Sea of blues ; A wave-ridin' party that lasts
all week leaves the sad ones behind
(Robert Cross, Tribune staff reporter. Copyright 2004 by the Chicago Tribune)

What a lineup: The Taj Mahal Trio. "He's our spiritual leader," [Roger Naber] said. Curtis Salgado, harmonica player, band leader, singer and reputedly the inspiration for John Belushi's character in the Blues Brothers. Roomful of Blues, eight masters of several blues styles. Rosie Ledet, accordion player and zydeco queen. [Tommy Castro], guitarist extraordinare. Derek Trucks Band, the blues prodigy who sat in with Buddy Guy when Derek was 12. Ronnie Baker Brooks, who can get so carried away that he'll sometimes play guitar with his teeth. Anthony Gomes, a high-volume rocker with endless energy. Charlie Musselwhite, the harmonica Pied Piper of the "White Blues Movement." Little Milton, electric practitioner of soul, blues and R&B. Walter "Wolfman" Washington, who came up the river from New Orleans with a unique brand of soul, funk and blues.

------
Holland America Line ordinarily strives for a sort of Old Dutch decorum, so it may have surprised port watchers in Tampa Bay when they saw our vessel flying the skull and crossbones and a banner that declared: "This Ship Kicks ---!"

The night before our Saturday departure early this year, the Suncoast Blues Society held a pre-cruise party at Tampa's Doubletree Hotel, featuring Jimmy Griswald and Chick Willis (the "Stoop Down" Man). Party animals filled the lobby and a big meeting room.

My wife, Juju, and I heard a lot of guitar twanging and high- decibel yells, some of them presumably from Chick and Jimmy. We saw a few drunk ladies in floral muumuus, two-steppers in cowboy boots and a lot of guys coifed with aging-hippie ponytails.

We never made it into the Doubletree concert hall, wherever that was. We fled back to our own hotel to rest up for what now promised to be an occasion that would demand 24/7 enthusiasm and a love of amplified guitars, screaming brass, shouted lyrics and constant movement.

Blues Cruise was the generic title, and the Web site, BluesCruise.com, appeared on other banners around the ship. But the official title is Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise, a superior example of truth in advertising.

That week, we wouldn't hear much traditional Mississippi Delta- style blues--that slow-moving, plaintive poetry of rural juke joints, cotton fields, rib shacks and chain gangs.

No, the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise is more like the fare served up at a red-hot roadhouse--plenty of speed, lots of noise, sweaty dancers, teeth-grinding energy.

Seven such almost-annual cruises, organized by two different Kansas City entrepreneurs, have become, well, legendary in R&B circles.

So we had a ship full of affinity--people with like interests. A lot of cruise lines are willing to indulge groups with identical passions: chocolate lovers, Star Trek fans, stock investors, Mac nerds, gays, wine aficionados, nudists, gourmets and cooking-school students. Organizers from time to time might offer language classes, wellness clinics, tai chi, yoga, golf lessons and all-kosher cuisine.

This one would highlight wild concerts and late-night jam sessions. "There's probably at least 200 guitars that amateurs brought on board," noted Pat O'Neill, a Kansas City publicist on his second Blues Cruise.

As the Veendam strutted down Tampa Bay toward the Gulf of Mexico, February exercised its right to visit nasty weather upon normally sunny Florida. Surveying the rain and wind, Boss Man Roger Naber ordered the big stage on the rear deck temporarily closed. Instead, Tommy Castro's 5 p.m. Sail-Away Concert would be held in the Rubens Lounge.

Naber, then the owner of the Grand Emporium rhythm and blues hall in Kansas City (he sold it recently) and former postal worker, was in his third year of operating the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise, which has become virtually a full-time enterprise.

He hardly seemed wired when he mounted the Rubens stage that first night and casually explained the revised itinerary. Most of us had signed up for a cruise that included Roatan, Honduras; Belize City, Belize; Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatemala; and Key West. Key West and Guatemala had been scratched off the schedule.

"We had to skip Guatemala and change to Cozumel, because we heard there was some trouble there at the port, and that would not be very entertaining," Naber told the bluesin' cruisers, none of whom seemed to mind. They were waiting for the Tommy Castro band to finish setting up for what would surely be a rockin' Sail-Away Concert.

"We also bagged Key West," Naber continued, "because we had to board at 7:30, leaving only five hours on land, and with immigration checks to go through, that would probably be more like four hours."

That brought a few groans, but soon Tommy Castro appeared, bearing his guitar, wearing his tight black T-shirt and tighter jeans, his hair all slicked back and looking tough.

"I don't know all of you," he said, "but I'm pretty damn sure you're workin' too hard."

That drew lusty cheers.

"You're workin' too hard, and life comes up and bites you on the butt from time to time. It gives you a whuppin' from time to time. That's what it does, man. That's why they invented the blues."

