The Orange County Blues News Interview:
Dave Tool

OCBN: Dave here we are on this historic date: 12/13/14, which will never again occur in our lifetimes, perhaps it’s no accident that we are doing this interview today.

I wasn’t  really aware that it was an important day. Let’s hope that something happens and we do get another chance to live a day like this again.

OCBN: Do you believe in coincidence, fate, destiny, kismet?

I believe in fate. I’m a hard core believer in fate.

OCBN: Was it your destiny to be on the radio?

I don’t know, we play out our choices and we’re responsible for our choices.

OCBN: What were the circumstances that led to you being on the airwaves?

I was driving the car one day sometime in 2009 and I heard Little Walter on the radio on a Sunday afternoon and I thought “you got to be kidding me! LA radio and someone’s playing juke!” I thought, “who’s doing that” cuz I was just hittin’ the buttons scanning. I got home, looked up the call letters on Google and it was a little station in Costa Mesa. So I called the station and lo and behold it was an automatic format but a human being answered the phone and it was Dr. Barry. I said, “ok I just wanted to call up and tell you I’m a blues guy and I’m really excited to hear blues playing on the radio and I want to ask you to play as much as you can.” He said, “well, we’re tryin. I have a blues show on Sunday’s. Would you like to come down and sit in?” At the time the Dr. Barry show had been on for about a year. I said, “sure, I’ll be there man.” So I showed up and Bill Medley was supposed to be a guest on his show. Barry’s not a hard core blues guy, he’ll have almost anybody on. I’m a little more iron fisted about it. But Medley couldn’t make it because of his scheduling and Barry looks over and says, “did you say you have a band?” I said, “yeah, Born Blue.” He says “well maybe I can interview you.” I said “ok, that’ll be fine.” I asked Barry, “where’s your library, I’d like to see it” and he points to this little short stack of CDs and says, “that’s it.” I can’t believe it, I say, “that’s what you got?” He says, “yeah, why?” I said, dude, “I got over 250 CDs down in the car right now!” He says, “well yeah, but how many are blues?” I go, “all of them! I don’t listen to other music.”

OCBN: So he played the same 25 cd’s over and over again?

Yeah, they were all best of CDs. So he says, “can you go down and get some of your CDs?” So I go, “yeah.” I come up and while he’s interviewing me I’m pulling CDs out and setting them in order of how he should play em. Of course he’s like, “you got this you got that oh my g*d!” He says, “how many CDs do you have?” I said, “about 2200”; which has grown substantially since then. He says, “oh my g*d, well, look we had a guy working on this show as a producer but he left, would you consider producing the show?” I said, “no.” He goes, “what do you mean no?” I said, “because you’re interested in me because I have a large blues collection, you want a lackey, you want a gofer who will get you coffee and bring you music. That’s not a producer and that’s not me. I’ve worked as a producer. Do you want to know what producers do? I write the show, decide who’s on the show, who’s not on the show, what music gets played and the hard part for you is what you say and what you do not say and you will not cross me. Trust me, I have experience and I ain’t playing games, so do you want me for producer, I don’t think so.” And he goes, “no that probably couldn’t work out.” But then as we’re talking about it and I’m getting ready to leave he says, “don’t leave just yet.” He said, “are you serious about producing the show?” I said, “only if you are. I tell you the truth, if you cross me once I’m gone. And if you think you can do that and then call me later and apologize and get me to come back, that ain’t gonna happen, I’m not a yoyo. I won’t take that call, if you make that mistake you live with that mistake.” And he’s been able to live with it for the last four years, I think we just did show number 262. I know my answers are too long but Mark Twain once said nothing great was ever written by a man, it was rewritten, so edit away.

OCBN: Do you come from a musical family?

No, not really, no one in my family plays an instrument and I can’t tell you why the blues hit me hard  but I can remember when I was young listening to Jimmy Witherspoon on KPPC. They were doing a blues show on Saturday nights. And I was just diggin’ it, I mean I couldn’t wait until the next Saturday night. Then when the Beatles and the Stones hit I was a big Stones guy. All my friends were Beatles fans and they would say, “what are you doing? Why are you into them?” and I said, “I don’t know.” They’d go, “oh because they’re the bad boys.” It wasn’t that, there’s just something what they play. One day a friend of mine just showed up and said, “you gotta hear these guys” and it was Blue Matter by Savoy Brown and it just knocked me on to the floor. I was just stunned and listened to these guys over and over and over, then went out and bought all the Savoy I could. One day the guy behind the counter says, “do you like this other band here? Fleetwood Mac? They play that same kind of music I’ll give you some of that.” I was playing that and then I got turned on to Canned Heat was really into that. I was in the record store down in Huntington Beach when I heard my first real bluesman, John Lee Hooker’s LP Endless Boogie. And when they put it on, my knees almost collapsed, I almost went down to the ground it was so powerful, it was so moving. It was really then I realized, “now I see, now I understand. All that material, where it comes from for Canned Heat and where all all these other guys are getting this and where it comes out of.”  And that’s when I really started buying. I would just buy anything, Sonny boy Williamson, anything that said blues on it I actually just bought. And a lot of it at the time was used cassettes. I didn’t care. I was just buying it left and right. Any time I had two dollars in my pocket I would buy a blues LP. And that’s really where it all began.

