"Great blues songs inspire great interpretations (the blues ‘tradition’ again)"

Mick Pini: Painting The Truth of Blues

If you’re lucky enough to catch veteran British bluesman Mick Pini live you are guaranteed the real deal; no pedals, no effects, just a (rare) 54 Strat (stroked) played by a bluesmeister. Oh - and how he makes it plead, bleed, sing, scream, cry – and smoke! With a life time in music you’ll hear echoes and influences from the whole tradition of the blues in Mick’s playing. His uncompromising adherence to a genuine belief in his music has never been deflected. Those distinctive raw, attacking riffs and phrases, often reminiscent of such legendary names as Freddie King, Albert Collins or T-Bone Walker hit you with aggression not unlike a ton of bricks, then in a moment, he’ll melt your heart with a sweeping phrase of pure beauty.

These are the hallmarks of Mick Pini: to encounter him live is a joy not to be missed - it’s a blues master class! Mick started playing guitar as a young boy back in 1960. Since then he’s paid his dues in pubs, clubs, festivals, concert halls - hell, even busking on the streets. Over a lifetime he’s worked with all sorts: Doctor Ross, Professor Longhair, Rich Grech, Mojo Buford, Louisana Red, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Chris Farlowe, Mike Vernon, BB King, Luther Allison – and more than a few others. Currently based in Germany, Mick has worked with Roy Estrada (Little Feat) and Jimmy Carl Black (Frank Zappa). His last three albums are the acoustic CD “Highfield Boy” (2017), EP "Best Kept Secret" (recorded April 2017 in the UK), and the brand new 14-tracks album “Into The Distance” (August 2019), recorded between summer 2017 and spring 2019 in South Germany.

Interview by Michael Limnios

Photos Courtesy of  Mick Pini Archive / All Rights Reserved

When was your first desire to become involved in the blues and who were your first idols?

Around the end of the 1950s when I was twelve or thirteen I guess. In those days you rarely heard blues. It was radio rather than TV then and what you heard was pop songs and ballads. You’d hear Elvis, but the sweetened sanitised stuff; the blues’ roots that so much of it was based on were far from advertised. Just occasionally they’d throw in something else and I remember hearing ‘Boom Boom’ by John Lee Hooker and something just switched on. The raw energy, relentlessly powerful rhythm – just mesmerising. I also heard Muddy too and that certainly made an impression.

What was the first gig you ever went to and what were the first songs you learned?

Hardly surprisingly the first song I learned was Hooker’s ‘Dimples’. The first “big” band I remember seeing was The Rolling Stones playing a concert in Leicester (were I grew up) in 1963. Before then you wouldn’t get many blues acts playing places like Leicester. I recall seeing John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton and I learned “Telephone Blues” soon after.

Any of blues standards have any real personal feelings for you and what are some of your favorite?

Hundreds! The playing of Freddie King, Peter Green, Eric Clapton, Roy Buchanan have in different ways intrigued and inspired me but then so have John Martyn, Taj Mahal… Skip James, Robert Johnson, Bob Dylan, I don’t really have favourites; it doesn’t work like that for me. Blues is a tradition really, tunes are passed down. People borrow, build on, and steal even what they hear. It’s a bit like a bank; you build up your account with all that you hear, then consciously or unconsciously you call on this account in your playing.

What does the BLUES mean to you & what does offer you?

Poverty. No Money. It’s difficult trying to make a living; the economics of it don’t work and that can all get very frustrating. It sometimes feels like one of your ancients, Sisyphus; using up a lot of energy for very little return.

What experiences in your life make you a GOOD musician?

Humility, Perseverance, Practice, Satisfaction and Frustration.

(Mick Pini / Photo by Franz)

What were the reasons that made the UK in the 60s to be the center of social, cultural and artistic researches?

