A Live Interview with Delbert McClinton

good evening everybody welcome to BB Kings and New York City I'm Brad Solinsky with back story events and we have this really really cool evening planned out for you we're here celebrating the release of this book here one of the fortunate view about the legendary Delbert McClinton written by Diana Finley Hendrix and it's my pleasure to have both of them here this evening Delbert and Diana the author she's going to talk to Delbert and then afterwards we're going to hear some music so kick back and enjoy and thank you guys thank you hey can you hear us okay raise your hand if you're here because you heard about the book okay good all right the rest of you we have books over there but these people that came for it get first copies okay I'm Diana Hendrix and I am from Central Texas and I had the pleasure of getting to work with Delbert McClinton on a dream project which was this biography and not only is he one of the fortunate few but it made me one of the fortunate few as well and I think when you read this you're gonna feel that too the book is very much about Delbert's life and in February he will celebrate his 61st year on stage as a professional performer and so we've got lots and lots of stories and along with those stories come a lot of road back roads and front roads that he's traveled and so what we've done here is we read through the book and we find that Dilbert led kind of a Forrest Gump life through all these years he stumbled across every kind of music scene and became a pioneer in that from the time he was a child listening to Bob Wills and Taiana radio and a border radio from Mexico when he was growing up in Lubbock moving into Fort Worth getting to hear lots of that kind of amazing music he's going to tell you a little bit about and beyond you know he got to be a part of the birth of rock and roll he got to be a part of that mass exodus that all the good Texas artists moved out to California because that was the promised land they all came back to Texas to become part of that progressive moment that we had and got to be a little bit of Outlaws and move forward but without telling you a lot more about the book I want to ask Delbert a few questions okay tonight just making sure you're paying attention yeah I'm listening tonight this is being streamed and recorded by Guitar World magazine and so I think probably one of the first questions I want to ask you is about one of the guitar players that you told me lots of stories about that I wasn't able to put in the book necessarily I'm talking about Billy I'm talking about Billy well uh because she's talking about was my best friend we go way back to turning 21 together and he worked with me for ethanol for about 40 years and he's one of those kind of guys that come in the room and everybody would just gravitate to him because of his and and he was great guy who's a great guitar player and we we enjoyed a lot of life together and she said he was he liked the a like the girls and most all his stories are about girls so and girls is a very forgiving term was the first time you heard somebody play guitar live at your house there's a guy named Ray hard and I came home from elementary school I was in the sixth grade and we did it as a shotgun duplex in Fort Worth Texas just every room was straight back and I came in the front door and I heard somebody playing a guitar and singing and by the time I got to the kitchen between the kitchen and the dining room there's this arched doorway and this long lanky guy with a hard hat he's a oilfield wildcatter guy and he was leaning in that doorway or laying down there there's feet up one side and Himalaya on the other and he was singing a Hank Williams song had a little tiny Martin guitar with a hole in it about the size of my fist and I thought that was the most magic thing that I had ever witnessed in my life somebody actually in my house playing a guitar and singing songs he told me later he stepped in it and when he was drunk and knocked that hole in it and I loved that I thought that was a perfect story you know anyway that's the first guy that ever came into my life Flanagan's are singing ray Hardin was shortly after that you and a few of your friends got together and started your first band we did we started a band called the mellow fellows they were five gets our players and none of us could play and a drummer had a snare drum and I in a ride cymbal and that's the way we went around playing in the beginning you know first few gigs that's all we had the drummer bought a bass drum and a floor tom when we found out we were gonna get to over the show for Jerry Lee Lewis the Sportatorium in Dallas first time he was ever there and there was about six bands played in front of him and we were one of them so you know in order to spiff it up ray went and got a a bass drum the floor tom we're gonna hear more about Ray Clarke a little bit later in this story that was the drummer but as we moved forward through this you guys are getting kind of a that my favorite the best of some of these stories I'm not gonna tell them all the good ones they didn't have to read to get the real good ones but but as we're talking about guitar players and we're talking about things like that what are you doing we work very well together before I go any further I've got to introduce Wendy goldstein who is standing back there being our merch girl in real life wendy is the boss of everyone wendy is Delbert's manager and wife and as he likes to say she came along and scraped everything together in a pile and made something out of you and she does have some books back there if anybody needs some moving along as we're talking about playing and doing things let's go let's fast-forward to Fort Worth and you're in your early 20s you're playing in a band and you're opening for I mean you're you're backing some pretty great musicians who came through that chitlin circuit that that was the early 60s 61 62 63 we've worked at a place in Fort Worth Texas well I went in Fort Worth it was right across the city limit line into Mansfield Texas so it was just really you drove across the street you were in Mansfield you know wasn't like