Cover photo © 2024 Jon Pearson

When you see Patrick Recob on stage for the first time, your first impression would probably be that he is a modern day rockabilly hellcat, slapping away at his upright bass, sporting a towering hairstyle. Once you take time to listen to what he is laying down, you quickly realize that his affinity for the blues runs deep. He has backed several exceptional blues artists, and currently is busier than ever.

“I grew up with a strong love for music, as an overly hyperactive ADD kid, one of the guinea pigs for Ritalin and honestly, I can laugh about it, but it was a challenge growing up. My mind and attention were not on school work. However, music always interested me. My sister played around with the guitar. She was into James Taylor and Joan Baez, but she also had rock and roll records. I remember hearing Jimi Hendrix when I was six years old. I’m now 60, born in 1964. When I was 11 years old, I met the legendary DJ Wolfman Jack at a public meet and greet, and man, my mom was just adamant that I was going to meet him.

“When I did., it was like meeting Santa Claus. That line was so freaking long, but when we got up there, he’s sitting at this big table. His big hand comes down to shake my hand., gives me this big old soul dab. And then he howled, took his hat off and he tipped his hat to my mom At that moment, I knew that I had to be an entertainer. So I started learning to play the guitar. I grew up a Beatles kid and naturally, you soak it all in.

‘This Recob boy was well known with the social workers as someone who couldn’t learn anything. One of the social workers left that business and opened up a record store. I happened to go into the store regularly. He knew my history and started calling my parents saying, you need to pay attention to this. I know that Patrick’s known for not paying attention, but this kid’s learning who these artists are. He’s learning who the musicians are, the title of the songs, the order of the songs, the catalog number of the record, the timing of the songs, copyright, who did what, who played what, who wrote what.

“That was my medicine that kind of helped me. After meeting Wolfman Jack, I wanted to play music for the people and for myself. In the mid eighties, as I was coming out of high school, I started getting into blues. Bud at the record store was a blues musician He was turning me on to records by Willie Dixon and Little Walter, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Sonny Boy, Williamson, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters. all the old Chess records. I had access to these records and started learning how to play from them.

“Then the Fabulous Thunderbirds came out, bringing that contemporary sound, and of course I was always into rockabilly and old school rock and roll., an Elvis kid, into Little Richard, but I was always drawn to music that was basically blues related. That was just something that spoke to my soul. As time went by in the mid eighties, I started playing in blues bands, about the time Robert Cray was coming out with his Strong Persuader album, generating a big commercial appeal.

“Everybody started listening to the blues, but the bands that really stuck out to me with that contemporary sound at that time were the Thunderbirds, and then the James Harman band with Kid Ramos and Hollywood Fats (Michael Mann) on guitar, Willie J. Campbell on bass, and Stephen Hodges on drums. When Stevie Ray Vaughan came along with Texas Flood, that became a big, big thing, especially here in the Midwest.

“Grant Green was interviewed one time and he was asked, what kind of jazz do you like to play? His response was, “I don’t play jazz. I play music.” So it has always been music to me, because it is a healing thing, helping me to progress as a musician as well as with my ADD and my hyperactivity. Music soothes the savage beast. Why choose Elvis or the Beatles or the Rolling Stones? You can have it all. And so I chose it all.”

At the same time, Black Top Records started putting out albums by Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets. A local guitar player, John McNally, that Recob was playing with in Topeka turned him on to Anson, Mike Morgan & the Crawl, and Ronnie Earl.

“Those records spoke to me. I was dedicating myself 100 percent to the blues and that was where I was going to be. Singer Darrell Nulisch had left Ronnie Earl with Steve Gomes, and they formed Texas Heat. Those guys would come around the Midwest and I would travel to see them. I saw Anson and Darrell 50 times each. They knew that I was working towards going national, to play with all my heroes.

