At 82, groundbreaking Konitz still holds his own

Not long ago, through an NPR music site, I downloaded a Lee Konitz concert recorded earlier this year, and just about wore out my headphones listening to it.

What's amazing is that Konitz is 82 years old now, playing with guys in their 20s and -- well, if he's pacing himself more, he's showing no real shortage of ideas. But Konitz's entree in the jazz world was always in his ability to think on his feet.

Konitz, who plays alto sax, was a contemporary of some of the real giants -- Charlie "Bird" Parker in particular, but while Parker went toward the fast, harmonically challenging genre of bebop, Konitz was clearly in the early "cool jazz" camp. Their instruments were identical, but while Parker went for a full-throated sound, Konitz' tone was a lot thinner and more exacting. More surgical. In a time when every altoist in the world tried to sound like Bird, Konitz didn't even try. But both were amazing improvisers.

On the opening track of this one-hour, 10-minute set, you can almost see the ideas shifting around in Konitz' brain. Admittedly he's a little slower on the musical uptake, and he started a little tentatively to 28-year-old pianist Dan Toepfer's "Green Dolphin Street" intro. His lip isn't as strong as it once was. But by the end of the first song he showed he still has enough gas -- and ideas -- in the tank.

Out-there musical ideas were his calling card. Although he was one of the nine-piece band Miles Davis fielded for "Birth Of The Cool," Konitz is probably best known for his association with pianist Lennie Tristano, one of the great thinkers in jazz. Tristano and his crew played really cerebral stuff, even headier than anything Dave Brubeck ever played. And it was in the late 1940s that Tristano and a few friends decided to try what was probably the most audacious experiment of 'em all.

They decided to make something out of nothing.

I've known musicians who can pick up on a few notes from a bass -- or even a drum pattern -- and improvise on the fly, and build something new from the head arrangement on up. I've been able to do this a couple of times, including an unforgettable set with the late guitarist Chuck Bigbee, where we totally made stuff up for about 45 minutes. I can't think of anything more exciting than coming up with something off the top of your head in a musical context. But even those moments, rare as they are, come about almost accidentally, in the excitement and energy of the moment. But the Tristano/Konitz session was deliberate.

In 1960, Ornette Coleman put together a double quartet, two full bands on opposite sides of the room, and recorded the 36-minute-long "Free Jazz." Nearly all of this was composed on the spot; about the only pre-written parts were some of the transitions between each section. This stuff was so out there -- at the time, anyway -- that trumpeter Freddie Hubbard sounded lost. Coleman's album was one of those that no one was neutral about; it was either a bunch of disconnected skronks on vinyl, or a revelation.

Of course I have "Free Jazz" on CD. It's packaged with an earlier take, one that's kind of a rough draft. The first take was half the length of the released version, and there are plenty of differences between the two. Bass clarinetist Eric Dolphy in particular approached each version as a tabula rasa; it's intriguing to listen to both and hear Dolphy playing two completely different sets of ideas on the same theme.

But the Tristano/Konitz effort, part of which was released on an album called "Intuition," predated "Free Jazz" by nearly 15 years.

Tristano's been dead for years now, and their bassist, Arnold Fishkin, wasn't exactly a household name. But back when I was in college, a local guy named Mac McReynolds had a big band that played World War II vintage stuff, with an Air Force motif. McReynolds' band was called the Planes Of Fame band, and his bassist was named Arnold Fishkin. I wasn't aware of the Tristano/Konitz connection back then so I didn't ask the obvious question, but there can't be two guys with a name like Fishkin.

But Konitz today, he may have lost a lot off his fastball by now, but it's hard to tell from listening.

If you've got the time and want to hear some good playing from an old guy, hop on over to the NPR site and grab the concert. It's free, and it's a treat. The old guy can still bring it.

###

Sexy songs: 'Physical' gets nod, not sure why

It's official. "Let's Get Physical" is the sexiest song of all time.

That's what a poll by Billboard Magazine says. Olivia Newton-John's single, released in the early 1980s, got the nod over choices from Rod Stewart and Marvin Gaye.

Somehow I can't see it.

This isn't even my age talking; I was in my early 20s when that song came out, and yeah, I did like it. My then-girlfriend also loved that song; in fact she first called it to my attention and the title became a wry part of our secret vocabulary.

For Newton-John, this was something of a reach. She'd had something of a squeaky-clean image, and the song broke the mold for her. But the video had her working out on all sorts of exercise equipment, just so folks wouldn't read "Get Physical" as a dirty song. It was a nice use of double entendre, I thought. Exercise? Yeah, right.

