“I don't believe all blues is great just because it's got that name. I think some is redundant and not creative and not original, but done well, it's just, you know, it's the real thing, it's real feeling.”

Mike Kappus: The Rosebud of Music

Mike Kappus has been the kind of manager and booking agent any musician would want, and the blues world is filled with musicians who wish they could have been represented by The Rosebud Agency. The example he set guiding careers, booking jobs, finding record deals and championing artists’ rights with dedication and drive made him one of the most respected men in the business. To do his most effective work, however, Kappus kept his roster select and small, and in so doing, he was able to elevate the careers of John Lee Hooker, Robert Cray and others to new heights. Kappus got his start booking bands in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where he was born on May 24, 1950. He later worked for two Milwaukee agencies, TGC Productions and Contemporary Talent, and brought a number of blues acts to town, including Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon and Freddie King, in addition to booking a blues stage at Milwaukee’s Summerfest. He relocated to San Francisco to join the Keystone Music Agency and in 1976 he founded Rosebud. Kappus’ personal management clients have included Hooker, Cray, John Hammond, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, J.J. Cale and Trombone Shorty.

(Mike Kappus / Photo by John Glenn)

As a booking agency, Rosebud also represented Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, George Thorogood, Allen Toussaint, Albert Collins, Pops and Mavis Staples, Ben Harper, Ruthie Foster and others. At the end of 2013 Kappus, a recipient of multiple Keeping the Blues Alive awards, closed the booking business of Rosebud but he continues his management work, as well as his service to nonprofit groups. Kappus has aided environmental, educational, human rights and cross-cultural organizations with his volunteer work. He originated the idea for and initially funded The Blues Foundation’s HART Fund which since 2003 has paid medical and funeral expenses for blues musicians in need.

Interview by Michael Limnios

Photos Courtesy of Mike Kappus/Rosebud Agency Archive / All Rights Reserved

What does the blues mean to you?

It’s very real, you know, it's very organic, I think, and it's not generally fluffed up or overproduced or anything like that. I saw a band called Short Stuff when I was living in my hometown in Eau Claire, Wisconsin—northern Wisconsin. Harmonica player/singer Jim Liban and keyboard player/singer Junior Brantley were the key members of the band. After one set, I came up to the keyboard player and said, really effing great. I just couldn't believe it; it just knocked me out, it just hit me perfectly, with more feeling than anything I'd heard before. I was about 20 years old.

But in this town, our radio was mainly Top 40 and country, and I hadn't really heard Blues before, so it just struck me. I'd also say that I'm not, like, all about blues; I'm not just blues. I worked with Charlie Watts, I worked with the Blind Boys of Alabama, with Los Lobos, with Mavis Staples, all sorts of people that are not at all blues. I don't believe all blues is great just because it's got that name. I think some is redundant and not creative and not original, but done well, it's just, you know, it's the real thing, it's real feeling.

What are your hopes and what are your fears for the future of music?

My fears for the blues is that there is not a young audience coming up. For some time, there was not enough young black blues artists. I think that's been addressed now, actually, not by any campaign or anything—just there are younger Black Blues artists coming up and caring about the blues, and that's great. I don't think there are that many young audience members, young fans, black or white. I go to different blues shows a lot of the time; as a matter of fact, tonight andtomorrow I'm seeing blues shows at ‘Biscuits and Blues’ here in San Francisco. But it's a very aging crowd; it's getting much older.

So, there's a fear of it fading away even more than it has, and a hope that there could be more young people learning about where so many other types of music they like came from —coming from the blues— and respecting the blues and recognizing it as genuine art form. I'm not against new music by any means; I listen almost 100% to new music.

I think a lot of it is overproduced recording-wise. Last month was the Grammys, and the Grammys have been like this for a long time— very heavily produced to attract a broad audience and have a spectacle. So, I'm more into the organic kind of presentation, although it doesn't reach that young, trend-based audience as well.

