Springfield Shaky, Barroom Guitar Player
Springfield Shaky, Barroom Guitar Player
Shaky
started playing guitar at the age of twelve when his mother and father got
him an electric guitar and a small amp. Shaky was on his way. Back then his brother had a set of drums which he played
along with Shaky. Soon he was
playing guitar with kids in his neighborhood.
By Dave Benner 1987
Shaky started his guitar playing at the age of twelve.
His mother and father got him an electric guitar and a small amp and
Shaky was on his way. Back then his brother had a set of drums which he played
along with Shaky. He also played
guitar with other kids in his neighborhood.
Another Springfield musician, Greg Pasentio, was Shaky’s main teacher on the guitar. Shaky told me at that time he wanted to play jazz and Greg was going to teach him that style. The desire turned from jazz to blues. Shaky said the first blues lick he ever got together tight came off a Black Sabbath album. Shaky says he was listening to guitar playing from people such as Jimi Hendrix, John Maglauglin and others before he even really knew what the blues was all about. Freddy King was also one of his influences, along with Miles Davis.
Shaky has played with a large number of different bands. Back in his early days, he played with a three-piece band playing Rockin Blues from people such as ZZ Top and Jimi Hendrix.
It was with this three-piece band that Shaky decided to pack up his van and boogie on down the highway to Arizona. He was eighteen years old at this time. The band consisted of a drummer and another guitar player on bass. Shaky and the bass player would switch off with one another from set to set, keeping the crow’s attention.
After living in Phoenix for a couple of years, Shaky switched to another band who were playing mostly R&B in Biker bars. Shaky said they were playing older 60s stuff like Steppenwolf along with some Chicago blues from people like Junior Wells.
Shaky began to do strictly vocal material with these guys. The reason for that was because he was riding his motorcycle around and did not have any way to carry all of his equipment.
He came back to Springfield, copped a Fender amp, and a couple of Fender guitars and began playing nothing but the blues. Allman Brothers, Muddy Waters, and Eric Clapton were a few of the bands that Shaky picked tunes from. It’s been about five years since he came back from Arizona.
In April of 1983, Shaky hooked up with another Springfield Blues musician who played blues harp and sang. From this combination, a band called “The ‘Doc’ Hughes and the Blues Prescription” evolved and became pretty much of an overnight success in Springfield. This band was formed in June of 1983. They got together on one day, went over a few tunes together, and the next day they found themselves playing a gig at a pig roast. This band hung together until July of 1985.
In August of 1985, Shaky formed a three-piece band known as Springfield Shaky, and he’s been going strong since that time. There have been countless changes with other band members, but Shaky remains “Springfield Shaky” who plays hot rockin barroom blues. It has been almost a year to the day since Shaky has been playing with his own group.
The band is averaging about 15 gigs every month locally. Shaky has plans to play other places such as the Moline area. He has plans of spreading himself around to places such as St Louis, Chicago, and some college towns.
Shaky has been working on playing slide guitar, and has plans to pull some slide down in his act. Believe me, if he does, it will sound fine just like the rest of his act. He follows suit with people such as Howlin Wolf, and Buddy Guy.
“I go in there and cut loose and just go. Hopefully I’ll make people have a good time, I’ll step out and sometimes I might fall down, but I keep on going. That’s life. Some cats might not like it, but as far as I can tell, there are more that do ‘cause I keep getting hired. I go in there and try to make everyone have a good time, I’ll put out for them. Get the people to drink a lot of booze. The bar owners always like that. The main thing is to get people goin and havin a good time.”
On September 28th which falls on a Sunday, all of you blues lovers can have a good time and catch Springfield Shaky at the “Eight Ball Corral” from 7:00 till 11:00.
“I’d like to start playin up their kind of regular ‘cause I hear it’s a good time.”
On September 21st, Shaky will be playing at one of Springfield’s local bars, O’Malley’s – That’s another good time. The band also plays other local bars such at Two Brothers Lounge, Biggie’s and Bubba’s.
“Basically, I’m just tryin to do as much as I can. If it was up to me I’d like to be playin out every night…”`
Shaky’s main influences are barroom guitar players, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimmy Vaughan to mention a couple. “Cats like that, they have lots of energy. I guess that’s why they are so popular in bars. That’s what I do. I play barroom guitar and show people a good time. I’d like to try to make records, but I’d still love playin in bars. I have lots of fun doin it and I get paid too. It’s like I don’t work for a livin, you know what I mean? I hope to be doin it for a long time, at least ‘till I did. Ever since I was twelve, that’s all I wanted to do was play guitar. People used to ask me, what do you want to do with your life? I’d say I want to play the guitar. They’d come back with, yeah, but what do you want to do for a living? I’d tell them again, I want to play the guitar. That’s all I ever cared about.
Well, Shaky has been playing that guitar since age twelve, and that was 16 years ago. He now has a definite style of barroom guitar playing and a good following of people here in Springfield, IL.
Lonesome Dave
Dave Benner went by the name "Lonesome Dave". He was from New
Berlin, and had been paralyzed in a motorcycle accident. He worked the
door of all of the blues events until his death, and took notes on all of the
bands and performances.