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Occasionally there's something more for the earnest music fan, something beyond the pleasures inherent in a well-written, effectively performed album. It's the sense of deep satisfaction triggered by recognizing a favorite player's positive evolution from one project to the next. It's the thrill that comes from watching talent and passion blossom into an even more substantial, insightful and diverse artistry. And for those of us who've followed the development of native son Jerry Lightfoot, his latest CD delivers precisely that buzz.

Through most of the '80s and '90s, Lightfoot was a stalwart of the local blues-rock scene. As guitarist, singer and front man for the Essentials, he first documented his musical identity on the 1995 album Burning Desire, a collection mainly showcasing a blues foundation. After his migration to Austin, Lightfoot's 1999 release, Better Days, touched base with the blues but also included some expertly crafted ballads and other departures. Now with his third CD, Texistentialism, the expatriated bandleader (who now resides in Florida) continues to expand his range.

While the Lightfoot sound has always included talented keyboard players, the roles of the piano and organ are swelled on this new disc to great stylistic effect -- thanks in part to the bandleader's affiliation with Vince Welnick, who played with such rock heavyweights as the Grateful Dead, Todd Rundgren and the Tubes. The inventive way in which Welnick incorporates keyboards into these songs is simply wonderful. Moreover, Lightfoot wisely utilizes the considerable vocal skills of Houston's Carolyn Wonderland as lead singer on six of the ten tracks. It's a decision that gives this new chapter of Lightfoot's work a potent and entirely new sound. It also enables him to use his own lead vocalizing (on three tracks) for contrastive emphasis.

Lightfoot wrote or co-wrote seven of the tracks here, which range from the familiar "Handshake with the Blues" to introspective ballads such as "Generous to a Fault" and "Around and Between" (about the untimely death of Lightfoot's son Noah).

Lightfoot pays tribute to his mentor Big Walter "The Thunderbird" by covering "Junior Jumped In," which originally surfaced back in the early 1950s. It's a bouncing, piano-based song that soars with a pair of wickedly effective guitar solos and a soul-stirring harmonica romp from former Essentials bandmate Steve Krase. It's pure Texas blues boogie, made for dancing and strutting.

There's also the eerie poetry of "Monkey Got a Gun," penned by Austin's Jim Franklin and featuring a muffled, raspy Lightfoot vocal that evokes Texas-fried Tom Waits. It's a bone-chilling, surrealistic rap recited over an atmospheric bass groove and sophisticated jazz chording on piano, all spiced by imaginative fills on both keyboards and guitar. It's unlike anything Lightfoot has ever recorded -- and indicative of some of the new twists and turns on the artistic path he's following.

Big-time fame and fortune may never meet this now middle-aged musician, who's been banging guitars and howling the blues since he was a teen- ager in Pasadena. But as Texistentialism proves, music business reality hasn't deterred Lightfoot's artistic growth and vision.
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Jerry Lightfoot & The Essentails gained notoriety as the house band at landmark Houston nightclub "Rockefeller's" during the 1980's where they backed and performed with such legends as Albert Collins, Albert King, Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker, Mighty Joe Young and many others. In addition to being voted Best Band in Houston 3 times, Jerry also was nominated as Best Guitarist '94, Best songwriter '95, Best Producer '96 and his "Walkin' With Colleen" won Song of the Year '95 by the Houston Press/KLOL readers poll. In addition to his own work, Jerry has toured, recorded and led bands for Johnny Clyde Copeland, Big Walter "The Thunderbird", Trudy Lynn and Peppermint Harris. The following article is written by Lisa Lerner in Houston TX, who has graciously contributed to this site numerous times.

Billy Blues Bar & Grill under the giant saxophone was treated to a hot blues show with Jerry Lightfoot and the Essentials, with Oscar Perry opening for them.

Mr. Perry sat on a stool with his starburst Fender and black beret atop his head. He and his three-piece band woke up the audience with traditional blues and boogie-rock licks, as well as Marvin Gaye covers. At the end, the audience wanted more and Oscar wanted to give it to them, yet some unknown voice came across the speaker system saying "thanks and...blah, blah, blah". After the show, Oscar Perry revealed how he feels about playing out: "When I feel like I'm livin', and the rest of the time I'm waitin' to live."

