Oregon Art Beat; #1001; Norman Sylvester

I have to do that. I've seen some of the shoes and you're going, yeah, we are. So first of all, after Tom said, tell me your name and who you are. I'm Norman Sylvester. I'm a local blues musician here in Portland, Oregon that loves to play music. Why? Well, where does it come from? The music comes from within and I think it has to come out in an original form to really grab the attention of the audience. Most people don't think of Portland, Oregon as a hotbed for the blues, but it definitely is a hotbed for the blues. We have tons of good players here. We have some young people coming up, just playing the blues really good. And some host guys that's been here for quite a while. And we have some good blues pioneers right here in Oregon. You grew up in blues country. I grew up in Louisiana and Benita,

Louisiana. But we came here in 1957 from Benita. My dad came out here looking for work. But down there, gospel and blues was the foundation of all the music. So you moved here? You were 12 years old. Right. I went to Boise Elementary School, part of the seventh grade and all of the eighth. And I graduated from Jefferson High School in 1963. By the time you were 12, had the blues already taken a hold of you? The blues got into my bones from the old jukeboxes in the cafes in Louisiana, listening to John Lee Hooker, Lighting Hopkins, BB King, Howlin' Wolf. And my grandmother was a religious lady. She didn't really like us to listen to the blues. But every once in a while, we could hear a little of the jukebox in the cafe. And we'd pick up on the grooves. But until I came out here, I could really

absorb more of it out here. Because I'd hear everybody just listen to all kinds of music. But what was the step that goes from listening to doing? What hooked you? What got you into music? Performing. Because that takes talent. What got me into music was I was playing guitar. My dad bought me a 1195 guitar. And he said, if I learned three songs, he'd buy me an electric. So I met a gentleman by the name of Isaac Scott in church, in Faith Tabernacle Church. And he taught me three blues songs. And I loved to play guitar. And my dad saw that. And I think just learning those three blues songs and the feel that it gave me to play them, just stuck with me all my life. Was that here in Portland? Here in Portland. Yeah. And what really hooked me was sitting in with Buddy Guy in 1965 at the Reed College Commons. I got my way

backstage and I told his road manager that I could play the blues. And he introduced me to Buddy and Buddy said, well, do you play the blues? I said, yeah, I play a little bit of guitar. Is he going to play the band? I froze. I said, I don't have a guitar. You see, you can use mine. So he told his road manager, take me out and have me play the warm -up song for him to come back out at Reed College Commons. And from then on, I was totally hooked. Buddy Guy? Buddy. Let you play for him? Cold? He hadn't even heard you? Never heard me before. I was just in the right place at the right time. And since that time, I've opened for Buddy and BB and Coco Taylor and James Cotton tower power. So I've been around a lot of those cats and it's just in my blood. It's what I love to do. What kind of reaction do you get, especially here in Portland? Portland is,

I'm kind of like a hometown kind of guy here. I've always wanted to keep my family near. Portland is my base. I etched a living out here. I was a teamster here for 25 years. I'm a retired teamster. I played music on the side. I opened for BB in 1987. Hung out with BB in his band. The next day, I was back at the trucking company and my cover all was working. So, you know, it's kind of like the real world was always in my face. But the blues was where I escaped to. And now? Just to say. Thank you so much. Well, your leg is just hit this tab. We're all again. And so now is it any different? Is music a bigger part now? It's a bigger part now because when I became full focused on my music in 1990, everything opens up. It just opened wide open because now I'm focused on the blues. And I had family, major family that

depended on me. But I could still focus on my music. And all of my recorded works is original music, which is lyrics that I live. And hopefully when people hear that, they can hear lyrics in that that they live also. And I think that's what brings the people to you. They can see that you're living something similar to what they're living. And you express it in your music. I wanted to ask you about some of those lyrics. I knew I'd read about you saying you live those lyrics. Describe the stories you like to tell through your music. The blues is a storytelling kind of music. It is totally. And I wrote a song in 1985 called Hard Times. And I was struggling. The trucking company was having a little problems. And Hard Times was a song that I wrote on graveyard shifts. And I went to my job just the other day. I started time, keep walking my way. A few steps behind and was my boss. They told me

I had been laid off. It's Hard Times in the city. And one of those lyrics I wrote in 1985 was, high jackas and terrorists are everywhere. Take a flight on an airplane if you dare. Buy yourself a ticket if you can. But your plane to Chicago might land in Iran. Now I wrote that in 1985 on my original song Hard Times. Wow. And you could really apply that to today. All right? So that song would apply today. And is it what you performed? I do perform it. Yes. Yes. Another song I do is Peace of the Action. And it's about having a little bit of what everybody else has. A little more of it. And we can feel that really good right now. We need a piece of the action. And it's got a nice little wrap in it. It says, I'm tired of licking the frosting. And I want the whole cake.

