Bluesman brings home his talent and his stories
ELLISVILLE — In 2001, bluesman L.C. Ulmer settled in Ellisville, Mississippi, after more than 50 years of working and playing music in places as far flung as Cuba, Los Angeles and Alaska. Somehow, though, the talented, energetic and charismatic musician, now 85, had evaded broader attention.
Since returning to Mississippi, he’s become a favorite on the local club and festival circuit, cut his first CD (“Blues Come Yonder” on Hill Country Records) and has traveled extensively, most recently to Israel.
“Oh, man, they wanted me to stay over there forever,” L.C. said. “If I hadn’t had a home of my own I’d still be over there. Them folks love music over there.
“I saw everything that I read about (in the Bible) and more, too. I went to King Solomon’s temple, David’s temple and I went across that Dead Sea. And me and a camel got into it” — a reference to a traffic encounter with a group of Bedouins in a desert.
Back home in Ellisville, L.C. keeps busy, offering private guitar, bass, piano and banjo lessons to more than 60 students. He also plays harmonica, kazoo, mandolin and fiddle, and his tidy home is crowded with vintage instruments. His skills with his hands are likewise reflected in the collection of cars he’s restored and continues to drive regularly — a 1955 Dodge Royal, a 1966 Dodge Polara and two vintage pickups.
L.C. is remarkably spry and agile for his age, which he attributes to his strict diet — largely fresh vegetables and fruit — and his lifelong enthusiasm for working hard. He was born in 1928 in Stringer, about 20 miles north of Ellisville, and grew up farming on a plantation with his six brothers and seven sisters.
L.C.’s father, Luther, played guitar and harmonica, and by age 9, L.C. was playing guitar together with family members on the front porch and at fish fries and “breakdowns.” Local white musicians, including the “father of country music,” often joined in.
“The famous Jimmie Rodgers out of Meridian, he used to come to my daddy’s porch with his gallon of whiskey and they would play music I don’t know how long. I was little, but I ain’t gonna’ forget.“
An important early influence was the Hattiesburg-based street musician and slide guitarist Blind Roosevelt Graves, whose 1936 recordings with the Mississippi Jook Band are recognized as some of the first “rock-n-roll” songs.
At 14, L.C. left home to build railway trestles across Lake Pontchartrain and was soon playing at juke joints. He moved to Kansas City in the late 1940s and, in the mid-1950s, put his bags down in Holbrook, Arizona, a desert outpost where he entertained travelers and met such traveling musicians as Elvis Presley, Nat King Cole and Fats Domino.
L.C. still carries in his wallet the musician’s union card he was issued in Hollywood in 1957 and a photograph of the mother of multiple of his children. She was a Puerto Rican whom L.C. brought to the United States after a visit to Havana. He eventually settled down in Joliet, Illinois, where he ran an automotive shop and towing service, and he played at local clubs as a “12-piece” one-man-band.
L.C.’s broad repertoire includes many early blues, gospel and country classics, but he’s also adept at creating his own songs, sometimes creating impromptu lyrics.
“I say if you play music you should travel,” he said. “You’ll see a lot of things you can make a song about. That’s why I can make songs up all night long and just roll them right off.
“Once I was here in Laurel, way years ago. I was playing the guitar and a millionaire came up and got me, carried me to his house. He got in a big old chair, said, ‘Everything I point at, I want you to make a song out of it.’
“First thing he pointed at was his shoe, I had him covered. Next thing was a plate on the table, I had him covered. Next thing was a cookstove, I made a song out of that. Next thing he pointed at — I thought I never would make a song out of that — one of them pipes he smoked. I had to study quick, but I made a song out of that. When I left I had four hundred dollars.”
Despite having traveled around the world, L.C. Ulmer would rather be no place other than back home in Ellisville, where he’s become a celebrity.
“I never left here to stay, I just went to make money,” he said. “It’s my home, and anything I want, all I have to do is point my finger and folks will go get it. If I want to go somewhere people will pick me up and drive me.”
He still travels regularly on his own, taking one of his vintage cars to visit his grandchildren in Texas and Alabama, or to the blues mecca of Clarksdale, where he’ll often camp out for a week. Another inspiration for his travels is romance.
“I’m gonna tell you what I used to do. Someone would say, ‘Man, I was just up in New York. There were some pretty women up there.’ By tomorrow night I’m gonna’ be up there. I went everywhere folks said there was pretty women, ‘cause I wanted to see ‘em too!
“I’ve have saw a lot of excitement in my day, I’m thankful to God that I had a chance to see it.”
