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2008 Discoveries Index
[Cornbread Harris/Cadillac & the Flats Sundays at Palmer's] [Inside Straight at Inn Kahoots] [Paulie T w/ Corey Stevens at Famous Dave's] [Mike Fugazzi Band at Wine Cafe] [Shaw's Christmas Party] [Jimi "Prime Time" Smith at the Junction] [School II Bistro & Wine Bar] [Detroit Don King at Dusty's] [Cool Disposition at Neumann's] [T. Albert Lloyd at Bugg's] [Bourbones at Smalley's] [Bev's Jook Joint] [Luther The Devil at 331] [Armadillo Jump w/ Bronco at Neumann's] [Oly's in Duluth Features Sunday Blues] [Vitale's Little Venetian Adds Blues] [Willie Murphy's 65th Birthday] [Swamp Kings at Sage Market & Wine Bar] [Little Bobby & the Storm at Fargo Blues Fest] [Lawson Group at Palmfest] [Soulmates at Santiago Shakedown 6] [Blues on the Chippewa] [Hat Trick Lounge Goes Deep Blues] [Lowertown Blues Festival] [Ted's Bar Adds Blues] [T. Albert Lloyd Band] [Dry Bones Blues Festival 3] [Willie Murphy at Mystic Theater in ND] [Julie Johnson Blues on a Flute] [Jinxbreakers at McMahon's on St Paddy's Day] [Debbie Duncan in "Blues in the Night"] [Jay Walter & the Rectifiers at Neumann's] [Joe T. Cook Finalist in Songwriting Competition] [Cadillac & the Flats/Cornbread Harris at Iowa Winter Blues Fest] [Paul Mayasich Tuesdays at Hollihan's] [Freewheelin' at Cedar Cultural Center] [Porkchop at Renegades] [Eagles Jam hosted by Willie Murphy] [Papa John & Clint Hoover at Riverview Cafe] [Mike 'The Hook' Deutsch at Red Stag] [Steve Babbitt Remembered] [Prior Avenue Band] [Code Sweat Band]
Steve Babbitt Remembered
Reflections on the Rabitt
By Charles Wagner (2004)
Steve Babbitt at the
Lazy Bill Lucas event
in 2003
When our friendship really came to fruition was during a German class we both took from a professor Dale Kramm. We were both attired in our Air Force ROTC uniforms and sat in the very front row to the left of Dr. Kramm who was lecturing to the class in the center of the class room. We, Steve and I would hurl one liners at one another, sometimes he would begin one and I would end it or visa versa. We were reading a short story book in German for our lessons and had to translate same. There were stories about August der Starke Koenig of Poland and Karl der Grosser or Charlemagne in English. Steve became Stephan der Kranken, or Steven the III or sick one and I became Carl the Grocier. We would laugh so hard and were having so much fun that soon our lecturer would depart from the center of the room to our side and join in the festivities!
The years passed. Sometime in the mid 1960's Steve was to return to his native haunts. We spent many a night arguing over such weighty matters as the true meaning of the "Brothers Karamasov", "Crime and Punishment" and other Dostoyevski "thrillers" in local pizza parlors until the wee hours of the morning.
In the wake of Dave Ray, he bought his first guitar, a twelve stringer, and I can still hear his rendition of "It Ain't Nobody's "Dirty" Business", a song which was to vibrate off the back of my skull someplace near my cerebellum for many a year. The "dirty" was his and my reaction to Victorian morality. I remember too when he bought his first Dobro. It had a broken neck and was purchased from a beautiful Turkish woman of fine frame and striking features. Without too much time and money the "neck" was soon restored and a new amplified sound came into being from his hands. I also remember his first acoustical slide, the long neck of a pop or wine bottle, I believe, he found lying at his feet. So together we sometimes spent the evenings at the "Mixer's", the Valley Pizza or the like. Through Steve, I met Maury Bernstein, the leader of his Australian Bushman's band. Often I spent my lunch break in the West bank auditorium listening to Maury's renditions of Minnesota folk music. "Oly, Oly Anna" I still remember from those days.
Grass was naught to grow under Steve's feet for long. He married and soon departed to the West coast. San Jose, I believe or was it Santa Barbara? From his father and mother sometimes I would get reports as to his whereabouts. In his absence I traveled my West Bank haunts; the Mixer's, Triangle and of course the Viking in search of satisfaction which I could find little of. More to follow. The Great White Rabbit returns again.
IN THE WAKE OF THE GREAT WHITE RABITT
"ITS MY PRESCIOUS"
Upon Steve's return to these environs I began to pal around with him again and his new found wife, Tracy. Many a night we would head for Whiskey Junction to dance and listen to the "Blues". Sometimes I would show up at a gig where he was playing. I finally met "Lazy" Bill one night at a three-two bar on Lake Street. Steve would play at the intermissions while Bill would rest and speak to other guests. I went home with Steve, Bill, Tracy and one of Bill's lady friends. Bill explained what it was like to be blind. He was born that way and could only see light and shadow. To paraphrase, it was like being born beneath a crystalline man-hole cover and looking up. You knew that there was a heaven above where you could magically see clearly all the things of beauty around you.
One autumn day some five or so years ago, Steve, his wife Tracy and myself were strolling through one of our many parks. I was engaged in conversation when suddenly I noticed that Steve was missing. Some one hundred feet behind us Steve was kicking at a stone with the back of his heel trying to dislodge a quartz rock deeply embedded in the pathway. He freed it and held it up to the light to behold its beauty.
Several times when Steve was playing in a gig or a jam I would see him remove his music sheets from their appointed place of concealment. Each sheet would be crumpled and stained and included write-overs. He would lovingly hold each sheet by its corners, place it flat and smooth it gently. Their order, place, and time now set, he would begin to play. So it is with his guitar (twelve stringer, Dobro or newly purchased electric amplified guitar, as well as bottle or metal slide, etc.) Each item a tool of his trade and treated with loving care.
I remember a conversation long ago at that infamous drinking hole "the Mixer's" when the Rabitt and another Steve, a class mate of mine, engaged in a heated discussion about the true meaning and roots of the Blues and popular "folk" music as then portrayed by Harry Belafonte and others. Steve spoke with reverence and love about the roots of all Blues with the same passion he holds for his instruments and music sheets with their scribbled lyrics. To paraphrase Billy Black, a local bass player who has played with Steve on several occasions, "Steve learned to play by himself and you never know where he is going to go with a given tune". Each tune is played differently and Blues becomes a living creature forever evolving into something new. What Billy said is true. I remember many a night when Steve would retire to the basement, strike a note on his guitar and play it again and again while I listened upstairs, drinking and laughing with his mother, Marge into the early morning hours.
(Reprinted from 2004 GTCBMS Newsletter)
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