Carnival of Soul

Opened in 1949, Theresa’s was a hotbed of blues, its house band once fronted by Junior Wells. Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Otis Spann — they all passed through from time to time.

That menagerie included Ronnie’s dad: the legendary Lonnie Brooks, whose guitar flights — a Louisiana-bred, Chicago-fed swamp tangle of tight and wild — thundered across five decades of ever-changing tastes, from the raw dawn of rock ‘n’ roll (“Family Rules,” “The Crawl”) to the 1960s blues revival (“Broke an’ Hungry”) to earned immortality (“Sweet Home Chicago,” “Bayou Lightning,” “Satisfaction Guaranteed”). Sometimes it was his music Ronnie heard from the car. And maybe such a joint would host him one day too. 

“You know, I loved my father,” Ronnie told The E. “I loved being around him, and I knew music was something he loved. I loved music too. It was something we had in common. I loved the whole vibe coming out of that room.

“I was always attracted to the guitar,” he continued. “Initially, I was trying to be like Dad. But I loved the sound and listening to the music that my dad was playing at the time: a lot of gospel, R&B and blues. I felt something in the music. It was just the truth.”

Ronnie didn’t make it to Theresa’s — he was a teenager when it shuttered in the ’80s — but that shared love for music has given him stage-eye views from such venerable Chicago spots as the Checkerboard Lounge and B.L.U.E.S., and from pretty much everywhere around the world.

He’s coming to Corvallis on Wednesday, Feb. 12, accompanied by harmonica giant Billy Branch (we’ll get to him; don’t you worry), for an evening of music and stories at the Majestic Theatre, 115 SW Second St. Their appearance is part of Oregon State University’s continuing “American Strings” series, hosted by OSU’s Bob Santelli.

According to Ronnie, his father neither pressured nor discouraged him when he and his younger brother, Wayne Baker Brooks (a monster blues-rock guitarist in his own right), chose to pursue their own musical paths. He did, however, hide his guitar from Ronnie on occasion, which succeeded only in tempting the boy further. Music was business, Lonnie cautioned, a commitment fraught with twists and turns. It required passion, determination, drive.

But when he saw his sons were serious, he supported their dedication. He bought Ronnie his first guitar and even used it himself on a slew of records and in a 1980 episode of “Hee Haw,” backed on rhythm by no-slouch picker Roy Clark. Later he took Ronnie on the road; father and son can be heard together on “Live from Chicago: Bayou Lightning Strikes,” recorded for venerable blues label Alligator Records in November 1987. Ronnie calls it his “thrown on the grill” moment.

“My dad said, ‘I want you on this record,'” he said. “It put pressure on me to learn. I knew a lot of his material already because he wrote a lot of it while my brother and I were right there with him. He would always say, ‘Anyone, even a child, can pick up a guitar and play something you’ve probably never heard before. They’re playing something that makes sense to them.’ That was Dad. One of the songs on his first Alligator album, ‘Bayou Lightning’ [1979], was called ‘Voodoo Daddy.’ He got that from me. I was just messing around and he ended up using the riffs in the song. I was honored to be part of that live record. I was ON it, man.”

Naturally, through his father, he fraternized with a veritable who’s-who of the blues. Koko Taylor. Albert King. Little Milton. He considered Albert Collins an uncle. If he visited B.B. King at a show, he could wind up on stage, introduced to the audience with a friendly “I feel I helped raise this kid.”

Ronnie met Billy Branch years before they worked together. It was the late 1970s. Although only in his 20s, Branch had already worked in Willie Dixon’s Chicago Blues All Stars, swapping sharp “harp” with Carey Bell, and led his own trio, Sons of Blues, with progeny Freddie Dixon and Lurie Bell, whose family names you may recognize from earlier in this sentence.

Lonnie Brooks brought Branch into the sessions for 1979’s “Bayou Lightning.” Ronnie was still a kid, maybe 12 years old, so they didn’t exactly run in the same circles. As Ronnie said, “I knew him before he knew me.”

