By Cathi Norton  (Feb. 2000)

     I've got a secret love for the rock-solid sidemen who are the
backbone of  the music scene. These folks earn their living by making a
"front man" look great. Inside the industry, however, quality sidemen
rule. A good drummer, like up-and-comer Kenny Smith (son of Willie "Big
Eyes" Smith) is hot property because they deliver no matter where you put
them.
     Such a player is the dapper Bob Stroger, Chicago bass man. You can't
catch this man not lookin' GOOD!  Appearing at every show dressed to the
nines, Stroger has earned a good rep. He's on time - at the gig and on the
beat. His car is slick, his manners finehe's guaranteed to bring a smile.
Born in Hayti, Missouri, sixty-some years ago ("I ain't gonna give you my
age!" he laughed.), Stroger moved to Chicago and married. His
brother-in-law, Johnny Ferguson, played in a blues group with J.B. Hutto
called "Johnny Ferguson and the Twisters." "I was the onliest one who had
a car, so I was carrying them around," he recalled. Stroger loved how
happy the music made people so he picked up guitar as a first instrument.
     Ralph Ramey was the harp player for Ferguson's "Twisters," and Jr.
Wells often came down to the gigs to hang with him. When Ferguson decided
he didn't like playing clubs that much, the band broke up and Ramey formed
a band with Bob, his brother John (Stroger), and Banks Nelson called the
"Red Tops."  As their popularity grew, Ramey decided he didn't want to
travel, so again the band reformed. Stroger's brother changed his name to
Joe Russell, and with Bob, former Willie Mabron guitarist Willie Hudson,
and Willie Kent, formed the "Joe Russell Blues Band."  The group lasted
three or four years and saw Bob switching to bass guitar.  "We had Willie
Kent singing," recalls Bob. "He couldn't sing then (laughs), and we was
all tryin' to learn how to play! His time was bad so we had to get that
together. We laugh about that now. He thought we 'spozed to follow him!
(laughter)"
    After a few years, Stroger felt he needed to stretch out. "I decided
to make a move and joined a jazz band with Rufus Foreman-a horn player."
He stuck with that awhile, but soon found they couldn't get jobs. "That's
when we decided we needed the blues!"  So around 1969 they threw in with
guitarist/singer Eddie King and Maestro (former guitarist for Koko Taylor)
in "Eddie King and the Kingmen."  Like so many of Stroger's bands, this
one too was enduring. He played with the Kingmen for nearly 15 years, in
addition to working a day job. The band played  R & B and after so many
years, Stroger felt he couldn't play with anyone else. He quit playing for
almost two years.
    His return to traditional blues came when Otis Rush's drummer, Jesse
Green, called to ask him to sit in. So the 1980s found him working with
Otis Rush. "I always give Otis a lot of stripes, because he the one that
took me to Europe and he why people started noticin' me when I got
there--you know my playing and my style." Stroger's tenure with Otis Rush
took him all over the world and on several great recordings.
   By this time Stroger was well known as a solid bass player with style.
From Otis's band, Stroger went with Sunnyland Slim (Albert Luandrew), and
his career took on a more free-lance flavor. He and Odie Payne became the
standard rhythm section for tours arranged by Europe's Horst Lippman,
promoter of the now famous American Blues Folk Festivals.  "I think I'm
about the onliest bass player that ever went over on those tours that
wasn't singing!" he laughed. "I musta been doing something right!"
    Back in the States, Stroger began a long relationship with Jimmy
Rogers who had Piano Willie and Madison Slim in his lineup. Rogers was
always generous in allowing Stroger to take on independent projects, so
Stroger made the most of it. When the group "Mississippi Heat" came up
with an attractive offer, Stroger went with them for several years.
Stroger settled into free-lance activities and certainly has the know-how
to back them up.  He has recorded supple bass lines on more than 40 albums
since 1976 with a roster of heavyweights in the blues genre like Otis
Rush, Sunnyland Slim, Snooky Pryor, Jimmy Rogers, Dave Specter, Louis
Myers, Pinetop Perkins, Carey Bell, Steve Freund, Aaron Moore, and Eddy
Clearwater among others.
    Stroger is a foundation of the Chicago blues you don't want to miss.
He really does (as he once said to someone) "live in the roots" of the
music.

CATHI: Tell me about playing music with Otis (Rush).

STROGER: Oh, Otis is one of my favorites. He is so easy to play with--he
has so much soul. And he was easy to get along with you know? We still
very close now. It went a little deeper than the music because we was
something like a family too--me, him, and Jesse Green. I played with him
about ten years and he took me to Europe for my first time. After than
everybody liked me.

CATHI: But you toured Europe a lot later too didn't you - with Sunnyland
(Slim) and with the (Horst) Lippman tours?

STROGER: Oh yeah. A bunch of people went--Eddie Taylor, Sunnyland, Carey
Bell, Lurrie Bell, Hubert Sumlin, and a lot of them. Odie Payne and me was
the rhythm section.  I was lucky.

CATHI: How about that Sunnyland?

