In
1982 I was living in Chicago but had begun a relationship with Ted
Wilebski that would allow me to help bring a number of performers
up from Chicago to the club. Al Harris, the leader of The Mudsharks,
the first band I was ever in, had asked me to return to the Twin Cities
to rejoin the band. The Mudsharks had a fairly full calendar of dates
and Wilebski's looked like it could develop into something so I decided
to return home. The first few months went very well and the band was
picking up more (and better paying!) dates when Al called a meeting
and announced he had decided to quit playing music. Immediately. The
reasons given were rather nebulous and although we parted on relatively
good terms he did not want to speak to any of the club owners to explain
his decision - that was left to me, the only guy without a day job.
A few of the places immediately cancelled our dates since the band
was now without Al - it's primary vocalist/soloist. These clubs basically
asked us to start over and submit a tape or let the booker know where
we would be playing so he could come out and see the band with me
stepping in to sing most of the songs. A couple of clubs didn't really
care as they seemed to be fronts for some kind of illegal activity
anyway and they didn't want to do the extra work of rebooking the
dates. We played a handful of dates as The Mudsharks after Al left
but soon tired of answering the question, "where's Al?"
We tried finding another harp player to round out the band to approximate
the sound we had with Al and we even played a month or so with a very
talented player but we never really felt like any of the guys fit
well with the current lineup's personality. The remaining band members
all decided since we were starting over we might as well change the
name of the band and focus on guitar oriented material sung by me
with Mike "The Hook" Deutsch chipping in whenever he could.
At the end of July we changed the name of the band to...I believe
I am the only one who remembers this name so I'm going to keep it
a secret - as the answer to the ultimate Butanes' trivia question!
Lucky
Walker's, a short-lived 3.2 bar on Lake Street was one of the clubs
that agreed to let us keep our dates and the first club we played
under our short-lived, secret, interim name. We promoted the date
to our friends and gave the club posters with the new name on them
to place around the bar. When we showed up for the gig the owner informed
us that when we returned next month for our previously scheduled show
we would need a new name as he didn't understand this one. I tried
to explain the name to him (it wasn't that strange or difficult) but
since he had been drinking since, oh - about 1967, it didn't register
and I figured it would just be simpler to drop the new name since
we had only officially used once. A few days later, after a cursory
check with the State of Minnesota to see if anybody else was using
the name, we became The Butanes. He didn't really get that one other
but he did OK it for use in his club. The rest of the clubs didn't
care what we called ourselves but they did continue to run "formerly
Al & The Mudsharks" in any of their ads for the better part
of a year.
Lucky
Walker's didn't advertise in the Reader or Sweet Potato (later the
City Pages) so the very first advertised gig The Butanes played was
at Wilebski's, Labor Day weekend, 1983. Ted had asked me to put together
a "special show" for the holiday that was big yet cheap
and I suggested the idea of backing some of the local singers that
I had worked with before moving to Chicago. The Butanes would play
a set and then bring up Percy Strother, Big Walter Smith and Milwaukee
Slim for a set each. I promised Ted I would take care of everything
except the singers' pay and deciding the order of performers - that
was up to him and the stars. I called everybody and since I had already
worked with these three great guys, I was familiar with the material
they played and quickly settled on song lists after horse trading
back and forth on a few numbers that more than one singer had in their
repertoire. I put the songs into set lists and made certain everyone
had a copy. We knew we would have a few rough edges but we were all
pretty much ready for the show and planned to play the weekend shows
without a rehearsal.
A few days later Milwaukee Slim called me up to request that we learn
his "hit record" that he had just put out as he wanted to
showcase the recently released 45 at this event. Slim was quite insistent
that we add these two songs that he described as his "best work
yet" and an "absolute smash - once you hear it, you'll never
forget it!" He arranged to meet me and handed me a 45 of Cleo
and Mean And Evil Woman on Star•Town Records and said
"when you're done with this for the gig give it to your Mother"
and he signed the 45 to her. I listened to the record when I got home
and both sides were quite similar to other songs we already knew so
instead of taking time to make cassettes of his disc and call rehearsal
I told the band all they needed to know to play the songs. Cleo
was really Lucille and Mean And Evil Woman was a
slow blues - now we knew them. Slim called again to make certain we
were planning to perform his new songs and offered to rehearse them
with us. When he found out the guys hadn't actually heard the songs
he was furious and he kept saying about Cleo "once you
hear it, you'll never forget it!" I assured him we would be able
to play the songs but he demanded that I bring a cassette player to
the gig so he could physically watch the guys listen to the songs
in the dressing room.
