Speaker 1: Hey, this is Jim Suler with Texas Scratch and George
Speaker 1: Thurroughgood and the Destroyers. You're listening to Doctor Sky Experience
Speaker 1: on Talk Radio seventy seven WABC.
Speaker 2: And welcome back to that leman. That is Doctor Sky
Speaker 2: Experience ard exclusively here on Talk Radio seventy seven WABC.
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Speaker 2: New York City, the Nation, the world and the Cosmos.
Speaker 2: And if you're a first time listener to the Doctor
Speaker 2: Sky Experience week over the realms of astronomys based aviation
Speaker 2: and weather with great musical accent, musical guest and celebrit
Speaker 2: the act in the mix. And you know, folks, today
Speaker 2: a very special guest on the line. We're talking to
Speaker 2: a gentleman who knows so much about blues and we're
Speaker 2: talking about a group called Texas Scratch. They're made up
Speaker 2: of three born and bred Texan guitarists, Jim Schuler from Dallas,
Speaker 2: Buddy Woodington from Fort Worth, Dan's Converse from Houston. This
Speaker 2: mighty threesome of big dog guitar slingers takes no prisoners
Speaker 2: when it comes to red hot guitar performances, both live
Speaker 2: and in studio. This trio of six string guitar beasts.
Speaker 2: They're accompanied ladies and gentlemen on the album by Druffer
Speaker 2: Jeff Simon and bassist Nathaniel Peterson. Both find musicians in
Speaker 2: their own right. The combined effors that resulted in a
Speaker 2: debut album consisting of obviously fiery, passionate guitar licks everywhere
Speaker 2: you turn, soaked in the blues and kicked in the
Speaker 2: ass by the blues rock. They all love to play.
Speaker 2: And with that, let's introduce our very special guest today
Speaker 2: as we talk to our very good friend here, ladies
Speaker 2: and gentlemen on the Pharaoen the phone, Jim Schuler. Thanks
Speaker 2: for joining us here on the Doctor Skuy Experience. How
Speaker 2: are you today? Life right?
Speaker 1: I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me
Speaker 1: on your show. It's a pleasure to be in the
Speaker 1: celestial mix.
Speaker 2: Hey, I love that, my friend, and you know, I'll
Speaker 2: talk to you a little bit later. We're headed, as
Speaker 2: you probably know, down to the great state of Texas.
Speaker 2: But the big Total Solier E Cliffs that's going to
Speaker 2: take place, I don't know if you're aware of this.
Speaker 2: There's so many events happening in Texas at the time.
Speaker 2: How about this. We're going to be down Jim at
Speaker 2: the Tech Music Festival in a little tiny down off
Speaker 2: Interstate ten called Junction, Texas. We can celebrate with great
Speaker 2: Texans and music fans alike about all the things that
Speaker 2: they love about the blues. You know, it's incredible with
Speaker 2: Texas great blues artists like Stevie, ray Vaughn, Billy Gibbons,
Speaker 2: Freddy King, and so much more. Talk to us how
Speaker 2: Texas Scratch got started. Because you've got a brand new album,
Speaker 2: Texas Scratch, and who doesn't love the blue? Was right
Speaker 2: by a friend. This is just going to be an
Speaker 2: exciting conversation. Well, we love it here and in Texas. There's,
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, a great tradition of blues and blues
Speaker 2: guitar in Texas.
Speaker 1: You know. Growing up here, I, you know, was surrounded
Speaker 1: by an embarrassment of musical wealth. I didn't realize how
Speaker 1: lucky I had it growing up in Dallas, with so
Speaker 1: many great musicians around playing in the clubs. Steenie y
Speaker 1: Vonn was still in clubs you know when I started out.
Speaker 1: Freddie King was it just passed, but he was always
Speaker 1: sitting in at Mother Blues in Dallas, and so this
Speaker 1: stuff was still accessible, you know to a neophyte like
Speaker 1: me at the time. It's a wonderful environment to grow
Speaker 1: up and it's it's rich in all that music. And
Speaker 1: I can't really explain to you why it's all happened here.
