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Last of a three-part series.

PREVIOUSLY:

• MUSICAL MEMOIR: When Sunnyland Slim Tells You to Take Route 66, You Should Take Route 66
• MUSICAL MEMOIR: I Was the Drummer for Two of the World’s Greatest Blues Men, and They Agreed That I Did Not Know How to Play the Drums

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After my difficult tour playing drums in San Francisco with blues legends Sunnyland Slim and Mike Bloomfield, I wondered if I’d ever get another chance to play with great musicians again.

I was determined to become a professional drummer and give myself another shot. I got that chance in spring 1976.

When Sunnyland drove back to Chicago in December 1972, I stayed in San Francisco with my friend and harmonica player Harry Duncan. I was not going back for another frigid winter to Wisconsin, my home state.

After the November 1972 Sunnyland/Bloomfield tour, I started playing club dates with a local rhythm and blues band, The Alligators. I also did gigs with the legendary Chess Records session guitarist Luther Tucker as well as a talented Bay Area blues pianist and singer, Dave Alexander.

I found a San Francisco drum teacher, Bob Rose, in 1973 and every week learned the rudiments, the math and how to read rhythm charts.

Money was tight and without much cash the Bay Area wasn’t a lot of fun. I missed my friends and family in Wisconsin and decided to move there in summer 1974. My parents let me stay with them while I worked a summer job for the city of Racine.

Harry called me one evening and asked if I would like to play a show in Madison with Sunnyland, Harry and guitarist Louis Myers, a member of the Chess Records’ recording sessions rhythm section, The Aces. I’d heard him on records with the great Chicago harmonica player Little Walter, such as l Hate to See You Go.

It would be my first time playing with Sunnyland since that ill-fated 1972 tour. I was excited to get a chance to redeem myself.

I did the show with them at a small Madison club. On the break, Sunnyland said, “Paul, you’re playing right. You’ve got a backbeat.”

Getting Sunnyland’s approval lifted my spirits. I felt like I was on my way to becoming a pro.

At the end of the show, Harry asked Sunnyland if I could play with them at the Toronto Island Blues Festival scheduled for the next weekend, July 13 and 14, 1974. Slim said yes.

We left Chicago on Friday morning and drove eight hours straight to Toronto. With no internet and no information readily available about the festival, I had no idea how big it was.

We took a ferry Saturday morning to Toronto Island with our equipment. We got off the ferry and were driven to the backstage area. I was stunned to see an audience of 20,000.

In addition to the Sunnyland band, there were Junior Wells and Buddy Guy, Roy Buchanan, John Lee Hooker and Howling Wolf. The view from the stage was astounding. There were blues fans stretched out in front of me as far as I could see. The energy was mind-altering, the largest crowd I’ve ever played for to this day.

Sunnyland was pleased with my drumming. By the end of the summer, I returned to San Francisco to try to establish myself there. But it was not really happening. I kept taking drum lessons, practicing and playing occasional shows.

I got an offer to join a guy I’d played with in San Francisco, Fortuna native Jerry Cooper, to play with him and his wife Karen in a country band. The Coopers were offered six months of gigs, every Friday and Saturday for $50 per night per musician at Rio Dell’s Rendezvous Lounge in Humboldt County. That was good money in those days.

I took the gig and moved to Humboldt in March 1975. It was far better than what I was doing in San Francisco.

A second tour with Sunnyland

Harry called in March 1976 and asked if I could get away for a five-week West Coast tour with Sunnyland and the great guitarist Hubert Sumlin, who played and recorded with Howling Wolf for 20 years. Of course, I said yes.

By then, I was living in Arcata and playing country music three nights a week with Ronnie Tharp and the Sons of Redwood Country at Harvey’s Club, a honky-tonk near Fortuna. It was a 9 to 1:30 in the morning gig paying $50 a night. My life was consumed with playing gigs, practicing and exploring the beautiful outdoors of Humboldt.

Harry put together a solid band to play with Sunnyland and Hubert: the up-and-coming Portland-based harmonica player and singer Paul deLay; Chicago bassist Bombay Carter; Sunnyland’s girlfriend, Chicago singer Big Time Sarah; and me. In mid-April I drove to a house in San Francisco where we were all staying.

We started our tour the next day. The first show we played was at the Inn of the Beginning in Cotati, in Sonoma County.

