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Bernard Allison Written By: Art Tipaldi Nothing ignites a crowd faster than a performer jumping off the stage and taking the music to the people. Over the course of three weekends last summer, I saw Bernard Allison perform at two festivals, two after-hours jams and one club gig. Each time, he did The Walk. Whether he stood on a bar at closing time, let a mom and her son in the crowd strum his guitar, or leapt off the stage into a sea of fans, he carried his special brand of blues beyond the safety net of the stage. "Most people consider musicians untouchable stars. That's too high in the sky for me. I try to keep the communication with them person to person," said Allison. "Since not many people do that, it's a very effective way to reach audiences. If you hide on the stage, you only see a few people. By walking the crowd, I can mingle with the people and talk to individuals. regardless of how big i get, don't ever think I could stay on the stage. This is all part of the family vibe that I try to create at every show." But Allison's crowd walk involves more than strolling among his fans. "I'm counting the song in my head," he said. "I know the tempo when I [leave] the stage. Depending on the venue, I may go out 100 yards, so I'm hearing the band on a delay. [It] is only a couple of seconds, but those few seconds could mean tragedy if I don't accommodate the delay. If I feel I've lost them, I'll give a signal and stop the band until I can tell them what I'm hearing. "While I'm playing my part, I try to talk to the people. I'll give them the guitar pick and let them strum. One night I walked outside and there was a little kid who was so amazed that I was out there, I gave him the guitar pick and once he strummed it, he realized that sound was his. He turned to his mom and yelled, 'Look, Mom, I'm playing!" "I basically play two shows. After the walk at the end of the first set, people are blown away. They're on telephones calling friends telling them to come down fast. I can't do the walk in the second set, so I normally end with two slide tunes, 'Low-down and Dirty' and my speed slide, which is even higher energy than the walk. Once audiences hear the speed slide, they go over the top. When I come back for an encore, I try and do a song that'll mellow 'em out and bring'em back down after the speed slide. Those are some of the little things that I learned from my dad." If you go to a Bernard Allison show expecting to see a clone of his world-famous father, Luther, you'll be both shocked and pleasantly surprised. When Bernard first started performing, crowds jammed the clubs to see the son play the father; today they come mostly to hear Bernard play his vision of the blues. "I'm gonna try my best to pick up were he left off," Bernard said, "but I can't be Luther Allison. I can only be myself. In the beginning everyone expects me to be exactly like him, but we are two different musicians. We have lot of similarities, but we also have differences and that variety definitely shocks a lot of people. I have a seven-piece group, and we freely mix blues, funk and rock." The younger Allison's music incorporates a massive horn sound. Early on, he witnessed his father using horns, and he listened to the arrangements of B.B. King's horn section. "I like to have the music move dynamically from the start of the song to the end. That way I let the music tell the story. Adding sax and trumpet reaches beyond the guys who only want to hear speed guitar. With horns, I can swing with a West Coast flavor that mixes with the Texas and Chicago sound. I can do a funk sound and add a different color. I give each musician the same amount of room. I can drop back in the rhythm section and lock in with them and let someone else take the lead role. The arrangements play a huge role. Once I have the arrangement of who's playing when, we can just pass a song around the stage." Allison was born in 1965, and though he spent much of his youth moving back and forth between Illinois and Florida, he remained close to this father's music. Luther's longtime guitar mate James Solberg recalls festival appearances in the early 1970s when Bernard would be running onstage throughout the band's set. Experiences like that can profoundly affect one's aspirations: "That's when I decided I wanted to be up there like him," said Allison. "I think I was seven." Allison began fooling around with the guitar when he was nine, but he didn't show his father for another three years. "I was living in Florida when I began to play. There were no venues at all in that area, so Dad was never able to come there. That's why he didn't know I could play." Thoug Luther was absent, his record collections played a major role in shaping his son's direction. "I listened to a lot of my dad's records and his influences like Magic Sam, Otis Rush, T-Bone Walker, Lightnin' Hopkins and B.B. King. Later, I got into the next generation that followed, people like Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Winter, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. "I didn't get a chance to see him until I could play guitar. When we moved to Peoria, he came home preparing to do his live album. I hooked up the amplifier and guitar in the basement and started playing his first record, Love Me Mama, note for note. He freaked out and said, 'Tonight you're gonna record with me." That was my first recording, at 12. I played 'You Don't Love Me No More' and "Sweet Home Chicago.' "He brought me my first guitar, a Fender Stratocaster, but he told me if I wanted to play guitar I had to first get my education. That's what I did. I