Yeah, he’s great at writing and playing instrumental songs too you know, memorable instrumentals are not that easy to come by. But they’re melodic, like you said. True. He’d always tell me, he said, “You Texas guys play so fast!” He’d get onto me -“When you get on that wah-wah pedal, don’t play so many notes!” (laughing)
I’m gonna flash forward now just to
come up to today and I want you to first of all tell me who all is in your current band? Okay yeah, right now I’m based in Columbus, Ohio and I’ve got a couple of guys that I played with before I moved to Texas, back when I was real young. I’ve got Dave Absalom on guitar, and Gary Jorgenson on drums and Tim Keefe on the bass. and then I’ve got a whole set of horns playing with me and that’s Ted Bassinger on the trombone and John Bonham on the trumpet and Joe Reasoner on the sax.
John Bonham on the trumpet? How ‘bout that? (Laughs) Yeah, I’m sure he catches a lot of flack off that name, right? Hey, I catch a lot of flack off my name if you know anything about sports in Ohio.
Yeah, well every time I Google it… My name being Mark May and a guy, Mark May hates the Buckeyes so I’ve actually been booed on stage in Columbus, before I ever played one note because my name was the same as the guy who hated Ohio State. You know, not a good place for me to live with that name, you know? (Laughs)
Oh yeah, it’s just amazing. When I want to Google you, I’ve gotta put “Mark May Music” you know or musician ‘cuz oth- erwise you get the other guy.
Yeah, when you Google my name his Wikipedia comes up, my website, different things about him and then you start seeing things like “Mark May’s an idiot!” “Fire Mark May!” and stuff and I’m thinkin’ “I hope peo- ple don’t think that’s about me!” (Laughs)
No kidding. Well, the new album, Blues Heaven-well first of all, as you can tell from the review I wrote in our last issue, I love it and I think pretty much everybody I’ve talked to loves it - so tell me a little bit about who pro- duced it and a little bit about the album and also, how it’s been doing for you as well. I just have my basic band playing on it on all the basic tracks you know, I really like using my band members. I’m not really into using a bunch of studio musicians. I mean, I like to give guys who are going to spend time in your band and work on stuff, I like to let them play on the CDs and stuff. It gives it character. We recorded around Columbus there and we’ve got a few special guests on it. We’ve got Greg Martin from the Kentucky Headhunters (Note: Read our interview with Greg in last issue’s cover story!-Ed) and Buddy Haden- sayers who plays a lot with Woods Foster and has his own band, real successful blues artists
contiunues on page 39 37
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