No I don't recall meeting any of those guys, I might have but......
That was a while after I left the blues clubs. (He had lost his leg to diabetes at that point, notice he's sitting down.)
Yes Son started as a drummer, it's said he is the drummer on Albert Kings Live Wire album, I think it's true but I'm not positive. Son also played 6 string bass (guitar with amp tone controls set to sound like a bass) for Hound Dog Taylor when he 1st got to Chicago. One night Son played Hound Dogs 'Sadie' and I played slide on it, he loved it and from then on he would play it cause he wanted me to play slide on it. He was kind of frustrated/let down 1 night when I told him I didn't have my slide with me.
I had a Conn strobe tuner, that I still have, that I always brought to gigs, so I offered to start tuning up Son's guitar before his/our gigs because he was wrestling with keeping it in tune sometimes. He liked that. He stayed in tune from then on while I was with him and it let him go out and talk with fans and/or just relax. When we came back from a week, week and a 1/2 (?) road trip he would call the guys in 1 at a time to pay them from the trip. When he was paying me he said "I put an extra fox in your hole" with a big smile on his face. I didn't know what he meant at 1st, but as I was counting the $$ I realized there was $20 or $30 extra, the light bulb came on over my head I smiled at him and said thanks Son. He just smiled at me, he was watching me the whole time with a big smile on his face, waiting for when I figured it out.
I always thought it was because I was tuning his guitar for him. (I never said anything to the other guys about it.)
On that same little road trip 1 morning I was sitting in the hotels dinner and Son came in and said hi and he went and sat down in the next booth by himself, I was very puzzled. So I got up and went to him and said "Son you could sit and have breakfast with me if you want" and he said something like "oh yeah? Well alright then." I still don't know why he didn't just sit with me in the 1st place. So we had breakfast together and just talked about stuff, nothing important. He was really kind of a shy man not like the big strong stage presence he had.
I saw him not too long after his wife (Johnny?) had shot him in the face, I had read about it in the news. He still had a small bandage on his cheek, 1.5"x1" or so. I told him that I was worried about him when I read about it and asked him if he was ok. He said something like "This? Shoooott, I've cut myself worse shaving." And he started laughing.
But I've read that it was pretty serious and it gave him trouble. I'm not sure he ever fully recovered from it.
Son's father owned a juke joint in Ark. when Son was a kid and Son got to meet/see a lot of the blues bands that were playing the chiltlin circuit in the south. There's bios on line about all this.
Topic: Son Seals band (Read 7821 times)