TD's Minnick bridges the bar with guitar, relies on blues experience

By Jim Drake

 Jeff Minnick was ten when he first picked up drumsticks in 1967. Jamming in The Dalles to songs like “House of the Rising Sun,” with his friends in the garage was just the start. Music took Jeff on a journey that included a 20-year stint of being on the road with nationally known bluesmen and obscure guitarists that are revered ghosts of blues history. 

 Although the pandemic has curtailed Jeff’s regular work with bands like The Wasco Brothers and the Tuesday night dance crowds at Zim’s, Jeff took the opportunity to talk about his unique “one-man-plus-one” collaborations, his encounters with famous blues and rock personalities on the road, and the musical philosophies that were implanted in him so long ago, right here in The Dalles. 

 JIm Drake: You were recently spotted playing guitar and drums - at the same time. Is this something that is helping you through the live music constraints due to COVID-19 restrictions?

 Jeff Minnick: Yes, I had my “one-man-plus-one” where I play guitar with my hands and play drums with my feet. It’s kind of a freak show, but I’m still having fun!

Minnick on guitar, bass drum and hi-hat.

 When the pandemic started I realized that it was gonna be these small venues, even at a smaller capacity. My friend Al Hare actually booked all these gigs down at the Last Stop Saloon, and he gave me Thursday nights down there, with the idea that I was going to back up him one Thursday and then alternate with Jeff Carrel, so it would be a guitar drums duo.

 But, it was my night and I didn’t feel I was bringing much to the table. I felt like I was just supporting these guys so I just decided to bring this thing out in the open and start doing it. So yes, it was my Pandemic Project really. I got serious about it and saw that things are getting smaller. There was no dancing, so that kind of cuts out the drummer. This is more of a duo project, that fits the constraints we’re under right now. 

Drake: Was picking up the guitar a learning curve for you or had you done that before?

Minnick: I got my first guitar in high school, and I love the guitar. But I gotta be honest with you - I get frustrated by the guitar neck, it’s just a confusing thing to me.

But I know my right hand was pretty good because that’s my rhythm hand, that’s my hi-hat side on the drums. I’ve had the opportunity to play with some really great guitar players over the years, and every single one of them has a different take on that instrument. I thought to myself, I’m not going to worry about not understanding the neck, I’m just going to be the guitar player that I’m gonna be.

Johnny Cash

 And that fit really well into what I’m doing because I’m playing blues and Johnny Cash style. That’s really rhythm orientated music.

 On some of those blues songs I do, I’m just laying down four on the floor with my bass drum and stomping the hi-hat on the two and four, and I end up doing one-line things on the guitar. It’s perfect for old Muddy Waters songs.    

 My friend Ben Bonham sent me videos of all these guys playing this style, and the one thing that I think when I see these guys is that they started as guitar players and then they added the drums.  I’m coming from the other side of that. I started as a drummer and now I’m adding the guitar. Eventually, I’ll be able to do it by myself, but right now I really need another guy to kind of fill in the cracks,   

Drake: How long have you been playing music around The Dalles?

Minnick: Oh gosh, I was just thinking about that when I saw your email. I started in grade school here when I was ten, with the drums, and the funny thing is I still have my practice pad and my snare drum case from 1967. I actually hung onto those things, and I still use that practice pad, and you know when people ask me that question, I don’t know really where to start.

TD music Instructor James McDowell

 Should I start when I first got a drum set, or when I first got together with guys and played “House of the Rising Sun,” or should I start when I actually started gigging?

 I think it starts when you first pick up the drumsticks. I had a band instructor here, his name is James McDowell. I remember him fondly because he had this music appreciation class. This was the fifth or sixth grade for me, and he said “you need to listen to all music with an open mind.” That’s a pretty heavy thing to lay on some ten-year-olds, but that stuck with me all these years and that’s always been really good advice for me.

 Drake: What was your first gig like?

 Minnick: My first gig was actually at the Hood River Elks Lodge, and that was memorable because, (laughs) the venue was upstairs. And here it is, my first gig, and I’m loading these drums up this flight of stairs, and already I’m thinking I should play a lighter instrument.

Minnick’s first gig.

It was an interesting time because there were a lot of good players around , but there was a shortage of drummers. My friend Kenny Olsen was the first teenage drummer around here, he was the oldest of us, and when he moved on there was another really great drummer named Randy Morris, with a great natural feel. He kind of took that spot and he would fill in with all these old players around The Dalles, and that included Benny and Don Tibbets, Truman Boler, Teddy Wiles, Ray Friday, and Marvin Jacobs.

