 | |
|
A Canadian is behind one of the most popular contemporary blues radio programs. Dan Aykroyd was born July 1 in our capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, and can be heard on the weekly syndicated House of Blues Radio Hour. On October 11, 1975, Saturday Night Live (SNL) debuted on the NBC television network in the US. It was the brainchild of Canadian producer Lorne Michaels. SNL boasted a company of improvisation comedians including writer-performer Aykroyd, who quickly became well respected by SNL’s players and writers alike. By the early ’70s, Aykroyd had joined the celebrated Second City Comedy improvisation troupe in Toronto. During that period, he made the acquaintance of a comedian from the States named John Belushi, who happened to be on a talent-scouting trip to Toronto on behalf of The National Lampoon Radio Hour. Around this same time, a new Canadian blues band, Downchild emerged on the Toronto scene. Aykroyd was a huge fan of the band. They were fronted by two brothers, Donnie Walsh (harp/guitar) and Richard ‘The Hock’ Walsh (vocals). The early days of Downchild were the inspiration that Dan needed to create the Blues Brothers skit. Aykroyd and Belushi achieved superstar status as Elwood and Jake Blues, the Blues Brothers. John and Dan would go on to capitalize on the popularity of Jake and Elwood by reprising the characters in a 1980 film, The Blues Brothers. Dan Aykroyd contributed further to the movie by writing its screenplay. A couple successful albums named Briefcase Full of Blues and Made in America followed the movie as did a ten-city tour. A simple comparison can be drawn between Downchild’s 1973 album Straight Up and the Blues Brothers’ album Briefcase Full of Blues. Now, more than 35 years after inspiring what became the Blues Brothers, Downchild is still as popular and as active as in the mid-70s. They are proudly known as Canada’s blues band. I sat down with Donnie Walsh just before one of the bands hot rockin’ and dancin’ sets at a festival.  Tim Holek for Great Lakes Blues Society: This is the band’s 39th year. What has kept the band together for so long? Donnie Walsh: I needed the money (laughs). This is what I love to do. To play this style of music, and write the music, and perform it. It’s what I do and I don’t do it quite as ravenously as I used to. I used to tour 325 days a year, for years. I was looking back at some of my old touring schedules and I thought no wonder I’m so tired. It was unbelievable! You figure you couldn’t do it, but I mean its right there, you did it. GLBS: Some of the older Downchild LPs have been released on CD for the first time DW: Yeah yeah. When Attic Records went out of business, Unidisc got the product and put them out on individual CDs. They put out some that had been out on album from a long time ago and never re-released or re-issued. So they just put them out and there they are. All of a sudden one day they aren’t collector’s items anymore. GLBS: Somewhat recently there were two compilation CDs put out on the US-based Blue Wave Records. How did that come about? DW: It was the idea of Greg Spencer (Blue Wave’s president). He wanted to do that and I said sure that’s a cool idea. He had access to pretty much all the old music. We went through it together but he was pretty much in charge of putting it in order, making it right and doing the re-mastering. GLBS: He put his record label’s image on the covers. In your case, this meant scantily-clad red-heads ended up on the covers of the CDs. If it was up to you, would there have been something different? DW: I could have said no. He loves pin-ups. This one particular artist, his artist, and I don’t even know the guy, but he is famous and he has zillions of them. As a matter of fact, he sent me; you know those desk calendars that have one on each day? He sent me one for Christmas. GLBS: Downchild is one of the few Canadian blues bands to break into the US. You still tour down there. Can that be attributed to the 1970s Blues Brothers era? DW: That is initially what got us in there. But I mean Downchild is a really great band. We played in Jacksonville at the Jacksonville Blues Festival, and nobody heard of us. We tore the place up. It was just great. We were rocking. Everybody was rocking. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon. Downchild could pretty well go anywhere where this kind of music is being played. GLBS: What attracted you to this music? DW: Jimmy Reed. I heard him at my girlfriend’s birthday party. Some guys brought a Jimmy Reed album over and that was it, for me. Before that, I was listening to rock and roll like Elvis and Fats Domino. I was sitting back thinking about it the other day. I can’t even get the concept anymore of how that music [Reed’s] affected me. It was unbelievable. Now, all this time later, it’s like ho hum. But at the time it was unbelievable. Jimmy Reed. Man. I’d put him on the record player, and when I went to sleep at night, it would still be playing when I’d get up in the morning. Then I’d play him all day, and it was unreal. Then, of course, I spread out to Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and Albert King. Then, I got a job in a record store. A blues record store that stocked 45s only. All alphabetical all around the whole room. You’d go to the Muddy Waters section, and there would be eight Muddy Waters singles. You’d go to the Sonny Boy Williamson section, and there would be five Sonny Boy Williamson singles. And they were all relatively new. Help Me and Bring It On Home were practically brand new in ’65 or ’66. GLBS: At that time, there wasn’t many, if any, blues bands based in Canada other than perhaps Dutch Mason. DW: Dutchy played some blues, but he’d play all kinds of music. There wasn’t much blues going on when I started, and there were hardly any blues clubs. What there were was very small, almost like coffee houses. And that’s all across Canada. We used to play with all the rock groups. Before us would be a rock band, we would play, and