The Beatles, the Radio and the power of the TV and the Pill, a more liberal Society a lot of changes in the UK culture from 1961- 1967 to 1970 London, Clubs were opening, Jazz Folk Clubs, it was all new and exciting time, to meet  people, hear some great music and have a great night out. It was new, from Folk to Jazz and Blues. Revolution in the air, a feeling changes are about to happen. Rebel protest marches against the bomb tired of war we didn’t want war no more. American music 1964 was coming over by 1965-66 was taking over these American acts could be seen on TV, you have to remember we didn’t have TV before the 60s as I said it was only Radio in the UK then by 1964 -66 Pirate Radio you could see these artists and hear about them it was new you could also buy their records see them live society was changing. I had dropped out. As a beatnik for the beat life there was a lot of music coming through. By 1967 the blues was coming through like a wave, nobody had heard this music, and now you could go to most clubs by 1965 -66 in the UK, which started opening, and see these artists playing live. Free festivals were happening 1967- 69 it was an exciting era. We thought things would change, books magazines, records and the drug culture. And again the folk electric blues influence was turning into a psychedelic feel in the music, bands such as Incredible String Band, Pink Floyd, even the Beatles and Stones were messing around with the strange sounds coming from Psychedelic LSD and other drugs influencing the music from American bands Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service in San Francisco 67-69, Grateful Dead, the music was moving and changing.

After the Second World War, it was time for these changes. The old order of knowing your place and authorities  going along with the same rigid attitudes, but it would take place sooner than later, and the American influences where starting to come through music, books, records, word and mouth. I can only see this from my perspective as I felt much a loner and doing many manual jobs to work and buy my first real electric guitar and amplifier, after having a Spanish acoustic to learn on for a number of years and having, like a lot of people from my generation, not a lot of money. It felt like you could do anything, it was a very optimistic time. A sort of revolution, we did not know where it was leading us to, with the cold war hanging in the balance, and the civil rights of black people with the famous speech from Martin Luther King. There needed to be a fight for freedom, a belief we believed we could protest against. The last many many years of world wars, it had to stop. It was an optimistic time for change.

"Blues is a tradition really, tunes are passed down. People borrow, build on, and steal even what they hear. It’s a bit like a bank; you build up your account with all that you hear, then consciously or unconsciously you call on this account in your playing." (Photo: Mick Pini on stage)

What do you learned about yourself and what is the lesson of life where you received from the road with the Blues?

Chaos, to me I just stuck to the Blues it never went away. I just could not put the dam guitar down, Freddie King was calling, 1973 The Marquee Wardour St. London I saw a poster with Freddie King, and I had heard about his name, but not his music, and again, this goes back to the word and mouth thing I was talking about. Earlier in the 60s. There was information, but not reliable, getting information second or third hand, you had to see it, to believe it and be there, and I was. This gave me firsthand information because I could see it, feel it and it was special. That night. I was living it, because I was there. I will never forget it, it changed my life, regarding the Blues and playing it. I was brought up from the Rolling Stones to Howlin Wolf and John Lee Hooker.

Bob Dylan was another artist, who was so profound in my life, he had a message with stories, which would capture your imagination with great words of wisdom, yet a great poet of his time. Yeah I did a lot of buskin in London 1967 -68 so I could get some food to eat and live, it was all I knew and I just know on the Streets it was another life, exciting, yet dangerous, one had to, I couldn’t get a job because of my very long hair. With a few shillings to get you through the day. It was always hard but I came through it. In fact one night in Marble Arch I was buskin in the tube tunnel, a strange small figure walked by slowly, went to the top of the tunnel, and came back and handed me 5 pounds in my hand, that was a lot of money, it later turned out to be Alec Guinness a very small man, yet on Screen he looks quite tall. I`ve had a few of these kind of things happen, other personalities from TV or radio. It was a hard life I learned on the buskin circuit, but it still equally hard breaking through and playing your music, you have to stay with what you know, not what you think or want it to be, the blues never went away.

Why do you play GUITAR & what were your favorite guitars back then?

