King Biscuit Time Magazine - Road Kill Column

Thursday June 1st, 2006 @ 9:07 PM

Filed under: Everything, Publications

I Can See by Your Outfit, That You Are a Blues Man, Part 1

Remember the Smothers Brothers? Every now and then they’d come out with a guitar and sing a song on their show, like when they dressed as cowboys. That time their song went like this:

Dickey Smothers: I can see by your outfit, that you are a cowboy.

Tommy Smothers: I can see by your outfit that you are a cowboy too.

Together in chorus: We can see by our outfits, that we are two cowboys. If you get an outfit, you can be a cowboy too.

Could this song be customized to fit the blues? I can see by your outfit, that you are a blues man…

What does a blues man’s outfit look like anyway? If you asked the average American you’d probably get a description of John Belushi and Dan Akroyd playing the infamous Blues Brothers, Jake and Elwood. My band once played for a children’s’ benefit at a junior high school, and as a theme tag, the boys and girls all wore black fedora’s, shades, dark suits, and skinny black ties over a white shirt. They even handed out the fedoras and shades at the door. I guess costume shops mass produce these items for Halloween gags and such.

I see a lot of guys performing in dark glasses even in dim bar rooms. I know one musician who won’t even take his shades off to drive at night. He can’t see, and he’s dangerous as hell, but he’s cool. And that is the number one reason to wear shades as a blues man isn’t it? To be cool? I think, however, that it got started because so many blues men were blind and hiding milky eyes or empty sockets. But that is a bona fide manner in which to start a tradition-necessity, like a cowboy wearing a bandana to pull over his nose when cattle raise dust. So let’s go ahead and list dark glasses as legitimate blues paraphernalia.

I think one reason guys wear shades is akin to a little kid hiding from his parents by putting his hands over his eyes. He thinks if he can’t see them, they can’t see him. A lot of stage-shy performers hide behind shades, avoiding that scary eye-to-eye contact. Others think it keeps an aura of mystery about the persona. You have to admit that even your own mother would be a mysterious figure in your life if she never took off her dark glasses. Now if you want to rationalize it, a case for staring into bright stage lights can be made: “What do you think I am, a moth?”

The fedora, while overdone, can be traced through the history of blues as well, although I’ve seen blues men in almost every kind of lid, including many wearing drugstore cowboy hats. Perhaps it would be easier to rule out some hats.
I haven’t seen a blues man in a sailor’s cap. Never in a tam o’shanter or a tarboosh. No pith hats either. Beanie’s are out, especially if featuring a propeller, but I did see one guy in a Billycock or Bullycock, you know, tough guy hat. A fez is not bluesy by virtue of its tasseled motif-can you imagine Shriner Blues? Military caps and helmets have never been a big blues item, and neither have Russian Cossack covers. I have seen a couple of Turbans around, and a kerchief or two, but never have I beheld a Shako on anyone playing the blues, I think the plume does it in.

So what’s left? Taking three factors into consideration, the fedora, or some form of it, seems to be the hat of choice and appropriately stereotypical. First, the heyday of the blues as it made its journey from Mississippi through Memphis to Chicago, took place in the thirties, forties, and fifties, a time when hats were common in American society and the fedora was king.

Second, key figures in blues history have tagged themselves with certain hat images, think of Robert Johnson dressed up in his suit, John Lee Hooker, and Junior Wells. Toss in Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Pinetop Perkins and Fred McDowell and you begin to pick up a pattern-anything between Indiana Jones and a godfather hat seems to fit the bill.

Lastly, and more utilitarian, many of these older blues men didn’t have cars and were itinerant, walking from town to town. The hat needed to keep the sun out of one’s face, able to be lowered to prevent wind, and versatile, for example both warm and cocky, depending on the purpose. That’s why Sou’westers are out. Good for rain, but acting cocky in this yellow, slick, goofy, flop takes a man of puissant panache.

While I’m here, I’m going to hand out my hat award. Junior Wells wins because he introduced rich colors and feathers and hatbands as “official” blueswear. He was seen in red, yellow, and even purple hats, and bright too.

Now let’s drop to the bottom and work our way up. Why? Because nothing portrays a blues man to me more than his shoes. The hat is more obvious, but the shoes draw a subtle and profound personality profile.

I like folks who take pride in their footwear. It makes me think they take pride in other things, like their music, moves, and manners. When I think of blues shoes, I think of Earl Gaines and Roscoe Shelton, the Excello legends. I’ve seen them wearing two-toned shoes shined to a glassy finish, and they know how to have their pants tailored to break just once and perfectly over the shoes. Natty!

