Rubber City Review

A few posts back, I touched on my stint playing in a Columbus, Ohio bar band. And one of the pleasures of that assignment was opening for and rubbing up against some fairly respectable players, including Roy Buchanan, James Cotton, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, The Paladins and Anson Funderburgh with Sam Myers, to name a few.

Those gigs fed my fantasies of living the life of an honest-to-god bluesrockin’ missionary, spreading the good word in roadhouse bars across America. That is, until I met the lovable lunatic Evan Johns – one of the most original guitar players who never hit the big time.

Although Johns’ unique approach to his instrument betrayed no hint of formal training, he could launch into a beautiful mess of sublime, jazzy chords. Then minutes later, he’d choke out the nastiest, filthiest, most blood-curdling sounds you’ve ever heard coming from a Fender. And he didn’t sing as much as howl, much like one of Dexter’s victims braying over the sound of a radial saw: Vacation Time

Born in Virginia and bred in the D.C.-area bar circuit, Johns guesses he started playing professionally before he even got out of grade school. And he swam in the city’s big pool of talent that included legendary pickers like Buchanan, Link Wray, Danny Gatton, Roy Clark and Jimmy Thackery.

I first heard Johns’ playing on a Grammy-nominated compilation from 1985 called “Trash, Twang and Thunder: Big Guitars from Texas,” an orgy of Telecaster-driven excess (Johns had moved to Austin the previous year). But I was really floored by the garage-rock masterpiece he recorded in ’82 with his band the H-Bombs, “Rollin’ Through the Night.” The album was released four years later on Alternative Tentacles, a record label founded by punk-rocker Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys (who remains one of Johns’ biggest champions). Johns and band make a joyful noise throughout, completely uninformed by any bad trend in music that had come and gone since the first rockabillies roamed the planet back in the mid-‘50s. Here’s a taste (stick around for the solo on this one): Sugar Cookie

So you can imagine my excitement in ’88 when I found out we were opening for Evan Johns and the H-Bombs at Stache’s, an oversized rec room of a music club just north of Ohio State campus. And after we set up our equipment the afternoon of the show, we waited patiently for the band’s arrival.

A few hours went by before a beat-up Econoline van pulled in front of the club. One of the band members (no roadies) slowly walked to the back of the van and opened up the double doors. Evan Johns practically spilled out onto High Street, giving new meaning to the term “many miles of bad road.” He stumbled into the club, wearing a soiled but stylish western shirt. Random swaths of greasy hair were either glued to his scalp or struggling to break free, and small bits of foam rubber were stuck to the side of his face. He took one look at our outstretched hands and, in a voice straight out of Dixie and the depths of hell, immediately asked for a large quantity of Busch beer. And there I was, staring at the face of my future as a road-dog musician.

Johns knocked back about six beers just changing the strings of his guitar. He stacked the empties on top of his amp and, by the time he began playing, much of the floor behind the amp was covered too. But he still managed to amaze those of us who were wearing out his latest album while scaring some of the unsuspecting kids who had wandered up from campus by mistake.

He played red-hot rockabilly instrumentals and bruising western swing workouts that sounded like Bob Wills had replaced the Texas Playboys with members of Megadeth. And his short, sturdy originals seemed to describe a lifestyle more familiar to carnies and crackheads than a “weekend warrior” like me with a steady government paycheck: Madhouse

We shared a few more gigs with Evan Johns and the H-Bombs over the next couple years. I didn’t spend much time with him, although he lit up considerably when I handed him that first 12-pack of cheap domestic beer. I had the opportunity to introduce him from the stage at one gig. Made some earnest comments about Johns being a true folk artist in the sense that everything he plays is genuine, unfiltered and steeped in real American music. Or some such nonsense… I was trying to match Johns beer-for-beer that night – should’ve written it down.

But Johns struck up a lasting friendship with our frontman, Ray Fuller. “I jammed with him a few times back in ’90, mostly playing rhythm to his lead,” Fuller said. “He asked me to do a bunch of Midwest dates with him, but I couldn’t commit at the time. We met up again in ’95 at the big rockabilly weekend in Marion, Indiana, the home of James Dean. We took Evan out to see Dean’s grave and then to the museum in Fairmount (apparently Johns is a bit of a history buff). Evan had a case of beer in his hotel room and was drinking one for breakfast when we picked him up.”

