On the road again

Getting out there is something he's been doing since he was a teenager, though it was relatively late in life that he started doing it on his own account. But by then he'd been a sideman with most of the biggest names in blues.
"When I started doing this at 15 my dream was to have a solo career, but I started getting gigs playing lead guitar for other people - and they were great gigs, and I was getting to play with my idols. I'd be playing with John Lee Hooker and some guys from Canned Heat would walk in and say, 'You wanna come do a tour with us?' 'Sure.' Then I'm playing with Canned Heat and in walks John Mayall and says, 'Well, you wanna join my band?' 'Sure.' From Big Mama Thornton to the Righteous Brothers to Percy Mayfield to Lowell Fulsom to Bo Diddley to Otis Rush - it was just one after the other. And the whole time my dream was to do what I'm doing now.
"On my 38th birthday, playing with Mr Mayall in Sweden in a big concert hall, I was thinking, 'I'm 38, and if I don't make the attempt at having the solo career and chasing my dream, it's gonna be too late.' So on my 38th birthday I quit his band."
He'd been with Mayall for five years. "He's like a dad to me," says Trout. "He still remains that to me, he's one of my best friends and I just have undying love and respect for the man, he really did a lot for me. I'm very much in his debt and always will be." So announcing he was leaving wasn't easy.
"It was emotional - we both wept. But he did say, 'I'll support your efforts, I'll help however I can, best of luck to you.'" Mayall also warned him that once he'd left the band there was no coming back, because by then he'd have somebody else that he was nurturing. "It was," Trout admits, "a big gamble."
It has worked out, of course, well enough that he never sees himself going back to working for other bands. "Once you've left John Mayall's band, where do you go? If you're a guitar player trying to play blues and you're a sideman, you can't get any higher than Mr Mayall. The top blues acts in the world are probably BB King, Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton and John Mayall. Now you can get a gig playing with Eric Clapton but you're going to be playing chords. You can get a gig with BB or Buddy Guy, but you're going to be their rhythm player - but when you're with Mayall you're featured and he presents you to the audience as an instrumentalist."

Pages: 1|2|3|4