(Photo: Mike Kappus / Courtesy of Rosebud Agency Archive / All Rights Reserved)

“Rosebud Agency”, what is the story behind the name? Why did you choose this name?

Do you know the film “Citizen Kane”? At the end he dies, and his last word is “Rosebud”; and everybody's trying to figure out what that meant to him. Early on in the film you see the main character as a happy child riding down a snowy hill on his sled. He later becomes a very successful businessman and politician but the film implies that his last word, Rosebud (the name on his sled) Seems to indicate that he was happiest as a joyful child not weighed down by responsibilities.

So, I was riding around in a car with a girlfriend in Milwaukee, where I'd moved after growing up in northern Wisconsin,... and I was already a booking agent. I started thinking of all theresponsibilities I had (which was a fraction of what they later became). Then thinking back tobefore I was 13 years old, when I started working, when I grew up in a rural situation, in the summers especially, and going fishing, or going swimming, or hiking in the woods, and I related to “Citizen Kane”, thinking back to his days riding his sled down the hill. I thought, if I ever have a company, I'll call it “Rosebud”. I did not mean to start a company. I did not want to start a company, but I moved to San Francisco to join a company, Keystone Music Agency, and they didn't pay me. They kept making excuses for over two months. I came to work one day, and the phones were cut off because they also hadn’t paid the phone bill, and this is before fax, before email, before computers.

So that was everything— the phone was THE way to do business. So I just had to do something else. I went back to my little apartment and called artists I'd been working with to see if theywould stick with me if I found another place to work or started my own company.

There was John Hiatt, who I was managing at the time, Eddie Harris, who had introduced me to these people at Keystone, and Michael Bloomfield; I called up. I had booked a few shows forhim at Keystone, and I'd briefly spoken to him at shows, but we hadn't really talked much. We talked for 45 minutes, and he said, “You're the most logical agent I've ever spoken to. I'll do everything with you.” So he was my first fresh new signing on the first day of Rosebud. And then also Anthony Braxton, who I'd been working with a little bit at this company, and signed him, and that did not last a long time, actually. We had different ideas on the business side.

Rosebud and Mike Kappus are legendary names in the blues business. Why do you think that Mike Kappus' legacy continues to generate such a devoted following? What characterized your philosophy?

First of all, it's great to hear that you feel that the legacy continues because I have no objective idea about what anybody thinks of me. I'm glad to hear that it means something still. We werevery fortunate in being able to connect with numerous different artists that had good success. One thing I'd seen was friends of mine who were in bands that I worked with.

One band in particular who I worked with, at a certain point, they got a manager. I was just their booking agent, and that manager put them with William Morris agency for booking. They said, thanks for all you've done for us, but we're off to compete with Elton John and Led Zeppelin now. This is early '70s. Then they called me back a few weeks later saying, if you can get us any work, anything at all. We've been with William Morris, and they haven't gotten a single job for us, not one job.

Of course, William Morris has big stars, and they do well with a lot of different artists. But there are so many artists there, and this group was not selling a lot of records or anything so they got lost in the shuffle, and got no jobs at all.

I'd seen also in another situation working in a small agency for somebody else, and one of the other agents would get excited about a band and tell them all the things he could do for them. And then a few months later, it's another band and so on. And you run out of time. You can't fulfill all those promises. There's only so much time in the day.

When I started Rosebud, one of my primary concerns was to stay small so that nobody got lost in the shuffle, nobody got forgotten about because you're focused on one top artist or a few top artists— to give everybody the attention they need. I think that was really helpful. John Lee Hooker didn't have that attention before. He didn't even have one particular agent working with him. Various different agents would have his phone number and call him up if they could get a gig for him, but nobody had that full-time commitment to making his career a success which Ifelt was necessary with everybody. I felt my job for these artists was not only about their careerbut to make sure they could put bread on the family table— that you're responsible for their income. That’s a huge responsibility that I took very seriously. I think a lot of people don't. I think they like the money they can make, and if the artist isn't making money, they'll focus more on the artists who are making money, instead of trying to change it. So anyway, I think it was belief in the artist and limiting the number of artists so that each one got the attention they needed. I think those are two things that made us different than a larger less personal agency.