As you can imagine, the years haven’t been kind to Johns, who has struggled to make a living as a working musician. Although popular in Scandinavia, Johns hasn’t been able to sustain much of a following in the U.S. due to his take-no-prisoners style and erratic behavior. And a mixed bag of albums released on Rykodisc, Freedom and his own Jellyroll label (including one produced by Bruce Springsteen’s bass player, Garry Tallent) have generated little in the way of sales. None pack the wallop of “Rollin’ Through the Night,” although one comes close – a Christmas album released on Rykodisc on ’91 called “Please Mr. Santa Claus” (I still have my red vinyl copy, now fetching about $60 on amazon). Actually, beyond the title song, the album sidesteps the standard yuletide novelties in favor of first-rate instrumentals like a blazing version of Telstar and this odd little ditty: Santa’s Little Helper

A lifetime of drinking Busch and Buds from sunup to way past sundown has certainly taken its toll. Johns almost lost his eyesight in the early ‘90s from cataracts, and more recently, an undisclosed illness has placed him on a long list of candidates for a liver transplant.

Concerned about Johns’ worsening health, a group of friends and musicians in Austin held a benefit last November to raise money for his medical expenses. Performers included Kelly Willis, Gurf Morlix, the LeRoi Brothers and the superbly named Gay Sportscasters.

He’s been described as his own worst enemy and “a coot who isn’t old.” I prefer to think of him as the very definition of an enlightened rogue – an outsider artist of sorts who deserves far more fame and recognition for his wonderfully skewed guitar playing, singing and songwriting. And although I never really hit the road myself, I’ll always love Evan Johns for bringing his sanctified holy-rollin’ revival to our cozy little bar in Columbus.

If I Had My Way/Evan Johns and the H-Bombs

For more on Evan Johns and his music, let me direct you to an excellent profile written some 13 years ago by Eddie Dean for the Washington City Paper. Here’s an excerpt:

“All the on- and offstage histrionics wouldn’t have amounted to squat if Johns hadn’t been a bona fide guitar hero. He is casually eloquent, squeezing noise out of his Tele in ways that have nothing to do with roadhouse picking and grinning. He solos against himself, setting up riffs that he backfills with musical quotes, jokes, and hiccups that build until you find yourself laughing in spite of yourself. Over a beer, Johns is a witty guy. On a guitar, he is smarter and even funnier, Lenny Bruce and Henny Youngman and a hundred other inspired notions wrapped up in one big noisy sound.”

And here’s a little number by Ray Fuller & The Bluesrockers that’s sort of a tribute to our old pal Evan Johns (recorded live at Stache’s in ’92): Everything That’s Good

Ray Fuller with Rubber City Harmonicat (circa mid-'80s)

It’s hard to imagine Saturday night in America without the corner-bar blues hero. Even harder trying to imagine said blues hero making it through the night without playing standards like Sweet Home Chicago, Got My Mojo Workin’, Shake Your Moneymaker, Stormy Monday or The Thrill is Gone. In most communities, you’d violate a local ordinance by refusing to play these songs in a corner bar.

I should know. I’ve played them hundreds of times myself, often at gunpoint (at least it seemed that way sometimes). And I was usually backing up a weekend blues warrior in some dive in Ohio.

Ray Fuller, today

The best of them all was Ray Fuller. By day, he’d use his daddy’s backhoe to lay sewer pipe. By night, he turned joints throughout the Columbus area into blues cathedrals – where you could worship Saints Muddy, Hooker and Reed in atonement for the various sins you committed on your hi-fi system during the week.

Some nights Ray would show up dog-tired from laying pipe all day (not in the Holmesian sense, mind you) and spend the first few songs “sittin” the blues, Lightin’ Hopkins-style. But his energy level would pick up considerably by the second set, and you knew it was a good night when Ray would start playing his Strat behind his back while humping the bass drum (ya hadda be there).

