A Few Gary Primich Stories
2007-09-25 10:26:00
I'm still upset about Gary Primich passing away. I have to talk about it. Last night I called a dozen people, even some that I didn't know. I started remembering the guy and some of the conversations that we had.
These are a couple of tall tales about Gary Primich from back around 1993 or 94 at Blues Week in Elkins, WV.
When Gary was first starting out, he had a chance to play with Louis and Dave Myers. The Myers brothers were in the band that had been in Little Walter's band after Walter had left Muddy. This was a big deal for Gary. He got there and on the first song, one of the brothers nodded to him to take a solo which he did. Gary felt pretty good about it and as the night went on he got a few more solos, but as the evening progressed, they stopped giving him solos. When the night was over, Gary, still in the glow of playing with Little Walter's band spoke to the brothers and asked them what they thought of his playing. They told Gary that he was the worst Harp player that they had ever heard and that they'd never play with Gary again.Here's another:
Gary said he didn't play harp for almost a year after that. He was crushed. Luckily he did take up harp again and now is known as one of the greatest harp players that ever lived.
Gary got the harp bug in college. He had some Little Walter records and a turntable and would play each song hundreds of times trying to get down every lick. He said that "Off the Wall" was the quintessential harp song. It has every lick that you'll ever need to play harp and Gary tried to memorize every nuance. Eventually the other people in the dorm threatened to break all of his records if he didn't stop playing them at all hours of the day and night. This didn't discourage him.One more:
He came back early to the dorm during Christmas break. He figured that the dorm would be empty. When he turned on the phonograph and put the needle on the opening notes of "Off the Wall", a shout went up from at least three rooms on his floor. "Oh, No!" echoed from all three at exactly the same moment.
Gary told me one night that at another teaching gig, he got in trouble singing a song that a friend of his wrote about Lee Harvey Oswald. Later that week, we all got pretty drunk at one of the jams and I said, "Sing the Oswald song, Gary."I always figured that I'd see Gary again, and now I never will. I'll miss that jerk. He was a great guy.
Gary smiled at me. He was ripped. He started in on the very politically incorrect, but hilarious song, "Lee Harvey was a Friend of Mine". I don't think that he was invited back to Elkins again for several years because of that song.