So it's just kind of the expression of everyday life. And we are all living those same lyrics. How is life treating you? Beautiful. I'm doing great. I have seven children, nine grandkids. We have my wife and I. We have a janitorial company. I have my company, the Boogie Cat production. I have a musician's family. Janice Scroggins, I would call her my mentor. She's a keyboardist extraordinaire. She started out with me years ago. She helped me with most of my recordings. She's my musical guru. She keeps me in check. And I just got a lot of great players in Portland that I use some time to time. My core band is there for me. My bass player has been with me for 27 years. And if he ever left me, I think I'd have to pay him support. Or he'd have to pay me something like

that. I don't know. I'm not sure. You know, I'm a pension. It's something for sure. But we have a real tight net music family here in Portland. One thing I noticed is that you dress up when you perform. This is one hip cat who walks out. You know, my uncles in Louisiana and my dad, they always dressed up on the weekend. It was a sudden thing. You dressed up on Sundays, you dressed up on Saturdays. And I kind of, it's kind of in my blood to do that. But it's also being a father and a grandfather. It's like Superman going into the foam booth. You know, your motorgrass in the evening and you, you know, you, you asked to grass. And then you come in, you put on your best suit before you go to the blues gig. It's kind of like you're going to foam booth and you come out. And it changes your whole attitude about what you're going to be doing. So it,

I dress to feel good. And a number of people I think use the word hip to describe you. Well, hip is something that's been in my, in your hip are the normal now, aren't you? My life for the last, since the year 2000, you know, I have two new artificial hips. So actually, I'm a bionic blues man now. Bionic all the way. And how are you getting around? Do you feel all right now? I feel awesome. My wife nursed me back to help and had a good physician, of course. And I was blessed by God to heal quickly. So with all that in consideration, I have basically pain free right now. So you were hip before or now you're doubly hip. I'm double hip now. I'm the hip is guy in the northwest right now. I can't go any airport security. I beat. Tell me about the original

blues fest in, in Portland, because you were there. I was there. The original blues festival, the Roe City Blues Festival. It was all of the local bands in town. I was Curtis Lloyd, Paul Delay, Terry Rob, myself. And the headline was John Lee Hooker. And it was well attended. And it's gone on to become the water from blues festival we know today. Now it's huge. It's national. International maybe, you know. They have people coming from all over to that. It's put, Portland was a music town, but the blues festival have helped put Portland on the musical circuit. What's it like playing it? It's awesome. It's actually the highest profile gig throughout the year for most local bands to get in. Because the advertisement is on a wide scale. And the nationals come through and you are shared building with those nationals. So it helps you throughout the year get other gigs because

it gives you that stamp of approval, you know. Because we're in the trenches in Portland three on six five days a year. Just keeping the clubs going and a lot of the musicians like myself around are playing these clubs every night. And so when it comes to blues festival time and we're there, it's really make us feel nice. So how many times have you played the blues festival? I've played all of them except three. I've missed three. So I've been there. Do you like the club gig? Do you like the clubs? I do. Because that's a smaller venue. I mean, talk about comparison. Blues Fest, huge audience. Clubs are really in it. Well, you know, BB would do 330 gigs a year, maybe, or more. And chitlin' circuit. And ask clubs. And I think that's why you trench in. You meet people. You sell your product. You network and get better gigs from clubs. They are very good launching points for

bands. And that's, I have nothing against clubs. You know, of course, you know, the smoking. And we will be going non -smoking in 2009. So that'll be kind of alleviated to a better way, better workplace. Looking forward to that? I am. Truly. Yeah. Well, we have a few non -smoking clubs already. You can tell the difference when you walk into one and into the other. Yeah. Interesting observation. But, yeah, you guys have been breathing that the whole time. Yes. Yeah. It's kind of like we should be getting something hazardous pay. What about the audiences here, Portland? The clubs. I'm curious about how they are. Compared to, say, the audiences you watch when, say, you travel. And you're back in Louisiana, the hometown. You're roots. Are audiences there any different from the audiences here? Which was the music they respond to, the music they like? Well, back south. I think they respond to music more so