(Mike Kappus with his wife Saori, and John Lee Hooker / Photo by Lynn Goldfinger Abram)

You have worked with both in States and Europe. Do you find a difference between European and American promoters?

Yes. In both cases there are more effective promoters and less effective promoters. I think ourartists—it's not really your question, but our artists I think did better in Europe because it was more of an equal, we call it a level playing field. Whereas in America, radio airplay was heavily influenced by payola, major record labels giving money to radio promotion people who spent it on radio programmers, in one way or another, to play records.

So, if you're a small blues artist or roots music artist on a small label, they're not playing that game. They don't have the money to play that game and they maybe don't want to play that game,hopefully. But in Europe, media outlets especially public stations, based in their playlists on music that they felt was the most appropriate for their audiences rather than who paid them money to play their records. I think our artists being much more organic in roots music did better there than they did here in the US for the most part and the European culture gave much more respect to roots music artists and culture in general.

75 years old, what is happiness for Mike? What do you think is key to a life well lived?

Well, I can't generalize about how to live life. I've made plenty of mistakes and I've had opportunities other people haven't had. You know, people, friends of mine and other people that appreciate what I've done, talk about how hard I worked and I did work between 80 and 100 hours a week for the 37 years that I had Rosebud— and before and after Rosebud I also Iworked long hours. I also know there's other people that can work equally hard and maybe notget some of the same opportunities that I did— I was fortunate and grateful get a lot of opportunities.

Because of my policy of not adding too many artists, we actually turned down 1,000 to 1,500 artists every year that we could have signed and many of them were bigger than some of the artists we did represent. But when I made a commitment, I didn't drop a commitment to that artist because there's a more successful one wanting us to book them. Now, I garden a little bit. Not as much as my friend Elvin Bishop, who's a big gardener. My wife and I go out most nights for films, concerts and other events. We saw a Japanese film this week. I'm seeing shows tonight and tomorrow and know the performers, which is really nice. Now that I am mostly out of the business of representing artists, I'm no longer somebody that people may want to be friendly with just because they think it might help their career. To still have so many artists as friends even when it’s less likely I can help their careers is really satisfying. I appreciate that because I think I've always put musicians on a pedestal. I've always really appreciated great musicians for what they do. So, you know, friends, many from many past work, are most important to me. Like in the summertime, we go to baseball games and more for the friendships than for the games because you sit there with a friend for two and a half, three hours and you've got the game to talk about but you've also got plenty of time to talk about everything else, deepen relationships and really have a good time together. In the last few years, I've been going to baseball games and bringing one friend because I had access to two great tickets from a friend of mine. But I thought it would be great if some of these friends could meet each other. So this year is my fourth year renting a suite at the San Francisco Giants Oracle Park and inviting 30 people (many are musicians and others are not) to all get together in one big room and enjoy the game, spend time together and make new friends. That's a really nice time for everyone I think.

(Mike Kappus with Saori Kappus and Elvin Bishop / Photo by Jane Richey)

You have met so many great musicians and personalities. Which meetings have been the most important experience for you, and what was the best advice anyone ever gave you?

First of all, there's the people that I met long ago and have maintained long term friendships with, like Bonnie Raitt, Elvin Bishop and Mavis Staples, all dear friends that I love and we stay in touch a lot.

