Birds, that band was ready to compromise and play the pop charts. 

No bass player ever layered so much bottom. Ferguson's trademark wasn't licks, riffs, slapping, or thumb popping--just a swinging elephant trunk of bottom underneath the song. This deceptive gift earned him a lower pedigree than "musician's musician"--itself a poverty-stricken but honorable curse. Keith Ferguson is a bass player's bassist.

But now, he is grand host of this dark, sun-proofed crash pad and halfway house for down-on-their-luck friends. Sweet old hippies and beautiful losers recline on his front porch to chew the fat, bird watch, and discuss the weather. Not that he wants them here; people sort of just move right in. Many who visit this front porch--be they from the dust bowl, barrio, or music biz--regard Ferguson as Numero Uno. 

Inside, walls are covered by roadside artifacts--South-of-the-Border Sammy and the Fabulous Erections are sneaking across the border for One Night Only--club posters from the Tex-Mex frontier circuit: Los Alegres de Teran! Los Tornados del Norte! Los Castigadores! Ferguson knew them all. His words contain sudden accents of Calo--street language of the pachucos he grew up with, a sort of Mexican Yiddish. 

A few years back, the house became knee-deep in such hipster compost, burying him alive in coolness. Live-in archivist Liz Henry led a mercy mission of volunteers that bulldozed through. Ferguson's worldly possessions were thus organized into three archival categories: "Negro," "Mexican," and "Other." 

Ferguson whips out his huge vintage Gretsch bass. "It's called the John Holmes model," he explains. "It's loud." He's healthy, proud, and fit in 1996, but reduced to playing the meat-rack clubs on Sixth Street. Still, some consider this miraculous. A few years ago, cats in Austin were predicting the end of this man's career, even his death. 

Flashback: 1992
Ferguson paces his pastoral porch, hunched backward, scratching, chain smoking, downing one cup of Kool Aid after another, looking like an old Indian. His body ails, and his tattoos have worn out their camouflage. A rooster claw adorns the front door, like wolfsbane. "Gotta keep the neighbors pacified." Next door lives a bookie for cock fights; a few doors down, an unlicensed bad-debt collector. A Mexican Day of the Dead skeleton stares through his window, with a sign: "La Plaza--Closed--Call Again." 

The Ferguson estate is verboten, like Castle Dracula, as few musicians in Austin will have anything to do with him. I make this road stop after my gig in town. A festive trio of German blues fans have also made a pilgrimage, but no music plays in this household. Ferguson's basses are all in the hockshop. Horst, Otto, and Gretchen are star-struck before Texas blues royalty, as Ferguson signs a few Fab Thunderbirds albums. The left-handed '52 Fender Precision bass that Europeans remember him by is long gone. He's a normal 180 pounds on the Chrysalis Records covers he signs, 130 now. 

Ferguson soberly inspects the festering tattooed arm of a young Chicano nodding out on the couch. "Gotta clean out that abscess," he advises, shaking the fellow. "You can die." 

Old hombres, in tank-top undershirts, are always present. They slink in and out, from another zone. Retired bullfighters, Ferguson tells the tourists. The old men study a black phone. They sit and wait. And watch. Then the phone rings once. Ferguson disappears with them in a supernatural eye-blink. No one says goodbye, ever. 

Musicians avoid the Ferguson ranch for fear of having their cars commandeered for a barrio run. During one visit, it is my job to drive Ferguson to some urgent destination. Though banished from the Antone's blues community, Ferguson is highly received in the Mexican ghetto like some kind of shaman. He was raised in the Sexto, or Sixth Ward, a barrio of Houston--the odd Anglo in a Mexican gang back in San Jacinto High, class of '64. Our ride, through dusty roads, conjures up childhood. 

Summers were spent with his grandmother in San Antonio, totally gaucho. "It was great in the '50s, pre-Beatles, before everybody had bands. There were only about eight bands in the whole area: Doug Sahm and the Pharaohs, Sammy Jay and the Tiffanaires, Eddie Luna. You had Mexicans, blacks, and whites in the same band, which was unheard of." 

Electric guitars were rare and exotic sights until the mid-'60s. "I remember hearing Dino, Desi, and Billy do 'Scratch My Back' on Shindig. Good, too. I was one of two left-handed bass players in all of Houston when I started in 1966--at the age of 20." 

Few musicians start so late. In high school, Ferguson had been tight with the best mariachis in town--heavy-duty lounge acts. A member of the Compians, Houston's leading Hispanic music-entertainment family, taught him to play. Ferguson turned professional mere days after first picking up a bass. He worked the Suburban Lounge, the Polka Dot, Guys & Dolls--Houston blue-collar joints frequented by characters from the Overton Gang and the Laura Coppe Gang. 

"They would rob places," he says. "They dressed like Mexicans, listened to black music, and hated both of 'em." 

"Where was your father?" I ask as Keith directs me off the main road through dirt alleys. 

"My father was a bum," he shrugs. "I hated him with a passion. He didn't live with us. I never saw him growing up. But he would be called whenever I was deemed unmanageable--hangin' out with someone with a natural tan. My mother would panic: 'You've got to talk to him, John!' 

"Once when I was 15, I was supposed to get a haircut but didn't. When he arrived, I asked him to get the hell out. He pulled me out of a chair by my hair. So I cut him with a metal rat-tail comb, the one with the end bent into a hook. Then I tried to get to my room for something better--my big Italian, spiked, carbon-steel switchblade. He managed to knock me out before I reached my room. My mother was shaking me, blubbering all over me when I awoke. 

"It was a nasty scene. I'd cut him in the throat, but unfortunately missed the carotid artery. I was a little off." 

Keith escaped from his bedroom window that day to gang quarters over an ice house, a place where Mando, Mario, Ladislado, Alfonso, and Parrot could crash, drink, smoke, and inhale paint. 

"The side of my face was bent out of shape when I showed up. They decided to kill him. I had to talk fast. He was my father. I said, 'He didn't really come to discipline me. Don't kill somebody for that,' 'cause they would have been caught in a second. My father was a white guy. They wouldn't have stood a chance. 

