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Remembering
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September 2006
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Photos and Text by Larry Benicewicz
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One of the great blues singers of the modern era has passed. On July 17, Sam Myers in Dallas, TX, succumbed to throat cancer after a year and a half bout with this disease. This past April doctors had removed his larynx—an operation which rendered him unable to speak—in an attempt to contain this particularly aggressive tumor. He last performed with his longtime backup group, the Rockets, led by Anson Funderburgh, in December, 2005. |
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 In testimony to the high esteem in which he was held by the blues community there were two separate memorial services, each of which included musical tributes by his peers. The first was staged in Dallas (where he had moved two decades ago to be closer to the headquarters of the Rockets) on Friday, July 21, at the Sandra Clark Funeral Home and the latter on Saturday, July 22, at Peoples Funeral Home at 866 North Farish St in Jackson Mississippi. The selection of this second site was most appropriate in that it was the former entertainment strip of the state capitol during which in its heyday of the 50s this artist figured prominently and also was a mere stone’s throw from both the famed recording studios of Lillian McMurry of Trumpet records and of Johnny Vincent (Imbragulio) of Ace records, facilities at one time or another Sam Myers frequented during his long career in the blues. Local artists, like guitarists Jesse Robinson and King Edward and harp players Billy Gibson and Greg “Fingers” Taylor, many of them members of his own State Street Band or Sam Myers Blues Band, with whom he played when not on the road, performed fond farewells to their hometown hero. Sam Myers was laid to rest next to his parents this same day at the Rocky Mountain Baptist Cemetery in Paulding, MS, about 20 miles due north of Laurel, MS. |
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The title of Sam Myers’ last CD, an individual project, Coming From The Old School (Electro-Fi 3383) and which features the great Mel Brown on guitar, speaks volumes. For if anyone could lay claim to that label, it was he. He was a shouter in the grand tradition of Joe Turner and Howlin’ Wolf, a style which hearkened back to the days of no amplification, wherein such blues belters had to rise to the occasion, so to speak, above the din of the both the band and the audience in rural roadhouses. And tall and stocky, the chain smoking Myers, always a paragon of sartorial splendor in his neatly pressed shark skin suit (in contrast to his casually attired sidemen), cut an imposing figure on the bandstand, particularly when his raspy vocals would cut through the air like a chain saw. His harmonica technique, a perfect match to his voice - limited in range but intense, even explosive - was no less awe inspiring. He’d choose a harp from his trusty bandoleer, as if selecting a weapon, and then proceed to test the limits of its reeds, blowing in the forceful “country” fashion of Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson II. Nothing fancy like its urban counterpart, it was succinct, economical, and to the point. In short, it first grabbed your attention and then it got the job done.  I was lucky enough to interview Sam at length in the late 80s. It was one of those magical nights in the tin walled interior of the venerable Maple Leaf bar in uptown New Orleans wherein all the old time musicians of the Crescent City seemed to show up. In fact, the now late Lloyd Lambert, former leader of Guitar Slim’s road contingent, sat in for Anson’s bass player and, as I recall, Harold Brown of War (who then had a recording studio in the Big Easy) took a turn on the drums. At the time, Sam wasn’t quite the institution that he had since become over the years and when he ascertained that I knew something of his personal history, he was eager to set the record straight. To say the least, the affable, but normally reticent, Sam was in quite an expansive mood that evening and reminisces flowed like wine. |
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 Sam Myers, Photographer unknown
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Samuel Joseph Myers was born on February 19, 1936 in Laurel, MS, a small town on old Interstate 11 about 20 miles northeast of Hattiesburg. As a child he was diagnosed with juvenile cataracts, a condition which undoubtedly could have been corrected with today’s technology. Since he was almost totally blind, his parents, when he was eleven, sent him to The Piney Woods School (situated 20 miles southeast of Jackson on fabled Highway 49) which was equipped to handle children with special needs. Soon thereafter, he became enthralled with the band music that he heard on the school’s practice fields. Needing a teacher, he struck up a friendship with an older student, Anna Mae Williams, who taught him the basics of the trumpet. Later he took up the harmonica and the drums. He also received voice training