next on rocks a conversation with and a concert by little Jimmy Reed, last of the original Louisiana bluesman.

These stories right now on, rocks.

West Baton Rouge Museum is proud to provide local support for this program on LPB, offering diverse exhibitions throughout the year and programs that showcase art, history, music, and more.

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Hello.

Thank you for joining us for Art rocks with me, James Fox Smith from Country Roads magazine.

This one just might get you up on your feet because Downhome Louisiana bluesman Little Jimmy Reed is here to sing and play today at age 85.

Little Jimmy remains an international blues star, playing multiple dates in European cities and traveling to festivals around the United States.

But with the 2023 release of his album Back to Baton Rouge, he's finally becoming better known right here at home.

As a matter of fact, many people from West Feliciana Parish know Little Jimmy because he grew up in Hard Wood, right alongside my hometown of Saint Francis Ville.

Recently, I got a chance to talk with Little Jimmy when he made a visit back to his old stomping ground.

Little Jimmy, welcome back to West Feliciana Parish.

You were born and raised just a few miles up the road from where we are right here.

Hard would lose out in hard wood, Louisiana.

Tell us about this.

What was hard wood like when you were growing up?

Ever rough?

It was rough or.

Yeah.

Nobody had known how and sad the floor was spread apart.

I remember looking down through the cracks.

If I see a nickel, I chew gum half a day, put on the stray and ease it down out there and pick it back up.

No, man.

Have a back there.

Yeah.

How many folks in your household?

Four brothers and one.

Okay.

Myanmar.

You could front door and open the back door and see all the way through from the ground.

No way.

Right.

That's what made you call it a shotgun house.

Few of those still around.

Even that now, she wasn't.

So what kind of music we hear when you were growing up?

Never blues.

Mother was the one I told my mother before I was born.

Johnny Hooker.

You're making your living, baby.

Daddy, don't you come now, Popo.

Well, I'm a king, baby.

Buzzing around your mind.

And I fell in love with Jean Marie.

Or the rest of them.

With two new friends.

Come up.

To.

Take bath and.

Get you and me when I go.

You were born Leon Atkins.

How'd you get the name Little Jimmy Reed?

Jimmy.

Rick and the Baton Rouge.

And I'm 16 years old.

He told me he got drunk.

People.

They had to pay the money to see it.

And he told me he got drunk.

So the man gave me $100.

The Playboy consumer was drunk.

He gave you $100 to play.

He gave me a no, cause I imitated Jimmy Reed.

and they eat him out the back, though, and they bought me in the front door.

And I played with his band and the people that they know, the different was that up here in Hollywood was out of the bedroom.

It was in Baton Rouge.

Yeah.

I didn't know who the band member was.

I got them on my mind, baby.

Hope that love on your mind too.

I got nothing on my mind, baby.

I'll get love on your mind too.

If you don't do it right.

Baby.

Ain't no you.

I believe that I should go with the band.

Want me to go with them?

But my daddy won't let me go.

How are we when that happens?

I'll 60 yellow.

So is that how they started calling you Little Jimmy?

Right?

And that's how I got my name, Little Jimmy.

Wow.

Yeah.

You been playing little Jimmy Reed songs ever since.

You ever see?

As hard out here all night.

People playing it, or was it coming over like a record player due to all born and raised in front of a juke joint?

At the juke joint.

Now you have big bands that come to Muddy Water and all those guys come that want love to learn.

Go on a club, but I sit on the porch and have a Davis daddy name little aunt as they call it.

He made me a guitar out of cigar box.

Okay, with three straight on it.

And how old were you when that happened?

Oh, rather, I was about seven.

Eight.

And that's how you do sound.

And when the bands come out play, how did he know that he needed to make you a guitar?

I don't know, he just made it.

Do you know why your daddy thought he would enjoy a guitar?

Where at the time?

Oh, we were nothing but music.

We had everything down in.

There were a lot band pitches, show.

We had a barbershop.

We had a cafe.

We had three cafe.

They we had a clue of take the warrant out with the juke joint.

And so that's why we read about, you know, the Holy Hall with quarter and the big saw me.

Oh, God.

Did you ever write a father worked at the sawmill, and then you stayed in neighborhood.

And that's how we all got together.

Play ball.

And my dad, he always got a lot of the key is together.

We all played together later.

All my daddy got some money.

I think it was income tax money.

He asked everybody in the house what you want?

My brothers get ball bet by six.

When he got to me, I don't know what made me say guitar.

He bought me a little guitar with no amplifier, no amplifier, no amplifier, brand new guitar.

So he had a barber.

Street had an amplifier and no guitar.

Sounds like a match made in heaven.

Mama used to go to get together.

Yeah, and that's how I play now.

The guitar was not your first instrument, though, right?

