“Blues purists be damned: this guy attacks the electric guitar the way it was meant to be played."
Art Tipaldi, Blues Revue October 2000
Even at 60 years old, Walter Trout works his faded blonde Strat like a NASCAR driver handles his car. There are plenty of people who can drive a car and drive one fast, but a NASCAR driver takes the mechanics of driving and turns it into art. The same thing can be said about Walter Trout when it comes to the blues and blues-rock. With a splash of Hendrix, the driving rhythms of Stevie Ray Vaughn and the pure blues soul of the British Invasion era monsters, Trout raises the bar and then some. And yet, he remains relatively little known in his home country.
Born in Ocean City, New Jersey on March 6th, 1951, Trout spent his early years in a very encouraging environment. His mother, an English teacher, read poetry aloud to him as a child perhaps setting the stage for his song writing that would come later in his life. Although neither of his parents were musicians, both were aficionados of music and he very eclectic tastes. According to Trout, “I heard it in the house all the time. There was anything playing from Duke Ellington to Count Basie to John Coletrane to Bill Monroe to Hank Williams to Ray Charles … you name it. I remember my father taking me to a black jazz club in Atlantic City when I was a little kid to see a pianist Ahmad Jamal … my Dad also took me to see Gary U.S. Bonds and Chuck Berry on one bill. My mom took me to see James Brown, Ray Charles, Harry Belafonte, Andy Williams, Lou Rawls. I also saw the Philadelphia orchestra on many occasions.”
The guitar was not his first instrument but rather he chose the trumpet. “When I was 10 years old my mother arranged somehow for me to spend an entire afternoon with Duke Ellington and his orchestra and I go to sit down and have guys like Cat Anderson, Johnny Hodges and Paul Gonzales talk to me about jazz and music.” But he secured some great advice about the music business from Duke Ellington himself. “Always keep your focus on being an artist and don’t look for the glory. Try to have a career of longevity and not be a one hit wonder. Concentrate on being the best that you can be on your instrument and think of it as an art and not show business.”
But his encouraging and idyllic paradise didn’t last. His parents divorced and Walter later suffered emotional scarring from his stepfathers drunken outbursts. To escape, Walter threw himself heavily into music and switched from the trumpet to the guitar. His first guitar was one that his older brother Ed had abandoned and it felt perfect in young Walters’s hands. Trout has told the story of hiding in the stairwell in his apartment complex playing the guitar until 3:00 AM after his mother had chastised him to “turn it down.”
Trout found that once he began to play the guitar, his musical interests changed overnight. He was drawn to the music of Bob Dylan and the entire burgeoning folk scene.
At that time, a number of folk artists worked a few blues tunes into the sets, which was his first exposure to the genre that would become his calling. In an interview he talked about the first pure blues album he ever heard. His brother Ed would bring home different albums for him to check out. “He brought home an album and said ‘Sit down and listen to this guy play the guitar.’ It was the first Paul Butterfield album that featured Mike Bloomfield on guitar … that changed my life. The trumpet was put away and I knew what I wanted to do right then.”
His early career in New Jersey consisted of local rock clubs even catching a gig or two at the Steel Mill, a place that helped launch another New Jersey native, Bruce Springsteen. By this time, the Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion bands had arrived on American shores and music was changing rapidly. In an effort to jump start his career, Trout moved to Los Angles, the heart of the music industry, in 1974.
His first gig in L.A. was with a group called ‘The Jive Bombers.’ Interestingly enough, it was not as a guitarist but rather as a vocalist. Hardly a polished singer at that time, Trout rose to the occasion and stepped up the mike and handled a few Hank Williams standards. With his first check, he went out and bought the blonde Strat he still plays today. He went back and harassed the band to allow him to play it on stage. Eventually the band gave in and allowed him a few minutes on stage as a guitarist. “I got up and played a song and they got all excited, ‘You didn’t tell us you could play like that!’ That night I ended up as the lead guitarist. By the end of my tenure there, I eventually turned them from country bluegrass into a band that played Chuck Berry and early Stones. They ended up losing their regular gig because they were too rock and roll.”
But the gig did wonders for Walter. Shortly after that Trout was playing in a variety of small but popular bar bands in L.A. which lead him to gigs playing behind bigger names like Big Momma Thornton, Pee Wee Crayton, Joe Tex, Lowell Fulson and Percy Mayfield. “Once I got my first sideman gig, I was never out of work.” But a huge moment in his early career was playing behind Big Momma Thornton. Blues legend John Lee Hooker was also on the bill and he asked Trout to play a set with his band. While on stage with Hooker, Trout was heard by a few members of Canned Heat. After the set, they approached Walter. “We have a tour of Australia coming up and Henry (Vestine) is drinking too much, would you do the tour?’ I ended up with a 4 year gig.”
Following his time with Canned Heat, Trout landed a gig playing with British blues Godfather John Mayall and his vaunted Blues Breakers. Walter again took the second spot behind another guitar genius, Mick Taylor. However Trout had developed his own rather ugly drinking habit that was beginning to have an effect on his playing. In 1987, Carlos Santana, a hero of Trout’s, approached him about his heavy drinking and nearly continual state of drunkenness. It was enough for Walter to get clean.
A newly clean and sober Walter Trout saw his technique improve immediately. While on tour with Mayall in the Netherlands, Mayall was too sick to go on. Trout and fellow Blues Breaker, Coco Montoya stood in for the ailing Mayall and brought the house down. In the audience was a promoter who approached him about doing his own album and do a tour as a headliner.
By the end of the tour, Walter Trout was playing to packed venues all over Europe. He released his first single “The Love We Once Knew” in 1990 on his debut album Life In The Jungle, which became a number one hit in Europe. Jungle was followed up by the 1991 release Prisoner Of A Dream. He had become a star in Europe and even toured with Elton John. Trout was even voted as the number 6th greatest guitarist of all time in Europe landing higher on the list than SRV, Jeff Healey, Peter Green, Rory Gallagher, Joe Satriani and B. B. King. In the voting, he landed two votes behind Jimmy Page.
“If I had known,” Trout quipped “I would have voted three times for myself.” And yet he still could not break the United States market as a solo artist.
He signed with Silvertone in 1994 under the promise that they would record him and market him in his native United States as well as in Europe. The promise fell flat. Under the advice of Coco Montoya, Trout signed with the German owned label, Ruf Records. It was a great pairing. Ruf didn’t interfere with Trout creatively and they marketed him well. The albums that Trout did under Ruf went on to sell well worldwide.
He is now managed by his wife Marie Trout and often tours with his three sons (whose band opens for him on occassion), Trout continues to write and play smoking hot blues and blues-rock to a loyal legion of fans in Europe and a growing and vocal American fan base. When asked to explain how to make a band work, Trout responded, “Actually it’s the John Mayall thing of finding musicians that have chemistry, and then play together naturally. A lot of that doesn’t even have to be spoken; it’s just felt among the four of you. It’s definitely instinctual.”
And that really speaks volumes, not just about the blues, but also about music in general. Technical proficiency is vital but there is also an instinctual aspect to it as well. That part of guitar playing that comes not just from the heart but also from the gut; that sense of not just knowing the notes but feeling the notes and then coaxing them along the neck and into the air.
Need proof? Just check out Walter Trout.
[FONT=Tahoma]"All I can do is be me ... whoever that is". Bob Dylan [/FONT]
