Making Heart Full Of Blues
I first became acquainted with Steve Conn through performances in Boulder by his New Orleans
inspired group, “Gris Gris.” In 1983, I was a regular attendee of his Sunday night performances on The
Mezzanine of The Boulderado Hotel. Along with hotel guests that wandered in, we were a group who
made it a point to be there, and as word spread, many others came, enjoying Steve's rendition of classic
tunes that we loved, as well as many of his own creation.
I recall several occasions in which he was joined by either, or both, Michael Doucet and Sonny
Landreth. On one occasion, while he was in town recording, Elliot Randall accompanied Steve, as well.
Elliot was an established guitar legend, with an impressive history of recording and live performance
credits. He and I had a lengthy professional and personal association, and he was a talented, affable and
efficient studio musician.
Sonny Landreth and his band, Bayou Rhythm from Lafayette, LA, often visited Colorado in the
summer and performed both with Steve as well as a quartet, in local venues. By that time he had
already developed the unique style of playing slide guitar that in just a few years was to make him
world famous and become the darling of many established stars like Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler,
naming just a pair.
It was my desire to capture the feeling from these more or less impromptu duets on The Mezzanine, in
a studio setting. To a great extent I believe that we were successful. I booked John Aldridge's Mountain
Ears Recording Studio for the project. As always, it was the right place to work, with well maintained
equipment, and a helpful and knowledgeable staff. The first session was with Sonny & Steve and it lent
the opportunity to narrow down the tunes and refine the glitches for the second session, which followed
some weeks later, with Elliott. While Sonny's date served as a template for the one to follow, two songs
from that session made it to the release, and I consider them to be among the top three of the collection.
They are Steve's excellent take on Tupelo Honey and his version of the Charles Brown classic, Driftin'
Blues. We were very fortunate to have Chicago blues legend James Cotton, identified in the credits as
“Jack Rabbit Ears,” add his harmonica mastery to that track.
Working with Steve was a great pleasure. His understanding of the fundamentals of creativity made it
possible to achieve our elusive goal; physical reproduction of a spiritual matter.
In hindsight I've reflected on what I might have done differently. Certainly I would have given more
weight to the established chemistry between Steve & Sonny, and perhaps included more of the
collaboration from their session. Sonny, being virtually unknown to the public, and Elliott being quite
famous, obviously influenced my final decision about the songs on the release. The fact that the cover
of the cassette says “Featuring Elliott Randall” with no mention of Sonny, reflects that bias. Looking
back, I view Sonny's masterfully constructed solo on Tupelo Honey, and the addition of James Cotton
on Driftin' Blues as two highlights of the collection.
Elliott delivered sparkling guitar touches to many of them and notably, his solo on Heart Full Of Blues
is a timeless classic for it's tone, construction and sensitive understatement. Lastly, forty plus years
have only increased my appreciation for Steve's originals on this collection. They are a vivid record of
who he was, as he sharpened his song writing skills, and in particular, the title track stands moving and
memorable to this day.
