WES RACE CRYPTIC WHALIN`
WES RACE June `09
"Paul, I dont know if I told ya, but I`m a Blues Spectatin` Fool. I moved from Wichita to Chicago in `70 and had the pleasure of seein` Howlin Wolf about 30 times, mostly on Chicago`s West Side at 318 Dukes on either Roosvelt or Madison. I became good friends with Hound Dog Taylor and got him on Alligator Records.
Jimmy Reed was still around and Muddy too. Actually by 1970 was starting to play mainly white gigs. `Wolf though played and hung out in those hole in the wall ghetto clubs `till he died. When I`d moved back to Kansas in `75 I caught Jay McShann a couple of times and started seeing a lot of Western Swing shows; Leon McAuliffe, Hank Thompson and Ernest Tubb. I started up Race Records and released an album by Robin Sylar in 2000 called Bust Out. I`d known Robin a long time. At the start of trk 6, Wild Cherry, I started things off with a mini vocal;
In 1988 my mother started praying to the lord to please find her son someone to love. By mid June I`d hooked up with a Borderline Personality Disorder Red Eyeballed Crazy Psychotic Negresse. We were a Jelly Roll King and Queen. My mother doesnt pray for me anymore"
Take it, Wes Race
"Cryptic Whalin`" in Wes`s words
Shot Time - While hangin` out in Ft. Worth TX I noticed a 100lb bleached blonde motorin` around the room and one night saw her down 12 doubles without breakin` stride; Nazi speed perhaps.....
Ludella Small Blues - back in the late 60`s I started lookin` at hippie chicks and questioned how well oiled their lifestyle choices were.....I mention Charley Plymell in this track too. He remembers.......
Rap Mpo Reality - The old Johnnie Lee Wills tune has cropped up variuos times in my life.
Bright Boy`s Boogie - While hangin` out in Stop Six, a part of Ft. Worth which is predominantly black I noticed how the locals referred to light skinned blacks as being Bright. I used to tan up in the summer and called myself the Tan Man. Now I`m the Bright Boy.
Madame Fu-Fu`s Dream Book - I used to go to Poetry readings and saw how some of the budding poets were reading out of Jack Kerouac`s On The Road. How lame is that? One night I grabbed a Dream book and started in Boptalkin` my McVoutaroonie Bop A Fried way.
T-99 - I used to kick it with my little sidekick Fast Black and rather than say that`s how we roll, I`d Boptalk "Lets T99 awhile". Interestingly enough Jimmy t99 Nelson wrote his T99Blues keying off Highway I99 whaich was FT. Worth`s famed Jacksboro Highway.
Cryptic Cocktail Mix - While jawing about Clkarkside Miss Blues Museum, I was eavesdroppin` a Lady who opined "Cryptic Cocktail Museum, whats that?" So I wrote a poem about my current digs.
Dreamin` at the Dig Palace - A detox dream I had in 1985 while visiting Fort Worth.
Voodoo-ola - About a borderline personality disorder red eyeballed crazy gal and my dustup doings in `88
Baptized in Bop - an opus to Beboppers everywhere.
Liner Notes;
"Lookin` back to my Wichita, Kansas birth stint I`d venture that Nelson Algreen kick-started it all of for me with his "Walk on the Wild Side" opus. Getting hip to Chess and Excello in junior college certainly cemented the deal.
By early `70 I was rockin` prety darn wild up Chicago way, catchinng Hound Dog Taylor, Magic Slim, J.B. Hutto, Son Seals and Howlin` Wolf on natural turf anytime I could.
Everything started fallin` into place in `81 when I started late shiftin` on a Wichita, Kansas psyche ward. I got more than a few life lessons, visions and poetic mode strides for my efforts. `Bout that time some Lonestar blues rockers and revelers started rollin` through town and right quick I tightened up with the Juke Jumpers from Fort Worth and the Leroi Brothers from Austin, TX. Eventually I started making myself known in various after hours Fort Worth hipster houses which were jumpin` like mad off the Richter scale - Babs Gonzales "Cool Whalin`" always seemed to hang me up the most.
By 2000 I was livin` on Fort Worth`s west side and had me a Stop 6 Texes baby and was windin` down some with in my Mcvoutaroonie bop-a-fried stance........
Charley Plymell on Wes Race
Yeah, I remember The Place. Got out my cd of Wes Race, "Cryptic Whalin!" It inspired me to write a piece for OUTSIDE LEFT Yeas Wes is the bes' in in whaling now...real rhythm 'n blues and honkey-tonk and original Wichita vortex thrill invoking the old rag mop after hanging with it's creator., and it isn't just because he evoked me in Ludella Small Blues cut! So it's rhythm 'n story telling boogie blues honky-tonk! Maybe Knute can dig it! I had a mention in Art Forum covering my Batman show.
