Bo Diddley is about the coolest dude I ever booked or worked with. The first time he played the FBF he was a last minute add-on. In the area and interested in picking up a few bucks. I believe we paid Bo 1K and the agent 1k. Bo never advanced the show at all. We…

I had had this idea about featuring an entire festival of the slide guitar, because I loved the sound and itseemed to belong to the blues. I called my favorite and, certainly, the festival’s favorite slide player, RoyRogers, for his picks, and his availability. He told me he could not do it because he was…

In the history of what we popularly consider to be the Blues, who do you think might be the greatest musician? That is a very hard and revealing question— I’d have to mention Lonnie Johnson for sure, Little Walter, and Chuck Berry’s Johnnie Johnson. If I was really trying to be impressive, I’d mention my…

In 1993, because so many of our really good Bay Area blues entertainers are women and deserved to be honored, we set about to book the ‘Women and the Blues” edition of the Fountain Blues Festival. It was somewhat hard to find the right headliner, several were considered, and found wanting for one reason or…