About Me
[ YOU ARE LISTENING TO BUTCHIE BOY OLMSTEAD ON HARMONICA WITH CANADIAN BLUES PLAYER MICHAEL COLEMAN IN COLEMAN'S "NOTHING WE CANT DO" ]"...Blues is like snake-bite remedy- When you get bit they cure you with a touch of venom. It’s the same with this music: it takes the blues to cure the blues." - Mi amigo, Gary Mendoza_____________________________________________________
______Everybody's felt the blues at one time or other- but playing the blues is a next natural response. For me it became necessary. After I was wounded in action and returned home from Vietnam I got bit by the blues in 1968 when at the Newport Pop Festival in California- when I heard The James Cotton Blues Band and became aware of the harmonica as a blues-instrument for the first time! My ears, head, soul and heart never got away after that.James Cotton lit the fuse- and other great influences followed on, like Little Walter, Big Walter Horton, Charlie Musselwhite and Paul Butterfield. Bought my first harp ( harmonica ) in 1969 and been playing it, and the blues ever since.I've played with numerous bands over the years, starting with my own hometown "Oasis Blues Band" in Lompoc, CA in 1970. Moved to Chico, CA with OBB in 1975. OBB folded after one too many years run on alcohol and varied other abused substances. Live and learn. Thank God we're doing our best at both.Latest group I've had the priveldge and joy to play with is "The Gary Mendoza Band" in San Luis Obispo- a long-time landmark blues-band of the Central Coast of California. Not a steady gig now by any means- in that Gary Mendoza recently relocated and plays the blues in Sacramento, CA with only occasional performances here in which I have opportunity to play.Which brings me to say ( in the inimitable words of John Lee Hooker ) "...I got the boogie woogie in me, an' it got's to come out!" So if you are a California Central Coast bluesman, or blues lady with a band looking for a pretty good blues harp player- send me a line!_______________________________________________________
___Also suffer from another affliction for which there is no cure! You may be familiar with it... it's called The Sweet Heartbreak of Nostalgia!!!For me it's the "Doo-Wop" tunes and era of the 50's and early 60's. Though Doo-Wop, as a distinctive "style" of music can be traced at least as far back as 1939- often being first attributed to the style of a group known as the "Ink Spots" in 1939 and the "Orioles" in 1949 - it is a music that was the only next best step after the big "Swing" bands, and what was then known as "Jump" music. But the true origin of its style, and the term "Doo-wop" itself will probably remain anybody's guess... there being no lack of theories available.
Here's my own "short" version! - In the emerging stages of what would become known as "Doo-Wop" : poor kids- on stoops, street-corners and in highschool hallways... and lacking the coins to afford instruments, had all their formative styles defined in a'cappella (voice only) and simply "filled in" the base, beat and rhythm with vocal "representation" ,if you will... or what some have called "vocal-intrumentalization". As some of these earliest Doo-Woper's became noted recording artists true instruments would be introduced... but the a'cappella "Doooo-wop-she-bop-doo-waaah!" stayed... and became the distinctive mark of Doo-wop music. At least that's how it seemed to me!Todays "Rock & Roll" (or whats left of it!) owes its origins the blues and to Doo-Wop... from which the earliest black Rhythm & Blues emerged- and what primordial DeeJay, Alan Freed would dub as "Rock n' Roll" in 1954!I've loved all sorts of music over the years... from country to classical. I even suffered under the delusion that all music had reached its ne plus ultra in the mid-to-late sixties, via such as The Beatles, Hendrix and Led Zeppelin et al. - But none has "struck-the-chord" and stayed with me like blues and the music of my kid and teen years, Doo-Wop. I was between the ages of 6 and 16 when groups like "The Volumes", "The Flamingos" and "The Skyliners" were inspiring hearts about love, loyalty and pure-hearted romance! Innocence and hope (however naive!) that is all but barren from the music-scape today. "Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers" were singing- "...Come on baby lets go downtown!", to which I still chime-in to this day... "...What! We aint left yet!?"I'm also a DJ and you can catch my two shows on "Rock-it Radio"- an internet broadcast at www.rockitradio.net - Look for my "Cotton Sturdy Blues Hour" there, and/or "Butchie Boys Doo Wop Diner". Tell me somethin' good!
