by guest author Craig Smith, Kansas City Blues Society
Each month through September, the Kansas City Blues Society will feature one of the artists who is performing at our 2023 signature event, Blues in the Bottoms, on September 23, at Knuckleheads Saloon. This month we feature our event headliner, Chicago Bluesman, Ronnie Baker Brooks.
Ronnie Baker Brooks started playing the guitar at age six. One day at age 7 or 8, he took the event of being left home alone for a short while as an opportunity to try and learn how to record a song on his father’s reel-to-reel tape-recording equipment. By the time his father, Chicago Bluesman Lonnie Brooks, returned home, tape was everywhere except on the reels with Ronnie in the middle of it all. As quoted by Ronnie, the elder Brooks said “Ronnie, I know ain’t nobody in this house mess with this but you. I’m gonna give you a chance to tell me the truth. You tell me the truth I ain’t gonna spank you.” Ronnie made the wise decision to come clean to his father who replied, “I know. I appreciate you tellin’ me the truth.” he said, “but please, next time you want to record or do something, let me sit here with you”. Ronnie Baker Brooks’ recording career had begun.
Born Rodney Dion Baker on January 23, 1967, Ronnie Baker Brooks first appeared on stage at age 9 alongside his father. In 1985, after graduating from high school, he learned to play bass guitar and joined his father’s band in 1986. He played guitar on his father’s noted live album, Live from Chicago: Bayou Lightning Strikes, released by Alligator Records in 1988. He was then part of Alligator Records’ 20th Anniversary Tour, performing alongside Koko Taylor, Elvin Bishop, and Lil’ Ed Williams (Lil’ Ed and the Imperials).
By the late 90’s, Brooks was pursuing a solo career marked by his debut album, Golddigger, released in 1998 by the Watchdog label and produced by Janet Jackson. He was nominated for a Blues Music Award in 2000 for Best New Artist. His second album, Take Me Witcha, was released in May 2001. His third album, The Torch, was released in 2006 and was described by The Boston Herald as “ferocious and unrelenting, The Torch may be the year’s best blues album.” The album included contributions from Lonnie Brooks, Eddy Clearwater, Jimmy Johnson, Willie Kent, and Al Kapone, and was produced by Jellybean Johnson. After a decade of events that included the death of his father, he released “Times Have Changed” in 2017 under the Provogue label. Music reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote of the album, “Ronnie Baker Brooks has created a tribute to the southern soul of the ’60s and the smooth funk of the ’70s.”
Brooks toured from 2007 to 2010 with band members Carlton Armstrong, C.J. Anthony Tucker, and Steve Nixon, to support The Torch. Brooks played at the Notodden Blues Festival, Norway, in 2007 and the Musikfest in 2009.
Brooks and his younger brother, Wayne, also a blues musician, both had their careers influenced and advanced by their father, but they were given nothing but an opportunity to earn it. Being the oldest, Ronnie got his chance first to play rhythm guitar for their father. As his style developed, so did his writing chops. Soon he was opening shows for his father’s band and writing his own music.
Ronnie was propelled to a new level while working on his father’s 1996 masterpiece, Roadhouse Rules, on which one of Ronnie’s songs, Hoodoo She Do, appeared as the first track. It also established a new level in the relationship between him and his father. Fueled by the success of the Roadhouse sessions, Ronnie “borrowed” his father’s band and, without direct assistance from his father, created his first solo effort, a high energy blues rock statement titled Golddigger.
Ronnie often discusses the life altering wisdom and support stemming from the critical moment he brought his new effort home for his father’s first listen. In Ronnie’s words: “We got it done, man, and I brought it back home to Chicago and I played it for my dad in the basement. It was just me and Dad with a glass of wine, man. He just listened from the beginning to the end. He wasn’t giving me nothin’, he was just really listening. At the end of the record, finally, he looked up at me and he said, ‘Son, it’s time foryou to go out on your own.’ I said wait a minute, man – me, you and Wayne, we’re a team you know? He said, ‘Yes, we will always be a team, but they need to know you as a solo artist and they’re not gonna know you that way if you continue to play with me.” “I came to tears, man. I never thought about leaving my dad, never crossed my mind. What my dad said to me was very key, he said: ‘If it doesn’t work, you can always come back. You’ve always got a gig here’ And when he said that to me, man (trailing off with emotion in his voice).”
Ronnie Baker Brooks’ particular style of Chicago blues has been performed on stages around the world and blues journalist David Brais declared Brooks “Blues Royalty” stating “his music honors the true torch bearers of this unique sound which includes Willie Dixon, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Luther Allison and his father.”
On August 22, 2023, Alligator Records announced that Ronnie Baker Brooks had signed with their record label with his label debut album due out in the first half of 2024. In the press release, Alligator Records president and founder Bruce Iglauer is quoted, “Anyone who has seen Ronnie Baker Brooks in a live performance knows what a thrilling blues musician he is. He’s a fiery, world-class guitar player, a straight-from-the-shoulder singer and he writes memorable original songs. He brings the power and presence of his mentors, Luther Allison, Albert Collins and, most of all, his father, Lonnie Brooks, to the stage. Until now, Ronnie has self-released three excellent albums and had one larger-label album. I look forward to his Alligator debut capturing the fireball energy and soulfulness of his live shows in the studio.”
You can see this Chicago Blues powerhouse in person at Kansas City Blues Society’s 2023 signature event, Blues in the Bottoms, on September 23, at Knuckleheads Saloon. Join us at Knuckleheads Saloon, Saturday, September 23.
Early bird pricing ends on Saturday, September 16, when the price increases to $45. So, get those tickets now; this is the most legal fun you’re going to have this year!