Believe it or not, Springfield, Illinois, is red hot for the cool blues. The capital city is home to one of the oldest blues clubs in the nation, hosts a nearly 30-year-old weekly blues performance gig and has nurtured several well-known blues bands. Now we have a world class, internationally renowned, lifelong blues artist as a local resident.
James Armstrong, a 58-year-old living legend of blues music throughout America and in many parts of the world, found his constant touring schedule put on hold in May of 2012 due to stress-related health issues. That summer he relocated to Springfield, planning on spending some time recuperating at the home of a friend, Alice Goodrich. They had met in 1997 when James played in town and became close friends in 2011. As the mutual friendship blossomed into a romantic relationship, James and Alice married last September.
In a modern and modest home on the near west side of town, James and Alice live the life of a happy, middle- class couple. Originally from Bluffs, Illinois, Alice moved to Springfield in 1984 and worked as a registered nurse for 35 years, retiring this past summer. James is now back playing music on the road while she helps out with promotions and enjoys learning and participating in the music industry. As James discovered, Springfield is an ideal city to travel from, with other hotbeds of the blues music such as Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City and Memphis only hours away. With his already established reputation intact, Armstrong can live far from the hustle and bustle of big city scenes while being a day’s drive from the various venues and larger audiences they provide. All this, coupled with the laid-back lifestyle and decent cost of living in Springfield, plus the thriving local scene, appealed to the working musician.
Other famous non-native blues performers have called Springfield home through the years, including Fenton Robinson, Eddie Snow and Eddie Eugene. As we add James Armstrong to the short-yet-stellar list, his storied career becomes part of the hometown musician lore. Armstrong, by his own admission and that of critics and fans, presently sits at the top of his game. He tours regularly in the United States and Europe and is currently making preparations for the fifth full-length record of his career. Now a good dose of domestic tranquility in his newfound hometown completes the pleasurable picture.
Life was not always this pleasant for James Armstrong. The blues, a genre created and recognized for expressing the grief and sadness inherent in life, gave Armstrong a vibrant vehicle for channeling his personal wins and woes. From good beginnings as a well-cared-for child to an early boost in the music business, a tragic turn nearly destroyed his burgeoning career at its most meteoric moment. This life of making music marred by troubles and blessed by goodness gives the gifted and expressive musician the means to tell his tale with words and music to an appreciative audience. James has earned his place to sing the blues.
He was born in Los Angeles in 1957 to a musician couple. Growing up, young James didn’t see too much of his mother, a professional blues singer. He moved with his father, a respected jazz guitarist, to Santa Monica in 1969. James grew up in the loving care of his musician dad who never encouraged him to play guitar or forced music on him in any way. While still in grade school in the Los Angeles area, he played drums, then toyed with the saxophone, even doing a novelty duo with dad on guitar and young James on the drumkit, keeping “a pretty decent beat,” before settling on the guitar as his instrument of choice.
He took to the six-string quickly, perhaps from a combination of natural talent and the music environment of his upbringing. Whatever the reason, James appeared destined to play the guitar from an early age. His first genre attraction was popular country music and the folk movement that permeated the ’60s culture of his youth. Next came rock and a strong draw toward Jimi Hendrix, the late, great, master of rock and blues electric guitar. During this teenage obsession, James went so far as to dress like his hero, much as a generation later many an aspiring young blues guitarist suited up with a hat and Strat, a la Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Texas blues musician.
By the seventh grade, young James played steadily in his first LA band and by age 17 toured the West Coast regularly in various groups. He asked Dad for permission to skip his high school graduation ceremony (graduating was not an issue) because of an opportunity to hit the road with a traveling band. Papa Armstrong okayed the deal and in 1975 the high school graduate was on the road for what would become a lifelong way of living. By his early 20s he was the youngest member in the band of Smokey Wilson, a legendary bluesman from the Mississippi Delta region who moved to Los Angeles in 1970. Soon James got his first recording contract through a band he helped found called Mama Roo on Los Angeles-based Crescendo Records and worked playing music throughout the 1980s.
By 1990 Armstrong was a seasoned guitarist just in his early 30s. He spent quality time with the world-famous blues guitarist Albert King, honing his chops and developing a stellar reputation on the West Coast blues circuit. By that time, thanks to players such as Stevie Ray Vaughan and newcomer Robert Cray, blues music became popular on a national level like never before. The man behind Cray’s push for success was Bruce Bromberg, who with Larry Sloven started the HighTone Records imprint, an internationally influential roots music label out of Oakland, California. A Chicago native before relocating to LA to work in the record business, Bromberg was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2011 for his years of service to the blues community. He became a major figure in the personal life and professional career of James Armstrong.
By 1995 Bromberg had signed Armstrong to HighTone Records and released his national debut album, Sleeping with a Stranger, to much acclaim. Later in the year, just as James was flying high and ready to tour heavily in support of the well-received recording, tragedy struck. While James relaxed at home a stranger opened the front door and walked into the Armstrong apartment located in a nice neighborhood in the Oakland area. Before James knew what was happening he was stabbed by the assailant, who ransacked the place. Shocked and wounded, Armstrong was left bleeding out on the sidewalk, his left shoulder damaged from the stabbing nearly beyond repair. For months he remained stunned and in shock, trying to recover from the attack both physically and emotionally, left wondering not only if he could put his life back together, but if he would ever be able to play guitar again.
Eventually James recovered, left with permanent nerve damage and only the use of one finger on his left hand. Through the tragic times, Bromberg remained steadfast and caring, encouraging Armstrong at every turn to continue to play, write and, most importantly, believe he could heal and perform again.
