We got to hang out with and listen to Sleepy John Estes and Yank and John Lee Granderson and many others back in the 1960s in Chicago. I opened a show for John Estes back then. Of the young whites addicted to the blues then in Chicago was Mike Bloomfield and Nick the Greek Gavenites who were part of the scene then ---along with Charlie Musselwhite and Silver Sid and Jim Schwall & Corky Siegel. Paul Butterfield too.

The rediscovery of some of the older blues men was centered around Bob Koester's Delmar Records (later to become Delmark Records after the first name they picked conflicted with a Delmar label in St. Louis.) I remember a jam album that came out with Yank and John and young Mike Bloomfield that was to have a good photo of all 3 on the cover-----but when it came out, Bloomfield was gone from the picture. It seems it was uncool commercially to have a white Jewish kid on there with the legends. But Mike was a blues prodigy.

I always felt that John Estes had narcolepsy. He often seemed asleep while others were playing solo songs on stage in workshops with him. Once, at the University O Chicago, their Folklore Society booked a show with John and Yank to do half of the concert, and Rev. Gary Davis was doing the second half of the show. Well, time came for tghe show to start and Sleepy John Estes wasn't there. We all waited an extra half hour before it was decided that Yank would do a solo set---something he never ever did.

Folks, Yank Rachel struggled to do a show that evening, and it was a valiant effort that was heartily applauded by all who were there. But when Gary Davis came out, he sat down, and rather snidely we thought, said something like, "We all know that man tried to do the best he could." --- But that was Gary Davis; he said what he was thinking.

Later, when we checked up on John, sure enough, he had slept through the show. He never did get there.

But if you want to hear John Estes and Yank at the top of their abilities, listen to the reissues of their old 78 rpm records. There was no better POET OF THE BLUES than Sleepy John Estes of Tennessee.----"Diving Duck Blues" -- "Floating Bridge Blues"--so many others.

Sorry about the thread creep. You just got me to thinkin' back...

Art Thieme