John Mooney & Bluesiana

NEW ORLEANS - Bluesman John Mooney dropped out of high school and wound up getting an education most musicians only dream of.
At 16, he struck up a friendship with Delta blues pioneer Son House, who schooled him in music and survival. At 21, he began a 4-year odyssey alongside New Orleans piano legend Professor Longhair.
Now 41, Mooney is holding his own, carrying on the rich legacy of his late mentors while refining his personalized brand of potent Crescent City blues-rock.
"Learning from Fess and Son, it's kind of hard to top that,'' Mooney says backstage at the House of Blues, where a packed house awaits him. Longhair and House shade the music on Mooney's seventh album, Against the Wall, imbued with Mississippi flavors and New Orleans' second-line beats. "Putting syncopated rhythms with Delta blues seemed real natural to me.''
His fluid slide guitar snakes through Bourbon Street funk and country blues on nine originals and a cover of Michelle Shocked's The Bitter Pill.
Mooney, along with gospel singer Cissy Houston and Memphis-roots blues trio the Gales Brothers, was among the first artists signed to the new House of Blues label. The growing music empire could finally bring the underexposed guitar marvel needed visibility, though he has no illusions about the modest market appeal of blues.
"The majority of people prefer pop music with a catchy little melody,'' he says. "It's a good thing my feelings about my music don't depend on how well it sells.''
Mooney, long championed by pal Bonnie Raitt, was born in New Jersey and reared in Mendon, N.Y., south of Rochester. He grew up in a musical family: his grandfather made 78 rpm records in the '20s, his father played honky tonk piano and his older brother played upright bass.
Exposed to everything from Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus to Jimi Hendrix and Cream, Mooney picked up the guitar at 10 and instantly gravitated to the seminal blues of the Mississippi Delta.
"I was drawn to the emotional quality of the music and the haunting sound of the slide guitar,'' he says. "When I first heard records by Son House and Robert Johnson, I knew I wanted to play that style and transmit those emotions.''
He was a skilled player at age 16, when he first called on House in Rochester.
"It took Son a little while to warm up to me,'' Mooney recalls. "I'd been playing Delta stuff for a few years, and we played together at a couple of house parties. I'd tune his guitar. He started getting comfortable around me and invited me over to hang out. I wasn't aware of what the opportunity meant, but I knew there was nobody better in Delta blues.''
Eddie James House Jr., born in 1902, gave up preaching in his 20s to take up singing and guitar, forging a style that imprinted Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson. Alan Lomax recorded him for the Library of Congress in the early '40s. In 1965, House resurfaced in The Legendary Son House/Father of Folk Blues.
Though music was their common bond, House and Mooney often discussed religion and life goals.
"I needed help in those departments,'' says Mooney, who left home at 13 and had a job and an apartment at 15. "We'd sit around the house and talk. His wife, Evie, wouldn't let him play blues in the house, so we'd have to go outside to play guitar. In the winter, we'd sing spiritual stuff inside. Even if she wasn't home, he never sang a blues lyric in the house.''
A devout Christian, Evie considered blues sacrilegious. She attended church alone.
"Son didn't go because he didn't want to be a hypocrite,'' Mooney says. "He felt that his heart and mind conflicted with the church. It's funny. Evie wouldn't even let us go in the grocery store with her. We had to stand out front by the cigarette machine and smoke. And then she wouldn't let us unload the groceries. Son was suspicious. He'd say, `I hear bottles rattling in that bag.' She claimed it was ginger ale.''
After House moved to Detroit, Mooney's cross-country hitchhiking and street-corner singing finally brought him to New Orleans in 1976. He spent his first night in town at a concert by Professor Longhair, an influence on Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint and Dr. John. Until Longhair's death in 1980, Mooney closely studied the fabled pianist when they shared the marquee at area clubs.
Mooney has lived in New Orleans and performed at its celebrated Jazz & Heritage Festival the past 20 years. The city's rich musical culture helped him keep the faith through financial slumps. So did a distaste for day jobs.
"When I was 16, I worked at a factory electronics job that lasted almost two weeks,'' says the married father of three. "One time, my wife urged me to get a job. It was cleaning carpets. I lasted almost two days. She's never asked me since.
"When things get tough, I say, do I want to work in a factory? It's cut and dried - no.''