Hello and welcome to applause Performances.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Amanda Rabinowitz, host of the music podcast Shuffle.

I'm pleased to be alongside a local legend of the Northeast Ohio blues scene.

WALLACE Coleman Wallace recently returned to playing his harmonica after a health scare.

We're so glad he's back.

Welcome, Wallace.

Thank you.

Why don't you start by introducing us to your band today and tell us what you're going to play first.

Okay.

This is my wife, Jody.

She's playing guitar and this is John Lucic on guitar and Mike Margolin on guitar.

Welcome.

What will you play first?

We're going to play a song called Stretch My Money.

I wrote this several years ago, so we'll be like that.

Great.

I'm I'm I got to stretch my money and stretch my money.

Got to stretch my money.

Stretch my money and stretch my money because my money long of when I was a young man in my prime, I had a pocketful of money all the time.

Now that I'm old and I ain't so hot, my mama takes every cent that I got.

I got to stretch my money, stretch money got to stretch my money and stretch my money got to stretch my money because my money and long enough, you know, she got up this morning, her feet hit the floor, gave her some money, and she went to the stoop.

She got back home.

She was talking tough.

She said, Yeah, what is this?

Just ain't enough.

I got to take my money and stretch.

My money got stretched.

My money stretch money got stretched my money because my money ain't long in the when I get more legit and pay all my bills He got enough to get all of my bills.

Need some glasses cause my eyes went bad.

A woman took all the change I had got straight my money stash my money got to stretch my money stretch my money stretch my money Because my money ain't long, You know Hit me, had a goal.

My sister and I asked for a loan.

She got a real man and she hung up the phone.

I went to my friend's house to get me a drink.

He wanted to join me.

550 for a half a brain.

I got to stretch my money, stretch my money to stretch my money, stretch my money.

I got to stretch my money because my money ain't long in nerve.

Hit me God, I hope I get lucky and win me some dope.

Won't have to worry about money no more.

My wife would be happier.

The kid at the zoo.

She might let me keep a dollar to spread my money Stretch my money.

Got to stretch my money, Stretch my money got to stretch my money Because my money ain't long in no little time I'm stretch my money.

Great way to start things off.

Well, as I know, 2023 was a difficult year for you.

You had a health scare that we mentioned at the beginning of the show, so you're unable to play harmonica.

Can you talk a little bit about what happened?

Yeah, I got the shingles and it affected my my lip, the right side of my face, period, all the way to my ear.

And it became so bad I had to just cancel most of the gigs that I had that summer.

I was lucky enough to be able to go to Dollywood in October and I was still in pain down there, but I got through that.

We had to do we had to do eight gigs in two days and the gigs were thrown it like a half hour long.

So I'm beginning to feel better now.

I just I feel that all the guys that are playing with me, my band is really, really brought me along and we have just hired a new piano player who is just fantastic.

So let's try to keep going.

Yeah, So great you're able to make a recovery.

It sounded like it was a long process.

It was pretty long.

The longest thing to ever happen to me.

And I don't think I've ever experienced anything like that.

Yeah, well, so glad you're back and able to be here today and perform.

You were born and raised in East Tennessee near Knoxville, and I hear you discovered the harmonica while looking for the Lone Ranger.

Can you talk about that?

Yeah.

Well, one night I was trying to get the lonely young radio, and I accidentally got Debbie and Lacey out of Nashville.

And I heard this voice right after I heard the harmonica player say, What in the world is it because I thought it was maybe a big saxophone?

And then the guy came.

He said, This is old John or down here in Tbilisi, Nashville these days, Little Walter Jacobs, one of these harmonica I had never heard of Walter Jacobs I a boy harmonica.

I keep believe that.

So I was determined to get a harmonica in at the pawnshop.

Back in those days, the harmonica was only about a dollar and half, something like that, you know.

And so I did it in.

And then that was a book.

It was a book written by some guys out of Cincinnati, Ohio.

I can't think of the name of the book, but it taught you how to play blues.

But the blues on there was the Mama Blues.

And you see, if you learn how to play the mama blues, you can learn how to play what's in this book.

So quite naturally, I tried to play the Mama Blues.

Can you show us a little bit about Oh, I'll try to do the best I can Demonstrate Mama Blues for us.

Oh, if you want your mama, huh?

You do, Huh?

Huh.

We'll call it.

Wow.

Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.

You want to order whatever wah wah wah wah wah wah wah, wah, wah, wah.

I still couldn't do it as great.

What was it about the harmonica that just really ignited something in you?

I was born and raised.

It wasn't anything called blues.

It was just a country music.

