Discovering the true-blue blues> Veteran musician teaching new Maine bandmates valuable lessons

Drummer Mark Alexander thought he could play a pretty good blues lick. So did bass player Brendan Reilly, keyboardist Stephen Pfister, and guitar player Frank Shwartz. They all felt that they did a pretty good job of belting out the music birthed in the slave quarters of the Mississippi Delta.

These Maine musicians thought they knew the blues, until they started jamming with Big Pete Pearson. Then, they quickly discovered they had never mined the depth this music genre holds, they had only scratched its surface. Since teaming up with Pearson, who thinks of B.B. King as a brother, to form Big Pete Pearson and the Blue Sevilles, the four agree that they have been shown the subtle side of the blues.

Pearson, who was born Lewis Paul Pearson 63 years ago, left Phoenix behind in May for “retirement” in Hancock with his wife, Karen. But he is not a man made for idleness, so he cooks seven days a week at the Brown Bag in Ellsworth, books gigs for the Blue Sevilles, and leads the band through the musical complexities of the blues to the simplicity of its soul.

“Over the summer I went to Blue Hill to sit in with [blues guitarist] Eddie Kirkland,” Pearson recalled recently while sitting in the living room of his rented trailer off Route 1. “People started sending musicians to me, because they knew I was looking to start a band. So many guys started coming by, but when they found out I was serious, they backed out.”

Things started falling together in October, when Reilly, a music major who graduated from the University of Maine in December, started jamming with Pearson. Pfister, a Blue Hill physician; Alexander, a Bar Harbor-based landscape architect with Acadia National Park; and Shwartz, a cook who lives in Seal Harbor, soon joined the rehearsals. The newly formed band closed the Lompoc in Bar Harbor for the season when they played five nights in a row to packed houses.

“They’re doing real good so far,” observed Pearson of his fellow band members.

“But, we’ll really be kicking in another two or three months. These are determined musicians, they got their mind set on what they want. They’d been wanting to play, but they didn’t have a goal and there was nobody to push ’em.”

This is the second incarnation of the Blue Sevilles. For 15 years Pearson managed a band by that name in Phoenix. When he announced he was leaving the scene for Maine, the New Times, a newspaper that covers the Arizona arts and music scene, ran a cover story recounting Pearson’s long career as a bluesman.

Born in Jamaica, Pearson moved to the United States when he was about 7 years old. He was raised by his grandparents, in St. John’s, a Baptist community outside Austin, Texas. His grandfather was a preacher and his grandmother ran a local mission.

“I kinda got on my own at an early age and I was into music full force. I’ve always loved music,” Pearson told the New Times in an interview about a year ago. “My grandma was the one who taught me to use my voice. She would sit me down and teach me how I should express my words.”

The article continued: “She told me, `When you hit a high note, you turn it loose … you bring it from here,’ he said, rubbing his ample belly.”

Pearson played his first blues gig when he was 9, when his grandparents agreed to let him be a fill-in guitar player for a “spiritual group.” But, instead of stopping at a local church, the band landed at the Triple J, an Austin beer joint. He made $1.50 his first night out, but “playing the jukes [clubs] was dangerous, dangerous, man, real dangerous,” Pearson recalled.

“They start cuttin’ and shootin’ as soon as the sun goes down. But I played them anyway.”

In Phoenix, Pearson not only performed with and managed the Blue Sevilles, he ran a bait shop and barbecue stand in Scottsdale. His recipe for peach cobbler was included in the “Arizona Celebrity Cook Book,” but his proudest memories of his days in Arizona involve the time he spent teaching young people about the blues through the Arizona Center for the Arts. He often wears a medallion presented for his 25 years of service to the state’s children. Pearson once toured Mexico for a month as a blues ambassador. Some of the villages he played did not have electricity, so he traveled with a generator.

The members of the Maine branch of the Blue Sevilles know they are playing with a great musician who has played with legends. Gathered for an interview and photo session in Pearson’s trailer they sat in awe, listening to his stories, hanging on his every word. One by one they spoke about what they have learned from their teacher.

“He has been real helpful in directing me to play with more restraint,” admits Shwartz. “I think more about the music now, and my playing has improved a lot.”

Reilly plays funk, jazz, rock and classical music. He says he is “on a quest” to learn to play every kind of music. “Blues is another musical style. … I’ve never played with a guy like Pete, who’s played all around the country and in Europe.”

“This is a lot of fun,” said Pfister. “But playing the blues — it’s a feel, an approach and there’s a lot of subtlety to it. Until you have someone like Pete listening to you play, you don’t realize how subtle the blues can be.”

According to Alexander, playing with Pearson is a challenge. “Pete will have us rehearse it one way, then do it differently at the show. We do some standard stuff, some cover stuff, but mostly, we just follow Pete.”

Pearson summed up for the New Times what he has learned over his 54 years as a bluesman.

“When I was a kid, they tell me to bring it from the heart, sing from the soul, B.B. told me this,” he said. “When I got a little older, I understood what they meant. The blues is real, it’s something you feel down deep, it’s like going to church. You can’t get up there and shuck and jive, you have to preach from the heart.”

Big Pete Pearson and the Blue Sevilles will perform at 9 p.m. Saturday at the New Moon Cafe in Bangor.