in the Piney Woods Band Glee Club and the local Cotton Blossom Singers. Summer vacations, spent in Chicago, proved pivotal in that he first heard the music of such Windy City blues luminaries such as Little Walter, James Cotton, and Robert Jr. Lockwood. At age 14, he became so proficient in both the drums and trumpet that he was awarded a non-degree scholarship to the prestigious American Conservatory School of Music in Chicago and promptly relocated there. According to Sam, he’d spend his days learning music theory and composition and by night, either disk jockeying or be sitting in on harmonica and drums in the rough and tumble clubs that proliferated then on Chicago’s South Side. It was in one of these dangerous dives that he first met Elmore James with whom he spent (off and on) over a decade until the blues giant’s death in 1963. |
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 Unable, or perhaps unwilling, to adapt to the stresses of big city life, Sam returned to the Jackson area at age 20 in 1956 and soon parlayed his experience as a part-time platter spinner into a full time job at station WOKJ, a position which in turn led him to drummer and band leader (of the Royal Rockers) King Mose.  Sam by that time was composing his own songs and had written a couple of numbers that both agreed might be worth recording and so they proffered a demo to Johnny Vincent of Ace records (then at 227 Culbertson Ave.), who agreed to set up a session. “Sleeping in the Ground” (Ace 533) released in 1957, now considered a blues standard, having been recorded by Eric Clapton and Robert Cray, proved then only to be a modest, regional success, not warranting a return trip to the studio, especially when Vincent could better bank on such perennial winners in his stable of that era, such as Earl King, Huey Smith, Joe Tex, Frankie Ford, and teen idol, Jimmy Clanton. |
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 Sam Myers’ next studio effort (with King Mose) would come in 1960 in New Orleans at renowned engineer Cosimo Matassa’s new facility at 523-525 Governor Nichols St in the French Quarter. “Sad, Sad Lonesome Day” (Fury 1035), another less than satisfactory seller, came about because of Sam’s long involvement with Elmore James, who, at the tail end of his brief career, recorded for the same outfit. Beginning in 1959 at various locations, including Chicago, New York, and New Orleans, legendary producer Bobby Robinson, who ran Fire/Fury records out his Harlem record store at 271 W. 125th St, had Elmore James record a slew of his blues classics which he released in a four year span on his various subsidiaries, including Enjoy and Sphere Sound. According to Sam, he personally had a hand (especially on drums) in most of them and there’s no reason to doubt him, since he named without hesitation all of his supporting cast, including pianist Johnny “Big Moose” Walker. There is absolutely no question that Sam plays the positively snarling harp on “Look on Yonder Wall,” which was recorded in the Crescent City at the same site in 1961 and issued as both Fire 504 and Enjoy 2022.  By the way, Bobby Robinson by the early 60s had a right-hand man ensconced in the Big Easy, Marshall Seahorn, scouting talent for his indie R&B labels and all of the Fire/Fury material executed there would be under Seahorn’s auspices, including such huge national smashes as Lee Dorsey’s “Ya Ya” (Fury 1053) and Bobby Marchan’s (of Huey Smith’s Clowns) “There Is Something On Your Mind” (Fire 1022).Aside from James’ Bobby Robinson connection, Sam that night claimed to have also recorded with Elmore James on Atlantic, when he backed Joe Turner on his immortal “T.V. Mama” (Atlantic 1016) in 1953 and later on “Flip, Flop, and Fly” (Atlantic 1053) in 1955, although his assertions are contradicted by the discography, Blues Records, which credits respectively Odie Payne and Red Saunders on these two separate sessions. Sam, on the other hand, had his own compelling argument. “Yeah, it would seem like that, but I can tell you that, particularly in 1955, we went out on tour on the Chitlin’ Circuit and Elmore’s was the house band behind the R&B caravan, Atlantic Stars of ’55, including Joe Turner, Clyde McPhatter, Ruth Brown, and Little Johnny Jones [Elmore James’ longtime pianist who also recorded solo],” he said emphatically. To further bolster Sam’s case about the true extent of his body of work with James, there are a few Flair singles recorded both in Canton, MS, in 1954 and in New Orleans in 1954 in which the drummer is unaccounted for. Nonetheless, after James’ untimely demise at 45, Sam Myers’ musical fortunes followed suit. But even if James had lived through that period, he probably wouldn’t have been able to revive his style of country blues which by the mid-60s was experiencing its own death throes, being supplanted by soul, the music of choice of new generation of blacks who thought themselves hipper, more sophisticated, and more cosmopolitan than their immediate forebears, who were not that far removed from working on plantations in the deep South. Indeed, many of this younger set felt that embracing such rural, roots music, even when electrified, was tantamount to