"They drafted the guys with a gang history out of my school into the Marines. The other option was jail. They were perfect cannon fodder, 'cause it was the ideal chance for them to become Americans if they fought for their country. But they came back with one leg and were still Mexicans. Most of 'em got killed in the war. Idiots." 

Keith was destined for Mexico, his spiritual homeland, not Canada, to evade the draft during Vietnam. A week before his draft-board physical, he tore the cartilage in his knee during a fight in Laredo. He got his deferment. 

It wasn't until Keith's mid-20s that he found out who his father was: John William Ferguson, concert pianist with the Chicago Symphony. Keith never even knew his father was a musician. 

"You ass-wipe," he told the maestro during their next encounter. "I've been beat, ripped off a thousand times playin' clubs. There's so much you could have taught me." 

After the Thunderbirds tore up the Houston Juneteenth Festival, being the only white band there, they received a four-page spread in the Houston Post. From then on, Keith's father began showing up at Thunderbirds gigs. 

"He would point me out to his friends: 'My son, the rock star,'" Keith recalls. "He picked up girls at our shows. Johnny Winter and Z.Z. Top sent their limos for him to attend concerts. After I left the T-Birds, I never heard from him again." John Ferguson died a few years ago. 

Keith directs my car through the barrio. Somewhere in these hills beneath Austin remain the last of the old pachucos, time-honored Mexican families who dealt heroin to Texas Hill Country junkies for decades in relative peace, until the era of crack arrived. The old-timers were overwhelmed, their quaint Norman Rockwell-era heroin days over. Colombians moved in with machine guns. 

Ferguson describes the current transitional wars, directing me through a Mexican shantytown. We finally reach a tin shack. Ferguson has been summoned to visit an old friend's dying boy. At least that's what I'm told as I wait outside in a spanking-new white Honda Accord. 

Sure enough, 15 minutes later, Ferguson emerges. A worried madre and padre follow, gratefully embracing him for paying his respects. This is Texas, not Mexico. I ask why the boy wasn't in a hospital. 

"They prefer their own medicina," he says. 

Back in Time
"This is about the only thing my dad gave me as a kid that I saved." Back on the front porch, Keith shows me a cherished, yellowed 1945 paperback by madcap cartoonist VIP. "This and a few old records. 

"People would kid me about my large collection of blues records. That's all I listened to--I was fanatic--that and Mexican stuff. Like in sixth grade, people would bring 45s to parties, but they never wanted me to bring my Otis Rush or John Lee Hooker records." 

Johnny Winter moved from Beaumont to Houston when Keith was in high school. "Since blues was all Johnny liked, these local musicians thought it would be hysterical if we got together: 'Let's put these two freaks, these two mutants together.' Johnny flipped out. He never saw that many 78s in his life. He had records, too, but I had more." 

Keith Ferguson began backing Winter at small lesbian bars like Club L'mour. Ferguson was dazzled by Winter's virtuosity--it was "alarming," he says now--and often had to tell himself not to stop and stare at his playing during the middle of a song. 

"We used to call him The Stork," Ferguson says. "Nobody messed with him. One night he knocked out an off-duty cop for callin' him a girl. I saw Johnny Winter fight many times, he was real strong and mean. He'd go until you quit breathing and couldn't hurt him anymore." 

Ferguson made Austin his home in 1972, after his stint with Winter had ended. He moved because the aggressive Houston Police made him uncomfortable--and he wanted into The Storm, Jimmie Vaughan's old band. After a brief stint, he joined up instead with Stevie Ray Vaughan and Doyle Bramhall. 

"Nobody wanted to hear us," Ferguson recalls. "Nobody." In 1975, Kim Wilson left Minnesota to play with Jimmie, and Ferguson rejoined. "We couldn't get arrested either, but we were doin' a helluva lot better than me and Stevie and Doyle did, locally. 

"It was the 'Cosmic Cowboy, Willie-Waylon-and-the-Boys' outlaw town then, but we were the outlaws. People wondered how we survived: 'Well, they never work.' We were so hard-core [blues], nobody knew what to do with us. But Antone's came along, sort of saved us. At least we could get some food. They served lots of po' boy sandwiches. 

"Muddy Waters heard us at Antone's. We fried him. We were told we sounded like his best band from the '50s, with Jimmy Rogers. We weren't trying to. It was innate. He went back North ravin' about us, and Jimmie started gettin' calls. So we got in our little van from Austin to Boston, nowhere in between. We started openin' for [Kansas City jump-blues revivalists] Roomful of Blues. Then it got to where they were openin' for us. People seemed astonished by us." 

The Fabulous Thunderbirds were the first white blues group that didn't look and play like hippies. The T-Birds took it back 20 years. Jimmie Vaughan exorcised all the rock-guitar innovations--as if Beck, Hendrix, Clapton, Winter, and Bloomfield never existed--and threw it back to a long-abandoned spare '50s Chicago groove, more authentic than early Stones. Countless guitarists took heed. Kim Wilson applied no fake rasp to his voice, no black affectations, no phonetic imitations of slurred words. He sang it straight. 

The Fabulous Thunderbirds spearheaded a reanimation that stabilized the course of blues, spawning back-to-basics bands that proliferate to this day. Blues cognoscenti even began to emulate Jimmie Vaughan's slicked-back hair and open-collar, 1950s rayon shirts, newly designed and imported from India by Trash & Vaudeville in the East Village. Ferguson's transparent camisas tripled in price at Austin clothing stores. "That's just the way we dressed in high school," Ferguson says. "The fashion of pachucos and thugs who've long since died--or gone double-knit." 

"Pretty soon everyone up in Boston wanted to be us," Ferguson recalls. "We still couldn't get arrested here in Austin, but we went from floors to motels in Boston. Everyone in the band but me wanted to move to Boston. They followed the record company line: 'You guys are fine, but all you have to do is change.' They think blues is a stone to step on to get somewhere else. 

"You'll notice each one of our records got more expensive to make--and more diluted, as far as I'm concerned. I thought we should have held out for an art subsidy, 'cause there wasn't anybody else out there doin' it except Roomful of Blues. But we were more primitive, playing like skeletons." 

