I also remember that I was wearing a silver silk suit with pointy black lizard skin shoes, and that Ronnie told me that the suit and the shoes are all fine, but what really matters is my heart.Īfter the show was over Ronnie told me that he was staying at the Winner’s Circle Lodge across from the Del Mar Fairgrounds and asked me if I wanted to come by there and play. Ronnie was on the cover of the current issue of Guitar Player magazine at the time, and I recall a couple of people coming into the trailer asking him to sign their copies, and Roomful’s trombone player and senior member Porky Cohen, teasing Ronnie about that, warning him not to get a big head just because he was on the cover of some guitar magazine. He then invited me into the green room, which at that time was a trailer in back of the Belly Up. When I went backstage Jonny introduced me to Ronnie as “his guitar player,” to which Ronnie replied, “Nobody owns anybody!” Then, the first thing he said to me was, “Are you Jewish?” Ronnie’s parents were Holocaust survivors from Hungary, and I guess that was something he thought we could bond over. If you wanna know how excited I was about this, let’s just say that it’s probably the only time in my life that I stopped peeing in midstream! Apparently, Jonny Viau was telling Ronnie how much I loved his playing and what a huge influence he was on me, and that’s why he wanted to meet me. I was in the Belly Up’s bathroom before the show started, when local guitar legend Steve Wilcox came in looking for me and telling me that Ronnie Earl wanted to meet me. So, when they got the opening slot for Roomful at the Belly Up, they hired King Biscuit’s bass player, Greg Willis, drummer, Marcus Bashore, and tenor sax player Jonny Viau to fill out their band. These guys used to come to the Mandolin Wind to see King Biscuit and would occasionally sit in with us, as one of them was a guitar player and the other a singer, who could play and sing some blues. Roomful returned to the Belly Up around six months later, and this time two cats who knew them from New England, but were out in San Diego doing a theater play, opened up the show. I was more inspired than ever to get better and better with my own playing, and to possibly someday be able to do to others what Ronnie did to me that night, for it was so incredibly powerful and infinitely beautiful. And from that very moment, Ronnie Earl became the most inspirational guitar player in my life for many years to come. When Roomful broke into its first slow blues of the night, Ronnie walked out into the audience, cigarette dangling from his mouth, and played the most intense, scorching, emotional ten-minute guitar solo I ever heard in my life! I was left breathless and felt like I had been transported to another planet, surely someplace I’ve never been before. And even that wasn’t anything compared to what was yet to come. Then when the whole nine-piece band came out, hearing Ronnie play Johnny “Guitar” Watson’s “Hot Little Mama” (the title track of Roomful’s latest record) and T-Bone Walker’s “Strollin’ with Bone,” I was immediately a full-fledged convert. I’d already heard some of the best cats around, like Jimmie Vaughan and Kid Ramos play this sacred rhythm, but right away I thought there was something special about Ronnie. The very first thing I remember hearing from Ronnie was when he came out by himself before the show started and played a little Jimmy Reed grinder, but more in the Jimmie Vaughan Texas blues vain, to check out how his Super Reverb was sounding on the Belly Up stage, and right then and there I was sold. I was pretty disappointed, but that disappointment was short lived to say the least. However, when I got to the Belly Up on the night of Roomful’s show I found out that Duke had recently left the band and that they had a new guitar player by the name of Ronnie Earl, who I never heard of at the time. Then one day I saw that Roomful of Blues was coming to play the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, and man was I excited to finally get a chance to see this lauded band and the highly acclaimed Duke Robillard. I remember him telling me how much I’d love their guitar player, Duke Robillard, as he was one of the greatest exponents of T Bone Walker, an obvious influence on my own playing at the time. There was a guy who used to come see us and he was always telling me about this great jump blues band from New England called Roomful of Blues. We had a regular gig every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night at a club in San Diego called the Mandolin Wind. I joined my first professional blues band, King Biscuit, in 1981. Earl on the cover of Guitar Player magazine, 1986.
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