blues kind of music. Out here, they're more universal. They have so many choices. There's alternative clubs, there's jazz clubs. There's blues clubs. And sometimes we have to share that audience. Then you kind of factor in the economy. And then if you have to make a choice between doing this or that or going to the club, which we would choose. So, there's a lot of factors that factor in. Some days you have a pad club or the nights you're playing to a smaller crowd. But the way I look at it is that every performance is an audition. So, if it's 10 there, I'm going to play this as hard for those 10 as if there were more. How is it affected the kind of music you choose to play for them? What happens is that because not all blues is the same. That's true. That's true. You have people that like traditional blues, they like R &B, they like funk, and they like your originals. So, your sadness

has to reflect all of that kind of music. You have to put a little bit of each in your set. What do you like to lose? I like watching the crowd and seeing what they want. What I like is giving them what they want. So, I like playing my stuff because no one can play my stuff better than me. So, that's my best showcase. But I'll play Muddy Waters, a BB, or James Brown, or Parliament, or whatever is needed to bring the people to enjoy their outing. How do you describe your music? Do you have a name for it? It's original Northwest Blues and R &B. Northwest Blues. Northwest Blues. It's not. See, I can't write, although I picked cotton as a kid and was on a farm and saw my father plow with a mule, I can't sing the blues like Muddy Waters, who actually was a sharecropper. I'd hear

we have a different blues. So, I sing it from, my lyrics are from a different origin than here. I have pain, but nothing like a John Lee Hooker or Muddy Water Howling with Pain. So, I can give honor to them and play their music, but I can't play it as that much emotion. It's kind of like they gave us the lyrics, and we duplicate them and add our stuff to it. And that's the Northwest Blues. It's the environment they would live in. You mentioned listening to BB King on the jukebox. Yeah. Ever dream you'd be playing with him? No. Not at that time. When I was in high school, I'd never dream I'd be performing, because I was real bashful back in the day. My grandmother, when I was a little kid, she had us in the choir, and she had me sing that Hank Williams

song, Goodbye Joe. She loved to hear me sing that. But when I got into high school, I wasn't really a performer. I did sports. I was in the boys choir. And then I got into church, and the gospel church, and I started singing in a gospel group. And I kind of came out of that shell, you know, and it just evolved. I used to practice in front of a mirror just to see how I looked, so I could see how other people saw me. If I'm used to looking at myself in the mirror, I could just be in front of them. This is the day before everybody had a home video camera. You could record themselves. There you go. Yeah, I've dated myself. You don't strike me a shine now. No, no. I really do like performing in front of people, you know. It just gives me so much. If I can give to them at the end of the night, I come home. I can't go to sleep because I got to sit up and watch mindless TV

and fall asleep in an easy chair. I wake up about five o 'clock in the morning. Now, if you were allowed to listen to this kind of music, what would your grandma think of you today? Well, she knew I was playing the blues in, you know, the final years, and she didn't make any judgments. One thing I can always say about my family as a whole was non -judgmental, always supportive, and always there for me. So, as long as I was happy, they were happy. That's when my father, mom, always told me so. And they didn't really come to see me play that much. They came to a couple of water from blues festivals, but I don't think they ever came to a club to see me play. But they were always there. They wanted to see all the writers that I had in the paper and stuff like that. Have you ever been tempted to want to travel, take the show on the road, tour, go big? I've never, I've always been tied to my family, and I never wanted to be away from my mom and dad while I wasn't a phone call away, because

they were always there for me. Whenever I came home, my mom was always there. My dad was on the way there. So, I kind of was stuck here in Portland because my children are here, and I wanted to be there for them. I would like to go overseas and play Europe, like that would be a dream to go over there, but it's okay if I don't get to go from town to town to town to town, because at my age right now, I just like playing music and maybe recording some more original CDs, leaving the legacy that way, more than leaving my health and strength on the road. How many CDs do you have up to? And on quite a few of the projects throughout the city. That's great. Yeah, it's all original music to the by the way. So you're not playing other, you're not covering other people's music? Not on my CDs, but in the clubs I do.

Tell me a little bit about the music that you've written. I know you mentioned some of the lyrics. Anything special about your songs? Make them stand out? Well, I wrote a song called Look on the Bright Side that helped me through a real hard weekend that I was having once. You know, if you've ever been in a dark place in your life, and Friday is pretty damn, and by Saturday it's pretty dark, and Sunday's not feeling any better, that weekend I wrote a song called Look on the Bright Side, and that song brought me through that weekend. And every time I hear that song now or perform it or have it performed, I get that same feeling from that song. I can honestly think about where I've come since that particular weekend. So that song reflects what I've gone through. And a lot of my songs reflect that in my life.