But the sexiest song? Not likely. While the lyrics are there, the song's beat and tone do not spell sexy. Not even close. It doesn't even make me want to hit the gym, but then I don't visit those places very often.

Besides, subtlety is a big part of sexy. Except for the exercise angle, there wasn't much of that there.

Stewart's best, "Tonight's The Night," had the grooves and lyric that spelled sexy, although the part about spreading wings wasn't exactly subtle.

Back a few years before my heyday, Johnny Mathis was it as far as coming out with sexy songs -- funny when you consider he didn't "roll that way," as the parlance goes. But the lyrics were right there, and the velvety tones of his voice and the arrangements set the stage for many a romantic encounter. Nat King Cole was another from a few years earlier ("Unforgettable" was one of the greatest of all time). I've come to really enjoy Nat, and his piano playing was highly underrated. Check out some of his earlier stuff ("Straighten Up And Fly Right") for a sample there, even though that song wasn't one to set up the mood.

My own choice for sexiest song? "Invisible Lady" by Charles Mingus. He was at the piano for this one, with Jimmie Knepper as the lead instrumental voice. "Invisible Lady" was in the same vein as some of Duke Ellington's songs, kind of like a smooth "Satin Doll," and Mingus employed Knepper in about the same way the Duke used his great trombonist Lawrence Brown. Knepper's trombone work was buttery, melting all over the place, with just the right touch of mystery.

It's an instrumental, but that's all right. Sometimes words just get in the way, right?

Try this with your spouse: Lights low, per normal. Employ all the rest of the romantic things you use. And put on "Invisible Lady."

If that doesn't set the proper mood, stick a mirror under your nose. I'll bet it won't fog.

###

Kristofferson among music's best double threats

Writing about Kris Kristofferson made me think a little bit about his success in two separate careers -- in music and in acting.

While many stars try their hand at some other art (maybe it's an inherent restlessness in those creative types), few truly excel outside their field.

Of course, Kristofferson's a rare bird anyway. An excellent student at Pomona College (one of the Claremont colleges, the Ivy League of the West Coast and a duck snort down the road from my old neighborhood), he was also a Rhodes scholar. One of those folks who could do anything he sets his mind to do.

Sure, Madonna did her share of acting, but there's a great separation between her success on the screen and on the concert stage. Enough separation to label her a dabbler, so I'm not going to include her in this list. Same thing with Elvis -- his film career couldn't touch his music.

So who are some of the great double threats from the music world? Here are some that come to mind at a moment's notice:

• Michael Jackson is an obvious choice, and I'm not referring to his dancing. He showed some real filmmaking chops with his rock videos, and his "Captain Eo" 3-D movie (which I thought was kind of cheesy) was a mainstay at Disneyland some years ago. His "Thriller" video was deemed culturally significant enough to make it into the National Film Registry earlier this year.

• Frank Sinatra did pretty well in pitchers himself, winning an academy award for his supporting role in "From Here To Eternity." Oh, yes, Ol' Blue Eyes didn't have a half bad set of pipes on him, either. And mustn't forget Bing Crosby's "Road" pictures with Bob Hope. Those were totally insane; if Bing and Bob don't fetch at least one skinny laugh from you, you're in real trouble.

• Also crossing over from music to movies was Dexter Gordon. A tenor sax player in the 1940s and 50s, he started a nice second career playing the lead role in "Round Midnight," one of the best jazz movies ever. In his other film, "The Awakening" (with Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro), he had a much smaller part, and not much acting involved there. All he had to do was be catatonic.

• Then there's Milt Hinton. One of the better jazz bassists of his day, he was also an excellent photographer. Some of the best black-and-white photos of musicians I've ever seen were originally sighted through Milt's viewfinder.

• Chuck Berry was also quite a shooter. He was probably more passionate about his photography than he was about his music; he'd built his first darkroom when he was a kid. He wasn't quite in Hinton's league, but he was good with a camera.

• Eddie Henderson's an interesting one. A jazz trumpeter, he's straight out of the Miles Davis style. For years he played on weekends, working his way through medical school. He had dual careers as a jazz player and as a psychiatrist, a not inconvenient choice given the number of head cases there are in the music world.

• Brian May, one of the founders of Queen, got his PhD. in astrophysics a few years ago. And country singer/songwriter Jimmie Davis, who penned that great song "You Are My Sunshine," served several terms as Governor of Louisiana. But then, there's no bigger form of show business than politics.

