Big Jay McNeely (1927-2018)

[john]

Hey guys, we lost Big Jay recently. Check out this link which has quite a bit of history and interviews from over the years with Big Jay. He was one of the original rock & roll honkers and screamers:
http://www.jazzwax.com/2018/09/big-jay-mcneely-1927-2018.html

[brother cavefish]

There Is Something On Your Mind

[john]

ya BC that was one of his hits

[Mike Potter]

I was lucky enough to see big Jay play a number of times in the 70’s and 80’s. His shows were always a lot of fun, he loved walking the crowd and charming the ladies.

[john]

very cool Mike…I saw Joe Houston, another one of the “Honkers” from the 50’s.
I saw him quite a few years ago and ended up talking to him about stuff….
I wanted to talk about what I knew, like his stuff from the 50’s but he wasn’t into it at all.
in a way I totally understand it, but in another way I was surprised he wanted to erase that part of his life.

[Mike Potter]

That’s sad, Joe was a great player, I only saw him play once (even though he was in the LA area) in Long Beach at a blues festival in 2008, this was after he had a stroke, he couldn’t play much but it was cool seeing him before he quit altogether. Big Jay loved talking to the crowd about all the great times he had in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s hard to believe that he played all over the world but never had any type of attitude, I stuck around after his shows a couple of times to say hi and kind of hope some that mojo would rub off on me!! The last time I saw him was in a little club in Anaheim CA, maybe 20 people, but he performed for everyone in that club like it was the biggest gig of his life.

[Author]

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