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BARRY MELTON

"I grew up in North Hollywood, California, just a few blocks from where Steve grew up.   I knew his family, and I knew Steve as a teenager.   Steve was three years older than me, and when I met him I was in junior high school.   I remember playing guitar with Steve.   I had been classically trained and had just picked up orchestral jazz guitar in my early teens; but Steve was light years ahead of me and everyone else I'd ever heard.   Even as a teenager, Steve was exploring the Country Blues idiom and could play it like no one else who had ever lived.   He challenged me and a generation of young guitarists from L.A. to be more than we were--Ry Cooder, Taj Majal, John Fahey, and dozens of others.   Steve Mann changed the way the guitar is played and, for that, we owe him an everlasting debt of gratitude."

RICK BLAUFELD

I''ve known Steve Mann since the '60s, and have always stood in awe of his incredible guitar chops! When I heard he was now living in the Area, I seized the opportunity to book him for the 2004 Boonville Folk-Blues Festival. I certainly wasn't disappointed! All the magic is still there!

"Ragtime" Rick Blaufeld, Boonville Folk-Blues Festival promoter

Mendocino Music                   
P.O. Box 335
Navarro, CA 95463

I received an E-mail from Steve Mann saying that he had recorded a new
CDand would send me a copy. This is great news-- I look forward to
receiving it.

I didn't know that there was a song called "Medley for David", and I'm
really flattered. Decades ago Erik Frandsen played me a tape by Steve
Mann. It was wonderful. Over the years I've been able to talk to Steve over
the phone a few times. I'm really very happy to find out that he has
apparently recovered his health and reclaimed his life. I'm sure that you are
aware that Steve is extraordinarily talented, and if I can provide any help
to him, I will.

DavidBromberg.net/home

frankfotusky.com

I met Steve in Berkeley in the 70's, after his breakdown. We both had
the same girlfriend (hey, 70's, y'know?). It was hard to have conversation with him then. But he could still play, even though he had not been practicing. I watched him perform, for the first time in years, with Will Scarlett at the old Freight and Salvage. He did great versions of Prison Cell Blues and Gambler's Blues before getting excited and stomping off the stage, leaving the crowd both shocked and awed. He often would say something, angrily, about the old friends who he felt had not supported him. I could not figure out how he played
with long nails on the fingers of his fretting hand; the first time I saw him pick up a guitar I offered him my nail clipper. He ignored me.

Steve is back in Berkeley now, and he is a kinder, gentler Steve. He has let go of his anger and let his sweetness shine through. You can have a conversation with him. Will Scarlett bought him a guitar, and I set it up to play the way Steve likes (light strings, low action; like an electric). Did it as a freebie, for old times sake, and the pleasure of hearing a past master play again. He keeps thanking me for it. I still can't figure out how he plays with long fingernails on his fretting hand, though.

klepperguitars.com.

I met Steve in 1966/67 in San Francisco when I lived on Twin Peaks. He stayed with me for a few months and I met many fabulous musicians through him...Frank Zappa, Dr. John, come to mind. I knew Jac Holzman of Nonesuch records from New York and he came out to check out the music scene, trying to get Janis Joplin to sign with him. He took Steve and me to Berkeley to Stephen's house (last name?) where Taj Mahal and the two Steve’s played behind Janis. She gave me goose bumps and made me cry with her soulful renditions, but she wouldn't sign without her "family", Big Brother and the Holding Company, who Jac felt were not accomplished enough yet...it was two more years before they got an album out. It was the most memorable day in my life.

Years later in the 90's when I returned from 8 years in the South of France I searched the old record shops for Steve's albums...he was listed in the music book, but no luck. It was rumored he had died.

Later when I returned to Orcas Island I met a musician who had met Steve at the Ash Grove and feels Steve was a huge inspiration to him; he was 17, now in his 50s and the best guitar player around. An artist friend of mine from Santa Cruz happened to stumble upon Steve in Berkeley and remembered him from my parties in the 60s, called me with the great news and that's how I tracked you all down! Thank goodness!

Last year when we met again was another memorable day in front of the French Hotel listening to Steve play for 6 hours! Thank you Janet, for saving the music and making it possible for the rest of the world to hear the best damn blues ever!

Dear Steve; Congratulations on the new release I am TJ Colatrella
also know by some as TJ Cole.

Now going back to the early seventies maybe 1970 or 71 in The Kettle of Fish in NYC I met Eric Frandsen and then studied and learned finger picking guitar from Eric who taught me many of your tunes and also forced me, well taught me, scared me actually, to learn to listen to music and what I was hearing.

I have been a fan of yours ever since and Eric was one of the few people who I have ever met who could break down and teach even me many of your genius licks, such as on Make of me a pallet on your floor, or 44 Blues your great rendition of that tune with those really great additional lyrics you added to it.

Your version of Brother can you spare a dime, inspired Dr. John's I believe and I spoke to Dr. John who lives nearby here of you just by chance a few months back. I was complimenting the job he and John Campbell did of it as well and when he heard your name Dr. John went on for sometime with just how much he admires and respects you and your great playing and originality so rare these days. Dr. John also had some great old stories I 'm sure your glad I won't relate here now.

I exhausted myself learning from Eric Frandsen for a great long time and his generous lessons and tutelage among others and still play to this day those tunes of yours and the styling I learned from him but also thanks to Eric as well from you Steve and also much of David Bromberg's style and for years Ry Cooder's as well. Roy Bookbinder also taught me some great stuff, and Roy wanted to learn the things of yours, Eric taught me!