acknowledging or legitimizing their past and thus they preferred to ignore it. And even worse, in the 70s, live music of any sort was eschewed altogether, as disco quickly became all the rage. It would be a long stretch before rural, or even urban blues for that matter, would be widely accepted again. Sam Myers in order to make ends meet began working for Mississippi Industry for the Blind situated in Jackson and performed from time to time, most notably with Sylvia Embrey and the Mississippi All-Stars Blues Band, which enjoyed several world tours. In 1979, he recorded another single for Johnny Vincent, “You’re So Fine” (Ace 2037) which failed to attract any interest. In the period 1980 to 1986, he, mainly in a supporting role for this loosely knit group, appeared on no less than seven compilations on the TJ label, all of which are apparently out of print---Down Home in Mississippi (1979), Mississippi Delta Blues (1980), Mississippi Delta Blues Band: In Europe (1981), Mississippi Delta Blues Band (1981), San Francisco Blues Band, Chromatic Style (1981), San Francisco Blues Band (1986), and Mississippi Delta Blues Band Greatest Hits (1986). Although some sources insist that there were some singles issued from these vinyl albums, they have yet to be verified in any record guide. |
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 But had it not been for a chance, fateful encounter in 1982 in Jackson, Sam Myers might have been relegated to the file of “obscure bluesmen” or maybe “one hit wonders.” Anson Funderburgh (b.1954), a hot blues guitarist out of Plano, TX, was in town for a concert with his band, the Rockets (founded 1978), and ran into Sam at the George St Grocery where Malcolm White (now the executive director of the Mississippi Arts Commission) was booking bands. Anson was well versed in both Chicago and Texas blues; so much so, that Hammond Scott of Black Top records of New Orleans rewarded him with the label’s inaugural LP, Talk To You By Hand (BT 1001) in 1981. In addition, Funderburgh was also a blues historian; so that Sam Myers wasn’t exactly a stranger to him. But he already had a vocalist/harp player with him, Darrell Nulisch, who was more than competent. However, when Darrell left the Rockets in 1986 (ostensibly objecting to the brutal touring schedule of 300 dates a year), Anson Funderburgh knew exactly whom he wanted to front this new configuration and even admitted that the band artistically turned a corner when Sam came aboard. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. |
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| At first it seemed a strange collaboration - a young Turk white guitarist and a middle-aged, veteran harp man with vital links to black blues. But the odd juxtaposition immediately clicked, especially since this relationship was founded on mutual respect and admiration. Their first album together, My Love Is Here To Stay (BT 1032), mainly a recapitulation of Sam’s former tunes, was well received. But their second venture in 1988 on Blacktop, Sins (1038), containing more original material, really put them on the blues map, garnering a W.C. Handy Award for “Best Contempory Blues Album of the Year,” which without a doubt led to their recognition as “Best Blues Band” of that same time frame. Then, seemingly on a roll, they would go on to release five more CDs, including a live undertaking, before Black Top folded in the mid-90s. Nonetheless, they still proved to be an unbeatable combination, as their momentum carried over to their new logo, Bullseye/Rounder, the second CD of which, Which Way Is Texas? (619619) yielded their 9th W.C. Handy Award in 2003, for “Traditional Blues Album.” |
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| With the death of Sam Myers, the blues community has lost not only one of its great, original voices, but also one of its most talented players, who could, at any venue, give the audience a rare glimpse into the past. He had heard the blues of the cotton fields of his native Mississippi and was there to witness its transformation into the modern blues of today. And he was every bit a vital cog in the process, a true historical figure. It was true that he achieved renown rather late in life. But a high profile in the September of his years was better than no profile, which was the fate of many a bluesman. At least in this instance we can be consoled with the fact that he left a whole host of remarkable blues efforts behind as his legacy and, moreover, this grand raconteur, perhaps sensing his mortality, recently conveyed his myriad anecdotes to writer Jeff Horton, who lovingly compiled them in an autobiography, Sam Myers: The Blues Is My Story, which will released in October by the University Press of Mississippi. It would have been a wonderful, memorable occasion when Sam would sign my copy. But it just wasn’t meant to be. Larry Benicewicz, B.B.S. |
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All Photocopyright (except mentioned) by Larry Benicewicz |
P.S. Contributions for Sam’s headstone can be made to: Southwest Blues Heritage Foundation, Inc. P.O. Box 710548 Dallas, TX, 75371-0548 |
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