Original Poster From 1981 Boomtown Concert Featuring BB King, Millie Jackson, Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland.
*If God ever made a better blues singer than Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, then He surely kept that singer for Himself.
There has been ‘no better blues singer on this planet’, ever, period, end of story. On Sunday, June 23rd at his home in Germantown, Tennessee, a suburb of Memphis and surrounded by family, Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland passed. He was 83.
And in his passing, ironically enough as we’ve just left the month of June and the celebration of ‘African American Music Appreciation Month’, Mr. Bland’s contribution to the authentic American legacy of blues, has few peers. With his unique and pitch perfect vocal interpretation of what became the blues musical classics, it could be said with little or no contradiction, that Mr. Bland vocal eloquence lifted the musical songs of the blues from a music that had always brought comfort and pathos to the spirit of black Americans from the earliest and darkest days of slavery to a total embrace of the blues by the entire world. Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland was to the Blues what Frank Sinatra was to Pop.
On Sunday, March 29, 1981 at the then Summit Arena in Houston, Texas as the stars of my “‘Boomtown Blues’ Concert”, I had the unique honor and pleasure of presenting Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, B.B. King and Millie Jackson in what was a historic coming together of three of the most storied artists in American musical history. Dale Adamson, music critic for the Houston Chronicle writing in the March 31st, 1981 edition of the Houston Chronicle stated, “King, Jackson, Bland deliver soul-satisfying concert.” Of Bobby Bland’s performance that evening, Adamson wrote, “Bland eased unhurriedly through classics like, I’ll Take Care of You, Drifting Blues, Stormy Monday and an especially compelling rendition of St. James Infirmary, letting the deep gurgle, which is his trademark, seep into his voice only occasionally, but effectively.”
On that sultry Sunday evening on March 29, 1981 in Houston, Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland simply and as he always did throughout his career enthralled the audience. As a page in musical history, I knew something special was occurring with these three incredible performers, but few of us realized just how extraordinary these collective performers were at the time. And in the intervening decades, Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, BB King, Millie Jackson and hundreds of mature blues performers continue to enthrall audiences.
Before several thousand in attendance at the ’81 ‘Boomtown Blues’ concert, Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland captured the audience with his unique vocal delivery on “St. James Infirmary”, “Ain’t No Love in the Heart in the Heart of the City”, “Cry, Cry, Cry” and one of my personal favorites, “Stormy Monday Blues.” Bland and King performed a King classic, “The Thrill Is Gone”, during that evening’s performance, and for me and those in attendance, it just couldn’t have gotten any better.
Bland’s arrival at that moment in 1981 as his songs were filling the radio airwaves not only on the rhythm and blues stations, but his music was finding an enormous crossover audience as well. Equally, mainstream audiences had begun to discover the brilliant musical delivery of Bland’s blues. And increasingly rock performers that for several decades had looked not only to blues for artistic inspiration in their own songs, but eagerly covered the great blues songs as their own while paying homage to some of the greatest artists ever, the blues singers. American legendary recording and performing artists such as “The Grateful Dead” and “Van Morrison”, according to the New York Times, covered Bland’s “Love Light” and “Ain’t Nothing You Can Do”, respectively. The 60s British musical invasion to America of rockers such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones that redefined popular music at the time were nothing more than a homage to the great black American blues artists of the 20s, 30s 40s, 50s and 60s. Even later European performers continue to draw inspiration from the Blues and the awesome music of Bobby Bland.
Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland Receives City of Houston Proclamation Following 1981 Boomtown Blues Show from the Late Councilman Judson Robinson, Sr.
And the likes of “Bonnie Raitt” and “Simply Red” today and dozens of other white performers who can play the blues as well as anyone alive can count on huge audiences at any of their concerts as they dig into the Blues and Rhythm and Blues songbook. Audiences simply love the blues and the artists that perform this remarkable and uniquely American creation.
It’s an indelible and undisputable fact that black Americans developed and produced the classical music that became during the early 20th Century, ‘the Blues’. The architects of this wonderful American cultural legacy include the great Jelly Roll Morton and WC Handy who often engaged in slightly more than friendly discussions on who actually invented the ‘Blues’ as it became known in the early 20th Century.
The African American artists that sang the Blues literally reads like a who’s who of American pop culture. But, by the end of World War II, the black American who could certainly take the lion’s share of expanding the audience for the ‘Blues’ that had long been a part of African American culture art form was Houston native, Don Robey.
Robey, as I originally wrote in June of 2012 for EUR, “Don D. Robey, The Original King of Black Music: They Call Me ‘Mister Robey” was the business genius behind ‘Duke’ Records that truly brought Bobby Blue’ Bland to audiences around the world. With the superb musical production brilliance of trumpeter and arranger/composer, Joe Scott, Bland’s musical output not only flourished and hit a major chord with music lovers, some of the greatest hit singles of the era evolved from the production and arrangement skills of Scott and the business acumen of Don Robey. Add to that the one of kind vocal stylings of Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland and the results were some of the greatest blues songs of all time.
