Cool Bobby Black Interview

[Richard Sinkler]

So I wake at 3:00am. Turn on YouTube and look what I see. An interview with Bobby Black. One of my good friends for many years. In the 80s, my wife Caryn and I were playing the Sunday Jam at Cowtown in San Jose from 4-8pm. After that gig, we would head over to Donna's Dukes in Sunnyvale, where Linda Henson and the Black Brothers were playing. A few times I got to set up next to Bobby and play. Here is a link to the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECWHnVr ... dW1tZWw%3D

[Rich Ertelt]

Went to the Cowtown jam a couple times when I hit San Jose in '83.
Ended up getting the guitar gig at the Horseshoe, just down the El Camino from Donna Duke's. On Sunday, we'd get jammers up and go down to their jam. Sat in a bunch of times.

Funny story. One of the woman who came and sang at our jam wanted to record a song. Hired me to play guitar, Bobby to play steel. I had recorded before but Only in a band I was in, this is the first time as a hired gun. I was in my early 20s. Tiki studio. So, we record the song, then they realize they need a second song for the flip side of a 45. So the woman and her manager (husband) are in the control room discussing what song to do, and it turns into a knock down screaming match. I'm totally freaked out. I look at Bobby, he says "it's none of our business" and goes back to quietly working on whatever he was playing. One of the best lessons I ever learned - It's none of my business.

[Chris Templeton]

I saw Bobby play at the Kachina Lodge in Taos, NM.
I invited me to bring my steel to his room the next morning for some pointers. So nice and supportive,
Here he is playing "Down to Seeds And Stems Again Blues": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAd-U6C ... rt_radio=1

[Fred Treece]

What a national treasure. Bobby’s incredible stories of being right there on the ground floor of the careers of so many music icons are as captivating as his music. And you can tell by listening to him how excited he was (and still is!) about being there for it all.

Thanks for posting, Richard - I still can’t believe how, with all the characters and clubs we seem to have had in common back in the 80’s, that we never met!

[David Wren]

I first met Bobby in San Jose in 1970. Being only 20 years old, I couldn't get into San Jose area clubs,,, let alone land a paying gig. He invited me to (forgot the name) some "ghost town" like family park, SE of San Jose. I could legally get in there That's when he suggested I contact a rock band in Berkeley that kept trying to hire him. I declined, wanting to play C & W music.

Funniest thing, one year later my new western swing band toured most of northern CA with Cody and The Wheel (they had both moved into an apartment house in Oakland), We did those 3 band gigs for about 1 1/2 years, what fun. Each gig was like a PSG lesson for me and Lucky Oceans, as we watched and learned from Bobby.

Truly not only a great musician, but, as the above posts show, he is always ready to help a younger player out. Hope someone let's him know about this thread

[Dan Galysh]

I did some shows at Konocti Harbor with Booby back in the '90s. One of the most personable steel players that I've ever met.

[Paul Awalt]

Cool Interview, his ramblings could fill a book. Hopefully he leaves us with one.

[Richard Sinkler]

Went to the Cowtown jam a couple times when I hit San Jose in '83.
Ended up getting the guitar gig at the Horseshoe, just down the El Camino from Donna Duke's. On Sunday, we'd get jammers up and go down to their jam. Sat in a bunch of times.

Funny story. One of the woman who came and sang at our jam wanted to record a song. Hired me to play guitar, Bobby to play steel. I had recorded before but Only in a band I was in, this is the first time as a hired gun. I was in my early 20s. Tiki studio. So, we record the song, then they realize they need a second song for the flip side of a 45. So the woman and her manager (husband) are in the control room discussing what song to do, and it turns into a knock down screaming match. I'm totally freaked out. I look at Bobby, he says "it's none of our business" and goes back to quietly working on whatever he was playing. One of the best lessons I ever learned - It's none of my business.

I played the Horseshoe several times with Donna Cox and WT English. My wife, Caryn Sinkler sang in the band too. That would have been in 1984 after my band, Desert Star, broke up. I played there some with a couple other bands.

[Richard Sinkler]

Rich Ertelt...

During 1983, I played in a band called Desert Star. We won the 1983 Seagram's 7 Battle of the bands in Nashville, having started that contest at the Old Cowtown on Almaden Expressway (if my old man memory serves me correctly) to win a $200 gift certificate to the Western store that was in Campbell. Our band dressed alike. The $200 only bought 2 dresses for our 2 girl singers. The local finals were at Sam's on Monterey Highway. Then we won the west coast finals in Las Vegas (even beating Texas bands - that was a real shock), then won the finals in Nashville. In Nashville, there were 7 finalists. I was the only steel guitar player, unbelievable that the other 6 "country" bands didn't have one. The clubs we played at in San Jose were the Aldon Club, Cal's Depot, among others, then we followed Linda Henson and the Black Brothers into the Redi Room. We played the Redi Room for quite a while, and the band split while we were playing there.

Bobby probably won't remember this, but he and I talked about how to play E9 stuff on the C6 neck. Back then everyone was trying to play C6 stuff on the E9 neck. I remember having a knee lever that raised my 3rd string from C to D. Along with pedal 6 and the lever that raised string 4 from A to Bb, the D lever kind of acted like the "A" pedal on E9. Desert Star used to do a weekly (maybe monthly - old man memory again) San Jose cable TV show for the California Country Music Association, where I played a little bit of "Bud's Bounce to open and close the show. we would back up local singers on the show. I played it on C6, almost note for note as I could play it on E9. My knees were flailing from side to side to play it instead of how the feet would rock on the A and B pedals on E9. It was funny to watch. It looked like I was using a Thighmaster (the exercise thingie Suzanne Somers used to do commercials for). That was in 1983. I friended Roger Allen, formerly of the California Country Music Association, on Facebook, and was trying to get copies of the show, but he passed away before I could get them.

After Desert Star broke up in late 83 or early 84, my wife Caryn and I went to work with Donna Cox and the Chosen few. We did the every Sunday jam at Sam's/Cowtown. we were playing at the Horseshoe, with WT English joining the band when Caryn and I divorced (I think 1985). I lost my job in the band because of it.