Culture
Saxophonist Jimmy Carpenter talks with WOUB ahead of River City Blues Festival performance
By: Emily Votaw
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MARIETTA, Ohio (WOUB) – The 32nd River City Blues Festival takes place March 14-15 at the Hotel Lafayette (101 Front Street), featuring Las Vegas-based saxophonist Jimmy Carpenter and his band on Saturday night.
Carpenter has been recording music for decades, and he’s also a key part of the production team for the annual Big Blues Bender, a multi-stage blues festival that happens in Las Vegas in September.
Carpenter spoke with WOUB’s Emily Votaw, and you can find a transcript of their conversation, edited for length and clarity, below.
Emily Votaw: In September you released Just Got Started. Can you tell me about the album’s title track, (Feels Like) I Just Got Started?
Jimmy Carpenter: I’ve written a lot of songs, but I think that may be my favorite one. It’s sort of about the fact that I’ve been at this for 45 years and things are going well, and I feel like I’ve just got started. It’s a fairly personal song.
Gambling imagery comes up in music often, but the only time I’ve heard the gambling addiction hotline referenced is in I Only Gamble With My Heart. Could you tell me about that song?
Carpenter: I’m asked about being a gambler all the time, and I have said that “I only gamble with my heart,”, because it’s pretty true. I don’t gamble, but when I was out here playing and I met my now 10-year girlfriend, and deciding to move out here based on that – it was a big risk. I’ve sort of done that my whole life. I’ve gambled with my heart – and mostly lost – and now I’ve won.
What is it like being a musician in Las Vegas? Seems like a place with real high highs, but not a lot of them; but a lot of low lows.
Carpenter: Like you said, the highs are high and the lows are low, and some people really thrive here. Other people really, really struggle here. I moved here from New Orleans, which in some ways is very similar, but Vegas is glitzy and shiny and super fast and New Orleans is gritty and grimy and much more organic.
Your latest record has two King Curtis tracks on it. Could you talk about his influence?
Carpenter: If I had to pick one saxophone hero, it would be him. King Curtis was a very aggressive and percussive player, and I’ve been massively hooked on him since the first time I heard him. He has definitely informed my style. I’m not a jazz player, and I don’t play a whole lot of fast notes and stuff, but I try to be emotive, and percussive.
Do you recall the first time you heard King Curtis?
Carpenter: When I was on the road back in 80 or 81, I bought a used vinyl copy of King Curtis live at Smalls Paradise. When I put it on the stereo, I was just immediately blown away, it’s still one of my favorite records. The saxophone playing is just off the charts. Him and Junior Walker and people like that were kind of who I enjoyed.
Were they your introduction to saxophone?
Carpenter: Oh, no. I was 10 years old when I started, and then when I was going to music school, I thought I was going to be the next John Coltrane. At one point, there was a guy in my neighborhood that was a Berkeley graduate, and I used to walk by his house and he practiced like six hours a day. And I finally met him and I asked “what in the world are you doing in Greensboro?” He goes, “well, my father lives here and he’s going to teach me how to fix clocks so I can make a living.” I was like, “oh my God.”
He was so good, but he was looking for other ways to make a living. Jazz is a challenging world. It’s much smaller and more exclusive than most other genres. And about the same time, there were these guys on the street where I hung out that were putting together a blues band, and I heard Otis Redding and I heard King Curtis. I’m like, “well, this is fun and I can do this.” And I pretty much immediately started getting paid to do it. I started out thinking I was going to be a real highbrow jazz player, and now I’m more of a lowbrow, rock and roll player
You’re the President of the Las Vegas Blues Society. What’s the role of groups like that? The festival you’re playing here in Marietta is put on by one.
Carpenter: I have a few mandates, and the chief of them is paying musicians. We do events, we do three jams a month and we do special shows and we pay. Nobody’s going to get rich working for us, but I always insist that the musicians get paid because if you’re going to support blues music, you got to support blues musicians. It’s the only way it works.
During the pandemic, we gave a little over $10,000 to musicians around here, and it wasn’t like it would necessarily pay their rent, but it would get them some groceries and it was something at a time when a lot of them were getting absolutely no support at all. It’s really been a labor of love.
The festival in Marietta is awesome. It’s a real challenge for a small organization to put on something like that. Over the years of touring, it seems to me like the Midwest and the Rust Belt as an extension of that has been a strong region for blues music. I’m not sure how they found me, but I’m glad that they did.