One Battery, One Starter, One Beer: Secret Stories Launches in SA

A rough start, or rather a "no start" to the Tour in Cape Town! A late night breakdown in the airport parking lot lead to a couple of expensive tow jobs. One starter, one battery, one alternator, one beer, and then I was rushing over to Plumstead to visit my pals at Paul Bothner Music.

For almost a decade of shows across South Africa I've been happily partnered with Paul Bothner Music, better known across the land as Bothners. Africa's biggest music retailer, these folks have provided me with the quality production gear I need to roll across the country playing show after show in places big and small. Wayne Shelver is my promotions guy who sets me up every year. Here we are at the Bothner's warehouse facility reviewing bins and banners and cables before I head out into the Little Karoo. The new, 15 inch Thumpers are the lightest bins I've ever carried– and they sound great. They pack even better in the Merc than the R&R's we've used in previous years.

I must say I like the Nomad stands, and the cool bags they pack in. My North American tours never seem to have these– and I'm thinking that I must get some of these for ease of carry on that side. The nice thing about these carry bags is that they also hold the mic stands– and their whole mess of floppy feet– and it all carries in and out gracefully. When you play as many shows as I do, small things like this can add up to save hundreds of carries over a tour, and the gear packs neatly and easily. If you can save two carries a day over an eighty show tour, believe me– you're very grateful! Security being what it is, sometimes the production gear is moved three or four times daily. 

From Bothners, it was a just in time journey out to Matjiesfontein. Get off the National Highways, and the roads get smaller, and dustier– and the places and the people become more interesting, too. From here, I pointed the Merc south, into the near outback, for a show at Vlieland. I knew I was taking chances with the tyres as I spent hours driving on the gravel in 38 degree heat. Even on the blacktop bits between the trails: these roads are hot: sticky: you can burn yourself touching them: and your tyres can separate into masses of torn belts and twisted rubber. I'd already pushed mine through Ladismith, Calitzdorp, over the Rooiberg Pass to Van Wyksdorp, onward to Oudtshoorn, and beyond, towards Willowmore before that happened. Well, one tyre– but that was more than enough!

The Rooiberg is, I should add, a beautiful Karoo drive.

This time around I knew that the spare took different bolts than the regular wheel– and I actually had these bolts in a bag in the glovebox, too! The change went smoothly when the wheels were blocked down tight. It's amazing how fast one can change a tyre when it's hot desert, and you've got guitars and a PA system piled next to you on the side of the road. I knew it was time for new tyres, but the excitement of replacing the starter, battery, and alternator had got in the way. The people at TyreMart, Aliwal North, installed a new set of tyres for me a couple of days later. I got some high end tyres for about a third of the price they would have cost me in North America: thank goodness! It's a pretty nice drive now, and I've got a few more bits on order from The Old Merc Guy in Port Elizabeth.

Ah, here we are! Packed in at the Overlander Bush Pub, and now looking for Savanna! Show ready. I'm a red wine guy, but when I blow in to set up on a hot, South African afternoon: Savanna! Damn, I could use an endorsement deal with them!

And doing what I actually do best! Songs and stories! My Secret Stories tour continues. This pic taken at The Station, in Calitzdorp.

Lastly, my product of the moment. Some things are simply too good to pass up. What you really need to keep the Tours going is Money. This "Show Me The Money" soap will no doubt keep the cash coming: brown money stuffed into duffle bags and lugged across the dusty landscape. Stay tuned as the Tour rolls across southern Africa!

South Africa Calling: Surfing the Big Merc

Secret Stories: back to my adopted homelands. A two-tone Mercedes and an open road: a small PA and an old National steel guitar: the blues is back in town. Ride with me on the world's biggest little blues tour as I visit places both strange and familiar, mild and wild. Check in here for the developing schedule, or Follow along on the Facebook and Instagram platforms.
 

Walkin' Blues in Ireland

 

Focus dark: purple the blues: play me a tune: like Rory would ya? With all the notes, eh? It's all pressed in from the little streets: little joints where the listeners are pressed up against the players: and the players can probably lean on the same table for luck. And stories! Turn it up, baby. Turn it up! I learn from Sean O'Hara, Lonesome Pete, and Stonecold, and Frank Carberry, and Dom Martin, and... Turn it up! So these 25 shows in 50 days have got louder. And brighter. And ya better have a long power cable. But all is good. It's been a grand tour of places large and small. I've made lots of new friends. I've sold out a bunch of shows in some very cool rooms. I've got good at busses and trains. I've got a little, Guinness belly to show for my social efforts. This second tour of Ireland has built nicely on the previous one– and it now looks to be part of my annual circuit.

Dom Martin and I before our show at Howth Blues Festival, Dublin.

Blues Doctors on convention in Belfast. We prescribe Guinness.

A little pub show at the Belfast Blues Festival.

This was a fun show, north of Belfast, at Whitehead. Lonesome Pete helped me set this one up.

The Railway Bar was another, Northern gig that I really enjoyed– great folks who really know about the blues, and work with most of the top Irish artists.

Johnny!!! Proud to have this famous punk rocker- painter in my corner! We've become firm friends over the last couple of years, and he's done so much to introduce me to the Cork region music people. Get Up the Yard! He's a movie star, too...

