Freund The story goes that 15 years ago, the last of the original Mississippi Delta blues pianists wanted his young guitarist to start singing more during regular sets at Chicago's B.L.U.E.S. club. Thus began Steve Freund's singing career.
settles down
The well-traveled blues guitarist
finds his voice and breezes into
town this weekend to give
Honolulu a samplingBy Gary C. W. Chun
gchun@starbulletin.com"I always tried to be a singer, even though I'm primarily known as a guitarist," Freund said on the phone yesterday while tending his vegetable garden outside the San Francisco home he shares with his "fabulous girlfriend." "But it (didn't happen) until Sunnyland Slim pushed me to do it more."
While there was no question about his assured, sometimes flashy fretwork, his first recorded vocal attempt was less than strong. "I did that first album, 'C for Chicago,' while I was ill with bronchial lung problems. But the second one is more mature-sounding all around. I think I'm getting better at it."
The Brooklyn-cum-Chitown native makes his debut this weekend, following in the footsteps of another Chicago guitarist (as well as his studio producer), Dave Specter. Like him, Freund will also utilize the backup services of Hawaii's own prime jazz/blues quintet, Third Degree.
Freund has sat in with nearly every Chicago blues regular around, but he especially likes to play opposite piano players. It's no surprise considering that his Sunday night gigs with Sunnyland Slim lasted from 1978 to 1993.
"Slim's a unique individual," Freund said. "I learned more from him in a social and spiritual sense, like how to conduct myself onstage. We became real close, and I've always thought of him as a dad or grandfather."
He says he plays "real good with piano players. I've played with Jimmy Walker, a lesser-known Chicago player but a deep blues guy who I played with at the same time I was with Slim. Pinetop Perkins, too (a dynamic boogie-woogie player in his own right). My mother was a pianist as well, and she tried to teach it to me when I was a kid, but I just didn't have the mental coordination.
"I played guitar briefly when I was 15, thinking of myself as a folk musician. But at 17, I got into blues, namely all three Kings (Albert, B.B. and Freddie), Eric Clapton, Peter Green and, later, jazz players Eddie Lang and Charlie Christian."
When surprise was expressed over his love of Clapton and Green (who was with Fleetwood Mac in its original blues days), Freund defended them by saying, "Both are deep blues players themselves, only they're British that were influenced by older, black American blues men. Someone like Clapton in particular, during his stint with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, turned a lot of people like myself on to traditional blues."
Freund later had the gumption, after soaking up the blues scene of NYC from the late '60s to early '70s, to drive nonstop to Chicago to hopefully become an honest-to-gosh blues man in that urban Midwestern cradle. A two-year stint there with the sweet-toned if no-nonsense Big Walter Horton prepared him for work with another harmonica legend, James Cotton, with whom he still does side work.
But now Freund has an album that he can be proud of in "I'll Be Your Mule."
"This time around," Freund said, "I chose the musicians to play with, including a very fine pianist in Mark 'Mr. B' Braun." The two are in especially fine form on two self-penned tunes, "Big Blue Mama" and "My Life Is Changing," and covers of "When I Was Young" and "Something to Remember You By," a duo piece remarkably done in one take.
There's also a good-natured tune, called "A Dollar a Mile," that tells of his traveling woes, driving to gigs within the Golden State, wanting to be paid while behind the wheel. "It's a trade-off living in California," he said, "where once I could just leave my amp in the Chicago club I worked at on a weekly basis and walk to and from home.
"I could do more than I do now, but I do love staying home. I just don't have the burning need to always be on the road. Most people don't realize that it's a job, and constant travel can be hard on the body. In fact, Dave and I are going to Belgium just to do a one-nighter, and I also have an upcoming gig in Colorado, where I fly into Albuquerque, N.M., and then drive 4 1/2 hours straight to the gig. All that's bad on the back!"
When and where: 7:30 p.m. today at the Honolulu Academy of Arts Theatre and 10 p.m. tomorrow at Haleiwa Joe's, 66-011 Kamehameha Highway Steve Freund with Third Degree
Admission: $15 advance/$20 at the door (today) and $10 at the door (tomorrow)
Call: 532-8701 for the Academy Theatre concert, 637-8005 for the Haleiwa show
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