Henry Cooper & Friends

About this event

Outdoors weather permitting No Cover $9 Minimum Purchase Please tip the artists! Henry Cooper Henry Cooper is in love, in love with a sound, a high-water-mark of blues guitar tone that had been set by the likes of Elmore James, Earl Hooker, Robert Nighthawk and Hop Wilson. It is clear from his newest release, “Slide Man”, that it is influence, not imitation, that he has learned from the blues masters. He has taken to heart the importance of keeping things uncluttered and of driving straight down the middle of the groove until the last note has faded. The slide into the blues began for Henry at the age of 16, while he was working at the Eugene (OR) Hotel as a busboy. It was while listening to a local radio station that he heard The Paul Butterfield Band playing “The Work Song” off of “East West”. Henry recalls, “I heard that amplified harp and thought “My God! What’s that sound? It was amazing, I’d never heard anything like it.” Henry began buying Blues records – one of the first ones he bought was “Fathers and Sons”, which featured (among others) Paul Butterfield and Muddy Waters. Living in Eugene, Cooper was surrounded by some of the best Northwest harmonica players: Curtis Salgado (with his band the Nighthawks), Bill Rhoades, and Mike Mother. Henry checked them out, picked their brains and got turned on to Little Walter and other blues musicians. By age 19, he made his first recording as a harp player, a 45 with his friend Chris Coltraine. After finding a lap steel guitar at a pawn shop, Henry began using the licks he knew on the harmonica and applying them to the guitar as well as the sounds he’d heard from Elmore James, Muddy Waters and Albert Collins. By the age of 22, he was playing guitar in his first band Los Explorers. Even though he was living in Eugene, a small college town, there was a thriving blues scene and the musicians were always happy to offer their knowledge openly to an eager guitar player. After a few different bands, Henry met Boyd…

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