"Guitar Slim"
Nathaniel Savage
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Nathaniel "Guitar Slim" Savage was born March 2, 1935 in Greenville, Alabama, and began to teach himself guitar at the age of nine. He was inspired by songs like "Big Leg Woman", "Baby Please Don't Go", and "Good Morning Little School Girl", which he heard on a wind-up gramophone in his mother's house, and by his grandfather John Wesley Hunter who had a blues band in Detroit.
Nathaniel moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1951, and worked construction when he wasn't playing music. He moved to Cleveland in 1956, continued to work construction, and played guitar behind artists like Big Maybelle, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Little Milton.
Guitar Slim joined harmonica player Tommy O'Neal's band, then played with Charles Winston's band. When health problems forced Winston's retirement from the music business, Guitar Slim started his own band. In 1974, Guitar Slim and his band started playing the Cascade Lounge on Cleveland's east side, and have been a regular feature there ever since.
Their appearances there have been a beacon for musicians like Big Richard, Pete Schmidt, Crazy Marvin, and Robert Lockwood Jr., all of whom have dropped in to share the stage with one of Cleveland's blues legends. Guitar Slim's current lineup features Little James on drums, who, like Guitar Slim himself, has been playing since he was nine.
Nathaniel "Guitar Slim" Savage is blessed with eight daughters, one son (Nate Jr.), nineteen grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren, and secure legacy in Cleveland blues history.
"Moonchild"
Travis Haddix
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Travis "Moonchild" Haddix was born November 26, 1938 in Hatchie Bottom, Missisippi to a family of sharecroppers. When he was 9, his family moved to Walnut, Mississippi, a "big city with a bank, a post office, a Western Auto store, and a cotton gin." Travis was taught guitar by his father, Chalmus "Rooster" Haddix, a Delta Blues style player. Travis was also inspired by B.B. King as a youth. He attended the local "colored" high school in Walnut, where he starred in basketball. The Haddix household was ten strong, with five boys and five girls. All the boys were musicians. Travis graduated high school in 1957, and his family moved to Milwaukee a year later, where Travis played in several bands, including one with his brother Al, who for a while played with Brother Jack Mcduff. Travis attended Marquette College in Racine,Wisconsin, where he again played basketball. He finished his degree years later at Cuyahoga Community College.
He was drafted into the Army in 1961, and became a missile track radar operator stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky, Fort Bliss, Texas, and Pforthiem, Germany. Playing in the service club at Pforthiem helped Travis avoid guard and KP duty. Travis was discharged from the service in 1963, and came to Cleveland, where he took a job at Severance Shopping Center as an electrician. He played with the band Chuck and the Tremblers at several clubs on Euclid Avenue, including Tito's, The Red Carpet Lounge, The Music Box, and the Birdland Ballroom. He also played with Ernest and DL Rocco, and occasionally sat in with Eddie Baccus and Duke Jenkins.
Travis started his own band, The Now Sound, in the late '70s, but in 1985 his band bolted for a chance to play with Johnny Taylor. The nickname "Moonchild" stuck after Travis recorded a song of the same name. The Travis Haddix Band followed, and included Marvin Young, Eli Thomas, Scanlon "Scatman" Sharp, Tyrone Pierce, and the late Frank "Silk" Smith. They appeared often at the Plush Entertainment Center on Miles Avenue, and opened for many touring acts: Clarence Carter, Artie "Blues Boy" White, Johnny Taylor, Bobby Blue Bland, Latimore, Denise LaSalle, Joe Simon, Tyrone Davis and Little Milton. The band's first recording for Ichiban Records, "Wrong Side Out", was released in 1988. They did five albums for Ichiban, some with Gary "BB" Coleman.
It was around this time that Travis' songs began to get noticed by other artists such as Jimmy Dawkins, Son Seals, and Michael Burks. "Begging Business", "Bag Lady", and "Everything is Everything" are among his songs that have been recorded by others. "Everything is Everything" is featured in the film April's Fool.
In 1989 Travis started Wann-Sonn Records, named for his daughters Wanda and Sonya, and he made fourteen records for his label. In 1990 Travis started touring in Europe, and he has played clubs, concerts, and festivals in 22 different countries while keeping Cleveland as his home base. His recordings and performances have received glowing reviews in publications such as Living Blues Magazine and Big City Blues, and he has been honored with numerous awards: Best Male Blues Artist, Best New Blues Artist, and in 2007 he won the Gay Rose Productions Keeping the Blues Alive Award. With insightful and sometimes humorous lyrics, and a horn-driven sound reminiscent of the Stax-Volt era, Travis Haddix remains a powerful force in the blues, and he is a true Cleveland musical icon.