I love it! – Or was it because I was hopeless at anything else! I remember the first guitar I had was a £5 acoustic nylon. I saved up half (from a paper round) and persuaded my mother to pay the other half – I’d have been around 16 at the time. The next, I think, was a Hofner. I went through a number of guitars; you couldn’t afford to have more than one but you tried to trade up. Like a lot of players I spent time with other players, trying different guitars. My first ‘serious’ guitar was a cherry red Les Paul SG junior, one pick up job. I worked through a number of Gibsons; I recall a couple of TV model Specials, first a red then a yellow one because the red one kept going out of tune before I realised it didn’t have an extra bridge! In those days I used an AC 30 Vox amp. Later I bought a marshal 50 watt combo, indeed I had several marshals. These days I’ve got three guitars; a lovely Guild acoustic, a cherry red Gibson 345 stereo –a la Freddie King and a Fender Stratocaster. I bought it in the Seventies from a guy who didn’t play but collected guitars; he’d hit hard times and had to sell. Only later did I realise that I’d bought a classic 1954 Strat! As you can see I’ve had a number of Gibsons and they are gorgeous, especially for that wonderful thick sound, but the Strat is just so versatile- if I only take one guitar gigging it’s the Strat.         

Where did you pick up your guitar style? In which songs can someone hear the best of your guitar work?

That’s hard to say. All sorts of players. We are back to ‘hundreds’ from a previous answer. CD sales suggest people think “Blues Survivor”. A lot of my friends say a live gig is where they hear my best work and there might be something in that.

What characterizes the sound of Mick Pini? Do you think that your music comes from the heart, the brain or the soul?

No idea; it’s for others to say. Blues with a feeling, I will let my fans be the judge of that. It comes from the heart and soul.

How do you describe your new album's "Into the Distance" songbook and sound? Are there any studio's memories which you’d like to share?

The best way to describe the new CD Into the Distance, it`s very different to the other CD`s, more of my own songs, and finding new ways, to play the blues. There are a few instrumentals and new songs being delivered in the way I am able to do without being   constrained to certain formats. Again, these songs were not recorded in a big studio were you have endless possibilities, and it`s much more expensive, to record in these big studios. Again, if you can afford these things and a great engineer, that’s fine... The most important thing is to capture the playing live. That`s what I am working on. You were asking about Studio memories and I go back Michael to the story in the last interview about Mike Vernon.

"Well the Blues is not healthy at present moment, its struggling. I just hope we can keep it alive because there’s, so many other things going on climate population etc. everything in life is changing as it does."

What characterize "Into the Distance" philosophy? What touched (emotionally) you?

I was just wondering, and looking back one day, while I was out in the woods and the way the sunshine was glimpsing through the trees. It was silent and restful,  and an inner peace of life sitting down there contemplating, as you do, a kind of,  deja vu, of  somewhere I recall I have been here before ,came right to my mind, a kind of familiarity of being here again, and knowing, sure a lot of people have this moment yes it’s a moment we forget. The music was all there and ideas come bursting through into the distance came to me the music and title, a glimpse captured, a moment in life.

What would you say characterizes your new work in comparison to other previous albums?

I think on getting the Live sound across more on this new CD Into The Distance, and a lot more Guitar work. When you are working on limited resources regarding studio recording equipment. In the big studios, everything is there, I don’t have them things that enhance the sound and great microphones and more as they do. But I am getting there eventually. I have free reign on the track and   the question of what makes it in comparison to the other CDs, its more varied and also going back to the blues for example Snowy Wood that is on the new CD. Just Piano and Guitar without drums and other instruments, getting back to the blues as the other two new tracks Full Time Lover and I Need a Good Woman. I’ve added bass on I need a good woman and full-time woman there’s spaces for the guitar and voice. I guess there is more Variety on the New CD.

What are some of the most important lessons you have learned from your paths in European blues circuits?

I don’t really know as I get older, I mellow out more and not worry so much like I used to. I have reached an age where you really don’t have long on this earth. The way I was touring early 90s it got really tiring the distances you travel unbelievable distances, carrying the gear in for the gig, hanging around coming back traveling all day. Hour after hour, not like a normal job. The hanging around hotels. Now finding a more if you like, better way of dealing with touring and doing my music and band members where its more or less set up for example, when it’s a festival gig I just take my guitar`s the gear is there and supplied, winding down on the smaller gigs because economically, it makes no sense, door gigs. I guess getting back to your question what Have I learned on the paths in the European blues Circuit.