Tuff-chick/hick blues shouter Lou Ann Barton was in the T-Birds for a spell. She even married Ferguson in Rhode Island, though their union lasted only a short while. 

"She told people she and I could be happy in a pile of shit," Ferguson says. "She kept a good house for a white girl her age. Since I was always gone, and she was fixin' to be, marriage would give us some sort of stability. But it worked just the opposite, blew us apart." 

It's whispered that the T-Birds were the only white blues band that intimidated the Stones, for whom they opened twice at the Dallas Cotton Bowl and twice at the Houston Astrodome during the 1983 tour. Pussy flowed, perhaps more abundantly than for any mere blues group ever. "I'm the only one in the band who actually talked with girls, too." 

Ferguson played bass on the essential first four Thunderbirds albums, as well as the Havana Moon collaboration with Santana. He was fired in the mid-'80s, around the period when the Thunderbirds switched to CBS Records, and began scoring on Top 40. Ferguson leveled a lawsuit at the T-Birds claiming owed money, refused to settle, and was trounced in court. To this day there is acrimony and scorched earth. 

Jimmie Vaughan and Kim Wilson would not discuss Ferguson for this article. Clifford Antone says nothing for the record, other than swearing, "Jimmie Vaughan and Kim Wilson never did anything to hurt him. You can't guess at this. It's too deep. Don't even try." 

Perhaps he was too bluesy, too primitive, too tattooed--The Illustrated Man, The Man With The Golden Arm--or couldn't cross borders. Maybe he got so hip, he just hipped himself right off the planet. Yet there were knock-down, drag-out shit-kicking fistfights between Keith and Kim. And these were distinguished, sharply dressed ambassadors of the blues. 

"They wanted somebody else," shrugs Ferguson. "That's what [Jimmie Vaughan] told me. Just wanted to do somethin' new. So I went lookin' for other work. I found it. Anyway, I quit drinkin' liquor when I left the T-Birds, and lost 50 pounds," he claims, as if that fact made the departure a good health move. But it was 50 pounds he needed. 

Break for ITT Tech commercial. A long-haired dude stands in a recording studio and preaches his testimonial: "I'm not a musician, but I work in rock and roll." 

"No shit?" mutters Keith Ferguson. "I'm a musician, and I don't." 

Another Day in Paradise

The legendary out-of-work bass player arises another day to click on Real Stories of the Highway Patrol. Commissioner Maury Hannigan, our host, represents The Man--every man empowered to break Keith Ferguson's balls. This fatherly, mature voice of law enforcement embodies everything that's ever kept Ferguson down--a sprinkle of absent and abusive father, perhaps a dash of 1960s draft board, a few shakes of burr-headed gym coach; the customs officers who make Ferguson miss planes; the Austin cops who ticket local musicians unloading amps on Sixth Street; narcs who've interrogated and beaten him, who couldn't give a shit how many landmark albums he played bass on. They all form a composite of this brown-uniformed, hair-dyed, show-biz cop. 

"Look, they're on a roll," observes Ferguson, as state troopers hunt down some truckdriver's roach. The next segment has New York's Finest surrounding a maniac, about to toss the Net--a humane method to capture PCP freaks. Ferguson sits transfixed as the maniac flails, rendered helpless. 

"That's nothin'," comes one of Ferguson's roadside cronies. "They got a blanket called the Wrap for smelly winos, so's not to befoul the back of the squad car." 

Commissioner Hannigan is back on the screen with contempt for everything Keith Ferguson stands for--the 17 individual lizard tattoos snaking up and down his right arm, his glistening "We don't need no steenking badges" gold tooth, his born-cynical sneer. Such cops were put on earth to make life miserable for Ferguson, a once studly rock star who now resembles a withering Aztec Indian, a poster boy of ethnic suspicion. 

Avoiding the Highway Patrol is one reason Ferguson doesn't drive. You want the legendary Ferguson on your gig, you gotta come fetch him. "I was drivin' alone in 1970, and this big voice came outta nowhere and said, 'When you get to where your goin', you need to quit, or you're gonna die.'" 

"Don't cop shows give you nightmares?" I wonder.
"No. We get stopped, pulled over, and humiliated for real." Ferguson was jailed en route to a gig with the Excellos several blues bands ago. He had moved a roadblock on Sixth Street to avoid a construction detour in front of the club. 

"Cops were staked out there, waiting to fight crime. They fucked with me the whole ride to the station about how I look. Textbook Batman and Robin pigology: Some little booger half my age, heavily armed, baiting me while I'm handcuffed, tells his partner, 'Would you mind takin' this down to the station?' Then he tells me, 'I don't know why you're pissed off. You're makin' $700 a night.' He thought it was a riot I only had 16 cents." 

I ask him if he has picked up any tips from Hannigan.
"Yeah," he responds. "Move, leave the country." 

"Do you hate the French?" inquires Ms. Legere.
"Only their gendarmes," answers Mr. Ferguson. 

On another day's visit, I drop by the porch with New York rock diva Phoebe Legere. She straps on her "squeezey-gut" accordion, about to launch into "La Vie En Rose." Ferguson lies on the hammock. Sweet Liz Henry, who organized his house, is slumbering on the couch. Others lie across the porch in various zones of consciousness. 

Il ne parle tous bas
Je vois la vie en rose
Ferguson opens one eye. Then the next.
"Oh, I like your smile," Phoebe says.
"Cost me 200 bucks," Ferguson answers. 

At the very last note of the waltz, absolutely on cue, the transformer near the top of a tree that intersects the roof begins to explode. Showers of sparks rain down on the porch. Hippies scurry from all points into the front door. 

Liz and Keith offer permanent residence to Ms. Legere. Some other fellow eyes the squeezey-gut, perhaps wondering how much it might fetch downtown at Rockinghorse Pawn. 

Ethnic musicians have a tendency to serenade Keith Ferguson, if only to watch his spectacular, gold-toothed smile. When the Tail Gators toured with Los Lobos, there was the unforgettable image of Los Lobos circled 'round Ferguson's hotel mattress one evening to awaken him for the stage. Each had their conjunto instruments--the bajo sexto, the guitarron--like mariachis harmonizing in Ferguson's beloved Spanish. 