“Johnny Moeller, who was Darrell’s guitar player in Texas Heat and Steve Gomes became my bass mentor, as did Rhandy Simmons, who was with Anson at the time, and then went on to play with The Crawl. Those guys just took me under their wings and were helping me. Mike Morgan and Moeller recommended me to Gary Primich in 1995, who gave me an opportunity to go play bass for him for a good solid year. And unfortunately, I was in a situation at home that was not very good. Like many musicians, I was gone all the time, and the marriage fell apart.”

After working in Texas with Primich, Recob moved to the Washington D.C, area. In the early 2000s, he relocated back to the Midwest.

“Next thing I know, I’m working with the great singer and harmonica player Lee McBee. He had left Mike Morgan & the Crawl, putting a band called the Confessors together in Kansas City, and I became his bass player until he died, playing for a good 10 years. Then I worked a bit with Smokin’ Joe Kubek and Bnois King, Later I was on the West Coast with James Harman, and it’s just amazing that I’ve been able to play with a lot of my heroes. Now, James has passed away, Lee passed away, Primich passed away, all my band leaders pretty much have passed away, but I’m still working it.

“But the cool thing is, I don’t have to travel anymore. I’m now part of four bands, two in Kansas City, and two in Des Moines, Iowa. One is with Matt Woods, who is becoming a very well known guitar player in the Iowa area and beyond . Three hours away, I go to Des Moines to play with Matt and Dwight Dario on drums, getting some good recognition up there. And the three of us are playing with a musician up in Des Moines by the name of Malcolm Wells, another singer and harp player. As the band, we are known as the Two Timers, and Malcolm put a record out three years ago called Hollerin’ Out Loud that did really well on the blues charts .

“Here in Kansas City, I kept Lee’s band alive with Carl Angerer on guitar, calling ourselves The Mighty Phonics. It features Mike “Shinetop” Sedovic on keyboards, who used to play in Danielle Nicole’s band. The three of us have been best friends for 30 years, but we’d never been in a band together. So we decided to create a new version, a little bit Confessors, a little bit of my Perpetual Luau all stars and a little something new and original. Russ “Kidman” Schenke plays harmonica and some bass, Dwight is again on drums, and I sing, play bass, and some guitar.

“On top of that, I play in a fourth band called the House Rockers. Do you remember Little Hatch (Provine Hatch Jr.), great KC singer and harp player? Little Hatch had a band called the House Rockers. His son, Jaisson Taylor, is the drummer. Jaisson also works with guitarist Brandon Hudspeth in the duo, Hudspeth & Taylor, that has been nominated for a number of awards. Brandon plays in the Rockers if he is not on the road with Dustin Arbuckle & the Damnations or his band Levee Town. Bill Dye is the regular guitarist and John Paul Drum plays harmonica. Those two just took 2^nd Place in the Solo/Duo Division of this year’s International Blues Challenge. John Paul was the highest rated harmonica player in the history of the IBC by Lee Oskar, the harmonica ace from the band War. So as you can see, within 180 mile radius, I’m getting to play, stick around home. and make some really cool music.

In the late 1990s, Recob was in a band with another KC guitarist, Mike Bourne. That fell apart when Recob went back out on the road, but they got together again for Bourne’s album, Cruisin’ Kansas City, released last year on Blue Heart Records, receiving plenty of positive press. Recob also played on Hank Mowery’s award-winning tribute to Gary Primich, Account To Me.

“I kind of doinked around with the bass in high school. I went back to guitar, but I got an opportunity to play bass in a blues band and I thought, you know what? I love this instrument.

“Starting out, it was Keith Ferguson from the T-Birds and Tommy Shannon, who played bass for Johnny Winter and Stevie Ray. Just listening to the way that those two guys played, I really fell in love with Texas music. And the next thing I know, I’m listening to Steve Gomes, Rhandy Simmons. Then I got into Willie Dixon, and the original masters like Ransom Knowling, Ernest “Big” Crawford, guys who mastered the upright bass.”

Going to a Mark Hummel show ended up sending the bass man further down the road he was on.