"Blues is a tradition really, tunes are passed down. People borrow, build on, and steal even what they hear. It’s a bit like a bank; you build up your account with all that you hear, then consciously or unconsciously you call on this account in your playing." (Mick Pini / Photo by Horst Petri)

Do you consider the Blues a specific music genre and artistic movement or do you think it’s a state of mind?

The only way as an example I can explain it, one aspect is listen to JB Lenoir’s Alabama Blues, it’s a whole living document on the blues from the 1963 Martin Luther king talk, it`s all relative and written down or put in song, think about 1965 Alabama the riots the looting the killing of our brothers the racial tensions, the inequality it Happened, it`s real taking away people, the whole stupidity of separation, the blues is a wonderful way to express one’s perspective of many sections of life and to tell it like it is Freedom to express, Books painting talking, communication it`s all written and done in song. The American blues  Archive’s  Alan Lomax, Sam Charters, the Libraries, all there, the people in Mississippi  were told there are jobs in the north Detroit what do you think they were seeing  when they got there some got jobs others left without any chance of a job started moving around  places like Chicago and finding the same problems and promises.

What was the hardest part of being a blues musician in Europe? What are the differences Europe and USA?

Well the Blues is not healthy at present moment, its struggling. I just hope we can keep it alive because there’s, so many other things going on climate population etc. everything in life is changing as it does. The hardest part of being a blues man is having the joy to get your music out, playing live, and in the last 40 years it has it always was in the back ground the blues, when you think 1966 and people like Mike Vernon recording both sides of the Blues UK and USA artists and also of  Alexis Korner and John Mayall, father of the British blues playing  great blues in the UK. It’s wonderful, its still around and most of the Great USA artists: B.B. King, Freddie King Albert King, Roy Buchanan, ect have died and left a legacy same likewise in UK. 

What are your hopes and fears for the future of Blues? What touched (emotionally) you from acoustic and electric sound?

Hopes and fears: Constantly everyday being a Blues musician, I just feel one carries on, do what you do, we don’t control them, it`s life, whatever the future brings us, it is   no good, being negative. And worrying about this and that and make problems. We have to solve them ...and music and art is a wonderful release, to put our music across. Electric or acoustic are both powerful outlets to express. For example, with the acoustic and a voice, you`re naked and exposed, no bass and drums. I feel it`s very personal and your close to it. When I want to express that feeling whatever the song is. Be it sad, lonely, happy etc. You`re close to it and the way I work is that I try to compliment both the voice and acoustic together, and I find a comfortable level to work from, and put across the words, the music, the feel. It’s a great tool also for writing songs on acoustic. I love the Piano also, because its set, so you just lay it down. It`s so different to the guitar.

Electric again is being able to find the spaces you need to play to fit the song, not play a whole lot of notes that just mingle in, it`s always depending on the feel of the song, plus you have the added help of drums, bass and electric piano or a Hammond organ that fills the sound and lifts the song. Again, on what the song requires.

How has the Blues and Rock counterculture influenced your views of the world and the journeys you’ve taken?

It`s all a little strange, I feel we have lost our way for the young, to pick up on what`s already there, but the radio and TV are not creating or picking up on what`s around, anyway, it`s simply not there.  There`s so much news and more bad news. It becomes negative I feel, and there are so many wonderful things going on in the world. That they miss it all. Music art etc. the last 20 to 30 years there is certainly an impact of negativity. live music clubs are closing down, music can be heard from the charts. I don’t want to sound like an old moaner, but I feel things for the young are missing Concerts Live music, its robotic sounding and I wonder if this is what we have come to.

Where does your creative drive come from? What would you say characterizes your work in comparison to other musicians?

I don’t know, I`m still here and come what may. I love the blues and play and sing the blues. Find new ways, and use old ways, and deal with it. I guess to the comparison to other musicians. I don’t draw them, we all have our own way to express whatever we do Art music etc. Being grateful to be able to create and write songs, whatever type of artist you are, it`s never ending that’s the beauty of it. Like a child, you find something, new something old. It is a drive we all have, some more than others.

What are some of the most important lessons you have learned from your experiences with various bluesmen?