Writers among the musicians? Again, it's hard to separate the dabblers from the real thing. Most music autobiographies, if they don't suck eggs, were written by a ghostwriter. But Artie Shaw and Sidney Bechet -- both clarinetists -- turned out some good prose. Charles Mingus' autobiography, "Beneath The Underdog," was interesting but ... strange. It was pure stream-of-consciousness stuff, but then a lot of his music rolled that way, too.

You tell me: What other double-threat musicians can you think of? I know I hardly nibbled around the edges here.

###

Teddy Pendergrass 'still proclaimed he was a lover'

Here's one for Teddy Pendergrass, who died Wednesday at 59.

Pendergrass had one of those raw, powerful voices that ... well, many a young man's late-night agenda was set to Pendergrass' voice back in the late 1970s.

A 1982 car accident left him paralyzed from the waist down.

From the Associated Press:

... but instead of becoming bitter or depressed, Pendergrass created a new identity — that as a role model, friend and longtime colllaborator Kenny Gamble said ... "He never showed me that he was angry at all about his accident," Gamble said in a telephone interviewwith The Associated Press. "In fact, he was very courageous." Pendergrass left a remarkable imprint on the music world as he ushered in a new era in R&B with his fiery, sensual and forceful brand of soul and his ladies' man image, burnished by his strikingly handsome looks ...

The accident left him in a wheelchair, and took something off his voice, and off his image.

"He used to say something in his act in the wheelchair, 'Don't let the wheelchair fool you,' because he still proclaimed he was a lover," Gamble said ... but his career was never the same. Gamble said it was difficult for Pendergrass to project vocally like he once did: "The breathing aspect of it, he wasn't really able to deal with it."

He had colon cancer surgery eight months ago, and apparently the recovery was difficult. He had been hospitalized for several months.

###

Elvis at 75: A country singer?

There's no way I can ignore this. The King himself would be 75 years old today.

I wasn't a great Elvis Presley fan, but over the years I've come to appreciate what he'd done. He'd crossed genres, popularized Las Vegas entertainment, and gave us a lot of great songs to listen to, enjoy, and learn.

To my knowledge, he never claimed to be a great musician. But he did all those things that a great musician does.

Name the genre and you'll probably find it represented in his body of work. Rock? Of course. Blues? Well, not like Muddy Waters, but he could sing 'em. Country? No problem. Gospel? Man, that's where I think he did his best work.

As I write this I'm listening to some of his gospel songs, and this gives me a real appreciation for his range. These songs, well, they're done respectfully, and you need to capture the right emotion and phrasing. And this is the same guy who pulled out the stops with "Hound Dog" and "Heartbreak Hotel." Elvis was no one-trick pony.

He's continued to break ground though he's been gone more than 30 years. Tribute bands are a big thing these days, groups that replicate a performer or group. Hey, the person being replicated doesn't even need to be dead -- some years ago I spent time talking with a guy who did a Garth Brooks tribute show in Nevada. You can say the first of about a zillion Elvis impersonators (see: Honeymoon In Vegas for a whole passel of them) gave birth to that industry.

Then, looking to the macabre for a minute, Elvis was one of the first to build a fortune and release top-selling albums from the grave. You're seeing this now with Michael Jackson; albums continue to sell and movies continue to be made long after Jacko had anything to do with it.

When the Postal Service deliberated over which image of Elvis to put on a postage stamp -- the 50s Elvis or the Las Vegas Elvis -- I preferred the younger version. That's when he was belting out old Arthur Crudup blues songs, creating another version of rock and roll, scandalizing polite society with his animated stage presence. When he was still not far removed from his truck-driving days, when he thought it was a real blast that folks were actually paying to hear him sing. That's the Elvis I'd rather remember.

Over the years I think he got a lot more jaded, bought too much into the stardom lifestyle, lost a little something off his skills, but he could still deliver a song.

Considering Elvis was still young and still had many songs in him at his passing, this begs the question of what he would be doing today if he was alive and in halfway decent shape. Oh, he'd still be touring. Many of his contemporaries -- the Stones, Willie Nelson, guys around his age -- still maintain killer schedules even though they may not look so good. I'm still trying to figure out Keith Richards. I'm amazed that guy's even alive, let alone able to handle small objects without assistance. He may look like wires are holding him up on stage, but Keith can still play that guitar.

