Photo Courtesy of Steve Cohen
Milwaukee's Clyde Brooks
In or around 1982, I had the good fortune to hear authentic blues music performed by a band called Eugene and the Soul Gang. They were the regular Sunday afternoon band at Boobie’s Place, a black club on Fifth and Garfield in Milwaukee’s inner city. Boobie’s featured live local blues and soul groups on a regular basis and served the best fried chicken in Milwaukee.
I was, at that time, a reasonably adept 25-year-old blues harmonica player and so-so singer, and I had learned most of what I knew by listening to records. The existence of Eugene and the Soul Gang was brought to my attention by a couple of other white blues performers who also played regularly on the thriving East Side tavern circuit.
In those pre-internet days, going to taverns and listening to bands was likely the most prevalent cultural activity for drinking-age young adults. Cultural changes like the rise of deadly STDs and soon-to-come stricter drinking-and-driving laws would soon change the bar culture, but in the early ’80s, everyone that I knew planned their social agenda around which bands were playing where on any given night. And there were (mostly white) blues bands playing every night of the week on the East Side and in the surrounding urban neighborhoods.
As my experience of hearing other blues bands was mostly limited to white groups, hearing Eugene and the Soul Gang was a sort of revelation. The Soul Gang played at Boobie’s Place every Sunday afternoon from noon, the time that church let out, until 3 or 4 p.m. The audience was almost 100% black, with men wearing suits and ladies showing up in their church clothes and hats to enjoy the blues music that they enjoyed as much as the religious music that was a part of their culture. I went to hear the band on numerous Sundays and started sitting in with them from the first time I heard them.
The band had mostly the same players from week to week, with occasional substitutions and numerous sit-ins. It was usually comprised of Eugene, who played a portable organ, Morris on the saxophone, as well as three other gentlemen who had all moved to Milwaukee from Carthage, Miss., in the early 1950s. These three were the Brooks brothers: Herbert on bass, Clyde on harmonica and vocals, and Stokes, a guitarist and singer, just a few years younger than Clyde and Herbert.
I don’t know what became of Eugene and Morris, but Clyde and Herbert passed away about 15 years ago. Stokes was with us until he passed away in December of 2019.
In the early ’80s, I was occasionally writing newspaper articles about blues for then-editor Kevin Keefe for the Milwaukee Sentinel’s “Let’s Go” section, the weekend supplement back when the Journal and Sentinel were separate entities. I thought writing an article about Eugene and the Soul Gang would make for interesting reading and also help the band break into the East Side blues circuit; so, in 1983, I sat down with Stokes, Herbert, Clyde and Eugene to get their perspective on the history of the Milwaukee North Side blues scene. The interview never did turn into an article, until now. With Stokes’ passing, I was compelled to try to locate my notes from the interview. The following is culled from my five pages of notes from that interview 35 years ago. While the interview was originally taped, the tapes no longer exist, only the partially transcribed notes.
Clyde: Well, I first started with a guy named Johnny Brown. He worked out of a place called Playboy’s Lounge, which was on 12th and Vine, and another place called the Wilson Club on 10th and Center.
Herbert: I started first down at Playboy’s. I used to play with Sonny Boy. Sonny Boy Williamson used to play at Playboy’s Lounge all the time when he came into town. And I played bass with Sonny Boy 40 years ago when he came into town. He came twice or three times a year for two weeks at a time. Then, when we got in with the harmonica, we started to play with Clyde. Both are dead now, but we had Robert and Junior Watson in the band then.
Clyde: We moved here years ago, in 1951, from Carthage. Harp was my first instrument. Truth is, I used to play in schools since I could remember. My grandfather and his friends were musicians and he started buying me harmonicas when they were 25 cents each.
