BFT: Who do you listen to?

BBH: Gatemouth Brown and T-Bone Walker, Lowell Fulson and Pee Wee Crayton.

And I didn't know Pee Wee Crayton was from Austin until I moved to Austin; and that's when I found out that Pee Wee Crayton was from Austin. I didn't know that at first.

But those are the guys that I listened to. I was more in love with T-Bone than any of them because T-Bone played real pretty. Big old round notes all the time. If he would get in a hurry he would do it in a way that was still clean.

But as far as speed and everything, Gatemouth was... He could beat all over the... Like when he put out "Okey Dokey Stomp." I said, "God!" The first time I heard "Okey Dokey Stomp," I must have... I was on cloud nine for a year probably learning "Okey Dokey Stomp," note by note.

See, 'cause when I was in La Grange, well, my mother and dad finally bought a record player, but it was a big deal, you know? But back in those years the needle must have lasted a year, and then that was it: no more record player. But on the other hand, I wasn't making a whole lot of money or nothing. So, there wasn't a record store in La Grange and there wasn't but one in Austin when I got there either. So, you couldn't buy the records or nothing, you know? You had to order them from Nashville. So I didn't have no records to listen to. So, I had to learn to play from the radio. They had a program called Hotsey Totsey, Dr. Daddy-O from Houston. Stayed on 15 minutes, and that was it. You had to get all your learning in 15 minutes. Like T-Bone would put out a new tune, 'cause they were the hottest things in the forties, you know? So I'd have to listen to T-Bone with a new tune, or Gatemouth with a new tune, or Little Willie John, you know, 'cause Bobbie Blue Bland wasn't what's happening when I was a kid. He wasn't playing, you know; he wasn't even around here. It was Gatemouth, Lowell Fulsom, T-Bone Walker and this other guitar player... I can't think of his name, 'cause I used to like him too. Anyway, most of the other guys were like Muddy Waters, Lightnin'' Hopkins...

And I never did dig Muddy Waters and Lightning Hopkins and all those guys. I just never did like that kind of blues. And I never would listen to it too much, you know? I listened to the other guys all the time.

BFT: More of a jazz...

BBH: Right, yeah. I couldn't hack that Lightning Hopkins stuff, man. Man, who want to play that, man!

I had a friend and boy, he was wearing him out. In fact, he was the guy that started me to playing. 'Cause he came by the house one day, and he did a John Lee Hooker tune. I forget the name of that thing. But anyway, he sounded just like John Lee Hooker; he could sing like him and everything. I said, "Hey man, leave that guitar here so I can practice on it." He said, "Yeah sure, I can leave it for a couple of days." 'Cause me, you know, and I didn't even know he had the guitar, but he said he had got it from a friend. So he left it there and I picked it up when he left and started trying to play like John Lee Hooker. 'Cause the only thing I wanted to play was this "thung-the-thung-the-thung." I thought that was the prettiest thing I ever heard a guy do is that, you know? And I picked it up and it didn't take me long to figure that out. On the other hand, I didn't know what key I was in. So I'd have to go to the piano and I'd play a chord, and then I could hear that the sound I'm doing was the same key, you know? And I said, yeah, I know what key I'm in at least, you know? But I would do the same thing all over the guitar, and I'd say now I know that's not supposed to go that way. You cain't just do it anywhere.

But I finally figured out the guitar actually when I moved to Austin. When I was in La Grange, I was just doing it all by ear, no theory whatsoever. Then when I moved to Austin, I started picking out things. I knew what key I was in and all that by running to the piano, because, like I said, I took piano and took trumpet also when I was a kid. But playing trumpet, you only learn the treble clef; you don't learn the bass. I played trumpet for quite a while until I started playing football and basketball in school and then you had to stop going to music 'cause they were on the same period. You couldn't do both of them. So when I got big enough to play football, I said, well, I'm going to play football and basketball. And my music teacher was real angry at me for doing it, you know, because he said, "man, you've got a lot of talent, and you can make your living playing music. But you're not going to make your living playing football, because regardless of how good you are as a pro football player, there aren't no blacks around in the pro teams." It was a long time before you started hearing about Night Train Lane, and guys like that, and Spence, and all those. Spence was from Austin. But there weren't any pro teams with blacks on the team, so that's why he told me it's not smart for me to be worrying about football or basketball. And he was right, I made my living playing music for quite a while.

