Freddie, B.B. helped Smoking Joe Kubek hone his licks
12:21 PM CDT on Thursday, July 15, 2004
Richared Michael Pruitt / DMN
I idolized B.B. King, and I remember one night at the Bronco Bowl, I got to play the original Lucille," says Dallas guitarist Smoking Joe Kubek.
Smoking Joe Kubek emerges from an East Dallas Starbucks dressed more like a Metallica roadie than a veteran bluesman: black T-shirt, baggy shorts, Converse high-tops and tattoos from shoulder to shin. But when he plops down on a patio chair and talks about his career, there's no doubting his blues credentials. This is a guy, after all, who's traded licks with Freddie King and Stevie Ray Vaughan and hung out with B.B. King.
Along the way, a bit of the magic seems to have rubbed off. Over the course of nine CDs, including the new Show Me the Money, the 47-year-old Dallas guitarist has mastered all things down and dirty and rough and tumble.
If anything, his style may be too dirty. While he's been a familiar face in blues clubs around the world for more than a decade, he's yet to crack the mainstream.
"Our music is too rocked up for the blues, and too blues-ed up for rock," he says matter-of-factly, puffing on a cigarette and drinking black coffee in the afternoon sun. "Our record company always wants us to come up with stuff that's more radio-friendly."
Show Me the Money, his second CD for the San Francisco-based Blind Pig label, made an impressive debut this week at No. 11 on the Billboard blues chart. But getting rock stations to play the record may not be easy, especially given the jazz leanings of Bnois King, Mr. Kubek's lead singer and co-guitarist. The two have been partners since 1987, when they met and jammed at Poor David's Pub.
"I pull the blues out of him, and he pulls the jazz out of me ... it's like throwing a tennis ball around an empty room – it bounces everywhere, but stays in that one room," Mr. Kubek says. "He knows so much about jazz it's amazing. I don't know where he comes up with all these chords." (Bassist Paul Jenkins and drummer Ralph Powers round out the band.)
Mr. Kubek caught the blues bug as a teenager, first listening to Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton, then following the path backward to Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. By 19, his guitar skills were so sharp he found himself jamming with Dallas blues legend Freddie King.
But in late 1976, just three days after performing with Mr. King at a Dallas nightclub, his mentor died of a heart attack at age 42.
"I was just getting ready to start a tour with him before he passed away," Mr. Kubek says. "I was in awe any time I was around him, but I also learned a lot from him about feeling and execution: He always came onto the stage hot, and laid into the guitar right off the bat, which was important: You have to entertain people from the second you start."
After Mr. King's death, Mr. Kubek got a job playing with Dallas R&B singer Al "TNT" Braggs, best known for penning "Soul of a Man" and the Kenny Rogers hit "Share Your Love With Me." Mr. Kubek also struck up a friendship with B.B. King after weaseling his way into the star's dressing room at several Dallas concerts.
"I idolized B.B., and I remember one night at the Bronco Bowl, I got to play the original Lucille," Mr. Kubek says. "I was showing B.B. how I could play his licks, and he wasn't the least bit impressed. Finally, he said 'Show me some of your stuff.' So I did a diminished, hornlike thing and he said 'Yeah! That's what I'm talking about right there!' I think he admired my enthusiasm, and he encouraged me, which meant a lot. During all the hard times, when nothing else was going on in the world for me, I always remembered how B.B. King had given me some encouragement."
But Mr. Kubek got his most important push from the late Stevie Ray Vaughan. The two became friends in the late '80s, when Mr. Vaughan had moved back to Dallas after kicking his addictions to cocaine and booze.
"He was really one of my dear friends, and such a big inspiration both musically and spiritually. Stevie was the one who helped me get sober," the guitarist says.
"You hear all these old blues songs with guys singing, 'I'd rather be sloppy drunk,' and you think, 'Wow, man! I'm gonna go out and get me a bottle of gin and be a real blues dude!' But Stevie was the one who let me know you really can play music and not be high."
E-mail tchristensen@dallasnews.com
DETAILS: Smoking Joe Kubek, featuring Bnois King, performs at 9:30 p.m. July 24 at Deep Ellum Blues, 2612 Main St., $10. 214-760-9338.