Herbert: We started playing blues in about ’62, real blues. We were the house band at Playboy’s. First guitar I owned, I bought at a little music store on Third and Meinecke. I paid $26 for it. Then, I paid $24 for a pickup. We weren’t that good then, but Playboy’s was the first one that gave us a chance to play in public. His name was really Leroy, but he was always called Playboy. Anyway, the band was Clyde, myself, Joe Robinson, Robert Watson, and Johnny Brown was the drummer. We were doing songs from the jukebox—B.B., Reed, Elmore… At the time, we were lucky to make $6-$8 each out of the door. The charge at the door was 50 cents. But it was easier then than it is now. It was a totally different bag. You didn’t have to be that good then. People just wanted to boogie, party, have fun. There weren’t that many bands. At that time, some of the big local bands were Vernon Yancey, C.C. Cotton—he blew harmonica at the Wheel of Fortune down at Third and Reservoir, Mighty Joe Young, Robert Jenkins, who played chromatic [harmonica] all the time. A lady stabbed him. There was a club called The Down Under at Sixth and Vine. It was a gig.
There was more than a local blues scene, however. You could hear the big names in the blues at a skating rink called The Riverview, sitting out there at North Avenue and the river. B.B., Muddy, Wolf. Then, when they closed that down, they moved to a place on 12th and North. It would always be packed with 200 or 300 people. All-black crowd. All-black bands.
In the ’60s, we started to get some. WNOV, WAWA, OC White, Landry Hayes. Doctor Bop came in from Ohio. Started spinning records at Playboy’s, then got a job on the radio a long time ago.
[Sonny Boy] played every night for two weeks. I’ll never forget, at the end of the night when he paid you, he’d only have maybe four or five dollars left because he drank it all up. The eight-ounce glass, more like on vacation.
Clyde: I have one thing I remember about Sonny Boy—you’d buy him a glass of whisky and he’d put that harmonica, the one he was gonna blow next, and he would let it stay. Then, he’d take it out, play the harmonica, drink the whiskey and have them bring him another glass of whiskey.
Herbert: He would blow the harmonica with his nose and he would never do another artist’s song. If someone asked him for a song, he would tell us. We, the band, could play it. He was kind of a weird dude. He was an ornery old cuss, but he wasn’t hard to get along with. There were times when I wouldn’t play his songs right and he’d stop, right on the bandstand, and he’d say, “I don’t like the way you’re doing this,” right in the middle of the song. “Do it this way.”
Clyde: He never got sloppy. Occasionally, he’d get up, but mostly he sat down. Sometimes, he’d play by himself. If things weren’t going right, he’d stop the band and play by himself. And he could play! He had a suit made in Europe. Blue and brown half-tone coat, pants reversed. I played with him two or three years.
Stokes: Well, down at Playboy’s was where I first saw him. Johnny Brown took me up there. I was just learning to play guitar. Elmore was working with King Mose and the Raw Rockers in WOKJ in Jackson, Miss., and he was sick. Elmore showed me how to play them. Older brother ran around Telemark Tavern. Johnny Brown was playing with Sonny Boy, [Johnny] brought me down.
Clyde: Johnny Brown, Henry Worker, [he] tuned guitar down to bass. Junior was around 10th and Center, across from Wilson Club. After we got good, we had to join the union. A field rep name of Clarence Jackson would go around, and you had to join for three dollars a month. Two locals, black and white, merged in the early ’60s.
Eugene: Mary’s Hotspot for one year, then Boobie’s, 1981.
Stokes: After we got good, Boobie saw us, saw the crowd and wanted it. Sunday, one o’clock to six o’clock. Clyde started to sit in.
Clyde: First 15 years, mostly black people understood the blues. Last eight or 10 years, more white people than black people listen to blues. Maybe ’cause, then, everybody had jobs, nobody had blues. Came from the South. Blues never die. Living it was a big part of understanding it.
A tribute to Stokes will be held at 7 p.m. Sunday, March 8, at Anodyne Coffee Roasting Company, 224 W. Bruce St. Among the musicians to perform are Jim Liban, Harvey Westmoreland, Steve Cohen and Leroy Airmaster, Matthew Skoller, Billy Flynn, Milwaukee Slim and Kurt Koenig. Admission is free.
