Blues Blast from Alaska's Past

By Mike Dunham
mdunham@adn.com

Published: July 29th, 2009 11:58 PM
Last Modified: July 30th, 2009 11:13 PM

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MARC LESTER / Anchorage Daily News

Rock and blues musician Gary Sloan is back in Alaska for a few performances.

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A boy wonder from back in the day has blown back into town to bop at Blues Central this weekend.

Time was when you could catch Gary Sloan just about every weekend in Anchorage, playing solo or with a band, an advertised gig or spontaneous guest appearance, at the Northern Lights Inn, the Flying Machine or a score of other bars that no longer exist.

"The only place left where I played regularly is Chilkoot Charlie's," said Sloan, passing through Anchorage between performances in Talkeetna and Kodiak earlier this month.

Sloan, a southern Californian, came to town in 1964 as a teenage Air Force enlisted man to help clean up wreckage after the Good Friday Earthquake. When his enlistment ended, he stuck around to clean up in the music business.

Anchorage was wild place in pre-pipeline days; for a while Sloan was an honorary member of the notorious biker gang, The Brothers. Gang leaders went down in a federal coke-for-fur-and-ivory sting -- which never implicated Sloan or any other musician to the best of our knowledge.

Besides fronting his own band, Proof, he also brought up name musicians like John Lee Hooker for tours to music-starved towns on and off the road system.

Over the years he opened for visiting acts like Molly Hatchet and Elvin Bishop. He cut several LPs, as we called them back then, and worked in radio. He got into the music video gig early on, veejaying on a local television station with a program called "The Twilight Sloan" and producing a few videos of his own.

His band -- usually featuring the same group of musicians -- changed names over the years. Proof became Southside Blues became Alaska Rhythm Revue became the Sloan Quartet. His collaboration with jazz pianist Melissa Bledsoe, Technoblue, produced what Anchorage Times critic Gary Peterson called "some of the best pop music in the country."

Sloan played a lot of pop. "We could do half a night of nothing but old Stones' material," he once said.

But his claim to fame was blues. The tight-knit blues community made his name known around the world. On a trip to London, he went backstage to meet B.B. King and was astonished when the master bluesman said, "You're that harmonica player from Alaska."

In 1995 he relocated to Arkansas. There, in the crumbling Mississippi River town of Helena, he stumbled into the big blues blowout sponsored by King Biscuit Flour, now known as the Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival. He stepped into a competition with nothing but his harp and took first prize.

Eventually, the sponsors asked if he'd like to emcee the events on the main Heritage Stage. He took the job, but he also got to perform with the veterans on the stage.

"I get to sit in with a lot of guys because everyone wants to play with the harmonica player from Alaska," he said. In Anchorage he was sometimes known as "the Bone Man" because he was (and is) awfully skinny. In Helena, he's "Alaska Slim."

Even better than that nickname, said the 64-year-old Sloan, is the way that blues giants in their '80s and '90s call him "boy." " 'Come up here and play your harmonica with us, boy.' I like it."

(When not gigging, he and his wife, Sandy, provide foster care at their home in Diamond City, Ark. The kids invariably call them "Grandma and Grandpa," he said.)

His resume includes associations with Bo Diddley, Jimmy Rogers, Maria Muldaur, Mary Welles and more. When asked if any of those jam sessions stuck out, he didn't hesitate.

"The one that started it all -- John Lee Hooker. You get up there and feel the aura of a guy like that and you play better than you ever played in your life. It's been downhill ever since."

But the ride down can be as exhilarating as the climb up, he noted. "God, I've had some fun times. And it's all been around the music," he said.

Blues defies limitations of space and time, he observed. He's toured with fine blues players in Serbia, and his fans don't seem to age along with his colleagues. On his way to Alaska this year -- he returns every summer to visit and perform -- he played to an all-college age audience at the New Orleans House in Seattle.

"Some of the young musicians here in Anchorage might want to come to the show and give me a shot," he said with a grin. "Watch me -- and steal something."

• Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.

Gary Sloan Performs starting at 9 p.m. tonight and Saturday at Blues Central, 825 W. Northern Lights Blvd.

$5 cover charge at the door.

Gary Sloan's upcoming gigs can be found at deltaboogie.com/garysloan

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