Bluesman serious about real voice

Bluesman serious about real voice
April 10, 2009
By ANDREW S. HUGHES
South Bend Tribune

Saturday is Little Frank Krakowski’s 32nd birthday, which comes as news to Kim Wilson during an interview Monday afternoon.

“He didn’t tell me,” the harmonica player says about the guitarist by cell phone while driving from New York state to his home in Detroit. “Probably didn’t want me to pull something funny. I always tell the guys who have birthdays while they’re on the road with me, ‘Don’t wear your good clothes,’ especially him.”

It remains unclear what Wilson means by that last comment, but this much is clear: He and Krakowski will play some serious blues together with pianist Barrelhouse Chuck, guitarist Billy Flynn, bass player Bob Stroger and drummer Kenny Smith at the Midway Tavern in Mishawaka April 10 and at The Livery in Benton Harbor April 11.

“I didn’t know him when he was younger, but I’ve been told he just kind of came out of the box knowing the right thing to do,” Wilson says about Krakowski. “Frank is one of those guys you don’t miss until he’s not there. I’ve had guys sit in on shows I was doing with Frank. Frank would give his guitar to somebody, and that’s when I missed Frank, because Frank’s not one of those guys who’s auditioning for the world at my expense.”

A founding member of The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Wilson praises the South Bend-born and –based Krakowski for knowing how to “treat this music” and knowing what to and what not to play.

“I have a sense of humor, but I’m very serious about this music,” Wilson says. “I’m serious about people having a voice and delivering it real and the way it’s meant to be played. It’s not about how many notes you can play. … He creates space and does things that are very, very musical and you don’t see that a lot anymore. A lot of people won’t do that because the audience won’t go (crazy) over them.”

Although The Fabulous Thunderbirds remain an active band with gigs last week and next week, Wilson also maintains an active solo career with gigs billed as The Kim Wilson Blues Revue. This weekend’s shows fall under that banner, where Wilson recruits traditional blues musicians for a night of — as he’s done before at the Midway with similar lineups — deeply traditional but exhilaratingly alive blues playing.

“There have been attempts to modernize the music, and going to rock is the absolute wrong way to go,” Wilson says. “I think you see a lot of blues festivals going down because no matter what the public thinks, they might rave about some guy who’s playing rock and calling it blues, but eventually, he will fade away. After a while, they will tune him out because there’s nothing being said up there.”

At the same time, however, he says, blues musicians need to have their own “voice” to keep the music alive. Wilson points to James Cotton and Albert King, who infused their blues music with soul and R&B, as examples of blues musicians who modernized traditional blues the right way.

“I think that was the only time it was modernized in the right direction, although you could look at Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, too,” he says. “As long as you keep it real and deliver it with a soul, you can be a blues singer and go in all those different directions, once again, using your own voice. You can copy the notes all day long, but you have to realize all those improvisations you’re copying happened only once. That’s not music.”

For Wilson, that became an issue last year, when producer Steve Jordan hired him to lead the studio band for the soundtrack to “Cadillac Records,” which was based on the early days of Chess Records and starred Beyoncé Knowles as Etta James, Mos Def as Chuck Berry, Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters and Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess.

In addition to Wilson and Jordan, a drummer, the “Cadillac Records” band included Flynn and Barrelhouse Chuck, as well as Larry Taylor, Eddie Taylor Jr., Danny Kortchmar, Hubert Sumlin and Bill Sims.

“I had to get a couple of things very close,” Wilson says about copying the harmonica parts from the original records for the soundtrack. “Thank god, people have told me, ‘When I heard it, I knew it was you immediately.’ … Although I was knocking solos off (copying), I was knocking stuff off for the sake of reproduction in the movie. I got pretty close at times, but it’s all about the vibe.”

Although Knowles earned positive reviews for her portrayal of James, at a concert in Seattle in February, James criticized the younger singer for singing her hit “At Last” at President Obama’s inauguration, saying Knowles “had no business up there” and “I can’t stand Beyoncé.”

“Beyoncé put up a lot of her money for this project, and she did an awesome, (expletive) job,” Wilson says. “I’m going to be the first one to defend her. I thought Etta James was really rude, what she said about her. … That was totally rude to treat someone like that who treated her with total respect in her portrayal.”

As for the film, Wilson calls it “very entertaining,” even if it took creative license with the facts, and he also praises the acting of the film’s stars, in particular for the respect they showed their subjects and their dedication to the music.

“Jeffrey Wright had a difficult time,” he says. “He was in the studio the whole time I was there, trying to absorb the music. That’s an actor. I thought Mos Def did an awesome job as Chuck Berry.”

So far, Wilson says, he’s seen the film a couple of times, including at its premiere in Los Angeles in November.

“All I did was listen for myself,” he says about that night, “so I had to go back a couple times to really watch the movie.”