It has been a few years since Ferguson sojourned to the guitar-making town of Paracho, in the pine-forest mountains of Michoacn. 

"I never had any trouble with Mexican customs. But America's convinced everyone's bringin' back tons of dope. Don't ever say you have a plane to catch. Believe me. You might as well just arrest yourself," says Ferguson, offering one more reason he now shuns touring. "When I came back on Christmas through Houston, I brought a custom-built bass. They took me in the little room in handcuffs, just hopin' I had a plane to catch, which I did, then went through all my stuff and got smart with me. They were dyin' to incarcerate someone on Christmas Eve, but they couldn't find anything." 

These days Ferguson prefers watching the Mexican soap opera Calienas De Magura (Chains of Bitterness), starring Daniella Castro, five days a week. It's set in San Miguel de Allende, his favorite town. 

Hawks & Doves

Ferguson formed the Tail Gators with Don Leady in 1984. The next five years would be his favorite stretch in a band. He co-wrote "Mumbo Jumbo," the title track to the group's best album. He says now he loved every minute of being in that band: making more money than he ever had in his career, and being able to trust his bandmates when it came time to split the take. 

"You could trust everybody, [and] you got your money--a lot of it," he says now. "Don was always writin' new songs. He'd play it for us once, then we'd cut it. That's the way we did records. We worked our asses off, the physical labor of playing all night onstage. I'd be happily replete--drained--each night. Then 700 miles to the next gig. We never had a roadie. But after a while Don fixed it to where I carried a bass, Mud Cat [Smith] carried a snare and symbols, Don carried a guitar, and the clubs would furnish everything else. We'd fly to Boston, rent a car, and drive to Maine. I didn't have to pay any other creatures." 

Yet, Ferguson says, he receives no royalties, "not enough to get cigarettes," from his acclaimed albums. "I got a big check the other day--three dollars and 22 cents--from BMI. Then I got a letter from [Nashville publisher] Bug Music sayin' I owed them money. It's surprising how niggardly everyone connected with the music business becomes over money. People tell you you're important, but apparently not important enough to give you money you've earned." 

And then, Ferguson feels the weight of banishment from the entire Antone's blues community. Hubert Sumlin, Howlin' Wolf's old guitarist, once asked Ferguson to back him on a record that was supposed to be released by Clifford Antone's blues label. Ferguson insists Antone won't release the record because Keith is on it. 

"[Clifford] just hates me," Ferguson says. "He told somebody once he can't meet a girl anywhere that doesn't like me, and it pisses him off. He redid that book, Picture of the Blues, just to get me off the cover. Me and Kim and Jimmie and Muddy Waters. They redid the cover just to get me off of it. They couldn't get me out of it, just off of it." 

"Keith is a real musicologist," Clifford Antone says. "What made us friends was his love for the most lowdown music that existed." But Antone denies that the Sumlin record remains unreleased because of Ferguson, he denies omitting Ferguson's mug from the book cover, and will discuss nothing on record about their bitter relationship. 

So all Ferguson's got now is this woodsy refuge surrounding his old front porch. His reclusive mother has her own home on the grounds, as did his grandmother, who recently passed on in her mid-90s. No matter how much his profession shuns him, Ferguson remains patriotic about the land. He loves the hawks flying overhead, the snakes that fetch rats, the ecosystem. 

"I kept hearing someone screaming, 'Fuck you, fuck you,' deep inside my walls," Ferguson says. "I thought I was having a nervous breakdown the first few weeks." Ferguson released several gecko lizards under the house for insect control. "I'd be shaving, and suddenly from within the wall something would shriek, 'Fuck you, fuck you!' I'd whip around and cut myself...It was the geckos! 

"They emit this uncanny shriek that comes out as 'fuck you' in English. They're indigenous to Laos and Cambodia. Freaked out our boys in 'Nam who thought they were Cong, cursing from the trees--'Fuck you, fuck you!' But they eat roaches, rats, mice, and do an amazingly efficient job. Don't leave over anything, no blood or tails. They breed like Catholics, grow up to 20 inches over the years." 

"Aren't they also a delicacy in Southeast Asia?" asks a porch hippie.
"Delicacy?" comes Ferguson. "Doesn't that word usually mean something on a stick that shouldn't be there? Something's balls, or brains?" 

"They call him Chago."
Ferguson sits on his porch, beatific over bajo sexto player Santiago Almeida, or "Chago," heard playing on a scratchy Narciso Martinez conjunto record from the 1930s. It's simple folk music, but Ferguson rides some low wave underneath, inaudible to most human ears. "Listen to that tone," he says. 

He leads me into his bedroom to show his new bajo sexto. Though he's hesitant to fess up, it's a Keith Ferguson model. Built on his design, he named it the Rodando. "This is the cheesiest one of the bunch that were made. Keith Hofner owns the company. A Mexican luthier now makes 'em with truss rods and contours. No two are alike."

Bajo sextos please Ferguson immensely. But they are transient, like visitors to the house, or old girlfriends. For years, Austin players have spotted his bass guitars sadly hanging in hockshops. 

"I always got 'em out myself," Ferguson says. "Or else I left 'em. I don't know where people get the idea you gotta play the same bass forever. One guy bought my '52 Fender Precision, took really good care of it. I borrowed it for that Solid Senders tour to Holland, then gave it back. I brought it to watch people's reactions. It freaked 'em, because they remembered the bass, but they never seen me lookin' like I do now." 

Keith Ferguson does the only sensible thing when an old tattoo fades: He gets a new one over it. A feathered serpent Aztec god adorns his left elbow-to-wrist. The 17 lizards, resembling Escher prints, run up his right arm. 

"I got most of 'em so I'd remember where I'd gone," he explains. "I used to play so many different cities, everyone was so screwed up and tired, they wouldn't know where we were. But I remember gettin' each tattoo, where I was at the time, 'cause that's the thing that lasts, innit? You look down at your arm and think Spokane or Atlanta or Toronto or Seattle or Austin..."