 The Dalles was a pretty happening scene back when the dam was being built, the aluminum smelter was coming in and the highway was coming in, the bridge was being built, it was one of those little boomtowns.

When Randy moved away it was kind of my turn to move into that drumming slot, and I did that for a while. In 1978 I moved away to Portland, and then eventually to Texas. I moved back to The Dalles in 1997 to raise a family here in The Dalles. I felt very fortunate that I could raise children in the same town that I grew up in.

 But, there were no gigs around here back then. Fortunately, I was still connected to the guys in Portland, and Portland had a great blues scene back then. So when I moved back, I was still working three or four nights a week, but it was all down in Portland.

 Drake: Who were you playing music with?

Jim Mesi

Minnick: When I first came back from Texas, I was playing with bluesman Jim Mesi. Before I left to go to Texas, I played with harmonica player Paul Delay, but Paul, unfortunately, had to go to prison for a while, so that’s when I moved. My circuit included Terry Rob, Hank Rascoe, a great honky tonk barrelhouse piano player, slide guitarist Henry Cooper, Bill Rhoades, guitarist Robbie Laws and singer Duffy Bishop.

 When I played with Terry Robb we would travel around the Northwest a lot, every weekend I was going to Seattle or down to Bend, or to the coast in Lincoln City, up and down I-5. With Paul deLay we’d travel to San Francisco,  Alaska, we even went to Mexico once.

But in the middle of all that, I had an interesting thing happen. Do you remember who Rod Price was?

 Drake: Rod Price, the rock and roll guy? My memory says something about the classic rock band Foghat…..in fact, I remember seeing his name connected with something happening up at Government Camp, back in the day…...

 Minnick: (Laughs, and says, good for you, Jim!) 

Rod Price

Yes, I did a jam session up there every Sunday for four years. There was a record label in Portland called Burnside Records, making blues records and they signed Rod Price, so he came to the Northwest, although he was still living in Vermont, I think.

 Anyway, he hooked up with a bass player I knew and we backed him up when he was touring the Northwest. So we’re playing with the guy from Foghat, and you can imagine I had so many questions to ask him, I mean I love interviewing these guys. He was a little stand-offish - he didn’t really want to talk about that until we became friends - he sort of warmed up to me.

The interesting part was we went over to Italy and did a blues festival over there, and that was really something. That was back in 2001, I still have the poster for that….

Drake: Who did you play with in Texas?

Gary Primich

Minnick: I had a best friend in Texas who was a harmonica player named Gary Primich. He was a world-class harmonica player and that was a guy that I really traveled the world with. I mean, he was a traveling man, and the interesting thing was that he would go to places like Germany, Scandinavia, Belgium, and the Netherlands. 

Gary was friends with this guy named John Brim, who is a very obscure but well-respected musician. He wrote the song “Ice Cream Man,” which was kind of made famous by the rock band Van Halen. 

I’d be playing with Gary, and all these harmonica fans would come out to hear Gary, but as soon as the fans found out I played with Paul deLay, gosh, they just converged on me.

Paul Delay

 Paul Delay was a phenomenal world-class, unique harmonica player that just was kind of an unknown commodity because he didn’t travel around like those other guys did. The fans would just besiege me with these questions, like what is Paul doing, what is he working on, what is Paul up to?

 When I came back to the Northwest, and I never took Paul for granted. I knew he was world-class talent, but I got another chance to play with him again, and getting a chance to play with a guy when I finally really understood what his status was around the globe was an eye-opening experience for me. 

 I really appreciated my time with him and unfortunately, both of those guys have passed away, as well as Rod Price, too.

 Drake: You mentioned you are a musicologist who appreciates record collections and music history. What is it like studying music in this way?

Pinetop Perkins

Minnick: I’ve been reading this book about Earl Hooker, who to me is one of the greatest guitar players of all time, but who was obscure and sort of his own worst enemy, as I’ve been learning. It’s a fascinating era of  Delta Chicago blues from the 1950s, and it turns out there are three names in this book of guys that I’ve played with. And one of those is pianist Pinetop Perkins.

The name Pinetop Perkins came up a lot when I was playing with Paul deLay. Perkins played with Muddy Waters, but he also has this other history because he traveled a lot with Earl Hooker.

