By Ike Horn Photograph by Jim Blashfield ■■ I told Jagger, half kiddingly, half scared, that he was drifting away from his blues roots, and he shoved me down on the couch. It pissed him off. / used to think that Seattle was a graveyard for musicians. Jimi Hendrix is buried in nearby Renton, and I imagined that to be the ground zero of a vast bleak columbarium where tired players go to lay their ruptured septums down; a ghostly place with rusty trombones jutting up from a lost-chord landscape, dismally strewn with chipped guitar picks, bent and rusty coke spoons, and scratched B-sides ... Now I understand that Seattle is a jet-age frontier town perched on the Pacific Rim of Fire and fairly simmering with talent, both old and new, from the corniest hokum to the state-of-the-art flash. Seattle is a killing-floor, a place to get your chops down. It’s all here: heavy metal, stone country, retreaded bar bands, belly-dancers, urban rappers, Elvis imitators, post-punk angry young bands, bluegrass, lounge muzak, funky blues, earth-shoe coffeehouse crooning, classical extravaganzas, creamy jazz, experimental music, gospel ... everything that you can think of. One aspect of this musical morass that has always intrigued me is the way that established musicians will suddenly pack up their gear and load-in to Seattle for an extended stay, then unexpectedly pop up in the rock clubs with the local talent and just blow you away. I’m talking Julian Priester, one of the monster trombone muthas of all time, casually sitting in and recording with Jr. Cadillac, a veteran Seattle rock band, trading dreamland horn licks with Les Clinkingbeard, Cadillac’s superb saxman. I’m talking Buddy Miles, one of the hottest drummers to ever perform, chugging into town to play trickle-down funk with the Reputations, the local R&B kings. And I’m talking Louis X. Erlanger. Louis X. is a blues-oriented guitarist with a passion for the experimental. He came to prominence a few years ago when he played with Mink de Ville; toured the world, recorded four albums, headlined all the hot spots ... in general, rock stardom. Then Louis X. abruptly switched, dropping out of Mink deVille to join the Toru Oki Blues Band, a big name in Japan but virtually unknown to American audiences, a strange change for a big-money mainstream rocker. Suddenly Louis X. was playing the blues to all-Japanese audiences, filling the major rice-bow! rooms and recording with Toru Oki and Albert King. Finally he moved to Seattle, formed a band called the Slamhound Hunters with harpist Kim Field, and proceeded to 34 Clinton St. Quarterly
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