You mentioned how diverse Portland is musically. Is Portland harder for blues musician, compared to say some of the other forms of music that are popular here, just because it's a little less common, a little more out of the ordinary here in the Northwest, or is it created a niche for you that gives you, you know, special banana. Not so much the blues as places to play it. You see, recording wise, there's a lot of great studios here, so if you can get in the studio and you have the funds or the backing to record your music and get it out, then that's a good way to go. But if you're waiting to get on the club to perform live, there are so many bands now, and so little clubs, it's kind of hard to do right now. We work a lot, my band, and we bless to be out there working a lot. So I guess I've been out there. I made my first

recording in 1969, which was just a 45 -disk, and a band called Rated X. So I've been playing music and just adding to it ever since then. Always a guitar? Yes. Yeah, always a guitar. That's my instrument of choice. We're gonna let that pass. That blew us out a little bit. We could hear that. We could feel it. Yes, the rumble. Now it's the muffler. Okay. Still pass faster than one of those trains. That would have shut us down for a minute. Trains, man. Trains with the part of the South, man. Trains with everywhere. Trains, you can work into music. That's for sure. Yeah, they call it the blue songs back in the day, I'm gonna catch the first thing smoking.

And that's whatever's leaving from that town that had an engine. He wanted to be on it. A blues guy wanted to be on it, going to another place. Have you spent much time back in the South since you were 12? Susmic, isn't it? Not a lot, man. And my grandmother passed away. And I had three uncles that passed away down there. I have a host of cousins and aunts down there. But life is so busy up here. I talked to them. We communicate on the computer, on the phone. Haven't had a chance to get back there. I want to take my son back down there. So he can see who I was born. You know, see the roots of the family. So I'll eventually get back down there. Where are you playing these days? Telecom? Telecom? Gemini Bar and Grill? Cascade? The candlelight? Max in Eugene? Max in Silverton?

We're doing Peter Frampton. We open up for Peter Frampton at the Esther Short Park. Hot July 9th. And we have a bunch of good shows coming up. And all that can be found out on my website, NormanSovester .com. It sounds like you've got a good number of gigs. You're keeping busy. Yeah, we're at the Washington Park Rolls -Garden App at the Aitor on the second of August. Doing a concert there for the Park Bureau. So we're all over the place. Still getting the phone calls. That's a good thing. You still get excited to perform with the national tours that come through, the big guys, the big names. You've chosen never to try to go the national route yourself. I actually get nervous. I think butterflies are a part of forming. We got away to that car, sorry. I was here in some rumbles there and they were low. We were dealing with it. But that guy was a little worried.

I don't hear anything. Okay, good. How do you react to these national guys? Oh, it's not so much that I'm afraid to do it. It's just you always have that performance, nervousness just before the show. And you, Janice Schrockens always told me she said, Normie, you got to remember to breathe. So I always think about what she said to me. And I just take deep breaths and get into my head and get ready for the show. And it always turns out well. It's just what we do. Who stands out thinking about the artist you've met personally? Their personalities. Anybody surprised you? The most down -home person was two. Actually, Bebe King and Albert Collins. I've met and hung out with both of those guys. And they're just down -earth people. Bebe is just every day.

And his birthday and my birthday is the same, except him the 16th. He's just a little bit older than me, of course. And Albert, he's passed on to Albert Collins. And he was just a straight old country boy. It could burn a guitar and just play some blues. I do like Kenny Neal out of Badden Rouge. He's a very good guitar player, very nice fellow. James Cotton, very nice person. Coco Taylor. I had the honor of hanging out with Coco Taylor and Pond Top Perkins at last year's Water from Blues. So that was an honor to do that. Now, the last year, you've also performed with the local Ray Charles Trippand. We're doing that with Patrick Lamb Productions. And we have a show coming up at the Oregon Gardens in August and another one in Albany. So I'm still doing that with Patrick. I've seen the Ray Charles song, what I say. We did The Symphony Orchestra last year, which was awesome experience.

