Bob Koester has been a legend in the blues music biz for four decades,His Chicago label Delmark was home to the likes of Junior Wells andMagic Sam, and over the years Koester has released just about every great Chicago player you could think of.
But at 75, he's not too sure of the business's future.
He still loves jazz and blues, though. And when you ask Koester a question, be prepared to have the tape recorder running and some time on your hands: part rant, part history lesson and a slew of observations later, you'll have some kind of answer.
HARDLINE BLUES: Okay Mr Koester, explain why, even with your label having a certain infamy, you never tried to go big time, become a big label with a wide repertoire.
BOB KOESTER: Oh, over the years there have been opportunities. And you know, you let the parent label decide on the sound and maybe they help you move a few more CDs; and maybe you decide to put out more contemporary artists; and then all of a sudden it's just a job.
I couldn't do it. It's just not me.
Let the guys record their music the way they want to do it. I like my store. I enjoy puttering a couple a week. And the big label way has never been my way.
I had a little huddle once with the president of Mercury Records and I quickly realized I wasn't going to make any records that he was going to sell real big. And there was a hint of taking over the label and putting my records on their budget series, and they would've been out of print in a year or so...Hoodoo Man, West Side Soul. I don't want those kind of
restraints. I enjoy recording how I want to.
HB: Do the people at the major labels still pay attention?
BK: I couldn't tell you. They stay away from me; they have no need for a loser like me. I'm a loser in their eyes.
I'm five feet from Bob Porter (The New Jersey jazz expert and radio host) right now. He knows what's going on at the majors if you like.....
HB: I've always held the theory that the blues has never been willing as an industry to make those compromises because maybe it would suck the soul out of the music.
BK: I don't want to mention any artists, but I think there are some artists who have made terrible compromises, and terrible records as a result. And that's in an attempt to cross over. Having rock stars sit in helps sell a record and some of the rock stars are not bad, but sometimes there's a real clash.
You know, Muddy Waters did these "Unc and Funk" and these sorts of things.....
HB: Electric Mud.......
BK: Electric Mud and all that. And okay, so he gets a little more mileage out of some of his records. I have no problem with it, I just didn't like it. But they're perfectly free to do that.
HB: Back in the 60's there was a documentary by Harley Cokliss in which you said white kids who went towards blues were looking for something more genuine and rootsier......
BK: Yeah.....
HB: But why do you think as a whole -- given that it's such a productive ethos for listening to music -- hasn't made it a more popular form, in terms of the industry?
BK: It's too real. It's too real. I mean....rock and rock still caters to prepubescent kids. And they don't understand it, and they think of rock now -- hell, I'm amazed how long that rock has lasted. It goes from, what, '57 or so? They think that's their own music still, and that Dad has Beatles Records.
Rock is now pop music in white America. There is no other pop style really outside of what you get from the big labels, no Perry Como or Rosemary Clooney, no big band pop, no swing music that's really been pop for awhile.
I get irritated. The music section in the (Chicago) Tribune has a review section and a 'classical review' section. They have a resident jazz guy and I have no terrible qualms with him, but he never reviews records. And nobody reviews blues records in
CURMUDGEONLY KOESTER KEEPS IT REAL IN CHICAGO
BOB KOESTER
