Hitting the Highs and Lows with Little Joe Washington

Little Joe Washington is up on stage, a five-foot-four-inch pencil of a man wearing a white blazer and clutching a black guitar he just got out of hock. It's Wednesday-evening happy hour at the Continental Club on Main at Winbern, and Little Joe is, if nothing else, happy.

"Hey, white girl!" he yells to the blond bartender.

"That's my name," she answers.

"Bring me a Wild Turkey -- no ice!" he demands.

The girl delivers the drink to his feet.

"That bartender is my sweet little angel," Joe says.

Then, he begins to play.

There are certain things you must know if you are going to watch Little Joe Washington play the blues. You should know that Little Joe has been called the following (depending on who you've asked): genius, addict, legend, joke. You should know that Little Joe is going to entertain you. And you should know that this entertaining might be done by his real, honest-to-God amazing blues-playing or by his onstage antics that include -- among other things -- playing with his teeth, his groin, his head; stopping a song in the middle when it has no place else to go; demanding money to play a request, then hollering: "I don't take any requests because I don't know what the hell I'm doing myself."

And there are things you must know if you are going to try to understand Little Joe Washington. First, that he grew up in the Third Ward blues scene and played with the established Texas legends: Albert Collins, Lightnin' Hopkins, Joe Hughes, T-Bone Walker, Johnny Copeland. Second, that he has lived much of the past 20 years as a marginally homeless man in a shell of a house and an abandoned car. Third, that there are several people in the African-American Houston blues scene who are tired of Little Joe and his signature habit of darting into blues clubs, playing for 20 minutes, passing his hat for money and then darting out again. And finally, you should know that there are people who love Little Joe so much that they have scored him this regular gig at the Continental and have even given him a place to live upstairs.

There, up on stage, is Little Joe Washington. His music, which is never rehearsed, borrows licks from Leadbelly and Albert Collins without his stopping to think about it. His body, which is painfully skinny, sometimes likes to roll on the floor in the middle of the set. The Continental Club crowd, which is mostly white, giggles at his stage presence and applauds generously. And Little Joe Washington sums it all up when he pauses suddenly and announces, "I was talkin' to T-Bone Walker and he says, 'Little Joe, play for yourself. Because it don't matter about anybody else.' "

It can be difficult to talk to Little Joe Washington. I try to, both before and after shows. Sometimes he slips out the front door before anyone can notice, or he is too busy nursing some Sunnybrook whiskey and smoking bummed Virginia Slims to get into a long discussion. He is amiable and funny, but when asked about certain events in his life, he answers, "That was a long time ago," or if he wants to be more specific, "That was 40 years ago." He does make a pointed effort to say his birthday is coming up, March 1. He will be 62 years old.

Little Joe's Continental Club crew has embraced him tightly. The gig, which Joe has had for the past five months, is regularly attended by one of Joe's main supporters, Reg Burns. Reg, a laid-back, friendly man who lives in West University and works for the Cultural Arts Council of Houston and Harris County, seems to have been recruited by Joe to act as a sort of manager, even though Reg shrugs off the title. He met Little Joe while hanging around different blues clubs, "where Joe would show up like a cool breeze that blows through town for a second or two." Reg loved Joe's cavalier style, his playing ability and the fact that "you never know what the hell is gonna come out of his mouth."

Reg used to just give Joe money from time to time, until he came up with the idea of taking a homemade tape of Joe's music and using his own CD burner to make CDs for Joe to sell at $15 apiece. All the proceeds go to Joe. He also had some blue-and-black flyers printed up for the Continental Club to tape to the walls. "Blues Legend Little Joe Washington," they read, right above a photograph of Joe. Reg, who has traveled all over Europe and the United States to listen to the blues, speaks of how much he loves Joe's playing. How sometimes it can even bring tears to his eyes.

"If we could just get Little Joe in front of a Chicago Bluesfest crowd, 60, 70,000 people, it would be magnificent," he says.

Joe's backup band is made up of three guys who met Joe when he used to hang out and play at the now-defunct Blue Iguana club on Richmond: Mike Simon on drums, Paul DeCuir on bass and Chris Henrich on guitar. Chris, who does sound for the Continental, suggested Little Joe for the gig when manager Pete Gordon needed someone to fill the Wednesday-night happy-hour space. The band is a good fit for Joe, says Reg. They hang back, let him do his thing. To top it off, when the band and Pete discovered Joe was taking the bus from a northside apartment where he was crashing with a friend, they hooked him up with a room to live in above the club. Although Joe doesn't have a phone yet, Chris says the place is nice and big and even has cable TV.