OCBN: Do you Play an instrument

Harmonica. In the band the lead singer is the front man and the harmonica is the emotion in the blues. I remember reading one time about Muddy and Little Walter. One of the other guys in Muddy’s band says, “Muddy tells the story and Walter tells you how it feels.”  A lot of times when I play, especially in informal jams, I’ll tell the singer right up front, “I’m going to play hard right up on top of you. I’m going to come in right behind you to emphasize and support what you’re singing and you might feel that I’m crawling up your backside. If you need more room then I can lay out, I can back way off but really what I want to do is, as you sing the song and tell it, I want to weep, I want it to come out and if we’re singing a happy song I want to laugh and dance and put the spotlight on you. But it’s only to focus on what you’re talking about.” Most guys are like, “no, no, no, I dig that.” Then there’s some guys who say well actually it’s all about me and I’d rather you not.

OCBN: What makes a great blues artist

Passion. Heart on fire. It’s a shared thing, A shared condition and people outside of the blues are like icebergs. When I’m talking to them and they share stuff it’s like, “I’m not feeling what you’re talking about.” You meet somebody in the blues, like the first time I met Jimmy Vaughn, it was like I knew Jimmy forever. How can that be, you know I’ve never been to Austin, I never met the guy. It’s that passion. They can feel the warmth coming off of you. Kim Wilson said, “I can feel a blues guy coming in the door, I can feel the heat coming off of you across the room.” That’s really what it’s all about, passion.

OCBN: Who are your go-to Blues guys/girls?

Which one is my favorite child? (laughing loudly) you know what? It’s all in the moment. And there’s so much to listen to. I mean you listen to Paul Nelson, the second guitar player for Johnny Winter, and Paul came on the show after John passed away and talked a little bit about John’s passing. John’s been on the show the number of times and consequently Paul and I have talked a number of times. Paul works as the manager for the Johnny Winter band. He says, “what do you think of the new Johnny Winter cd?” John was real tight too. So I said, “you know what’s ironic? There’s some great playing and some great singing but the one song that I really love has absolutely no production values at all.” Paul starts laughing and says, “I would have guessed you a mile away! It’s dead letter Blues isn’t it?” I said, “yeah. Son Seals Dead Letter Blues just kills me every time and John does it so great and he plays that national.” I said, “I was listening to the CD and I just broke down.” Paul said, “it’s my favorite too. And the record label wasn’t all that thrilled with the idea that the 45 we wanted to release is the one with no production because they want their budget back.” It can be that raw. RL Burnside; Mississippi Hill country and it can be T-bone Walker, it can be Mike Piazza; California jump, it can be Mud; hard-core Chicago or jump ahead to Eddie Clearwater more of a rock Chicago, a much more modern Chicago. I love all my kids man. I tell you Rick, what’s beautiful is I feel their love back.

OCBN: Of the up-and-coming blues artists who really grabs you?

I don’t know if I’m stretching your question but Eric Sardinas. Eric Sardinas is a monster. He’s amazing. He doesn’t get nearly the attention that I wish he would get.  

OCBN: I’ve heard that your play list is comprised of your 3,000+ CD collection, is that all Blues?

Everything. And I might say some are real collectors pieces. Stuff you can’t get anywhere else. Randy Chartoff was on the show and I opened up with the CD called Road Tested, they only pressed 500 and on the air Chartoff is going, “that is wild, that is so cool. You have a copy of that?” I said, “yeah, well I had to sell my kid to get it.” And Randy was just cracking up. We had Johnny Maestro and that Mommas Boys on the show. Now Maestro is a big harmonica historian and I said, “you know let’s match on the air. We’ll go one on one. You’ll bring three CDs of harmonica players that you don’t think I’m going to recognize and I’ll bring three of mine and we’ll see who gets who.” And Johnny got two of my three and I got all three of his. The other thing that’s really cool with the CD collection is that I’ve got every Walter Trout CD. So I knew I was going to have Walter on the air and I said, “Walter I’m going to do something that I’ve never done with any other artist. You and I are kind of cool, we’re friends. I want you to pick a song off of any of your CDs, any one of them. I am willing to bet you that I have it right here ready to play.” And Walters like, “you’ve got to be kidding, you got them all?” I said, “I think I do, I’m not totally sure and you might pull something out of the bag, but I think I do”. And he pulled out a song called What Do You Want. And I said, “well tell us a little bit about the song”, while I’m feverishly going through the CDs. He goes, “well I wrote this about an agent who cheated me and cheated the band. Even when I confronted him he continued to take our money to the point that we were broke. He was getting all the cash and putting it in his pocket.” By now I have the CD, and it’s in the player. And Walter said, “I wrote it about him. About how much people can do without a conscience.” And I said, “does it sound like this? Bam! I hit it and we go off the air and Walter says, “I can’t believe it man. I haven’t heard this in forever.” He said, “did we just listen to the song?” I said, “yeah we did, that’s what it’s all about.” So yeah the collection does help.  