Secret Stories Tour Announced. 2024-25 Ireland/UK, Maritime Canada, South Africa...

 Secret Stories are the tales whispered up and down the Blues Highway. Mouth to ear. Generation to generation. In the parking lot. On the night bus. At the back of the left earphone on the playback, if you listen carefully. Get on board. Let go. Your secrets are safe with me. Ireland: next up. In just a few weeks time.

The Tour Blog sites take a long time for me to build, so I'm now sneaking upcoming 2024-25 "Secret Stories" tour stuff onto the 2023-24 "Jojo Man" page here. All the materials in the Media Sidebar are still the most current available. They are being updated– slowly– to the present moment, but this page remains your BEST source of quality, authorized, downloadable, digital promotional resources. Just this week somebody did a Google search and used a bio perhaps fifteen or twenty years out of date... ah, well– we all try! 

The Lost Counties of Ireland

A good dog can be a comfort on a tour such as this: in a place where strange things haunt the hedgerows, and black birds spot the sky.

I think it might of been Flann O'Brien who put the idea in my head that there are actually small, lost Counties in Ireland: secret places that don't appear on maps or on main road signs: places acknowledged in the pub by a curt nod, or a raised eyebrow: after which the conversation only too quickly moves back to the game. Anybody who has ever driven these tiny, Irish tracks knows this to be true. And once you've escaped Google, the strange, modern data vanishes: and well: there you are.

My performance was to be held in the upstairs room of a small pub in the village. It took some walking to find it. I was already tired from the weight of the guitars when I encountered a policeman at the threshold. It was quickly getting dark, and I had been nervous about finding the place, and loading in, and starting on time: and was edging for a pint of something, and for a little conversation to relax my day of travels. But he was a large man who fairly filled the passage to the door. Thick arms and legs encased in a rough blue uniform.

"I do not want to be insidious," the policeman said, "but would you inform me about your arrival in the parish? Surely you had a three-speed gear for the hills?"

"I had no three-speed gear," I responded, "the local bus dropped me up at the High Street."

The Policeman made no response to my answer, but looked at me sideways. "Musician, are you?"
He seemed to take a great interest in my hands. "Have you played for a long time, then?"

A good dog can be a comfort on a tour such as this: in a place where strange things haunt the hedgerows, and black birds spot the sky. The next Irish tour begins June 28 at the Belfast City Blues Festival. I'll continue across Ireland, playing venues large and small, popular places you've heard of– and other places, too, perhaps not found on the standard maps, perhaps only found by turning left instead of right and flagging down an aging, local bus. I'll wrap the Irish tour in Dublin, in mid-August, with shows at Arthur's Blues & Jazz and the Howth Blues & Roots Festival. 

Spirit of the Blues: in which my earnings are small, but my rewards are great

 Vanwyksdorp, Western Cape, South Africa. One of those pass-the-torch kind of moments. This young man arrived early enough to catch my set up and sound check- and was full of questions. "How do you tune that thing?" His parents let him stay for the whole show, and he was clearly captivated by the storytelling of the blues. Next year he'll bring his own guitar along for a free lesson.

I'm in the same age bracket as my musical heroes were when I first met them, so it means a lot to me to be passing the blues along in the same fashion. I remember when I'd arrive early to help carry Brownie McGhee's gear in, when I'd hang around outside of Willie Dixon's hotel, waiting for him to come down for breakfast, when I'd call Son House up from a payphone and invite myself over... and I wasn't alone in my pursuit of the blues. But those are other stories.

I've come a long way in over 50 years of shows. Now there are often a few older guys watching my hands as I play- but having a young lad ask "how do you tune that thing?" reminds me of how wonderful my journey has been, and how gentle and honest and kind were its beginnings.

Two more shows to wrap the South African tour, but I'll be back soon enough.

Desert Dogs: Dust, Diesel, December Dreams

And now, I am also among the dogs that run in this dust: that bark into microphones and scratch out happy memories in the little juke joints up and down the blacktop. My Karoo. My soundcheck. And the sound of the big bikes rolling in. Let's run a bar tab: as long as my arm: I've got long arms, sister. How fast can you run? And maybe my memory's not as good as it used to be. But I'm back. Like I've never been gone. That's the Blues Highway: maps and companionship: sparse rooms and solitude: the emptiness of the desert: the fullness of the night. How fast can I go out here? Is it too hot? Will my tyres explode and hurl this old Merc to a fate of dust and glass and fire and crumpled steel? Maybe that's already happened: already happened and this is Hell on the flipside. Not bad. Some final payout for all the years of sin and depravity. There's never been enough of that to go around. A blues pension. This desert of mine. I roll back every year, and the only things that change are the price of diesel, the colour of my hair, the lines on my face, the patina on the old National. The wind is still the same, the frets are new, but the third string buzzes now, sometimes.

It's still November, but I'm dreaming of December. It is my December. My December: in the shade: watching the sun rise over the desert: me: and Big Joe: and Kokomo. Waiting to hear Son House on the radio: waiting for the kitchen to open: and then: breakfast: and then: I'll point the old Merc down Hwy 62. My Karoo.