you had to drive to Manson well man still had a club in it called Jack's place and it was a big old dancehall and Jack Padgett the man who owned the place had a ideal worked out with the Mansfield police and all the underage kids from Fort Worth came there and you could get in and had a neon kicking mule jackass burro sign and the the insiders knew that if the mule was kicking everything was fine if the mule wasn't kicking there was gonna be a raid that night so it all worked out pretty well you know and the place finally burned down but everything we owned in it but in the meantime you played with some pretty great people and I think that's talk about a road Scholar you really learned on the road and in those clubs during the time we played there at Jack's place we went back to have Jimmy read a lot we backed out but let me replay much guitar Jimmy Reed he played a little guitar him all by himself the lilia feet but that's okay well it depends on how much he had to drink to but we've worked with Jimmy Reed a lot Joe Turner Big Joe Turner Freddie King Howlin wolf who else both deadly 34 Williams and I learned to first joint I ever smoked in my life was in the bathroom of a black Club in Lawton Oklahoma called mother's place and I was about 20 years old you're telling all the stories you're telling all the stories but that's okay because you guys are getting to hear this sneak free you know we haven't done this we're kind of just learning about things right now but so tell me about turning 21 I turned 21 and I didn't drink but I stopped on the way because on my birthday and I stopped on the way to gigging bought a pint of Wild Turkey and when I left my first wife half of that was still sitting under the sink in the bathroom I drank some Wild Turkey and and missed the whole show haven't that happened twice took me two times the other time I was uh we were we were backing up Jimmy Reed and Buster Brown you remember Fannie Mae we were back in both of them up that night and I was sitting in the office with him harmonica and my hand just ready to learn anything well they were passing the fifth of old granddad and I'm sitting in between them so I'm double hitting the bottle I missed that show too but I haven't done it again and you know that was just a there wasn't a lot of drinking that went on but one night that I have to tell you about because before I tell you this I have to say part of the fun of writing this book is that Delbert saved so much material he saved archives he saved journals he saved tickets he saved stock car parking permits that had songs written on the back of them and I got to hold all of those as I was working on this story and it was really really fun to see all the pieces of things and to hold these moments in history and all of this really cool information the first night he played at Carnegie Hall he had the program he had his backstage pass and he had a telegram from Wolfman Jack congratulating him on bringing the Blues to Carnegie Hall and so so we had some really really cool information like that and that I got to work through but one of the probably most interesting things I got to touch was a very special microphone that he has in a really nice antique glass case in his living room right next to the Steinway piano tell us about that well you does anybody remember layaway putting on layaway well I had this microphone on layaway because there's any money I don't have any money you know I couldn't outright buy but I wanted it bad and it was a big sure microphone the kind they used no kind of these young people used today in video is that big old mic that you know looks like it was from way back then and it was well I have one I have one and we were going to back up Jimmy Reed this weekend and I'm out about $15 on that thing and layaway and I I scraped him money together and went out and picked it up we could use it that weekend with Jimmy Reed and come the night of the show Jimmy got up and ate it - you usually do two shows and the second show he was usually sitting down because he was he was pretty much a mess but he always had at least two great big women with him and they helped him do everything everything I guess in any event he got up to do the second show and he was sitting in this chair and he started playing this song and then a quarter Jin shot out of his mouth and hit that microphone and just splattered in slow motion and I'm watching it like oh no I never used it again but I'll still have it and I used a toothbrush on whatever kind of disinfectant but I held that microphone I gotta say that was worth the whole project who else has a microphone that Jimmy Reed threw up in I mean because I don't want to defame him in any way i love him i think he was a genius but learned lots and lots of lessons through his career and he's still learning a lot of lessons as he continues to tour and travel and he was playing upstairs at bb's November 17th anybody that's from Central Texas well he's gonna be I think you're in in Arbor next weekend in Ann Arbor then back in Texas in February there's the cruise we've got the big sandy beaches cruise is coming how many of you're coming on the cruise yeah how many of you ever been on the cruise yeah I think there might still be a lifeboat or something we can drag y'all along it'll be great but but in all of this you know he's he's learned a whole lot of lessons that what is it you say sometimes the lesson comes was learning from experience the lesson comes after the test there you go but there are lots of really interesting stories the first song that ever hit number one that Delbert was involved with he had written and it was completely biographic autobiographical two more bottles of wine and one of the chapters in the book talks about him moving out to Los Angeles and sweeping out a warehouse taking Maggie out there and tell us a little bit about heading out to Los Angeles that was a big step for a Fort Worth boy well I was I was playing a beer joint in Fort Worth one night and it was full joy house was rocking it and this woman came in that I had known since high school hadn't seen her in a long time and we had never anything for each other but that night sparks