The gig being referred to at Mother Blues must have happened at a point before I came to Chicago. The one Art is referring to occurred next door to Mother Blues, at the Quiet Knight. Rev. Davis was by himself, and he stayed at my house for a week. It was 1967. I remember it the same way Art does.

Gary did indeed drink too much. He had a routine where he would speak into his glass of whiskey as though it were a telephone, finish the conversation, say goodbye and knock it back.

But Ronnie Gilbert wasn't there, it wasn't over Thanksgiving, and Mother Davis wasn't there to manage the Rev.

As for Merlin banjos, I thought they were awful. If you could design everything on a banjo to be ugly and inconvenient, that was it. I remember John Carbo, though. Somebody told me he had passed away. Is that true?

Andy Cohen