Best of the blues

He started off busking alongside his three-legged dog in The Square. Now legendary Palmerston North blues man Bullfrog Rata is known throughout the country. Michelle Duff catches up with him and long-time friend and drummer Earl Pollard before their gig at the Manawatu Jazz and Blues Festival. 

"Shine my shoes, boy!" drawls Bullfrog Rata, picking out a blues riff on his electric guitar while offering a foot to drummer Earl Pollard.

Pollard drops his drumsticks and grabs a cloth, his face a mask of concentration as he takes to the shoe with pretend gusto.

Rata throws his head back and chortles, and soon both musicians are giggling like schoolboys.

Who ever said the blues aren't fun?

Watching these two, who have been jamming together for the best part of 15 years, it's easy to see why they've kept the passion.

"The challenge is going to be trying to keep it under two hours, I think," says Rata, of the upcoming show the pair are playing, alongside a line-up of other local musicians, at the Manawatu Jazz and Blues Festival.

From early beginnings on the ukulele at 11, Palmerston Northraised Rata took up the guitar and flirted with the music of Roger Whittaker and Lou Reed, before falling in  love with the blues.

After a stint busking in The Square alongside his threelegged weimaraner dog, he moved to Auckland where he hooked up with other musos and honed his craft.

"I was sort of a late bloomer, you know, I didn't really start playing professionally until I was 26 or 27.

"Not like these fellas here," he says, alluding to Pollard and other band mates, "who started when they were teenagers."

Since then, he's played gigs up and down the country, released a couple of albums, and generally built up a reputation as one of the best blues men there is.

Blues music for him is all about the feeling, he says. "There's just something about it that hits the spot."

The biggest mistake he made when he started playing - and that many start-up bands are guilty of now - is to try to impress the crowd, he says.

"I see a lot of young blues bands who are still in that [mindset], like they have to play faster and flasher . . . trying to impress people, rather than relaxing."

Despite all the years of playing behind them, Rata and Pollard say they still get nervous - and it's the nights when they're too confident where things inevitably go wrong.

"It's like sport I suppose, you think you're going to win and you go out and get caned," Rata says. "Music is just the same."

"But if you're playing with people you feel confident with it's much better," Pollard adds.

The pair should be in their element next Friday then, when they are joined by a bunch of friends for a night of blues at the Globe Theatre. Bassist Tony Faulkner, Shayn  "Hurricane" Wills on harmonica, Dean Parkinson on saxophone, singers Mahia Blackmore and Janine Knap and blues harp player Terry Casey will help them jam the night away.

Published courtesy of Manawatu Standard.