March 2003
Source: www.templeofblues.com
Carrying on the Tradition of Chicago Blues Piano
by Skyy Dobro, Watseka, Illinois
“I am a dinosaur! You’re a dying breed playing the style of music I play. I am not accessibly
commercial property. There’s really not a call for as much of the blues piano that I do. I am in love
with Leroy Carr (1920s-30s); I can play his stuff all night and not give a damn if people like it! I love
slow blues – the sadder, the better. Guitar and harmonica are always the ones people like – they
like the volume. So a lot of [bands] don’t hire a piano,” reflected Charles Goering in a phone
interview this past week. Goering is better known in the blues world as Barrelhouse Chuck.
It seems illogical to me that piano would not be more popular. My family didn’t own a guitar, but we
had a piano. As a child, the first music I heard at church was played on a piano. In my first music
class in grade school, the teacher was playing a piano – but not that well. So the first time I heard a
really great pianist (with a good left hand), I was hooked. Hearing Ragtime, boogie-woogie, and
barrelhouse piano was like, “Oh yeah, I want more of that!”
Muddy Waters, the creator of Chicago Blues, always had a piano, and so does Nick Moss. Kankakee
area blues fans recently received a double treat when Nick Moss and the Fliptops made a repeat
appearance at The Landing. On that night, international touring artist Barrelhouse Chuck performed
with Nick, Moonshine Kate, and drummer Greg “Smokey” Campbell. Chuck has been friends with
Nick for 12 years, and they both realized that they each do the old stuff right. Their union is a
natural!
Chuck continued in a more optimistic tone, “In the last few years, I’ve resurfaced on doing some
recordings. I’ve gotten lots of press by different people in Chicago. And I am excited now to be
playing with Nick Moss! It is so much fun! We share the stage and solos, we back each other, and
we just recorded a new CD coming out in May, ‘Count Your Blessings’.”
“I’m also very, very fortunate to have Sirens Records (in Highland Park). It’s an independent blues
piano label, and I’m very, very happy. In the last two years, I’ve had “8 Hands on 88 Keys” (with
Pinetop Perkins, Detroit Junior, and Erwin Helfer), and then I had a solo CD ”Prescription for the
Blues.” The Sirens label has been a great help because people who seek blues piano can find it on
this label. Along with my other CD’s, I’ve recorded on about 16 different labels over the years.”
“I am always looking for someone who wants to record me in a band situation. I so desperately
want to make good recordings. To me, what you leave behind is your legacy - which are the good
records you make with good musicians. When you play live, it is like smoke in the air. When the
music is gone, it’s gone! Your body of recorded work is how you will be remembered.”
Another great album is one Goering has re-released, titled “Salute to Sunnyland Slim.” Chuck
reissued it with tribute in mind. Goering is one of the few Chicago blues pianists to have studied
under Sunnyland Slim, Pinetop Perkins, Lafayette Leake and Little Brother Montgomery.
When I told Chuck how I completely fell in love with this CD by the third listen, he responded, “You
know, you’re one of the people that get what that’s about. It’s a certain era of Chicago blues with
the players on there from the Muddy Waters Band and the Howlin’ Wolf Band like S.P. Leary, and
then Calvin Jones and Willie Smith, and Sam Lay. There was just a great effort to recapture
something that was left to me from Sunnyland. You know, he really gave me an incredible gift of
lots of years, the almost 20 years that I spent with him. I really wanted to do a couple of his songs,
like ‘Depression Blues,’ and then at the same time try to get that Chess [Records] sound that I so
much fell in love with.”
As Goering laments, there are not many practicing blues pianists. Every town has at least one good
guitar player, but the live music venues don’t have a piano. Chuck feels like he is one of the last of
a dying breed. Goering, though, is only 44-years-old, and with a reemerging fan base, he has many
years to illuminate a great lineage.
Purchase these CDs directly from Chuck and read his complete biography at
www.barrelhousechuck.com Find more great blues piano albums from The Sirens Records at
www.thesirensrecords.com
Return to more Press
Interview with Barrelhouse Chuck