We were what you’d call a “three chords and a cloud of dust” blues band, which seemed appropriate given we were plying our trade in the home of Ohio State Football. Songs with four or five chords were usually reserved for the first set, before we made too many trips to the bar. But the best part of the evening involved Ray whipping out the Oahu lap steel, our bass player Bill slappin’ the standup, myself playing the most rudimentary rhythm guitar possible – all in the service of the great Elmore James. Here’s Ray and company doing the Elmore shuffle, live at Stache’s in Columbus… Talk To My Baby/Ray Fuller and the Bluesrockers

Although Ray wrote a number of solid originals, he wasn’t averse to complying with city law by trotting out the old warhorses. But he always wanted to dig a little deeper by covering songs that were obscure enough to pass as originals among unsuspecting locals. And when I played with Ray back in the mid-‘80s, the prototype for blues bands trying to do something a little different was The Fabulous Thunderbirds. Not the T-Birds of “Tuff Enuff”/MTV fame, but the band that recorded their first album in a day, with time left over to barbecue some pork.

For white guys who wanted to play the blues (at this point, it’s important to ask the question first posed by the Bonzo Dog Band back in 1968, “Can blue men sing the whites?”), there were very few role models to choose from. Hordes of hippie shoegazers had pretty much wrung the life out of second-generation blues, and punk-rockers had succeeded in making the extended blues guitar solo almost completely irrelevant. Paul Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield were great, and Butter kept the spirit alive with his “Better Days” band in the early-‘70s, but that was about it for white bluesmen. Then along came the T-Birds – a fresh breeze out of Austin, Texas.

Guitarist Jimmie Vaughan looked like Gene Vincent’s badass brother while playing like Buddy Guy after a three-week bender. Harp player Kim Wilson clearly worshipped at the altar of Little Walter but more than reveled in the band’s punk-blues attitude, wearing see-through knit shirts and a turban on his balding head. He also was a powerful singer, mostly devoid of the “bluesier-than-thou” affectations that seemed to trip up a lot of white singers. Bassist Keith Ferguson and drummer Mike Buck made up the “Joe Friday” of blues rhythm sections – just the groove, ma’am. This was clearly something to aspire to. Here’s evidence that the T-Birds could play blues with the kind of authority that few other white players could match… C-Boy’s Blues/The Fabulous Thunderbirds

But the T-Birds’ true genius was in the way they mined the unique sub-genre known as swamp blues (check out our recent post, “The Sound of the Swamp”). Their first long-player, “Girls Go Wild” (released in 1979), included covers of two swamp blues classics – She’s Tuff by Jerry “Boogie” McCain and Scratch My Back by Slim Harpo. On this next sample, you can hear the T-Birds’ version first and Harpo second… Baby Scratch My Back/The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Slim Harpo

The T-Birds second album, “What’s the Word,” offered even more swamp blues goodness, including a tune recorded by one of the form’s mainstays, harp player Lazy Lester. Here’s Lester’s original of Sugar Coated Love, released in 1958: Sugar-Coated Love/Lazy Lester

Back in Columbus, the Bluesrockers were taking the long road to the swamp by trying to crack the code on “Girls Go Wild.” Inspired by McCain, Harpo and Lester, we started combing the record stores on High Street to find out where the hell these songs came from. Of course, the first reliable collection of Harpo’s “hits” was an import, but it was worth the extra bucks to have his essential stuff on one slab of vinyl. Later we liked to joke that we were a Slim Harpo tribute band, having worked up respectable covers of Scratch, Got Love If You Want It, I’m A King Bee, Te-Ni-Nee-Ni-Nu and Tip On In.

Eventually, the T-Birds headed off in a more commercial direction while we dug even deeper into the source material – which became a lot easier when reissue experts like Rhino Records started putting this stuff out on CD. Ray even wrote a fine original, Oh My Cherie, that was clearly influenced by the sound of the swamp. Maybe he’ll send me an mp3 someday so I can post it here.

Although we soon lost interest in the T-Birds, we remain forever grateful for their first recordings. Without them, it would’ve been much harder to maintain the ruse that we were a mostly original blues band.

Ray’s still rockin’ the blues today… If you’re in the Columbus area, check here for a listing of local gigs. He plays quite a few in Reynoldsburg, where local authorities are willing to look the other way if you don’t cover Sweet Home Chicago.

T-Birds in 1980… with their own version of Sugar-Coated Love:

Ray Fuller in 1990… opening for The Paladins at Crazy Mama’s in Columbus. Basically a one-chord song – perfect for the third set. Little Walter got that “trill” effect by moving his harmonica back and forth. He found the whole head-shaking thing undignified. Maybe he was right.