The
day of the show arrived and I walked in to Wilebski's to find all
3 singers waiting for me. Of course Ted never resolved the order of
performance and it seemed he promised them all the headliner spot
in exchange for a slight price break. I quickly suggested to the 3
of them that they should draw straws or something and went up to play
our set as I really didn't want to get in the middle of a "who
should be the headliner" argument. When we were done with our
opening set I found they had decided Percy was up first and outside
of his usual habit of changing keys at the last minute - and often
in the middle of a song back to the original key - everything went
well and he received a big round of applause.
Big Walter was on second and everything also went smoothly. I had
been in Walter's band for about a year before heading to Chicago and
was quite familiar with his show. We even dragged out a few extra
B.B. King covers from his Kansas City days as that aspect of Walter's
talent had been highlighted in Tom Surowicz' blurb. The only problem
that may have been noticeable to the untrained eye was he was used
to having horns in his band and without them some of the arrangements
differed slightly but he sang well and also received a big round of
applause as he exited the stage.
On
the break I played the cassette of Slim's 45 in the dressing room
for the band as he closely watched. Always an excitable performer
he was wound up tight to show he deserved to be the last artist of
the evening. He took out a notebook and began to make each band member
a new set list with Cleo as the first song and Mean And
Evil Woman somewhere in the middle and told the band to destroy
the original list. Then Slim gave me strict instructions on how he
wanted his introduction to the stage to go. We were to play an instrumental
then break it down and to a rising crescendo shout out things like
"Godfather of the Blues", "international recording
artist on Star•Time records from Memphis, Tennessee" and
finally to introduce his "NEW HIT RECORD...ONCE YOU HEAR IT YOU'LL
NEVER FORGET IT...CLEO!!" and then
begin playing Cleo while he made his way to the stage. Slim
arrived on stage clutching his set list, greeted the audience, put
his set list on the floor and then began singing, "the thrill
is gone..." What!?
I looked over at the set list Milwaukee Slim had carried to the stage
and the first song was the "Thrill Is Gone" but we had already
done that song earlier in the night with Percy. I'm not certain where
this set list came from but it didn't match the list he gave to the
rest of us. I kept telling him we were playing CLEO,
the song that you'll "never forget once you hear it". These
two songs sound nothing alike but he sang the Thrill Is Gone
all the way through and I walked over, replaced his copy of the set
list with mine and tried to explain what had happened. Of course he
then wanted to play Cleo again but I convinced him that we
should do it at the end of the show instead and the rest of the set
went fine. I don't think he appreciated the entire band bursting out
laughing when he said before the final song "once you hear it,
you'll never forget it" as he apparently forgot the damn thing
the first time we played the song at the top of the set but he also
received an outpouring of applause to end the night. The next night
went much more smoothly with all 3 of the singers receiving standing
ovations as they left the bandstand. Ted was happy, we all were paid
and everybody said we should all do this again. The next time we tried
to put it together people wanted to bring their own band or be the
headliner or... and it never happened a second time.
All four acts subsequently made numerous appearances at the club:
The
Butanes served as the unofficial house band whenever the
club had enough money (or we weren't blackballed for some transgression
or another) and we backed dozens of touring artists in need of a band
- often without the benefit of rehearsal.
Milwaukee Slim (Angelo Chambers) died June 7, 1993
a few weeks shy of his 69th birthday. A CD titled "Lemmon Avenue"
collecting many of his recordings was released in 1995 and contains
Cleo and Mean And Evil Woman (with overdubbed horns
not found on the original 45) and is available on iTunes.
Percy Strother died May 31, 2005 at age 58. His breakout
CD, "A Good Woman Is Hard To Find", was released in 1992
resulting in performances all over the US and Europe for the next
dozen years. In 1992 Percy also recorded a demo for a live CD recording
with the Butanes Soul Revue but we never found the financing to complete
the project.
Big Walter Smith continues to perform and is so popular in
Duluth, MN that the mayor proclaimed August 8, 1997 to be "Big
Walter Smith day" in the city. His most recent CD, "Royal
Blue Cadillac" was released in 2010.