All of the artists that I represented meant a lot to me. And they're all different, unique personalities. But outside of the people that I represented, probably the most meaningful for me was Stevie Wonder. I was really at a peak of diving into the music business in the '70s. At that time I also became a huge fan of Stevie Wonder who was in his prime period of creativity and worldwide success. I had his albums and tracked down the last two rare onnes I didn’t own and paid $80.00 each for them (and keep in mind this is in the ‘70s). I went to see him with a friend the night that John Lennon was shot, December 8, 1980. We didn't know that John Lennon had been shot. We came into the arena and nobody had cell phones; the news came out after we were all in the arena. Stevie started the show by saying he was dedicating it to someone special and that he’d tell us more about it later. The timing of the Lennon news coming out allowed Stevie to learn about it before going on stage. Then he did an amazing show; at the end, he came ou t and talked about his campaign to make Martin Luther King's birthday a national holiday. He said, another great person died tonight. John Lennon was shot in New York City; it was just unreal. Then he wanted us all to sing along to the song, “Happy Birthday” —the version he wrote for Martin Luther King— but nobody could sing. We were all in shock. I met him a few years after that at this Dick Clark’s American Bandstand all star anniversary show. I was there with George Thorogood. I was walking through these backstage hallways and Stevie Wonder had not been announced but there was a dressing room door with his name on it. I talked to a security man outside, told him I was a huge fan. He said, well, come back afterwards; maybe you can meet him. So I came back afterwards and the guy just remembered me and said, go ahead, go in. I went inside and there was nobody in there except Stevie. So it was just Stevie and I in the room; it was really meaningful to me. So just the two of us talked. He had known about John Lee Hooker because John Lee was in Detroit when Stevie was growing up and Stevie had come to John Lee’s house. That weekend, I was also in Los Angeles for a Muddy Waters show we’d booked at the Roxy. So we talked about him as well and Stevie gave me a big hug and asked for my card and everything. Which to me was really incredible because I always just felt he was the most all-around, unbelievably talented musician, writer, producer and extremely soulful and beautiful singer. So that is number one. Without a doubt

AS far as advice, early on, a friend told me how important it was to keep thorough records andI’ve generally done that well but a lot of my learning was about what NOT to do based on seeing how some of my early bosses worked.

(Mike Kappus & Muddy Waters / Photo by Carol Kamlarz-Scott / Courtesy of Rosebud Agency Archive)

Talent, label, manager or media is the most important for a career?

I always think of a good manager as being the most important person to the artist’s career. Therere numerous typed of managers and the roles they play is whatever artist and manager agree to. Initially he manager learns about the artist, they get to know each other and hopefully they can agree on the same goals and how to pursue them.

Ideally they also agree on ethics. And the manager might also make the artist aware of thingsthat they aren't even thinking about that they should know about for their career. And then the manager goes out to find the most appropriate collaborators, like a booking agent, record company, lawyer, merchandiser, accountant, all those things, travel agent and any other entity the artist needs and can afford. And then they gather information from all those potential new collaborators and bring all the various options and possibilities back to the artist. In my experience, I would give the artist as much information as possible and then have the artist make the decision unless I think they may be making a mistake or they want me to make certain decisions but I always offered the artist the options first as it is their career.

There’s other situations for managers where it's like a manager who creates a boy band or something and they're putting together people in the band that never met each other before maybe. It's just this one's a good dancer, that one's a good singer, and so on.

That's not my world.

But at any rate, I think the manager's number one because he or she is the funnel of information from the artist to everybody else and from everybody else back to the artist. Trust is huge there. The artist entrusting their career to that person.

Some managers act more like messengers, just communicating info between the artist and everyone else involved and they sometimes develop a great reputation that may be more because of the artist’s talent and public appeal than the manager’s abilities. I believe that a good manager or agent is one who consistently makes important things happen that would otherwise not happen if they weren’t effective.

Managers may work with various different record labels on the same artist over time so they are more of a constant while other collaborators may change. The tough part is that it's hard to find good managers. In the beginning, if the artist isn't making any money, then the manager can't afford to keep going just doing that. So it's very hard in the beginning on a new artist if the manager doesn’t don't have other income sources to survive on.

(Photo: Mike Kappus with Les Paul and Jon Paris / Courtesy of Rosebud Agency Archive)

How strange are the musicians backstage?