After a few more calming words, Castro introduced his band-- Keith Crossan on sax, James Sandoval on drums and Randy McDonald on bass guitar.

"Randy is no stranger to the high seas, or any other high," Castro said.

Actually, nobody in the place looked too downtrodden or overworked. Naber told me the capacity crowd of 1,200 cruisers mostly belonged to the middle class--teachers, truck drivers, professionals, skilled blue-collar workers. But they were rhythm and blues lovers, every one, most of them ready to kick out the jambs for a few days.

"We tend to get a lot of California people," Naber said. "They seem to take life easier than in other parts of the country."

The overwhelming favorite everyday wear would be shorts and T- shirts, preferably shirts bearing old R&B bands' concert schedules or the logos of blues joints from coast to coast.

During one frenetic concert by Taj Mahal, out on the pool deck stage, I saw shirts emblazoned with such logos as Conrad's City of Blues; the Sandbar, Longboat Key; Fair Wind, Kona, Hawaii; Slippery Noodle Inn; Kingston Mines, Chicago; B.B. King's Blues Club, Memphis. And, of course, a few shirts expressed sheer deviltry: "Beat Me, Whip Me, Tie Me to the Boat," "Jesus Hates Me," "Ronny, Are We Having Fun Yet?" and the word "Sleep" in a circle with a red slash through it.

Everywhere the cruisers turned, they'd run into a wall of sound and a well-stocked bar with Holland America's Indonesian bartenders clapping their hands and shimmying to the beat. Crew members in their tropic-white uniforms stared in open-mouth wonder at the shipboard antics and the loud, fast music. Then some of them got out their video cameras.

What a lineup: The Taj Mahal Trio. "He's our spiritual leader," Naber said. Curtis Salgado, harmonica player, band leader, singer and reputedly the inspiration for John Belushi's character in the Blues Brothers. Roomful of Blues, eight masters of several blues styles. Rosie Ledet, accordion player and zydeco queen. Tommy Castro, guitarist extraordinare. Derek Trucks Band, the blues prodigy who sat in with Buddy Guy when Derek was 12. Ronnie Baker Brooks, who can get so carried away that he'll sometimes play guitar with his teeth. Anthony Gomes, a high-volume rocker with endless energy. Charlie Musselwhite, the harmonica Pied Piper of the "White Blues Movement." Little Milton, electric practitioner of soul, blues and R&B. Walter "Wolfman" Washington, who came up the river from New Orleans with a unique brand of soul, funk and blues.

The list wouldn't end there. From time to time, special surprise guests appeared, including Johnnie Johnson, a certified father of rock 'n' roll, and the Rev. Billy C. Wirtz, self-proclaimed leader of The First House of Polyester Worship and Horizontal Throbbing Teenage Desire.

Wirtz, a tall, bearded, long-haired performer, is a sort of blues Victor Borge, a seriously talented pianist (R&B/boogie division) who plays it all for laughs.

One afternoon in the Rubens Lounge, he took the stage and told the cruisers that there are three kinds of blues.

"You have happy blues, and they go like this," he said, playing a few bars of "Kansas City." "Happy blues are about going to places like Kansas City, drinkin' whiskey, drivin' Cadillacs and chasin' beautiful women."

After that, Wirtz played a few mournful notes. "Then you have sad blues. Any blues that goes like this is about bein' in jail in Kansas City cuz you got drunk and wrecked the rented Cadillac and you found out that the crazy little woman there was actually a crazy little guy."

The third kind defied definition--maybe call it theatrical blues. Wirtz demonstrated by thrashing out chords and twisting his face into contortions expressing either profound ecstasy or agony, or both.

Usually, Wirtz could be found holding forth in Mitch Woods' Club 88, a late-night piano lounge commandeered by performers who wanted to tickle the ivories and/or sing rowdy lyrics. The boogie-woogie there (Woods is a master) drowned out the clanking of slot machines in the casino next door.

Johnnie Johnson, in his 70s and still going strong, played piano all over the ship--from the Rotterdam Dining Room to the pool stage to the Rubens Lounge. He was a revered figure, the man who appeared with Chuck Berry for 20 years and had a hand in such hits as "Johnny B. Goode," "Sweet Little Sixteen," "Rock 'N' Roll Music" and "No Particular Place to Go."

Johnson has worked with a variety of musicians, including Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. "Keith was one of the greatest artists I've ever worked with," Johnson declared during a seminar on blues piano. "It's kind of hard to understand what he's sayin'. I nicknamed him 'Mumbles.'

"When he was inducted into the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame, I don't know what he was sayin', but he was mumblin' somethin'. I didn't do much better when I got up there."

Besides the big stars, amateurs were pounding keyboards, banging drums and strumming guitars wherever they could set up. Their sessions might go on well into the next morning, and the jamming in various lounges and the big outdoor stage did go on and on at the professional level--sometimes till daylight, too.