Keith Ferguson passed away on April 29, 1997.

Josh Alan Friedman is author of Tales of Times Square, When Sex Was Dirty & Black Cracker: An Autobiographical Novel.

A Couple Of Monkey Songs...

Here's two Monkey Songs that came to our attention today...

On what would have been his 78th birthday, here's a young rockin' Jim Dickinson singing 'bout the "Monkey Man." 
(James Luther Dickinson, Nov 15, 1941 – August 15, 2009) 

Next up, from 1970, it's "Monkeys Out Of Men" on the Starday label by Charlie Collins, "a country and bluegrass guitarist, who died on January 12, 2012 at age 78. Had been in Roy Acuff And His Smoky Mountain Boys from 1966 until Acuff’s 1992 death." 

Both of these are pretty great in their own ways...

Dickinson with a full-on-assault stompin' rocker like Little Richard or Slade might have done (mixed in with some New Orleans/Memphis soul). It's hot!!!  

Charlie Collins recorded some albums later on in the '70s with Brother Oswald for Rounder Records, but here he's the henpecked country dude singin' slightly off-key (just the way we like 'em) about his woman troubles and such.

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (in 4 parts)

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is a 1968 American film adaptation of the Carson McCullers novel of the same name. It was directed by Robert Ellis Miller. It stars Alan Arkin and introduced Sondra Locke, both earning Academy Award nominations for their performances. The film updates the novel's small-town Southern setting from the Depression era to the then-contemporary 1960s...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heart_Is_a_Lonely_Hunter_(film)

The Night-time Hi-jinx of Arnold Layne

From Chapter 24 magazine.

(via: http://iggyinuit.tumblr.com/post/174699964735/from-chapter-24-magazine)

"Vince Taylor" television documentary BBC 2001

 "Vince Taylor"  television documentary BBC 2001 (pt.1 of 2)

vince taylor was one of the very best singers the u.k. has ever produced...a fantastic showman in every way he was a man you never wanted to follow on stage...brand new Cadillac was one of THE best singles ever released anywhere from that era...this doc.showcases the man with thrilling live performances that leave you in dis-belief that this man never was a huge star! he had it all...


 "Vince Taylor"  television documentary BBC 2001 (pt.2 of 2)

sad second half of this wonderful doc on brit rocker vince taylor who's sad demise left a gaping hole in british rock history....


(via James Marshall)

The Moving Sidewalks saga (with Hendrix & more) [REPOST from 11/14/09]

From: http://thesweetestpsychopath.tumblr.com/post/236155437/the-moving-sidewalks-founded-by-billy-gibbons-in



From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_Sidewalks

The Moving Sidewalks was an American psychedelic blues rock band, most notable for giving future ZZ Top guitarist, Billy Gibbons, his start in the music business. The band consisted of Gibbons on guitar, Don Summers on bass, Dan Mitchell on drums and Tom Moore on keyboards.

Gibbons founded the Texas psychedelic group in the mid-1960s and quickly drew a large following, especially among the Houston "teen scene". They recorded several singles and one full-length album, Flash. Their single "99th Floor" was well received and topped the charts at No. 1 in Houston for six weeks. The success of this record led the Sidewalks to sign with Wand Records which then released "Need Me", also a Top 10 Hit for the band. The group was asked to open for many rock tours, including Jimi Hendrix and The Doors.

After Tom Moore and Don Summers were drafted into the United States Army, Gibbons and Mitchell added Lanier Greig and formed the original ZZ Top. They recorded the first ZZ Top record, “Salt Lick”, which was released on London Records.

While attending Warner Brothers' art school in Hollywood, California, Gibbons engaged with his first bands including The Saints, Billy G & the Blueflames, and The Coachmen. By 1967, Gibbons returned to Houston and went forward forming an artfully designed band, conceptually inspired by friend and fellow musician, Roky Erickson and The 13th Floor Elevators. The "Moving Sidewalks" name was chosen and shortly thereafter 99th Floor. Around this time Gibbons had developed quite a camaraderie with the legendary Jimi Hendrix. As a guest on The Dick Cavett Show, Hendrix would later be quoted as saying that Gibbons was slated to be the next big thing as a guitarist. The Moving Sidewalks continued to appear along with the 13th Floor Elevators at the short-lived yet legendary Houston psychedelic venue, Love Street Light Circus at Allen's Landing. The Elevators set was cut short by Houston Police who arrested the band's lead singer Roky Erickson for marijuana possession.


From: http://thesweetestpsychopath.tumblr.com/post/236220997/the-moving-sidewalks-only-album-flash-1968-a


The Moving Sidewalks only album ~ Flash (1968)
A Texas psych/garage monster !
Billy Gibbons ~ guitar, vocals & harmonica, Don Summers ~ bass, Dan Mitchell ~ drums and Tom Moore ~ keyboards.


From: http://thesweetestpsychopath.tumblr.com/post/236422595/the-moving-sidewalks-pose-for-a-portrait-with-jimi

The Moving Sidewalks pose for a portrait with Jimi Hendrix whom they had just opened for at the Municipal Auditorium on February 15, 1968 in San Antonio, Texas. Jimi Hendrix gave the Pink Fender Stratocaster he’s holding to Billy Gibbons. Gibbons told Guitar World in 1985, ” He said the color pink was not conductive to burning, so he gave it to me and said, Play on brother…”


The Moving Sidewalks ~ 99th Floor (2:17 ~ 1967)
The Billy Gibbons penned single “99th Floor” was a hit and topped the charts at #1 in Houston for six weeks. With Gibbons doin’ two lead guitars, vocals, a killer scream, and harmonica solo at the end, it’s a certified psych classic.

The Moving Sidewalks ~ Pluto - Sept 31st (5:13 ~ 1968)
A Hendrix influenced rocker featuring Billy Gibbons doin’ some cool backwards guitar and a groovy scream too !!!

The Moving Sidewalks ~ Flashback (4:46 ~ 1968)

The Moving Sidewalks ~ Scoun Da Be (2:07 ~ 1968)

Hound Dog Taylor Interview (Circa 1974)

WES RACE INTERVIEWS HOUND DOG TAYLOR circa 1974!