flew and we started hanging out together we ended up she'd just gotten she'd just gotten a divorce and had a 66 Chrysler Imperial and a bag full of money and she and I decided we'd go to California so we did we would went to LA I think Glen Clark who did a couple of Records with Deborah Glenn he had moved out there and they had been he's been writing me said man you need to come out here we can really do something out here so my first marriage was in the toilet anyway and so finally Maggie and I took off from went to LA and ray Clark whose house we went to was in the first band I was ever in and a drummer yeah the one that ended up getting the floor Tom and the bass time to go over to Jerry Lee anyway he had moved out two years ago so he lived in Topanga Canyon and he have you know about Topanga Canyon yeah well you know it's and this other couple drogue out with us so by the time we got there we were we've been driven all the way from us straight through and everybody needed a shower so they tow tray told us it will go easy on the shower because we're on a septic tank you know so there were four of us well we didn't take that very serious and we all took a shower now his house dripped off the side of the hill and the lower part of it had a dirt floor well that's where me and Maggie slept we had a head mattress we threw it on a dirt we were hippies here imagine Soma third floor and in the middle of night I got up to go pee and we were floating in the overflow of the septic tank first night in California so and it and it all went downhill from there no not really so pretty soon we moved into a place called I don't remember the name of the apartments but it was everybody called it methedrine Manor it was four storeys I was on on Venice Beach and the floor the walls the sink the bathtub the ceiling were all painted black and had three locks on the door and that's where we moved in and yeah and you know wasn't sleeping on the on the ground anymore anyway there was a there was there was a kind of a living room dining room and a little kitchen and bathroom well Glenn Clark took the first part of the room and Maggie and I there was this double door closet in the middle room we took the doors off and shoved our mattress in about three feet to get a little bit of privacy and and hung some shears over it you know but Glenn was right there anyway we did that until one day she about two months after we moved there she decided she'd had enough and left and I said on that mattress ban that sheer curtain and wrote two more bottles of wine in about 20 minutes and it's pretty much all true that was after work that was after work sweeping out a warehouse well no actually I hadn't got a job yet within the next week after she left I got a job working at the same place that Ray and right and that was a veterinary supply warehouse and in Santa Monica well I know you guys are gonna be playing in a few minutes and I want to be sure that we give anybody out here who might have a question a chance to ask anything does anybody have any questions here for us and we've got a microphone anybody have a question nothing left I already told him everything sure it's in the book what could you tell us about November 22nd 1963 yeah fresh that got killed what do you know about that well I I saw him about an hour before he got shot I was working at a clothing store I think work you know a friend of mine owned this place called the stag shop and I'd worked out there for for clothes he couldn't pay me and I didn't care you know anyway he was looking at at the RadioShack magazine and he saw this thing called the Big Ear and it was supposed to be something it's about this big three feet across or so and you could put it to a wall and listen to everybody in the next room and Stuart just had to have one so he sent me to go get one from from the store and I was on the way to get it and there was this this road this two-lane highway that kind of one side one side was a drop-off the other side was heel so there would anything you could do but pull over to the side of the road with a motorcade president had just spoken Fort Worth in and the motorcade was coming out there and headed to Carswell Air Force Base for the flight to Dallas well the the motorcade the police came through and made everybody pull over to the side so there were about 25 or 30 cars some pulled over that way so over here and I was one of them and we were standing I was standing by the car and here they came and they were right there close as you are and we locked eyes and waved I went and got the big ear and came back and I walked in and he said the president's just been killed so that's what I'm this is that kind of story that just amazes me as those things just happened in life I also came to see me because they found Jack Ruby's not a number of Jack Ruby's phone book because I played some of his beer joints he used to have a used to have six or eight burlesque beer joints in Dallas really sleazy stuff really really like strip clubs I did I remember the first time I played for strippers with the skyliner Club and the boss sent me backstage too there were three girls that man to find out what they wanted what kind of music they wanted so I went in there and and they were in various stages of dress and I've got the pencil in the pan and said what we want a watermelon man that's what I want okay cool what and you know and and they could see that I was I was maybe 20 years old 21 maybe and I mean wouldn't I wasn't scared of girls but Jesus they had all their hanging out you know and they could see that I was there and this one girl says you want to help me put this pasty on and I said no better not I was already about to lose it anyway so but anyway I know a lot of those girls you know because we played those kind of joints anybody else have a question yeah hi Delbert it's a real honor to be here and I won't see you and really love your songwriting I heard you on WNYC talk about how difficult it is for songwriters to get paid these days I'm a songwriter myself good luck but I know so my question is there something that songwriters and musicians can do to change the rules is out of the bottle buddy I