A line of veteran blues musicians will perform at this year's Rhythm & Blues Mele.
Chicago blues
still kickin'
The lyrics to Nick Gravenites' seminal "Born in Chicago" are notoriously dense and mysterious -- no two musicians interpret it the same way -- but the song clearly starts out, "I was born in Chicago in 1941."
Actually, for Gravenites, his bluesman's journey began in 1938, dutiful son of Greek immigrant candy-shop operators, morphed into self-destructive, streetwise hellion and mean-spirited thug. He used "1941" because it rhymed with "gun," and the song really does describe his hellbent adolescence, fast and crazy and angry, and a 17-year-old pal was shot and killed sticking up a bar and, a few years later, another street buddy went down, cold and in the ground. Makes you take stock.
8th Annual Hawaiian Islands
Featuring the Chicago Reunion Blues Band, Sonny Landreth and the Eric Sardinas Trio
Rhythm & Blues MeleWhere: Kakaako Waterfront Park
When: 6:30 p.m. today
Tickets: $30 advance, $40 at the gate
Call: 732-6699
Also: 5:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Brewhouse Oasis, Kona Brewing Company, Big Island. Call (808) 334-1133 or 2739 for information.
"That song is part of me, my identity," recalls Gravenites, now firmly in his 60s. "It's highly personal. I was one of the thugs who made it out, and I was trying to copy the great black blues guys in style. Growing up in Chicago in that era, where I came from, you had young friends who died, and you sing about what you know."
In fact, Gravenites was a drop-in student at the University of Chicago in the mid-'50s, apparently majoring in absorbing as much folk music as possible, when he met Butterfield, then a teenager. They formed a folk duo, Nick and Paul. They served apprenticeships in the South Side, sitting in with Otis Spann, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Buddy Guy, Howlin' Wolf. There was no color barrier onstage.
KICKING OFF the first Paul Butterfield Blues Band album in the mid '60s, "Born in Chicago" served notice on the world. The South Side of Chicago was brewing a driving, urban, soulful brand of kick-ass music with only the barest connections to doo-wop, to Brit pretty-boy rock, to darkly ominous Mississippi swamp growls and to smug folkie lyricism. Chicago bred its own big dog. And it wasn't just the music -- Chicago bands were integrated; black, white and blues.
And if you didn't like it, screw you.
In the eager-to-please atmosphere of the music industry, such attitude struck sparks. The musicians who had flocked to Chicago seeking the blues muse became legends not just for their musicianship, but for the bad karma that came their way. Many died, personal friends and mentors to Gravenites, such as Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield. Many are still around, and some are playing with Gravenites this week in the islands as part of this year's Rhythm & Blues Mele in the Chicago Blues Reunion band, such as Corky Siegel and Harvey Mandel. Later steady gigs included writing for Janis Joplin and Electric Flag.
Gravenites moved to the Bay Area in the '60s and still lives there. He sounds faintly amazed he's still alive, an "old beatnik, coffeehouse, indolent kind of person, who just wants to play music for cash and get loaded," he laughs. "Ambition and I aren't friends."
"Born in Chicago" was his first recorded song and it "remains one of my favorites. It just sits there, kind of historic, and it's a piece of me.
"That why I'm a bluesman. It's not just the music you play. It's the life you lead. Don't let the instrument get in the way of your art. The form of the blues is an easy vehicle for direct expression -- the art is in the delivery. If you feel like playing one chord, do it. The idea is to make it personal. John Lee Hooker did great things with one chord."
GRAVENITES was one of the early "pickers" in the folkie explosion of the late '50s, steeping himself in everything from Carter Family hymns to Spanish Civil War marching songs to field hollers. His guitar playing, he says, is "serviceable," not even attempting to play lead until the 1970s, when playing nightly with Bloomfield became an iffy proposition and he picked it up in self-defense.
And yet, he has this reputation as a keyboard player ...
"Oh, that," Gravenites laughs. "For some reason, Playboy magazine made a list of the top 100 keyboard players, and they put me on there, even though I didn't play keyboards at all. I came in ahead of Herbie Hancock!"
Just this year, Gravenites stopped playing regularly in North Beach bars. "Just specialty shows. And touring in Greece ... "
Greece?
"Greece, Turkey, Crete -- man, they've got some great blues bands over in Crete."
Gravenites' songwriting keeps him comfortable. "Particularly Janis' covers of my songs," he mused. "Dead people pay my rent. Most musicians aren't good businessmen, but some of them are just sharp, and do it well, and recognize that the whole business is set up for exploitation. I don't think Mick Jagger has ever made a bad business deal in his life.
"People in the arts are seduced by earthly delights, and business is usually the last thing on their minds. Those who are expressive and innovative in music only make money when their good works wind up as Muzak. Publishing is the only way to make any money in the music business. I'm sure glad 'Blues Brothers II' included 'Born in Chicago' on their soundtrack! Keeps me in cheap, red wine."
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