I pulled a very obscure LP from my collection the other day and, as I listened to it for the first time in years, it really pulled me in.  I had only happened upon it by accidentally reaching for it instead of the LP immediately before it in my album rack but, in reflection, I am quite pleased that I did so.

The LP was They Call Me The Cat Daddy, a collection of blues recorded at Blue Moon Studios in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area back primarily in the 1987-1989 period (with two selections recorded in January, 1990) by guitarist and singer Sonny Rodgers and his supporting cast.  The collection was licensed from Blue Moon Records and released on the U.K. Fattening Frogs Records label (#JUMP 21).  The collection was available at one time on the Blue Moon Records imprint as a cassette tape (BMR 003 – I also have one in my collection).

I had only planned to listen to perhaps one-half of the album while I was completing some work in my blues room but, finding myself greatly enjoying the LP, I settled in and afforded myself the opportunity to revel in all 12 tracks.

Since I’ve not before presented an artist profile on Sonny Rodgers and, while he is currently front-of-mind, now seems the ideal time to do so.

He was born Oliver Lee Rodgers in early December, 1939 in Hughes, Arkansas, a very small town in St. Francis County, an area in the state’s far mid-eastern region.  His people were originally from Mississippi.  His father was named Lee Rodgers, and his mother’s name was Marie Rodgers.  He came from a large family that included 18 children.  Rodgers was the oldest male sibling in his family.

Rodgers always indicated that he got his start in music, the blues, from his father, who was a guitar player.  His father must have had some distinction in his playing as he was a frequent performer in their home area’s juke establishments in the 1940s.  It is also known that Rodgers’ father was an acquaintance of Chester Arthur Burnett, a bluesman more widely known as Howlin’ Wolf, as he was playing the same joints that Rodgers’ father was.  One note regarding this time of Rodgers’ father’s performing in the jukes, and that of someone like Wolf, is that blues artists were still using acoustic guitars during their shows.

As Rodgers continued to work upon his guitar skills, both with his father and on his own, at the youthful age of 17 he was becoming highly aware of the day’s most popular bluesmen such as Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller), B.B. King, Joe Willie Wilkins, and the previously mentioned Howlin’ Wolf, with their bands appearing in the Hughes area.  Seeing these blues greats perform proved to be majorly important in continuing to further the young Rodgers’ interest in becoming a full-time blues guitarist.  As with many young folks interested in the blues, he also had a radio and was exposed to a great deal of the music over the airwaves. 

Hughes was not a terribly large town, being roughly only 2.2 square miles in size, and because of this, Rodgers was one of the few blues guitar players around.  As such, he was in demand for work and, in particular, he performed with Forest City Joe (Joe Bennie Pugh), a blues harmonica player who Rodgers recorded with in 1959 for the esteemed musicologist Alan Lomax.  Lomax had come to Hughes during one of his field recording trips and wanted Forest City Joe’s music to be captured.  The harmonica player is said to have insisted that Rodgers back him on the recordings.  The blues that Lomax was able to record, including that of Forest City Joe with Rodgers, Fred McDowell, Vera Hall, Ed Young, and Lonnie Young saw the light of day on the Atlantic Records label.  Those two blues LPs were entitled Roots Of The Blues and Blues Roll On.

For reasons unclear, Rodgers made the decision to uproot and move to Texas, where he established his own band.  However, in 1961 he again decided to move, this time to Minneapolis, Minnesota.  This displacement occurred because his entire family had made the move northward first, and one of his sisters requested that he too come to be with his people.  At that time, blues activity in Minneapolis was scant but, in a twist of fate, Rodgers made a connection with blues harmonica man Mojo Buford, one that would endure.

With Buford already in Minneapolis and having already established a working blues band that included the fine blues guitarist, Pat Hare, someone who was renowned in Chicago for his work.  Buford’s band had a regular slot at a Minneapolis nightspot, and was said to consistently draw sizeable crowds.  Something good was happening with the blues in Minneapolis, and Rodgers had stepped into it at just the right time.  Buford was insistent on bringing great blues talent to the burgeoning Minneapolis scene, and in 1962 he brought Jo Jo Williams, the singer, guitarist, bass player, and bandmate of Muddy Waters, to the city, along with piano man Lazy Bill Lucas.  (It should be noted here that Rodgers recorded with Lucas on a 1970 collection entitled Lazy Bill & His Friends that included him on guitar on a single selection, an outing that also saw Buford on three of the cuts.)  With all this blues talent now in Minneapolis, Rodgers, Buford, Williams, and Lucas had a tight and highly skilled working blues band assembled. 

