Dear Sweet Goodness

Blues is a charged emotional feeling derived from a bad situation. At least that’s how Tony Vega sees it. Having grown up in Houston, Vega is light-years from the whiskey-soaked juke joints of the classic blues musicians. But he knows what it’s like to have trouble in mind. He’s shared similar feelings about his life being out of control. It stems from the time when Vega moved back to Houston from Los Angeles.

The year was 1992, and the 22-year-old Vega had moved back in with his parents. He was playing with the alternative rock band In Search Of. During a visit to an Austin guitar shop, he chanced to meet Albert Collins. “I saw this presence, and one of the sales people said, ‘Dude, do you know who that is?’ As soon as I shook his hand, it was like a spiritual meeting. I had this stereotype of a blues cat as somebody sitting on the porch. Then I put on a live Albert Collins record, and it was like hearing the high-energy rock I was used to listening to but with a blues infusion,” says Vega.

Using Collins, Freddy King, and the late-’70s and early-’80s Austin blues movement as models, Vega began to approach his music from a different perspective. “It was so fresh to me even though these blues guys had been around a long time,” recalls Vega. “I got my hands on everything I could.”

Already a seasoned guitarist, Vega became technically competent in the idiom in a short while. But the soul didn’t start coming until later. First he had to be cast into darkness.

Without warning, Vega’s mother died on Halloween morning in 1994. Vega left his girlfriend’s house having marked the holiday by watching a video of Carrie. He came home to find his mother gone. Her death left Vega as the sole caregiver for his father, Antonio Sr., who had severe osteoporosis and arthritis. Once a burly blue-collar guy, the senior Vega had gone, in his son’s words, from “a strapping buck to a crickety old man,” practically immobile and in constant pain.

Tony’s life began to narrow as he shuffled between his day job and taking care of his father when he came home in the afternoon. No longer able to gig, Vega suddenly found himself pulled in the opposite direction of his intended destination. At first Vega accepted his fate. “I knew I had this God-given talent, but I just wasn’t able to play. I was totally numb because of the situation I was in. I’m 23 and in limbo. It’s supposed to be the time to go out and live it up. And here I am, taking care of my elderly dad. I didn’t resent it, but I was confused.”

At the same time, Vega’s love life was bending under similar strains. His girlfriend expected a conventional relationship, and here was her boyfriend staying at home every night to take care of his dad. Just as their relationship was about to founder, Tony got the news she was pregnant.

“I had to rethink my entire life. Now I’m totally overwhelmed,” says Vega. “It sounds so simple to say all I ever wanted to do was play my guitar. But you have to take the cards you’re handed. I couldn’t run away from my dad, and I didn’t want to run away from my child.”

To add to Vega’s troubles, as if more were needed, his daughter, Milan, was born 12 weeks premature. She weighed less than two pounds and spent her first two months of life in the hospital undergoing three eye surgeries. “The nerve endings in her eyes were growing away from the retina,” recalls Vega. “I was afraid she might go blind if the surgery failed. Fortunately the surgery worked, thank God.”

At this point, a music career appeared decades away — at best. One wonders why Vega didn’t just put down his guitar. It’s simple, says Vega. The urge to play never went away — even if he knew he wouldn’t be a full-time musician until he was 40 years old. “This whole time, I’m playing in my bedroom, in front of the television and when I was visiting my daughter’s mother. Part of being a student is listening. And I was listening a lot.”

In 1997, as the elder Vega’s health continued to slide, Tony’s sister Marie decided to take her father into her house. Suddenly Tony was free to start gigging, which apparently didn’t sit well with his girlfriend. Starting to perform again meant not being home at night. For Tony, it was like finally being relieved of the night shift after three long years. For his girlfriend, it meant a normal home life was beginning to look improbable. Tony was slapped with papers that cut off all access to his daughter. A legal battle followed. Tony fought to gain visitation rights, eventually winning every-other-weekend privileges. He began booking gigs around the visitation schedule.

“At that point, I was rolling with the punches,” says Vega. “I let God show me the way.”

“The fact is the success rate for any married couple in America is not good at present,” he continues. “For musicians, it’s much worse than that. I know a lot of musicians in Houston, and truthfully, almost none of them have stable relationships. It can be done, but it requires an extra-special understanding from the other person as to what makes a musician tick. Music makes us tick. And blues musicians tend to play until retirement and beyond, so it’s not like we’re ever going to stop, at least by choice.”

During the last three years Vega has put all those hard times behind him. He’s put together one of Houston’s best blues-rock bands, recorded two CDs, and built a solid fan base here and in Germany, where he frequently tours. One thing that makes the Tony Vega Band unique is its two lead guitarists and two lead vocalists: Vega and The Mighty Orq (J. Davidson).

Orq is barely into his twenties, but on stage he transforms himself into a 60-year-old black man. Listen to his gravelly vocals on “Sweet in Between,” and images of rural Mississippi’s flat cotton fields come to mind. The double punch of Orq and Vega — he of the smoky croon — colors the band with a shade of blue for all occasions.

The name of Vega’s new CD is Dear Sweet Goodness. The title track is a spiritual-like shuffle in which Vega sings, “Dear sweet goodness, the time is at hand / won’t you show me the way to the Promised Land.” One can’t help but hear the plea within the context of someone who has passed through the darkness and is about to come into the light. Maybe that’s why Vega sounds so sunny these days.