Speaker 1: I guess just a convergence of cultures and different peoples.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it's a great place to learn how
Speaker 1: to do something I was I had a really deep
Speaker 1: interest in.
Speaker 2: Well, absolutely, and I always asked this of every one
Speaker 2: of our musical guests here. You know, you talk about
Speaker 2: guitar and we talk about this, you know, so many
Speaker 2: different iterations, so many wonderful guitars, and you know, the
Speaker 2: people that make the guitars. Tell us how you got
Speaker 2: started in the whole love of you know, in the
Speaker 2: music world. I mean, it's it's great because so many
Speaker 2: people aspire to be at the high pinnacle of the
Speaker 2: other musical mountain, but seriously, very few make it. But
Speaker 2: how did you get started? And just talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about the passion that you have and some of
Speaker 2: the music rates that you look up to even today,
Speaker 2: as you climb that.
Speaker 1: Well, well I'm still climbing. I don't think you ever
Speaker 1: get to the top, or very few do. But amen,
Speaker 1: I got pardon me, well ahead, no, I said, amen,
Speaker 1: that's awesome. Yeah, excuse me. Then I got Initially my
Speaker 1: first interest in music was ignited by somebody not from Texas,
Speaker 1: the Beatles when I was born in nineteen sixty. But
Speaker 1: in the mid sixties I was very aware of that,
Speaker 1: and I lived and died with my little am radio
Speaker 1: and we had a really good top forty station here
Speaker 1: in Dallas called KLIF the Mighty eleven ninety, and they
Speaker 1: played all kinds of stuff enviition of the Beatles. You
Speaker 1: could hear Jimmy Reid, you name it, Petula Clark, anything
Speaker 1: that was on the charts. It was a great education
Speaker 1: for me, and later I got into album orient and
Speaker 1: rock when that became a thing around nineteen seventy, and
Speaker 1: was always a fan of blues rock, and then began
Speaker 1: to research the songs just via the song titles and
Speaker 1: composer credits on the albums. I started to educate myself
Speaker 1: on these artists through buying records and later on reading
Speaker 1: about them in books and even later than that, I
Speaker 1: could go out and meet the few that were maybe
Speaker 1: still around got me on the path. But initially, when
Speaker 1: I was playing guitar, it was classic rock artists in
Speaker 1: the seventies that were my inspiration. I wasn't old enough
Speaker 1: to go to a club yet, but I could go
Speaker 1: to concerts and I could go see these Easy Top
Speaker 1: or the Rolling Stones, or Leonard Skinnard or you know
Speaker 1: whoever it was. It's the usual suspects.
Speaker 2: Amazing. You know. It's also interesting to talk about another
Speaker 2: band that you've been involved with what so long, If
Speaker 2: I'm correct, you were being a destroyer George Thurgood. I mean,
Speaker 2: this guy's awesome. We've met him many times here with concerts.
Speaker 2: Talk about that relationship that must be long and deep.
Speaker 2: It truly is.
Speaker 1: I was a fan of George dating back to the
Speaker 1: late seventies when they first released their initial albums on
Speaker 1: Rounder Records. I loved the you know, it was very raw,
Speaker 1: and they, strangely enough got lumped in with the punk
Speaker 1: bands at first. When they went to England, they would
Speaker 1: play at these punk clubs. I think because it was raw,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a typical polished.
Speaker 2: Aor stuff.
Speaker 1: Of the time. And that appealed to me, so I
Speaker 1: kept that in my mind and I saw them play
Speaker 1: open for the Rolling Stones in nineteen eighty one. You know,
Speaker 1: I would play some of their stuff in my bar bands.
