Re: Big Bones

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

- --- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
Iceman6300@xxxx wrote:
> I attended a David Barret Harmonica Masterclass
in San Jose about 7 
years 
> ago. There was a jam on the opening night.
> 
> I remember a guy who called himself "Big Bones"
playing just before 
me. He 
> was a big guy, played diatonic. Don't remember
anything special 
about his 
> playing, though.
> 
> The Iceman

And your reason for mentioning it?

I used used to hang with Big Bones quite a bit,
and play bass harmonica with his highly rhythmic
Sonny Terry-meets-Little Richard diatonic playing
and resonant, growling John Lee Hooker-like
singing. For awhile we tried having a harmonica
quartet with local player Carlos Zialcita and one
of Bones' students, but it didn't get too far.
Bones also had a duo for awhile with blind
guitarist Paul Pena, who had written one of Steve
Miller's hit songs. Pena later took up Tuvan
throat singing and became the subject of a
documentary films about him going to Mongolia to
meet the native Tuvans (this was Paul, not Big
Bones).

Bones used to play the streets of the Financial
District here in San Francisco, sometimes with an
acoustic bass player, and would pick up gigs at
private parties that way. He knew a lot of cats
like Dr. Shoe Love, the shoeshine guy, and people
with intimate connections to the history of the
old Fillmore jazz district that was wiped out by
redevelopment in the early '70s. 

Bones also had a Wednesday morning radio show on
KPOO-FM (maybe he still has it). He had a great
gift of gab and many a time we used to hang out
and just rap about anything and everything cosmic
and mundane. For no particular reason, I lost
touch with Bones sometime in the mid-1990s. I do
remember catching a momentary glimpse of him at
that Masterclass while I was rushing from one
spot to another, but I didn't see him after that.
I've often thought about looking him up but have
never gotten around to it.

Winslow



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