April 21. 2006 6:59AM
Good timin' grooves
Tail Dragger
passes on Wolf's blues for today
JACK WALTON
Tribune Correspondent
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As a child in
"They were Christian people," Jones says by telephone from his home
in
His classmates did, though.
"I would hear a record at night, and the next morning I would know
it," Jones says. "I would go to school and sing it. I was a clown at
school."
By 1972 -- when he "made my
first few bucks" -- and in his early 30s, Jones was in
"I met the Wolf at the Flamingo Lounge on Roosevelt and Washington (in
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Howlin' Wolf then took the young man under his wing.
"He took a liking to me, and I would listen to what he would say,"
Jones says. "This is how I learned timing."
Wolf suggested Tail Dragger as a moniker and later proclaimed his student to be
his successor.
"He said, 'One day, you're going to take my place," Jones says.
"It felt good. I had learned a little bit. I was so happy."
After a subsequent apprenticeship with Hound Dog Taylor ("a really
down-to-earth guy"), Jones was soon fronting his own band. Now, he records
for the prestigious Delmark label. His latest
release, "My Head Is Bald," is available on CD and DVD.
Tail Dragger performs Saturday with Gene Halton's Off
the Wall Blues Band at the Midway Tavern in
"We just go in there and do what we feel," Jones says. "I never
rehearse."
"With these musicians, everybody is at a professional level where we hit
it right," Halton says. "We know the
repertoire."
Although the singer treats the band as peers, they know that they are, in a
sense, his students.
"Tail Dragger has such a presence, such a sense of phrasing," Halton says. "Sometimes, we'll do songs that are
one-chord grooves. It goes into this hypnotic zone. He has a sense of leaving
open spaces, not needing to fill everything in. I consider him a real
teacher."
Good timin' grooves
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