STROGER: Sunnyland was my best friend. Boy, he learnt me lots about music:
discipline, dress codes, and aw, he just learnt me lots about music, and
he was really carin' 'bout discipline. I guess that's the reason I'm
always an hour before the job, you know, because he would make sure that
you would be on time. He was just a great guy, and he taught me the
business when we used to tour together. Me 'n Sunny used to walk together
every morning. He was the onliest one back in those days-in Europe-getting
bacon and eggs for breakfast. So I had to follow him! (Laughs.) I don't
know how he did it, but when everybody else was eatin' hard rolls and tea,
he was eatin' bacon and eggs!  He was one of the greatest you know - on
the bandstand and off the bandstand.

CATHI: Was he the one that told you to dress for the gig?

STROGER: Oh yeah!  And I don't know. There was something special about me.
Anybody else could wear whatever they wanted to on the bandstand. He would
never say anything. But if I come and wasn't dressed, he would pout and
wouldn't speak to me all night.

CATHI: (Laughs) How come?

STROGER: That was the part of  Sunny--he really wants you to look good on
the bandstand. 'Specially me.  Steve (Freund)...he wouldn't bother Steve,
but
me and Robert (Covington)--he used to stay on us. I know I came one night
wearing a jogging suit and boy, he grumbled the whole night! "Damn, you
musta been playin' ball somewhere!" (Laughs.) I said, "Well, everybody
else wearin' bluejeans--why I can't wear it?"

CATHI: What did he say?

STROGER: "That ain't what musicians 'spozed to wear!"

CATHI: You think that's true? A lot of old-timers think you should dress
for the gig.

STROGER: Well, that's the way it were when I started to playin' it. The
whole code have changed, but when I started to playin' the first thing a
guy would ask you, can you gig was, "Do you have a dark suit and tie?" So
if you didn't have no suit and tie, don't care how good you were, you
ain't work the gig.  I think a musician is a special kind of breed. We
made sure that musicians kind of stood out from a crowd. Now you don't
know who musicians is. But back then when you walked in a place, you knew
who was playin' by the way he was dressed. We wasn't makin' no money, but
we was lookin' good! (Laughs.)

CATHI: (Laughs) Well, how do you think the music scene has changed up
there in Chicago?

STROGER: Well, it's not the same. I don't hardly go to B.L.U.E.S.
(nightclub) anymore. I think lots of clubs is now for the money, not for
the love of the blues. Lots of them know that's what they have to do to
make money, so they playin' everything but the blues. So there's very few
traditional blues players around now. I'd rather work off-beat clubs now.
You get as much money and people appreciate it you know. Because the
mainstream clubs now is mostly tourist clubs and they come in there
because that's the place to go, not because they love the music, you know.
I love Smoke Daddy--it's kinda remind me of blues--you got contact with
people. But I think my favorite clubs I work for the acoustics. And the
better club now is Buddy Guy's. You go in there, you sound like you
'spozed to.

CATHI: So your love is blues, even though you played jazz for awhile? Why
do you like the blues so much?

STROGER: It's the FEEEELIN' girl!! (Laughs). My love is the blues. I play
other music, but I FEEL blues. It's a spiritual thing. It's something you
get into and you feel the movement. I love Snooky Pryor songs and doing
things like that--he don't play no sad blues. And I really got back to
blues playing with Jimmy Rogers. Jimmy was just like a brother to me, you
know. He always would let me leave when I could get better gigs. So I
worked with Jimmy, but I still went to Europe and did things with other
people you know, and I always had my job. And when I went with
"Mississippi Heat" he told me the same thing. You know I told him how did
he feel about me making a move--I felt I could do a little better for
myself you know. And he was the first one told me, "Go ahead on. Whenever
I get ready, come back"--I always had my job. Matter of fact, we was
getting back together when he was in the hospital, when he came back from
Japan. I 'spozed to join back up with him, but he never did.  The last
thing he said to me was "Was I with him?" you know? And after that he
started to goin' down.

CATHI: Then you stayed with "Mississippi Heat" for a few years?

STROGER: About five in the '90s. I don't know. I think we went as far as
we could with that. We was up there and they wanted to travel and the
travel wasn't there, you know, and we was always professional musicians
that didn't have nothing to do but play music, so that was the stoppage of
that.  Now I like to free lance because it keeps your ears open and you're
not playin' in a rut. I can choose the jobs I. Like I do things with
Pinetop (Perkins) and (Aaron) Moore, or (Aaron) Burton, so that kind of
spreads me around.

CATHI: What's up next?

STROGER: Well, I'm going to Salinas, Kansas to cut a thing with (George)
Wild Child Butler and then another thing on Jimmy Lee (Robinson), and then
we 'spozed to do some taping with "60 Minutes." Honeyboy (Edwards) goin'
up there too.  I'm going to Switzerland then to do a jazz thing, and then
something with Pinetop and then down to Florida. I'll be doing the Lucerne
Blues Festival in November in Europe, and some work in Chicago with Sam
Lay. I be busy! (Laughter)