Free Raisin' Cain: The Wild and Raucous Story of Johnny Winter (Kindle Edition) by Mary Lou Sullivan Page B

on the radio at the time. I learned a few hillbilly songs—‘Fraulein’ was the big one that we played in white clubs.
    “The Raven Club in Beaumont was a black club. Texas was definitely racist when I was growing up. Black clubs and white clubs were in separate parts of town and most people stayed in their own part of town. At the black clubs, the jukeboxes had Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Bobby Bland, Junior Parker—the same music I was buying in the record stores.”
    Determined to hear the music he loved, Johnny, Edgar, and his friends started frequenting the Raven Club, where they saw shows by Bobby “Blue” Bland, Little Junior Parker, Al “TNT” Braggs, and B. B. King. Decked out in jackets, ties, and dress pants, the teenagers appeared older than their years and demonstrated respect for the artists by emulating the attire of blues bands of that era.
    “I was about fifteen or sixteen when I first went to the Raven Club,” Johnny says. “I went with the guys in the band; we were the only white people there. We were a little bit scared, but we pretended not to be. I was sixteen the night I sat in with B. B.—that was a great night. I was there with Edgar, David Holiday, and probably Willard Chamberlain. It was a completely black audience. I wanted him to hear me—to let him know somebody else could play that music too. But he didn’t want to let me sit in.”
    King had a strict policy of not allowing anyone to sit in unless he knew the musician and his level of expertise. But he was impressed that four white teenagers had ventured into the black part of town and had the chutzpah to ask. King thought about the dynamics of a white musician asking to sit in with a black band in a black club, and didn’t want his refusal to be construed as racist. He decided to let Johnny sit in, but for only one song.
    “He didn’t know if I was any good or not, and didn’t want to take a chance,” says Johnny. “First he asked to see my union card. I showed it to him, and it surprised him that I had a union card. I said, ‘Please, let me sit in, Mr. King; I know your songs,’ and he finally let me play. I played his guitar Lucille. I played ‘Goin’ Down Slow’ just played the one song. He says he let me sit in for a few more songs, but he didn’t. He just let me sit in for the one song and took his guitar back.
    “It was fun. He had three horns, drums, bass, guitar, and organ; it was the first time I played with such a big band. I got a standing ovation, and that surprised him. He said, ‘I’ll be seeing you down the line; you were great.’ That made me feel great. It meant so much to me to have a great bluesman, somebody who I always idolized, encourage me. I always knew I wanted to be famous and that was great—it made me feel like I can do this and have people like me.
    “Later on, I heard B. B. was afraid we were from the IRS—that we were comin’ down to the club for his taxes. We all had on black trench coats—it was cold and nasty out—and most white people didn’t go to black clubs unless they had a reason to be there. I didn’t know he felt that way until later on when I heard him talking about it on an interview.
    “We were treated real well at the Raven Club, but that changed when young black people started getting down on the blues. They felt like blues was the sound of the suffering of the black people, the music of the depressed era. People who liked it kept buying the records anyway, but they listened to it in the basement instead of in the living room. The younger black kids didn’t really like us coming to the black clubs. They’d say, ‘Hey, whitey,’ and things like that. I didn’t stop going but they made it uncomfortable.”
    Johnny and Edgar also frequented the Tahiti Club, a black jazz club in Beaumont. Johnny wasn’t a jazz aficionado like Edgar, but was impressed with the musicianship of black players. “There was one jazz band that played in the Tahiti a lot,” says