then, after us, there would be another rock band. GLBS: Being based in Canada, you probably didn’t have the opportunity to have the blues handed down to you from the previous generation. So were you self-taught? DW: Yeah, pretty much. But, I met James Cotton after a while, and he was a big influence. Watching James Cotton’s band helped me form a concept of what a band should be like. I learned a whole whack from him, just by watching him. GLBS: When the band began back in 1969, you were responsible for introducing the blues from coast to coast to many communities that hadn’t heard this type of music before. At the time, you probably didn’t realize that you were leaving your mark in Canadian blues music history. What do you think of those times now? DW: May they never come again (laughs). It was great. The good ole days. We had a great time. We were young, and we would just get in the van and drive and play, and it just went on and on like that. We met a lot of people and saw a lot of the country.  GLBS: Were you in the recording studio for any of the Blues Brothers records? DW: No. What happened with the Blues Brothers is – when they did their first album, which was a live album recorded in LA, they asked if it was OK to do a couple of our songs on it. We said, yeah sure. One song was mine, and one was mine and my brother Hock’s. The album sold at least three million copies, and that was right away. Who knows how many have been sold by now, because it is still selling. That helped us with our band. The band was a little more disoriented at the time. We tried to go to the States and make it there, but that didn’t work out too good. But we kept plugging away and did some more albums and did more tours. GLBS: The band has had a lot of personnel changes throughout its 39 years. One of the most noticeable changes, for listeners, is the vocalist. The current singer is Chuck Jackson and you have been quoted as saying, “The best thing to happen to the band recently was the addition of Chuck Jackson.” Why? DW: It wasn’t that recent anymore – it’s been 16 or 17 years now! Chuck is a great singer, and he has a good vibe on and off stage. He also plays harmonica, which makes him a musician as well as a singer, which does make a difference. He is very easy to work with, and very personable. He is a band leader’s dream come true. GLBS: Horns have always been a staple of the band. Why is that? DW: I just like horn sections and I like writing horn parts. GLBS: With all the traveling you have done with the band, what road stories do you have? DW: The really good ones aren’t printable. But we played in Nashville a long time ago at a big festival at the Winston 500. I got to drive a lap around the track when nobody was looking. You wouldn’t believe the bank on those corners. If you aren’t going fast enough, your car will slide down into the middle of the track. GLBS: Did you ever think to take driving up as a hobby? DW: Driving?! I’ve been doing that for 39 years. That isn’t a hobby, that’s the way I get to work. GLBS: What things keep you busy when you aren’t touring or recording or writing? DW: I like fishing. I live in the country. I like the country a lot. It’s beautiful. Just doodling around, you know? I do a little work-shopping – see if I can cut a finger off (laughs). GLBS: What do you like the best about being on the road and what do you like least about it? DW: The driving, and the hours that you spend on the road can get you down. But going to new towns is great. I’ve been to a lot of places in Canada, a lot of times. So, you end up with lots of old friends, and lots of new friends. GLBS: What kind of gear do you use? DW: I have a Fender Stratocaster which I play as my regular guitar. It’s from around 1975. I also use an Epiphone Riviera. I use that for slide. I play in open D tuning. I use a green bullet harp microphone and an M80 Fender amplifier. GLBS: What Canadian blues artists do you feel are more deserving of wider recognition? DW: All of them. Do you go to the Southside Shuffle? (An annual blues and jazz festival held each September in Port Credit which was founded and is organized by Downchild lead singer Chuck Jackson). There might be eight or ten local artists who perform different styles of blues. They are all good enough to be on that kind of venue. They are all over the place. There are bands popping up. There are bands that have already popped up. There are great musicians all over. There wasn’t a blues roster when I started out. So to pick a bass player was like do I want that bass player or this bass player? There might have been one bass player. And if you got him, you were lucky. But now, there is all kinds of blues bass players. There’s all kinds of blues guitar players. There’s all kinds of blues drummers. That was another thing. A blues drummer? Ha ha. A blues drummer was somebody who couldn’t play the drums yet. And as soon as they learned how to play the drums, they were a rock drummer. But now, there’s guys who actually want to play the blues when they sit down at the drums. I’ve got one of them (Mike Fitzpatrick) and he’s really good. GLBS What about the future of the blues? There are some people who believe its future depends on a merger with hip-hop. There are others who feel the stuff that artists like Harry Manx are doing (incorporating world music) is the blues’ only hope for survival. DW: There’s always been incorporating – that’s what blues is all about. Like I just said, there are so many blues musicians now. I could have seen it going away, maybe, 30 or 40 years ago. But, it’s not going away. There is a bigger audience now but there is also way more players. There are lots of places to play and like I say, there are lots of blues musicians. So life is good. Downchild’s 15th album, Live At The Palais Royale came out in 2007. At the tenth annual Maples Blues Awards, held January 2008, in Toronto, five of the six Downchild band members won awards. For additional information about the band, contact: www.downchild.com |