don't know what you can do because with the way it goes these days with everything straining and all you put a record out everybody's got it for free instantly that's right so it's wondering if maybe the right societies can they can do something well you all out and do live shows that's all I know I know I know guys that in the past four years have had their their royalty incomes cut from what they were down to a quarter that's you know musics free these days it's not right but that's the way it is well there's a lot of people that are working to change those laws but you would be gonna be dead before they change you know I'm saying [Laughter] Delbert your you've played your band used to back up a lot of people that came into play through Texas like at one point you played with muddy waters what was that experience like well actually I never played with muddy no I played with played with we backed up Sonny Boy lost Sonny Boy Williamson Jimmy Reed Howlin wolf Big Joe Turner Freddie King Albert Collins played with BB but this that's that wasn't back in that time with those guys show you tricks on the harmonica they did I learned to play from from from Jimmy and and and and Buster Brown mainly or Sonny Boy I mean excuse me that's a funny story about Buster Brown know when when Fannie Mae came out I wanted to learn that song just like that I did but the harp solo in it the first node in the harp solo I couldn't find it on the harmonica it's not there and when I met him I asked him he said oh I hollered that one he was a kind of a field holler but I'm worried over that forever because I could not find that note on armonica I think there were two or three songs that really changed your life one of them was probably when you were cutting across that field and heard Big Joe Turner yeah I think the two people that that really struck me in in my life early life that that compounded the fact that this is what I would do forever and one of them was Big Joe Turner me and my friends and Fort Worth back in that time there was a rail yard that had where they made up trains so there was about twelve or fourteen tracks you know and they called it the hump because they bring cars up and they would line the tracks push that car over the hump and it would go down and make into join into a particular train that makes sense so the other side of that was the woods just woods you know the Trinity River and the woods so it was where we would go to to go hunt or we didn't really hunt anything we just got under shoot guns 14:22 shotguns and campout and and and do that fourteen-year-old boys do you know and we were coming back from there one day we'd been down there camping out and we were headed back towards the tracks and instead of going over the tracks there was a tunnel that she could go through cockroach isn't in it that big but it was a lot of easier than climbing through all those trains so but that's not important to the story really I was coming across this open field and there was a black barbecue joint out on the stove foundry Road kind of kind of out a couple of miles out of the main city and it was a restaurant where they put the tray on your window you know and and they were and I heard honey hush coming across there Big Joe Turner completely changed my life I got I had to do that had to do that and the other time that changed my life was I went to see the movie Blackboard Jungle and the intro to blackboard jump jungle is rock around the clock by Bill Haley and it was a midnight movie and for worth which was about as bizarre as you could get I mean that was really getting now when you were especially 1314 years old to get to go to a midnight movie so that was big deal and I'll never forget when that show started the show started with no talking that started with with rock around the clock everybody went apeshit crazy it was it was a breakthrough like I've never known since everybody joined and just going absolutely insane over the rocker Oh change your life yeah and they'll be that way forever yeah it's a quick one actually hydel but I'm gonna ask you I'm gonna ask you to dig deep into your memory banks and I wondered two things the first was the first song you ever wrote and the second one was the first song you ever wrote that you recorded the first song I ever wrote was called hell I can't even remember but I'll tell you what I did I went and and and paid somebody to write the sheet music out because somebody had told me boy if you don't if you don't get it no notified or something somebody might steal it and I was scared of this if I said it so I went again sheet music made who-who was the name of it who who would be the one that holds you I don't remember but I got it and I and I kept that until I tell it was a grown man in a sealed envelope so that nobody would steal it you know it was it was pretty simple simple life what was the first song that you wrote that you recorded first thing I wrote that I recorded was a song called Pina Pina still be a hit according to Chirico yeah well it was a big year in the Latino community and I don't know why but it was but we wrote it we wrote it on the on the on the back of a Kotex box I swear to God we did we well we we had this song we were going to record and we needed a flip side to it and we didn't have one so we we got over an end of beli Cox's house and determined to write a song and Tina don't you know I love you so started coming out and we'd having to write it down on them and somebody sent in the trashcan there and pulled out a an empty Kotex box and we tore it open so that we can have the inside and wrote Tina on it wrote throughout the song we really appreciate getting a chance to talk to you about this but we want to save some time for a little bit of music Delbert's brought a couple of his favorite musicians with him and so without further ado we'll get those guys down here there you go Thank You Diana thank you

Channel: Guitar World

Views: 2,014

Rating: 4.647059 out of 5

Keywords: guitar world magazine, guitar world, guitar, gear, guitar lesson, Delbert McClinton, backstory

Id: 4_7TP2lhScw

Length: 36min 3sec (2163 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 07 2017