10 BUDDY JULY 2018

BUDDYTHE ORIGINAL TEXAS MUSIC MAGAZINE

JULY 2018VOLUME XXXXVI, NUMBER 1

“I HAVE THREE CHAPTERS IN MY LIFE,”“I explains Rocky Athas, longtime DFW gui-“I tar hero and one of the six original BuddyTexas Tornados.

“When I saw Freddie Kingplaying… whoa! He wasrocking it and he was playingloud! I still listen to FreddieKing every day – he stillinspires me. And Steve’s ‘TheHouse is Rockin’,’ how do youcategorize that?”

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—ROCKY ATHAS

“I was 10 years old when I gotmy first guitar (a Kingston thathis mother bought at a pawn-shop). My brother, Nick Athastaught me how to play guitar. Ifit wasn’t for him I most likelywould not be where I am todaywith guitar or music. He playedmusic from all the great artists ofthat time, from the Beatles, theStones, the Animals, the Kinks,Muddy Waters, Freddie King,Cream and the Yardbirds.”

Chapter 1HE PLAYED HIS KINGSTON ATa talent show at L.K. Hall El-ementary, and when he wasthrough, he was approached bya fifth grader who had been sit-ting in the front row. He said,“Hey, I saw you playing guitarand I play guitar, too.”

It was Steve (later Stevie Ray)Vaughan. They became fast, life-long friends.

“Back then, there was noYouTube or easy way to figure outa record.” Rocky recalled. “Steve,me and a couple of other guitarplayers from Oak Cliff would allget together at a drummer’s houseand we would start jamming andshowing each other licks. If Stevedid a riff and you didn’t know ityet, he’d show you, and viceversa. And some of those guyswere great, like Randy Kounsasand David Brown. They wouldplay lead, and then they’d playrhythm for you and you’d justlearn to play. Yeah, it was thecomradery.”

While the Beatles and theStones were early influences, itwas Cream’s blues-based rockthat caught the budding six-stringer’s imagination and in-spired him to pursue blues-rock.

“When Cream came out, Iwas just floored,” Rocky admits.“I thought, those are the kind ofsongs that I want to be a part of.”

After Steve left school, mi-grating with his brother, Jimmieand other Dallas players toAustin’s burgeoning blues scene,Rocky remained, slugging it outwith local bands, diligently ex-panding his guitar prowess, even-tually gaining notoriety in Light-ning, who by the late ’70s andearly ’80s were one of the biggestdraws in the state.

In 1978, at the age of 23,Rocky Athas was named as oneof the first six BUDDY Texas Tor-nados.

“I thought it was the greatesthonor in the world. It meant a lotto me that BUDDY magazine woulddo that. I’ve always appreciatedit and I still use that in my bio. Itmeans something. If you are aTexas Tornado, it means thatyou’re appreciated for all the ef-fort to learn how to play well. Iremember running into StoneyBurns and I said, “Man, thanks(for being named a Tornado)because you have certainlyhelped me work and get moremoney from playing, and he said,“Hey man, I just gave credit wherecredit was due.”

Speaking to Blues Magazinein 2015, he recalled those headydays: “Exploring everything onguitar that a young man woulddream of was exhilarating. Play-ing every gig imaginable, open-ing shows for huge acts, andtrying to impress rock stars whocame to watch the show was theexperience of a lifetime. I washappy to show them every guitartrick I knew. Fueled bythe inspiration of making musicand living my dream of life as amusician, my Lightning memo-ries are terrific days and nightsfilled with music and friends.”

Rocky wasn’t only recognizedby Texas musicians; Thin Lizzywrote the song “Cocky Rocky”after hearing him play. But most

importantly, Rocky was learningto write his own songs.

By 1979, the band signed withCapricorn Records, but the labelfiled bankruptcy while their al-bum was in the mixing stage,and although Lightning soldieredon for a couple more years, themomentum, hopes and dreamswere gone.

Chapter 2LONGTIME FANS HAD WAIT-ed so long for Rocky to get his bigbreak, and when they didn’t seehim around town after the de-mise of Lightning, some thoughthe might have just packed it in.

Rather, he rebounded andjoined up with Jim Dandy andBlack Oak Arkansas in 1983.During the ’80s and ’90s, he con-tinued to hone his skills as aguitarist and songwriter, collabo-rating with artists like JohnnyBolin, Glenn Hughes (Trapeze,Deep Purple) and Buddy Mileswith SRV’s rhythm section,Double Trouble in an outfit calledthe Bluesberries. It was duringthe Bluesberries recording ses-sions that Rocky met renownedproducer, Jim Gaines who wouldproduce Rocky’s well-receivedsolo efforts.

“A lot of people would ask,“Where are you? You still play-ing?” Rocky said. “Oh yeah, I’mstill playing - just not in Dallas.”“Hey, do you still have a band?”“Yeah, I’m with Black Oak Ar-kansas.”

I was doing 100 dates withthem as their guitar player, I didlike four albums for them and Iwas playing everywhere. Or “I’mwith Buddy Miles and DoubleTrouble, we’re doing theBluesberries album and I’m outtouring,” or I’m with GlennHughes, and I’m out touring andwe put an album out.

