Cathy Ponton King

Text and Photos by Larry Benicewicz

I’ve been receiving a lot of criticism of late, probably from the three people who actually read this column. One is, mea culpa, that I’m always too verbose--that I can easily encapsulate someone’s life in one issue, but, instead, take three, such as in the case of blues guitar giant, Louisiana Red. Another is that I don’t write enough about the “vibrant” local scene, so that is why I recently reported upon the 10th anniversary of the Bluebird Blues Festival. And finally, that I don’t devote enough attention to the distaff side of the blues; that is, the ladies. And I know I’m going to catch some flack for merely “appeasing” the women readers with the subject of my next biographical sketch -Vienna, VA’s Cathy Ponton King - despite all my efforts at setting the record straight and at long last recognizing one of the truly hard working and talented musicians of the Mid-Atlantic region, who is just about to celebrate, as a bandleader, her silver jubilee, which is not too shabby an accomplish-ment in today’s shrinking live music scene.
................................................................................................................Holding..Her..Own

And you want credentials? How about appearances at Wolf Trap, opening for Keb’ Mo’, Georgetown’s venerable Blues Alley, the Bluebird Blues Festival, and Baltimore’s Artscape? Over the years, she’s seen some famous blues shrines come and go, like Washington’s Wax Museum, once a stone’s throw from the Air and Space Museum on the Mall, Desperado’s on M Street in Georgetown, just across the road from the equally missed Cellar Door, the ill-conceived but elegant room, (Mick) Fleetwood’s, in Alexandria, VA, the Childe Harold on Connecticut (the site of some famous early 80s blues jams), City Blues, also on Connecticut, Bethesda’s Psyche Delly and Twist and Shout, and Wheaton’s Tornado Alley, the latter two managed by one of traditional blues’ most staunch defenders, Mark Gretschel. In sister city Baltimore, she witnessed the passing of such beloved blues watering holes as the Fat Chance Saloon (booked by the late, former president of the Baltimore Blues Society, Dale Patton) in Fell’s Point, the Congress Hotel at Franklin and Howard, and right around the corner in Seton Hill, No Fish Today, where legend has it that Stevie Ray Vaughan was proffered his Epic(Columbia subsidiary) recording contract by none other than noted talent scout, John Hammond, Sr. Always the survivor, Cathy has played them all and outlasted them all. Now, that’s staying power.

And it’s been patently unfair of her detractors over the years to lump her in with the Sue Foleys or the Debbie Davies, intimating that she’s a clone of Bonnie Raitt, when they’ve hardly inquired about her vocal influences which are all R&B in origin, including Count Basie’s leading lady and Dootone recording artist, Helen Humes, jazz diva Sarah Vaughan, New Orleans soul stylist, Irma Thomas, and the incomparable blues belter, Etta James. “I’ve met them all at one venue or the other and to me they have been so gracious. And I’ve learned a great deal from them,” said Cathy. Indeed, there is that similarity of sorts with Bonnie Raitt, but Cathy’s voice has an underlying grittiness which belies this firm foundation of rhythm and blues. And as far as Raitt is concerned, Cathy admires how Bonnie has empowered herself while in her 50s, enjoying at long last the “prime of her life.” Yet, she won’t pander to the audience’s request for Raitt material and feigns inadequacy to the task. “I tell them that I’m really her younger sister - “Second Rate,” she added.

I asked Cathy during the interview why she had resolved to leave the guitar chores on her 1993 CD, Lovin’ You Right, to ex-Nighthawks and ex-Assassins Jimmy Thackery, who now lives in Eureka Springs, AK, and leads his own group, the Drivers. And frankly, I was surprised with her response, which revealed a decided lack of self-confidence. “He is such a great player that, if I appeared alongside of him, I probably would have paled by comparison,” she answered. But au contraire, I thought to myself, she’s always selling herself short. And if anyone has any doubts about this woman’s virtuosity with the instrument, one needed only to witness her triumph before thousands at the most recent Bluebird Blues Festival, held annually at Prince George’s Community College. In fact, she was playing that vintage Fender Telecaster like the proverbial “ringing the bell,” in that no-holds-barred, stinging, staccato, Texas style, made famous by her heroes, many for whom she either opened or with whom she shared the same stage - Albert King, Freddie King, Bobby Parker, and Albert Collins. In fact, she more than held her own against the competition that afternoon (including Parker), hence the title of this article. And, although she still is probably not convinced about the legitimacy of her licks, I surely am.

