Home Ain't No Place

I only had a few dozen interviews under my belt when I got the call that Smokin’ Bo Waites was willing to let me do a feature on him-- his first interview in over forty years. He was a fiercely private man and didn’t care at all for the media circus side of the music business. But when I reached out to his manager, I explained that I wasn’t just another young gunner, looking to break through by getting his name attached to my CV. I had been a disciple of his music since I was fourteen. The first time I ever heard one of his songs, it pierced me to my core and brought me to tears. He was more than just a blues legend to me; he was a religious figure, a mystic, a saint, who had led me through some of the darkest times in my life. I’d like to think that something I said must have convinced him, but in reality, Bo probably just decided the time was right to share his story.

It was on a mild August day when I finally got to meet the man. I was a nervous wreck and had not slept at all the night before. But when he and his son, John, greeted me at the door to his stately southern home, they made me feel like an old friend and that put me a bit more at ease. They gave me a brief tour of his home, taking me through room after room stuffed with memorabilia, photos, and guitars. Afterward, we went out to his back patio where he asked me to take a seat at a round glass table. Bo brought out a glass pitcher that was filled with sweet tea and poured tall glasses for us, and then sat down across from me. He had John bring out a small vintage amplifier and a worn brown guitar case, which he sat next to his father on the table. John had followed in Bo’s footsteps and was a prolific bluesman in his own right, and he looked a spitting image of his father as a young man. After John went back into the house, Bo gave me a sideways look under his legendary black fedora, as if he had almost forgotten to ask me for a secret password.

“You like cee-gars?” He gave me a rascally smile.

“I do, actually!”

“Good man!”

He chuckled heartily, as he pulled two dark brown cigars with red and gold bands from the inside pocket of his blazer. He proceeded to cut and light them and push a square crystal ashtray on the table so it was centered between us.

“Just don’t be asking where I got these Cubans, now! Ha!” He winked at me and snickered.

The smoke drifted up lazily around us and I sipped a bit too frequently on my sweet tea, while he asked me about myself and my work for the magazine. When it came time to begin the interview, it was all I could do to collect myself and push past how surreal this whole thing was for me. I leafed through my black Moleskine notebook, quickly looking over my notes and trying to get my thoughts together. I opened up by asking him about the early days of his career and The Sack Boys, a band he had founded with his close friend Ed ‘Thumper’ Thompson.

“Well, me and Ed had been playin’ together in a few bands since we was kids, ya’ know. It wasn’t serious until we sat in with some friends of ours at a small club downtown... the Silver Spoon. We did a dozen or so gigs down there, playin’ standards and radio hits. Then, after the last show, we met ol’ Arnie Valentine and he asked if he could manage us and get somethin’ goin’. He had some friends that worked at Grandstand Records and somehow... he got us a deal.” Bo finished the sentence through a hearty laugh, shaking his head to show his disbelief.

“And tell me about the origins of the band name. Why The Sack Boys?”

“Well, the name was my idea. Ed and I were both workin’ as sack boys at the flour mill at the time. I threw it out there as a joke at first, ya’ know? But then we got to thinkin’, what better name for the thing we fixin’ to do then the name of the thing we fixin’ to quit doin’? Ha ha!”

“And do you feel like Arnie got you guys a good deal? It was for an EP and a full album right?”

“Yeah, that’s right. They also baked in some session work to make it worth they while, too, ya know? But it was a pretty good deal for the time, for a four-piece. Twenty thousand dollars for the whole band, plus twelve percent. None of us could even begin to wrap our minds around that kinda money, man...we thought we were rich!

We all used our advances to buy new instruments and tailored suits, and everything. Ed got himself a...I think it was a big ol’ silver Ludwig kit. Barney got himself a black hollow-body bass...I can’t remember what kind. It may have been a Hofner. That was the bass to get back in those days. And I went out and picked up Rosey, the 355.” He looked over at the stained and tattered brown case with affection then patted it gingerly.

“Wow, definitely not a bad deal for the time, for sure. And the fact that you got Rosey out of it… I mean that guitar is not just iconic... it's hard to think of you without it.” He nodded as he drew on his cigar, then tilted his head back and exhaled the smoke through pursed lips.

“I’m told the ol’ girl is more famous than me”, he chuckled. “I’m betting you wanna see her, huh?” He grinned so widely that the tops of his cheeks obscured his eyes a bit.

I tried to play it cool by leaning back in my chair and nodding.

“I sure would.”

I couldn’t believe it. I was going to see thee Rosey up close. If he was a saint, Bo’s cherry red Gibson 355 was a holy relic. He rested his cigar in the corner of the ashtray, deftly snapping open each latch, and lifted the lid. The gold and mother of pearl appointments on the guitar gleamed in the early afternoon sun. The bright red had long since faded to swathes of blood and wine. Once sharp edges along the body contour were now blunted and chipped, and hairline cracks ran along most of its surface. But she was not just beautiful-- Rosey was sublime.

“Wow.”

