Frederick Martin Roulette (May 3, 1939 – December 24, 2022) was an American
electric blues
Electric blues refers to any type of blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplifier, amplification for musical instruments. The guitar was the first instrument to be popularly amplified and used by early pioneers T-Bone Walker in the ...
lap steel guitar
The lap steel guitar, also known as a Hawaiian guitar, is a type of steel guitar without pedals that is typically played with the instrument in a horizontal position across the performer's lap. Unlike the usual manner of playing a traditional ...
ist and singer. He was best known as an exponent of the
lap steel guitar
The lap steel guitar, also known as a Hawaiian guitar, is a type of steel guitar without pedals that is typically played with the instrument in a horizontal position across the performer's lap. Unlike the usual manner of playing a traditional ...
. He was a member of the band Daphne Blue
and collaborated with
Earl Hooker
Earl Zebedee Hooker (January 15, 1930 – April 21, 1970) was a Chicago blues guitarist known for his slide guitar playing. Considered a "musician's musician", he performed with blues artists such as Sonny Boy Williamson II, Junior Wells, and ...
,
Charlie Musselwhite
Charles Douglas Musselwhite (born January 31, 1944) is an American electric blues harmonica player and bandleader, one of the white bluesmen who came to prominence, along with Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, and Elvin Bishop, as a pivotal f ...
,
Henry Kaiser
Henry John Kaiser (May 9, 1882 – August 24, 1967) was an American industrialist who became known as the father of modern American shipbuilding. Prior to World War II, Kaiser was involved in the construction industry; his company was one of ...
, and
Harvey Mandel
Harvey Mandel (born March 11, 1945) is an American guitarist best known as a member of Canned Heat. He also played with Charlie Musselwhite and John Mayall as well as maintaining a solo career.
Early life
Mandel was born in Detroit, Michigan, a ...
. He also released several solo
album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...
s.
One commentator described Roulette as an "excellent musician".
A short documentary of Freddie Roulette appears on the video-sharing site
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
that chronicles Roulette's time with the Daphne Blue Band.
The online Blues encyclopedia, "All About Blues Music,"
describes Roulette's long tenure with the Daphne Blue Band and notes: "Freddie has also released an album, ‘Daphne Blue: Legendary Blues Instrumentals’ which contains 15 excellent tracks, which
reddieconsiders to be among his finest works."
Biography
Roulette's family was originally from
,
[Bock, Scott M. (2006). "Freddie Roulette: 'I just decided steel was it'". '']Juke Blues
''Juke Blues'' is a British magazine covering blues, R&B, gospel, soul, zydeco and jazz. It was established in 1985 in London by Cilla Huggins, John Broven and Bez Turner, and is now published in Bath, Somerset, England. Cilla Huggins has been so ...
'', no. 61, pp.16–21. but he was born and raised in
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston ( ) is a city, suburb of Chicago. Located in Cook County, Illinois, United States, it is situated on the North Shore along Lake Michigan. Evanston is north of Downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, Wil ...
. He learned to play the steel guitar in high school.
He started playing in clubs in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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in his teens, and in 1965 began work in Earl Hooker's backing band, touring and performing with him until 1969.
Hooker's band, with the pianist
Pinetop Perkins
Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins (July 7, 1913 – March 21, 2011) was an American blues pianist. He played with some of the most influential blues and rock-and-roll performers of his time and received numerous honors, including a Grammy Life ...
, the harmonica player
Carey Bell
Carey Bell Harrington (November 14, 1936 – May 6, 2007) was an American blues musician who played harmonica in the Chicago blues style. Bell played harmonica and bass guitar for other blues musicians from the late 1950s to the early 1970s bef ...
, the vocalist
Andrew Odom
Andrew Odom (December 15, 1936 – December 23, 1991) was an American Chicago blues and electric blues singer and songwriter. Born in Denham Springs, Louisiana, United States, he is best known for the close resemblance of his singing style to tha ...
, and Roulette, was "widely acclaimed" and "considered one of the best Earl had ever carried with him". Roulette performed on several of Hooker's singles; his 1967 album, ''
The Genius of Earl Hooker
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
''; and the 1969 follow-up, ''
2 Bugs and a Roach
''2 Bugs and a Roach'' is an album by blues musician Earl Hooker released by the Arhoolie label in 1969.Am ...
''.
[
Roulette later developed a friendship with ]Charlie Musselwhite
Charles Douglas Musselwhite (born January 31, 1944) is an American electric blues harmonica player and bandleader, one of the white bluesmen who came to prominence, along with Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, and Elvin Bishop, as a pivotal f ...
and (credited as Fred Roulette) recorded with him on the 1969 album ''Chicago Blue Stars''.[ He toured with Musselwhite and backed him on the albums ''Tennessee Woman'' and ''Memphis, Tennessee'', before relocating to the ]San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
, area where he has lived ever since. He played there in a band with Luther Tucker
Luther Tucker (January 20, 1936 – June 18, 1993) was an American blues guitarist.
While soft-spoken and shy, Tucker made his presence known through his unique and clearly recognizable guitar style. Tucker helped to define the music known as ...
and recorded with Earl Hooker's cousin John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1912 or 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often ...
.[
After leaving Chicago for the San Francisco Bay area, Roulette began "teaming up with the 14-year-old guitarist Ray Bronner ('Daphne Blue Ray'), and some veterans from Chicago in the band Daphne Blue, Freddie was often joined by ‘Big Moose’ (Johnny Walker), ‘Pinetop Perkins’ and Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown at gigs and on record."] "Freddie released an album, ''Daphne Blue: Legendary Blues Instrumentals'', which contains 15 excellent tracks, which he considers to be among his finest works."
