Singing the Suburban Blues

Al Gold is very smart, funny and gifted. The long-time West Orange resident is a highly successful commercial artist; his illustrations appeared in the New York Times for years and he is a past art director/designer for Prentice Hall publishing and ZOHO Records.

On the side, Gold is a sought-after blues musician, performing often in area blues clubs. He is the vocalist, guitarist and song writer for his own group, The Mighty Suburban Rhythm Kings. His band mates hail from Maplewood and Morristown.

Gold, 57, believes in community. Every June, he helps organize his street's block party and performs in their block party band. Gold also plays a lead role among the area's community of blues musicians. He organizes and leads the monthly Sunday Blues Jams at Hat City in the Valley Arts District. 

This year, Gold is producing The Summer Blues Festival at the Oskar Schindler Performing Arts Center, Saturday, Aug. 28, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Gold booked the acts, found the sponsors, arranged for the food and crafts and is a one-man public relations team: He designed the posters and has been hanging them in area blues haunts. And, yes, he and his group are performing at the festival.

Al and I had a number of far-ranging conversations about music, art, Gold's background and knowing yourself. Here are some highlights:

Q. Al, we know about the Delta Rhythm Kings, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, the Rolling Stone's Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings. What's up with the name The Mighty Suburban Rhythm Kings?

A. Well, sure, it's a play on the name of many traditional blues bands. Suburban, that is who we are — suburban kids who grew up to be suburban New Jersey musicians and we play the blues. We don't pretend to be born in the Delta or to have come up as sharecroppers.

Q. The name is mildly satirical, but it goes to the heart of your music and art. What can you tell us about that?

A. For art or music to work, to have meaning, you have to draw or sing or play who you are inside. If not you are just putting on a show.

Q. Let's go back in time. You are a suburban kid summering on Long Beach Island. How did you discover the blues?

A. I was a young kid listening like every other kid to the British Rock invasion of the 1960s and their cover versions of American blues. That's all I knew until 1966 when an older, hipster cousin gave me an album of the great folk blues artist Odetta as a bar mitzvah present. It was a total inspiration. That's when I first picked up the guitar.

Q. What next?

A. I went to the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and took lessons at the Old Town School of Folk Music. There were so many guitarists that for a while I switched to mandolin. I hung out at North Side blues clubs. I loved B.B. King. He speaks and plays simply and elegantly, and he doesn't bore you.

Q. What is the essence of your style?

A. Both in art and music, I search for the pared down line that says, 'that's me, that's who I am.' When I draw, I can work for hours till I find the line that is so me, it couldn't be anyone else's. The same with guitar and voice. I sing into the notes in a way that's mine, that is my heartbeat, my signature. If I draw one person into it to listen, then I'm successful.

Selman is a cultural historian and arts advocate. E-mail her with column requests.