By the time "Foots" came onstage, the crowd was heating up and packed the room, spreading outward through the open garage doors. It's a good thing we arrived early for a good table. Rhea Raymond and "Coach" Don Graham, Lightfoot's wife Colleen, his daughter, and his mother attended the birthday bash, along with the many friends and fans he has acquired over the years. Yeah! Play the blues, brother...

The band includes Robert "Pee Wee" Stephens on keyboard, Bassist Eugene "Spare Time" Murray, harmonica Satch Krase, and drummer Paul Mills. Special appearances included a new guitarist, 21 year-old James Henry, vocalist Jerry La Croix, vocalist George Kinney, and slide guitarist Charlie Prichard.

When George Kinney stepped up to the mic, the crowd took notice "yeah!!" He told them "I can resist anything--but temptation!"

Audience feedback resounded the stage. One, O. B. Pendergrass, celebrated a birthday that night also. He and his crowd yelled "let the good times roll!" A song by Coach, "Make You Love Me, Baby" got them hopping on the dance floor.

When Jerry La Croix sings, everybody listens. His voice IS blues/soul/rock...the kind that tingles the spine (perfect combination to Lightfoot's fantastic guitar style). He told the band they were "soundin' good tonight -- you're cookin'!!" As usual, La Croix became a "conductor", bringing the "orchestra" to an awesome climax toward the end of the song, then a slow drum beat "that's right, take your time, baby..." La Croix has been with Boogie Kings, Edgar Winters' White Trash Revue, and Rare Earth.

By the time Lightfoot got to "Better Days", a favorite of local KPFT 90.1 FM's Joe Montez, he was ready to let it go. He said "THESE days is better days than those days". "My Dyin' Day" brought a very emotive vocal and guitar. Then he dedicated one to Swan (Mayor of the Heights) as a first political influence "Born Just Outside Houston" (Pasadena, 1951).

The show was very intense and well-received by the Billy crowd. Even the lady in red who took the stage unexpectedly did not slow the groove. It's hard to slow down after a long night of energized blues/rock. Nothing like an all-night Mexican food restaurant and a bed in the a/c, after a 101 degrees, hot blues night.

In Houston, home of the most significant African-American-owned recording empire of the 1950s, there remains today an ever-decreasing group of players who were actually there. In the Fifth Ward studios of Duke and Peacock Records, these people helped define modern blues and early R&B. Most worked behind stars such as Big Mama Thornton, Junior Parker or Bobby Bland. Only a few of the city's surviving Duke-Peacock alumni were actual headliners then, and perhaps the most unusual of those is the artist known as Big Walter The Thunderbird. This week he's due for a rare public appearance to celebrate his 87th birthday. This benefit concert will reunite "The Bird That Flies So Swift from Coast to Coast" (as he's billed himself for decades) with his former guitarist Jerry Lightfoot. Befitting the guest of honor's historical stature, the event also is being commemorated via a limited-edition poster, compliments of an Austin-based visual artist whose early psychedelic work defined key iconic elements of the old cosmic cowboy scene. Put it all together, and it just might be the most intriguing time trip any self-respecting, blues-loving ex-hippie Texan could hope for.

Born August 2, 1914, in rural Gonzalez County, Walter Travis Price worked the railroads for much of the first 40 years of his life, occasionally singing gospel on the side. But in the late 1940s he began to tinker with the piano and instinctively gravitated toward the barrelhouse boogies and jive-talking blues he had heard along the Katy and Texas-Pacific tracks. By the mid-1950s the man known as Big Walter had cut some regional hits for San Antonio-based TNT Records.

Then in 1956 he followed the lead of his former San Antonio roommate, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, and moved to Houston to record for the Peacock label.

"I came to Houston [because] the entertainment field here was so hot…," he says. "Blues was jumping [here] back then!"