You can learn a lot from other Blues musicians. When I met Luther Allison, I felt immediately at one with him, he knew that also. We talked about almost everything in life. I remember him turning me on too Little Willie Littlefield, you must listen to this guy, Luther would tell me. I went out a few weeks later and I was looking for a guitarist called Little field an album by him. Only to find out, he was a wonderful Blues piano player, and a fine one, Luther had turned me on to. I bought Paris Streetlights, amazing  Album, loved it. Worn it out, there you go. Luther was kind and a loving man, Freddie King also, B.B. King too, I`ve met most, since I`ve been playing the Blues, and I am like a kid, enthusiastic there`s always something new to learn, and play the blues and sing and be creative. And see the wonderful areas either in music, or art, are wonderful explorations. Be yourself. As Willie Dixon said, 'Blues is the roots, everything else is the fruits.'” the blues never went away Its life.

"Hopes and fears: Constantly everyday being a Blues musician, I just feel one carries on, do what you do, we don’t control them, it`s life, whatever the future brings us, it is   no good, being negative. And worrying about this and that and make problems. We have to solve them .and music and art is a wonderful release, to put our music across." (Photo: Mick Pini & Luther Allison)

Are there any memories from local pubs and busking time, which you’d like to share with us?

Ah, busking. I sometimes think there are two kind of gigs (and neither of them pay well!) There’s those you enjoy because the audience come to hear you and that’s always a treat; it’s flattering when someone wants to hear your work. Then there’s the gigs where you are little more than wallpaper, filling the time between the bingo. Oh the glamorous life of the musician, eh? Buskin’ is always hard. I was living in London in the late 60s, trying to get contacts, going to auditions and buskin’ simply to get by. There’s dog eat dog there too; if you’re on somebody’s pitch you’ better look out. When it was cold you busk in the underground. One time this guy walks by, then stops, listens and then walked back and gave me £5. It sticks in the mind for two reasons. Firstly £5 –wow! You could busk for a couple of days and not make that. The other reason I recall it was because the guy was the actor Alec Guinness.
So much for progress, a decade later I was buskin’ in Canada; Vancouver to Toronto – oh the joys of the hobo life! Still I met some interesting people there and it’s a big beautiful country, wide open spaces but not a great place to busk; you could go along time without seeing anyone. I was playing a battered old Yamaha I’d picked up cheaply there. You can imagine after more than 50 years in this game I’ve played in a lot of places and in a variety of bands. The Il Rondo Ballroom, now gone, was a lovely small place and often hosted blues act when they passed through. The Charlotte, Phoenix and The Polytechnic and these days The Musician –all in Leicester. Other places too: a nightclub in a cellar under Nottingham castle (originally part of a network of tunnels allowing sneaky escape in days of yore), was a regular late night gig with a great atmosphere. There was also The Hope and Anchor (inevitably and affectionately known as The Hopeless Wanker) in Coventry. Another regular is a lovely Sunday afternoon gig in Lincolnshire, where the bonus is a lovely Sunday roast. I also lived in Salisbury for a couple of years at the start of the 70’s and played in a band called Marble Orchard. We supported T-Rex one time, The Who another –the things a jobbing musician has to do,eh? I also formed another band in the late 60’s called Ned Ludd and others; Capt. Video, Desperate Dan –where do these daft names come from; I ask you, Marble Orchard!

Which was the best moment of your career and which was the worst?

The best: working with Mike Vernon; the worst: not getting enough gigs.

Do you have any amusing tales to tell of your work with Mike Vernon?

Yes there were. First morning recording the ‘Wildmouse’ Album. To see Mike Vernon turn up and unpack the whole of his recording gear /studio from the boot of a VW Golf. And at the end of the day packed it all back into the boot of his VW and beetle off home.

"Poverty. No Money. It’s difficult trying to make a living; the economics of it don’t work and that can all get very frustrating. It sometimes feels like one of your ancients, Sisyphus; using up a lot of energy for very little return." (Photo: Mick Pini and his smokin' guitar, c.1990)

What do you miss most nowadays from Mojo Buford and Luther Allison?