But I had never heard the harmonica played through a microphone.

I had heard the train whistles that the the country people played the train and then they played the chickens out in the yard or something like that.

But I had never heard blues playing.

I had never heard the harmonica come over a microphone or something like that.

And it was just fascinating to me.

And I couldn't wait.

Of course, after I came here, I was able to, you know, get the Hohner microphones, the best harmonicas, and, start listening to more of the records.

You know, that the Checker, the chess records and stuff like that, to learn what the blues was all about.

Yeah.

We're going to talk more about your journey to Cleveland.

But first, let's hear another song.

What will you play for us next?

We're going to do a song called Old Fashioned Girl.

I wrote this song.

Would It Be True for My wife?

Helped me write this song.

We both wrote All Fresh and go, Want to.

I know the world is changing because it changes every day.

There's new things coming in, but old things fade away every day.

I do my best to keep up where I can.

But people, let me tell you, I'm not a complicated man.

I'm just an old fashioned guy.

Old fashioned guy.

I'm just an old fashioned guy.

Old fashioned guy.

I play these old fashioned blues.

Woo all day the day I die.

They got microphones without a cord.

They got amps that sound real clean, but they don't know lies with me because I like my blues real me.

So I grab this old green bullet and I plug it in a twin put on some old time records, and I let the fun begin because I'm an old fashioned guy.

Old fashioned guy.

I'm an old fashioned guy.

Old fashioned guy.

I'm saying these old fashioned blues, you know, till the day I die, they bring me.

Now, when I listen to the music that they play on the radio today, it all sounds just the same to me, no matter what they play.

Because I like my blues and feeling the way that they used to be.

Blue John are we playin?

We're down in Nashville, Tennessee goes, I'm an old fashioned, damn old fashioned guy.

I'm just an old fashioned guy.

Old fashioned guy.

Play these old fashioned blues.

You know, till the day I die.

I sure will Oh, yeah.

You know, the way things are going, we get only see what's new.

We forgot about the past people and all the bad times we've been through.

But I'm standing here to tell you there's going to come a day when the whole world begins to realize that these old blues here to stay.

Because I'm an old fashioned guy or fashion guy.

I'm just an old fashioned guy.

Old fashioned guy.

I'll play these old fashioned blues.

Blues till the day I die I'm home.

LAMB To I'm just an old fashioned guy.

Oh, fresh again.

I'm just an old fashioned guy.

Oh, fresh.

You got nothing but an old fashioned guy.

Old fashioned guy.

Just an old fashioned guy.

Old fashioned guy.

Play these old fashioned blues, You know, to the day I die with the.

All right, Well, as one of your blues heroes was the late, great Sonny Boy Williamson.

For those unfamiliar with him, can you talk a little bit about who he was?

sonny boy.

Number two, Rice Miller was his real name.

He used to play here in Cleveland, and he played at a place called Living's Grill.

was living on Huff Avenue.

I was a week 77 Street.

Sonny Bill lived on 86th Street, so he lived up the street from me and I used to see him every once in a while it the drugstore grocery store or the shoe store.

But he played on the Lebanese grill, which wasn't too far from where I lived.

I think he played six nights a week.

I could only go see him maybe once.

And that was the beginning of me just loving the blues.

You hear that?

Great blues guys sing and play that harmonica.

Oh, man.

You moved to Cleveland in the fifties and you worked at Huff Bakeries.

Yes.

Until you retired in the eighties.

And that actually led to your career in the blues.

How did that happen?

Well, I was one of my coworkers in in 19, I think it was 84, 1984, a couple of years before I retired.

He wanted me to start playing with guitar Slim at the Cascade Lounge, and I didn't really know who Guitar Slim was.

He introduced me to Slim.

He brought Slim out to the to the bakery.

One day and I took my lunch hour and I got a chance to sit and talk with Slim in the car.

And he said, Yeah, come on down and bring your harmonica.

He said, I have a harmonica player.

He should, but he'll let you come up and play.

So I did.

And I was in there one night playing and a gentleman walked in the door and Slim said, Come the old man.

And it was Robert Junior Lockwood.

And I didn't.

I had never seen him in Cleveland.

I didn't know he lived in Cleveland.

we took a break.

Robert talked to me and we had some long conversations about he says you are you're a change player.

He said, I don't like harmonica player.

He said, But you're a change player and I might give you a chance.

He said, You still working?

I was told.

I said, Yes, sir.

I said, I'm going to retire in 1980.

87?

And he said, When you do, let give me a call.

He said, I might as you start playing with me.

So I did retire.

I got it got up enough nerve to call him.