BFT: What about you mentioned earlier that you'd run into Wayne Bennett with Don Robey. Did you develop a relationship?

BBH: Not really. Like that day around '58 or '59 that I talked to him that day, and then I didn't see him again until he came back to Austin with Bobby and Junior Parker... 'Cause like I said, they used to come to Austin regular. Bobby Bland, every time you turned around there's Bobby Bland's and Junior Parker's bus in front of the Deluxe Hotel. At that particular time, night club owners in Austin would just close up. 'Cause like I said, they were only drawing to black people. So, night club owners in Austin would just completely close up on a Saturday night that Bobby Bland or Junior Parker's in town. So everybody would go, see?

So Charlie still had it up on everybody else because he had Ernie's Chicken Shack. Right. So Charlie said, "We'll just close up before-hours, and everybody would get paid, and we'll go to the dance, you know? And then after-hours, we would go back to the Chicken Shack." And that's how I met Wayne Bennett. We were playing a gig out there, and Tim Pickard, and Herman, and a lot of guys from San Antonio was playing up on Chicon and 12th at a club there which Charlie used to run, and he turned it over to his uncle and Charlie's uncle made a jazz club out of it, which was the old Charlie's Playhouse up there. And he hired jazz musicians like Tim and Herman and Frank and all those guys from San Antonio.

'Cause see, Tim used to play around San Antonio too. He used to play around Corpus Christi, and they would come after-hours, and on our last set they would sit in because they were good musicians. But Charlie didn't like a lot of jazz, 'cause that... The customers didn't dig that, you know? But he'd let them come up the last 30 minutes, and they came up and I was playing guitar; and they were going to play "Billie's Bounce," and I knew how to hum it because I had got it out of that book and figured it out. But I couldn't play it on guitar at that time, so Tim, I mean, Wayne Bennett was standing back in the audience, and the mike was right there, so he must have, you know, heard it discussing, "Hey man, you know Billie's Bounce?" and so-and-so. So Wayne came on up to the bandstand and said, "Hey, little brother, you don't know the tune." And I said, no. He said, "Can I sit in." I said, yeah. And he got up there, and man, that was the lesson of my life! Man, Wayne got up there, and they kicked that tune off, man! One-two, dum-do-le-dum, you know, and Wayne didn't miss nary a note on that beginning and he took the first solo, and man, he was going!

And T.D. Bell was in the house. And here come T.D. Bell, and he stood there and looked up at Wayne, and Wayne was smoking doodle-de-dum-doodle, and man, T.D. said, "Man, who is that?" I said, "That's Wayne Bennett." He said, "Golly, brother!" So after Wayne got through, after we got through playing, Wayne was still around, and I ran right to him and said, "Hey man, how did you learn all these things you are playing? I've been wanting to play that kind of stuff!" He went to the car with me and he told me, "Man, I've been listening to Bill Doggett and this cat on record. His name is Billy Butler; he's the guitar player for Bill Doggett," who plays "Honkey Tonk" and all that. And he said, "That's Billy Butler. He's one of the best black guitar players around. You don't think of him like you see these other cats." He said, "Man, that guy can play!" And he said, "That's who I've been listening to," 'cause I know he sounds something like him at the time. And I went and bought every Bill Doggett album I could find! Yeah, I bought every Bill Doggett album I could find, man, and Billy Butler was on there. And I learned every instrumental. 'Cause see, every Bill Doggett album that had Bill Doggett, featuring Bill Doggett, some of them had Billy Butler on there, but you had to buy the album to know that, see? And we learned all of Bill Doggett's instrumentals that had Billy Butler playing lead. And he had some good tunes on those albums, man. And that's how I started learning different things.