Hubert Sumlin took a liking to me and vice versa. We’d hang out after shows and days off talking about music and life. He liked the way I played. He was fantastic, playing with joy, creativity and precision. When he was on stage he transformed – looking like he was in his mid-20s rather than his mid-40s.

“Paul, you keep playing and music will make you beautiful,” he said.

Paul deLay, a tall, heavy-set white singer and harmonica player, impressed Sunnyland and Hubert.

“Big Paul (I was Little Paul) is going to be a star,” Sunnyland said. “The white boy can sing and play that harp. The man’s a monster.” That was Sunnyland’s highest compliment for a musician.

Playing music wIth this band was exciting and fun. We got better as the tour rolled on. But there were some bumps in the road.

After playing a half-dozen shows, including two nights at the Jambalaya Club in Arcata, we performed at the Euphoria Club in Eugene. The Robert Cray Band opened for us.

Our bassist, Bombay Carter, was complaining about not being an equal headliner on the show posters along with Sunnyland and Hubert. If he didn’t get equal billing, he threatened Sunnyland he would quit the band and fly back to Chicago when we got to Seattle in a few days.

“You’re not a headliner with me and Hubert,” Slim sternly told him. “If you don’t like it, you can leave. I’ll find someone else to play bass.”

Sunnyland talked to me in the dressing room while the Robert Cray Band played their opening set.

“Paul, go down and check out the bass player,” he said. “If you think he could play for us, ask him if he could finish the tour. Ask him to sit in with us at the beginning of our set.”

I was knocked out by the Cray Band, my first time seeing them. Robert Cray had so much charisma and talent as a singer and guitarist. I knew he was going to be a star. The bassist, Richard Cousins, was excellent and possessed a commanding stage presence. After their set I asked Richard if he would be available to finish the tour with Sunnyland if Carter left. When he said yes, I asked him to play the first few songs with us at the beginning of our set. As far as I know, he had never before been on stage with Chicago blues musicians.

The first song Cousins played with us was Sunnyland’s uptempo shuffle Get to my Baby.Cousins fit right in with a smooth walking bass line. Sunnyland nodded his approval from across the stage.

Sunnyland then kicked off Ray Charles’ driving Latin rhythm song What’d I Sayon a Hammond B-3 organ. Everything was grooving along when Sunnyland finished singing the second verse and called for Hubert to take a solo.

Slim always told his musicians to take one or two solo verses and then finish to make room for his vocal. He disliked Grateful Dead-style jamming.

“A guitar player has to get in and get out,” he’d preach to his musicians. “Play your solo and, BOOM, get out and let me sing.”

Hubert played one solo verse and Slim said take another. During that second verse, Hubert walked over to me and Cousins on bass to my left. As he came to the end of the second instrumental verse, Hubert put his head down and kept playing a fiery solo.

Sunnyland was furious. Over his vocal mic, he yelled, “Hubert, stop. The man thinks he’s a star.” Hubert finished his third verse and kept playing.

Now Sunnyland was looking at us with his hands on his hips. “The man played with Howling Wolf and he plays too loud for me,” he told the full-house audience. Hubert launched into a fourth verse with even more intensity as Sunnyland kept yelling at him.

Richard Cousins, eyes open wide, said, “What the hell is happening?” “Just keep playing,” I said.

Finally at the end of his fifth solo verse, Hubert looked up and signaled an ending to Cousins and me. Sunnyland glowered at Hubert before launching into one of his slow songs, “Depression Blues.” A confused Cousins left the stage shaking his head and Bombay Carter returned.

After the show, nothing was said between the two Chicago bluesmen. Just musical water under the bridge for them. Not an angry word.

Carter told Slim after the show he decided to continue on the tour. He never complained again about his lack of headliner status.

In Portland, we played a concert at Reed College. We performed a couple of nights at a Seattle nightclub, The Pipeline, before heading to Bellingham, Washington.

At a Western Washington University concert hall, we opened for John Lee Hooker in front of a capacity crowd. Hooker played with a focused intensity. Musicians who played with him knew he would often jump to the next chord change in the middle of a measure.

While listening to him, I asked Sunnyland what he thought of Hooker’s timing. “Well, the man’s got the timing of a road lizard,” Sunnyland said. “He’s got timing, but he’s the only one who knows what it is.”

