Steady Rollin’ Bob Margolin in Kingsport May 16

After nearly 40 years of roads to thousands of gigs, blues musician Steady Rollin’ Bob Margolin’s nickname means more with every mile.
“I think I’ve earned it,” Margolin said last week, while driving from Memphis, Tenn., back home to North Carolina.
Like a lyric from Willie Nelson’s classic, Margolin will be back on the road again and on his way to Kingsport, Tenn., for a show during the 2nd Annual Racks by the Tracks on May 16.
Such roads seem unending. Take Pinetop Perkins, who will travel to Kingsport from Austin, Texas. And he’s 95.
“That’s just amazing,” Margolin said, who played alongside Perkins in the legendary Muddy Waters’ band during the 1970s. “When I joined Muddy’s band in 1973, Pinetop was older then than I am now.”
Perkins will turn 96 in July. His hearing prevents him from talking on the phone. He plays only about three or four shows per month. And yet, when Perkins ambles to his piano and fires up those rocket 88s, stand back.
“It’s a real time warp on stage now,” Margolin said. “There’s a timeless quality, and it’s a thrill.”
Thrilling accurately describes Margolin’s musical past. From rock bands in high school in Boston, Mass., to his gradual discovery of the blues originators, his career as a guitarist and singer passes as a study of musical evolution.
Then at the age of 24, he joined Muddy Waters’ band. At an age when many graduate from college, Margolin sort of enrolled in blues school to learn from a master.
“It certainly wasn’t formal,” Margolin said, “but it sure was an education. You learn to play things real snappy and with a hard backbeat. I needed to play that way too, to play with them.”
But playing music with Waters and his band of blues veterans that included Perkins, amounted to more than music on stage. Blues is about life – the good, the bad and oftentimes the ugly sides of life.
“All the guys in Muddy’s band were older than me,” Margolin said. “They were strong, smart, survivors. They came up in real hard circumstances.”
That helped them deal with the occasional down show that even legends sometimes experience.
“One night in Denver, I remember we had a horrible night on the bandstand,” he said. “Nothing went right. At the end of it, we rode back to the hotel in a van, and it was real quiet. Pinetop said, ‘You know what nothin’ is? What we played tonight was nothin’!’ Everybody said, ‘Nothin’, nothin’, nothin’. And we put it to rest.”
The point, there’s another show down the road and more music to play. Dwell on rotten shows, and the road and music may end.
Margolin split from Waters’ band in 1980. Since then, he’s recorded a stack of solo albums, including his latest, 2007’s “In North Carolina.” He also won the prestigious W.C. Handy Award for Best Instrumentalist, Guitar in 2005 and again last year.
And now he owns his own record company, VizzTone Label Group, an umbrella company under which he issues albums with his imprint and other artists’ own labels.
“It’s like a club of good artists,” Margolin said. “It’s working fairly well; we’re making good albums.”
As to shows, Margolin has played enough to know that some amount to those that Perkins termed as “nothin’.” Then, there are those nights when the notes soar as if on rocket fuel from the Chicago blues-styled musician’s music.
Transporting.
“That’s a good way to put it. It conquers time,” Margolin said. “Nothing hurts and nothing else matters. When you’re on stage with a 95-year-old man, and he’s playing a boogie woogie tune and everybody’s rockin’, man, I know I’m in the right place.”

TOM NETHERLAND is a freelance writer. He can be reached at .

IF YOU GO
What: 2nd Annual Racks by the Tracks – Ribs, Beer Tasting and Blues Festival
Who: Steady Rollin’ Bob Margolin, Pinetop Perkins and Willie “Big Eyes” Smith
When: May 16, 3 p.m.
Where: Racks by the Tracks, East Main Street, Kingsport, Tenn.
Admission: $10 in advance, $15 day of show
Info: (423) 578-2336
Web: http://www.bobmargolin.com
Audio: http://www.myspace.com/bobmargolin
Web: http://www.pinetopperkins.com
Audio: http://www.pinetopperkins.com/ptmusic.htm
Also: http://www.racksbythetracks.com