Wes Race - Hound Dog, when did you start playing?

Hound Dog Taylor - In 1935 around Tchula, Mississippi

WR - Who'd you see and who were your influences?

HDT - All Of Them. Names like Elmore James, Lightnin' Hopkins, Jimmy Rogers, Skip James and I saw John Lee Hooker. We all came through there together.

WR - Where'd you play, in what type of places?

HDT - No amplifier's or nothing like that. We just played in the house; Called it Barrelhouse.

WR - Why'd you decide to come North?

HDT - Well that's a different story you see. At that time a colored man didn't have no breaks. If anything would be said about a colored man that's what white men would do with it. It was a lie in the first place. About five hundred of them around my house lookin' for me. It was about a white woman. So I cut out. Straight to Chicago at 41st and Indiana around '43 or '44. I been here ever since.

WR - Was it hard trying to adjust yourself to big city life.

HDT - No, I didn't have to adjust myself to anywhere. I've always had a mind of my own cause I raised myself. See I didn't have no daddy, I had a step daddy when I was nine years old he put me out; so, I've got my own mind. People say this and that, how come the whites don't like the black, anbd black don't like the white. Well, I got my own mind; everybody's alright with me. I never had no problem. When I was a kid I'd hit the highway down south with my guitar on my back. I played for whites and I played for colored. See ain't nobody ever done me wrong. Everybody seem the same to me. Just like I look at you. Person to person you know.

WR - So how'd you get up to Chicago?

HDT- Took a Bus. From ten at night til seven in the morning. I'd hid out and laid down in the highway by the weeds. I got on the bus and went to Memphis and sat on a little bench you sat in on that side where the Negro is supposed to sit They had soft seats with a lot of space on the white side. 

WR - Why'd you come to Chicago?

HDT - My sister was already up here. So I got off at Rooosevel t road. Rode down to her street on some of them red street cars. The old ding dong ones.

WR - So you worked a couple years up here didn't you?

HDT - I worked at an ice cream factory on West Madison for about three years making butterscotch. Went to Americn Television til about 1957.

WR - "Who were some of the musicians you saw up here in Chicago in the early 1950's."

HDT - "Muddy Waters was on Ashland at the Zanzbar." Little Walter was with him and Jimmy Rogers too. Boy, they had the place jumping. & 35th and Indiana, Smitty's Corner, was jumping too. The Plantation was on 31st where the Original Sonny Boy got killed. And there was a place upstairs on 47th where I met Little Walter. Around that time I worked with a harp man named P.T. Hayes. He weighed 260 a great big cat. We played on the South side mostly. 

WR - Did you ever get over to The Blue Flame?

HDT - Yeah, I played there along with Buddy Guy and Magic Sam. Buddy Guy was playing there, I was playing down the street at a plac called Peppers. Buddy was sittin' outside playing; he had one of those long chord things. I told Buddy I" got a cat that can tear you up." He said bring him here. We went to the West Side and got Magic Sam. Magic Sam came over and tore him down. Ever since then we Been buddies. Anytime you see Buddy Guy he'll say "where's Hound Dog at?" Magic Sam before he died that cat could natural born wail. He was one of the best. After that day they were buddies and they knew that one couldn't mess with the other cause he coldn't do nothing with him. And I went in their with my little junk and tore them all down. Now I'll tell you one thing - Where you go people can play a whole lot of guitar but they don't put anythng in it. When you're playing music and you play the way I do , you watch the people's feet behind the table. If you're playing a tune and nobody's doing anything but look at you then you're not getting to them. Stop it take another tune and when you look under the table and see them people pattin' their foot When you see that foot movin, man, you keep it there. You can play so much guitar til the strings jump off. But if you aren't gettin' to the people you ain't doin' nothing. Wen you see that foot a movin' you got it made. That's what I look for. I've walked into a place where cats are wailing down and nobody doin' anything you know. I don't care what you do. You can blow your breasts out and make a guitar and you won't get a hand no way. But when you get them movin' you can make a mistake, cover it up,and they'll still be with you. Now you take this boy over here on California and Madison Guitar Jr. (Lonnie Brooks)) Now he's like me. He'll play a song about two minutes. But he'll keep playing til he finds out what the people's wants. And that's where he'll keep it at. He's been there about four years, he's been doing something right.

WR - How Long have You Been Playing At Florences Lounge?

HDT - Since 1968. And on Sunday's it's so crowded you can't get in. You see when I first started playing,about about two to three people came in. Next Sunday 10 or 15. Then 25 -30. She was losin' money at first but she kept it up. The average Negro if he doesn't make a thousand dollars right then no deal he won't take it. 
 
WR - When did other musicians start coming in?

HDT - About six months after we started the crowds started coming in. They'd come in and try to take me. And the more they tried to take me the more they were building the place up. Until Florence dies I'll be there. Some cats would go in there and try to play under me(for less money) She still wouldn't do it. She said I got my band with Hound Dog. Some people, after you build their place up, will let you go for a cheaper band, But the crowd is gonna fade away Because they don't want to hear that band yo hired. They want to hear the originals. So boy when I came up from Mississippi I was ready.

WR - How'd you get your nickname Hound Dog?

HDT - Well that's another story. Say, you don't want that in the interview case it was bad. You know if you do somethings wrong then they'll say something about you. Just like if you were going with two sisters how'd you feel? 
 
WR - How do you write your songs like "Give Me Back My Wig."

HDT - I just lay in bed at night. Now I got a new song "Sadie." I was just layin' in bed at night asleep and sat up and looked around and I could hear it so good like somebody was playing it. Then I got my guitar and I played it. I heard all my songs coming at me in my head. Now you take this boy Elmore he beat me to Chicago. He put out all my stuff, I did that stuff in Mississippi. He went to school for music like B. B. King. After he heard me he changed his style. People say I play like Elmore. Well he plays like me. I been playing that way all my life. Now I'll tell you one thing. You find me anybody that can pull a slide like I can. Cause I been doin' it all my life. I can pull slide like nobody's ever heard about. The average cat can't do that. Now you take John Littlejohn he plays some of them couuntry blues songs but he can't make it.

