- By James Montgomery
"Hey, when Cotton walks in I just want to roll tape," I said
to my producer " I don’t want to miss anything." We were waiting
for James Cotton to arrive at the studio where I was recording my seventh
album and I wanted to be sure we were ready. I met Cotton when I was a
teenager in Detroit Michigan and had always dreamed about playing with him on
a record. Now that he was on his way to my session I was filled with
excitement and anticipation. After all, as his manager and friend Tom Heimdal
points out, James Cotton is a national treasure.
And when he walked in we were ready. We had moved a trash can in from outside which would serve as our percussion and handed the guitarist a 1939 National Steel guitar. Cotton and I would play acoustic. We wanted it to sound like we were on a porch in Mississippi. We actually got the idea from James Cotton himself when he told me in an interview how he got started in music.
He was playing on his uncle’s porch.
James Cotton was born on July 1, 1935 in Tunica Mississippi. He learned his blues harp style from Sonny Boy Williamson. Cotton had seen Sonny Boy playing in a shack on the plantation. He was outside peeking through a crack in the wall. The rug was rolled up, the bathtub was full of home-brew and Sonny Boy’s band was dressed in white over-alls, black shirts, and chauffeur’s caps. Cotton was seven. A few years later James started playing harmonica on his uncle’s porch after work. The neighbors would gather to listen and contribute what money they could. On one occasion Cotton’s uncle pointed out that he had made as much money on the porch in one night as it would take two weeks to earn working in the fields - $36. That’s when his uncle decided to take Cotton to meet Sonny Boy.
Sonny Boy Williamson had become famous throughout the south largely due to the live broadcasts of "The King Biscuit Show" on KFFA in Helena Arkansas. Knowing this, Cotton’s uncle took him right to the station to meet the man himself. Still a teenager, Cotton strolled into the studio and asked boldly "Which one of you is Sonny Boy?" Each guy in the band raised his hand. Cotton took out his harmonica and played one of Sonny Boy’s solos note for note. He played so well that the real Sonny Boy respectfully introduced himself and took young Cotton under his wing.
Cotton later returned to Memphis to lead his own group with Pat Hare. There he recorded "Cotton Crop Blues" backed by Willie Nix. The success of "Cotton Crop Blues" caught the attention of the great Muddy Waters. In a recent interview I did with James Cotton for my radio show "Backstage With The Blues" he tells the story of how he got the gig with the Muddy Waters Band, arguably the most prestigious job in Blues.
James Cotton: I did a record for the Sun label in 1950, "Cotton Crop Blues", and "Straighten Up Baby", there were 4 sides and I guess Muddy Waters heard the record and he knows I was in Memphis, and Jr. Wells was in the band at this point, and they been to Georgia or Alabama or wherever they was at, and something happened, and Jr. Wells left the band, and they still had dates out there. So, Muddy came to Memphis – they was playin’ Memphis that Saturday, so they got in that Friday and they were lookin’ for me…
James Montgomery: It must be great to have Muddy Waters looking for you (laughter)
JC: I was playin’ a little ol’ café down there, me and a guitar player…
JM: Where on Beale Street?
JC: This was in West Memphis, Arkansas on 8th street, a little juke joint. I had a job driving a dump truck and got off of work that Friday, got paid, got me a bottle and put it in my back pocket, and a red cap cross-ways over my head…
JM: Ready to go!
JC: And I went over to 8th street and somebody said "Somebody’s looking for you and he says his name is Muddy Waters," and I said "No good", and I’d never seen Muddy, right? So Muddy walked up to me and said "Is you James Cotton?" an’ I said "Yeah" and he said "I’m Muddy Waters", an’ I said "Yeah, and I’m Jesus Christ", ‘cause I didn’t believe him. (laughter)
And he talked to me for a bit and I told him I had to go play ‘cause I really didn’t believe him. I didn’t know he played "Don’t Start Me Talkin" with Sonny Boy…I didn’t know that, and it was the first song I played, right, and I got to him. So he came back over to me and said " I really AM Muddy Waters, I’m from Chicago and I want you to play harp with me". I heard on the radio that he was playing on Beale Street that Saturday night, so he says "Meet me at 500 Beale Street, at The Hippodrome", and I said "I’ll be there", but I still wasn’t so sure.
JM: Yeah, you had to make travel plans and everything
JC: And I went to the Hippodrome, and Muddy’s band was Jimmy Rodgers, Elgin Edmonton, Otis Spann, and Bob Hadley…a dangerous band! (laughter). I think I had three harps. And Jimmy Rodgers was the band leader…and he said "Set your amplifier right there and stand right beside me." And they start playin…and they played two songs and Jimmy Rodgers called Muddy up, and the minute he hit that guitar and opened his mouth I know that it was him and I said "This IS him!"
So in retrospect, Cotton wasn’t sure he had the gig until he was on stage playing with Muddy Waters. I asked Cotton when he found out it was Muddy if he got nervous at all, and he replied that up until then he was fine, but when Muddy started playing "You should have seen me, I was shakin!"
James Cotton later moved to Chicago and played with Muddy Waters from 1954 to 1966. Sometime after performing with Muddy at the Newport Jazz Festival he started the "James Cotton Band". Throughout the years his bands were always the best Chicago had to offer, featuring the likes of Matt "Guitar" Murphy, Bobby "Wild Dog" Anderson (one of this writer’s all time favorite bassists), Little Bo, Killer, Kenny Johnson, and a host of others - but always Chicago’s best Blues Band, serving up high energy blues and soul that would eventually re-define the idiom.
Now, 22 albums later, and much more than a legend, Grammy winning James Cotton continues to tour and record. His new line-up is somewhat scaled down, in terms of members and energy, but the intensity remains. As always, Cotton presents the best, with Rico McFarland on guitar, David Maxwell on piano and Darrell Nulisch handling most of the vocals. Cotton, who told me he’s sleeping with his harmonica again (like when he was a kid ) remains the greatest Blues Harp Master on this planet. His new CD entitled "Fire Down Under The Hill" is a must for all blues enthusiasts. Energetic, well produced, authentic, and even danceable, this new CD is at once current and reminiscent of what it must have been like on James Cotton’s uncle’s front porch when his neighbors, out of sheer appreciation, pitched in enough money to start a career.