After a pause, he adds, "But it was all segregated, so it was just a black thing…And the other side, they didn't want their kids to listen to that kind of music. But for the black folks back then, Houston was really alive."

During the heyday of his Peacock years (1956-57), Big Walter released ten original 45s. "Shirley Jean" was the biggest hit, followed by "Hello Maria" and "Pack Fair and Square." That last number was later covered by the J. Geils Band on two widely popular early-1970s albums, indirectly introducing Big Walter to the baby-boomer generation.

He fondly remembers that lucky break, which not only generated some much-appreciated royalty payments but also triggered his discovery among younger blues-rockers. "Now in later years to come, some of the white kids started hearing my music anyway. And they liked it," he says emphatically. "And that really turned the tables to try to help us, when we began to be able to draw people from the other side of the fence."

Among those new friends, one would become his special protégé after a chance encounter with The Thunderbird, his life would never be the same.

"I met Big Walter in the early '70s," the now-Austin-based Lightfoot recalls. "Once I got to know him, I'd go out there, sometimes every day, and practice with him…And man, he used to chew my ass every day! Telling me all the shit I was doing wrong."

Big Walter had a unique instructional approach. "I taught him how to sound like Jerry Lightfoot, instead of…everyone else," he says. "You can hear it in his guitar playing today. I said, 'Listen to the piano. Listen to what it's telling you! It's telling you something, so listen!' And that's what he did."

Reminiscing about those days, Lightfoot recalls an especially emblematic moment. "[O]nce he had some older musician friends there, and we all started playing together. Then it was my time to solo. So, man, I just took off. I wanted to show them that I could really play…And about halfway through it, Walter stopped the whole damn band. He sat there, shook his head and looked at me. He said, 'Boy, what are you doing?' I said, 'Well, you know, I'm trying to play the blues here.' He said, 'You gonna need to stay after school.' "

Lightfoot adds, "And one of the first things he told me was one of the truest things I've ever found in music: It's not what you play -- it's what you don't play. And it's that space in there that gives it push and pull."

Though his more recent creations often venture well beyond blues, Lightfoot believes The Thunderbird's influence is inescapable. "A lot of blues guitar players learned how to play from other guitar players," he says. "But I learned how to play behind an old-style piano player. And it's a different way."

Having recently completed work on a forthcoming CD, Texistentialism, Lightfoot clearly is pleased to reunite with his former bandleader, who will at least sing with his former pupil. Though he suffers from arthritis, Big Walter may find the Continental Club's piano too enticing to ignore, too. "You know, I haven't seen him so much the past three years…," Lightfoot says. "But he is still the boss man to me."

The historic occasion of Big Walter's 87th birthday bash is also the subject of an original poster painted and designed by Jim Franklin, the guy who single-handedly established the lowly armadillo as a symbol of Lone Star counterculture. "I started doing music-related posters in Austin back in '68, '69, for the Vulcan Gas Company…And that's where I first began using armadillos as a basic motif," he says. "And that got to be pretty popular…"

Following the demise of Vulcan, Franklin was part of a circle of Austin friends who opened Armadillo World Headquarters, the giant nightclub that would soon become the temple of Texas hippiedom. "I was, I guess you might say, the artist-in-residence at the Armadillo. I did a lot of the posters, and they got noticed. And that way I helped further the genre of music posters as art." Indeed, not only has Franklin's work graced album covers, it also has appeared in various books, exhibitions and the archives of the Barker Texas History Collections at the University of Texas at Austin.

Incorporating the images of older African-American blues performers into his paintings is nothing new to Franklin. "One of the first posters I did was of Mance Lipscomb," he recalls. He's also depicted Freddie King, Lightnin' Hopkins, Muddy Waters and countless other legends -- all former contemporaries of The Thunderbird, and all now deceased. That cold fact makes Franklin's new poster (autographed copies of which will be sold to raise funds for Big Walter), and the event it commemorates, all the more special.

Though he's largely homebound today, Big Walter survives. "Tell the people this old man is still awake," he says. "And we're going to have a party one more time."