And Wayne would come out to the Shack and he would hear that I was listening and getting that stuff, you know? And he came up there one night and he said, "Hey little brother, you are sure off into it now!" And I'd say, "Man, I'm trying." That's when I heard Jimmy Smith with Kenny Burrell. I started listening to Kenny Burrell. And then come along with George Benson and Grant Green, and I started listening to all of those guys. And that's when I really realized that now, Hubbard, you are getting to be a guitar player. 'Cause those blues, you're living it. Blues is just a straight line; and if you reach that line, it's not going to ever go up, it's just stays straight. You can't get any better at being a blues guitarist, you just stay right there in that same space. And then jazz guitar players just keep going up all the time. You can go up here and step up... But blues, you've just got one level and that's it. You can be a real good blues guitarist. They can say that man's a real good blues guitarist; that's not saying a lot if you just say, "Man, that guy's a real good blues guitarist." That's not saying a whole lot. But if you can play that other stuff...

BFT: [Harold interrupts.]

BBH: Yeah, right. That's what I learnt way back there, so I say okay, now I'm learning jazz from George and Wes Montgomery and still play my blues. And that's what makes you a better guitar player than B.B. King or guys like that, see, 'cause B.B. doesn't know anything but that blues, see. That's all he knows. Same thing for Albert Collins. The only thing Albert Collins knows is what Albert Collins created. That's all he knows. Now Freddie King was real nice on guitar, but he only knew blues. I played a lot of gigs with Freddie King, but he only knew blues. But he could play all over that guitar, man. But Albert Collins can't go pass that clamp that's on there.

BFT: [Harold about himself.]

BBH: Way back there when I first started, I used to put a clamp on there, but what I did, I went to see Gatemouth... And he had one on there, see? And I thought that if I were going to play Gatemouth's tunes, then I needed the clamp on there to play his tunes. And when I played T-Bones tunes, I took the clamp off, so there it was two different ways.

When I moved to Austin, I found out better. In fact, I never played a gig in Austin with a clamp on my guitar. The first night I started playing, Jewell Simmons, who was playing guitar, you know, in a gig with Duffy and them... Well, I found out right from him, he said, "man, you don't need no clamp on there to play no 'Okey Dokey Stomp.' " And he started playing it all the time. I said, yeah, you sure don't, man. That's how you get fooled when you are a young kid, you know? You know, you don't know all these things. I thought that to play "Okey Dokey Stomp" was easiest -- well it is the easiest way, but that's not the way you have to play it -- is with clamp. Well, what it is, that just shows you the respect that I had for guys like Gatemouth and, you know, all those kind of guys, how you can get off on the wrong foot sometimes. Because, see, I thought, "Okey Dokey Stomp," Gatemouth plays it; he's got a clamp, I've got to get a clamp to put on there to play "Okey Dokey Stomp." You don't have to do that, you know? First time I saw B.B., he didn't have a clamp. They kept me puzzled, man, when I was 15, 16 years old. I said, damn, what am I doing? What are these cats doing? And there wasn't anybody in La Grange for me to go to and ask anything about a guitar that knew more than I did about it, see. So there you are. But when I came to Austin and Jewell Simmons was playing guitar, and he had went to Tillotson, and I was asking him, "I used to put a clamp on my guitar to play 'Okey Dokey Stomp,' " and he said, "Man, you don't have to do that; that's just the way Gatemouth and them is." I didn't know at all that people was laughing at Gatemouth for having a clamp. Gatemouth Brown? You all are laughing at that cat 'cause he's got a clamp? I don't know none of that kind of stuff, you know? Here I am copying this cat, you know? Which you can really get off into things... Sometimes that's all wrong. But you never know it. Because you are in La Grange and you hear Gatemouth, and that dude's smoking, man.

In fact, I played with Gatemouth at Antone's not too long ago. He still sounds exactly the same way as always. And he's still smoking, you know.

[Tape break.]

BBH: The one with the guitar, I was 22. The one over there with the band, I was about 12. Hahaha! I was about 12 over there. That's my daughter on this end; that's my wife next to her; that's my grandchildren. Those are my grandkids and everything. My son. This is my second wife, now you see; this is her daughter and son.

BFT: [Stuff about wife and smoking.]