Screamin'
Jay Hawkins
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Screamin' Jay Hawkins was one of the most flamboyant and influential entertainers in the history of American pop culture. He was born Jalacy Hawkins in Cleveland on July 18, 1929, and placed in an orphanage until adopted at the age of 18 months. Jalacy learned classical piano as a youth, but dreamed of singing opera like his idol Paul Robeson. Opera didn't work out for Jalacy, but it was a permanent influence on his stage persona.
Hawkins was also a boxer, and fought in Gold Gloves competitions before quitting high school to join the Army Air Force. He served in World War II primarily as an entertainer based in the Pacific Theater, but played service clubs around the world. He claimed to have been captured (and tortured) as a POW before he was able to engineer a chaotic and daring escape. He had a brief career as a professional boxer before he focused on starting a career as a blues piano player and singer. Jalacy Hawkins once said he got his nickname at a nightclub in Nitro, West Virginia, in 1950, from a fan who encouraged him to "Scream, baby, scream!".
In the early 1950s Screamin' Jay worked with artists like Tiny Grimes and Johnny Sparrow before starting his own band. It was at this time that his opera influence surfaced as he began to play in outlandish attire. 1955 was the year that Screamin' Jay Hawkins recorded his signature song. "I Put a Spell on You" was going to be a ballad, but a rowdy, drunken late-night recording session resulted in a raw performance that featured Hawkins screaming and grunting his way to what was first banned by some radio stations as being "suggestive", but became Hawkins' biggest song. He later could not remember the recording session. Disc jockey Alan Freed paid Hawkins to rise from a coffin onstage to perform "Spell", and Hawkins used the idea to create an act that included leopard skin costumes and various "voodoo" stage props, including skulls and snakes. During the 1950s he also travelled with Alan Freed's rock 'n' roll revues, appeared on "American Bandstand", and played several Cleveland venues, including Leo's Casino.
Screamin' Jay's popularity soared because of "I Put a Spell on You", but his other recordings did not approach the same level of success. He remained very popular in Europe during the 1960s and 1970s, and appeared in the film American Hot Wax (1978). In 1981, he opened for the Rolling Stones at Madison Square Garden. "I Put a Spell on You" was featured in the movie Stranger Than Paradise (1983), and Screamin' Jay also appeared in Perdito Durango and A Rage in Harlem. In 1983, he relocated to New York City and worked for a few years with the garage rock band The Fuzztones. They appeared in the 1986 film Joey.
In the early 1990s Hawkins had a bit of a recording resurgence which included covers of several Tom Waits songs. His version of "Heart Attack and Vine" was his only British hit, reaching #42 on the U.K. singles chart in 1993. He recorded or toured during the 1990s with Dread Zeppelin, The Clash, and Nick Cave. His 1957 single "Frenzy" was included in the compilation CD "Songs in the Key of X: Music from and Inspired by the X-Files" in 1996. In 1998, he received a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm & Blues Foundation.
Screamin' Jay Hawkins died February 12, 2000 at the Ambrose Pave clinic in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine following emergency surgery for an aneurysm. He was 70. His stage persona, with its props and wild costumes, directly influenced artists such as Little Richard, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, nd Marilyn Manson.
"Big Maybelle"
Mabel Louise Smith
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Big Maybelle was born Mabel Louise Smith on May 1, 1924 in Jackson, Tennessee. She played piano and sang in gospel choir as a child, but as a teen she embraced rhythm and blues. She took first prize at a Memphis talent show in 1932, and soon after her professional career began, including stints with Dave Clark's Memphis Band and the all-female International Sweethearts of Rhythm.
In the 1940s she joined Christine Chatman's Orchestra on piano, and in 1944 had her first recording sessions with Chatman. She recorded as a solo artist for the first time in 1947 under the name Mabel Smith for King Records, backed by Oran "Hot Lips" Page. She also sang with Tiny Bradshaw's band from 1947 to 1950.
The decade of the 1950s was the peak of her career. In 1952, producer Fred Mendelsohn signed her to Okeh Records and coined her stage name of "Big Maybelle". Her first Okeh recording, "Gabbin' Blues", hit #3 on the Billboard R&B chart, and the hits "Way Back Home" and "My Country Man" followed in 1953. Her version of "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" was produced by Quincy Jones in 1955, two years before Jerry Lee Lewis recorded it. Another hit, "Candy", came in 1956 for Savoy Records, and was followed by appearances at the Apollo Theatre in New York City and at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, which was part of the movie Jazz on a Hot Summer Day (1960).
Big Maybelle continued to record into the 1960s, but her popularity and health both declined. Her last hit was in 1967 with her version of "96 Tears", made famous by the rock band ? and the Mysterians. She moved to Cleveland in 1971 to live with relatives,and died here in 1972. At the time of her death, local DJ Bill Randle (of WERE) described her as "a highly respected blues singer in the Bessie Smith, Big Mama Wakefield tradition." Her last album, The Last of Big Maybelle, was released posthumously in 1973.