Bland was as comfortable with a jazz, pop standard, rhythm and blues or blues melody and delivered it flawlessly in the studio and in concert.
Yet, an interesting phenomenon began to develop in the 50s and 60s and until today that still defies any rational explanation. As the music of Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland continued to become top sellers under the leadership of Don Robey’s astute marketing and business acumen, black Americans wherein the whole blues legacy had begun almost immediately upon arrival in the US as slaves in the 1600s began to turn their back on the blues. Many Northern urban blacks seemingly believed that the ‘blues’ was not an upscale music in which they wanted to be associated. It was ‘gut bucket’ and restrained to the then ‘Chitlin Circuit’. It was the music of the ‘unwashed’ the reasoning went. It was a music that black professionals in their rush to emulate the mores of, what they believed to be the cultural tastes of white Americans wanted little to do with a cultural art form that their ancestors had cultivated and developed. And ironically enough, many whites were listening to the ‘Blues’; to ‘Cream’, ‘Pink Floyd’, ‘Blood, Sweat & Tears’ and ‘Chicago’, just to name a few were all offering up the ‘Blues’.
As the more urbane music of Motown, Philly International and the Chicago Sound, etc., began to dominate radio airplay during the beginning of the 1960s through the advent of the Viet Nam crisis, Blacks, with the major exception of a large majority of Southern blacks simply and for the most part had abandoned the blues.
Millie Jackson Was Featured Artist on the 1981 Boomtown Blues Show
It was a befuddling occurrence in that black American performers from the earliest days of slavery had nearly single handily developed the blues as an art form. Yet, by the 60s, black audiences were abandoning the purchase and support of the ‘blues’ as it seemingly was gaining in popularity among white audiences. Over the next two decades into the 80s and as black radio morphed from small AM radio stations that religiously promoted the ‘blues’ and the likes of Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland to the newer FM 35,000-100,000 mega watt Urban FM stations’ output that reached a larger market, this new radio format that began to dominate Urban markets almost gave the death knell to the blues.
The Urban FM radio format sought to skewer from the older black radio stations that had colorful radio personalities who had a long history of promoting the blues as a radio playlist. The newer Urban FM format sought to distance its playlist from the blues artists to more of an upscale sound. And this new upscale sound on black radio dropped the blues artists such as Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland and BB King. The new Urban FM radio offering targeting a growing and affluent black audience had no interest in the continued support of the great black blues artists.
Illustrative of this new Urban FM sound were KDAY in Los Angeles and KISS FM in Houston during the 70s and beyond. What made KDAY and hundred of similar program format stations around the country was that it was now impossible to tell the difference with the on-air DJ personalities with that of a Top Forty radio station where the target audience was mostly white. Black slang, street creed and colorful language (never foul language); that had been so much a part of black radio were being scrubbed for the newer mostly antiseptic sound. In many ways, black radio lost its personality and uniqueness and in doing so, black radio lost its moorings and dare I say, its’ soul. ‘Soul’ as we came to understand it during the artistry of Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland during his career has now been reduced to a brand name for an auto import.
The colorful Black radio personalities of the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s with names such as ‘Dizzy Lizzy’, ‘Skipper Lee’, Vernon ‘Dr. Daddy-O’ Winslow, Tex ‘Mr. Cool’ Stephens were among the hundreds of black AM Radio Personalities who promoted the ‘Blues’ and its first cousin, ‘Rhythm and Blues’ with love and affection were quickly being dispatched to the ‘outhouse’ as the newer Urban radio format took over. The small low watt AM radio stations or as they were called ‘Sundown stations’, such as Houston’s KCOH and KYOK, as these small black radio stations at one time often signed off the air at ‘Sundown’.
So, in the midst of this cultural upheaval that was engulfing America during the emergence of the Civil Rights movement, and as black Americans were becoming more affluent, being lost in the shuffle were the great black blues artists that had entertained a mostly black audience since the beginning of commercial radio that had long targeted a mostly loyal black audience. Years later, many ‘baby boomer’ whites across America confessed to having sneaked a listen to these black AM stations playing the blues that were usually at the end of the dial. Today, go to any college campus in America and its white fraternities and sororities as they’re partying and it’s more than likely they’re listening to the ‘Blues’, or Rhythm and Blues. “OK, they’re listening to rock, too,” which is without the backbeat and bass guitar bottom, still the ‘Blues’.
None of this was lost on the great blues artists such as Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, BB King, Little Junior Parker and countless others. They understood that their music in the Urban radio market was simply not being played in any form of rotation.
