Henry Townsends Guitar

Day 3 continued...

I played at BB's Jazz Blues & Soups in St. Louis.  It was my first time in St. Louis.  I've passed by St. Louis for 14yrs and was happy to play it finally.

I walked into a typical blues venue with memorabilia all over the place, as most blues clubs have, and loaded my gear onto the stage.  My gear consists of 3 National Reso-Phonic guitars and 1 acoustic.

John May, the talent buyer, noticed all my Nationals and says, I have the guitar National made for Henry Townsend, you want to play it?  Of course I do, I said.

I'll admit that I didn't have much pre-knowledge of the legendary bluesman other than the song "Cairo" from a video of various blues icons.

National made this Style 1 single cone guitar for Henry in 1997 and presented it to him at the Blues & Heritage Festival, I'm quoting the inscription.

It's a very cool guitar.  2 things of note:

 

1 - the rigged up pickup.  I actually did not use the pickup and went straight through a mic...I didn't want to be the one to damage anything.

2 - He used a plain steel string on the 3rd (G) string rather than a wound string.  John May was very close with Henry, even produced a few of his recordings and was with him on his death bed in 2006.  BB"s was his "home" venue, obviously cause they had his guitar. 

John didn't know why Henry strung it up like that but I offered this suggestion.  He was playing a gig and broke that string, which is very common, and didn't have a wound replacement so he used a plain steel.  He liked what he heard and kept doing it.  Makes sense to me.

I was a little unnerved when he told me that Henry Townsend and Roosevelt Sykes used to play this very stage together on regular occasions...

2 things that struck me about BB's.

1 - Most blues clubs have memorabilia that they've purchased or has been given to them but BB's is the real deal.  The real guys played this place.  It wasn't just stuff on the walls for the tourists, it was the history of the venue that included their lives.  Very personal.  Family.

2 - Most clubs would have had Henry Townsends guitar in a glass case, something to show the tourists, but this guitar is getting played.  I never met John May, I've never been in that club, we don't know each other and he says, you want to play Henry's guitar...that's crazy!  That's BB's.

Now there a lot of St. Louis clubs that have tons of history as well as BB's, but it's the only club with Henry Townsends guitar.

I was scheduled to play in Nashville the next night, but I cancelled.  Something I never do.  It was 100deg in Nashville and 5hrs away and I didn't feel up to the drive for a 15min set.  So I drove back to...you guessed it, Iowa City. 

I woke up at 8am with the worst stomachache.  I crossed IA my 4th and finally time and got home to spend some time with the fam for fathers day.  My stomach hurt so bad, I slept for almost 24hrs...glad I didn't go to Nashville.