by Whitney Youngs
Like a lot of black kids born in the 1970s and growing up on Chicago’s South Side, Wayne Baker Brooks wanted to be Michael Jordan. Jordan — and by extension his brand — embodies the culture of cool, so kids familiar with Jordan’s athleticism would naturally aspire to such heights.
But Brooks broke his ankle. Twice. The injuries put an end to his dream of an illustrious career in basketball. In retrospect, the dream of being MJ seemed only a phase for a kid, who at the age of 6, was helping his bluesman father craft songs by playing beats on a box, essentially beatboxing, a musical technique dating back to 19th century America (Sonny Boy Williamson II’s “Bye Bye Bird” comes to mind).
“My brother [then 9 years old] would play bass lines on the guitar and he would tell me, ‘Hold that beat, hold that beat!’ And my dad would write lyrics to the grooves he just came up with,” recalls Brooks. “To me, I look at that as my first songwriting lesson. That’s where I get my love for songwriting. He planted the seed.”
Brooks Sr., named Lee Baker Jr., was born four years into The Great Depression in Dubuisson, Louisiana, where he grew up on a farm. He made his way to Port Arthur, Texas, in the early 1950s and got serious about playing the guitar. He took the stage name Guitar Junior, and despite leaving Texas for Illinois in 1959, Brooks Sr.’s style of playing lingered in the Lone Star State, influencing the next generation of Texan blues musicians (the Vaughan brothers, the Winter brothers, Bobby Gibbons, The Fabulous Thunderbirds), some of who recorded his songs on their own albums. Soul singer Sam Cooke convinced Brooks Sr. to relocate to Chicago. The Cook family: Reverend Charles Cook, his wife and eight children migrated to the South Side of Chicago from Clarksdale, Mississippi in the early 1930s when Cooke was a toddler. (Cooke added the “e” to his surname in the late-1950s.) Brooks Sr. lived with the Cook family for the first nine months, until he met his future wife, Wayne and Ronnie’s mother. Bluesman Luther Johnson had already claimed the stage name Guitar Junior in Chicago, so Baker became Lonnie Brooks.
“My dad was a rocker, but he wanted to play the blues,” says Brooks. “Sam said you need to come to Chicago, that’s where Muddy’s at, that’s where Howlin’ Wolf’s at. Come there and do your thing.”
Like most Americans, descendants of immigrants who arrived here either voluntarily or by force, Brooks occupies what sociologists term multiple subject positions.
“I got a country name, Wayne Baker Brooks,” saying it in twang, “but I look like a rapper. People think I’m Mac 10 or Ice Cube. But I play blues.”
Brooks became his father’s roadie, working as a drum and guitar tech, in 1988.
“I basically jumped out of my [high school] cap and gown after graduation and jumped into a tour bus.”
Brooks Sr., then 55, recorded “Live from Chicago” the same year.
“Dad needed help. He was getting up there in age and status, so he didn’t need to carry that stuff anymore,” says Brooks.
Baker spent 12 years on the road, working with his brother on their father’s tours, promoting the albums, “Live from Chicago,” 1991’s “Satisfaction Guaranteed” and 1996’s “Roadhouse Rules.”
“Chicago is pretty rough, and he felt like having his sons on the road would basically keep us out of trouble,” says Brooks. “He pretty much saved our lives . . . that’s how I look at it.”
Roadie aside, Brooks learned how to manage a stage and a tour, man a merch booth, and read over booking contracts.
“I got a chance to learn, from the bottom to the top about the music industry,” says Brooks. “I look at it as music business school.”
While on the road, Brooks found the drums, he practiced, he played, but left them for the guitar in 1990.
“It spoke to me,” says Brooks about the guitar. “I was shy, afraid to say anything, but I had a lot of things to say.”
Brooks Sr. had always envisioned playing guitar in a family trio.
“That was his dream, to have me on the drums, my brother [Ronnie] on bass, him on guitar,” says Brooks.
On the guitar, Brooks spent time in the shed, refining his chops, until the time came when he had the chance to play three songs before his father’s set. A blues trio did take shape, and at the end of his time as a member of his father’s group, Brooks co-wrote “Blues for Dummies,” published in August, 1998, with his father and Cub Koda (singer and lead guitarist of Brownsville Station). While writing the book, Brooks broke out on his own to form the Wayne Baker Brooks Band.
With his band, Brooks recorded “Mystery” in 2004 and “Tricks Up My Sleeves” in 2012.
Brooks feels the state of blues music ebbs and flows.
“It goes up, it goes down, but it will always be around because everybody can relate to the blues,” he says.
As for the blues on “Mystery,” Brooks understands that the emotions derived from love are as multifaceted as the diamond that often symbolizes it. He sings about love in the context of lust, uncertainty, disrespect, happiness, devotion, infidelity, redemption and loss.
“For artists to represent and convey the true meaning of the blues, you really have to go through the blues to play it, “says Brooks. “I’ve personally lived without gas, without heating, in the winter in Chicago. That’s what I’ve personally gone through, growing up poor in the ghetto. And to me, that’s watered down compared to what Muddy [Waters], my dad and Buddy [Guy] went through.”
The Wayne Baker Brooks Band plays at 7 p.m., May 25, at Saint Rocke, 142 Pacific Coast Highway, Hermosa Beach, and (310) 372-0035. www.saintrocke.com