Luther Allison. Understated player, lovely man Quietly spoken, modest man - another underrated player.

Oh yes, supporting and playing with Mojo Buford; scary adventure. We got this tape of his set and worked on it – after all he’s one of the legends of Chicago blues and you want to do the job well. He turns up, no time to rehearse and tells us he’s not doing this set but other stuff. It was chaos. He had strange ideas about keys even so he made it work but after years plying your trade in Chicago experience pays off and you know what you want and how to get it. He wrenched the rhythm round to what he wanted and we soon got it. Friends who were there recall it as a cracking gig. I’m not sure it was what I was thinking up there behind him wondering where he was going next with the number. It was an education working with Mojo.

Which memory from Doctor Ross & Professor Longhair makes you smile?

I can’t recall Professor Longhair, but Dr Ross I do. At the time I was playing with a fabulous slide player Al Sansome, and Dr Ross said to me after the gig: “Man I ought to take you back to Chicago, you sound just like Steve Miller.”

What are some of the most memorable stories you've had with Dick Hecktall Smith & Rick Grech?

I never actually played with Dick Heckstall Smith, but we were on the same bill one night he told me he loved my playing, and we’ve been friends ever since. Rick Grech – another Leicester lad –I played with at numerous times over the years; he could drive you up the wall. I decked him one time. We were in a band with Claire Hamill and spent a couple years touring Ireland. I can’t recall what caused the row but I hit him over the head with a chair - talented musician, a fabulous fiddle player as well as bass. But sadly another who was a casualty of his demons.

Any comments about your experiences with Jimmy Carl Black & Roy Estrada?

Roy Estrada...I didn’t get to know Roy well enough, Though we had played together on the Hamburger Midnight cd. Jimmy Carl Black...Jimmy was a true and close friend. Jimmy was special, I mean special, a brother I would say. A real honour to have played with him in different bands. A gentle, graceful and intelligent human being; a great loss.

"I really dont know, its important to encourage the younger blues players, to pick up and learn as much as they can have faith and belief, it aint easy, but thats the blues." (Photo: Mick Pini with Jimmy Carl Black and Roy Estrada, after a funny jam session at Mick's house)

Which of the people you have worked with do you consider the best friend?

Jimmy Carl Black. ‘The only injun’ in the band’, as he was fond of telling us. Sometimes difficult to say exactly what it is - a quiet gentle understanding and wisdom in Jimmy’s case.

How/where do you get inspiration for your songs & who were your mentors in songwriting?

Dissatisfaction; blues don’t play happy (in the main). Mentors – hell, the list could be endless; Muddy Waters, Freddie King, J.B Lenoir, T-Bone Walker. The simplicity of the songs; T-Bone Walker’s Stormy Monday for instance; simple but powerful. T-Bone tells his story in the metaphor of a week. Simple, powerful suggestive stuff. Some of the lines; “If you see my baby wont you please send her on home to me”, carries the song’s theme, another universal blues theme. It’s poetry as well as a great blues. Great blues songs inspire great interpretations (the blues ‘tradition’ again). Freddie King for instance does a stunning imaginative interpretation, then you think of The Allman Bros version, which builds on a Bobby Bland version too, the result is breathtakingly awesome.

From whom have you have learned the most secrets about blues music?

If pressed. Freddie King (probably Eric Clapton, Peter Green too) but it’s a massive oversimplification. Like I was saying earlier blues is a tradition and you’re absorbing stuff all the time.

Some music styles can be fads but the blues is always with us. Why do think that is?

Couldn’t you ask me an easy Question! Part of it is in the universal appeal of the stories. They tell you about experiences we all had and so provide the comfort that we are not alone. The other part lies in the powerful rhythmic quality! We all have rhythm, like a pulse. There is something in the rhythms of the blues that is primitive, deep within us you hear it in the African rhythms where the blues comes from.  

"I guess being a black musician or a person living his daily life routines and the racial hate that was around then, even to this day, has not been sorted. The Blues it never went away!!" 

Are there any memories of all GREAT BLUESMEN you met which you’d like to share with us?

