Page 27 - BiTS_07_JULY_2024_Neat

BiTS: Even better.

RC: And I nearly fell off my seat, you know? But The thing is that in a way, it didn't mean anything
because nobody knew who this Raphael
Callaghan was, and that I was sitting

there in the front row. Nobody knew
[laughs]. What a thing for someone like
Bonnie Raitt to say about you.

BiTS: Oh, that's wonderful. How did you
get the gig supporting David Evans
which you have got later this month
(June 2024)?

RC: Oh well, that's a long story. I did my
first visit to Memphis in 1987 and
Raphael with Bonnie
someone gave me David Evans's phone
number and said get in touch with him
because he might be able to point you in
the right direction to blues clubs and
that. So I was going from Chicago down to Memphis and going down to Helena, for the King Biscuit
Blues Festival, and I rang him from the bus station because it was an overnight trip to save on
hotel bills. I just said: Hello, I’m coming down. I’m from Liverpool, a blues singer, and he was so
lovely. He said: if you’re on a tight budget, he said, you could stay with me for a couple of days.
And I was gobsmacked that he should do this for a stranger.

BiTS: Oh, that's nice.

RC: And, in fact, he met me off the Greyhound bus in Memphis. That's how I got to play with Jessie
Mae [Hemphill] in a little club in Memphis. I repaid David’s hospitality by getting him a gig at the
Wirral International Guitar Festival the following year, or in 1990, I think it was. I got him some
gigs and some lectures at some universities in this country as well. And so we've got to know each

other over the years. We just exchange the odd email and that, but someone told me that he was
going to come over for some gigs and could I recommend anywhere. So I gave them a list of some
places that they could try, and they were really, really pleased that someone should help them.
So when they told me that they had booked him, they asked could I do the support? So I said, no
problem at all. So, yeah, playing with David Evans.

BiTS: Have you got your set worked out or are you just doing it as it goes along?

RC: No, and I usually get the set worked out because of tuning things and capos and keys and
that. They've given me 45 minutes, so I've got a 45-minute set and I've been practising it [laughs].

BiTS: So tell me something about your harmonica playing. I gather your father I think it was I
read, got you a harmonica in the first place. How did you learn all this stuff about crossed harp
and second position, and all of that kind of stuff, or didn’t you?

RC: Well, dad brought home a harmonica from work one day and he didn't want to play, so he
just gave it to me. This was about 1963 probably —63 or 64, and I was listening to things like the
Yardbirds doing ‘I Wish You Would’ with that signature harmonica and luckily the harmonica that
dad brought home was in the same key that was on that record.

So I was practising to that and luckily, I think I'm quite musical, so I was able to pick it up quite
quickly because there was no Internet to get lessons from the Internet or there were no harmonica