Miraculously, James did just that, and by 1998 HighTone Records released Dark Night, a self-penned tribute to a man and his music, as well as his endurance and perseverance. Armstrong credits Bromberg with giving him the faith and encouragement needed to continue, even to the point of getting James to “just play with the one finger” and bringing in other musicians to augment the music. The record did well and the recovering musician was a wanted man on the blues performance circuit. Two years later he released Got It Goin’ On to great success. The album cut “Pennies and Picks” earned him a W.C. Handy Award nomination for Song of the Year and he was nominated for Contemporary Male Blues Guitarist of the Year. Now he was back to playing full time, his left hand and arm healing, touring Europe and the U.S., spending lots of time in Canada and basically making music again on a full-time basis as a popular recording and performing artist.
From there he continued to progress, getting song placements in films, gaining access to major clubs and touring extensively.
By 2011, after a several-year break from recording, he released a new album, Blues at the Border, on Catfood Records. He was living in Marshall, Michigan, and hitting the road hard. When it’s your name on the marquee, booking a band, keeping it going, paying bills and playing decent shows are all part and parcel of being a working musician. Willie Nelson may sing the praises of being “On the Road Again,” and truly musicians love it or they wouldn’t do it, but on a daily basis, the work as a self-employed businessman brings on a great deal of stress.
During a tour in 2012, James felt severe chest pains and once again he was down and out, laid up with extreme stress-related issues. Alice, who by then kept in regular contact with James, found out he was stuck in a hospital bed in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She proposed coming up to help and he declined the offer. Soon he looked up from his bed to see the determined R.N. discussing his case with the medical professionals. After his hospital release, he ended up convalescing on Alice’s couch for a few months. During this time they kindled more than friendship, bringing James Armstrong into the local blues music scene, his marriage and new home.
He keeps up an extensive touring schedule, doing many Midwest and East Coast shows, often up to 15 dates a month. In 2014, since the release of his latest record, Guitar Angel, in February, the working man has logged well over 100 gigs, including a tour of Spain and a California jaunt. James, a firm believer in giving back to your community no matter what your chosen profession, started James Armstrong Presents, a local, twice-a-month gig, as his contribution. Held at the Alamo on the first and third Thursdays of every month, the music starts at 6 and highlights local blues bands, encouraging music interplay and cooperation among area musicians. James performs whenever his touring schedule permits.
With a career filled with star-studded performances and parties, jams and meetings, James can spin a yarn when asked, but his modesty and good nature precludes bragging and name-dropping. Still it’s worth a few lines here to mention he has worked with Peter Tork of the Monkees (“great guy and a fun musician”), Jan of the ’60s Jan and Dean act and the one and only Chaka Khan. He fulfilled a lifelong dream of playing with Mitch Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix’s main drummer. He has shared the stage with nearly every major blues name, including BB King, John Lee Hooker (he portrayed Hooker in the Ghosts of the Blues stage production), Charlie Musselwhite, Albert Collins, Coco Montoya, Tommy Castro, Keb Mo and many others.
In one of the strangest stories in a storied life in music, Armstrong once played the Hard Rock Cafe in Beirut, Lebanon, where he went over quite well, made good money and sold lots of CDs. He was booked in Beirut again as an “American Blues Guitarist” in 2005. Due to the unrest provoked by American military wars in the area, Westerners were advised to leave and encouraged to not be out in public. James, never one to miss a gig, decided to do the show anyway, despite the credible warnings. Rumors abounded about the ruthless bar owner who also owned several other Hard Rock Cafes in the Middle East. He loved the blues, but demanded good shows and would punish performers if they did not meet his standards.
As James put on a typically excellent show, the bar was empty except for the “Sheik” and his entourage. By that time Armstrong had learned the owner was Hasan Bin Laden, one of the many brothers of the infamous and hunted Osama Bin Laden and a member of the Saudi royal family. Hasan, who professes a love for many American ways, was in the U.S. during the 9/11 attacks and was part of the Bin Laden family safely flown out of the country under government protection. After the show at the Hard Rock Cafe, James complimented his host on his colorful, two-tone shoes. In an unexpected twist, Bin Laden ordered one of his bodyguards to immediately locate a pair of shoes just like the ones recently admired by James. Within minutes, not only did he give the surprised guitarist identical shoes in his size, Bin Laden removed Armstrong’s current footwear and replaced them himself, including tying the laces as a final touch. For a strange coda, Bin Laden turned out to be, like James, a big fan of Richard Pryor, the famed comedian from Peoria who had died just that very day of the Hard Rock show in Beirut.
James, now firmly embedded into the Springfield community, continues his music-making ways. Just this past Monday, Blues 411, a nationally recognized blues blog and website, gave his 2014 album, Guitar Angels. a “Jimi” award for Best Traditional Release. He intends to record a new album soon, one that features what he terms “straight ahead” blues, more traditional sounding than the contemporary stylings he’s noted for creating. Early next year he’s off to Europe again for a run through Norway and France, while looking to book a festival in Germany. James discovered, as many American artists have, that Europeans are very supportive and appreciative of the sounds of American-made roots music.
He continues to play regularly here as well, proudly making a living making music, giving back to those who appreciate the work of a passionate and provocative working artist. What keeps him going strong when he could rest on his well-earned laurels? The respect for his listeners and a firm belief that he was put here to play music for the good of others keeps this brilliant and resilient musician doing what he loves and what he does best. And as he said as an aside, “What else can I do at this point but keep keeping on and going ahead? It’s what I do.”
Keep doing it James. We’re happy you’re doing it here.
Tom Irwin is a Springfield-based, singer-songwriter-musician who writes Now Playing, a weekly column on music and occasionally contributes cover stories for Illinois Times.
This article appears in Dec 11-17, 2014.