WR - What about some of Chicago's other Slide Guitarists?

HDT - J. B. Hutto can play some of it. but sometimes he's weak on it. Slide's gotta be strong. If you don't now what you're playing it can mess you up. Now take Homesick James but he sometimes gets off and it's hard to get back on. Earl Hooker now he can play just like B. B. King do. Earl Hooker was good. He was next to me.
  
WR - What do you think of soul music?

HDT - Good, yeah I love it.

WR - Then why don't you play it in the clubs?

HDT - See, I don't have anybody to play it with. Brewer Phillips can't play soul music. Now Ted Harvey can drum it. See, I just put my tremolo on & I can sing it alright. Now if I had a bass man. But right now I got two guitarists and a drum. If I had a bass man too I could play it just like anybody else.

WR - How do you feel about white guys playing the blues?

HDT - I'll tell you one thing that cat from overseas (Long John Baldry perhaps) real big cat came down to Peppers, he didn't have no shoes and he had a buddy of average size they're the white blues I heard. They was outasite. Now as far as white people playing blues, they havn't got that Oooomph or that thing to it. They can play it but something is gonna be weak the voice or something They're getting to it though. The white is turning black and the black is turning white. You take the average Negro nowadays he's playing something out of his style And the white is coming into Blues. I'll tell you one thing if the Negro keeps on messing up the white is going to take the Blues from the Negro. And that's all the Negro has left for him is the Blues. If he gives that up he won't have nothing left man And the Negro can play the Blues, Jack. Cause he's had the Blues all his life. That's his only style You go over to where I'm working tonight and some cat'll try to get up there and sing something he doesn't understand himself. You take B. B. King. He's about the biggest blues man in the world right now. He's playing his music the Blues. So you stay with your style and you got it made. Look at Louis and Dave Myers. If Lois would really play the Blues he'd be out of sight. Look at what he plays though. Don't nobody come around him. He ain't playin' nowhere. When he gets on stage He doesn't play his style he doesn't know what he's doin'. So when you play the Blues you can get high. Now you take Count Basie or somebody note reading this thing or Louis Jordan (he couldn't note read either) but they were playing a different style but it was their own bag understand. So you can take somebody else's tune but change it to your own style.

WR - You've mentioned that you played piano.

HDT - I first started out playing piano in Mississippi. Used to haul it on a flat wagon and keep it in a picnic lot. The only trouble is you can't carry one of them big Grand's with you to save your life. I started playing guitar cause you can take it anywhere you want to take it. Piano's too heavy, you put it on your back and you ain't goin' nowhere.
  
WR - How do you like the piano players you're hearing in Chicago today?

HDT - Otis Spann was about the best. Now this bushy head cat who played with me this summer (Big Moose Walker) is real good. Sunnyland Slim is real good. But his music hasn't moved since 1931. Just like my guitar player now Brewer Phillips. He just plays 1932 on up.

WR - You mentioned efore that you played with Blues ladies?

HDT - That was in the 1950's with Big Maybelle out on Kedzie Avenue. But it got so bad they had to let them go. You know how colored peple is. I played with her about two months. Last time I played with her was out on South Chicago at the Clock Lounge. Willie Mabn's playing out there now.

WR - You like playing for white audiences? 

HDT - Yeah, I want to get up on the north Side so bad it's pitiful. You know where we were that Sunday. Up at Alices Revisited on Wrightwood. I think Johnny Twist might e playing there now I wanta go north so bad it's a cryin' shame.

WR - What about when you were over in Europe?

HDT - Yeah it's real nice but you can't have no fun. Over there they talk about coming to the states to have some fun. But over there you don't know nothin' brother. Fun's out of the question. All you do is go play your gig go back upstairs in the hotel and go to sleep, or look out the window. You make a little money. If you go to the lobby they'll just look at you. Nobody comes to you and says 'come on let me show you the town.' They come over here and there's aways somebody to show them around. When they come here they've got a better break than we've got over there. Room cost 50 to 60 dollars a night and just stay four hours. Now Hamburg Germany is the best place you can go. Hamburg's alright. You can meet a ot of friends there you know. Now the rest of the paces are okay but they'll talk to you and you'll beat your brains out to understand what they're saying. You can't order anything to eat or a shirt to wear and always have to call somebody in to understand what they're talking about. When yo get on the bandsand and play all they go by is the music. Cause they don't understnd what you're saying anyway. Now they like the sound they go for it. If you put the music to them and they like it boy you got a standing ovation....

WR - Who Went To Europe With You In 1967?

HDT - Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry, Skip James, Bukka White, Koko Taylor, Little Walter, Odie Payne, Mahalia Jackson and her group a whole bunch of us.

WR - Who was the best harp player you've ever heard?

HDT - Little Walter, that's it and that's all of it brother! One thing, now people say you can't take it with you, well he sure took it with him. A whole lot of people say Shakey Head Horton, Big Walter, was best but he couldn't touch him. See Big Walter ain't got the Ooomph but he could blow don't get me wrong. Now Wolf can blow his thing but he doesn't have it. Little Walter can blow anything any tune he wanted. Now Willie Dixon is taking 'Horton with him everywhere he goes but he's using the man. I'd used to work down here at Rose & Kelly's & I'd put something on Big Walter he couldn't take. Now over seas with Little Walter when I'd shake it he'd take every drop of it. If I pushed him he'd pull it right back to me. If you put it on Shakey head too much he'll get mad and quit. Now young Carey Bell's bad too. Carey's got a different thing of his own But he wants everybody to stop and let himblow his harp. Sometimes when he let's himself down you can fill in but he don't see it. If you get too loud he'll stop blowin' and turn around and look at you. If he makes a mistake it's alright cause I cover it up. I can take my slide and cut that harp anytime I get ready. Little Walter wouldn't do that. The harder you played the harder he'd blow that harp. We was in Frankfurt Germany - Koko Taylor was singing, Little Walter looked at me and I can always get a nod you know. Walter looked around at me and I taken off, Koko was messin' up. Somebody had to take over. When I hit about four bars I put it down then Little Walter took off. Koko got mad, she turned around and started off the bandstand. The man in charge talked her into going back up but when she got back up there they started throwin' paper at her. But she was wrong, after Walter had taken over it was going to come back to her anyway.