I consider myself to this day a very lucky guy I ever got to hear
and learn your music and approach to the guitar at still a young age,
and it's stayed with me all my life and guaranteed my continued
anonymity as an artist..... which is all part of my grand plan for
success, you see?

Yours,
TJ Colatrella Woostock NY
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 16:25:41 -0400
From: "duneaquaviva" <duneaquaviva@netscape.net>

(BOOGIE) BRUCE ENGELHARDT

Hi Janet,
My early recollections of Steve are as follows:

I first met Steve Mann in the San Fernando Valley where I frequently encountered him at the various hootenannies and coffeehouses that I attended around that area from 1963 'til around 1967. Steve seemed to have a secret spy network that informed him of any folk music-oriented gathering anywhere in the L.A. and Orange County areas and would turn up at almost any event that I attended, to my amazement and pleasure. As he walked in, horn-rimmed glasses sliding down his nose so he had to peer over them, coat hanging over his shoulders like an Italian director's and a guitar case in hand, he would greet me with a, "Hi, Bruce Engelhardt!" and extend his hand for a shake while surveying the scene before him. Immediately, all the other musicians in the roomwould stop playing and would extend their guitars toward him, hopingthat he'd honor them by picking their guitar to play first.


Sometimes he would pick a guitar from those offered him and sometimes he would open his own case and pull out the brown, natural finish Martin he owned at the time. Announcing a tune, and the particular arrangement of a song, he would begin to play and sing. As he played, he would lean forward, widening his eyes and tilting his head toward someone in his audience who he wanted to impress with the sweetness, soulfulness or difficulty of a particular phrase or instrumental riff. At that point, sometimes he would also extend his guitar toward that person to emphasize a note or phrase.

Steve was a virtual encyclopedia of knowledge about all the great traditional acoustic blues musicians of Texas, the Mississippi Delta and the Southeast Piedmont regions and could accurately play in any of their styles as well as the arrangements of their songs by more current guitarists in the folk scene. He was connected to other
folk-blues finger picking guitarists through a network that included both the East and West Coasts and Chicago as well and could refer you to any of them, should you be traveling in any of their directions.

His wit and way of speaking reminded me a lot of Lenny Bruce; a mixture of Yiddish inflection with a be-bop hipness. He always (and still does) had stories to tell about his adventures or performances with one or another of the notable musicians who were part of his vast network. Wherever he went Steve was spoken of with respect and admiration, and friendship with him guaranteed his friends immediate entreé into any folk musicians' circle almost anywhere across the country.

I remember Steve and Taj Mahal jamming together in the front room of the Ashgrove coffeehouse-nightclub which was then occupied by McCabe's guitar shop. Taj worked tin the kitchen but would come out and open the shows with his guitar and harmonica, There were also informal jams in the front room of the Troubador, with Dick Rosmini, Dave Crosby, who sang some very decent blues in those days. We also used to hang out at a Sunset Strip after hours coffeehouse called The Fifth Estate where Steve would jam with the Chambers Brothers, Hoyt Axton and other notables when their regular club performances were over.

Steve was also a successful chess player and would play chess for money at the Fifth Estate. Later, we'd meet up at an after hours coffeehouse called the Thirsty Ear on Cole St. in Hollywood, across from Technicolor. You had to buy a key to get in to the "Ear" which was actually just a house where coffee and snacks were informally sold and musicians would show up to jam. Steve was often joined there by the Chambers Bros. or Jimmy (later Roger) McGuinn who would later form the Byrds.

One night, Steve Mann came in with a 45 rpm record he wanted to play. "Mad" George provided a turntable to put it on and started it up. It turned out to be Tommy Tucker's signature tune "Hi Heeled Sneakers" and, from that moment, it seemed to inspire numerous L.A. acoustic blues guitarists to put electric pick-ups on their instruments and form blues bands. Before that, amplified music, even blues, was verboten in the folk world. Soon L.A. would break out with Taj Mahal and The Rising Sons (with Ry Cooder) and Canned Heat.

During the mid to later '60s, Steve began to have opportunities to do studio work accompanying Sonny and Cher on their first album and Doctor John (Mac Rebennack). I was at the Hollywood Goldstar studios when Steve worked behind Sonny and Cher, along with a number of L.A.'s top jazz musicians including the late and legendary guitarist Barney Kessel. Steve had flown down from the Bay Area especially for that gig
and Barbara Chapnick, the late Jimmy Rubin and I picked him up at the airport and returned him there afterward; stopping for a late supper at a coffeeshop on the way back to the airport. Though I wasn't privileged to be at the studio for Steve's session with Dr. John, I'm still impressed with his memorable Blind Willie Johnson-styled slide guitar riffs that wove in and out of the song "Gris Gris Gumbo Ya Ya" on Doctor
John "The Night Tripper".

Right after the great Loma Prieta Earthquake of October 17, 1989, some friends and I drove up to Berkeley to see Steve and Will Scarlett perform at the Freight and Salvage. I briefly visited with him back stage during a break and again was greeted cordially and affectionately.

Then, I didn't see him again until maybe 2003 or '04 when he reappeared in Berkeley, after living for several years in L.A. I thank Will Scarlett for bringing him North and helping him to restore his connection with music, performing, chess and his friends, and also Janet Smith for issuing the CD “Steve Mann: Alive and Pickin,’” which captures so much of his dazzling singing and guitar playing in digital format. All of their efforts have helped us all to close another circle in our widely extended lives.
Let the circle be unbroken!..."

Boogie" Bruce Engelhardt