Mel Brown Award personal for Mr. Saturday Night Blues
KITCHENER — When Holger Petersen walked into one of the most famous blues clubs in the world, Mel Brown was on stage.
That was in Antone’s House of Blues in Austin, Texas. Mel was a member of the house band there for years, playing the B3 and the guitar. It was 1988, the second year of the South by Southwest Festival, and Petersen was there with the Texas bluesman Doug Sahm.
Petersen has fond memories of that night in Austin. He met the owner of the club, Clifford Antone. He also met Mel.
“He was playing the Hammond B3 on stage as part of the house band. And I said: ‘Not the Mel Brown?’ And he said: ‘Yeah, yeah,’ ” recalled Petersen.
“It just blew my mind. I had some of his solo albums, and I knew about Mel Brown and there he was on stage, part of the house band at Antones, not playing guitar but playing the Hammond,” said Petersen.
A year earlier Petersen had started a national show on CBC Radio called Saturday Night Blues. It is still running. The blues and roots record label Petersen started in the 1970s called Stony Plain Records has a catalogue of more than 300 albums that is growing all the time. Petersen has published two books — collections of his interviews with blues legends. He was also named to the Order of Canada for his contributions to Canadian culture.
And now, Petersen can add the Mel Brown Award to his list of accomplishments. The award is presented annually by the Kitchener Blues Festival. Petersen will be given the award Thursday during the festival’s fundraising concert in Victoria Park featuring Jonny Lang.
“I am just tremendously honoured,” said Petersen, who is based in Edmonton, where his collection of 3,000 records takes up two houses.
He joins a list of recipients that includes Buddy Guy, Jimmy Vaughn and Glenn Smith, the owner of Ethel’s Lounge, who hired Mel to lead the house band at Pop the Gator beginning in 1989.
A year after Petersen met Mel at Antone’s, the Mississippi-born guitar player moved to Kitchener. Mel stayed here for the last 20 years of his life, inspiring and mentoring the musicians who went on to local, national and international careers in the blues — Shawn Kellerman, Steve Strongman and Julian Fauth, among others.
The Kitchener Blues Festival began in August 2000 with a Mel Brown concert in Victoria Park, and soon evolved into one of the best blues festivals among the 50 or so held across Canada every summer. Mel was and remains the musical spirit of the annual gathering that draws and estimated 85,000 people to downtown Kitchener every August.
“Because I have known about the award, and I have known about some of the prior recipients of the award, it is pretty amazing to be part of that and it is absolutely wonderful,” said Petersen.
Long before Mel heard of Kitchener, he was playing at The Sands in Los Angeles. Blues legend T-Bone Walker was in the club. Walker liked Mel’s guitar playing so much he recruited Mel to play on his next album, “Funky Town,” for the ABC jazz label, Impulse.
The label executives listening to the session immediately signed Mel to his own contract. Mel released seven albums on Impulse during the 1967-1973 period. In the early 1970s, the Rolling Stones were in L.A. finishing their seminal record “Sticky Fingers.” Mick Jagger was hanging around the studio and ran into Mel and his producer, the legendary Bob Thiele.
Jagger wanted to catch a show in South Central L.A. that night. Bobby Blue Bland was playing. But the show was in one of the biggest African American ghettos in the U.S., and the skinny-white-boy from England did not want to go alone. Mel volunteered to take him to the show. The night ended well for everyone. Jagger met Bobby Bland, who also hired Mel to tour with his band. Mel would be on and off that tour bus for 15 years.
Bobby Bland recounts that story in his autobiography, “Soul of the Man.” Bland was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2012 Bland also received the Mel Brown Award.
Bland recalled his old friend and fellow musician with great fondness.
“Mel Brown was one of the greatest guitarists I ever worked with,” Bland said in an interview six years ago. “He could blend in with any style of music.” The two rode on the same tour bus, and played the same stages for “a great many years.”
“It felt like we had been playing together forever before we actually met,” said Bland.
Later, after Mel had been playing in Kitchener for 11 years the founder of Electro-Fi Records in Toronto, Andrew Galloway, convinced Mel to go back in the studio. The label released five CDs while Mel was alive and a sixth one two years ago.
Mel toured and recorded with Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, B.B. King, Bobby Bland, Willy “Big Eyes” Smith, Albert King, Pine Top Perkins, Van Morrison, and Buddy Guy, among many others. The only time Mel played Centre in the Square though was when Buddy Guy invited him onto the stage.
Born and raised in the Flowood section of Jackson, Mississippi in 1939, Mel lived, played and recorded in L.A., Nashville and Austin, before coming to Kitchener.
“Mel Brown is such a hero internationally,” Petersen said. “I always thought it was so fantastic that Kitchener benefited from having him there, and he obviously loved it there. He was well treated. He is truly an international artist. One of the historic, great, influential guitar players of all time.”
About 15 years after Peterson met Mel at Antone’s, he met up with the guitar player again. This time it was in Toronto for the Maple Blues Awards. Mel won an award that night from the Toronto Blues Society.
After the show, Petersen interviewed Mel.
“Just a wonderful guy,” Petersen said. “He was very laid back and friendly, and it was toward the end of his life and he had his oxygen tank next to him. I just thought it was great to meet him again.”
Mel had emphysema, and for several years he needed an oxygen tank. He died in March 2009 from complications caused by the condition. But that sad day was still years away when Petersen interviewed Mel onstage at the Phoenix Theatre.
“I was really thrilled. He was just very amiable. And I got him to sign all of my records. I remember there was one record by Mel Brown that wasn’t him. It was a different Mel Brown and there was no photo on the cover. And he said: ‘Well that’s not really me, but I will sign it if you want,’ ” Petersen said.
Petersen knows a lot about the local blues scene, and some of the key players. He’s met Rob Barkshire, the blues festival president, and Claude Cloutier, the artistic director, several times in Toronto during the Maple Blues Awards. Petersen knows all about the man who brought Mel to Kitchener, Glenn Smith. And he’s heard the stories about Pop the Gator, the blues bar on Queen Street South that closed in 1994.
One of the reasons for that is the talkback line for Petersen’s weekly radio show. Blues fans from across Canada call the line, tell stories and request songs.
“There is nothing like firsthand communication, and hearing people’s stories and what they think, and what they love, and what they like about the show and their favourite blues artist and that sort of thing, and hearing their own voices describe that is wonderful,” said Petersen.
Receiving the award named after one of his musical heroes in the city Mel called home for 20 years is a singular honour.
“For him to end up in Canada I thought was fantastic, and then to have him at Pop the Gator in Kitchener, helping people, mentoring people, just a tremendous contribution, one that I am sure continues to be felt and I am so glad it is celebrated by the Kitchener blues community,” Petersen said. “So I am really thrilled to receive the award.”