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It was the early 1980s when a friend, knowing Matthew and Larry Skoller’s passion for blues music, told the brothers about this bar called Boobie’s Place on Milwaukee’s north side.
“He said, ‘There’s these old blues guys playing down there and they’re playing the real s—, and you should go,’ ” Matthew, a singer and harmonica player who today is a fixture in the blues scene, recalled.
Among the “old guys” was a vocalist and guitar player everyone just called “Stokes.”
“We were kids. I was 19. And Stokes, characteristically, took us under his wing and was very generous to us with his talent,” said Matthew, who later started a band with Stokes, called Stokes and the Raw Rockers that performed around metro Milwaukee and elsewhere.
Ask anyone who knew Stokes — his full name was Kermit Stokes — and you’ll hear similar stories about an extremely helpful, humble and limelight-avoiding artist whose voice and guitar skills were off-the-charts superb.
That’s why Milwaukee’s blues community is in mourning. Stokes died Dec. 3 of a heart attack at age 77.
“He was the absolute best in the state and one of the best in the nation,” said Steve Nitros, a Milwaukee guitar player who performed with Stokes for many years. “Really, he was so good. Even if you didn’t know what the blues were — say you were 18 or 20 and you never heard of the blues — you’d go there and you’d have to fall in love with the guy. He had the blues stylings and everything just down to a T.”
Stokes, born in Carthage, Mississippi, was a mid-century migrant to Milwaukee, bringing with him musical gifts initially developed in the southern church, said his daughter, Selina King Stokes.
“He just grew up with it and pursued it from there,” she said.
Stokes was an ironworker in Milwaukee, but badly injured his back in a fall and had to quit, family and friends said. He owned some rental properties, but the blues were always his first love, they said.
He performed on stage with numerous bands and joined some in the recording studio. Stokes could have been a much bigger name if he’d been willing to travel and tour much beyond Chicago, where he performed in the popular Chicago Blues Festival, said Matthew Skoller. He said Stokes’ voice was “just an incredible instrument.”
“One of the things about Stokes is that he did not really want to travel,” Skoller said. “He decided that he was just going to stay in Milwaukee. So he did. And there’s no musical figure in Milwaukee that influenced more people than Stokes did.”
Among them was Scott Sharrard, who attended Milwaukee’s High School for the Arts and went on to become lead guitarist and musical director of the Gregg Allman Band. When the Gregg Allman Band toured in the area, Sharrard tried to get Stokes to sit in with the band. But he never did.
On his Facebook page, Sharrard wrote: “Stokes was my first hero and mentor in the art of the blues, soul and American roots music. He taught me to sing and play the guitar. He taught so many musicians. Stokes never truly got his due.”
Another past collaborator was Brian Ritchie, bassist for Violent Femmes, who played with him on several occasions in the ’80s and ’90s, according to his tribute on Facebook.
“He was no-nonsense, just played the songs, and if you could keep up, he was happy,” Ritchie wrote. “A lot of people are going to miss Stokes.”
Likewise, longtime WMSE-FM (91.7) radio DJ Sonia, who plays blues from 3 to 6 p.m. Fridays, said Stokes was a mentor to many young blues artists.
“He played with so many musicians,” she said.
In addition to his band the Old Blues Boys, he recorded with the Blues Disciples and performed with Leroy Airmaster and many others, she said.
“Stokes was one of the last of the blues musicians who had come from Mississippi north to Milwaukee and was a blues musician here for multiple decades,” Sonia said.
Mamie’s, a bar at 3300 W. National Ave. in Milwaukee, was Stokes’ home base for performances for 36 years. Mamie’s owner, Debbie Mickey, recalled that in the early days, when he and a couple of other musicians played at the bar and saw the crowd was small, Stokes sometimes offered to work for half price.
“That’s totally unheard of because they weren’t making a lot of money back then anyway. You always remember that — when times were bad they were there for me,” Mickey said. “He always had a home with me.”
Stokes had been scheduled to play at Mamie’s last Friday. When word of his death spread among blues musicians, many showed up at Mamie’s and put together an impromptu tribute to him there. The place was packed, Mickey said.
“Musicians from different states came in there. A lot of local musicians. They were just signed up and standing in line to play in tribute to Stokes,” Mickey said. “They wanted to definitely be part of that. They called it a musical wake or musical Mass, and it was just a tremendous turnout. Stokes, I’m sure, was looking down and smiling and saying, ‘I remember him, I taught him, I showed him how to play.’ ”
Sonia said she plans to honor Stokes on her radio show.
“I’m hoping to be able to get a number of blues musicians to come on my program in the near future as a group for a larger tribute,” she said.
From what friends and family say, Stokes probably wouldn’t want all the attention focused on him. But everyone agrees he deserves it.
In his Facebook post, Sharrard said Stokes was “the best of all our locals.”
“He was equal to Magic Sam or Buddy Guy easily,” he wrote.
Fellow blues performer Nitros, who knew Stokes for more than 30 years, put it this way: “I do hope that if I see Stokes in the next life, I’ll play bass for him, if God will allow it.”
Stokes is survived by his wife, Martha Stokes; daughter Selina King Stokes; three sons, Alandas King Stokes, Anthony Smith and Daniel Smith; two of Selina King Stokes’ siblings he helped raised, Anthony King and Candida King; a sister, Annie Johnson; and 14 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
A visitation for Stokes is scheduled from noon to 1 p.m. Thursday at Leon L. Williamson Funeral Home, 1257 N. 12th St., Milwaukee. A service will begin at 1 p.m. Interment will be at Wisconsin Memorial Park.
Journal Sentinel music writer Piet Levy contributed to this report.
Paul Gores can be reached at paul.gores@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter @pgores.
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