“Hummel told me, if you could start playing upright bass, your gigs would multiply. There are people like me that would call you to come play bass. Well, it happened to be the very next day I stumbled upon the opportunity to get an upright bass. Next thing I know, Bill Stuve, with Rod Piazza and other great upright players from that time period are coming through. I’m asking them all these questions, listening to how they play. I’ve only been doing upright for since 2004. But it’s really comes in handy, especially when James Harman started calling on me. But I became a solid electric bass player in the 80s as my main instrument on stage.

“The upright and electric bass are two different beasts. It’s not the same sound, just the same vibration tones. When I was playing with Lee McBee, I’d have to have both there. With Harman, he always preferred to have the upright bass. That was his number one sound. Lee would want both because he would want to emulate the old sound. You’d want the electric sound for the harder stuff. The upright is a more delicate instrument. It really takes a lot of attention and it wears you out. It’s such a different tone.

“There are guys really dedicated, whether you’re playing electric or upright, to make it sound as authentic as we can, musicians like Rodrigo Mantovani from the Nick Moss Band, Andrew Gohman from Doug Deming & The Jewel Tones, Troy Sandow and Kedar Roy out in California, and Mike Law up on the East Coast.

“And I’ve got to mention the late Willie J. Campbell, one of my biggest influences because he was down the road from me until he passed away. He was always giving me instruction. It was really nice to be able to have somebody who could show me how to perfect both of those sounds. Nick Moss has been great at helping me, too. He was bass player originally. It’s not a competition. It’s a continuation, because not everybody can play all those gigs.

“I’m gonna tell you something about Willie. He was a social worker. I’ve had a few traumatic experiences while being on the road. I witnessed two fatal car accidents back to back when I was in California and that brought back my Hawaii thing. It messed me up in the head really bad. I needed to talk to somebody. When I called Willie, he goes, okay, Patrick, I want you to take this as information. Don’t get emotionally attached to it. Take this as information and utilize this and try to work through it and talk about it. He went on, sharing with me his personal take on an incident he dealt with from his life. Willie just wanted to help people

Recob stepped up to another level when he started with Gary Primich, which was set up by an evening of getting schooled by Mark Hummel’s bass player, R.W Grigsby.

“R.W. told me that Gary was really hard on bass players, that I would need to do my homework. Gary must’ve seen or heard something in my playing. He took me to school. I went to bass boot camp. I’m not gonna say he was ruthless, but he definitely deserved his musician name, “Sarge”. He would not back down from what sound he heard in his head, so you had to toe the line.

“I had a lot of hard work to do. Gary was my boss, my friend, my roommate. I don’t care what stories have evolved about Gary, whatever his demons were, I never saw that. I just saw a dude that was very dedicated to his music, dedicated to being a badass harmonica player. He wanted to put out quality music. When my marriage started to dissipate, my job suffered. And Gary got really angry with me when I left the band. It caused us to not talk for a long time. We were able to get back together again near the end of his life, to sit, talk, and work things out. I can still hear his voice when I’m fucking up, or when I’m playing good.”

After his tenure with Primich, Recob was able to join forces with another of his favorite artists.

“Lee McBee lived in Lawrence, Kansas, about half an hour from me. I was watching him play before he joined Mike Morgan & the Crawl. That dude was my best friend. I waited 16 years before I played my first gig with Lee . I’d seen him God knows how many times from the mid 80s all the way up until the time I started playing with him in 2005.

“Just like Gary, he too knew what he wanted. But Lee was a little lenient. He helped me to become a better singer, believing in me while pushing me out the door. What are you going to do if Harman calls you? I mean, he’d asked me these questions. I said, well, Lee, we’re going to have to talk about that. And he goes, bullshit. I’d fire you. You’re going to go on the road and then when you come off the road, I’ll rehire you. He was the greatest, the soul that would come out of that dude. Walk in the room, light the whole place up. And then when he’d open his mouth to sing, people stopped talking.

“His fuse just burned out. He was alive one minute and then you’re done. It’s been a great loss, but we continue on. His impact is still happening with the Mighty Phonics. We’re doing tribute shows and we’ve got a big announcement coming up about a documentary that we’re working on. Lee really touched a lot of people, especially all the musicians that he worked with.”