Good old days.cp
For instance, I found Moody's Skidrow Beanery and lee Strief made it his deal along with the Vortex that Branaman and I cranked up in the old pill head dives in the 50's and I first heard Branaman say it. That's the scene Wes Race grew up in. McClure and Connors that Strief writes about were squares at that time and had nothing to do with dives! Later McClure in S.F. didn't want to be known as being from Wichita, that is until Ginsberg came to see me there and wrote his stupid Sutra, then Streiff made it all his thing! I hate the inaccurate history that is now embedded in that Beats in Kansas site. Ann Waldman and Kansas?!
cp
June 16 2009
Dear Paul:
I don't know about you but besides lovin'
The Beats I love the Blues too.
Muddy, Wolf, Homesick, Hound Dog, Big Moose,
Fast Fingers and Sunnyland: I caught & hear'em all on Natural Turf.
I lived in Chicago from '70-75 and lived in Bridgeport
Mayor Daley's neighborhood. That was the south side and
enabled me easy access to Clubs like Theresa's, Rose & Kelly's,
Florences, The Checkerboard and the 1125 Club where gents like
Magic Slim, Hound Dog Taylor, Junior Wells, J. B. Hutto and Buddy Guy
were playin'.
I used to hang out on the West Side & saw Howlin' Wolf about 30 times.
Yeah, Wolf played those ghetto clubs race til he died. One night at Ma Bea's at
a John Littlejohn gig Howlin' Wolf and his wife showed up and I tried to sneak
a peek at'em anytime I could. Jimmy Dawkins used to play a lot too.
He invited me to his 'All For Business' Delmark session and I about Flipped my
Lid when my wife & I showed up and saw that some of the gents backing Jimmy up
were Otis Rush and Sonny Thompson. I helped start Alligator with Bruce Iglauer. I was originally gonna try to put up $1,000 and do it with Delmark but Bob Koester didn't have eyes for it at the time. Bruce sure did though. When his grandmother passed Bruce came into a little inheritance & wanted to do it himself. I didn't argue cause I got to go to the Record Sessions and wrote the liners for the first Lp plus get co-producer credits. To be honest though you sure didn't 'produce
Hound Dog'. My role was to keep reminding him of some of his original tunes particularly his wild rockin' instrumentals.
as always, wes
June 23 2009
Here's one of my newest. I'm trying to geta group Hip Card Punched to cut it. I'm aiming for a black market on this'un.
...take it, wes
So anyhow I finally finished my new opus "Erma Faye's Mainline"
about a friend of mine. It's kind of a composite of 'Jesus On The
Mainline", Jimmy Reed's 'Down In Mississippi' and Little Milton's Annie
Mae's Cafe."
ERMA FAYE'S MAINLINE
When Erma Faye's On The Mainline
She's Doin' Just What She Does
And Brother You Better Not Cut Her Buzz
Most Days You'll Find Erma Faye
Down At The Domino Den
Go 'Head With Your White Boy Five
She's Comin' Back With A Black Girl Ten
Erma Faye Likes To Move Around
In Her White On White Cadillac
Sometimes She'll Cruise A Casino
And Hit 21 On Blackjack
On Sundays You'll Find Erma Faye
Over At Her Guiding Light
With A Tambourine In Her Right Hand
Shoutin' To Glory With All Her Might
At Night You'll Find Mis Faye In Her Bedroom
Some Nights You Might Hear A Groan
You Can Bet Your Bottom Dollar
That Erma Faye's Not Aloone
When Erma Faye's On The Mainline
She's Doin' Just What She Does
And I Warning All You Strange Kin People
You Better Not Cut Her Buzz
...wes
By the way I've noticed that the domino players
here in Ft. Worth constantly refer to 'white boy fives and black
girl tens.' The way Erma Faye and her cohorts explain it is
'a white boy is satisfied with getting five points but a black girl
needs at least ten points to get her groove on.
as always, wes
June 25 2009
I had another Blues Dream:
I was over at my girlfriends place and Elmore James showed up.
He suggested we go for a walk which I readily agreed too.
We were walkin over to Walgreens and heard some real young white blues enthusiasts playing in a back yard.
After awhile I started talkin' to the band and told'em that Elmore was with me.
Doggonit, none of them had heard of The Slide King. Elmore seemed a lilttle taken aback & we continued on our walk to Walgreens.
The more I thought about it
maybe this wasn't the real Elmore but just a fellow whose name was Elmore James.
...Mr. Wesola
July 1 2009
Wes is walkin down to Walgreen's
Past all the shops where I hocked my soul
...Mr Charley Plymell
july 1 2009
Things must be goin' good for me to have 'An Elmore Dream' I went to a Hound Dog Taylor gig at the Checkerboard Lounge one time and Homesick James and Elmore's Uncle showed up and sat at my table.
...Mr. Wesola
July 1 2009