With the Minneapolis blues scene now suddenly alive, the talent continued to roll in.  None other than Leonard “Baby Doo” Caston, the superb piano player and guitarist, also joined the ranks of the city’s bluesmen, and Rodgers also played shows with him, too.

Rodgers continued to  build his reputation on the Minneapolis blues scene.  In 1972, Buford recommended Rodgers to Muddy Waters to fill a guitar spot in his touring band after the group’s guitarist, Sammy Lawhorn, was unable to tour.  By that time, Buford had been summoned by Waters to come play harmonica for the same stretch with his touring band.  Rodgers knew that this was the opportunity of a lifetime, and signed on.  He spent roughly 18 months with Waters, and often spoke fondly afterwards of the experience.  He was impressed with Waters’ professionalism and access to top-tier equipment, and the fact that Waters generally would only spend a couple of weeks at a time on the road before returning home for rest.  All this greatly appealed to Rodgers.

In Waters’ band, with Buford playing harmonica, Rodgers had a familiar face along with him.  Waters’ rhythm section at the time included Willie “Big Eyes” Smith and Calvin “Fuzz” Jones on drums and bass respectively.  The excellent Pee Wee Madison was also playing guitar in Waters’ band, as was the superb piano man, Otis Spann.  Rodgers was very aware of the level of talent in Waters’ band and his good fortune to be a part of it, and often indicated that the music Waters and his extremely skilled band was playing was on a very high level.

In 1979, Rodgers had the opportunity to be a part of an ambitious project steered by Buford.  Credited under the name “Sonny Rogers,” Rodgers was enlisted to play guitar and sing on the Mojo Buford’s Chicago Blues Summit LP (originally released on the Chicago-based Mr. Blues label), one that included Buford playing harmonica and singing, Pee Wee Madison, Sammy Lawhorn, and Little Smokey Smothers on guitar, as well, with Smothers also playing bass and singing, Madison also providing vocals, with Lawhorn additionally singing.  Ernest Johnson also provided some bass support, and Sam Lay played drums.  The 11-selection outing was a tough, resoundingly successful Chicago blues affair, with the collection being rereleased a number of times, as recently as 2012.  Such remains its quality, and there in the middle of it was Rodgers.

After a stint away from music, Rodgers made his return to the blues in the 1980s.  By this time, Rodgers and Buford had gone their separate ways. Interestingly, Rodgers return to music came by way of him aligning with an established band that came to be known as The Cat Scratchers, one that included Brad Moe on drums, Pat Dawson on bass, Curtis Blake on harmonica, John Wickstrom on rhythm guitar, Mike Deutsch on piano, and of course, Rodgers on guitar and vocals.  Rodgers was now known as Sonny “Cat Daddy” Rodgers.  The band built quite a following in the St. Paul, Minnesota area. 

The aforementioned LP entitled They Call Me The Cat Daddy collection included many of the above bandmates of Rodgers.  And, a 1989 45rpm with “Cadillac Baby” / “Big Leg Woman” that was released on the Blue Moon Records label was voted as the best 1990 blues single at the W.C. Handy Awards. 

Also floating around is a relatively obscure self-produced late 1980s eight-song blues cassette release credited to The Sonny Rodgers Blues band with Blake Wickstrom, Moe, and Dawson.

Rodgers also appeared on the superb Low Blows: An Anthology Of Chicago Blues Harmonica collection from 1988 (Rooster Blues Records label) where he backs Mojo Buford on one selection.

Rodgers passed away just shy of his 51^st birthday in early May, 1990 in Minneapolis.  A U.K tour was being planned when he succumbed to heart failure.

Rodgers’s story is astounding, one that saw a young man from a very small rural Arkansas town who had aspirations of musical achievement come to perform with many hailed blues artists, including the legendary Muddy Waters, while establishing himself as something of a Minneapolis blues king.  It is quite a story, indeed.