Speaker 1: But I met George in nineteen ninety at Hughey's, a
Speaker 1: nightclub in Memphis. They were recording an album just down
Speaker 1: the street as Ardent Records, and he took a shine
Speaker 1: to me. He liked what I was doing and told
Speaker 1: his producer, Terry Manning about me. And roughly a year later,
Speaker 1: I had some money and I was going to do
Speaker 1: an album. I didn't have a label, so I did
Speaker 1: this album and Terry, fortunately for me, just started his
Speaker 1: own label, so I released it through Terry's label, which
Speaker 1: led to a management contract with George Thoroughgood's manager and
Speaker 1: opening you know, tons of tour dates for George in
Speaker 1: the mid nineties. So fast forward in nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: they were adding a second guitar player and I was
Speaker 1: asked to join the band and I've been there ever since.
Speaker 1: This is my twenty fifth year.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's impressive because Jim Schuler is our guest here.
Speaker 2: He's with the band. Ladies and Gentlemen going to hear
Speaker 2: so much more about Texas Scratch. These are some red
Speaker 2: hot guitar performances and so many other things that they
Speaker 2: do to put this together. When we talk about Texas
Speaker 2: Blues and the blues. But Jim, when I was down
Speaker 2: there in one of the concerts here in Arizona, we
Speaker 2: had to meet and greet with George. What a great guy.
Speaker 2: And we actually got a copy of some really cool
Speaker 2: blue vinyl that he had on the release there just
Speaker 2: for the people who attended the concert. I'll keep that
Speaker 2: and sure shit because he signed it. So what a
Speaker 2: great guy, what a great story, what a great experience.
Speaker 2: Let's talk Texas Scratch. You got the new album Texas
Speaker 2: Scratch Quarto Valley Records. People can get you know, this
Speaker 2: whole thing downloaded just forever. Good music is available and
Speaker 2: there's plenty of places for it. Talk about the time
Speaker 2: period to produce this album, because it has an interesting story.
Speaker 2: I knew through COVID and all these other things, there
Speaker 2: was lots of delays. Not your fault at all. Tell
Speaker 2: us the iteration of how this album got together time wise,
Speaker 2: and now it's ready to be heard by everybody out there,
Speaker 2: and we're going to hear some examples in just a
Speaker 2: couple of minutes, one specifically that I'm sure you'll love,
Speaker 2: but talk about how the evolution of Texas Cratch. This
Speaker 2: album got together.
Speaker 1: There's a guy named Arnie Goodman who was involved with
Speaker 1: a label there in New York City. Also he owned
Speaker 1: a record or somewhere in the city and music photographer.
Speaker 1: I think he's living in Long Island. But this whole
Speaker 1: project was his idea. He knew us all individually and
Speaker 1: thought it would be a great collective, so he brought
Speaker 1: us all together to record and see. We recorded the
Speaker 1: album in two thousand and nine, and I believe the
Speaker 1: conversations about like putting it together it started maybe a
Speaker 1: couple of years before that, so this is it's been
Speaker 1: a pretty long incubation period on this obviously. So we
Speaker 1: completed the album and there was an issue with the
Speaker 1: label at the time, so the record was shelved and
Speaker 1: it was shopped at various times in the interim since
Speaker 1: two and nine or twenty ten, when this all became
Speaker 1: apparent and I had given up on it, I hadn't
Speaker 1: heard anything about the record in a couple of years
Speaker 1: from anybody, and I just it's not that it was
Speaker 1: on a back burner because I was so busy and
Speaker 1: I just figured, well, if it comes out, great, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to even think about it anymore, because that's
Speaker 1: when something will happen. Indeed, what happened. It was released
Speaker 1: late last year, and I learned about it on social media,
Speaker 1: so I wasn't even aware that it was None of
Speaker 1: us knew it was coming out, which is a unique
Speaker 1: marketing strategy. But having set on that, I still connect
Speaker 1: with these songs, and I love the record and I'm
Speaker 1: just thrilled to piece as it finally came out. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry it took so long.