BBH: Yeah, that's where we got the name, "Blues Boy Hubbard and the Jets." A.J. Maynard was the one thought of that. Glory Jean used to be her husband. When I... In fact, I was stationed at Bergstrom, and Charlie called me out there at Bergstrom and said, "Hey Hubbard, your band has agreed to start playing for me. You know Tony Von's, I done bought the club out from under Tony, and they want a band leader, and they all said they wanted you to be the band leader." I said, "Oh really." At that time, I said I may get shipped out, I don't know. He said, well, they are willing to take that chance. So, this is in the '50s.

I joined the Air Force in '55. And I came to town, and all these cats were standing in front of the Show Bar, which is now Charlie's Playhouse, and they said, "Yeah man, we want you to be the leader of the group." So Charlie said, "Why don't you give the club a name (and this stuff) so I can put it up front." So we were standing around wondering what are we going to call the group, so A.J. said "Hey man, we ought to call you "Blues Boy!" I said, "What?" He said, "Blues Boy, man." I said, "Blues Boy." He said, "Yeah, Blues Boy Hubbard, man." And I looked at A.J. and everybody went, "Yeah, yeah." I said, damn, how'd I get drafted and this kind of stuff. So everybody said, "Alright, Blues Boy Hubbard. So now, what are we going to call the group?" And Maynard said, "Hey man, you are working out at Bergstrom as a jet mechanic; let's call the group 'The Jets.' " That was it. That's where it got started, Blues Boy Hubbard and the Jets.

BBH: I never heard of that one.

BBH: That's the way it got started. See, Duffy used to be my drummer. And when Duffy and them group broke up down at the Victory, because there was no more business after I left and took the business down to the Showbar, well, Duffy and them group broke up. And Duffy was playing music for a living, and I had a drummer, and he didn't have no good equipment, and he didn't play that good. And so, Duffy came down and rapped with me, and I got rid of the drummer I had and hired Duffy. And since Duffy was more into the know in Austin, he just sort of kind of took over the group. And I was stationed in Bergstrom out there, and I couldn't be using my name and all that and be out there at Bergstrom, so Duffy started calling the group "Duffy and His Crew." Duffy and His Crew. So wherever we played, everyone went, "Here comes Duffy and His Crew." And that got started for a while, like a year or six months or something like that. Duffy and His Crew.

And we played a lot of little gigs around, you know? We went to Kilgore and a lot of towns. We went over here to Johnson City and played gigs over there. We played in Bastrop, played a gig every Wednesday at the Yellow Front Grill. Then we played... Naw, we started playing in Taylor. I was the leader of the band then. But it was on a Wednesday night. When I first came to Austin, we were playing like seven nights a week and two after-hours. This was every night, man, and two after-hours, plus I would go to Bergstrom and go to work five days a week. But I had it easy out there. In fact a lot of people didn't know I was in the Air Force until I was out. And guys, girls would say, "Say Hubbard, they say you was with the Air Force in Bergstrom." Yeah. "Golly I never knew that." They never did know that. Like I said, I was on stage every night and they never knew. But Duffy, after I started playing for Charlie, there was something between Charlie and Duffy that didn't jive. I don't know what it was. They had met before and didn't get along. So Duffy didn't want to, he didn't care to play for Charlie. And then he tried to get me to go with him to start another group, but I said, "Duffy, I can't do that because all the cats in the band are going to stay down here and play, you know? And I want to stay down here with these cats because, you know, all we need now is a drummer." And A.J. and Breeze had already thought of that, and they had went back to Taylor and hired a guy named Ernest Davis and brought him already up, and he had drums in his car. So when Duffy split, Ernie set his stuff up. And we started playing that Monday night. And Ernest played with me for maybe six months. And Ernest was a minor, see. And Miss Ivy and Charles couldn't sell him beer; but Ernest was an alcoholic at an early age. Right, he was an alcoholic, man, and he needed that drink, boy. And Miss Ivy and Charles said, "Man, you can't drink in here." So Ernest said, "I want to play with somebody somewhere where I can drink." I said, "I tell you what, this guy, Ural, he comes by here all the time. And he playing with Crazy Legs and his group, and they travel to Arizona and Mexico. and Ural got a day job, and he say he don't want to do that on weekends again. So maybe you all can switch." And that's what they did. Ernest went with Crazy Legs and Ural started playing with me.