As popular music goes in 2013, there aren’t likely to be two styles more polar-opposite than country and blues. However, as each musical form was developing in the southern U.S. a century ago, the differences were almost imperceptible. With his 2010 disc, I Hear the Wind in the Wires, Vancouver’s Jim Byrnes brilliantly connected the dots between the two.
Byrnes is a multitalented performer with a long history of work on both the musical and theatrical stages. Originally from St. Louis, Mo., Byrnes grew up steeped in gospel and R&B. His birthplace has always had a tight connection to the blues: none other than Chuck Berry, Ike Turner, Lonnie Johnson, Robert Nighthawk and Albert King, among others, hailed from St. Louis, on the western bank of the Mississippi River. But it was summers in Kentucky as a kid that gave Byrnes the love of country music and the awareness of how closely country and blues were related.
AUDIOListen to this uncut interview as Jim Byrnes talks with Saturday Night Blues host Holger Petersen about the historical lineage that links country and blues. Wait for the fun story about Tom Waits, at the end of the conversation.
In conversation with Holger Petersen of CBC’s Saturday Night Blues, airing this Saturday, Byrnes vividly recalls his experiences with the music that shaped the performer he would become. It is not just Byrnes who held country and blues close to his heart — he tells a wonderful story of a night in Vancouver when two legends sat down to chat, backstage at the Commodore Ballroom.
“This would have been November of ’82, because Muddy died in April of ’83. I was on the show; it was Robert Cray and Muddy Waters,” Byrnes recalls as clear as if it was last week. “We were at the Commodore, and next door at the Orpheum was Charlie Pride. Muddy would sit in the corner with champagne, holding court. I brought Charlie Pride in and he was gobsmacked. And Muddy Waters said, ‘Oh, Charlie Pride, I love that song about going to San Antonio!’ They were so familiar with one another and so friendly with one another, and they talked about baseball.”
Byrnes’s affinity for the music, and his personal association with so many of the legendary performers, defines his living connection to the history of two of the great American cultural exports, blues and country music.
"Honky Tonk Blues" featuring Jim Byrnes and Steve Dawson.
On Saturday Night Blues this week, listen to excerpts from the conversation between Byrnes and Petersen, along with some of the great music from Byrnes’s disc, I Hear the Wind in the Wires.