Another guy who’s name came up is Hubert Sumlin, who I backed three or four times. He was Howlin Wolf’s long-time guitar player.

Drake: I’m guessing you had a connection to these folks from your gigs with the Portland Waterfront Blues Festival?

Minnick: Yes, exactly. In fact, that was one of the last times I played with Hubert. It was in a tribute show to Howlin Wolf, and Hubert was just a sweetheart of a guy. 

Hubert Sumlin

The funny thing about these guys was the fact that if you’re a young, white drummer, these guys turn around and “give you the look,” man, (laughs). They just let you know that “I’m watching you!” and Pinetop, who I spent a lot of time with because we would travel together, did this thing on stage to me that was so funny. The piano would be at an angle - so he could see everyone. He wore these big gold-rimmed glasses, and he was always dressed to the nines, a very elegant man. He had chunks of grey in his beard. He’d do that thing where he’d be playing, and then he’d kind of take one hand and pull his glasses down and look at me over the rim of his glasses, and give me that “I’m watching’ you drummer boy’ look. And don’t you forget I’m watching you.” (Laughs). 

 And that made me nervous, you know! I respect those guys, but they were not easy on each other, those blues guys were tough on each other, so they weren’t going to baby me.

Offstage, now, when we were just sitting around having dinner, they were gracious and wonderful men, but once you hit that stage, boy, they weren’t messin’ around.

 Drake: What is being on the road like compared to playing local gigs here?

Minnick: The one thing I’m so grateful for, right now, and this isn’t anything that I tried to do or meant to do, I would say that over the last five or six years I haven’t had to go to Portland. All my music has been right here between Hood River and The Dalles. The music scene opened up a bit, and a lot of that has to do with Al Hare making it happen with the connections he’s made, I think we owe him a lot, and he’s meant a lot to me.   

Drake: I know, I just talked to Al a few weeks ago https://www.columbiacommunityconnection.com/the-dalles/can-the-dalles-become-little-music-city/alhare/entertainment?rq=drake

And he has his “Music City” plan for The Dalles, and you can really tell he’s passionate about it.

Minnick: Another difference is there seems to be a lot more musicians living here than when I first moved back in 1998. I don’t think there were enough guys around to form one band, and that was another reason why I had to go out of town so much. But now there’s a number of quality musicians and people around here started learning and understanding that there is no substitute for live music.

It’s a humanistic thing to get out and hear music, and enjoy it and mix it up with people. I’m so grateful and we’re lucky right now. Before all this Pandemic hit, I’ll tell you we were looking toward a good summer this year because we were working and getting better and better, and I was working three or four nights a week.

I feel bad for my friends in Portland, who have to deal with clubs that have no parking and the restrictions have curtailed everything. But there are some great players there. I’ve had so many great gigs in Portland, especially playing with my friend Gary Bennet, who was in my favorite country band BR5-49.

So to add to my appreciation of The Dalles, I can pull right up to all the venues here and get my stuff in with no problems. That’s a huge bonus for old drummers like me. (laughs).

Drake: Are you still doing your radio show?

Minnick: Yes, I sure am. It’s every Tuesday, from 7-9 p.m. on Y102 FM - lots of Classic Country in the likes of Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline. That radio show was one of the things that kind of kept going for me, and the community, when we got shut down for the last couple of months. 

Drake: It must have been important to have that so you could keep music and talking about music on the forefront.

Minnick: Exactly, it kept that going and I love it. When you’re a musicologist, I just love learning about these guys and that radio show has been forcing me to really get my country history together. That’s something that I missed when I was on the road for that 20 years because in every band there would be some guy who had a great record collection or was a good musicologist, and we’d get on the road and get bored and start talking about music. Doing that radio show has kind of brought that feeling back for me. I get to dive back into the music again.

Jeff Minnick just kind of seems right behind a ride cymbal.

Drake: We’re in a pause mode now, but when things come back where can people catch you playing?

Minnick: When we come back, I’ll still have that Thursday night at the Last Stop Saloon and the Sunday Night Jam with the Reddy Black Trio will come back, too. Of course, there’s Zim’s and Bargeway that I’m looking forward to again. This too will pass someday. I think when people come back, it will come back strong.  

When you look out at the crowd and it feels like you’re doing something to make them happy, and the people want to dance, that makes you feel good about yourself. And I miss that.