Beverly "Guitar" Watkins - Gonna Play the Blues For You

For as long as I can remember, music has been a process of discovery for me, whether it involves an unfamiliar style of music, a recording I didn't know about, or an artist or a group I've never heard before. It's a joy to experience new music...new to me, at least...and I actively seek out the unfamiliar. I don't make it happen as much as I used to these days, since the distractions of being an adult can tie an anchor to your heart and soul. But when I can slip the chains for a little while from time to time, great things come into view.

Beverly "Guitar" Watkins is one of those great things. I first heard about her in an article called "Playing It Forward" in Premier Guitar magazine's November 2014 issue. Written by Ted Drozdowski, it's a terrific piece that focuses on the great Music Maker Relief Foundation, founded by folklorist and musician Tim Duffy. Like the legendary Alan Lomax before him, Duffy set out to find and record obscure artists who were mostly forgotten in their twilight years, hoping to document styles of music that aren't heard much these days, if at all.

But some of these artists still have a fire going inside and they play on, partly because they can, and partly because they have to. They all seem to share a deep love for what they do, and a love for the audiences who come to hear them play. Watkins has that fire. She describes her playing this way: “My style is real Lightnin’ Hopkins lowdown blues. I call it hard classic blues, stompin’ blues, railroad smokin’ blues.”

In short, this woman can still play her ass off, and she can leave a lot of musicians more than a half-century younger than her in the dust.

From the Artist Biography by Richard Skelly at AllMusic:

Her earliest influences included Rosetta Tharpe, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Memphis Minnie, and she was exposed to the music because of her grandmother, who would play their recordings on the family Gramophone. She began playing guitar as an eight-year-old, learning by listening to the records her mother would play for her. Later, she was exposed to the records of touring bands, including Louis Jordan's and Count Basie's. She began to model her playing after Charlie Byrd and Basie's rhythm guitarist, Freddie Green. Throughout high school, she participated in a variety of talent shows and played trumpet in the school band. Her high school band master helped broaden her knowledge of jazz and blues guitar, and piano. After a succession of bands in high school, she settled in with playing with Piano Red, who later changed their name and found their widest appeal, as Piano Red & the Houserockers, which led to bookings outside Atlanta and northern Florida in cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Washington, D.C.

Although her first instrument was guitar, the Atlanta native began playing bass for a band called Billy West Stone and the Down Beats while she was in high school. In 1959, Watkins met Piano Red (Willie Lee Perryman, also known as Dr. Feelgood), who had a daily radio show on Atlanta station WAOK. She joined his band, Piano Red and the Meter-Tones, and began playing shows in Atlanta and surrounding towns. Eventually they began touring the southeast. Shortly after changing their name to Piano Red and the Houserockers, they began touring nationally and they scored two successful singles: "Dr. Feelgood" and "Right String But The Wrong Yo-Yo."

The band broke up in 1965, and Watkins went on to play with Eddie Tigner and the Ink Spots, Joseph Smith and the Fendales, and finally with Leroy Redding and the Houserockers until the late 1980s. After that, she became a fixture on the Atlanta music scene in a section of town known as Underground Atlanta.

Not just a great guitarist, singer and harp player, Watkins is a true performer. At 74, she still pulls out the stops like the blues players from years ago, like playing the guitar behind her head. As she says in her Premier Guitar interview: “I can sure enough stand-toe-to-toe with any man and play guitar just as good if not better — and nobody’s going to beat me at putting on a show.”

Know what? I believe her.

Here's more on the Music Maker Relief Foundation:

Music Maker Relief Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the true pioneers and forgotten heroes of Southern musical traditions gain recognition and meet their day to day needs. Today, many such musicians are living in extreme poverty and need food, shelter, medical care, and other assistance. Music Maker's aid and service programs improve the quality of recipients lives. Our work affirms to these artists that we value the gifts of music and inspiration they have delivered to the world. Our mission is to give back to the roots of American music.