Now if a guy adds spats to his step, he’s deep in the blues as far as I’m concerned. Spats, derived from Spatter-dashes, have a purpose as well, stemming out of the days when much walking required protection from mud and rain. Nowadays spats are seldom seen and mainly decorative for those who dress to the nines and want to add an exclamation point to their image. It says, “I’m so cool I can get away with wearing spats. Can you?” There’s photo circa 1928 of Georgia Tom Dorsey wearing white spats with a formal black suit. There’s a man who knew how to take care of his shoes.

A two-tone, then, is my choice for the quintessential blues shoe and Roscoe Shelton wins the award, but let’s take a look at what isn’t in. Here is a list of questionable choices and what each kind tells about the wearer.

Chuck Taylor sneakers: He is still performing for the “eighties rock” junior high kids, even though the latter are all grown up now and have kids of their own and real jobs.

Snakeskin Cowboy Boots: Gunslinger mentality: iconoclastic, rebellious, and daring. Not a bad thing in music. However, if a Stevie Ray spangled belt or hat is added to these boots, you may have encountered a sound bully who equates amp power with masculinity. It’s easier to pull this guy’s molars with a pair of rusted vice grips than to get him to turn down.

Motorcycle boots: “I’m bad and I’m nasty and I’ll ram music through your skull and out your eye-sockets whether you like it or not.” If sincere, this guy can give you a pretty good musical buzz over an evening.

Penny loafers with a penny in them: Learned blues at Sigma Nu and is likely to break out into a Trini Lopez version of “If I Had a Hammer,” or anything by the Kingston Trio. Sissy blues, I call it.

Clerk shoes: Gave up on being cool in the third grade when he bought his first pair of Buster Brown’s and a tube of Brylcream. These guys can be great musicians, just not cool.

You see some people can’t be cool. It’s not in their genes or their environmental makeup. They will always be uncool no matter what hat they wear, or shades, or shoes. I found this out in Marine Corps boot camp. We all had shaved heads, same clothes, and same dress code, but some guys put it together in a cool way, and others continued to look like dorks. There is nothing we can do for the latter. They are petrified in dorkdom. Only God can help them.

Shoes can give a person a different walk. Spit shined shoes with new leather soles and a tight rakish look turn a walk into a strut. But some people can’t strut either. A guy known as an oaf can’t strut. He can only clomp. Clompers make horrible strutters. Other people who can’t strut are nervous, skinny types, and constipated people. Constipation is the cause of a moaning shuffle, while nervous types have a strobe lit scoot. Have you noticed that most Blues men move slowly? They learned long ago that waterbug movement is not cool.

Blues men in cool shoes are good at standing around. They’re very accomplished at it. There is a practiced art to standing around. Now, a lot of people do a fair job of sitting around or lying around, but standing around is difficult. To begin with, your stance has to answer the question, “why is that guy just standing around?” You never question a guy who is good at it because his sense of entitlement to a spot is too strong. It appears as though it’s his very own spot-and not yours. He also knows what to do with his posture. Amateurs tend to stand at attention or at a stiff parade rest. The pro slouches proudly, hands-in-pockets like James Dean, and forms a look on his face that seems to cast judgement on all of us who scurry by his spot seeming like we have no place to stand.

We are drawn to people who are good at standing around. Maybe because no matter where the rest of us stop it doesn’t seem like an important place. Notice sometime at a blues festival that a good stand arounder will begin to hold court. Pretty soon a whole circle of people will be around his spot-and it all starts with the shoes.

I’ve always applied this rule of thumb, if you look good in your shoes with your pants off, they are good blues shoes. I actually do this. I put on some underwear, then a thin, almost sheer pair of ribbed socks, and my shirt. Then I try on shoes in a full-length mirror. Low cut shoes with a tight fit and a high shine make my calves look athletic and detract the eye from my busted-up kneecaps. But on the other hand, big-oaf loafers make my legs look too skinny for my body, while work-shoes, coupled with boxer shorts, make me look like a guy waiting in line to get a penicillin shot.

The bottom line is that a magician could go up on stage and make a real blues man’s pants disappear and he wouldn’t be flustered one bit; he is true blue and cool right down to his skivvies, socks, and two-tone shoes.

Next month: I Can Tell by Your Outfit That You Are a Blues man Part II: Pants, Can’ts, Raves and Rants

Posted by Carl