TCB

Little Milton

Pass the Word On

In his own words, Little Milton plays music that's "simple but soulful and meaningful, and down-to-earth about everyday life." "TCB" caught up with B.B. King and T-Bone Walker's peer as he drove to Memphis from his native Mississippi Delta. The 68-year-old singer-songwriter-guitarist-bandleader pulls into Antone's for this Saturday's Juneteenth Bluesfest.

TCB: Did they have anything like Juneteenth where you grew up?

LM: No, everybody around this area basically celebrates the Fourth of July. I never heard about this Juneteenth thing until I started playing Texas.

TCB: Are you worried that the blues doesn't appeal to younger African-Americans?

LM: It's a concern, because I know the younger folks are missing such great musical heritage. In the days of slavery, this is how they would send a message. They would be singing about things, what they were going to do. Pass the word on.

I think what has happened with black folk is we have a tendency not to want to be associated with those trying times, those times when people had to live in their little shacks and work from sunup to sundown for very little pay, if any, and they were abused.

I think they just don't want to let their minds go back to that kind of thing. They think when you say "blues" that this is the association that you have to deal with, but that's not the case. I think the music goes way beyond that.

TCB: How long have you known the Antones?

LM: Oh, I should say too long [laughs]. When [Clifford] had the little club downtown there, the very first Antone's, that's when I met him. This was the initial time that he and Albert King got to be good friends. I used to come into Austin and play for him then, and we got to be very, very decent friends and great associates.

W.C. Clark, Blues Boy Hubbard, and the Texas Eastside Kings open, 9pm.