OCBN: You’re old enough to have witnessed the impact MTV had on the music industry and radio in particular and if so how do you feel about that?

Music goes on. Okay, the blues reaches deep into me and I still haven’t found the depths of where it will go. Other kinds of music pop music. rap music, hair band music; it just doesn’t touch me. I mean literally it’s not meant to touch people. It’s meant to move units. It’s a commercial venture. And in that sense you know, the hooks are good and there are artists outside of the blues that do move me because of their honesty. There’s a couple Jackson Browne albums that really, really touched me because they were sincere and passionate. Was it blues? No, not structurally. But he told the story with some depth.

OCBN: Why a DJ and not a VJ?

Yeah right he says as he looks across the table.

OCBN: Who are some of the best interview subjects you have had on the air and what made them the best?

I’ll give you the two opposites and then we can go from there. Johnny Winter is a man of very few words. Yup and no are 90% of his responses. He’s like a clam, he is really hard to open up. But I lucked out somehow with him. I hit a personal note about halfway through the interview and he started laughing and opening up and talking about things and telling me stories, which when I talk to other interviewers and writers in the blues field they’re like, “oh my g*d! I never heard Johnny Winter actually talk candidly about things!” It’s always a very closed short clip. So he’s on the one hand. He was a very difficult subject to interview, I thought it was going to be like pulling teeth. But like I said, somewhere, something happened that loosened it up. On the other side of the coin is Taj Mahal. Taj will not shut up. Taj will answer a question and he’ll go, “so originally that’s how the first record got recorded” and you think, “okay here comes the next question” and he just goes and he just goes and he finishes. You think, “I’m getting in” and you’re like okay when he pauses, when he slows down and you’re trying to wedge in but he keeps on. There were parts in the interview I would have edited but it was a live interview, it wasn’t tapes where I can cut it out. He’d be talking and I would go, “well Taj can we just move onto the…” and he would just keep going and I would think, “well no. Obviously we can’t just talk about anything else. Taj is talking and he is just going to talk.” So between Johnny Winter and Taj Mahal, it runs the gamut. In some instances like with Jimmy Vaughn, the first interview I ever did with him, we talked mostly about the car he was working on because he’s really into cars. And was saying things like, “wow, Mercuries are really different from Ford’s. I didn’t realize that until I got into tearing them apart.” Well, most of the interview was about Jimmy working on his car and you would think, “well it’s a blues show. Shouldn’t you be talking blues?” My feeling is, no you should be getting to know the artist so that you can have a reference and some sort of framework, a context for what they do and who they are. So for me that was a very enjoyable day shooting the breeze. Coco Montoya is a great conversationalist. Walter Trout; Walter and I actually got into a few disagreements on the air. But they were all basically vocabulary things where each of us was saying are you saying this or are you saying that and once we got on the same page then was all good. I’m a very informal interviewer. We can go anywhere. We can talk about anything. We can say anything. I have a dump button so if you happen to slip, its okay. What I want to do is talk to another bluesman about what drives him and about what’s important. And those conversations always come out great. Did I successfully dodge that bullet?

OCBN: Who was the most memorable on-air guest you have had in the studio?

