[Harp-L] Memories of Sammy....



When I first came to the Dallas blues scene I was amazed to find that Sam Myers was alive and well and could be found sitting in at jams and club dates whenever he wasn't on the road with Anson Funderburgh and his band.  

Over many years to follow I enjoyed the playing, singing, and antics of Sam at countless gigs and jams.  One of my greatest honors--and scariest moments--came when I got to play behind him at the now defunct Schooner's, and it was always intimidating, as a member of a house band there for a year, to look out into the audience and see Sammy sitting at the bar, usually back to the stage.  If he turned around you knew something had caught his ear, and you had just gotten a very big compliment.  

Later I got to see other sides of the man. At one of the earliest HOOT meetings he came and sat to talk chromatic harmonica with some of the "old guys"--members who could play circles around him on that instrument but who gave him the proper respect and courtesy as he did to them.  Years later I found myself at the corner of a long wooden bar, letting Sammy teach me about Merle Travis, Bob Wills, and all of the other early C&W/Swing bands and musicians he loved so much and knew so much about.  I was amazed to find him so open to me on this subject.  And I have to admit I was deeply honored when he had a few kind words about my writing he had read in Blues Review and Blues Access Magazines.  

Over the years I bought his dinner at a local eatery a few times, chatted with him just a bit, and had the pleasure of booking him at the Dallas SPAH convention where he wowed the crowd with a shiny red sharkskin suit, his vocals, and the big WHOMP of his playing through his two beloved Bassman amps.  He was clearly on fire that night.

Sam had three angels here over the last few years.  Brian "Hashbrown" Calway, a guy whose friendship over the years has always been forged by the harmonica, was Sam's "lost son", and clearly loved Sammy dearly as a mentor, father, brother.  Anson had taken on Sam's care and medical needs when Sam was at his most unhealthy, getting his diabetes under control and then, later, making sure Sam got the best treatment available for his throat cancer.  It seems like just a few weeks ago when I ran into Anson at Sam's doctor's office, and we talked about the possibility of a good prognosis, which would come later. 

Joe Jonas, who is a major harmonica player here in Dallas in his own right, was Sam's driver and ever-present friend, a man who literally took Sam around town and provided his mobility.  Joe is man of few words, but, like Hash and Anson was always at the ready to be at Sam's side.  Theirs too was clearly a friendship of brotherhood.

These three men need to be recognized for their love for Sam and their tireless efforts to help him regain his health of late, as well as their endless friendship and help to him over the last twenty years.  I'm sure there are others who helped as much.  There were certainly many of us who cared and said a prayer for him from time to time.

Sam could be a cantankerous and irrascible man and many only saw that side of him.  I feel lucky to have seen the warm and generous side of him, and that's what I'll always remember.  He may have been the last harmonica player whose playing was rooted in both the Delta of his youth and the urban sound of Chicago, the last of the "links" between these two great blues traditions.  He was certainly comfortable playing in both, and forged a unique musical style on the instrument besides being a powerful singer.  He will be greatly missed, especially here in Dallas, his adopted home.  TOM ELLIS/Tom's Mics



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