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Growing up in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Ernest had the right background for a bluesman; his father was a barrelhouse pianist, his boyhood friend was Ike Turner and Pinetop Perkins was a family friend who showed the youngster a thing or two. Ike fell in love with the piano when he peered in at The King Biscuit Boys, featuring boogie pianist Joe Willie Pinetop Perkins, rehearsing in the basement of his buddy Ernest Lanes house.
When he was just a teenager, Lane hooked up with legendary slide guitarist Robert Nighthawk. Nighthawk eventually took him to Chicago where his solid piano work graced a number of sides cut for the Chess label in 1948-49. These cuts include the blues classic Sweet Black Angel. After Nighthawk Ernest played with Earl Hooker, Houston Stackhouse and others before heading to the California in 1956.
After arriving in California, Lane worked with Jimmy Nolen and George Harmonica Smith before being recruited by old buddy Ike Turner to be a member of the Ike and Tina Turner Revue.
After leaving Ike, Ernest joined a group called the Goodtimers, who eventually wound up backing the Monkees for about a year on tour. Through the late 1960's through the early 1970's he played and recorded for Canned Heat before giving up music altogether until 1999, when Ernest performed again with Ike Turner's Kings Of Rhythm Band until his Ike's death in 2007.
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Cat Head Delta Blues &
Folk Art store in Clarksdale, Mississippi, continues its 10th anniversary
celebrations – October 4-7, 2012
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(Cat Head
store in Clarksdale. Photo art by Chuck Lamb.)
"UMPTEENTH" CAT HEAD MINI BLUES FEST
HIGHPOINT OF THIS WEEKEND'S EVENTS AT "1 OF AMERICA'S 17 COOLEST RECORD
STORES"
(CLARKSDALE, MISSISSIPPI) – October 2, 2012 – 10
years ago, marketing executive Roger Stolle left his corporate job in St. Louis
to pursue a blues mission in the Mississippi Delta. He opened Cat Head Delta
Blues & Folk Art in the historic downtown of Clarksdale, Mississippi. He
also started the "Cat Head Mini Blues Fest" tradition.
 "The first year I opened, I tried some live blues at my
store after one of the area's big blues festivals was over," Stolle recalls. "I
was surprised how many folks showed up. I usually book the older, more
traditional blues players, and that really struck a chord with blues
fans."
In recent years, Stolle has held three,
increasingly bigger Cat Head Mini Blues Fests a year – causing blues industry
friends like Sirius-XM's Bluesville host Bill Wax to question, "Why do you still
call it a 'Mini Fest'?"
Now held after April's Juke Joint
Festival (Clarksdale, MS), August's Sunflower River Blues Festival (Clarksdale,
MS) and October's King Biscuit Blues Festival (Helena, AR), the Cat Head blues
festival concept has taken on a life of its own.
"I have some attendees who don't
necessarily make it to the big, 'official' festival earlier in the weekend,"
Stolle says. "They wait till Sunday and just come for the Cat Head event. Others
stay over an extra night to enjoy it. I guess they must be playing hooky come
Monday morning!"
As Cat Head – the store – continues its year of
10th Anniversary events, this weekend's "umpteenth" Mini Fest of the year
(Sunday, October 7th) caps off a long weekend of store happenings.
CAT HEAD DELTA BLUES & FOLK ART
EVENTS:
- Thurs., 10/4 @ 11am - Julia
Magness & Ben Stevens (from Austin Texas).
- Fri., 10/5 @ 11am - “Catfish
& Cotton” book signing with live blues music.
- Sat., 10/6 @ 11am - Ben Stevens
blues performance.
- Sun., 10/7 @ 9am - CAT HEAD
MINI BLUES FEST featuring many of the movie stars from “M
for Mississippi,” “We
Juke Up in Here” and “Hard
Times”... Robert “Wolfman” Belfour, Terry “Harmonica” Bean, Anthony “Big A”
Sherrod, Big George Brock, All Night Long Blues Band and more. 9am till. Rain or
shine street festival. Plus BBQ available from Big Red. “Please tip your
musicians.”
(Cat Head also has a bonus event later
next week: Thurs., 10/11 @ 3pm - Bernie Pearl & Mike Barry blues
performance.)
All of the live blues events at Cat Head
are always free, though Stolle hopes that event-goers also become customers. He
says he works hard to tempt them with a mini warehouse full of blues music and
collectibles.
 "Cat Head is the store I always wanted to walk into but
could never find," Stolle says. "It's nothing but the blues
– CDs, DVDs, books, magazines, artwork, T-shirts and souvenirs. As a blues
fanatic myself, it's not hard for me to understand why we get tourists from
around the world every year."
(Stolle
at Cat Head. Photo by Billy Howell, "Legends" magazine.)
Since opening in 2002, Clarksdale's Cat
Head store and its related recording, documentary and live music projects have
garnered numerous honors – from Keeping the Blues Alive and Blues Music Awards
to multiple guidebook inclusions and accolades in music magazines such as Paste, which called Cat
Head "1 of the 17 coolest record stores in America."
Cat Head is located at 252 Delta Avenue
in the historic downtown of Clarksdale, Mississippi – just 30 minutes from this
weekend's King
Biscuit Blues Festival grounds in nearby Helena, Arkansas.
More on the "Cat Head story" as well as
a live music calendar and guide to Clarksdale can be found on-line at www.cathead.biz.
Store and event updates posted regularly on Facebook under "Roger Stolle."
Stolle can be emailed at roger@cathead.biz.
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