Sugar Blue came to blow.

Sugar Blue at WKCR, New York 1974; Photographed by Fred Seibert

Small as the New York blues scene was (and it’s way, way smaller in the 21st century), any kind of activity gathered up everyone in the community. So it was when Oblivion started the two years of recording of Charles Walker’s “Blues from the Apple.” Even though the sessions would often feature a quartet or quintet, the studio often had ten or twenty bluesman (and women) hanging around. I tried to shoot a lot of them with my Polaroid Big Shot portrait camera.

One day, master harpist Bill Dicey came up with a young guy with a floppy hat. Sugar Blue was a harmonica player himself who hung with Bill, and loved being part of the scene. He really wanted to play on one of our sessions, and kept returning week after week. I think we recorded him on a few dates, but they must be with our outtakes, since nothing made the record.

I didn’t give it another thought until about five years later when all of a sudden, Sugar was the hottest thing around. Somehow or another he’d found his way into The Rolling Stones recording entourage and became the featured instrumentalist on one of their last classics, the 1978 dance floor rocker “Miss You”. No longer the tentative novice, Sugar was now a sure footed master.

It’s great to be in on the ground floor of a new talent. When it’s a bluesman who explodes pop, it’s even more fun.