Local Blues Acts to Show Norcross the Art of the Jam

Stoney Brooks missed the first phone call because he was pulling an all-nighter.

Not hard to see how that would be necessary. The legendary local harmonica player and bluesman is also an instructor and PhD student in psychology at Georgia Tech—and his loves inform each other, he says.

Not to give you the impression that he’s a college kid: He’s been playing the blues for “an awfully long time,” at least 30 years.

Brooks will be playing on a flatbed truck near Betty Mauldin Park at the Norcross BluesBerry Festival this Saturday, with T-Grease Johnson following up. Local restaurants and shops will have blueberry specials to add to the deep indigo vibe, with the concert kicking off at 6 p.m.

Both bands, which are intertwined in their musical histories, are harmonica-based blues groups. And the music, they both say, is all about improvisation… and getting you to dance. “It’s a boogie woogie, bar-based, dance-y blues,” said Brooks. “If you know a jitter bug, a swing, a disco--really anything--you can dance to it.”

As an added bonus, John McGowan, also known as “Johnny Knox," will be standing in with Stoney Brooks and his band for the show. He’s half Cherokee—and one hundred percent wailer by all of their standards.

Maurice Nazzaro, harmonica player for T-Grease, said he got his first harmonica from Stoney in the early ‘90s. “When I first learned, it was so awful that they turned the mic down,” Nazzaro laughed. “Between now and then was a musical metamorphasis.”

T-Grease Johnson has lots of stories that fill those years: Getting booted out of a wedding they were playing, taking the stage at a real juke joint in Knoxville, too many to count. 

“It’s friendships that hold these kinds of bands together,” said Mike Holley, manager of the Iron Horse Tavern and drummer for T-Grease Johnson. “It matters if you play with friends.” 

Chemistry is more than a matter of pride with a blues band—it is what makes them fascinating to watch and listen to. “We don’t rehearse, but we practice everyday,” says Danny Vinson, T-Grease guitarist. Each member knows his instrument, and then they come together like “lego blocks” and improvise, he says.

“There is a basic framework—if you know it you can jam together. You can turn to him and say, ‘Let’s do a 2/5 swing,’” says Vinson.

Brooks agrees. Blues is an improvisational art form—with deep lessons that he applies to his psychology studies.

“You get these guys on stage all with their own egos, wanting to show you what they have, but they have to work together to make something beautiful,” he said. “It’s magnetic, really.”

Editor's Note: We identified the harmonica player of T-Grease as Danny Vinson originally. Vinson is actually the guitar player in the band.