When Cal met Son 

After spending a week at the Jazz and Heritage Fair, we headed north on Highway 61 (well, of course), just to drive through the beautiful Delta country.

After about a five-hour drive, we ended up in Greenville, which is right on the Mississippi. By serendipity, we struck up a conversation with a couple of locals who worked at a local community centre.

They were going to see a local blues icon James “Son” Thomas, who lived in Leland, only a few km to the east of Greenville, and invited us along. So we visited with Son at his home, where he graciously played some of his original numbers for us and showed us some of his noted sculptures of human heads and skulls, some which contained human teeth. He didn’t say where the teeth had come from, and I didn’t ask. He looked to have most of his own teeth, so I assumed the teeth had come from previous owners. The teeth were of normal adult-human size and shape, so I thought were unlikely to have come from animals.

In these photos, you can see some of Son’s sculptures in front of him.

Our hosts then said they were driving to a nearby rural site, not far from Beulah, where a movie on the blues, Crossroads, was being filmed and, again, they invited us along.

Crossroads, with Ralph Macchio and Joe Seneca, has become a cult classic. Macchio had been a hit in The Karate Kid the year before. It struck me that Macchio’s youth and appearance wouldn’t exactly be associated with the Mississippi delta and blues, but Crossroads had a great story line, and Macchio fit right in. Besides, he was “good box office”, as they say.

So, we arrived at the filming location and hung around the periphery. The cast and crew were in the midst of shooting some several hundred metres away, and we had to be really quiet. We spoke, quietly, with a young fellow who was a stand-in and stunt double for Joe Seneca, who plays Willie Brown. After we stood around awhile talking to various crew, our hosts reappeared and said filming for the day was nearly over and some of the cast and crew were going to convene at a Greenville country restaurant (somebody called it a juke joint) and that some local musicians were going to have a jam session.

Hey, how about that! Great fun. I wondered out loud who the musicians were.

Son House had come along with us and was going to play at the “juke joint”. He was experienced both as a solo acoustic musician and playing electric with a band.

Arlen Roth was also going to come for the jam. I was deeply impressed. Arlen was a world-renowned guitarist and also had published influential instructional books on country blues and slide guitar. He did all of the real guitar playing behind Ralph Macchio’s character, and Arlen taught Ralph how to mime all the hot licks and look authentic, while the sound editor cut in Arlen’s real playing.

So, Arlen is coming later? Wow. That will be a treat.

We got to the restaurant, famous for its fried catfish, early. One of our hosts said, “Hey, Cal, you play guitar, right? There are a couple acoustic guitars here, and you can play a couple songs for us. The band will back you up. You can jam with them.”

I panicked. I absolutely panicked. But quietly. One has to learn how to panic without looking panicked. It could save your life.

Ummm, the suggestion is that I play with Son Thomas and Arlen Roth? That I jam with them…ummm, no, I don’t think so. But I stayed quiet.

Someone brought a small basket of fried catfish. It was outrageously delicious. I had no idea catfish could taste that amazing.

The countdown had started.

The band was slowly assembling itself on stage, and Son Thomas played a blues, while the band kicked in behind him.

I was expecting to be called up any second.

How am I going to survive this?

I knew a few country blues, a few Big Bill Broonzy numbers, a few Mississippi John Hurt tunes, a couple Blind Blake tunes, some Rev. Gary Davis, some Lead Belly, but nothing like what these guys were playing.

Suddenly, Arlen Roth walked in, jumped up on the stage, slung an electric guitar around his neck, and lit the place up with some soaring blues riffs.

Praise the Lord!

Saved by Arlen Roth.

Arlen, a couple of other guitarists and the backing band played and played and played, and barely stopped for a breath of air.

I had narrowed escaped.

Phew!

It was quite a day.