"Blind-Dog" Gatewood

Evansville Courier & Press-Rebecca Coudret
Flip-floppin-fly
Musician helps others “get” the blues
By Rebecca Coudret (2002)
Well when I get the blues I’m gonna get me a rockin’ chair;
Aw, when I get the blues I’m gonna get me a rockin’ chair;
I’m gonna take that chair and rock right away from here.”

“Blind-Dog” Gatewood sings the blues.

Old traditional blues.

With his right foot on a pedal that shakes a tambourine, a harmonica strapped around his neck and a chrome-plated brass acoustic, resophonic Dobro in his hands, he closes his eyes and sings music that’s in his soul.

Gatewood sings “old, traditional, street-corner style blues, with nothing plugged in”- and is proud of it. A wile back, he played Downtown outside The Jungle for a couple of months, and the reaction was varied.” I don’t understand people who think playing street corner blues is degrading. I love it.

“Some people crossed the street to get away from me,” he says, shaking his head, but smiling. “ Some would stop and watch, listen. Some would drop a dollar or two in my case. But the money wasn’t why I did it. “ Artists and musicians should be down there. I say the Walkway as a place people could live, painters could paint, singers could sing, people could get a hot dog and enjoy the atmosphere. It just didn’t happen.”

“Gemmie one last kiss and hold it a long time;
“Gemmie one last kiss, baby, and hold it a long, long time;
“Let me taste that kiss till I feel it in my head like wine.”

Born with the un-bluesy name of Michael Allen Gatewood in Detroit nearly 48 years ago, “Blind-Dog” has a voice that’s gritty and gravely but can be smooth as ivory piano keys.

Gatewood won the KBS Unsigned Blues Talent Competition in Louisville, KY., Aug 18th. He’s the first solo act to win; nine previous winners were bands. The victory will allow him to enter the Blues Foundation’s International “Blues First” competition in Memphis, Tenn., in February. But before then, hell try to add a few more regional wins to his resume.

“I don’t play much around here - not much call for it,” he says, more matter-of-factly than with disappointment; he’s used to it. “I’m kind of a recluse. But now that I’ve won, I hope to be on the road a lot more.” He’ll be in the Crossroads Blues Challenge at the Slippery Noodle in Indianapolis Sept 8 and the Telluride, Colo., Blues Challenge Sept. 13.

“Like a Mississippi bullfrog, I’m sittin on a hollow stump.
“Like a Mississippi bullfrog, I’m sittin on a hollow stump.
“ I’ve got so many women, lord, I don’t know witch way to jump.”

“There’s a major, massive interest in the blues in other parts of the country. When I lived in California, I played seven nights a week. But the bars here that have music go with whoever can draw the biggest amount of people. There’s always a fight over the hottest kid band in town.”

Gatewood stays here because his family’s close by, his wife Eleanor, is from the area and, frankly, the music hasn’t taken him anywhere else. Yet.

“I’d love to have a regular gig here, but so far it hasn’t happened. So I go where people want to hear what I’m doing. I’ve had visitors (to the city) say, ‘Why aren’t you in Texas or somewhere else, where they’ll appreciate your music?’ The blues just aren’t respected here. But this is home”

For now, he’s a bartender at J.J’s in Newburgh, has a few music students - and a few gigs hear and there.

Several years ago, someone in Owensboro, Ky., where he used to live, gave him the name “Blind-Dog.”
“There have been a lot of ‘Blinds’ in the blues; ‘Blind-Dog’ Taylor out of Texas, ‘Blind-Lemon’ Jefferson in the ‘20s; he did country-rockabilly blues. I liked the name and kept it.”

While Gatewood writes a lot of music, he doesn’t do original works exclusively. “There’s some great blues out there. I have to do some of it.”

He plays an array of instruments; Dobro, six-string banjo, acoustic guitar, harmonica, tambourine, “Backpacker” guitar (streamlined to pack up and take anywhere), keyboards, electric guitar - even a homemade instrument he calls the diddlestick. “It’s based on the instruments ( early blues and bluegrass musicians) used to make on the back porch. Some call it a ‘diddley bow’ - it’s how Bo Diddley got his name. It’s just an old folk instrument that intrigued me, so I made my own. It’s a cat- food can on a stick. It really resonates.”

He makes digital recordings as he plays all those instruments, and if the gig calls for it, he’ll play “back up music’ as he sings and plays guitar. “But when I do that, people think it’s Karaoke. It’s not,” he says, shaking his head. “I m playing all the instruments, but it’s nice to sometimes have backup tracks.”

To explain, he turned on the computer-recorder on the microphone stand and began singing Louis Armstrong’s “Wonderful World.” So much Satchmo in his voice. Eyes closed. Music filling the small studio room.

The closed eyes aren’t intentional. It just happens. “I get lost in the music,” he admits. “Blues is a mingling of black music, white music, bluegrass - it’s pure Americana, and it’s in me. A lot of people don’t get the blues.

“it’s like I’m channeling the spirits of great blues artists of the past. It’s kind of a joke that my eyes are closed so much of the time. It makes people think I’m blind. But lets me see what’s inside me.”

“Honey, don’ tcha ever leave me; don’tcha ever , ever say good bye.”

(“Flip Flop and Fly”: C. Calhoun, W. Turner)
Rebecca Coudret - Evansville Courier & Press (Sep 5, 2005)
- Evansville Courier & Press-Rebecca Coudret