Late one evening in the empty Rotterdam Dining Room, a group of waiters and busboys gathered around the grand piano with their instruments and joined Walter "Wolfman" Washington for a blues session of their own.

The Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise differed from the standard cruise in a lot of other ways.

There weren't any formal nights, and the dress code was pretty much Anything Goes. One man managed to stay barefoot for his entire time on board.

The ship library and adjoining game room became retail stores holding inventories of clothing and souvenirs stamped with the Blues Cruise logo--a ship-shaped guitar going full steam ahead. In the same area, performers also could market their CDs.

Instead of holding all purchased duty-free booze until debarkation, which is a common practice, the ship sold bottles for in-cabin consumption, adding a 20 percent surcharge. The prices still were far lower than you'd find in Dominick's, and on the first day, the line to the liquor counter spilled into the ship's atrium.

Passengers festooned the corridors with tinsel, paper lanterns, posters and Mardi Gras beads. Dozens of cabin doors wore similar decorations, plus pictures of musicians, strings of confetti, musical notes made from plastic, artificial flowers, Hawaiian leis, trinkets, rubber chickens or strings of flashing red lights resembling chili peppers. Some doors were covered with so much stuff they looked like voodoo altars.

Ports became an afterthought, almost to the point where people either stayed on board or simply made desultory stabs at sunbathing or water sports. In Roatan, Honduras, Juju and I and a friend, Julie O'Neill, browsed in scattered shops along the beach.

The highlight of a rainy, windy day in Belize City came even before we got there, when a terribly hip-looking cruiser climbed into a waiting tender and promptly saw his cap fly overboard. He sat down, pulled out a harmonica, blew a few riffs and sang, "I lost my hat, lost my hat. I got the blues cuz I lost my hat."

In oh-so-touristy Cozumel, Juju and I went to the beach--a commercialized stretch of sand called Playa Sol, complete with water toys for rent, a cafe, food booths, and overly loud disco and mariachi music. A hyper emcee tried to whip up enthusiasm for limbo contests, tugs of war, margarita chugging and conga lines.

The water was fine, the sun was hot, and for a moment, back on board, the Blues Cruise nearly seemed sedate by comparison. Mexican beaches can rock with nearly equal velocity.

Our post-Cozumel ennui didn't last long, of course. If anything, the shore experiences underlined the idea that this basically was a floating R&B concert, where, as Taj Mahal puts it, "everyone has a backstage pass."

"Your room, your cabin, is always in close proximity," Roger Naber pointed out. "You don't even have to walk across the street. There's no rough urban environment to mess with."

At breakfast one morning, we overheard a couple chatting as they consumed omelets and coffee. "I could get used to this," the man mused. "I think this is what I was born for."

The woman nodded vigorously and said, "Plenty to eat, no chores and listenin' to the blues."

At dinner one night, Juju and I joined Bostonian Heather Dilbert, a travel agent, and her cabin mate, Nancy McClinton, a machinist from Gloucester, Mass.

"I just love the blues," Heather told us. In fact, she loves the genre so much that she stages a blues fest in her own backyard every summer and calls it Heatherfest. Dilbert also works at the Boston Blues Festival and serves on the board of the Boston Blues Society.

McClinton said she just came on board for the good times and a break from work. "Here, you can relax and enjoy yourself," she said. "There's nothing else to do."

I asked if they brought instruments and joined in any jam sessions. "No, but I play a CD like you wouldn't believe," Nancy offered. Said Heather, "I'm a good foot-tapper."

On the penultimate night, the pool stage rocked with a Mardi Gras parade. A lot of passengers obviously had packed more than T-shirts and guitars.

While Roomful of Blues and other players howled out "When the Saints Come Marchin' In," paraders crossed the stage dressed, variously, as Santa Claus, a dinosaur, ladies of the night, pirates, Blues Brothers, babies in bonnets, firefighters and cops. A few women wore tight dresses, feathers and the requisite purple and gold Mardi Gras beads.

That event would be followed by one more "Poolside Jam Under the Stars" and the after-midnight buffet ("it's like a cannibal picnic," a cruiser complained), all this on the Lido Deck, which had long since been dubbed "Libido Deck."

On the last afternoon, Naber and his wife, Julia, awarded prizes for the best dancer, hardiest drinker, most determined womanizer and the group that had traveled the farthest (from Austria). An "indulgence" award went to the woman who brought a breathalyzer on board "to make sure people could walk back to their cabins."

Naber also bestowed a prize to the couple whose cabin hosted the most parties. "Actually, they only had one party," he said, "but it lasted for 168 hours."

And the same could be said about the cruise itself: Week-long revels, wall-to-wall rhythm & blues, and everybody with a backstage pass.

RETURN TO MEDIA