Yet, as the black mostly Northern Urban audiences were abandoning the great black blues artists, clearly the newer and more sophisticated Urban radio format that was gaining in popularity was, in many ways leading to the loss of exposure for many of the black blues performers to a younger black radio listening audience. And that was and is tragic on many fronts. A fascinating thing began to happen that remains today. As Northern black audiences were abandoning the traditional blues performers, conversely white listeners and album/CD buyers as well as other modes of listening to music were overwhelmingly embracing the blues artists and the music with astounding results.
By the mid 80s onward as the Urban radio stations had wiped the slate clean of any semblance of black blues artists, the mostly white audiences were moving more and more to the great black blues performers in droves. If you were fortune enough to attend a Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland or BB King live concert performance in recent years, the one thing that jumps out at you is that the audience make-up is nearly 90 percent white or higher.
It’s now commonplace and an accepted undisputed fact that black blues performers are not only celebrated and supported by white audiences, but white audiences are purchasing the music and attending their concerts in droves. And equally supporting these great artists in upscale historic performing arts venues around the country. And this is one of the most interesting shifts in cultural musical tastes that occurred in the late 20th Century into the 21st Century. And that continues through today.
In Mobile, Alabama at a recent concert appearance at the historic Saenger Theater, legendary Chicago blues performer Buddy Guy performed before a nearly sold-out audience with very few blacks in attendance. Yet, even with this occurrence, black southern audiences have remained loyal to the great blues artists. In this mix stepped newer artists with blues overtones such as Frankie Beverly and Maze. And ironically, big watt FM Urban format radio stations in the south continue to program blues music formats, albeit usually in special time formats, such as ‘Blues Saturday, etc.
And as to the stepchild of the blues, jazz; that music has all but disappeared from large-scale radio programming. Jazz has been restricted if not eliminated from major radio programming, period. And that’s not to overlook the dozens of non-profit stations around the country such as WWOZ FM in New Orleans or WBGO FM in Newark that continue to play jazz and blues. With Internet streaming, many stations are beginning to add jazz and blues to their formats. And this is a good thing. It would appear that consumers of music are being increasingly being drawn to the great authentic American music that these artists perform.
In New York City, arguably the most urbane of American cities, the BB King Blues Club & Grill continues to attract huge and mostly white audiences weekly. Similarly, the great black blues artists continue to not only maintain their white following, but to expand on that audience as well.
Seemingly, white audiences have a far greater appreciation and love for the Blues art form. There are many reasons for this, and for the blues artists themselves, it’s wonderful. For if the remaining black blues artists had to rely exclusively on a black audience with the near sole exception of Southern markets, many of these great artists would not be able to survive.
As blacks abandoned the blues artists, whites found and embraced these great artists at the same time. And this was very good, very good indeed.
I recall on a business trip to Paris in the early 80s literally and by chance bumping into the great blues artist, ‘Memphis Slim’. Born originally in Memphis and producing some of the greatest blues ever performed, there came a time in his career, his American audiences began to dwindle. And radio airplay was virtually non-existent for this most American of artist. Yet, in migrating to France, ‘Memphis Slim’ found that not only did the French idolize his music; they considered him a cultural icon. So much so, that prior to his death 1988, the French Government bestowed upon Memphis Slim, the Commander in the Orde des Arts et des Lettires by the Ministry of Culture of France.
And for many American black blues and jazz performers, Europe has always offered a cultural and performance refuge of sorts. It’s inexplicable, but it has been that way long before the demise of slavery in this country. Underappreciated in many instances in their own country, many blues, jazz and pop African American performers have always seemingly been idolized and worshipped for their art form in other countries. Go figure.
In the twilight of the great musical career of Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, his audience of Southern blacks and many Northern blacks who had migrated to the great cities of the North such as Chicago, Detroit, and even Los Angeles, etc., have remained loyal. And at the same time, white audiences began to discover the incredible music of Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland. In recent years as with Etta James, BB King, Buddy Guy, and countless others, audiences that truly appreciate this great music are totally supportive.
Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, according to the New York Times and just shortly before his death still maintained a grueling schedule of some 300 performances per year. That, in and of itself was remarkable. And in tribute to his incredible artistry, Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. He received a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement in 1997. Bobby Bland was also inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.
Similar recognition was gained for Bobby by the ‘Rhythm and Blues Foundation and far too many awards and recognitions to list here. Clearly, Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland by the sheer genius of his art of performance and music broke many barriers, but he always brought home the ‘Blues’. For us, the millions of fans around the world, we have a collection of Bobby Bland music that can be enjoyed and cherished for decades to come.
There ain’t and likely never will be,’ No Better Blues’ Singer than Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland. Period.
Bookman is President of
Ron Bookman & Associates, Inc.
‘Jazz Renaissance Concert Series’
Ijazzatmobile.com
rb@rba-i.com
Ronald G. Bokman