Speaker 2: Well that's okay, no apology necessary. But there's a little
Speaker 2: backstory to this. If I'm correct. This was done and
Speaker 2: produced in show Place Studios in Dover, New Jersey, and
Speaker 2: being a native New Yorker myself in that area, you know,
Speaker 2: for years there's a radio station there that I was
Speaker 2: doing a lot of stuff for WDHA, the Rock of
Speaker 2: North Jersey. Maybe you guys even stopped into those studios,
Speaker 2: into that radio station, But isn't that incredible? So talk
Speaker 2: about show Place studios, and I mean that must to
Speaker 2: be an incredible experience there and even though this is
Speaker 2: a long time ago, what matters most is what they're
Speaker 2: going to hear in this amazing album Texas Scratch and
Speaker 2: one of the things I wanted to do right now.
Speaker 2: You won't hear it, but the audience will. I want
Speaker 2: to play this from your new album. I think this
Speaker 2: is cool. I think it's track number eight, Ain't Got
Speaker 2: the Scratch, which is actually written to what Buddy Whittington
Speaker 2: wrote this. But here we go, Ain't got the scratch,
Speaker 2: got a little flavor of what Texas scratches all about.
Speaker 2: Here we go.
Speaker 3: Front row center, top down the Crowner's cleaning drive a
Speaker 3: home today. The salesman was screaming, I wanted a mad
Speaker 3: but couldn't figure out how to.
Speaker 2: Make those ease.
Speaker 4: It turns half down the rest now, so I'll wire
Speaker 4: up that mumper. I'm putting on that patch. You know
Speaker 4: that I got the itch, but I ain't got the scratch.
Speaker 5: Hot Red lifted, let lesson live. She had it going
Speaker 5: all she had it together.
Speaker 3: With the face of Nann jumping the body of a centafold.
Speaker 4: Look like I schtule maintenance a frequent service interval.
Speaker 3: Well, I knew all along that I was way on.
Speaker 4: The mash goes baby, and I got the inch, but
Speaker 4: I ain't got the scratch.
Speaker 1: She could.
Speaker 4: Something catches your eyes and you just gotta have it.
Speaker 3: You better rethink it before your reach out and rabbit,
Speaker 3: before your reach in your pocket and pull out.
Speaker 4: That plastic do y'all have the baby bring that bad habit.
Speaker 5: I called up my cow about a house on the.
Speaker 3: Seventeen rooms are pool as big as the bill.
Speaker 5: I'm bessaging the numbers.
Speaker 1: There's no way the nudget when your dum.
Speaker 4: Bear and yond pallet and your blue ribbon budget. So
Speaker 4: call your friend that the men and have a friend
Speaker 4: of the fresh bash. David, I got the itch, but
Speaker 4: I ain't got the scratch. You better round on them
Speaker 4: not you know, there's always a cash. David, I got
Speaker 4: the ith, but I ain't got the scratch.
Speaker 2: Now, I think that just rocks, And that's just so
Speaker 2: cool because you know, I don't know what it is,
Speaker 2: but I want to just jump up. Seriously, when I
Speaker 2: hear a lot of these blues and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: I mean, just want to get up and move around.
Speaker 2: You want to? Yeah, you feel good? So I got
Speaker 2: to ask you this more from the personal side of
Speaker 2: the you know, the feeling side of this. What does
Speaker 2: this whole taxes blue thing do? I mean, it just
Speaker 2: kind of invigorates it. It talks about hard times, it
Speaker 2: talks about ways to overcomeversity. It just talks about cool stuff.
Speaker 2: But I just love it. So tell us about the
Speaker 2: whole blues thing. It's just amazing.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't, I don't really consider I think we're
Speaker 1: more like interpreters. I mean, somebody like Freddie King is
Speaker 1: blues or Lightning Hopkins. I mean, you know, we're white
Speaker 1: boy interpreters. I mean, it's kind of like we're We're
Speaker 1: probably closer to the easy Top in terms of sound
Speaker 1: and maybe a approach tonically speaking. You know, we grew up.
