Bobby Blue Bland

S = Standifer
B = Bobby "Blue" Bland

S This is Mr. Bobby Bland. We don't have that much, because it'll be a little rushed. Mr. Bland, how would you prefer to be called? Bobby Blue Bland, Mr. Bland, I usually refer to people as Mr., because I was trained that way in Texas.
B Well, I think that the basic thing would be Bobby "Blue" Bland, because we tried to, cannot understand. Too much background noise of the band... but, I think throughout the years I got stuck with the blues, so, but more or less you would say Bobby Blue Bland.

S Could you tell us just briefly how did the "Blue" get in there, from the blues, or.
B Yes, actually it's from the blues. It was kind of late run, the tribute area that you could cover. The reason why that you would want me to try to describe the blue and see if I get Bland. But, throughout the years, we've been ____ so many years, at least I'm kind of labeled with it.

S Do you have any other sisters or brothers?
B No. I'm an only child.

S Only child?
B Yeah.

S Lucky you.
B Not so lucky because it's kind of a dull childhood of ___ ___. Basically, you're by yourself mostly and ___ ____ anyway, but

S But it gives you a lot of independence very early, doesn't it?
B In a sense, yes. But, it's so much fun to have other people to play with, you know, or to be around them. But I guess it has it's good points and bad.

S I look at only children sort of uniquely because I came from a family of 10, and most of the older children that I know from, even though they were very young, seemed to have an inner peace about them, an inner self-confidence.
B I guess so. Basically, you have a lot of time by yourself and you have to think about your moves, how you should ____ yourself if you have the opportunity to be around a couple that are older than me, so I guess it's kind of good. And like you say, it's kind of a gift. But there wasn't too much pain being an only child. It's just some of the times, you know.

S Well, you're obviously at home with yourself. Each time I've ever seen you over the several years that I can remember, you always look - well, the kids call it "laid back"-but I've never seen you excited. I talked to Albert earlier and he's a little bit up tight, and here you are a few minutes before your performance and you're sitting there like you're going to have a drink or something.
B Well, you know what, actually I can concentrate a lot from the shows. I just kind of lay back and see whatever is going to motivate the show, wondering how I'm going to try to do a certain type of tune, and I like to have time by myself to think, and listen to _____ and see what he's doing, you know. He's a good performer, and he has certain things that he does that kind of motivates me, you know. Some of the things that we were saying, and we have a really good relationship I can relate to, and that's the reason why, I guess, I have to have these few minutes alone, or whatever, you know, to kind of get my nerves together, really. Because I'm always nervous.

S Really? That's what I find so unique about you. I mean I interviewed more than 50 to 60 celebrities, and you're one of the few that I've seen in places that you say you're sort of at home, and it's all inside evidently.
B It's all inside, actually. I'm very tight. My muscles are vibes of your nerves or whatever. I kind of pace and kind of sit myself like a picture, you know, within an area. How I'm gonna deliver and ____ and with feeling, that you have to kind of ____ yourself to feel, you know, even though it might not get it from the audience right away. But you have to try to feel this and say a certain word a certain way, and kind of get some response behind you, you know. And it helps you to have the ideas, you see.

S Let me ask you, this is a personal question, are you a religious person?
B I always have been. Because I have ___ ____ ____ ____ and the feeling of loving. Everybody is going to be tempted _____. Some things will be in your favor or whatever, and ___ _____, maybe for the _____, you know, until I have time to think. And you might even think how this has come about but this is all in my ______.

S I don't know if you know it, but one of your staunch supporters and fans is Ray Charles.
B Well, Ray and I have been surrounded or connected for many years. I'm about the only person that he really is trying to see, and that makes me feel real good, because he is a genius, and I'm ___ ____ from him, you know, the way he phrases things. And maybe, I'll get some pointers from him and I take a little bit from him and Nat King Cole, B.B. King and make it Bobby Blue Bland. They have a different thing about themselves. too much background noise. ___ ________ _____.

S That's beautiful.
B I like the way he feels things, you know.

S He spoke to me a few months ago at Hill Auditorium before a concert and then after the concert. And he said, "Rev. Ray, I entered the tape ____ sent him with a very ____ ____. I feel like I've been to church", and he laughed. Then he came over and gave me a hug. He said when you said "Rev. Ray," I can relate to that.
B Well, you see, he kind of motivates like a preacher ---cannot understand what is being said, except ever 4 or 5 words.
_____________________.

