10 BUDDY JUNE 2015

SOME PEOPLE, WE JUST DON’T WANTSthem to be gone. We remember them the bestSwe can. I interviewed and wrote about BugsHenderson several times. I would never claim aclose friendship with him, but we talked privatelyfrom time to time at Moore’s Store in Ben Wheeler,where he’d sometimes play and sometimes stop byfor lunch on his way to and from his home inJefferson.

He was inducted as a Buddy Texas Tornado in 1978: Bugs Henderson

“Bugs was simply one of thegreatest and most veneratedblues guitarists of the last40 years. He always playedthe blues his way. He neverkowtowed to ‘The Blues Police,’or to anyone. He was a Texan,after all.”

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–BILL ALLEN

BUDDYTHE ORIGINAL TEXAS MUSIC MAGAZINE

JUNE 2015VOLUME XXXXII, NUMBER 12

I know — again, not well —his second wife Patty, his young-est daughter Zoey, and his firstdaughter Rose. I imagine I’ve methis granddaughter Miley, al-though I’m not sure.

It just seems wrong that he’sgone.

This is one reason I’ve beenspending time with the tributealbum, Bugs Henderson: The Kingof Clubs: 1943-2012.

The 23 faithful covers of songsBugs wrote — and a handful hedidn’t write, but often played —are blues and blues-rock snip-pets of life, love, and love lost:often bewildering — “bewil-dered” is a word that comes up inat least three of the songs — andsometimes emotionally tryingtimes.

Bugs did life his way all theway. A few years ago, he sloweddown just enough to walkthrough the literal and figurativegardens of Northeast Texas andto stop just long enough — nottoo often — to smell the roses.

The accoladesALONG THE WAY, HE PICKEDup his share of well-earned acco-lades.

Guitar One called him “Theworld’s greatest unknown guitarplayer,” commenting, “He canflat out blow most pickers away.Bugs will fry the skin off yourbutt with his monster chops andfatback tone.”

Guitar Player Magazine wrote,“Bugs Henderson should be de-clared a national treasure.”

Blues News in Germany calledhim “the prototype of the brutalTexan guitarist who takes noprisoners.”

Then, there’s Bugs’ personalfavorite, from Living Blues, “strug-gling to reach basic musical com-petence.”

He’s played with and influ-enced the likes of good friendFreddie King, B.B King, EricClapton, Ted Nugent, RoyBuchanan, James Burton, andmany others.

Bugs was near 70 years oldwhen he died of liver cancer.Some people said that’s too oldfor rock ’n’ roll, but that’s non-sense; in 2010, he was still doing150 shows a year.

He was just seasoned well

enough for the blues, which areat the heart of much of our bestmusic, and his live performancesstill blazed. Bugs and his “starva-tion box” — the red guitar —wandered for years through goodtimes and bad — mostly good —making some of the best electricblues-rock on stages across theworld.

Driving along Interstate 20 toa doctor’s appointment in Dallasin late January of 2012, Bugstalked on his cell phone aboutsome of his realities.

His realitiesAMONG HIS REALITIES ISbeing tagged with expectations,19 albums, countless shows withhis Shuffle Kings band, and sur-viving heart surgery and earlysubstance abuse. He lost his first,beloved wife, Duchess, after 30years, to cancer.

He has four older children —Shawn, Buddy, Cody, and Rose— who have sat in with him onstage from time to time; Buddy

played guitar with him for quitea few years. In 2000, Bugs mar-ried again and moved to Jeffersonfrom the Dallas area. He andPatty have a daughter, Zoey, andfamily began to come first, fol-lowed by making music and thencareer.

Not that family wasn’t alwayspart of his music, often rightthere on the stage with him.

Executive producers Bill Allenand Sherman Allen spent twoyears making the tribute album,recording disc one — The Cali-fornia Sessions” — with ChuckKavooras at SlideAway MusicStudio in Shadow Hills, Califor-nia. Disc two — “The Texas Ses-sions” was recorded in variousstudios in Texas.

Sherman Allen’s back covernotes include: Texas as a toughproving ground for blues guitar.

“The undisputed virtuoso offire-breathing Texas blues gui-tar, Bugs Henderson, held thetop spot in The Lone Star Stateacross a span of the decades,from pre-Beatles to piratedMP3s,” Allen wrote, calling the“ferocity” of his playing “stun-ning to behold.”