Speaker 1: Our backgrounds are much like the TV show King of
Speaker 1: the Hill. It's a lot of that, you know than
Speaker 1: you know, cotton Field or something. We just have a
Speaker 1: take on it. Yeah, So I'm not worried about saying
Speaker 1: true to any you know, blues. Eddy just play what
Speaker 1: we like and that's We're heavily influenced by that and
Speaker 1: it informs everything we're doing. But I think if you
Speaker 1: try to define it Texas blues, I think it would
Speaker 1: it would have a swing to it in terms of
Speaker 1: the beat, and it would have a swagger perhaps you know, confidence.
Speaker 1: But initially I think Texas Blues maybe it's earliest days
Speaker 1: probably had was closer to jazz and than the more
Speaker 1: gut buckets Chicago's found. I think it was probably there
Speaker 1: would be more horns and stuff, maybe a little more
Speaker 1: sophisticated musically. And then there's of course there's offshoots and
Speaker 1: there's there's outliers on that people that that sound nothing
Speaker 1: like that, that are Texas Blues. But if I'm going
Speaker 1: to generalize than I am, that's what I would would say.
Speaker 2: That's fine. Yeah, so kind of like you know Zezy
Speaker 2: Top Billy and the great Billy Gibbons. Obviously we talk
Speaker 2: to him with all these great musicians, But I want
Speaker 2: to wish you guys the greatest success because there's other
Speaker 2: people to mention here. I mean your other powerhouse and
Speaker 2: guitar is Budd Whittington, as you know, and then also
Speaker 2: Jeff Simon, who once spent a lot of his life
Speaker 2: with George Thoroughgood. Also, am I correct on.
Speaker 1: That he's been playing with George since nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 2: It's fun now, that's a lifetime. You got it. It's
Speaker 2: George Thenthaniel Peterson.
Speaker 1: Sadie passed away last year. He was living in Italy.
Speaker 2: So wow, I didn't know that, so sorry to hear that.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, and Dan Elliott from show Play Studios, who
Speaker 1: engineered this record has also passed away since we recorded it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, well, God bless to the memory of all
Speaker 2: those other musicians, great musicians, A great fan Texas Scratch again,
Speaker 2: this album on Quarto Valley Records, so us how people
Speaker 2: can get it, which is pretty obvious wherever great music
Speaker 2: is able to be a required and now there's a
Speaker 2: whole lot of those sources. So where where do people
Speaker 2: go to get this? This is the most popular outlet
Speaker 2: to get a copy of buying.
Speaker 1: A hard copy a CD. I would direct you to
Speaker 1: Amazon dot com or Quarto Valley Records dot com. We
Speaker 1: have a Facebook page for Texas Scratch. And they wanted
Speaker 1: to find out anything about our tour dates, the performance dates,
Speaker 1: they can go to Jensuler dot com, j I M.
Speaker 1: S U H L E R dot com.
Speaker 2: Well, Jim, it's a brilliant, privileged and honor to speak
Speaker 2: with you here, and I apologize any of the communication
Speaker 2: errors in this, but obviously our producer Richard Dugan Doctor
Speaker 2: D will make sure that it sounds better than gold.
Speaker 2: And we wish you the best and hopefully you get
Speaker 2: out here to Arizona too. We want to see you guys.
Speaker 2: You know that's about as near as I right downtown
Speaker 2: here in Phoenix, Arizona or Las Vegas. Looking forward to that.
Speaker 2: But it's a pleasure to speak with you. This whole
Speaker 2: six string shootout so much more red hot our performances
Speaker 2: the album once again Texas Scratch on quarts Old Valley Records.
Speaker 2: Stay with us as we go to the heartbreak at
Speaker 2: the bottom of the hour. This concludes another exciting edition
Speaker 2: of the Doctor Sky Experience, heard proudly and strongly around
Speaker 2: America's number one powerhouse radio station, talk radios of the
Speaker 2: Southern WABC. We call it the con Zulas Radio, the
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Speaker 2: out of New York City, the nation, the world, and
Speaker 2: the Cosmos. Thank you to our social guest Jim Suller.
Speaker 2: We wish you got speed with Texas Ranch had a
Speaker 2: good day.
Speaker 1: Thank you