But their paths crossed often over the years, culminating in an amusing story Ronnie plans to tell in Corvallis. Semi-spoiler: It involves generational interpretations as to what constitutes the blues. But there’s a happy ending, one that’s resulted in multiple collaborations with such outfits as Big Head Todd and the Monsters and on a blistering response to the Rolling Stones’ “Blue & Lonesome,” their 2016 homage to the form that birthed them: “Chicago Plays the Stones,” in which the duo whips “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” iconic riff and all, into “Good Morning, Little School Girl” shape.

“I have a tremendous amount of respect for Billy,” Ronnie said. “He’s a phenomenal musician, a phenomenal historian. He came up through the ranks with James Cotton, Carey Bell, Big Walter, and had to earn their respect. He would tell you, they’d cut his head and make him look bad. But he kept coming back until he got better, and they finally embraced him. It was similar to our relationship. He challenged me, man, and made me better. He’s like my big brother.”

Ronnie’s own career has evolved from young-cat up-and-comer to statesman status at age 53. He has four solo albums to his name, his most recent, 2017’s “Times Have Changed,” a document bridging blues past and future (the title track boasts an Al Kapone rap that seamlessly fits the rhythm, and a take on Curtis Mayfield’s “Give Me Your Love” celebrates the 1972 original while exploring it even further) with appearances from such multigenerational luminaries as Steve Cropper, Bobby “Blue” Bland and Angie Stone. Lonnie Brooks drops in, too, going a round with his oldest boy on Alvin Cash’s “Twine Time,” throwing the party of their lives.

Sadly, Lonnie passed away in April 2017, less than three months after “Times Have Changed” was released. But it’s a scorching epilogue to a legacy that thrilled to the end, the whoops at its coda well-earned. And that legacy continues through the dedication of Lonnie’s children, biological and spiritual.

“We’ve lost a lot of great, monumental blues musicians within the last 5-10 years,” Ronnie said. “Of course, my dad was a huge, huge influence. You’ve got some young artists coming up now and a few from the older generation still around. I’m not the young guy anymore, but I continue to challenge myself to take it further, adding to my father’s legacy, adding to the blues. I’m grateful for all the ones who embraced me and gave me that stamp of approval: ‘Welcome to the bluesman fraternity.’ If I can be what all of those guys were to me coming up, I feel like I’ve accomplished something, done my job of keeping the blues alive.”

CORY FRYE: You grew up immersed in the blues by blood, but you also came of age in an era — 1970s, ’80s — of the guitar god, the technical, virtuosic, often classically trained shredder. What’s your take on them?

RONNIE BAKER BROOKS: There’s room for everything. There are definitely advantages to that, the technical approach.

When I started going on tour with my father, he did a college in Los Angeles called the Guitar Institute of Technology [now the Musicians Institute]. We were there for a concert for musicians, a bunch of guitar players, right? They gave me a tour around the college, showing me what it was all about, and I was very impressed. I was interested in going. Then a couple of students pulled me aside and said, “Man, I’ll trade you. I’ll go on the road with your dad and you can go to school.” (laughs) They were telling me the best school was to be out there doing it.

So there are definitely two sides of it. Technically, it’s good to know what you’re doing and the philosophy behind it. That gives you more confidence when you do play. When I play, I try to follow the vibe from my heart, to make that make sense musically.

I started school early on, when my dad wanted me to take classes, and they were showing me nursery rhymes. But I wanted to learn whatever I was listening to at the time. I wanted to play what Dad was playing, be up there with Dad. So I started learning by ear.

CF: I know you’ve never had an idle moment, but why the decade-long gap between 2006’s “The Torch” and 2017’s “Times Have Changed”?

RBB: Well, when I first started my label, Watchdog Records, I was a single man. No kids. Living in a one-bedroom apartment with nothing but time. When I wasn’t on the road, I was writing, putting together records, songs, whatever. Then I got a family. I have a wife now and three kids. So things changed a little bit.

I never had a major record company or even an independent record company behind me until “Times Have Changed.” So everything was funded by me. I didn’t have a publicist, marketing team or distribution. All I had was the stage, so I just worked from that and it enabled me to do three records and a DVD on my own.

I was blessed to get “Times Have Changed” out with [producer] Steve Jordan and all the great guests on the record. In between time, the 10 years I didn’t record, I was working with other bands, guesting on their records, or producing. I helped write my dad’s last record, but we haven’t released it yet. We’re waiting for the right time and right situation. I also produced Eddy Clearwater’s “West Side Strut” [2008] for Alligator. I produced a group out of Europe. I was a guest on Elvin Bishop records. We did a record with Tommy Castro. I was doing stuff.