Opening for Mike Bloomfield and Friends

We drove back to San Francisco to stay at the house we called home for five weeks. Our next show was scheduled in three days at the Keystone Berkeley opening for Mike Bloomfield and Friends.

I hadn’t seen him since November 1972 when he had told me I wasn’t ready to play with him and Sunnyland. However, he gave me a road map on how to become a professional drummer: go back to the roots of the genres I wanted to play and study the best drummers. “You are what you listen to,” he said.

I hadn’t known who Hubert was when we started touring. Now I was fascinated by him as a unique guitarist and person. One morning I went to Tower Records in San Francisco and bought the double album The Best of Howling Wolfon Chess Records.

I put the vinyl on the living room stereo while Hubert listened with me. I focused on Hubert’s playing and the collective sound the band showed on songs like Spoonful, 44 Blues, and Killing Floor.

“How did you guys make these arrangements and sound?” I asked.

“Guys created their own musical part and kept playing them,” he said. “They stayed there because there was nowhere else to go. Wolf sang and I played on top of that sound.”

It made sense. It was one of the coolest musical lessons I’d heard.

Later that night, we were back at the house and our host, the owner, asked Sunnyland, Hubert and me if we’d like to smoke opium in his living room. I thought for sure Sunnyland would say no because he rarely even took a hit off a joint.

“Yes partner,” Sunnyland said. “Me too,” Hubert added. If they’re in then, me too, I thought. I’d never smoked opium before.

We each took two deep hits off the pipe. Almost imediately I felt lighter than air, like I was floating around the room feeling no pain. I looked over at Hubert doubled over and laughing hard. Sunnyland, all six-foot-4 of him, was laying on his back on the sofa laughing and kicking his legs in the air like he was slow-motion bike-riding.

What a trip it was. I never smoked opium again. I realized it was too good.

Three days passed and the day of the show with Bloomfield and Friends arrived. It was March 1976 and I was nearly 25. We played a blistering first set at the cavernous Keystone Berkeley in front of a full house. We had Jimmy Kahr, who I played my first show with Sunnyland in 1972, as a guest guitarist.

I went into the backstage dressing room and saw Bloomfield with his back to me talking to a visitor. I tapped him on the shoulder. He whirled around and looked at me. “Paul, how are you doing, man?” he asked. I was amazed he remembered me.

“Was that you playing with Sunnyland,” he asked? “Yes,” I said.

“Man, you sound good,” he said. “You really did what I told you to do to improve. I’m impressed. I’m going to ask Sunnyland if I can sit in with you on your second set.”

I’d never felt happier as a musician when he said that. He got on stage and played that set with us. It gave me the confidence I could be a professional drummer and the sky was the limit for my future.

I never saw him again. Five years later he was found dead of a heroin overdose in his car on a San Francisco street.

Following his death, Kurt Loder of Rolling Stone magazine wrote:

Michael Bloomfield, the rich Jewish kid from Chicago who demonstrated to a generation of electric guitarists that white men can really play the blues, was found dead in his car in San Francisco at eleven o’clock Sunday morning, February 15th. He was thirty-seven.

Bloomfield was slumped in the passenger seat of his beige 1971 Mercury, which was parked on a residential street in the Forest Hills section of the city; all four doors were locked. The official cause of death has not been determined, but the presence of an empty Valium bottle in the pocket of his coat, which was lying on the back seat, spurred speculation that Bloomfield — who had been known to use heroin in the past — had died of a drug overdose. However, two of Bloomfield’s closest associates doubted he had taken his own life.

“I can tell you, just from recent talks, that he wasn’t the kind of guy who was ready to check out on Valium,” said Denny Bruce, president of the Takoma Records label, for which Bloomfield recorded four albums over the past several years. According to Bruce, the guitarist had been drawing a good response both here and in Europe with his one-man show. He had two new albums due out March 1st — Cruisin’ for a Bruisin,’ on Takoma, and Living in the Fast Lane, on the independent Waterhouse label — and he was, Bruce said, “in very, very good spirits.”

He is still revered for his remarkable recordings such as The Paul Butterfield Band’s East-West, Super Session with Al Kooper, Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, including Like a Rolling Stone, and The Electric Flag.

I will always remember Bloomfield for the musical lessons he taught me and for the extraordinary compassion he showed me as a young drummer. It meant everything to me.

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Thank you to Pam Long, my editor, and Julian DeMark for expert photo scanning. Find many more musical memories at my Substack.