“Bugs was simply one of thegreatest and most venerated bluesguitarists of the last 40 years. Healways played the blues his way.He never kowtowed to ‘The BluesPolice,’ or to anyone. He was aTexan, after all,” Allen wrote.

“His blistering guitar playingwas overwhelming; it tended to

draw focus away from the doz-ens and dozens of first-rate songshe composed.”

Some of those songs are fea-tured here.

FavoritesPICKING FAVORITES IS AL-ways a questionable process be-cause people’s tastes differ somuch, but let’s start with “JudyLikes the Blues (she knows whatit’s like to love and lose),” the lastsong on the second disc (notcounting alternate takes of “DrugStores Blues: and “Hit the Bricks.”

The reason to start with thissong is that his daughter, Rose,sings it, and his granddaughter,Miley, offers a short, spoken-word intro.

Plus, off that same disc, “Lostin Austin,” sung by Marc Benno,who also wrote the song, withAnson Funderburgh on lead gui-tar. And “Anthem for the Blues”— “she finally found someone tosave her from the hell I put herthrough” — with Jim Suhler onvocals and guitar.

From disc one: “Please HaveMercy” with Teresa James onvocals and Billy Watts on guitar;“The Road,” a sly take on hazardsof the music business that weseem to love, uh huh, sung byRay Wylie Hubbard withSherman Allen on guitar; and“Cowboy,” hoping for time tolive childhood dreams, withKenny Lee Lewis on vocals andJimmy Vivino on guitars.

He did life his way, all the wayFriends pay tribute on new Bugs Henderson: The King of Clubs: 1943-2012

By Tom Geddie

ContributorsAMONG THE MANY OTHERcontributors to the CD are leadguitarists Michael Ault, Paul ReedSmith, Billy Yates, and, on vocals(and, often, lead guitars), TeddyAndreadis, Mark Campbell,Sugar Ray Rayford, VivianCampbell, Kara Grainger, Kirk“Eli” Fletcher guitar, SteveLukather, Lance Lopez, JoshSmith, Snuffy Walden, TommyKay, Buddy Whittington, JuniorClark, the Jimmy Wallace GuitarArmy, and the Stratoblasters.

On various instruments, ad-ditional familiar names sprinklethroughout the recordings in-cluding — certainly not limitedto — Bobby Chitwood, Kirby

Kelley, TimA l e x a n d e r ,Ronnie Weiss,Lynn Groom,Bob Gentry,Brady Mosher,and MiloDeering. One ofBugs’ sons,B u d d yH e n d e r s o n ,adds drums to“Love Jones.”

Bugs told methat he once“thought any-body who didn’tplay the blueswas an idiot”until he startedhearing musiche already knewand realized hehad limited my-self and that hewasn’t movingforward at all.

“I like to hearsomething I dida year ago, andthink that it’sbad — becauseI’ve learned somuch that I’veadvanced.

“People work all week, andtake a piece of that money andgive it to you, and that’s a bigdeal to me. I want people to leavegoing, ‘My god, what was that!’— to be flattened up against thewall. That’s another reason I havean excellent band; it would beeasy to be anybody and play someflashy guitar stuff and collect mymoney and go.”

He quit trying to define hismusic.

“I just play it,” he said. “Wejust call it American Music, andthat’s what it is — all of theAmerican influences: blues,country, jazz, rock, and all that.I look back on the people whoinfluenced my playing the most:the Ventures, Chet Atkins, JamesBurton, all the Kings (Freddieand Albert and B.B.), and LinkWray. You can either play or youcan’t.

“There are some blues guyswho play very economical andplay the one or two notes that fita song just perfect. But that’s notall there is to it. There are mo-ments when you feel like blaz-ing. There are moments whenyou feel like playing very little.”

Bugs considered himselflucky.

“I was married to an incred-ible woman for 30 years whounderstood the business and thekind of person I was,” he said inanother conversation.

“I was blessed to have her,and then I lost her and discov-ered another woman a couple ofyears later who seems made forme.

“And I have a great family. Idon’t deserve all this happiness.That sounds like BS, but my lifeis so blessed. I live so muchbetter than I ever thought Iwould.

“Success and happiness aremeaningless if you don’t knowyou have it. I know it. I’m wellaware of how good I have it.” ■