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Blues Band: Devil In A Woodpile

Rick "Cookin'" Sherry and his washboard habit.

Tuesday Jun 07, 2005.     By Jacob Knabb

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Rick "Cookin'" Sherry will be the first one to tell you: "The washboard is a difficult instrument to play." He began playing the washboard to add an element that was missing from many of Devil In A Woodpile's songs, the blues with country-and-ragtime-and-hillbilly outfit he fronts with bassist Tom Ray and guitarist Joel Patterson. And once he began playing it, things started happening. "Little kids come up to us stomping their feet, old people hoot and clap their hands. We even got a couple of Zydeco gigs, only because we had a washboard. We don't even play Zydeco."

With the washboard, it's more a matter of feeling the rhythm. Most people simply play the melody, and scratch away in time with the vocals. But there is much more if you are willing to be a little more zen about it. "It's almost impossible to play the washboard quietly. And being good at it is all a matter of timing. It's hard for most people to separate the rhythm from the melody, and even a layman can tell if it's done wrong. Singing and playing the washboard is kind of like patting your belly and rubbing your head. If you think about it, you'll screw it all up."

"Cookin'" Sherry has noticed that people are immediately drawn to the sound produced by his washboard playing. If they've never heard it, it grips them. Those who recollect it are overwhelmed with memories. "Some of the older people who have never heard it played will remember a grandmother who used a washboard to do laundry. The washboard has disappeared from American culture almost entirely, and so maybe it's the memory that's a big part of an audience's connection to the instrument. It also meshes real well with Tom Ray's slap bass and Old Joel Patterson's guitar."

For Devil In A Woodpile, "less is best. Less is something harder." So the trio plays without amplification. Sherry belts out songs that date back to vaudeville and the Chitterling Circuit in the South. He's interested in old blues and obscure performers, and the band has developed an immense repertoire around which it plays.

The brand of Chicago blues they draw upon the most is from the scene created by Bluebird Records in the '40s. From the oldest building in Aurora, Lester Melrose discovered most of the acts on Bluebird Records. Though he got his start as an A&R man for Jellyroll Morton, Melrose is most important for his work in creating what would come to be known as Chicago blues. Melrose once famously rejected Muddy Waters, which prompted the iconic slide guitarist to dub the Bluebird sound as "sweet jazz." And the songs Melrose cut with the first Sonny Boy Williamson, King Oliver, Washboard Sam, Bukka White and company are the foundation of "Cookin'" Sherry's aesthetic.

But it is his work with James "Honeyboy" Edwards that allowed Devil In A Woodpile to fully realize its sound, though it doesn't really play "old lowdown blues much themselves." Like "Honeyboy," Sherry doesn't like a brand of blues with too many notes. "Those arpeggios are nice, but slow down, man. I guess I just don't get into Stevie Ray Vaughn, you know?" Like "Honeyboy" is fond of saying, "The blues has got to stretch, so the notes can cook."

Devil In A Woodpile doesn't compose many originals, and for that reason reviewers are often tempted to judge them more harshly. "When I die, I'd love to feel like I wrote a whole album of great songs, but I'm just not a word guy." The trio's music primarily centers on getting a crowd to move.

"Cookin'" Sherry is also renowned for his harmonica work, which even "Honeyboy" agrees is "Good. Look, Rick can play. He just can't sing." (He's garnered comparisons to Tom Waits.) Though "Cookin'" Sherry takes some umbrage with "Honeyboy's" assessment of his pipes, he can see the point. "It's hard for a white guy to keep up with some of the great black performers. I have to work harder to do it."

Still, he doesn't invest as much energy in racial identity when it comes to music. "There are a core of individuals from the generation before mine that have very a specific way they define the blues. And they will not tolerate anyone who falls outside of that framework. But it's ok. We still keep playing gigs, jobbers for parties where we're just background music, and free shows each week at Hideout and every other week at the Candlelite." Now if he could just find someone to release the album he recorded with "Honeyboy" three years ago, things would be all right.

Devil In A Woodpile appears most Tuesdays at Hideout, with a set beginning at 9:30 p.m., and every other Wednesday night at the Candlelite Chicago. Read on a Bloodshot Records.