Did you not know the hallmark of first?

Okay, so tell me about the harmonica, because I still.

You still play harmonica?

The first harmonica I had.

My mama paid a dime for it, and I used to blow hard.

Margaret, I go to church, the choir be singing, and I get my hammock out, and they put that thing in your shop.

Put up my bag.

Well, they didn't like that music in the church where they are.

They left me blowing in the church.

I, I probably would keep it tight.

And where I learned how to play guitar, I put the harmonica down.

On my.

Candle around my house, I.

Only come out when I'm not at home.

I found.

I got a right loose in my house.

The only come out when I don't.

Then I found out they had a wreck a whole lot.

Okay, so I bought me a wreck and put them two together.

And I've been gone ever since.

You've been playing ever since with the.

With both guitar and hammer.

Yeah, right.

Big blues players who were playing back then, they were coming through.

You was seeing them come through Saint Francisville, come through hard wood and play.

He used to come to Hollywood to play.

Who'd you see?

Well, I didn't see nobody come out little.

My dad would leave me go over there.

But I knew who was coming.

Who's that?

Like Wall and John Lee hooker?

Some horrible big names you got to like.

There was going to be.

You had big band.

Yeah, that was there on the porch.

I couldn't see, I couldn't call it, couldn't go in that house way.

The first time you, you stepped into that club.

I was about 15 or 16 years though.

I'm from a little band together.

Boy, that hardwood.

And we had the band.

We play nickel every day.

They practice in the club.

They're going to sit down and practice every day in a closed day for the last year, with a big band going on, people come on out to how they get to come to the club where he played for me, and that's how he kept going.

He kept going and I got a little.

Did you ever really like, did you ever read music?

Oh, go ahead, I'm going along with me.

No, I heard my.

Mom, I.

Up.

Those early concerts when you were first playing in Hollywood.

Some of those concerts got pretty wild, right?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, the old town got wild.

Where were you playing?

What was the names of the clubs back then?

Club 61.

Club 61, the Honor club.

They had it all okay.

And it was like you got a big crowd in there.

Yeah, I had a crowd in them that can't get in a club on outside days.

Tell us a little bit about what it was like in that club when it was really, really rough.

Oh yeah.

With sweated hot.

Yeah.

They had a club in Jackson, Louisiana.

I used to pick that place.

Okay.

I just do what I do.

Yeah.

So now you're playing all over the world.

You play the UK, Holland, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Spain, Russia.

Seems like the whole world loves Louisiana.

Downhome blues is so good.

Why do you think this music connects with people everywhere?

Because every day.

Like, if you listen to the blues song, you live it every day.

No matter how big you got.

You always said that you were from hardwood.

Oh, yeah.

Not Saint Francisville, not West.

Yeah, hardwood.

Hardwood, right.

Why is that work as well?

Born and raised.

Never, ever done it.

That was home hard.

So what were the big blues clubs back then in Baton Rouge?

In Baton Rouge?

Yeah.

Oh, Lord.

The carousel.

That's all I can remember in Baton Rouge.

Where was the carousel?

Carousel?

Across the Mississippi River bridge.

Oh.

Is in Port Allen and pulled out.

Yeah, there were a lot of clubs out about, I don't know, never the carousel.

I heard the reason that there were a lot of clubs over there is that East Baton Rouge Parish was dry on Sundays, I don't know.

And so people would cross the bridge to dance and listen to music and drink on Sundays.

So there were a lot of clubs and they did.

Yeah.

But I don't know about whether the dry.

So how did you get out of Louisiana?

When did you leave and what took you out of Louisiana?

I could hey, I run a barber shop, okay?

I could have 57 year.

I always had a big fan.

I said, I want to retire.

So in 1972, I joined the Army.

And where did that take you around the war?

Germany.

Alaska.

Colorado.

And I retired in Alabama.

There you go.

That's how we had planned music all the way, everywhere I went.

Did you formerly a band.

You formed bands when you went?

Yeah.

Okay.

You had a band in Germany?

Yeah.

Who'd you play with?

Was, Was it like, I don't know, I just get me a bass player and drummer, go to town.

Okay.

I heard you had a band in Korea.

I had a band in Korea.

Got two Korean guys.

Sure.

What I wanted to do.

And we just played all around Korea.

No way.

I played in Alaska.

I stayed in Alaska 11 years.

We did the same thing.

Did the Koreans like, were they were they fans and they could play?

Yeah, they could play.

So how when you were playing with the musicians in Korea, we were all communicating in English.

Yeah.

Oh, they speak English.

They speak English.

Yeah.

I wanted to communicating through the music.

And I used to go to a coffee shop every day, drink coffee and I'm gay.

I'll be like, look at me laugh.

And I said, what?