In 1973, Roulette released his debut solo album, ''Sweet Funky Steel'', which was produced by the guitarist Harvey Mandel
Harvey Mandel (born March 11, 1945) is an American guitarist best known as a member of Canned Heat. He also played with Charlie Musselwhite and John Mayall as well as maintaining a solo career.
Early life
Mandel was born in Detroit, Michigan, a ...
. Don "Sugarcane" Harris
Don Francis Bowman "Sugarcane" Harris (June 18, 1938 – November 30, 1999) was an American blues and rock and roll violinist and guitarist. He is considered a pioneer in the amplification of the violin.
Career
Harris was born and raised in P ...
played on several tracks. Over the next twenty years, Roulette continued to perform with other musicians and occasionally led his own band, while also working full-time as an apartment manager. On the 1996 album ''Psychedelic Guitar Circus'', he worked in a group with Mandel, Kaiser and Steve Kimock
Steve Kimock (born October 5, 1955) is an American rock guitarist. He was a member of San Francisco Bay Area bands Zero and KVHW.
His tone and some of his playing approach has been compared to Jerry Garcia, who was a friend of his, and he has ...
. Grammy nominee, producer/composer Larry Hoffman brought Freddie to Chicago where the artist recorded his 1997 solo album, ''Back in Chicago: Jammin' with Willie Kent and the Gents'', with Willie Kent
Willie Kent (February 24, 1936 – March 2, 2006) was an American Chicago blues singer, bassist and songwriter.
Career
Kent was born in Inverness, Sunflower County, Mississippi. Although he had played the bass guitar in Chicago's clubs since the ...
and Chico Banks, on ''Hi Horse'' Records. The album won an award from ''Living Blues
''Living Blues: The Magazine of the African American Blues Tradition'' is a bi-monthly magazine focused on blues music, and America's oldest blues periodical. The magazine was founded as a quarterly in Chicago in 1970 by Jim O'Neal and Amy van Sin ...
'' magazine as ''Best Blues Album of 1997''. Following that album's success, Roulette began performing widely at blues festivals and recorded the 1998 album ''Spirit of Steel'', featuring the Holmes Brothers
The Holmes Brothers were an American musical trio originally from Christchurch, Virginia. Mixing sounds from blues, soul, gospel, country, and rhythm & blues, they have released twelve studio albums, with three reaching the top 5 on the '' Bi ...
and produced by Kaiser. He also contributed to Kaiser's album ''Yo Miles'', a tribute to Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
.[
Roulette's solo album ''Man of Steel'' (2006) featured guitar playing by ]Will Bernard
Will Bernard is a guitarist and band leader. He has led the Will Bernard Band, Will Bernard Trio, Will Bernard 4-tet, and Motherbug.
Career
In the 1980s Bernard was a member of the Hieroglyphics Ensemble led by Peter Apfelbaum. In the 1990s he f ...
and David Lindley; Kaiser also played guitar and produced the album. It was recorded in Fantasy Studios
Fantasy Studios was a music recording studio in Berkeley, California, at the Zaentz Media Center, known for its recording of award-winning albums including Journey's ''Escape'' and Green Day's ''Dookie''. Built as a private recording studio for ...
, in Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...
, and included strains of jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
, country
A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while the ...
, soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...
and reggae
Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...
in the overall blues setting. In the same year, Roulette played locally in a small combo including Mike Hinton Michael David Hinton (May 4, 1956 – August 1, 2013) was an American guitarist, residing in the San Francisco Bay Area. During his career, he played with numerous bands, including Norton Buffalo and the Knockouts, High Noon, Merl Saunders & the R ...
.
Roulette played at numerous music festival
A music festival is a community event with performances of singing and instrument playing that is often presented with a theme such as musical genre (e.g., rock, blues, folk, jazz, classical music), nationality, locality of musicians, or h ...
s over the years, including the Long Beach Blues Festival
The Long Beach Blues Festival, in Long Beach, California, United States, was established in full in 1980, and was one of the largest blues festivals and was the second oldest on the West coast of the United States, West Coast (first being the San ...
, the San Francisco Blues Festival
The San Francisco Blues Festival was active from 1973 until 2008, and was located in San Francisco, California. It was the one of the longest running blues festival in the United States.
History
Tom Mazzolini, the event's producer, founded the ...
(1979), and the Calgary Folk Music Festival
The Calgary Folk Music Festival (also known as "Calgary Folk Fest") is held in late July each year at Prince's Island Park, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. July 2022 is the Festival's 43rd edition. The four-day Calgary Folk Music Festival annually featu ...
(2000). He continued to play club dates in the San Francisco area, often with Mandel. In 2012, ''Jammin' With Friends'' was recorded at three separate studios with various musicians. It was produced by Michael Borbridge, who also played drums on all the tracks.
As of 2015, Roulette was still playing with the Daphne Blue Band.
In February 2019, the ''Chicago Reader
The ''Chicago Reader'', or ''Reader'' (stylized as ЯEADER), is an American alternative weekly newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater. It was founded by a ...
'' published an article on Roulette and his band members, along with sound clips, titled: "The Secret History of Chicago Music: Pivotal Musicians That Somehow Haven't Gotten Their Just Dues."
Roulette died on December 24, 2022, at the age of 83.
Discography
[
]
See also
* List of electric blues musicians
References
External links
Freddie Roulette Interview, NAMM Oral History Library (2016)
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roulette, Freddie
1939 births
2022 deaths
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
Chicago blues musicians
Electric blues musicians
American session musicians
Slide guitarists
Steel guitarists
Musicians from Evanston, Illinois
African-American guitarists
Blues musicians from Illinois
Guitarists from Illinois
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American male musicians
20th-century African-American musicians
21st-century African-American people