And when I called him, he was in New Zealand.

I said, Oh my God.

So his daughter says, he said to tell you to call Morris readers and know he will put you in the band.

And when Robert comes back, if he wants to keep you, let you know.

So he did.

I mean, I was lucky enough to.

He gave me a chance to play with.

Oh, that's incredible.

I know that.

You know, you mentioned Robert Junior didn't like the harmonica.

How did you change his mind?

Well, he told me I was a change player.

I played changes on the harmonica, and he says, You don't know what that means.

He said, No, sir, I don't.

He says, Well, I'll tell you.

He says, You're playing the changes instead of trying to play the leads and take advantage of of what you're playing.

He says, Just keep doing the changes, he said, But you'll have to learn my style because it's a little bit different from what you hear the other guitar players play and so every chance I got, I would go and hear him when he played different places in the neighborhood I lived and I was beginning to understand what he meant because it was it was it was pretty jazzy, like, you know, he wasn't just a blues guitar player.

He could play all of this stuff, you know.

So you were able to fuze with his style.

I was able to fuze within in a Cleveland fans.

He called himself Whitey retired Mark Hahn one night.

He wasn't feeling too good.

He couldn't sing.

Yes, we could.

I was saying I said, I've never tried this really?

So he said, Well, let's try one.

So I think a couple of songs.

Well, Walter and Mr. Lockwood, he liked it.

He says, you know, So he said, I'll let you sing a little bit more.

So that's when I started singing there, just from that.

That's great.

Let's hear another song.

Okay.

The next song we're going to play is called Raise a Ruckus.

It was a I think I'm not sure who wrote the song, but I knew that Leadbelly was with a gospel group when it first came out, and that's the only version I heard.

But it's called Raise Rookies Come alone.

The children come along.

Wow, The moon is shining bright while the mood is shining bright.

Get on board And down the river we go.

We're going to raise a ruckus tonight.

I was working down in the field reserve at this time when a black snake bit me on my heel.

Biggest night.

I jumped right up and tried my best, but it fell right back in a hornet's nest.

Raise your fingers.

Who will come?

A lot.

The children come.

No, no.

While the moon is shining bright, shining bright.

Get on board and down we go.

We go The rays are real good tonight We My brother was going to town.

These your destiny?

Riding rockabilly, Billy going, leading down Razor this tonight Down, locked in the belly Go jump Major missed it through My brother is trying a stone Lazarus Oh well it Come along little children come along Well, the moon is shining bright, shining it on board.

And down the river we go.

We go to raise a ruckus tonight My own aunty, she promised me raise her this to know that when she dies, she will do me Raised with us tonight.

Well, she lives alone, delayed, got born and raised Riverside.

She got out of knows you of done it told who will come along The children come along while the moon is shining bright.

Oh, the moon shown and they get on board And down the river we go We gonna raise a ruckus tonight Down in here.

Now sleep.

One night we saw the moon when John and I didn't have a life.

Raise it because tonight when it reach for chicken, let it grab the goose raised us tonight I heard somebody say the service tonight will come along.

The children go, Oh, wow.

The moon is shining bright, shining bright.

You don't bow down the river We go We go to raise a ruckus tonight Down in here and out on my knees.

Raise your hands tonight.

I thought I heard a chicken sneeze.

Lazaridis guest tonight when none Baton Rouge does is prayer.

Each week is tonight giving out hymns to the hymns upstairs.

Raise your guest who will come along.

The children come alone.

Oh, well, the moon is shining bright.

But the moon is shining bright.

Get on board.

And down the river we go.

We gonna raise a real good night.

We gonna raise a real good night We gonna raise a ruckus tonight will be wonderful.

Well, as we talked a lot about Robert Junior Lockwood, what do you think his legacy is here in northeast Ohio?

I think that he's got a good legacy here.

I'm just.

I'm sorry that Sun boy doesn't have.

But Robert is well known.

I think the thing that really amazed me more than anything is when I when I first started playing with my I had never been out of town or I never been to Chicago.

In a place like that, I we started we started to traveling around.

But the thing that really knocked me off my feet was the first time we went to Japan, how the Japanese do it.

And it just brought tears to my eyes.

I could not believe that the Japanese loved him so well, you know.

And I said, Oh my God, what am I playing with?

I mean, this is a legend.

Managed to let go and it got me stirred up.

And I said, Well, that just goes to show you that the blues is still a great music because it was nothing like it was back in the fifties.

But we started playing, we played all over Japan and then we, you know, some other places, you know, New York, Chicago, different places like that, you know, in in the Canadian Canadian cities that we played, it was just a wonderful thing.