S I know this is another bookish question, but did you start singing early as a boy? Did you get your motivation from your parents?
B Well, my mother was quite a singer. She came from the rural, you know, the countryside, and there weren't many opportunities, you know. _____ ______ _____. And to hear her hum, ____ ____. I loved being around her, period, because you know, I'm a mama's child.

S Did you call her Mama?
B Yes.

S I asked Ray, "you know, white folks are the only people who call their mamas mother.
B No, I say Mama. She has a very beautiful voice, but she had a stroke 2 years ago.

S How is she? How old is she?
B She's 72.

S 72. And is she able to - is her husband, your father ____?
B No. My father died.

S Well, who is taking care of her?
B I do.

S Oh, you live with her?
B No, I don't but she has a lot of people taking care of her. My mother is remarkable.

S That's good. Some of us younger people put our parents up there in a nursing home.
B No, well I never went out into that. I never had that kind of feeling. Because my mother is all I had. And she's insisted several times that I work in a restaurant because even when I couldn't see it, I'd really work for about 4 days a week ____. So my mother knows what I need. So I want her at home when I can go see her.

S That's incredible. I think, you know, these tapes to me are--the most valuable purpose of these tapes is for our young kids. I have 2 teen-aged sons and I ____ ____ these changed over the past few years...
B Well, you know I have a 7-year old and he's a drummer. We started getting together when he was about 21/2 years old and he's so musically inclined _____ _____ ____, but he doesn't really hold no tune, but he hears very _____, you know. And, he was just home last week and we played together ___ ____. And we had a hell of a good time.

S _____
B Yeah, well it's very easy to catch on. That's my first instrument-a drum.

S Really?
B yeah. I wanted to be a drummer and but I became a guitar player.

S Now, how did you gravitate from the drum to...
B Well, you know, actually it was too much work on the drums. I kind of liked my nails, so I messed around with instruments and I found that my best bet was to stick with the gift that I have.

S Of course you know, in your songs, what is the worst ____ and you're telling me things.
B Well, the reason I like -the experience that you've been through in this part of life that I sing about. How you're feeling, whatever, being happy to have the opportunity to be a part of the music world, you know, from such a dim point of view from where I came and my mother insisted on moving to Memphis which is only about 25 miles from where I was born.

S Oh, really.
B And she said well, my child is not going to be out here in the country.

S In the country, right? Now, people don't understand what that means "in the country". I'm from a little town _____ which is in the country. Not up town or out there in the city.
B You see, opportunities come so seldom and far in-between that you don't be at the right place at the right time.

S And I'm telling my kids that. Can you expand on that? Because I want them to hear this.
B Well, say like, being at the right place at the right time, opportunities are much greater if you're in the city than ____ _____ ____, so that ______ ____ 2,000 people _____ ____

S ___________
B And ____________ I got a chance to live close to Bill Street and that was fine. So, it's a little different now. If you have a good living and you have certain things that ____ ____ to this organization , people can make you overnight.

S I have a friend, Richard Perry, who produces _____ ____, and he makes that sound partly in the studio. When we hear you, we hear him _____.
B Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, the Pointer Sisters are one of my greatest _____. I love them.

S Well, they have special girls. Very special people.
B Yeah, special people. And only the Man Upstairs knows how they're _________ ______.

S Well, hard work. Say something about that, because my feeling is _____ ____.
B Well, I'll say that you have to be dedicated in order to get a feeling and it takes solid dedication and the feeling that comes every once in a while at this point. So, you're looking at striving to make something happen and want to be successful, takes a lot of work.

S How do you handle disappointments? When I write an article or if I do something for television that doesn't work, it takes me about 2-3 weeks to get over it.
B oth speaking at same time.
B That's a sign of a person that's really concerned about a failure. These things do happen in life. You know, ain't no two days the same and no two people the same. Disappointment is kind of hard to swallow. Everybody can accept something glorious and ______, but dealing with failure is this ____ _____.

S You have to have a lot of faith, too.
B Yes. I do. I have good surroundings starting with prayer meeting. It's a little different ______.

S ______ _____ I'm an A M E Methodist-African Methodist E________.
B Well, in the country, you know, every Thursday night there are prayer meetings and you have to be there.

S Yeah, ____________.
B You have to be there. And I want to play a big part in my surroundings and being able to cope with different situations, and you have to be equipped as education-wise, or whatever.