What it says so I don't have to speak Korean.

Did you?

Yeah, I yeah.

So I had to learn.

You learn what you got to learn.

I guess you learn what you got to learn.

Yeah.

When you first started playing, when you were, you know, teenager 15, 16, you first started playing.

How did people react?

We're not pretty.

Stop playing.

Well, then I took a blues ju when I first started playing.

Yeah, that's all.

We listened to Brown hard wood.

Yeah well the blue is it.

Yeah.

But out of the made the goal was see out people though they love it.

They know the blues.

We got the other blues players left the state and staying overseas.

Yeah.

it seems like sometimes that the biggest, strongest audiences for like old style blues aren't necessarily in the South, aren't necessarily in the US, they're in the UK, they're in Germany, they're in France, they're in Asia.

You find that there's a different sort of enthusiasm and interest when you're over there than there is when you play.

And what I think made me such a big hit overseas, it because I play a lot of blues, both over day and I'm the one playing the blues.

Everybody played it hard rock as it rock and stuff like that.

That ain't no blues.

But I call it Blues Festival.

Then I come along playing the blues.

Therefore they weren't here.

And people love it.

Do they love it?

What little Jimmy, tell us, what are some of your most requested songs?

Most of the songs on this I do down in Virginia, right?

Like Big City, Big Boss Man, Big Boss Man.

A lot of folks know that one.

Can you give us a little taste of that?

Give us a few bars.

Big boss man, can't you hear me?

Where I call?

Big balls.

My.

Can't you hear me when I come in?

Where you are.

He's so big and you just told us all.

Well, you got me way your boss man wake.

And I'm the clown I on and drank a while.

But you won't let your Mr. Big Boss play.

You can't you hear me?

When I come in where your eyes open.

You just told that sound.

In.

Your.

In.

On.

Man, that is unbelievable.

The.

You make it look so easy.

It.

Yeah.

It's easy for you.

It's not easy for anyone else.

How many times you think you might have played that song?

Ooh, ROG.

Album?

Thousands.

Yes, indeed.

About 200 CDs.

overseas.

One time at a festival and 30 miles out through labor Warner.

That is fantastic.

And Friday the line run out.

I had the most CD.

So 200.

They learn the blue when they listen to your music, do you feel like they are hearing a little bit of Louisiana?

But I don't know what it that but a lot of them come from overseas to New Orleans, Louisiana.

They do.

But I played in, New Orleans last year for the first time and wasn't what I thought I would consider was a New Orleans jazz, a lot of jazz.

And yeah.

You ever played jazz festival play last year?

They called them Jazz and Blue, just so I'm playing one, the Baton Rouge Blues Festival this year.

I played in Chicago Blues Festival this year.

Never been in Chicago, not now.

Chicago's a different style of blues, though, right?

That's more.

That's more rock and roll.

That's right.

Yeah, but people want they want to hear the blue.

They want to hear where it came.

They to play it.

Yeah.

Lower bill me and him playing the blues John Prima take like my friend buddy guy but a guy from Baton Rouge.

That's right.

He played in the blues.

Yeah.

But the blues is what taught them what they know and what got them to where they are.

Right?

That you bought a guy coming out.

Kingfish.

Kingfish.

When the mamas live it.

I met him overseas.

He from Mississippi.

Okay.

He was playing the blues when the mama lived.

His mama died.

Somebody took old tune.

He don't play the blues normal.

He tried to play like.

But he got all that screaming guitar all in a necessary.

I don't even try to play it.

Yeah, because it makes me sick to hear, you know.

So you've been playing the blues now for almost 70 years?

over 70.

Over 70 years?

Yeah.

What do you love about it?

What keeps you coming back to it?

Keeps you picking that guitar.

I pick the guitar every day.

I got 12 nursing home.

I'll play it.

Okay.

In Alabama, all up in Alabama and, Florida.

but most of them is in Florida and Alabama.

12. a lot of people don't get to room till I call and dimness can't walk in the bed.

They roll the whole bed out there and I wish you see them.

They'd be so happy, so happy.

That's right.

They've been wanting to hear the blue.

And that's all I play phone.

Yeah.

And every day I'm just about playing.

I can't have two jobs to come here.

Then that is our privilege.

Now, you chose to come to Saint Francis, Phil?

For that?

I just go to nursing home right now.

What is it you like about playing nursing homes, particularly the street that people move, get out.

And they had a man that he wanted to dance so bad, he two nurses got on the side, picked him up and let him just sit there and dance.

Over two months, he danced by itself.

This time I went back there.

The man told me it was me going home.

that's right.

Music is good for the soul.

Mood music is good for this body going.

Yeah.

You think it's the music?

It keeps you young?

I think so is the music I give you?

Yeah.

Give us some love.