If Elvis was still around, it wouldn't surprise me to see him making the rounds as ... a country singer. Seriously. Although you'd never confuse him with Johnny Cash, he'd always been real popular with those who listen to country. He'd always had the voice for it, and country is one of those genres that you can continue singing as your voice ages. I can hear him doing the kind of songs Charley Pride sang.

Got to give The King his due on a milestone birthday.

###

Some Elvisiana:





... and let's not forget all those flying Elvi:

Playing weeks and weeks of Stormy Monday

I wasn't terrribly surprised to see that Stormy Monday is probably the most-recorded blues song of 'em all, with at least 1,134 versions out there. Without a doubt it's the most played by bar bands.

It's a great song. T-Bone Walker originally played it, and the lyrics take you through a week of the blues:

"They Call it stormy Monday,
But Tuesday's just as bad ..."

It was also the first blues I've played in public, if you don't count Miles Davis' "All Blues," which is a jazz piece from his Kind Of Blue album.

But in my first sessions on stage, this harmonica player discovered something about colliding perceptions and reality:

• All harmonica players do nothing but blues.
• All bar bands know "Stormy Monday."
• Therefore, all harp players end up playing "Stormy Monday." A lot.

It's hysterical. Every bar band in the world plays "Stormy Monday." In fact, with many it's the only blues they know. They play it to "prove" they know blues, but in actuality it just proves the band doesn't know much of anything.

So after years of playing it, and even hearing it in my sleep, I ran out of ideas. Got tired of playing it. There are only so many ways you can attack a slow-blues standard, and I probably used all of them at some point. Double-time in the solos. Long pauses and held notes, going into clusters of sixteenth-notes. I quoted other songs -- my favorite version was throwing a few notes from that other blues chestnut, "After Hours," into it. I had to do something with it. In 1994, I stopped playing it.

In a famous interview, jazz innovator Charlie Parker said he had the same feeling with "Cherokee." He'd played it so many times he could do it while nodding out (and apparently he often did). Got sick of that song. But he did break through that wall, by using the upper intervals of the chords. This gave him a larger pool of notes to work with, and he said he came alive musically at that point.

I didn't go that far; even in my fantasies there's no way I can get close to Parker's musicianship. Instead, I chose to "boycott" the song. Any time it came up on stage, I sat it out. Which was all right; I was working in more of a country/rock direction then. I'd do other blues every so often, but indulged my interest in other musical forms.

It wasn't until 10 years later that I consented to play "Stormy Monday" again. I was playing with a vocalist named Jayne Valentine, who had this really powerful, expressive voice. We also shared an intuituve musical rapport, and every time we got together on stage, sparks would fly. More than a few folks swore we were an "item," that's how high the energy level was. But one night she decided to sing T-Bone's song, and because it was someone with the talent level and emotional level of Jayne, I joined her on it. And again, the song came alive.

Working with folks like that would put muscle, blood, and breath to any song.

T-Bone is still one of the great blues guitarists, and Stormy Monday is still a great song.

I'd play it again.

###

31 years past his death, Mingus is still great

Bassist and band leader Charles Mingus passed away 31 years ago today, on Jan. 5, 1979.

Simply put, he was one of the greatest in jazz -- particularly if you could stand to work with him. There are plenty of stories about that aspect of Mingus' personality.

Here's a twofer from Mingus: "Moanin," a song that first showed up on his Blues And Roots album (love that baritone sax there), and his version of Duke Ellington's "Take The A Train."

Right around 1960 Mingus had his own Ellington phase, switching over to the piano, going with slightly larger bands, and deploying trombonist Jimmie Knepper more frequently, in a role similar to what Lawrence Brown played for The Duke.

Knepper and Mingus later had an altercation and Mingus punched his trombonist in the mouth -- unforgivable stuff given Knepper needed a good lip to play. Knepper later sued Mingus but admitted from the stand that he did his best work ever under that lunatic.



But this video is from later, probably around 1964. That's when Mingus used one of his best-ever touring bands, with Jaki Byard on piano and Eric Dolphy on alto sax/bass clarinet/flute. Dolphy's featured here.

Mingus is definitely one of my favorites.

###

Bluegrass has a high purist quotient

Here's something I recently picked up from Twitter, and I'm running it with all the Twit hashtags intact:

digg_dugg (Douglas Whitworth): Am I really listening to a #ymsb song that has drums in it? #bluegrass fail #disappointed boys you're making monroe turn in his grave.

He's referring to Yonder Mountain String Band, a Colorado group that mixes its bluegrass with several other musical forms. This group makes no claims that they're the pure stuff. 

