'Blues will always have its place': Those Lowdown Blues host Bob Corritore on a lifelong obsession

If you’ve ever tuned into KJZZ on Sunday nights you know Bob Corritore.

Corritore is not just the host of Those Lowdown Blues, he’s the owner of the Rhythm Room in Phoenix. And, if you didn’t know it, he's also an internationally renowned, Grammy-nominated harmonica player.

An Arizona music writer recently compiled a list of the 100 greatest songs recorded in Arizona. No. 87 on the list was “Out on the Road” by Jimmy Rodgers, recorded by none other than Corritore when Rodgers came through town and played at Corritore's club.

Apparently, that’s something he does often. When great acts come through town to play the Rhythm Room, he books some recording time with them.

Corritore came into the studio — not on a Sunday night — and talk to me more about it and about his own lifelong obsession with the blues.

Those Lowdown Blues

Every Sunday night for the past 40 years, Bob Corritore has dedicated himself to hosting Those Lowdown Blues.

Full conversation

BOB CORRITORE: I heard blues, and I just fell in love with it. I heard Muddy Waters on the radio.

LAUREN GILGER: You were young, right, like what, 10 or 11 years old, something like that? 

CORRITORE: Well, 12 years old. And so, I rode my bicycle into downtown Wilmette, which is a suburb of Chicago, and I picked up the first Muddy Waters record, my first blues record, which was “Sail On.” It had just come out not too long before that, and I heard Little Walter playing harmonica on the album.

I heard all those great songs, and to this day that's still my favorite record. I mean it's so formative but at the same time I went right to the best stuff. Muddy Waters was really the center point of Chicago blues, and all these other things developed from him.

He really was the guy that created a popularity and really his songs featured the harmonica as the center point. They were the lead driving force instrumentally of the songs and helped propel his voice. Muddy's the man. So that kind of led me on this path.

GILGER: So you've hosted Those Lowdown Blues here on KJZZ for 41 years since 1984. But one thing I didn't know that came up in another interview I was doing recently was that when you have some of these great acts come through The Rhythm Room, which you've had for so long, you often will record them yourself. You go to a studio and try to kind of capture a piece of that history, it sounds like. 

CORRITORE: Absolutely. Well, I found myself in the path of greatness because I knew that when I opened the club, it was gonna be the stopover for people who were headed to California.

And at that point in time, a lot of the older artists were still around and they were driving around in their vans on tour headed to the next destination. And so I provided them a stop, and I offered them a gig, and then I offered the leader of the band the opportunity to come and do a few songs with me and it became a lifestyle really.

I didn't exactly know where they would land or how it would work, but I knew that I had to capture that moment in time because it was this opportunity that I couldn't let pass me by.

Jean Clare Sarmiento/KJZZ

GILGER: Yeah, and some of those recordings are now kind of famous in their own right. Talk a little bit about when you finally decided to release them and to kind of do something with all of these. 

CORRITORE: Well, I was a little bit shy about putting myself out there because I didn't know my place in all this. These were artists that were greater than I was, but at a point I compiled a number of the sides. And I didn't want to put anything out because both my parents had moved to Arizona and they were not in great health.

So my dad passed away in 1994, my mom in 1998, so it wasn't until 1999 that I put out my first record and it was on HighTone Records, which was a fairly big record label. And they insisted I call it “Bob Corritore All-Star Blues Sessions.” I'm like, “can I say Bob Corritore’s All-Star Blue Session?” They said, “No, Bob.” I'm like, “OK.”

But I didn't know. I shyly took the mantle and we put out this record and had Bo Diddley and Jimmy Rogers and Pinetop Perkins and Robert Lockwood, and people that were, you know, much more well-known. People reviewed the record and go, “This is a really good record, but who the hell is Bob Corritore?”

GILGER: But you were sort of the glue, right? Like you were the one making this all happen? 

CORRITORE: Yes, and I was a connecting thread because my harmonica embellished each of the tracks in there. And so that ended up being a template for a lot of records I would put out as Bob Corritore & Friends.

GILGER: OK, so let's talk about some of your favorites. What stands out to you over the years? 

CORRITORE: Oh, there's so many, Lauren. I mean, you're asking the impossible there, but one thing that just came out that was a 2002 session I'm really proud of is a Little Milton piece that he wrote for the session.

He was coming to town and we had been friends for a long time and finally we're at a point where he was in between contracts. And he liked the idea of doing a kind of back to the roots session, so I got Henry Gray, an elderly legend of the piano, and Chico Chism was on the drums and we recorded the song “I Wanna Be the One (feat. Little Milton).”

[SONG AUDIO: “I Wanna Be the One (feat. Little Milton)”] “I want to be the one that made things right for you.”

CORRITORE: And this remained in my vault until just now. And he passed away 20 years ago, but this record was so good and it kind of just got lost in this pile of amazing stuff that I'm going through, and I’m like, “this has to come out, this has to come out.”

[SONG AUDIO “I Wanna Be the One (feat. Little Milton)”]

GILGER: All right. Another one I know you wanted to talk about was with Francine Reed. Tell us a little bit about this recording. 

CORRITORE: When I first came into town, Francine Reed was really like the royalty in this town. I used to go see her at a club called The Boojum Tree from the 1980s and so I always admired her.

We were on the scene together and we were friends, but it wasn't until many years later that I'm like, “you know, we've known each other so we really should do some things in the studio together.” So we started doing a number of sessions.

So this one session I did, I had this song in mind. It was a Memphis Slim song called “I Guess I'm a Fool,” and it's a kind of a blues ballad. It's a lament as Francine calls it. And it's just about heartbreak and it's just one of those very mellow blues songs and Francine just gave her heart to the song.

[SONG AUDIO “I Guess I'm a Fool”] “You told me. You were leaving. After all, we've been through. I guess I'm a fool. Falling in love with you ...”

GILGER: And the last one you wanted to highlight today was one by Willie Buck. Tell us about that one. 

CORRITORE: Willie Buck is special in my life. We just played together, just last weekend and recorded together again. But here's a guy that was kind of the neighborhood keeper of the flame of the Muddy Waters sound, so he played in a lot of the South Side clubs. He also had an auto shop, but he hired all these great artists and somehow he got the crazy idea to hire me as his harmonica player.

So I showed up for work, and not only was Willie Buck there, but all these legendary people. So all of a sudden I was in. I went from being a student to in with the gang, and there was no better feeling than that.

So he'd been a guest on a number of my Bob Corritore & Friends, but we put out a record together which kind of had to happen and it just is a throwback to the Muddy Waters sound with some original songs and some covers of things that Muddy did.

[SONG AUDIO “Oh Yeah!”] “Oh yeah. Someday I just wanna love you soon …”

CORRITORE: It's a good feeling. It's a connection. Willie's 87, soon to be 88, and he's still at it, strong in voice and really motivated. So he never lost the childlike pleasure and drive to participate in the music, and I'm kind of the same way so we get along just great.

[SONG AUDIO “Oh Yeah!”] “This good thing my heart. Must be made of steel. Stay out all night boy …”

GILGER: But let me ask you, Bob, about the scope of the blues scene today. I wonder if you think of it as something that is still thriving or something that needs revival or something that you're trying to get to the masses to a new generation. How do you view this sort of arc of blues in America? 

CORRITORE: Well, blues will always have its place, but a lot of the elders are no longer with us, and when they leave us they leave that sound. So there are people from generations after that do carry it forward, but you can't get back to the historical part of it where these were the people that in the 1950s were creating the music and influencing the style and developing along.

So I found it very important to learn the language. And then to try and find my own conversation within that language, but to keep the sound and the basic principles of that sound alive.