They're all humans. They're all different! But it brings to mind one thing that is kind of funny. A really dear friend of mine, Jon Paris. I managed a band he was in originally in Milwaukee over 50 years ago. Then he went on to New York and ended up playing with Bo Diddley and Johnny Winter. So, one time he invited me to ride along on the bus with him and Johnny Winter to the show. That night it had rained. We got to the show and we're in the bus and the guys in the crewcome out to talk to Johnny. They say, Johnny, the stage is in the middle of the house. It's people al l around. The show is in the round. And Johnny's going, oh, oh, shit. Oh, gosh. He's whininglike a little girl almost. “Can we cancel? Maybe we should cancel”. Then they come back in and they say, there was rain. And so there's puddles of water out there between the bus and the doorof the club so we put boards over them so you don't have to walk in the water and everything. He continues whining. Oh, jeez, I don't know. Maybe we should cancel. He's just whining like a whining little boy. Then the show's about to begin. Johnny comes in and gets up on stage and yells at the top of his lungs, ROCK and ROLL! like he’s the most macho guy in the world. So that's the most drastic difference I've seen from backstage to onstage. But a lot of people are nervous. Some people are not. Some people say, if I'm not nervous, there's something wrong. But there's really big differences. I mean, J.J. Cale was one of my favorite people to work with. I worked with him 35 years. He was my best friend. And he was not so different backstage. His reputation is earned as far as avoiding the spotlight and not caring about money or fame. He was much more popular in Europe than he was in the United States. But in my 35 years with him, he only toured Europe one time. He turned down offers from Europe, Japan and Australia. He just didn't really like flying and he didn't care about that money. When he did the Road To Escondido record with Eric Clapton, they wanted him to tour with Eric and promote the record. He passed because he doesn't like the spotlight that much. He doesn't like big arenas and everything. So he said no. And they said, well, what if you just did the Southwest and we'll get you a bus of your own and everything but he passed on that. And thenfinally they said, well, what if you just play San Diego? He was starting to pass on that. And I usually don't try to change people's minds. But I said, John, come on. Get serious. Everything Eric has done for you, you can at least drive 45 miles to San Diego and sit in with him. And he did. And he was grumpy on the way there about, “oh, Eric doesn't need me. He sells out by himself. I don't know why we're doing this.” But then on stage, there's a picture of him I used to have on his Facebook page of him with Eric. because I've never seen a picture of him smiling so much on stage or off. It was just somehow making the music on stage made it all good.

I've always felt like it's such a challenge for musicians who may be going through a divorce or onthe edge of what might become a divorce, fighting with their partner on the phone that day, maybe even half an hour before they go on stage. Or they may be sick. But they go on stage, and they need to try to bring the crowd up, excite the crowd, and make the crowd feel good, when maybe they're going through big pain, personally. I always admire artists when they're able to do that, and usually they do.

(Mike Kappus with B.B. King and John Lee Hooker / Photo by Jana Lilian Kaiser)

55, almost 55 years career, what would you like to keep? And what would you like to forget?

I've had interactions with people that were corrupt, basically. And caused really bad problems. I don't want to let that spoil my life. It's kind of like John Lee Hooker and B.B. King. It seems all the early blues artists were taken advantage of. I heard Diddley and Chuck Berry being among the most vocal and bitter about record companies treating them wrong and not honoring agreements, especially regarding pay. I'd been around John Lee Hooker when people interviewedhim, and were kind of trying to get out of him an anger toward the white people, who burnedhim. He said, I was on Vee-Jay Records, that was run by black people, and they burned me too. He didn't want to get hauled into negativity. I think John Lee pretty much said it out loud, and B.B. King, I think, felt the same way. They got burned a lot by labels and promoters and maybe managers, agents and lawyers as well and especially with John Lee and numerous other artists not being able to read. They just weren't going to let that spoil their current life. I kind of feel the same way on the negatives, and the positives, I really try to focus on the positives. I feel like I'vebeen extremely blessed in my career, to work with the people I have. Every time I worked with somebody, it opened up more doors. Eric Clapton, I remember being about 20 years old, and the history of Eric Clapton album came out. I was sitting with a friend looking at the back cover, thinking of this untouchable icon, and then ending up working with him a great deal, touring the US, Europe and Japan with Robert Cray opening for Eric. And with JJ Cale in the studio. Then when Cale died and Eric wanted to do a tribute album, he'd call me on a regular basis to share ideas and then being in the studio during recording. So as a kid, I thought this was an untouchable icon I’d be lucky to see in concert, much less even speak tohim. Then here he is calling me up for my opinion about which artists Cale might appreciate paying tribute to him  and which ones maybe to avoid or which songs for which artists. It's been incredible, I'm just a kid from northern Wisconsin who just fell into one lucky thing after another, and I worked very hard, but I think I said it before, but a lot of people work really hard and don't get any breaks. I worked hard, but I got breaks as well.

