Bassist Tommy Shannon

April 18, 1946

Happy birthday to you!

It was while listening to Johnny Winter‘s Progressive Blues Experiment album (oh that first cut–“Rollin’ and Tumblin'” with Johnny’s slide, Uncle John Turner’s drums, and Tommy Shannon’s bass!) and reading its cover that I first saw Tommy’s name.

Bassist Tommy Shannon

Woodstock Music and Art Fair

That August weekend’s hunger, time, work obligation, soaking rain, and car concerns sent me home from Woodstock on Sunday and I missed bands I’d come to see. Johnny Winter was one of them and hearing that set today makes me wish there were time machines.

Before I continue, let me thank Donna Johnston who wrote the bio notes from Tommy Shannon’s site. Click thru for the complete story. It’s a long and interesting one.

Tommy Shannon was born on April 18, 1946 in Tucson, AZ, but grew up in west Texas. Like many musicians’ stories, he played in various bands during high school.

After high school, he moved to Dallas and there met Uncle John Turner. Turner eventually became drummer for young Johnny Winter and one night Tommy went to hear his friend play. The visit became an invitation by Johnny to Tommy to join the band.

Never much into the blues, Winter immersed Shannon via a vast record collection. According to Shannon, ““After I … listened to all that stuff, all the way back to the beginning, when I picked up my bass and started playing the blues, it was just the most natural thing I’d ever done”

They recorded Progressive Blues Experiment in 1967, released it in 1968, and played Woodstock in 1969.

Sidelined

After Johnny Winter formed a new band, Tommy and Uncle John continued with other musicians. The musician’s life offers many opportunities and for Tommy Shannon some of those opportunities forced the legal system to deny Shannon any interaction music scene. At one point he was a bricklayer.

In 1980, Fortune smiled on Tommy Shannon and old Texas friend Stevie Ray Vaughan invited Shannon to join Vaughan’s Double Trouble band. He did and life was good again.

Bassist Tommy Shannon

Too good for his own good

Both Tommy Shannon and Stevie Ray Vaughan sought help.

Again Donna Johnston, “The story of Tommy’s time with Stevie is well known: the musical highs of sold-out concerts all over the world (including that magical Carnegie Hall gig), [NYT article] the multiple Grammys, the gold and platinum records…and then the personal lows of drug and alcohol addiction, which eventually led the two best friends to enter rehab facilities on the same day in October, 1986.”

They emerged healthy again, but Fortune frowned this time. On August 27, 1990 after a performance with Eric Clapton, Vaughan’s helicopter crashed killing him and other members of Clapton’s group. [NYT article]

Bassist Tommy Shannon

Arc Angels

Tommy Shannon and the other members of Double Trouble wandered musically after Vaughan’s death, but in 1992 he and others briefly formed the Arc Angels and released the highly-acclaimed eponymous Arc Angel album.

Here they are on the Letterman Show, June 9, 1992. Bassist Tommy Shannon

Nearly Stoned

Tommy thought he would replace Bill Wyman as the Rolling Stones bassist, but that didn’t happen.

The band Storyville was next.

After that breakup, Double Trouble re-formed and continued to give us great music.

Bassist Tommy Shannon

Tommy Shannon Blues Band

Nowadays, Tommy can be heard regularly with his Tommy Shannon Blues Band at Antone’s in Austin. His band mates are Tommy Taylor and David Holt.

Many happy returns Tommy Shannon!

• • Related link >>> Wikipedia entry
  • Related link >>> Facebook page

Bassist Tommy Shannon

Percussionist Juma Sultan

April 13, 1942

Birthday greetings and kudos to Juma Sultan for his presence in our musical history and his dedication to preserving it.

Audio is from the drum circle on the Woodstock Music and Art Fair’s field after Richie Haven’s memorial celebration at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. August 15, 2013.

 

Percussionist Juma Sultan

Musician’s Musician

Juma Sultan is a musician’s musician. By that I mean that the typical listener and music lover might not know the name or know who Juma is associated with, but he has had a great impact on other musicians. That association is with Jimi Hendrix and being in Gypsy Sun and Rainbows at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.

Percussionist Juma Sultan

Archivist 

He is a percussionist whose career spans more than 50 years. Its best known point may have been with Jimi Hendrix, but his importance today is with his video and audio preservation  of loft jazz during the 1960s and 1970s.

The following video is an interview with Juma Sultan about many things, but he discusses the Woodstock Music and Art Fair and his memories about the event as part of Jimi Hendrix’s Gypsy Sun and Rainbows. Slide up to the 8 minute part of the video for the Woodstock comments.

Percussionist Juma Sultan

New York Musicians Organization

And according to the Underground Producers Society, “In 1972, Juma formed the New York Musicians Organization (“NYMO”) which organized concerts to protest unfair programming at the Newport Jazz Festival, and also started Studio We, with friend James DuBois, which became an integral part of the Loft Jazz scene – giving musicians a place to perform and develop.”

Percussionist Juma Sultan

Recorded Loft Jazz

According to Wikipedia, “Loft jazz was a continuation of the free jazz and avant-garde jazz traditions inaugurated by John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, and Sun Ra. However, it didn’t follow any one particular style or idiom of jazz. Few loft jazz musicians played continuously atonal or arhythmic music in the style of Coltrane’s legendary albums Ascension and Om. They often combined conventional melodic elements with free jazz; used instruments less familiar to jazz, such as the bass saxophone, oboe and cello; and combined instruments in untraditional formats, like the World Saxophone Quartet, whose changing members used a variety of saxophones and flutes, usually without any rhythm section.”

Percussionist Juma Sultan

Preservationist

Juma Sultan was there and part of recording it. In 2006 he received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to preserve those rare and invaluable recordings.

Today they are available through Juma Sultan’s Aboriginal Music Society. (NYT article on the Aboriginal Music Society)

Percussionist Juma Sultan

Tenacity

From the Porter Records site: While musicians recording their own music is not uncommon, it would be hard to imagine anyone matching the recording tenacity of Juma Sultan, who has recorded thousands of hours of material from the late 1960’s through the 1970’s.  And not recordings of any old song but material that is historically important in regards to the evolution of (for the lack of better word) “Jazz”.  What we have here now is a collection of handpicked tracks from the vast collection of Juma Sultan and in particular is his Aboriginal Music Society, comprised of like-minded musicians. The dates and personnel vary from track to track as the Aboriginal Music Society was consistently evolving as musicians came and went over the years. This ever changing line-up lead to a diversity of emotions that let the band explore a multitude of styles that included elements of, African music, jazz, spiritual-jazz, free-jazz and even soul music.  Fortunately, some thirty years after the music was recorded, it is now reaching an eager and appreciative audience.”

From the Juma’s archive site: Juma began recording in the 1960′s and continued this work for over twenty years. Here you will find samples from recordings of rehearsals and concert dates from 1968 through 1974.

• Related link >>> All Music discography
• Gary James’ interview

Percussionist Juma Sultan