I had to laugh at digg_dugg's tweet. I love bluegrass, and of all the genres around, it's the most fun to play. It's a high-energy music. Almost impossible to feel the weight of the world when you're playing or listening to bluegrass. And it's tougher than it looks. While there's nothing terribly complex about bluegrass, an instrumentalist really needs some good chops to play it well.

But bluegrass probably has more purists among its players than any other type of music. Certainly more so than jazz, than country, than blues, maybe even more so than classical. A great many bluegrass players prefer to stay true to its roots.

Here's how the bluegrass purist will explain it: Bill Monroe, who is considered the father of the genre, took old string-band and gospel music, stuck a rocket engine on it, and lit it with his mandolin. Most of his early bands used flat-picked guitar, a fiddle or two, an upright bass, maybe some banjo in the background, his mando, and some great vocal harmonies.

To this day, many bluegrass pickers consider themselves traditionalists, sticking with the Monroe playbook. What's funny is that, although Ralph Stanley was another bluegrass founding father, banjo wasn't really a front-and-center instrument until Earl Scruggs arrived on the scene.

There's also an accepted way to use amplification in bluegrass: One microphone. The vocalists gather around it when they sing, and when someone takes an instrumental solo he steps up to that mic. That's how it's done, and sometimes the instrumentalists will form a line behind the soloist to take a lead.

I'll admit there's a lot of that traditionalist in me. Some years ago I saw one bluegrass band use an electric bass guitar, and immediately shut my eyes. I didn't want to see it. I believe there's a commandment against using electric bass in bluegrass. Maybe it's in Leviticus.

So I can understand what the guy on Twitter means about seeing a bluegrass band using a drum kit. Yeah, that would be enough to bring Bill Monroe out of the grave to put a stop to it.

In string band music, the thump of the bass, the guitar work, and the mandolin "chop" on the two and four beats is generally all the timekeeping you need. It's plenty. Shoot, I don't even like to see someone playing spoons, probably because I've yet to hear one play them with any sense of rhythm.

I've been involved in several late-night debates about traditional bluegrass, mostly because I play harmonica -- which is not considered one of the "genuine article" instruments. But sonically, harmonica is similar to fiddle in that you can do your double stops and sustain your tones, and the two instruments are in about the same tonal range. So most of the time I'd play fiddle lines in a bluegrass setting.

Some years ago bluegrass picker/advocate "Dr. Banjo" (Pete Wernick) created a stir in the harmonica community when he said that harp was OK for bluegrass ballads, but just doesn't sound good on your fast songs. Of course it can, and it does, but the trick -- again -- is to play fiddle runs. One of the best practitioners of this is Cara Cooke, a harmonica player in Austin, Texas. I learned a great deal by listening to her ideas on her Web site, then sitting down to listen to all the bluegrass fiddle players I could find.

For a couple of years, I worked in a bluegrass band with Lane Gregory on guitar, Wil St. John on mandolin, and Jamie McDonnell on washtub bass. "It's an original bluegrass instrument," Jamie would say of his bass. Wrong. Monroe's bands used an upright bass for those low tones. But Jamie's instrument was used for a lot of string-band stuff, which predates bluegrass, so I'll give him his props there. But then, our links to the traditionalists got blown out the window because we amplified our instruments. That's just not done.

A lot of bluegrass folks were wondering what Bela Fleck was thinking when he put together his first Flecktones band: Bela on banjo, Victor Wooten on electric (!) bass, Howard Levy on (!) harmonica, and Future Man on (!!!) synth-drumitar. Yeah, a fingertip-controlled drum machine shoved into the body of an electric guitar. An unbelievable sound, but it sure wasn't pure bluegrass. Bela never claimed that it was; it was as much jazz as it was bluegrass.

Gordon Small, a banjo picker/bassist I used to play with, was probably the biggest bluegrass purist I've ever met. He was quick to tell me what was and what wasn't bluegrass, though he liked what I was doing. But Gordon told me about seeing Bela Fleck play a few traditional bluegrass songs live, on solo banjo. He said it was straight out of the church of Monroe and Stanley. 

###

(Photo: Bill Monroe set the standard that still lives on.)

Junior Wells blew up a storm on harp

It was around 1990, I was learning my way around the blues, and my friend Kathe had a CD she wanted me to hear.

Bless Kathe's heart. She had a killer voice and good stage presence, and we'd hit the jam sessions together. I'm still amazed at how she was able to belt out a song like that though she was confined to a wheelchair -- you'd really have to adjust your air column to do something like that. Shoot, just blowing a wind instrument, I can't do it sitting down. I have to play standing up.

