Continued

(Tangled up in the blues
By LAURA HENSLEY
Eagle Staff Writer)

As for Terry, he picked up the harmonica more than 23 years ago while growing up in rural Ohio. When most of his friends were plunking away in garage bands on guitars, basses and drums, his father handed him a harmonica and he was hooked. "My best friends taught me enough about music that I could play in bands with them," Terry said. "When I first started I didn‚t even know you needed more than one key of harmonica. I had a little extra motivation. If I learned to play I could get in a band pretty easy. So I practiced a lot."

Terry began listening to music in a different way, picking out harmonica riffs from songs while listening to Led Zeppelin, Little Feat, the Rolling Stones, Neil Young and Bob Dylan.

"If I heard anything with a harmonica on it, I tried to play it," Terry wrote in a recent bio. "I would buy Charlie McCoy, Stevie Wonder, and Sonny Terry and make cassette tapes with all these different genres and styles and stay up all night practicing."

In six months, Terry had almost mastered the harmonica.

"I didn't see myself having a knack for guitar or bass," Terry said. "I don‚t think I had a natural ability for that. I picked up harmonica and I could really play it."

From his natural interest in harmonica Terry eventually gravitated towards blues.

"I became a student of that music," he said. "I started reading Living Blues magazines, going to record stores, buying blues albums. I made up my mind I wanted to go to the big city and play blues with the old black guys. That was my dream."

Terry thought about moving to Chicago in the early 1980s but the national recession had hit the city hard, and he steered clear of it. In need of a job, Terry looked to a friend in Houston for help.

"He got me a job down here," Terry said. "When I got here I couldn‚t believe all the music. There was a boom in blues music in Texas. Stevie Ray was just breaking out and The Fabulous Thunderbirds. I had never seen so much blues in my life. You could see it seven nights a week here. It was like my spirit took me here."

It didn't take long for Terry to begin performing in Texas, first in 1983 with the band T.C. and the Cannonballs. One year later he became a sideman in Jerry Lightfoot's Essential Blues Band ÷one of the only other respected white blues musicians in the Houston area."

It was about the same time when he earned his nickname, "Sonny Boy."

Terry said a local DJ named Bud Jackson introduced him as "Sonny Boy" Terry at a Sunday blues jam at Fitzgerald‚s. When a Houston Chronicle music critic who was at the jam printed his name as Sonny Boy Terry, it stuck.

Terry remained a sideman for another decade, playing alongside band leaders such as Kinney Abair, Jimmy Dotson and guitarist Joe Hughes.

In 1995, Terry went solo, putting together a band with guitarist Bill Allison. Terry has since independently recorded two albums, 2000's Breakfast Dance and a live recording at Houston‚s fabled Third Ward juke joint, Miss Ann‚s Playpen.

With a freshly-inked deal with Austin blues label, Doc Blues Records, Terry is expecting the re-release of Breakfast Dance with a bonus track and Live at Miss Ann's this summer.

The Live From Miss Ann‚s album has become somewhat of a tribute to the place. It closed its doors earlier this summer. The little icehouse where beer, barbecue and blues was served in generous quantities became a favorite venue for Terry, and he is sad to see it go.

"Miss Ann's is part of a bygone era," Terry said. "It got a lot of recognition for being a really special place. I went down there and played one night and I don‚t know what it was but I had an epiphany. I had a big connection with the people. It was like going to church or something. So I wanted to see if I could capture that on CD."

He said he hopes to have both discs available by his appearance at the Navasota Blues Festival this weekend.

Sonny Boy Terry's - Breakfast Dance

Sonny Boy Terry's -Live At Miss Ann's Playpen