Saori, your wife, always is a big part in your life. What do you learn about yourself from Saori?

I've learned a lot from her. She worked at a computer company in Japan, this is back in the early 80s, so she had a big head start on that world, which I don't know. I'm kind of intimidated by it. She can always help me with any kind of computer tech problem. I've learned a lot about Japan, I've visited over 30 times, sometimes on business before I met her. It's just an amazing place with amazing people. There are some traditions among Japanese that are not so well known and she’s taught me about them. Our musical tastes differ but some areas are the same. She was a singer in Japan and is passionate about music so we learned more about each others’ favorite music and artists. It's hard to put it all into words but It’s been 40 years together and it's been really good. Better than ever right now, actually.

(Photo: Mike Kappus with Saori Asaba Kappus, Robert Cray, John Hammond, John Lee Hooker, Aaron Neville, Mike Osborn, Richard Cousins / Courtesy of Rosebud Agency Archive / All Rights Reserved)

Do you find a difference between all these different local venues, promoters, if you are in East Coast, West Coast, Southern States or Northern States?

I think there's not so much difference in promoters by area. There's a difference in the culture, definitely. Yes, I came from the Midwest, and I feel like the Midwest is really down to earth, not pretentious. I'll tell you a short story. There's probably not room for you to use it.

I was at my hometown, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, which is 250 miles northwest of Milwaukee, where I moved for five years after growing up in Eau Claire. I was visiting home, and a blizzard was coming in. I thought, if I get going now, I can get back to Milwaukee, maybe be ahead of the blizzard, and it didn't work that way. I got caught in this blizzard where I was on the highway. I couldn’t see anything. It was all white. I could see a little light reflecting off the license plate of the car in front of me. That was all. I decided I had to turn off. I had to stop. I took this off-road, and all of a sudden there's just a poof, and I'm stuck in the middle of a huge pile of snow in the middle of the road. I step out of my car, and immediately my ears fill with snow because the snow was blowing so hard sideways. I had to pull a sweater up over my ears and look out theneck hole. I go up to a car in front of me that’s also stuck and there was a man and his wife and a small child and a baby. So the man and I walked up to the nearest farmhouse to see if we could get shelter, and nobody was home. We walked back past our cars, and he stayed with his family. I went to the farmhouse behind us, and nobody was there. I came back and got the guy, and we went up to the first farmhouse, and we had to break in. You know, this was serious. A lot of people died in this snowstorm. And a lot of people in older days, before computers, they would have a phone book, and you'd write the name and phone number of your good friends on the outside of the phone book so you didn't have to even open it up, and it was all right there. And they had done that. We saw their phone book, and I called up one of the numbers, and it was a family friend, and he said, well, the head of the family was in the hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, nearby, and they're probably all there. So I called the hospital, and I got a hold of the woman who lived there, and her husband was in the hospital, and I said, we just broke into your house. She said, oh, well, that's okay. We're probably stuck here for the night, too. So then we talk a minute and hang up, and then she called back and said, I should have told you there's extra bread in the freezer, and there's blankets upstairs, and I'm sorry the house is such a mess. The house was not a mess, and here we had broken into her house, and she's apologizing to us for how the house is and telling us to make ourselves at home. I think that was classic Midwest mentality, just being nice to others. And things like snowstorms, they brought people together to try to help each other. The South, I don't know as much about. The East, you maybe think of New York, and you think of that being a faster pace of life. Whereas you may think the pace of life in the South and West being at a more relaxed pace. Those are real generalizations, real stereotypes. There can be all kinds of people, clubs and promoters everywhere, and in this country, people have moved around a lot as well. I'm a Midwesterner, but I'm in California. But as far as the business, I think the business is not so much different, because we're all dealing in this same business with artists that tour across the whole country constantly.