Did you ever get a chance to meet him? Ray Charles? I did not. I did not. That would have been an honor. I did see him live at the civic auditorium long before it was Kelly Auditorium many years ago with the Ray Labs. So I did get to see him perform. Do you enjoy that music? That's a little different when you're playing the Ray Charles stuff. I enjoy all music because what's good about music and performing music is working with musicians. And you're thinking with the same brain. You're all thinking about that same thing at the same time. That's quite an energy put together. And at the end of that piece of music and you take that deep breath, it's a great feeling. It's not that you did it. It's that we nailed it. That's a good feeling. What else comes from mind? That's very

good. Very good. Thank you very much. This was fun. That was great. Thank you very much. Thank you

very much. Thank you very much. Thank you

very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Beautiful. All right. I mean, 87 at the Arlene Snitzer Hall. I was head down to take my band there with Janice Scrigans on keyboard and my bass player Rob Schumerka. My niece's, Rhonda and Esther and my daughter Lynn Ann. We had a wonderful time there with BB.

That was my first time in the Snitz to play. That had to be true. Oh, it was just awesome. Nice reading. You know what? Where was it? It was Kito Ecuador two weeks ago. Hotel room, windows open. And I hear that sound coming down the street. You know, the recorded music coming out of a vehicle. Wow, they got ice cream trucks here too. No. It was garbage truck. The garbage truck plays music. What's going on? Hey kids, the garbage truck's coming. Okay, got down. That's Isaac Scott. Isaac Scott. He's the guy that gave me my first guitar

lesson. He taught me those three songs that got my dad to buy me the first electric guitar. Yeah. Let's do the illustration. Anytime. Okay. You're filming this artist's rendition. The artist was Susie McDonald Stewart who is now an artist of course, still an artist. But she's also a bass player in her husband's band. His name is Ash Boat and the band is Boat Up Right. But she drew this picture at a live performance and long view just sitting at the

table. Where the name Boogie Cat come from for you? Because I've invested a cat on the cartoons. A lady by the name Abby Wearing. She drew a cat figure in a zoot suit that had my face, my chin, nose, and everything. So that's my logo. So my register logo is the Boogie Cat. Yeah, I think it will. Maybe. Was that disk made in Portland? In Vancoe. Vancoe Records in Vancoe, Washington. Everybody was going over there to make a little disk. And so are you the enormous investor that made a recording in 1969 Vancoe

Records? We're doing a collection of Northwest music doing that era. Do you have any of those disks? And I did. I had two cases of them left. Wow. He bought. Final record, man. Those things. I've sold them for much as I sell my CDs now. Sure. To that guy. Yeah. How many bought? About 70. You bought 70? How many in a case? I think 100. Yeah. And anything that was collected overseas, it wanted them to. Wow. That's a better weekend on the day. Yeah. I was surprised, man. I heard it. I was in a hurry to package those up and send them off. We do a presentation at the public schools for ethos. And I'll take in, say, a 45, a 78, an LP,

an 8 -track. And these kids look at that and they don't know what that is, man. And we'll take old record jackets, you know, with Michael Jackson the way he used to look. It's so cool, man. And see those kids go. What? Now they're telling the CDs might not be around that much now. That's what I hear. I think of that as a permanent medium. It's scary, dude. It is. Yes. I've been through the whole 45. I was 78. Yeah. My grandma had one of those crank up things. Now it's just downloadable files, store them, whatever. They're hard drive you have. Yeah, MP3. I'm most, most booking age, just one MP3s. Yeah. And they won't medium through the computer, not, not hard copy paper stuff. I was just thinking in cars, you know, you have just AM radio, the AM FM, the 8 -track. That cassette. CD CD. And now some cars are MP3.

And sync. They're sync, too. You just get in there. Is that loud right here? Yeah. Yeah. You put your iPod right in there. Or would you just hold? Yeah. Just roll down the window and listen to what's going on outside. Well, we get that a lot down this street, man. Boom, boom, boom. The window just goes. Yeah. That bass they had at the car trunk of the back of the pickup full of speakers. Around the window. Well, you have been so flexible with us. Thank you. Oh, not a problem. You've changed times on you so many times. Well, you nicely, you know, I just feel like it's honored that you guys have me do this, just because I'd rather have this done of me now than when I pass away. That's the way how we look at it. Let's try the cover artist when they're open. Yeah, and that's the whole thing. You know, I think that that's when the flowers should be given. And I just really appreciate it. I want you to know that too, OPB. And

it's just honored to be on your show. Well, thank you. Thank you. You guys are just wonderful to work with and professional. And as you can see, my life revolves around what I do. My wife is very supportive, family supportive. So it's just...