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Wednesday Jim Brewer would come up from the South Side and play. I was fascinated
with him, it was much like finding another Gary Davis, right there in the street (Jim
was known as the Maxwell Street Virtuoso. He could play most anything.)

Later on, when I got more settled and into the business of touring, I would try and
get gigs for some of these guys. That was an extension of the labour ethos: get work
for the old guys. I did that for about thirty-five years, till they were all gone: Jim,

Daniel Womack, Rev. Dan Smith, the whole Travelling Blues Revue crew, whatever
I could do for them, I did

BiTS: Back one step. How did you learn to play the guitar? Did you have lessons or

just work it for yourself? I had a real problem because I knew nothing of open
tunings. I didn't realise they even existed for a number of years.

AC: My stepmom wanted a guitar for Christmas the year I was fifteen. She got it and

never took it out of the closet. In the meantime, I had been fooling around on the
piano and even had some
lessons (fortunately they didn't

ruin my playing...) since I was
three, so I was pretty good. I
played melody over chords, a

little boogie, a little ragtime, and
a little Tom Lehrer. I was also
playing cornet along with my

dad's Dixieland LPs, so after
hearing Big Bill and Brownie, it
was a natural extension.

The guitar came with a copy of
Oscar Brand's ‘How To Play

American Folk Music'. Since I
already half knew what I was
doing, I got through the book in about an hour and it was off to the races. I could
absorb anything I came across. I had an intuitive grasp of simple theory and a broad

acquaintance with a lot of music. It wasn't a mystery to me, it was like an open book.
Later I learned a little formal theory but I could hear changes right away.

One of the bands I grew up on was the Firehouse Five Plus Two, the Disney artists

who gave us Donald Duck and Fantasia. They were also a smokin' Moldy Fig Jazz
band. Having grown up to them, and being able to parse the parts, when I saw Rev.

Davis at Brandeis—I was right up front looking up at his right hand—I could see he
was playing all the same parts they were, but on one instrument. Such was my prime
example of what it was all about.