On recording “Times Have Changed” with Al Kapone:

RBB: Al Kapone is on my previous album, “The Torch.” We did a track called “If It Don’t Make Dollars, Then It Don’t Make Sense.” I didn’t know what Steve was thinking initially, because I was just into the track [“Times Have Changed”]. At the end, we said, let’s play it all the way out. Then Steve put in strings. I thought, “Aw, this is great, man.” Then he said, “We’re going to get Al Kapone to rap on it.” Now, he didn’t know I had worked with him previously. So it’s got to happen. (laughs) All this stuff was lining up. We sent [Al] the track first and he came in the next day with the lyrics down. It was off the chain. It fit like a glove. It fit like a glove.

On recording Curtis Mayfield’s “Give Me Your Love”:

RBB: That was Steve Jordan, actually: “We gotta do something.” The first song I said initially was “Old Love,” which I ended up doing with Bobby “Blue” Bland, and that turned out to be the last thing he ever recorded. The second song was “Give Me Your Love,” from the “Super Fly” soundtrack. I love that whole album. Curtis Mayfield was a genius: “Super Fly,” the one he did with the Staples Singers [“Let’s Do It Again,” 1975] and “Claudine,” with Gladys Knight. You could just close your eyes and feel like you’re there. It’s timeless. Steve Jordan is great at that. And I had fun doing that song with Angie Stone.

CF: I was kind of curious as to how you hooked up with Todd Park Mohr [Big Head Todd and the Monsters].

RBB: Todd’s my brother from another mother. He’s very important to my career as well.

I met him in the early to mid-’90s while I was playing with my father. We did a show in Chicago on Halloween. They called me onto the bus and we talked. At the time I was trying to record with a label and no one was interested. They said, “Man, we didn’t get a record label. We cut the stuff ourselves.” That gave me the idea to start Watchdog Records. Just hearing from someone you can relate to, someone your age.

Big Head Todd and the Monsters were popular then. They still are, but they had that big record [1994’s “Sister Sweetly,” with “Bittersweet,” “Circle” and “Broken Hearted Savior”]. It was all over MTV and VH1. But they were humble and down to earth. They spread that knowledge to me: Man, all you have to do is cut the record yourself, sell it at your gigs, save that money, cut it again and keep building. And that’s what I did.

I hadn’t seen them in a long time. Todd had eventually, unbeknownst to me, moved to Chicago. We were at a function together and just started talking. “Why don’t you come by the house and we’ll write some songs?” So we wrote a couple of songs together. “Why don’t you come out on tour with me?” Great! It rekindled our relationship to another level.

CF: That song you guys did together last year, “Remedy,” turned out great.

RBB: Todd’s a great songwriter, musician and visionary. He’s always ahead.

“Remedy” happened when we did a show here together in Chicago. I was a guest with him, and we ended up at the hotel where we sat around talking. “Ronnie, I got an idea.” What’s that, man? “Blues can heal the nation. That’s you, man.” I thought he was just talking. It was the end of the night. But he called me later and said, “I got a song idea and I want to sing it to you. You put in what you want to put in.”

Eventually we got it together, man. I flew out to Denver and we cut it at [keyboardist Jeremy Lawton’s] house, videotaped it and put it out. I’m playing it on my shows now.

We ended up dedicating it to my dad, because they used to go see my dad when they were still in college, whenever we played up that way or if they were here.

On the Lonnie Brooks legacy:

RBB: I’m honored and blessed. Being around him allowed me to be around some of the greatest blues musicians, and musicians period. That was all due to my dad’s encouragement and dedication to his family and his music.

He didn’t want me or my brother to get into music unless we wanted it. He wasn’t like [Jackson family patriarch] Joe Jackson. “Do you really want to do this? It ain’t going be easy. You’ve got to stick with it.” What he was saying was so true. It’s like a marriage. You’ve got to ride the ups and downs. And I get the joy back when I see people happy and having a good time, enjoying themselves. That’s the pleasure for me.