graduated from high school in 1983, and one week out of school, I got a call from Koko Taylor asking me to be her lead guitar player." Allison's guitar foundation expanded when he met Johnny Winter and Stevie Ray Vaughan. "Johnny basically taught me how to play slide guitar. I never heard anyone play slide like that. I call it 'speed slide.' I met Johnny when I was very young. me dad left me onstage with him. He was playin' circles around me. I was tryin' to play slide, and I couldn't figure out the open tunings. Johnny showed me how to play in open-D tuning, and a couple of weeks later, it clicked." Allison also influenced hi father's playing, pushing Luther to expand the frantic slide guitar that accompanied his signature club walk in the '90s. "He had great faith in my playing," Bernard said. "He saw me playin' slide and he asked me how I was doin' that. He was only used to the regular tunings, so I taught him open tunings and he ripped away at it." For a year and a half, Allison lived and played in London, Ontario. Then, in 1989, he flew to Europe to record with his father. When he was asked to lead the band, he, like his father, adopted residence in France. "Things really took off from there, he said. "Within three years, I received my first record contract. My first record was The Next Generation. I got my own group together and now we're one of the major touring acts in Europe. It happened the same way it happened for my dad: I was getting a little frustrated here, went there, was well-received and treated right. It's a shame it happens that way, but this is nothing new. Look at Hendrix or Memphis Slim. The European audiences don't hold back." The decision to embark on a solo career came as a result of many father-son talks. "We thought it was unfair that some of the promoters and buyers were starting to take advantage of having these two guitar players, Luther and me. We tried to give them both packages together, but financially, the price never moved. He felt we were giving them too much. Dad said that we [could] always play together and do shows together, but I needed to go out on my own. We [could] do it in two separate packages. As Allison began filling houses in Europe, his father cautioned him about returning to America, advising his son to establish himself with the public first. "He knew my capabilities," Allison said. "He told me that I was going to have to play smaller venues, deal with the bar scene and travel in a van all over again. From there, I [could] move to bigger clubs and festival bookings." Allison has slowly climbed the ladder of musical acceptance since his first trip back to America in May 1997. He first toured the United States in the fall of 1997, immediately following his father's death from lung cancer. Tours in 1998 and early 1999 focused on the East Coast and Midwest. But his fall 1999 tour will concentrate on the West Coast - his first trip there since his days with Taylor. He returns to Europe each winter to continue building his audience there and to expand his musical style. "So many blues acts do the same show over and over," he said. "I think I offer something new to fans. You never know what I'm gonna do because I never know what I'm gonna do. I feel the crowd out and vibe off of the people. If I hit' em with something funky and they don't respond, I know to try something with more rock in it. I know when I hit the straight blues, they'll definitely respond. In every show, I like to see how wide I can go." Allison finds comfort and happiness in splitting his time between two continents. European audiences provide him the freedom to stretch his show into areas that may not be accepted by America's blues crowd. As those musical experiments are perfected, Allison incorporates them into his American shows. "Each time back, I'm getting more recognition and people are more interested. That makes it a great pleasure to come home." His father's advice was on the money: In two years, Allison went from playing 200-seat clubs to headlining major blues festivals. There are still intense moments in Allison's shows when he feels his late father's presence; occasionally a vocal inflection, a facial expression or a single bent note will remind us all of Luther. It's especially obvious when he plays his father's song "Bad Love." "The minute I hit that," Allison said, "I see people shedding tears. When I play it, I visualize him doing the song night after night. And I feel him when I do my offstage walk. It's not me trying to be like him, but using what I know of him and putting my own thing into it as well." Listen closely to "Don't Be Confused," Allison's recorded tribute to his father from Times Are Changing. "It's the kind of song that reaches anyone who has lost a family member," Allison said. "I also talk about his struggles, saying some things he never really had the chance to say. That was the most difficult song to record. Musically it wasn't a problem, but vocally it was real hard to deliver. It's only been since December of 1998 that I'm able to finish the song live." Bernard is a distinctive son of the blues - he possesses the guitar feel and vocal intonations necessary to carry his music into the next century. He knows the energy level necessary to hold audiences and combines showmanship and spontaneity to push his performance in innovative directions each night. Ironically, as Allison makes his first musical waves in America, he is almost the same age his father was when he hit the Ann Arbor Festival stage in 1969. Let's hope the country doesn't ignore another Allison only to discover his burning talent too late.
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