Leroy Airmaster Returns

Dec. 01, 2009

midnight

As if the creativity and innovation of’60s rock wasn’t exciting enough back in the day, some fans of The RollingStones and Cream began to suspect a hidden world behind that music, a deepsubstratum of influences called the blues. High-school students in the late’60s, Steve Cohen (harmonica), Bill Stone (guitar) and Dave Kasik (bass) caughton soon enough and began hunting for blues LPs and seeing performances byauthentic blues players at the Avant Garde Coffeehouse on Milwaukee’sEast Side. They formed a band, which by themid-’70s had evolved into Leroy Airmaster, one of the best blues acts in townfor musical prowess and finding the deeper emotional connection to the bluesthat evaded many who wanted to play the music.

With Vodie Rhinehart taking the drummer’sseat, Leroy Airmaster worked several nights a week through the ’80s, buildingon a weekly Sunday jam at the Up and Under Pub. “We had a cross-section ofpeople there,” Cohen recalls. “Hippies, black people in their church clothes,middle-income white folks, all the rugby guys that hung around the Up andUndera diverse crowd.”

And then, in 1990, Leroy Airmaster calledit quits. Stone studied at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and Cohen spenttwo disheartening years in Nevadawith a Blues Brothers tribute act before returning home to a musicalenvironment undergoing rapid climate change. The higher legal drinking age,stricter drunken-driving laws and the tectonic shift toward new forms of homeentertainment were making it more difficult for hard-working bands to earn aliving. Cohen responded by playing in the more economical duo format with someof the city’s best bluesmen, including Peter Roller, Greg Koch, Stokes, SamMcCue and the harmonica player who had influenced him most in the ’60s, JimLiban.

This year’s return of Leroy Airmaster waspremised on the familiar truth that time heals all aggravations. “Being in aband is like being in a marriage,” Cohen says. “When you have fourpersonalities, you’ll have friction. We needed a break from each other.” Thetwo-decade pause was not a fallow time for band members. “Everybody’s playingbetter 20 years later,” Cohen continues. “We’re coming back together with 20years of experience in other things.”

During the ’80s, Leroy Airmaster hadamassed a repertoire of hundreds of songs, originals and classic blues. “We canstill do them,” Cohen says. “Everybody remembers the arrangements after allthose years.”

The Leroy Airmaster name will ringfamiliar to older fans of local music. Hopefully, a generation unborn when theband began will appreciate that Airmaster’s gritty yet proficient soundrepresents one of the authentic wellsprings of everything musical from jazz androck to hip-hop.

LeroyAirmaster opens for Hubert Sumlin and the Nighthawks at 8 p.m. Dec. 5 at theMiramar Theatre; and headlines Dec. 19 at Donges BayClubhouse.