Interview with

Bobby “Blue” Bland

By Ron Wynn

Rib:
Bobby, you’ve reached a point in your career where you’ve achieved so many great things that people might wonder why you’re still doing one-nighters and touring in your ‘ 70s?

Bland:
Well there’s nothing I want to retire to, and no reasons for me to stop. Why would I retire? I look at B.B. (B.B. King) and he’s still out there on the road, having fun and enjoying it, so there’s no reason I can’t keep doing it as well. The women still come out to hear the songs, and they keep bringing the men out there with them. This is what I love to do, so there’s no reason for me to stop.

Rib:
You made so many great songs during the years you were recording for Duke records (the Duke/Peacock catalog is now in the hands of Universal, who’ve re-released all the Bland recordings on a series of CD boxed set reissues). What was the secret, if there was a secret, behind those recordings?

Bland:
That’s really where I learned everything about singing, during those days. (Bandleader) Joe Scott would get those arrangements together and then we’d sing down and talk about exactly what we wanted to say and do in each song. I learned that you have to not only know the words, you have know which words to emphasize. I had to learn how to phrase, how inject things into lines, how to tell a story and make it convincing. (Guitarist Wayne) Bennett was fantastic at inserting those key notes, those fills that would flesh things out, but if I couldn’t punch it home, then it didn’t matter whatever was happening behind me. We really got it down on those songs, and once we had the style, then it was just a case of getting the right words and making them work.

Rib:
The blues scene at that time in Memphis and throughout the Southeast was probably at its peak. How much did radio stations like WDIA in Memphis and WLAC in Nashville help you in terms of breaking your career?

Bland:
I can’t put into words how important those stations were. At that time, if you were doing blues or R&B, the white stations wouldn’t touch your songs. B.B. was putting a lot of us on the air at WDIA, along with Rufus (the legendary Rufus Thomas) and WLAC had all those guys airing the blues and R&B at night, and that’s how we sold the records. I don’t think a big white
station played one of my records until I did those two albums with B.B. in the ‘70s. Those were an accident, because the people at the label said no one wants to hear the blues anymore. Then we made that first album, which we thought was going to be the only one, and it did so well that they came back and told us we had to do another one. We had to change everything around and work it out so we could do the second one. I always knew that there was an audience out there, but you have these experts at the labels who think they know what’s happening, but really don’t.

Rib:
After Duke was absorbed into MCA and later Universal, you finally moved over to the Malaco label. Are you still recording for them?

Bland:
I came to Malaco a long time ago because of Dave Clark (the famed talent scout, producer, and label executive known throughout the South for his advocacy on behalf of blues, R&B, soul and jazz artists). Dave was over there at the time and we ran into each other. He asked me if I was working with anybody, and I told him I wasn’t with anybody at the time. So he said I should just come on over there, and it would be like a family thing. That’s the way it’s been ever since. There aren’t too many companies left, at least in America, where you can still record the way we used to and you can find the music that works for you. I’ve done a few songs lately and we still plan to put out another album, but it has to be right. We can’t just put
something out there to say we’ve got something ready. It has to work and it has to be the type of Bobby Bland recording that the women will like, because if they like it, you know the men will follow it.

Rib:
You’ve have so many wonderful songs, and you’ve mentioned a lot of them in our conversation, but one that you left out is “Members Only.” That was both a big hit for you and for several country artists, but it doesn’t seem you enjoy it as much as “Farther On Up the Road” or “I Pity The Fool.”

Bland:
It took me a long time to get that song right. To be honest,, the first time I saw it and did it, I just didn’t feel it was right for me. I had to go back to it four or five times, look for something else and put it into a context where it made some sense to me. Now, I love singing it and it’s one of my favorites. I just forgot about it when you asked me.

Rib:
Are there any people among today’s artists that you enjoy?

Bland:
Well, I have a problem with some of the rappers, not all of them. Some of them have sampled parts of my songs in raps and introduced me to a whole new generation. 50 Cent is someone that I like a little bit. But there’s just so much foul language in some of these rap songs, and they use words that we used to knock people down if they said, so it’s hard for me to really enjoy a lot of that. I prefer to just keep looking for songs that I can record and enjoying the music that I few up with, country music, the blues and people like Frank Sinatra and Billy Eckstine.

(Other excerpts from this interview previously ran in the Nashville City Paper).

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