I remember when I was 17 I went to see Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac in Leicester at a wonderful old venue called the  Il Rondo long since vanished but during the British Blues boom in the mid sixties Friday night was blues night and a lot of good bands played there.  Anyway, I never had much money I was outside the gig trying to get in without a ticket and I told the doorman I was the roadie for the band. Well, the doorman did not believe me and would not let me in. I had met Peter several times before this incident, and he knew me as Mick. As I was being thrown out Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie saw me outside in a little distress and Peter asked me what the matter was. I told him I couldn’t get in because I’d told the doorman I was the roadie. Peter immediately said come in with me The doorman didn’t even know that it was Peter Green and stopped Peter also. Peter told him he was playing in the Club that night and that he should let us in. The doorman refused and Peter promptly said if he didn’t let me in then he wasn’t going to play. Well, That was it; we both went in. I even asked Peter earlier -when he was with John Mayall- could he show me how to play “Supernatural” from the “Hard Road” Album. They were about to do a rehearsal and John Mayall was real annoyed that I was there which is understandable. But Peter did show me how to play the number and create that spooky sound he got on ‘Supernatural’.
Another special memory was meeting B.B. King in Zurich in 1990 It was a wonderful experience, talking to the man. My band was the support act. It was a privilege, a real thrill. He said he liked the band. Now I reckon he might well have said that to all the bands given the kind of man he was –but, as you can imagine, I was made up! Meeting Luther Allison was also wonderful. A quietly spoken modest man who always had time for you. A wonderfully understated man – just like his playing.

Which of historical blues personalities would you like to meet?How do you see the future of blues music? Give one wish for the BLUES

John Lee Hooker, Howlin Wolf, Muddy Waters ... again hundreds ...and hundreds...

I really dont know, its important to encourage the younger blues players, to pick up and learn as much as they can have faith and belief, it aint easy, but thats the blues.

"We all have rhythm, like a pulse. There is something in the rhythms of the blues that is primitive, deep within us you hear it in the African rhythms where the blues comes from." (Photo: Mick Pini & B.B. King backstage, c. 1990 -- "Great man, I like it" ~ B.B.King)

Do you remember anything interesting from the recording hours and studio sessions?

No, absolutely nothing. Wall to wall hassle; can’t get the sound, can’t get rid of the feedback, the echoplex decides to misbehave, some bugger has over slept and endless bloody takes.

Who are your favourite blues artists? Which was one of the last records that you bought?

So many... last record Album Little Willie Littlefield; “Paris Streetlights”.

How has the music business changed over the years since you first started in music?

That’s a huge question as far as the blues is concerned it has not got easier. But then the blues isn’t easy it’s mostly about being dissatisfied, kind of like an itch you gotta scratch’

You're also a visual artist. I wonder if you could tell me a few things about your painting artwork.

I’ve always loved art. I did Art at college and both art and music paint pictures there’s a similarity. Both involve tone texture as well as meaning. It’s a vehicle to create meaning. I’m a kind of compulsive doodler with both. If I‘m sitting around I tend to pick up a pencil or a guitar and doodle!

What do you think is the main characteristic of your personality that made you a musician and painter?

Hell I don’t know. I’ve always been a loner in the crowd. Possibly I recognised many years ago that I was unemployable at anything else, Though I have done an assortment of odd jobs (-badly on the whole!) just to get some money. I could never stay in a job for long, but it enabled me to buy a guitar and amp. After all I couldn’t lie well enough to be a banker or politician. Well, That’s All Folks! As the rabbit was wont to say. Thanks for your interest, I hope this is of some use –and keep up the good work with the site.

"We have a big Media Cooperate, TV Phones, TV screens, Computers it`s all change. It`s in your face day and night, switch it on switch it off, nonstop. The world is a smaller place, we can reach each other in seconds, minutes." (Photo: Mick Pini's original artwork / Crossroads) 

If you could change one thing in the musical world and it would become a reality, what would that be?

Make sure John Lee Hooker and Freddie King had the drugs that would allow them to live forever.

Make an account of the case of the blues in Germany. What are the differences British and German blues scene?

