Big Joe plays the blues, and Memphis tips its hat
By Rick Bird
Post staff reporter

Big Joe Duskin did not win at last week's W.C. Handy Awards, but he was hardly singing the blues. Well, actually he was.

Donned in his white fedora and blue and white print shirt, the 83-year-old Cincinnati boogie-woogie piano legend was in his element last Thursday night in Memphis. He was one of the featured performers on the stage at the Handy Awards, which included an all-star lineup of contemporary blues stars. Duskin performed two songs.

"I'm sorry I didn't win. I wish I could of gotten one of them awards, man," Duskin said from Memphis Friday about the experience. "But, man, we did do some jammin.' Talk about good, it was out-a-sight."

Duskin was nominated for comeback album of the year for his "Big Joe Jumps Again," released last summer, his first album since the early '80s. Duskin lost out in the category to Gary "U.S." Bonds.

Duskin is the first Cincinnati-based artist to be nominated for a Handy in the 26-year history of the awards. The annual blues honors are handed out by the Blues Foundation of Memphis.

It also was Duskin's first-ever performance at the Handy's and he said it proved to be a night to cherish. Many of the seminal blues artists are aware of Duskin's work the past 50 years, even if he remains less-than-well-known in his hometown.

The Handy folks gave a lifetime achievement award to piano legend Pinetop Perkins, an old friend of Duskin's.

"I used to play double pianos with Pinetop back in the days," Duskin said. "He's 91 years old. They put him in their Hall of Fame and that was real nice."

Duskin said it was a great night hanging out with other piano stylists like Ann Rabson, formerly with the Uppity Blues Women, at an after-party jam.

"It actually went to 2 o'clock in the morning. I had to quit. I can't play like I used to," Duskin said, adding his unique boogie-woogie style seemed appreciated among his blues peers. "Well, I think they like my bass line. People like that bass thing I do on the boogie-woogie. I can show them how to do it."

"It was very cool to be at the Handy's with Joe and to see him treated like royalty and to get to play with him on the stage that had a who's who of blues," said musician Larry Nager who co-produced Duskin's album and performed with him at the ceremony. Also accompanying Duskin in Memphis was the album's other producer, guitarist William Lee Ellis.

Nager said Duskin reveled in hanging out with the elite of blues. "There was Charlie Musslewhite, Shamika Copeland, Guitar Shorty, Pinetop, the Muddy Waters band. It was good to see Joe where he belongs, which is among those folks."

Duskin, who began playing piano in the West End juke joints and Over-the-Rhine saloons as a teenager in the 1930s, actually abandoned his music for more than two decades, working as a policeman and for the post office. Encouraged by the blues revival of the '70s, he returned to playing and found a new audience in Europe in the '80s and '90s. Health complications from diabetes have slowed Duskin the past several years and he no longer tours, although he plays frequently on the local scene, health permitting.

Duskin remains what Nager calls a member of "blues' greatest generation" that laid the seeds for rock. Duskin's nominated album captures his raw, rugged sound. It was complimented on two tracks with guitar licks from Peter Frampton.

Mavis Staples and Charlie Musselwhite each won three awards at the Handy Awards, and B.B. King was named entertainer of the year for the seventh time in a row.

The awards are named for blues pioneer W.C. Handy, who performed in clubs along the city's famous Beale Street in the early 1900s, and is credited with being the first musician to put blues music into written form.

More Big Joe accolades are coming: He is to be the June cover story of "Living Blues" magazine, one of the leading publications dedicated to the genre, and he won the third annual Ohio Heritage Fellowship Award from the Ohio Arts Council, the first Cincinnati musician to be so honored. The group will honor Duskin at a ceremony in July.

Duskin will perform this Saturday at Arnold's downtown, accompanied by Nager and Ellis and other musical guests who have played with Duskin over the years.