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Plays: 741
Views: 1114 |
Members:
Formed: 2007
Official Site: www.henryoden.com
iSound Site: www.isound.com/henry_oden
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Henry Oden grew up in Richmond, California. Born the 8th day of February 1947 to parents who migrated from rural Alabama and Arkansas to work in the Kaiser Shipyards of Richmond, Henry’s father would order him his first guitar from a Montgomery Ward mail order catalogue |
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Henry Oden grew up in Richmond, California. Born the 8th day of February 1947 to parents who migrated from rural Alabama and Arkansas to work in the Kaiser Shipyards of Richmond, Henry’s father would order him his first guitar from a Montgomery Ward mail order catalogue. Robert Kelton, a neighbor and former Jimmy McCraklin guitarist, would give Henry his first guitar lesson. Within one year of his first lesson, and not yet legally old enough to enter night clubs, Henry would be found at Sunday jam sessions in and around Richmond.
Henry has accompanied a who’s who of blues luminaries in his 40 plus years as blues musician and as such could be defined as a “Uomo Universale” of the blues. Jimmy Reed, Big Mama Thornton, Pee Wee Crayton, High Tide Harris, the King Brothers, L.C. “Good Rocking” Robinson, Buddy Ace, Michael Bloomfield, Bill Withers and Little Joe Blue are but a few of the artist he has backed .
Henry’s musical career began playing in the “gut-buckets” and blues lounges in and about Richmond, California along with “HighTide” Harris, the Whispering Shadows, the Moore Brothers or the King Brothers. These performances would be off set from time to time with occasional appearance at local church revivals with the Gospel Combs family. It wasn’t long before he ventured into Oakland and San Francisco.
During the 60’s Henry was the bassist with Freddy and the Stone Souls. Lead by Freddy Stewart, the brother of Sly Stones. This band would eventually re-configure itself as Sly Stone and the Stone Soul's becoming the house band at Little Bo Peep’s, a night club in San Francisco. the band would back regional R&B/Soul acts such as The Delegates, Roger Collins, Little Ronnie and the Chromatics and Fillmore Slim. This band would reconfigure itself once more becoming Sly and the Family Stones. Having been replaced, Henry would go on to join Berkeley based, funk-soul band “Loading Zone” and record with the “Zones” lead singer Linda Tillery when that group disbanded in 1968. Linda Tillery would take a break from singing so by the end of the 60’s Henry would find himself performing with Tony Bartlett’s show band “Heaven's Expressway” in gambling casinos throughout Nevada.
By the 70’s Henry’s attention had turned to song writing and composing. This being the case, he undertook music composition studies with the late Ed Kelly and also enrolled in creative writing courses at Laney College in Oakland, California. Before he could complete his studies, Henry would join the King Brother’s band who were touring with Freddy King. Returning home after that tour, Henry performed with Snooky Flowers house band at the El Cid night-club on San Francisco’s Broadway strip. It was while on Broadway that Henry met the budding and talented vocalist Bianca Thornton a.k.a. Lady Bianca. Henry would stop performing publicly to devote the remainder of the decade attending to the development of Lady Bianca's career.
By the 80’s, Henry’s urge to perform resurfaced. He picked and tuned-up his bass and as if he had never rested, was soon a member of Mark Naftalins’ Blue Monday Party Band. The band would appear in concert,at numerous festivals, and make several videos including Percy Mayfield “Poet Laureate of the Blues”, Blue Monday Party Vol 1&2 featuring “John Lee Hooker/ Charlie Musselwhite”, and “Lowell Fulson/ Percy Mayfield”, documentin these all time great legends of the blues. A recording and video with Clifton Chenier at the San Francisco Blues Festival kept Henry calendar full in 1982 as well as makeing his first international tour with the San Francisco Blues Festival and having several of his composition recorded on the Encore Label by J.J. Malone and Troyce Key. Upon returning from Europe Henry would tour with Cool Papa, Chris Cain, John Lee Hooker and Beverly Stovall and provide back-up for John Lee Hooker, Mark naftalin and Lady Bianca in the “Survivors” blues documentary.
In 1984 Henry would host the Blues Celebrity Night at Your Place in Oakland, California. For most of that year local blues luminaries such as Dottie Ivory, “Mississippi” Johnny Waters, Haskell “Cool Papa” Sadler, Curtis Lawson and “Little” Joe Blues would headline this production.
In December of 1984, Henry would be contacted by Joe Louis Walker regarding a band being put together to back Earl King and Johnny Adams. July 1985 found Henry touring Japan, Canada the U.S. and with the Crescent City duo. Between tours, Henry found time to make him-self available to Koncepts Kultural Gallery for its Blues Explosion program. This program sent blues artist into schools throughout Oakland to lecture, demonstrate and teach blues and blues songwriting. Henry volunteered for this duty annually. Having appeared and recorded with Joe Louis Walker as his “Rock solid bass player” through 80's and and Walker’s rise to prominence, in 1990 Henry parted company with the Walker's organization and moved to Canada. There he recoded with bluegrass artist Doug Cox, preformed as a street musician, taught guitar and bass by day, while writing and producing biographical material on him-self at night.
In late 1991, Henry returned to the Bay Area. Enjoying the challenge of being a street minstrel, Henry joined forces with the legendary “Big Bones” on the streets and subway stations of San Francisco while finishing the recording project started in Canada. this project was released, entitled Eclectic Blue. In 1992 Walker contacted Henry asking him to rejoin his efforts and assist in his forth coming album. Henry agreed, leading to two of his compositions being featured on that album.
By 1995, Henry parted company once again with Walker. This time he headed to Arkansas as an Artist in Residence for Wildwood Center for Performing Arts Every Person is Creative program. Henry soon found his musical knowledge being sought after as a music teacher and was hired to teach guitar and bass at the South Arkansas Cultural Center, El Dorado, Arkansas. Henry pulled out of Arkansas at the end of the 1996-97 school year and his Residency contract. During the remainder of 1997 he toured the United States and Canada with Sonny Rhodes.
In 1998, Henry returned to the classroom, this time as a student, while pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Humanities. Even so, Henry continued to stay musically active, as a member of “Blues Beat” the house band at John Lee Hookers Boom Boom Room, recording with Jimmy Dawkins, Pete Sears, and jazz vocalist Betty Joplin, appearing on stage with Jimmy Johnson, Earl Thomas, Ed Thompson, Craig Horton, Sue Mack, Tracey Nelson and touring the United States, Canada and Japan with Maria Muldaur in addition too countless club dates and concert appearances with Craig Horton.Henry is currently recording his yet untitled CD, due for completion April 2008.
Henry continues to charm audiences with his unique syncopated interpretation of
West Coast blues. We'll keep you updated as to the release of his new un-titled CD.
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