S Good. I think the important thing is that you had-we all had very little, and we used it My kids and their friends have everything and they want more. And I _________.
B Well they have that (sounds like "Motherlift"?) feeling.

S Ahhh. Motherlift. You don't hear this that often.
B That's the whole thing because education is very important but you have to know it after you get it, because it takes common sense to make out just a simple problem.

S I have a PhD ______ _____ but I'm a professor here at Michigan, but I know the most important decision I've made is because I made motherlift in the common sense. Not that PhD.
B Not the PhD.

S __________ ________
B Because, you see, that's the only thing that makes things work, the common person like every day that you ________ ____. You see, there are minor things ________ that you could really just pinpoint. Now the major things just take care of themselves. That's the way of life-to learning how to deal and be respected, you have to know how to deal with it.

S Respect. That's another thing to any human being. That's the whole idea---integrity. If you don't have that and you don't get that respect _______.
B You got to have love for yourself first.

S Tell me one last thing. Tell me, of the songs that you sing and you've sung a lot, which are your favorite? And why? It's a hard question, but...
B Well, it's not very hard, because that thing we were talking about-disappointment-you know, like being in love, or your first love, you're not equipped to handle disappointments, and if this is your belief _______ ______, whenever you get married, or you're connected with another human being. Well when I was coming up, you know, well that was it. You didn't do anything else. You just _________ ________ is true, but society is always coming up with ________ ________ ____
Very much instrument noise in the background that is drowning out this interview. Very frustrating.
B And really think everyone is. You know you can say some things and not really _____ ____ and feel different. Some of that feeling of coming home _______ ______, cause you're assuming because of the way you feel.

S Yeah. That's what I meant by _______ __________. _________ . I guess you have to like yourself.
B Yeah. Really.

S And you've got to deal with yourself and that's _______
B No, it's not easy. _________ _________. But you have to wait, you know. There's two sides to everything. Some of it is not in your favor and right away you can reject that because it's not in your favor. But, every person gets the same opportunity to be _______ ________.

S Well, again, I keep saying that in my opinion--this is the year I've been working a long time and I told you what I felt about it because this what I'm getting from you. But I think we're lucky to have a preacher like you that tells what it's like. But Tommy Dorsey was in Chicago. I spent about 10 hours interviewing him. He's on our board. He said the blues is the thing that's like church music.
B Because you see, ________ __ associated with the spiritual glory, you know, that you use, it gives me all the relief in the world to have this because it's so meaningful, you know, it's so powerful.

S But it's also the way you say it. That's what makes you Bobby Blue Bland and me not him is the fact that you're able to say it in such a way that I want to be there and I believe it. I've been there.
B Well I wouldn't know how to do what you're doing. You understand what I'm saying? Because everybody does ____ ___ ____. But, like I say, everyone doesn't really jell the first time is because how I get from you or you get it from me, but give it some time. It's like lyrics. A lot of things that come to me that I don't get right away. If you can wait to go to sleep and wake up if it's on your mind, if it's really the truth.

S The ___ ___ Road, up on the ____ Road, did that have any special significance for you?
B In a sense it was just a lyric. It caught me right away, you know, because I was waiting to sign (sing) maybe I been hurt and the same thing could happen to you. Now that's being kind of selfish, but that's the way I feel. So, that's what I sing about and the feeling comes whenever those words _____ _____.

S And it's like black silk coming out of your mouth when you have something to sing...
B I have a lot of people to thank or to choose and they kind of relate ____ _____. ___ ___ diction, you know, when you don't have perfect diction, which is a problem for me, but I learned a lot from him. Nat King Cole, Billy Eckstein and Arthur _____ -- people like that and B.B. King showed me the whole thing about blues-about delivery, getting the feel, because I want to get the spiritual feel.

S Well, listen, this has been obviously an experience to me. I think it's maybe not a professional _____ we have done today, but because it was partly personal. I've been wanting to meet you for a long time.
B Well, I would say professional if you feel that way.

S Well, I think, it might be one of the better interviews I've done, because I think I've asked you things that _____
B Why don't you put it as one of the best. We'll just put it like that because you have a lot of people that are very beautiful to talk to.

S Well, this has been a fine interview; a pleasure for me talking to Mr. Bobby Bland, Bobby Blue Bland.
B And you didn't even tell me your name.

S And my name is Jim Standifer.

END OF INTERVIEW
Interview: Bobby "Blue" Bland p. 1