Blind Dog Radio

Featured Interview – Tail Dragger

by JIM CRAWFORD. The list of living legendary Chicago Bluesmen is getting shorter each year! Guys like Buddy Guy, Eddie Shaw, Carl Weathersby, James Cotton, and one James Yancy Jones, A.K.A. Tail Dragger are some of the more prominent veterans still plying their trade in the clubs of Chicago and touring the world to keep their beloved music alive. James Jones (Tail Dragger), has been listening to the Blues for his whole life starting in rural Arkansas. Like a lot of youngsters of the day, young James had to do his listening on the sly because parents considered the Blues ‘devil’s music.”
“I used to take the radio to bed with me and listen to the Blues,” he said. “I’d listen to Randy’s Record Mart out of Memphis. My folks didn’t know. We had one of those battery-powered radios ‘cause we didn’t have electricity in the house then. They’d want to listen to their gospel music before church on Sunday morning and couldn’t figure out why the batteries were down (on the radio).” READ MORE