Anyway, this album was Bonnie Raitt's first, and it had the feeling of a front-porch picking party. But Kathe wanted me to hear the harmonica player. "He kind of sounds like you," she said.

That was the first time I'd really listened to Junior Wells.

Junior's been dead since 1998, but if he was still around he'd be celebrating his 75th birthday this week. He was a gang kid when he was known as Amos Wells Blakemore Jr., but developed a reputation as a harmonica player. Still in his teens, he was with a group called The Aces.

Among Chicago blues harp players, there was one job in the world to have -- playing in Muddy Waters' band. Muddy knew talent, he knew blues, and he knew harp players. During Wells' Aces days, Muddy had Little Walter Jacobs in the harp slot -- the guy that all harmonica players try to emulate. We have 50 years' worth of harp players using Fender Bassman amps and Shure Green Bullet microphones -- modeled after a taxi mic -- for gear, and they're all trying to replicate the honking, distortion-heavy Little Walter sound.

For some reason, though, Little Walter and Wells traded jobs. Walter got The Aces, and Junior, by virtue of his seat in Muddy's band, became the heavyweight champion of harps.

After his time with Waters, Wells struck out on his own, recording songs like "Messin' With The Kid" and "Hoodoo Man Blues." But it was a long association with guitarist Buddy Guy that kept Junior active and in the forefront.

I have some tracks of Junior and Buddy together, a live set at the House Of Blues in Chicago. It was just those two, playing and singing with no real heavy equipment. Their blues were about as lean as you can get, with Guy alternating between chords and single-note runs, and Wells playing in short bursts, phrasing his stuff. Really an unconventional recording, without filler. A little hard to listen to at first because it's so stripped down, but once you get accustomed to the feel of it, an enjoyable recording.

And no, Junior didn't sound like me. He'd never even heard of me. I wouldn't mind sounding like Junior, if I couldn't sound like myself. Or something. But he was right up there with the Little Walters and Sonny Boy Williamsons in the harp world.

###

(Video: With Buddy Guy and a band -- "Messin' With The Kid")

Willie and Mickey still being outlaws after all these years

I've always liked Willie Nelson. There are a lot of reasons why, but what really stands out is that he's loyal to the guys in his band.

It's not often a frontline performer will use the same musicians for decades. Many will record with a fresh set of players, and maybe tap some local talent to fill the backing band while on tour. But Mickey Raphael served as Willie's harmonica player since 1973, when Nelson was still playing local gigs. Texas football coach Darrell Royal introduced them, and Mickey knew nothing from nothing about playing country music.

“When I first got with Willie I had no country background at all,” Raphael told the Las Vegas Sun. “I had one Willie Nelson record … Of course I did this amazing crash course in country music, especially Willie’s catalog. The more I heard, the more I fell in love with his music and his style.”

At the time, Nelson had formidable credentials as a songwriter, but few knew he could sing.

Raphael's best-known work is probably Nelson's "On The Road Again" (a song every bar band knows), but it was his version of "Georgia On My Mind" that really caught my attention. He got away from the usual country-style harp there, made it bluesy, and captured several different moods in that song.

This was during Willie's period when he was struggling to pay back taxes, and he recorded some old pop songs. But while on the surface these albums may sound like a cheap attempt to make money in a hurry, they turned out to be quality stuff. To this day, I'd have to say his version of "Blue Skies" was Willie Nelson at his finest.

Willie's 76 now and looking even more weathered than ever these days, but he's still at it, while Mickey is 58. The two are now on tour, and during a show in Vegas (with Asleep At The Wheel sharing the billing) Raphael talked to Sun reporter Jerry Fink:

LVS: Willie’s underrated as a guitarist, isn’t he?

RAPHAEL:People don’t know what a great guitar player he is. Since (the band’s longtime guitarist) Jody Payne retired almost two years ago Willie’s the only guitar player in the band, and he really gets to stretch out.

LVS: Do you think Willie will ever retire?

RAPHAEL: Years ago when we were playing a lot of scary redneck joints I asked Willie, “How long do we have to play these places?” He said, “If we’re lucky, a long, long time.” He’ll play till he drops. Me, I’m just lucky to be making a living playing harmonica.

Mickey's one of my favorite harp players -- right behind guys like Lee Oskar, Howard Levy, and Charlie McCoy -- and I'm glad to see he's still blowing up a storm. With Willie, where he belongs.

###