And I stayed with it for ten years.

I was I was went for a little bit over ten years before I started Monterey.

What was your favorite place?

You mentioned you traveled all over the world.

Oh, that's easy.

The Netherlands.

Really?

Yeah.

Why is that?

There's no place like going to the Netherlands where they have a they have to me have the one of the greatest blues bands that I've ever played.

The call itself, the little, little boogie, boogie blues bands.

Any of the great players.

And they're just real good guys.

And the guy that that sponsors them.

His name is Robert Slim.

He's a great guy and I've been over there twice and I really enjoyed myself singing backup with you today is your wife.

Yes.

Jody, what makes you to such a good pair both on stage and off?

Well, she's a better songwriter than I am, and she has written a lot of her own songs.

We'll probably do another some recordings with her song, but she was on the latest CD that we did in the Netherlands.

She did a song there, but she's a guitar player and She's got a beautiful voice.

She's got it everything.

So it takes a while to describe what she has really done for my career, you know, to help me out.

And she right today, I don't think I will have ever been able to play with my health being like it is without all the help that she has given me since I've just getting all these shingles.

And so, yeah.

Jody, what makes this work so well?

I think we like each other and that helps a lot.

Besides, you know, loving each other.

And we've been together.

We're married 25 years this year and a love of music.

And I have said, I'm not a blues player, but I have just such a reverence and appreciation for true blues that that lifts me up, too.

And so I just think the creative part of it is just healthy for us, you know, in music and at home.

And we we have three kids at home and there are a lot of laughs.

And so we're we're animal lovers, too.

And I think, you know, basically that just really all those things kind of mix together and just make for, you know, make for a nice life, you know, for both of us.

It is so nice that you're able to share in this together.

It's really special.

You know, while, as you mentioned, that longevity of your career, so many of the great performers have played into their eighties.

You know, Robert Junior, Buddy Guy's 87, what keeps you playing gigs at this stage in your life and how has it changed?

Well, I got a late start.

when I retired, I was 51 years old.

And these guys, they'd been playing for years and years and years.

I think one of the most remarkable things is is a lot of Robert Jr. Lockwood's friends.

They lived into their nineties, the Pinetop Perkins, the piano player.

He was 97 and he was still playing.

Robert was 91, Honeyboy Edwards was 95.

So maybe three or four more.

We're in the nineties as Buddy Guy myself and Billy Boren, who is the oldest harp player in Chicago, is still living in.

And then there is a harmonica player in Detroit called Little Sonny.

Little Sun is 91, but Buddy Guy and I are the same age and barely born.

So we were up in our late eighties, you know, so we're still playing.

How has it changed Well, the doing the instruments and things have gotten so great now, you know, I got to beat Harps in the in the microphone.

I never like to play and do the bullets at my store.

I just switched over, started playing through the microphone that you use for us or just sing into or whatever.

And that really helped me to get my voice to go.

The hardest thing is when, like I say, the hardest thing.

If you go play harmonica, you got to sing, you got to that.

That's what makes it hard.

If you just use a lot of harmonica players, they don't do it.

We just play the harmonica and there's somebody else is saying, But I enjoy singing, you know?

So it takes a little bit more, you know, more energy to do both of them.

But I try to get it out as best as I can.

Yeah.

So great that you're still performing.

Let's hear one last song.

What are you going to play for us for this last tune one that I wrote this own.

It's on my album, Blues in the Wind.

I wrote this and it's like a little novelty tune too much time on my hands.

Because the I've got too much time on my hands.

Too much time on my hands.

I got to do something.

If I do it wrong, I got too much time on my hands.

I got to get out.

So I had see clear.

I got to get out and drink some beer.

I've been missing so much go that been added to check a touchdown to get up and get out of here.

I got to get out.

Take me a chance.

I got to get out and get some romance.

I got to get in the groove.

Eat up and move.

I got to put me some dance in my pants.

I got to get out and get with my friends, call my don't know where I've been.

I'm going to play in the band and give it all that I can.

I got to start all over again, but I got to get out and get with my friends.

Go to my friends.

Don't know where I've been.

I want to play in the band and give it all that I get.

I got to start all over again.

I got to start all over again.

I got to start all over again.

Yes I have.

I got sore again but start over again.

So start wireless and band.

Thank you all so much for being here.

Thank you for having us.

Our guest has been Cleveland blues legend and master of the Blues harp Wallace Coleman.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Amanda Rabinowitz.

Thanks so much for joining us for this edition of APPLAUSE Performances.

And be sure to check out Northeast Ohio's independent music scene with our music podcast Shuffle.