Give us another little taste of it, Some.

I never heard you like your.

Little nephew and.

I don't want you to wait while you want to.

You make it look easy, but we know it is not healthy.

Do you like taking care of a baby?

What's it like to be right back here in West Feliciana, just a few miles from where you grew up?

It feel good?

The only thing I hate, that the black people ain't going to be able to come home because the ticket is $30 a month.

A may pay $30 to see me.

You understand?

I do understand that.

So a lot of make.

Probably none of them I know coming.

you know, I know my granddaughter.

She come up with the people at the in hard work.

Yeah.

So that's a little high.

I'm thinking about coming back to Harwood and planning.

They park.

They got a park down.

They do the rest.

But I'm thinking about doing that would be a you get a lot of money to dump people that hard.

that is, you see, I'm saying people are coming here.

I don't know.

See, most of these people is coming tonight.

It's white people.

That's true.

Most of them.

And I don't know the ones that I know.

I don't know whether they're still living or not.

You see what they.

Yeah, I made it sick.

It was a big community too.

There are a lot of people living in Hollywood at the time.

Yeah, a lot of people live in Hollywood.

Yeah, but were there ever any white people came into club 61 while you were playing?

No, I know, no, no, it really was just there was no mixing and.

No what?

No what?

No.

Mix it back.

It it it was hell back there.

Back in the 50.

So there's one more song of yours that I'd love to hear you play.

A little bit of place, a little bit of.

You got me runnin.

Got me recording.

Yeah, right.

Got me running from you.

Got me hiding.

You got me right in the way.

You're more on the road, love.

Oh, come on up, come down.

Be the week before they.

Do.

Come me.

Do you want to make me want.

You want I'm gonna do what you want me the baby I won't let go I.

Right.

All right.

How do you feel at your age when women are still jumping up dancing to your music?

How does that make you feel?

It make me feel good.

But more of them is old women.

it make me feel good.

Don't let no woman.

no, There you.

Yeah.

Well, people have been dancing to your music for a long, long time.

Actually, let me ask you this.

Do you ever like the young people coming to your shows tour?

Is the crowd kind of older or the young blues fans?

You see it.

That's what we see.

The lot of young people.

Yeah.

But see, now, back in the state, the, the young people, they more to rap stuff like that.

I got, I got 36 grandchildren and 23 of them is boys.

And nobody won't learn how to play guitar.

Not a one of them playing one of them.

They want to rap all that.

And I got one grandson doing good rapper.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

And I don't understand what he's saying.

Yeah.

All right, little Jimmy, you have eight children, you have 37 grandchildren.

You have 24 great grandchildren, 14 great great grandchildren and seven great great great grandchildren.

Yeah.

How many times you've been married?

well, I'm a second wife.

Okay.

My first wife is old and new Rose, but many of them married eight years.

Is she the mother of the seven children, or is your mother, three girls and one boy.

Okay.

And the wife, I got nine.

We we're married about a seven year.

And she the mother of four girls, but she had two girls when I met her, I got you.

Yeah, but I claim them.

That's why I say she come here.

You play.

Oh your wife.

No.

She never heard me play.

She never heard you play the wife I got.

No I never heard me play.

Would she be jealous if she saw those, ladies jumping up and down?

No, no, she.

You know, she helped me get ready.

Okay.

See, my wife, I got nothing.

Holler religious.

Yeah.

You know, there.

Yeah.

They had a religion.

You know where to go?

No club.

So this year you got more gigs overseas coming up.

Where are you headed in in 2024?

I don't work.

Contract.

The first, contract I get, paying more money.

I go, you're on the plane and you go, that's right.

I'm playing with Bob Hall and his wife in October.

Okay.

Yeah.

You play with them a lot, right?

Oh, yeah, I play with them for the last 15 years.

And Bob plays piano, so I play piano.

I play bass, okay?

And everywhere we go, we house a drummer.

There you go.

And they pay.

Good.

What I like about oversea, you don't play long as you play here.

Really?

Here?

No, I oversee you play.

One hour.

You finished?

Yeah.

Setting music's the best medicine, right?

So.

And.

Five neat meals.

They done.

All the time.

All.

All right.

You're right.

I.

And that is that for this edition of Art rocks.

But never mind, because more episodes of the show are always available at LPB.

Dot org smart rocks.

And if you love stories like these, consider Country Roads.

The magazine makes a vital guide for learning what's taking shape in Louisiana's cultural life all across the state.

Until next week, I've been James Fox Smith and thank you for watching.

West Baton Rouge Museum is proud to provide local support for this program on LPB, offering diverse exhibitions throughout the year and programs that showcase art, history, music, and more.

West Baton Rouge Museum culture cultivated Art rocks is made possible by the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting and by viewers like you.

Here.

On.