WR - When you first recorded your 45's how'd the record companies approach you?

HDT - I was playing for Cadillac Baby on 47th and Dearborn and so he said "Hound DogI like that song. I want you to put out 'My Bab's Coming Home' and 'Take Five.' I said 'anytime.' So the next week we went down to Jackson Street on the third floor and we had a whole audience just like a tavern and I was pretty high anyway; we'd had a fifth of whiskey. Oh Man, we had a ball. The man recording the thing was out there drinking with us too and we about didn't have time to cut the thing so Cadillac said come one let's cut Hound Dog while he's feeling good. I went down and cut some for Chess before he died. But you know Chess he'd got so big he got everybody he already wanted. After he died Willie Dixon tried to run it bt he wasn't educated enough. You've got to have good sense for them things. His son came in and I cut a few things for him ("Sittin' All Alone" "Watchout" "Down Home Special") with Shakey Horton, Lafayette Leake, Willie Dixon, Lee Jackson and others. 

WR - I think your drummer Ted Harvey's one of the best drummers around. How come he's never recorded before?

HDT - Yeah he is about the best now. Fred Below's goin' down. He drinks too much. He can't hold his whiskey now. Below used to be the best in town. Now as drunk as Ted gets he shuts his eyes and keeps chewing that gum. He can work out for you. As long as he hears you he knows exactly where it's at and what's to be done about it. Now take Phillip he's good but he doesn't know where it's supposed to be at when he gets drunk; he's out of it. He's liable to do anything or go anyway.

WR - Where'd you meet your present band at?

HDT - I met Phillip arond August on West Madison. Ny son Leo, he plays guitar, some of the best you ever heard, Leo Taylor. We were playing and Phillip was in the alley drinking whiskey. I asked my son to come play with me and he said 'I don't want to play but I got a boy that's good. We went out and found Phillip sitting outside near a post drinking whiskey. I worked him that night and the cat was pretty good.

WR - Where has yor present Houserockers group played in the city?

HDT - Everywhere! We played on live Broadcast's for Bg Bill Hill at The Copa Cabanna Club. We left there and went over and broadcast over on Cicero. One night we broadcast way south of the city at The Phoenix Club but they couldn't hear us on the station. Big Bill Hill used to be big in Chicago.. Everybody was listening to him in the day time. But all you can do is hear him at night now. I think he messed up with hs boss man. So they gave him a rotten deal lettin' him broadcast late at night when everybody's supposed to be in bed. They oughta forgive him if he'd apologize. When he was on the air he told the boss where to kiss at.

WR - Will you ever go down South again?

HDT - If Bruce my booking agent sends me down there. I won't go on my own. I ain't been South since the 1940's. It's different now. I wouldn't have no problem down there though. At that time back in the 1930's and 40's it was rough. When I was down there I picked cotton for about two years. Then I started chauffering I first drove a tractor. When you'd put me on a job I'd work. I burned up the man's tractor. So he flagged me down and yelled "cut if off." Then I started driving a truck. Finally I got to chauffering with white shirt and necktie. I wasn't getting paid nothing about two to three dollars a week. From sunup to sundown. After that trouble started I had to cut. You see, his son before he was married I'd drive for him at night. He was courtin' this chick and I would take them in the hills and everywhere. And she would have a buddy. I'd take them to parties. I couldn't go in you know. I'd sit out in the car. And this chick kept runnin' to the car. So I had my jug with me; corn whiskey you know. One night she came, out opened the door, and jumped in there. There wasn't no difference. I don't know who detected it. Somebody must have been outside so that's where the trouble started and I had to cut. I took them home but next night with all those people around it was out of sight. I was in the woods looking at them.

WR - Were were all your friends at that time.

HDT - Ain't no friends about it. Nobody'd back you up. Everybody'd run like scared rabbits. That time a white man could go into your house grab your woman even if she was sick, drag her out of bed, and make her go out in the field. And you better not say nothing. Now that's why it's so bad right now. See a lot of people up here are from Mississippi and they'll take it out on white men up here when they oughta be taking it out on people down there. Take you now. There's a lotta blocks you can't go on here. That's wrong. Why get hard on somebody you don't even know? At that time you couldn't even speak to one. But I played for them around Lexington and Durant. They'd come and get me sayin' "Boy come on." When I'd get tired I'd go in back by myself and drink my whiskey. They were doin' the barn dance then jumping up and down like fools. Looked just like monkey's kickin' their heels. Then they'd take me home. But I didn't mind it as long as I got my jug no way. Sometimes they'd give me two dollars that was big money. Sometime people don't understand that a Negro's got a different mind, they don't see it. It'll be a thousand years before they educate them the way they want them to be. Some Negroes, once they get educated, just try to help themselves. If he knows more than I do he's gonna keep me down there. They say on Tv that a Negro's gonna be President. No, not in the next Thousand years. Ain't no way possible. Some Negroes ain't got no sense. They just get mad at you and shoot you. I wouldn't even vote for a Negro for President cause if he was elected the world would go upside down.
  
WR - What about if Martin Luther King was alive?

HDT - Now that's a different story. Look here, Martin Luther King could have run it but he didn't have the weight behind him to do it. Now you take Jesse Jackson. He's pulling the people's leg, man. Jesse Jackson's a con man.. He talks about everything under God's sun except negro neighborhoods. They'll throw paper and cans around and bust your window, steal your battery, then knock you in the head. He won't say anything about it. He won't say let's get together. Let's stop this. Let's try to be human beings. If all the people didn't know me you couldn't come over here, they'd run you ragged just because of your color. I haven't heard him say anything like that. You take a man who's got five or six kids who get jumped on walking home by them big hat son of a guns called the 'Panthers or The Black Stone Rangers how'she gonna eat? Jesse hasn't said nothing about that at all.

Many thanks to Wes Race...