Willy Big Eye Smith. He was the drummer in Muddy Waters band. I got to meet Willy a couple of times. And I interviewed him three or four times. When Pinetop Perkins died, I can’t explain why, but it really struck me. I couldn’t eat I couldn’t, hold a thought, I was lost. When Piney and I were together, he was 98 years old, he would say I’m going to live to be 100 Dave. And I would say,  “Piney do me a favor. Make it 200.” And he would laugh and say, “no, no, no, a hundred is really hard, I can’t do 200.” Well he died when he was 98 and it just shocked me that Piney didn’t make it to 100. I just always thought he was going to make 100. It took me totally by surprise. Willy Big Eye Smith was Piney’s best friend and so the day after he passed I was thinking, “you know, if it hit me that hard I’ll bet Willys having a really hard time. I’m going to call up and see how Willy’s doing.” I called Willie and he answered the phone with the most positive attitude and in his deep voice he says, “this is Willy on the phone who am I speaking to?” I go, “Willie it’s Dave.” And he says, “Dave man how you doing?” I said, “well I’m not doing well.” I started crying, “I was just afraid that you are having a tough time man.” He says, “Dave the man was in the hospital a year ago. We thought he was dying then, this was all extra time. We got to be with him. We got to play with him. Dave, Dave can’t you be thankful for what we have? He’s in a better place. You know Piney never ran the last 20 years of his life and he couldn’t jump. He couldn’t do any of those things. He’s doing it all now, he’s free and you need to get that. Don’t be down, don’t be down because you know if he was here he would chew your tail out. I seen him do it.” I said, “well yeah, I get that. I get what you’re saying. It’s just hard for me to get it.” He said, “you need to get it boy, you need to get it.” I said, “Willy, will you please do me a favor?” He goes, “anything man you just name it.” I said, “would you come on the air tomorrow, live on the radio and talk? Just tell some stories about Piney. Tell about some of the things you guys did and said.” He said, “Dave I’ll tell you a little something. The Today Show called me yesterday and wanted me to go on and I wouldn’t do it. And Good Morning America called for the same thing and I told them the same thing. I said you people didn’t give a damn about that man when he was alive and now you want to make money off him passing? I will not do that and he said but Dave I know you loved Piney and I know Piney loved you and I will be glad to do it man. I’ll come on your show.” So if you want to talk about the most memorable interview that was it. Willie told some awesome stories, some really funny stuff.

OCBN: So who is Dr. Barry and water they saying all those things about him? I’m just kidding who is Dr. Barry?

Most of them are strippers who didn’t get paid enough. Listen, you can just never pay a stripper enough, that’s how it’s going to shake out. Barry loves the blues, he wants to see them promoted and he wants people to get to know them as he knows them. Barry is a lawyer by profession and at one point he went to a club in LA to see Muddy Waters and ended up backstage. And he meets Muddy and Muddy says, “so what do you do white boy?” And he says, “well I’m a lawyer.” Muddy says, “you got money?” He goes, “I got a little”. Muddy says, “why don’t you make it count? Our harmonica player here, Shaky Jake wants to open up a club in LA. Why don’t you put out the money?” One thing led to another and he and Jake became partners. They opened the Safara club in LA and Barry ran that club for years. Big names came through there. Guys like B.B. King, Muddy Waters, and Jimmy Rogers. That’s kind of his pedigree and his background. He has a long history of broadcasting and has an unbelievably great voice. I think the two of us make a pretty good team.

OCBN: Where do you see the future of radio heading?

That is a really difficult question because the future of media is very mercurial. What is the Internet going to do? What’s cable going to do? You know Netflix has taken the cable industry and put it on its head. What are cable companies going to be? Cable companies are trying to decide what they are. Are they going to charge by the channel or are they going to charge by the show.  What’s going on in the music industry, how are they charging? So what’s going on with radio? Is radio going to be a broadcast industry or an Internet industry? I’m assuming the Internet is the future but I can’t promise you that because vinyl is making a comeback. There is so much that could or could not happen and there are other forms of broadcast and communication that are out there that we haven’t come up with yet. So what’s the future? Man that’s a hard call! Who knows?

OCBN: What’s your role in the future of radio

To engage people with the blues. Most people think this is sad music played by mediocre musicians and when they actually are exposed to the real thing it’s a little stunning. That’s what I plan on when people hear the show for the first time and they go man this stuff is great! I’ve got eight 15 minutes segments in which to show people the variety and the depth of the blues. So we will play some jump blues, we will play some country blues, we will play some Mississippi Hill blues, we will play some Austin Texas blues, we will play some Piedmont blues and we always have at least one segment that’s just women in the blues. People totally lose sight of the phenomenal women that are out there. We also have one segment that’s live because the blues is always at it’s best live. And then one segment is a blues profile and it’s only 15 minutes. What we do is, we try to cover a little bit about the history of the individual. For instance Etta James, whose real name was James Etta was born to a drug addicted prostitute mother at 14 who could not support her and did not want her. She was passed around from relative to relative and into foster homes. Everything bad that you could imagine happening to a child, happened to her. She finally met Ike Turner who introduced her to professional performing and also took advantage of her as Ike was known to do. She became a major world dominating artist for a time in her career. She had a drug problem and she had health problems as a result of her drug problem. People seemed to understand that the drugs were a way to make the pain go away even if the cost was enormous. She died a couple of years ago in Riverside. She had her husband and her children by her side, surrounded by people who loved her. We try to do a profile every week so that our audience can get to know what the artists are all about.

OCBN: Is there anything that you would like to leave our readers with?

I think I would like to quote John Belushi, “just go out and buy as much blues as you can, listen to it as often as you can and get as many of your friends turned on to the blues as you can!”