Good question, I don’t think I could generalize, but from the UK Blues music it started for me 1965 -66, with John Mayall, Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mike Vernon, Alexis Korner etc., and it was starting to surface towards Germany, also loved the blues guys, the old Blues boys touring them times 1966- 68 and even before. Sonny Boy Williamson, Memphis Slim, Willie Dixon and the UK had these artists also. But in UK I guess the white players were bringing their interpretation of the blues from the black players and again you have to remember, that the black players were not so accepted in the USA, because of the segregation, so the above white players brought the B.B King, Freddie King, and the Albert King most of the black players out the cupboard, and they were beginning to be accepted more in Europe and UK, yet virtually ignored in the USA. Evan as far back to the 1940s T-Bone Walker. So again it was a color problem which still is going on, after all these years I often wonder if we ever learned anything.

What are the lines that connect the legacy of Blues from Skiffle and British Folk to Jazz and Psychedelic music?

Folk Blues 1960s again living through this period, we had the small clubs from my home town to London, being a much bigger city in size, with a hell of a lot more people, being in the middle of the folk blues. Les Cousins bunjies club where performers were asked to get up and play, and do their spontaneous thing, and poet reading 1965 the Radio Alexis Korner, who brought the blues to radio, with a wonderful radio blues voice, as he announced the new blues coming through. Alexis could be seen playing in Les cousins, a small club in Soho, where else could a club like that exist. It was the center of London. Musicians passing through the folk blues scene, Chris Barber and Lonnie Donegan, the earlier artists of skiffle and jazz blues. The folk artists that where around, music from the roots, to become world famous, they had to start somewhere and this was where this all started and grew in London. John  Martyn, Fairport Convention, Robert Plant, Eric Clapton, Peter Green, so many artists, and in America Bob Dylan, and on TV and Radio, was the new media 1970. Even Psychedelic music with its folk roots. They all started from these roots and expanded to other forms of expressing their music.

What do you miss most nowadays from the blues of past? What touched (emotionally) you from the busking era?

The intimacy of a small gig and seeing that artist live, I refer to earlier Freddie King, it’s an experience, and also to meet the artist, which I did, and get to talk to them and learn about their experiences and how they came to do what they do. The experience of that moment of seeing that artists, like Freddie King just blew my mind. I never heard anyone play the blues with such passion and feeling it was something that completely changed my life in the way Freddie playing Blues guitar. He blew me away and I still can’t get that out my mind. I realized you had to be that good, else give up, or throw the thing away. Freddie did something that will stay for the rest of my life, which the same as Peter Green, he had that special thing in playing the blues guitar, and to some extent. Eric Clapton opened up possibilities in the sound of the guitar him being the first. From the beano album 1966 John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers featuring Eric Clapton and Peter Green later. Their interpretations of the blues of the likes of Freddie King to B.B King, J.B Lenoir, Robert Johnson. Even when B.B King played the Fillmore 1967, he could not believe the white kids would love it. It was just accepted and listened to, it was incredibly new, but to the black audiences the Blues wasn’t a big thing.

What is the impact of Blues music and culture to the racial, political and socio-cultural implications?

We have a big Media Cooperate, TV Phones, TV screens, Computers it`s all change. It`s in your face day and night, switch it on switch it off, nonstop. The world is a smaller place, we can reach each other in seconds, minutes. We believe what we see on TV because we see it, they tell it, and we believe it. It’s the information age it tells you what to believe, it`s instant, it`s also dangerous and conflicting bringing anger among different communities, almost despair at the lies and truths of our own beliefs on the ground. The second and third hand information distorts, without even realizing some common ground to base facts on.

Let’s take a trip with a time machine, so where and why would you really want to go for a whole day?

Chicago, 1950s, 1960s, the Blues Clubs, the music the stories around the artists like Howlin Wolf, Little Walter Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, Buddy Guy, Freddie King ect. What a time, I would have loved to have seen and heard the blues music in them Juke Joints and small clubs. I guess it would have been dangerous, being a white guy, but the stories and lives of people who lived through that time, from that era. Yet I guess being a black musician or a person living his daily life routines and the racial hate that was around then, even to this day, has not been sorted. The Blues it never went away!!

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