(Mike Kappus with Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Pops Staples / Photo by Henry Diltz - Mike Kappus with Christine Lakeland Cale, Eric Clapton, Don White, and JJ Cale / Courtesy of Rosebud Agency Archive)

Do you have any song, that says the story of your life? Any favorite “autobiographical” song that says the story of Mike Kappus?

Nothing comes to mind. There might be something. I mean, I have a lot of favorite songs, butI'm not sure that I identify with any as telling my story. I'm happy with my life. I enjoy my life, and I enjoy reading stories of other people's lives, of all different kinds.

I've never thought of a song as identifying my life. Lots of songs I love, some that would surprise people. I've been stereotyped a lot in the blues. I had a lot of success with blues artists, and then more blues artists came to us. But one of my favorite artists is Harry Nilsson. I think he was brilliant, and had a great sense of humor, and an amazing voice. Roy Orbison, also an amazing voice. Jimi Hendrix, unbelievable guitarist. All different types of music and gospel, you know. First time I saw gospel, I thought, this is unbelievable. I just thought it had such incredible spirit. I'd grown up Catholic, and then I stopped being a Catholic when I was, about 19. And I thought, I'm not religious so Gospel artists would not accept me. Later on I worked with Gospel artists like the Blind Boys of Alabama and Mavis Staples, and Pop Staples and the Staples family, and none of them ever asked me about my religious feelings so I missed a lot of years that I could have been dealing with Gospel. I like a lot of different types of music. I don't see as much musical value in a lot of rap. I've never been as much of a country fan, but there's country music I like, older country music mainly. Now it's more pop country, but nothing autobiographical, I've never even thought of that before. So maybe if I think about it more, I'll think of some song but I don't ever feel that.

Which memory from the late great J.J. Cale makes you smile?

He was my best friend. I just loved the man, literally loved him. We talked right up until the end. He was very weak with heart trouble but he would not want anybody to pay too much attention or be worried about him too much. So I would talk to him and then I would tell his sister what he had told me to give her an update. Then she would talk to him, maybe a week or so later and then she'd give me an update. But if one of us was calling him too much, then he would feel like, don't worry about me, I'm okay. He didn't want the spotlight, he didn't want too much attention. The last day I spent with him, I'd come down to visit and I don't even remember if we had any specific business to talk about. We spoke for about six hours, mainly him speaking, which was fine with me because I was hearing these incredible stories from his past and everything. We developed a really, really good friendship. He was kind of a hermit, didn't hang out with other people, didn't care about going to the happening events or anything like that. He didn't come to the Grammys even when he won one. Very few people had his phone number. He was with hissister and his wife once and he said, you two and Mike are the only three people that can comewithout an invitation. so it was very close. This last day was like six hours of talking and I would have kept going, but I had to catch a plane. So, I was saying goodbye and he walked me to my car on the other side of his house and was saying goodbye and I just felt like telling him I loved him and giving him a big hug. But he wasn’t the type to wear his emotions on his sleeve, as we say here. I think he would have felt very awkward about that so I didn't do anything or say anything.

To your question about what would make me smile, there were a lot of things. He was the most sensitive artist I ever worked with. He would go to the grocery store to buy carrots and nuts for the wild animals in his yard and then watch them eat. Just a peaceful man at home.

