‘Every other music is regurgitated blues’
By Bill Beene
Of the St. Louis American
The blues.
For some, this form of folksy music is as out of mind and sight as the incipient post-slavery period that berthed it.
For others, the blues is a perennially wonderful way of life, a livelihood, a living, a life work.
Take Jeremy Segel-Moss, guitarist for the Bottoms Up Blues Gang.
Jeremy makes a living playing blues around and out of town.
He can’t help it. The blues have been in him since his uncle introduced him through the Howard Wolf London Sessions when he was a teenager.
Jeremy said he hated it at first, but in a year it was all he listened to.
“What struck me was a feeling, and I believe that’s the blues,” Jeremy said.
“When you catch on to the blues you realize every other music is regurgitated blues. It’s the root of all American music.”
While Jeremy has been a lifelong listener of the music, he didn’t start strumming it until about five and half years ago. He and the other Bottoms Up Blues Gang members were all 25 when they formed the group.
One may think 25 is young for someone to be singing the blues. Not so, says Jeremy, quoting B.B. King: “When you are a baby in your crib crying for a bottle of milk, you have the blues.”
He said, “There’s a certain blues you can’t have until you have lived. I’m learning the language of the music, and as I acquire more life experience I can articulate it that way.”
Jeremy isn’t selfish about the blues – he wants everyone who craves to get their fair share
Five years ago, he started the Baby Blues Festival. The 5th Annual Baby Blues Festival is from 6-11 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 26 at B.B.’s Jazz, Blues and Soups, 700 S. Broadway.
“It’s an opportunity for elders and young folks in the blues community to continue to learn and partake of the music,” Jeremy said.
This year’s festival features Jeremy’s band, Sean Costello, University City Big Band (made of high and middle school bands), Folk ‘N Blues Grass and 15-year-old blues guitarist Marquis Knox.
Marquis is the youngest blues player in the Midwest region, but a bluesman nonetheless.
“I don’t think we can find a teenager that doesn’t get the blues,” Jeremy said, adding that “youngsters are seeing it as a way to make a life and living in music.”
Jeremy said youngsters are supported by the blues community and the festival is an excellent training ground for them.
“It’s gotten better every year,” he said of the festival. “Each show is a sellout and it’s starting to put St. Louis on the map – it’s a destination show. I’m getting calls and emails from all over the world.”
Jeremy says St. Louis hasn’t realized that blues music is a hot commodity like the Cardinals.
He said the music is at a precarious time, since the originators are passing on: Oliver Sain, Bennie Smith, Henry Townsend, Johnnie Johnson. Still, he thinks the younger generation can move the music forward.
“Music and art by definition are in a constant influx,” he said, “so as long as they do it with respect and appreciation for what’s come before them, then it’s a good thing.”
BOX:
Baby Blues Festival
Bottoms Up Blues Gang, Sean Costello, University City Big Band, Folk ‘N Blues Grass and Marquis Knox
6-11 p.m. Sunday, November 26
B.B.’s Jazz, Blues and Soups
700 S. Broadway
$10 at the door
Call 664-6119
