“It’s a bucket list thing,” says Curtis Salgado about playing the King Biscuit Blues Festival for the first time this year. He headlines the main stage Friday night, October 11th. His latest album, Fine By Me, is in the Top 10 on the Billboard Blues Chart right now. He will join me for my Call and Response Symposium at the Malco Theater on Cherry St. in Helena, Arkansas on Saturday, October 12th at 12:15 p.m. “I’ve always wanted to do it,” says Salgado about his scheduled headlining gig Friday of the festival.
Three-time Grammy winner and Saturday night headliner Bobby Rush also will be on stage with me as well as Anson Funderburgh who was the first artist to be chosen to play at the first King Biscuit Blues Festival in 1986 and every one since then for 38 years.
Each of these artists epitomizes what makes the annual King Biscuit Blues Festival stand out as The Whitman’s Sampler of the varied styles that define blues as America’s gift to world culture. Not to mention that each one has an innate ability to move our souls as blues lovers.
Curtis Selgado began his career in 1970 fresh out of high school in a band called The Roman Forum. He went on to join the Robert Cray Band. He tutored John Belushi in how to play Jake Blues for the Blues Brothers film. Frontman in Roomful of Blues in the ’80s, he’s gone on to release four solo albums for Shanachie Records, three for Alligator and now is climbing the charts with his independent album Fine By Me. He’s done all this having conquered liver cancer, lung cancer, and undergoing quadruple bypass surgery.
Curtis is one of the most unique artists in blues whose style runs from soul to hard driving electric blues, On “Fine By Me,” the title cut from his new hit album – his first in three years – he dreams he’s having lunch with Jackie Onassis. “I love Jackie Onassis. We’re having a great time. We talked about Russia and its history. I woke up and got out of bed and got a pen and paper. I wrote the first verse and then I thought about it.” The song also references Mohammed Ali, Iggy Pop and Malcom X. “It’s kind of a bad ass song. So, that’s why I called the record that.”
Unassuming and shy in person, Anson Funderburgh defines the essence of King Biscuit. He developed his sound learning from the likes of Freddie King, Jimmy Reed, and Albert Collins when they played near his home town of Plano, Texas. His performances with his band the Rockets and vocalist Sam Myers on vocals between 1985 and 2006 are legendary among Biscuit fans.
On stage Anson is a monster Texas guitarist whose sound is as timeless and earth shaking as the artists he’s played with and/or produced including The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Delbert McClinton, John Nemeth and Katie Webster.
At King Biscuit this year, he again will perform with his own band The Rockets. He plays guitar on Curtis Salgado’s new album Fine By Me and is doing select dates with Mark Hummel. Guitar Player Magazine credited him with “achieving the classic Stratocaster tone defined by Otis Rush in the ’50s and Magic Sam in the ’60s.”
“I love being over there,” says Anson. “I love the sound. King Biscuit is a special place for me. I’ve played every one of them. It’s been a place I’ve been able to count on every year to go and play music and see fans and friends.
“I enjoy playing music. I think it’s been a gift and a blessing for me and the best thing for me to do with that is just realize that it is and have no thoughts about that. I feel like I’m very lucky to have been in this business because it’s given me so much joy. That’s why we all started doing it, I think.”
Bobby Rush, Bobby Rush, Bobby Rush! The mantra has been ringing out at the Biscuit from the beginning. Known the world over as the King of the Chitlin Circuit, he keeps reinventing himself year in and year out, and finally at 90 years old he has three Grammys in his resume. He is the festival’s closing headliner Saturday night and will be a guest earlier in the day.
As fundamental as blues itself, he is a walking history lesson of the form. The only question is why did it take the Grammys more than half a century to acknowledge him? But King Biscuit patrons knew him when, and we embrace him as the visionary he has always been.
“For me (winning three Grammys) was better late than never. I thought it was good,” he explains. “If I can make it as a young black man and now as an old black man who has been up and down, you can do it too.
“I still have hope. I’m still enthused about what I do and the way I do it. I have fallen down and I’m probably gonna fall again. If I do fall, I get up and dust myself off and don’t give up. That’s what I want people to see in Bobby Rush. If Bobby Rush can do this as a country boy, you can, too.”
Three legendary blues artists reveal to me what they’ve learned in careers spent performing for us. Find out the backstories of their amazing journeys at the Call and Response Seminar at this year’s Biscuit, Saturday, October 12th at the Malco Theater in downtown Helena, Arkansas.
Roger Stolle hosts the first half of the seminar from 11 to 12 with Zakiya Hooker, Terry “Big T” Williams, and Johnny Rawls as his guests. I have the second half from 12:15 to 1:15. Admission is free.