The word slipped past my lips before my brain had a chance to catch up. Bo smiled in amusement at my wide-eyed expression. He lifted the guitar out of the case and rested it vertically on his lap for a moment, eyeing it up and down, before handing it out over to me; just when I thought the day couldn’t get any more surreal. As I gingerly took it from him and rested it upon my lap, I wondered when the feeling in my limbs would return, as the voice in my head spiraled: Don’t drop it, don’t drop it, come on get a grip…

I strummed a few chords robotically, then looked it over as thoroughly as I could, trying desperately to take in every minute detail. As my gaze moved down the back of the neck, I noticed a large crack running through it and along the guitar’s uppermost quarter. I realized that at some point the neck must have been fully detached from the body. It had been repaired quite well, but the scarring that remained was brutal.

“Jeez! What happened here?”, I exclaimed.

“That was from the night I almost lost the ol’ girl. She was in two pieces! Ed was the one that did that,” Bo sighed and shook his head. I was stunned and couldn’t quite process what he had just said.

“You mean Ed broke the guitar? Not purposefully though right? Was this around the time when the band broke up?” I tried but couldn’t help my voice from sounding timid.

“Yeah. That was from the night it happened. Ya see, he was blind drunk and raging at me cos he thought I stole his girl. Ya know my old lady, Janey? She had been dating Ed right around the time we got the deal. But it wasn’t too serious for her...she was just young. She was havin’ fun. But Ed really loved her; or at least, he thought he did.

Thing of it was that me and Janey had a connection right from the beginning. The first time I met her was after a recording session, when we all went out to dinner. She was so beautiful, you wouldn’t believe. And I introduced myself, and we chatted as you do. But as much as I felt something for her - and later I found she felt the same way - to me, she was with Ed and that was the end of it. I wouldn’t do my closest friend that way.

But Janey didn’t stay with Ed very long. She broke it off with him after a month or so. The day she broke it off, I was out at my old man’s place helping him repair his roof. So, I didn’t know what had happened. The next day, I was back in town, and I stopped into the diner across from my apartment to get some breakfast. Who do I see there with her family, but Janey. And she came over to me and told me she had broken things off with Ed. I told her I was sorry and hoped she was doing okay. She thanked me and said ‘see ya ‘round’, ya know. And that was it.

But someone must have seen her and me sitting and talking and told Ed, cos that night at the studio he was riled up, man. I hadn’t even finished walking through the door before he started shoving me around. Barney and Maxwell tried to pull him off but he swung at them too. He screamed ‘I know you bin’ talkin’ to Janey!’ and I pushed him off and tried to get him to calm down. But he wasn’t willing or able to hear me out. So, he goes over to Rosey, to where she was on the stand and smashes her over my amp. He cursed me out and then left. I was in shock. We all were. My closest friend, ya know… I had no words.

And that was it. He wouldn’t talk to me or any of the other guys, but he told Arnie he was quitting and that was it. Luckily, Arnie convinced the label to renegotiate the deal with me and the other guys, with me bein’ the hook. And that’s when we became Smokin’ Bo and the Charmers after we got Charlie in on drums. A couple of months after that, Janey and I got together, and a year later we was married. I didn’t hear from Ed all that time. I saw him around town here and there, but he would shrug me off. And me and the guys started touring the first album so I didn’t have the time to chase him down and try to patch things up.

It was two years later that he came and found me after a show, when we were playin’ back at the Silver Spoon. He apologized for everything and said he had been too embarrassed to talk to me. He told me he was really happy for me and Janey, and I told him it would be great to have him sit in with us when we were in town again. We hugged each other and that was it, ya know? I was back on the road a week later when I got the call from Janey that he had died in the car accident. I couldn’t believe it… Ed was like a brother to me.”

Tears started to well up in Bo’s eyes and he looked off into the distance for a while.

“I’m so sorry, Bo.” I tried to muster something more to say, but the words just wouldn’t come. He gave me a solemn nod and wiped the tears from his eyes. Then he gestured for me to hand Rosey back to him, which I did; as carefully as if I was handing a newborn back to its mother. He sat Rosey up on his lap and plugged in a cable that had been coiled up inside the case. After switching on the amp and giving the guitar a quick tuning, Bo looked up at me.

“You know what I like to do when I have the blues don’t ya? It works like magic every time. What song do you want to hear?”

I knew the song, but didn’t know if I could keep myself from crying like I did the first time I heard it. But moments like those were not meant for restraint or being self-conscious, I told myself.

“It’s got to be, ‘Home Ain’t No Place’.”

“Great choice. It’s one of my favorites to play.” Bo leaned into Rosey and picked out the opening riff and then started to sing.

Home ain’t no place to be tonight. No, the road seems a safer bet to me. I’ll be out wanderin’ til’ the first light. There’s nowhere else for me to be...

I let the tears come and so did Bo. After he finished the song, he carefully reinterred Rosey into her case and we continued the interview. He held nothing back, telling me about his frequent battles with drugs and alcohol over the years, all of the hard fought victories over his labels and managers. I still think back to that day as the best interview I have done or will ever do. It launched my career and most importantly brought me a friendship with the greatest bluesman of his generation. I still ask St. Bo to put in a good word for me from time to time.