Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

MUSIC:

Bluesman Roy Rogers’ side job: Oral history of a folk legend

Rogers

BOB HAKINS / PUBLICITY PHOTO

Blues guitarist Roy Rogers

If You Go

  • Who: Roy Rogers and the Delta Rhythm Kings
  • When and where: 8 p.m. Thursday at Boulder Station, 9 p.m. Friday at Texas Station
  • Admission: Free
  • On the Web: roy-rogers.com

Blues musician Roy Rogers probably should be hyping his new album or his shows in Las Vegas on Thursday and Friday.

Instead he’s talking about a nonmusical project that is dear to his heart, an oral history of the legendary folk performer Ramblin’ Jack Elliott that Rogers is producing.

“He was the last guy to hit the road with Woody Guthrie,” Rogers says. “Ramblin’ Jack is truly a folk icon if ever there was one. He has the greatest stories on the planet.”

The 77-year-old Elliott grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and left home at the age of 15. He joined the rodeo, learned to play guitar and performed on the streets for a living. His nickname doesn’t come from traveling but from the countless stories he tells.

“This is a guy who would stand by the side of the road and put his thumb out and when someone asked, ‘Where you going?’ he’d say, ‘Well, where are you going?’ ”

Rogers won’t be finished anytime soon.

“I’ve been working on it for a couple of years,” Rogers, 58, says from his home in the mountains near Nevada City, Calif., about 40 miles from Truckee. “I’m cutting some new teeth editing this guy. But it will be worth it in the end.”

Rogers figures he has one or two more sessions with Ramblin’ Jack and then he’ll start editing more than 20 hours of stories into a two-CD set, which should be available in fall 2010.

Rogers produced two of Elliott’s music albums, “Friends of Mine” and “Long Ride,” as well as albums for Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt and John Lee Hooker.

Rogers doesn’t rush his albums.

His latest album, “Split Decision,” is the first studio recording with his band, the Delta Rhythm Kings, in seven years.

“I’m the kind of guy who only makes a record when I think I have strong-enough material,” Rogers says. “Some of the stuff I’ve worked on for years, but then I would get busy and table it. But I felt I had some strong stuff. I pursued some new things on this CD, jumped off the cliff, went into some jazz directions, the whole Ottmar Liebert thing.”

Liebert, a flamenco guitarist, joined Rogers, one of the great slide guitarists, on the song “Your Sweet Embrace.” “I’m always looking to push the envelope,” Rogers says.

He says his albums may come slower than others, but he makes no excuses.

“I’m making root stuff, not pop records,” Rogers says. “When you do pop you’re layering it, you’re not capturing a specific time. You have a different criteria for how you’re defining your music.”

Once he gets into the studio, things move quickly.

“We did the initial recording of ‘Split Decision’ in about six days and then did some remixing,” Rogers says. “The whole thing was done within a month, maybe three weeks. I can’t imagine making a record and having it taking more than a month or two. Most of my records are done that way. It reflects on my being prepared.”

Though it took a while for him to get back into the studio with his band, it isn’t like he wasn’t busy.

The band recorded a live album. Rogers did a duet album with Doors keyboard player Ray Manzarek. He recorded an album in Norway with a friend, which was released only in Norway.

Rogers maintains a heavy tour schedule. For the past 20 years he’s performed one or two concerts a year in Europe, but this year the economy has kept him closer to home. For the next three or four months, Rogers and the Rhythm Kings will play mostly on the West Coast.

Wherever he goes, fans seem to like “Split Decision.”

“I’m gratified by the response,” he says. “People like the variety, and I’m glad.”

He says listening to one of his albums is like reading a book.

“That’s the way I make records,” Rogers says. “I don’t make tracks and then just randomly put all the tracks together.”

It won’t be another seven years before he’s back in the studio.

“ ‘Split Decision’ got the creative juices going. Maybe in a couple of years I’ll do another.”

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