It was this second chapter ofmy life where I went out onlywith national acts and I startedthinking on those terms, and thenI put out my first two albums andI toured for a while as the RockyAthas Group.”

Rocky had met blues legendJohn Mayall when his band hadopened for him, but it came as asurprise when four years later,he was invited to play lead guitarfor Mayall’s upcoming CD,Tough.

In his eight years (2009-2017)as the guitarist for John Mayall’sBluesbreakers, the seminal bluesband that defined British bluessince its genesis in 1963, Rockynot only learned from the iconicbluesman, but proved himselfworthy of an outfit whose rosterhas featured luminaries like EricClapton, Peter Green, Jack Bruce,John McVie, Mick Fleetwood,Mick Taylor, Coco Montoya andWalter Trout. Rocky played onfive Mayall CDs, a live DVD andwas playing over 100 shows a

year worldwide, winning criticalacclaim for his signature guitarstyle, steeped in blues, but witha distinctive Texas flavor.

When Mayall announced inlate 2016 a change to a trio for-mat, with himself on guitar, itmarked the end of Rocky’s ten-ure as the last lead guitarist forthe Bluesbreakers, and Dallas’first guitar hero finally returnedhome in 2017.

Chapter 3IT’S ALWAYS BEEN ROCKY’Snature to be forward thinking, sohe went straight into the studiowith Jim Gaines to write andrecord a new solo CD. Shakin’ theDust (Cherryburst Records) iseasily Rocky’s most complete,most cohesive album to date,and is a fitting start for the thirdchapter of the Rocky Athas story.

While his style is based onthe blues, he admits he’s hardlya blues purist.

“Blues rock is just where it’sat,” he insisted. “I still like it (theblues) for what it is, but I’mgoing to always add a newer ele-ment to it because that’s just whoI am. Like when Cream did aRobert Johnson thing, they madeit sound like Cream doing it.And when I saw Freddie Kingplaying… whoa! He was rock-ing it and he was playing loud! I

still listen to Freddie King everyday – he still inspires me. AndSteve’s “The House is Rockin’,”how do you categorize that?That’s a rocking song. I’m RockBlues or Blues Rock, howeveryou want to say it…rockin’ blues.There’s always going to be anelement of rock in there, andthose blues influences just can’thelp but come in.”

Besides the expected stellarguitar work, Shakin’ the Dust ben-efits greatly from drummer,Walter Watson’s standout vo-cals.

“On a lot of blues rockrecords, everybody sings in alower voice and I wanted some-body who had the “pow!” of J.B.Lenoir’s voice. It was so high andpure and he sang blues beauti-fully. Walter can go high whenhe needs to. That adds a uniqueenergy to blues rock for the singerto be a little higher.

“Walter’s vocals cut throughand they give the blues rocktracks energy. He can sing some-thing like “Time Flies” smoothand mellow, but then on “YouPushed Me too far,” I wantedhim to sound like he was pushingthe vocals…you almost want toyell it. So he can yell it, but heyells it in key.”

Shakin the Dust also includesco-writing from his wife, Jessica

on five of the tracks. “Shereally is a good lyricist,once she knew what thephrasing is on a song. Shecame up with the twomost important words on“Time Flies.” The songwas originally called “MyMy,” and she said,

“You know, you needsomething to tie those sto-ries together.” I said,“You’re right, but nowwhere are you going to fitit in?” And it was her ideato go “My my, time flies,”- that was like the icingon the cake - the twowords that we needed.It’s not called “My My”anymore, it’s called “TimeFlies.” I don’t know howwe missed that but that’swhat’s good about writ-ing with someone.”

Unlike many otherartists, Rocky is encour-aged by the changes inthe music industryspurred by free down-loads and streaming me-dia.

“If it will help peopleto get to your music bygiving them a free songdownload, then I am allfor it. You can gain a lot ofnew fans that way aspeople begin to shareyour song and then youget it out on the radio.They’re still playing

Shakin’ the Dust on the radio,with all the blues rock stationsnow. We got on Sirius XM Radioand it’s working real well. It’s ablend of our influences, it’s gotrock, it’s got blues – I wanted tomake sure that everything had agroove.”

Both his son, Rocky II andWalter Watson’s son, Jared arein the touring band.

“They were just ready to startplaying - they finally caught upwith us. It is kind of neat becausethey grew up with it, they weresurrounded by it and it’s onlynatural…like If you were a racecar driver and your sons are hang-ing around the pit, then they’regoing to be race car drivers.”

While he appreciates thatmany call him a legend, he insistsit’s always been about the song.

“The third chapter in my lifeis now,” he emphasized, “ andthere’s no looking back. I wantmy third chapter to be continu-ally growing as a musician andsongwriter because what else isthere? We can play licks on thecouch until we’re dead, and it’sall about how do I come up witha better song? For me, it is allabout the song. I will continue tostudy the craft of songwriting.To me, that is the fun part ofmusic.”

Rocky Athas: The return of the (guitar) heroAfter eight years of international touring with John Mayall, Rocky Athas is more than ready to further burnish his own legacy.

Feature and Photography by Chuck Flores

One of the original 1978 Buddy Texas Tornados he plays "Cherry" his #1 guitar aGibson Les Paul ’59 VOS Historic Model: Rocky Athas