Bobby Blue Bland

This is one of those interviews that make the duff ones worth it. Bobby Blue Bland. For a R&B fan, he's the real deal. He was also a gentleman. Most people suspect that Don Robey ripped him off but Bland takes the high road.

The article was tied into his visit to the London Blues Fest.


July, 2005


He had a problem with ‘blue’ but he had no problems with the ‘blues’. Legendary R&B pioneer Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland is stuck with his middle ‘name’. “I tried to have it changed so it would be just ‘Bobby Bland” he laughs over the phone from his Memphis home. “I didn’t want to be characterized as just one particular kind of singer” he sighs. “But I can’t get rid of it so its stuck with me forever!”

Although Bland insists that he’s always sung the blues, in truth it was his prowess with a ballad that was his triumph. His gospel influenced singing style could take a song from the church pews to the bedroom seamlessly. “Well I think so,” he agrees “Because the stories that I tell are kinda tilted towards the ladies. And once you get the ladies then you don’t have to worry about the guys coming along because they re going to follow. Once you get that down then you pretty much got it made!”

Bland’s attraction to the ladies as well as a perfect match of producers, arranger and musicians made his Fifties and Sixties tenure on Duke Records his artistic triumph. And while you may not have linked Bland with the songs, these blues staples all found their way into musician’s set-lists via Bland’s riveting originals. "Farther up the Road", "Turn on Your Lovelight," "Stormy Monday Blues “and” I’ll Take Care of You" are only a few of the Bland’s classic Duke Records hits.

Bland is a generous man and when it comes to his success he spreads the credit around fairly. “I have a lot to thank Joe Scott for because of the arrangements he was doing” Bland insists “He was a teacher and he was a person who could guide you to different things that you weren’t familiar with. He was very good at selecting material for me.”

“At that time we had a lot of good lyric writers in Texas” Bland recalls “And once you get a record out and it does pretty good throughout the country then some of them said ‘I’ll do a song for Bobby Bland’. Because they like the way I sing and my delivery. So I had a pretty good choice of lyrics from good writers.”

Oddly the one person that Bland is most grateful to is one that many of Bland’s fans find to be the most suspect. Duke Records head Don Robey has had many charges leveled against him by detractors including his tendency to take songwriting credits for songs not written by him, a common though dubious practice in the early days of the music industry. But over fifty years since he first met him, Bland has nothing but gratitude for the late Don Robey. “There really wasn’t anything to think about because he gave me an opportunity to be heard on record” Bland says firmly. “He was a business man like anybody else. It just so happened that he was a black man and I think it didn’t sit too well with his own people or anybody else. But I don’t have anything bad to say about him. He did some nice things also but you don’t ever see that.”

Last year’s Martin Scorsese PBS Blues series may have put the spotlight back on the impact of blues music on America’s cultural heritage but Bland still doesn’t feel it gets its due. “Well it has had a pick-me-up” he concedes, “But it still hasn’t had the world wide promotion that it should get because a lot of people pretend that they don’t like certain things like blues. They play it behind closed doors, when they’re at home. Blues has been kind of a downer for a lot of people. Its not the kind of thing that people want to identify with because its kind of a sad sort of story. Everybody have the blues but they don’t want to admit that”.

One of the ironies of blues enduring legacy is that the music and its fanbase is often practiced and popularized by a largely white fan base. Black audiences and musicians have mostly avoided blues music. “They don’t want to relate to it” Bland admits. “I’m very, very proud of it. But they’ll get into it when they understand. It. It’s the only thing that we have.”

Its also the only thing that Bland has. Although his touring schedule has been pared down from a year round schedule to five or six months its still quite an effort for a seventy four year old man. “There’s nothing like doing things that you like and especially get paid for it” Bland says proudly. “So I’d like to stay healthy and sing until I just can’t.”