To pay the bills, Recob has been in the medical profession for decades, working at a surgical center cleaning bloody instruments after they have been used, then putting all of the pieces together in sets for sterilization.

“By day. on the surgical team, I can help the doctors and the nurses heal the body. And at night, I can play the music that helps heal the mind and the soul. So I go full circle. My craft is sterile processing. And I also sterile process colon scopes. So don’t forget to get your colonoscopy here within the next few years! ”

The next chapter in his career found Recob working with another one of his musical heroes, the great James Harman, another band leader who was notorious for being tough on musicians.

“Harman and I hit it off from the start. I had issues with him just like everybody else. But he was a true original, and he had a method. He knew exactly how it was going to go, no telling him otherwise. I’ve had so many people say, man, how can you work with that motherfucker? If you’ve worked with him and had problems, you didn’t follow the method. I wasn’t his bass player in the later version his band. He’d call me and take me on the road, doing Midwest dates for him, with Nathan James on guitar.

“The night that he decided he was going to make my record, we were in Kansas City. Somebody bought Harman a drink, so he decided to stop in the middle of the show to have a whiskey. He said, “Patrick, sing a song for the people. These are your people.” And so I sang and he comes back up to the stage. He looks at Nathan and he goes, you thinking what I’m thinking? And Nathan goes, yeah.

“Harman turns around, looks at me, and says you’re coming to California. I’m making a record on you. I mean, what more is there to say to that? I thought he was full of crap. You had two whiskeys while I sang those two songs, and now you’re coming back saying that shit. Sure enough, the next day he starts talking about it. Two weeks later, I go to California to do a tour with him, and he’s making plans. Then he calls me three weeks later and says, Okay, you’re coming at Halloween. Next thing I know, Harmon’s making a record. Perpetual Luau came out, got nominated for a Blues Blast award, garnered a lot of attention.

The 2017 self-released album featured Nathan James and Laura Chavez on guitar, Marty Dodson on drums, Harman on harmonica on three tracks, while Recob handled the vocals and bass guitar, even adding some acoustic guitar on five songs.

“I had been writing a lot of love songs for my wife, Lisa Blumer, who is a saint. I love her. So I brought 13 songs to the session, and we put all 13 songs on the record. I was so pleased that I got James to record some spoken word stuff. He was always known for not playing on other people’s records. But he wanted to play on my record. I said, man, I got this beatnik poetry thing that I wrote for Lisa, would you do it? And he did. “Your kisses burned my lips like fire.” He just thought that was great.”

The album’s title refers to a state of mind the the bass player came to accept after a near-death experience in Hawaii, right after he and Lisa had exchanged wedding vows.

“The next morning she had scheduled a snorkeling trip. I was just dead tired. So I’m slamming coffee, Red Bull, all kinds of stuff that shouldn’t have been in my body as I was dealing with some health issues at that time. I hit the water and something happened. I was underwater for 20 minutes. When I was slammed back into my body, I had water in my mask and I was laying on the reef, the water’s 30 feet up above me. When I talked to the people on the boat, I thought I had been out for five minutes. I couldn’t believe it had been 20 minutes.

“I got to thinking about how we were in paradise, got married in paradise. So if I was going to die, being in a tropical paradise would have been the perfect place to go. That’s why on the record, it says, “to some, life’s a party, to others, it’s a perpetual luau.” Well, the others is me. That’s a perpetual luau. Cause if you ever been to a real honest to goodness luau, it’s not like a party. It’s something spectacular. It’s really exceptional. But to die and go somewhere, then get your ass slammed back into your body after seeing the promised land, that makes you think.

“Call it God, call it the universe, cosmic energy, it’s all the same thing. My inspiration is peace, love and, and truth. And so that’s what I wrote about. I’ve always had the support. And the universe has always made it to where I could go on the road, play music, and still have my job when I come home. The one thing everybody wants to know is, what the hell is a perpetual luau!”