(Photo: Mike Kappus with JJ Cale / Courtesy of Rosebud Agency Archive / All Rights Reserved)

Rick Hall, John Hammond, Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd, Chess Brothersand many others. Who was your favorite producer?

I don't have that much experience in producing records or comparing producers, but I'll tell you who was my favorite to work with and that's in my small circle of experience. It was Ry Cooder. In the world I was working in, I wasn't really working in R&B so much, especially in earlier days, or the rock that Tom Dowd did so much for. I have tremendous respect for all of them. I spoke with Jerry Wexler some toward the end, a nice relationship. He wrote liner notes for a John Hammond album that I was executive producer for. So, we went back and forth about that and some later connections. But Ry Cooder was really my favorite. We worked with him with John Lee Hooker and he just had the right instincts and knowledge, I think, for that kind of music. He was such a great artist himself, then seeing him work with others.We did a session with John Lee Hooker with Johnny Johnson, and Nick Lowe on bass and Ry. They did a take and it wasn't quite the way Ry wanted it. He made a very brief comment to the singers he always worked with about how to do it. There was like a telepathy between them. They knew him well, he knew them well. It was perfect the next time. He just had this really great sensibility. I really appreciated him as a producer. So, then when I got a record deal for Pop Staples, I got Ry Cooder to produce several of the songs on that record and he produced all of the next record which won a Grammy. Anyway, Ry Cooder is the short answer.

Your clients were some of the great old cats. Albert Collins, Captain Beefheart, John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon, Muddy, what is the best choice from the new generation?

I liked “Kingfish” Ingram. I met him early on and his mother was doing his business for him and I had already stopped Rosebud and I enjoyed him a lot and I offered to help him for free, to be an advisor, consultant or whatever for free and I think there was wariness there, maybe even more wary because I was offering free help. Maybe they were wondering, well, what's the trick, you know? But I offered that and maybe his Mother also just didn't want there to be any indication that she couldn't do it all by herself. But he was one. There's a guy I got a record deal for and actually he just texted me before your call, in fact, J.P. Soars I like him a lot. John Callahan, a friend of mine who was a tour manager, a really good guy, really down to earth and knowledgeable and he called me one time. I was in Memphis at the Blues Music Awards, he was saying, oh, you know, J.P. Soars is playing there and if you get a chance, you should check him out. Later I was walking across this big ballroom and they were having one band after another performing on stage and I think, like I mentioned before, I think a lot of blues is too similar. I was walking across the room with my back to the stage and I heard this music and I thought, now that's something unique and special. I sat down with friends and I said, who is this guy? And they said, J.P. Soars. I ended up talking with him afterwards and offering to consult for free, which I'm still doing, and got him this record deal, which also was a no advance money situation but he got all the costs covered. This was on Little Village Foundation records. They generally record artists at Kid Anderson's Greaseland Studios. The record label doesn't charge the artist anything for that. They hire a publicist to promote the album. They give them a thousand free CDs. This is almost like a grant. The artist doesn't owe the record company anything after the label pays for all these things. And if the artist sells a record for $15, the artist keeps the $15. Period. 100%. No money goes back to the foundstion at all. None whatsoever. The foundation is fully supported by donations. They luckily got some people that have, made some significant contributions. I brought a couple people to them. Kevin Burt, I brought to them. He's heavily influenced by Aaron Neville and Bill Withers in particular. I also helped find an agent for him. And I've tried to help find all the right people for JP Soars. And I’ve brought several other projects to Little Village including Casey Van Beek and The Tulsa Groove and I produced a spoken word record for LVF by 100year old Betty Reid Soskin among other collaborations. The organization was founded by Jim Pugh, a former member of The Robert Cray Band when I managed them.

(Mike Kappus with Wavy Gravy & Mavis Staples / Photo by Jay Blakesberg)

(Photos Courtesy of Mike Kappus/Rosebud Agency Archive / All Rights Reserved)