A couple of years back I went over to Whitlow’s on Wilson (Boulevard), a large, beery, boisterous room in Arlington,VA, which usually caters to the thirty-something yuppie crowd. But this night was something special in that it was presenting renowned New Orleans composer and guitarist, Earl King, backed by another Blacktop recording artist, the great Big Joe Maher and his Dynaflows. Cathy’s assignment was to open for both of them and arriving early, I spotted her dragging her equipment into the club. As I offered her a friendly hand, I realized that she had to do the same grunt work as the men, and, for her, it was, of course, all the more difficult. But I could see that determination and dedication in her eyes. As I pushed her heavy amp, I made an off-handed remark about whether she had made the right choice going electric and forsaking forever the acoustic guitar realm in which she would formerly accompany herself while dispatching Irish ballads. It was a rhetorical question, of course, but still one wonders how such a transition could come about. And, according to Cathy, it was a lot easier to embrace the blues, to make the quantum leap from this folk music, than anyone could have imagined.

Cathleen Ponton was born on October 5, 1954 on North Capitol Street in Washington, D.C. But her family moved to the near suburb of Hyattsville, MD, a year later, smack dab in the middle of an Irish immigrant community of perhaps 60 or more families. As one can probably surmise, since music has always been an important component of Irish culture (well documented in all the works of literary colossus, James Joyce), this neighborhood would prove to be no exception. Her maternal grandmother, Margaret Coakley , a widow, took it upon herself as a civic responsibility to raise money for causes of the Emerald Isle through her Irish American Social Club, both sponsoring and hosting musical soirees at her nearby residence wherein it was de rigueur that all the guests (including herself) contribute not only money but a musical act and her tacit decree included her granddaughter, Cathy, who at the tender age of five (at a Christmas party) made her singing debut, a traditional ballad that she had committed to memory. And another one of Cathy’s earliest and cherished recollections was of her father, Tommy, “passing himself off as Irish,” who would accompany just about anyone within arm’s reach on his harmonica. So, it wasn’t difficult in the least for Cathy to eventually prevail upon her parents at ten to buy her an acoustic guitar, especially after promising to take lessons in nearby College Park. Demonstrating an early aptitude for the instrument, she soon thereafter played her first professional venue. “I remember it vividly. I received fifty dollars for doing this Irish gig at Blessed Sacrament church in Bethesda. Not a bad payday back then,” she said with a laugh, who, by her late teens would graduate on to more ambitious engagements, like hotels and banquets.

Majoring in journalism, Cathy attended the nearby University of Maryland(1973-78) and soon found employment as news director for WMUC, the college station, which afforded her access to its huge archive record library. “I was deeply interested in the Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin, and more than likely I’d be spending a lot of time surreptitiously listening to and taping these albums after hours. But after a while, I became more interested in the roots of this music. You can probably say that the seeds of my blues conversion were being planted here,” said Cathy.

However, at least early on in her college career, she was supplementing her income with extended stints at Matt Kane’s and especially at the Dubliner, a popular Capitol Hill Irish pub, on North Capitol Street across from Union Station, which was often frequented by high-powered politicians like Senator Teddy Kennedy. Certainly, one highlight from this period was actually meeting and carousing until the wee hours with Paddy Moloney, leader of the world recognized Chieftains, a group whose album inventory now exceeds fifty separate items.

One byproduct of her experience in the station/studio was coming in contact with guest artists, like the Nighthawks(who are now celebrating thirty years in business), who might be interviewed there in conjunction with promoting or plugging a new LP. This association no doubt reinforced her affinity for the blues, as well as her roommate’s prodigious record collection, and ultimately led her to a rendezvous with destiny, a date which was to dramatically alter forever her musical predilection.

One of Cathy’s best friends, Linda Parker, was dating “Steady Rollin’” Bob Margolin, now a longtime resident of Greensboro, NC, but then guitarist for blues patriarch Muddy Waters, who was then in the twilight of his distinguished career and celebrating his 63rd birthday(April 4, 1978) with a gig and a case of champagne at the famed but now sadly defunct Cellar Door on M Street in Washington’s Georgetown.

But she didn’t own a car at the time and persuaded Cathy to drive her to the club. Fortuitously for the pair, the house was sold out(especially with the Nighthawks as a most attractive warm up act), and these last minute arrivals “as a last resort” had to be ushered backstage, where they suddenly found themselves up close and personal to the blues demigod, himself. And thereafter what transpired that “magical evening”

was nothing short of a blues epiphany for Cathy, who likened the experience to Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. “I was totally awestruck by his set, touched to the depths of my soul, and like a bolt out of the blue, I knew that I had to take up blues from that point onward. No regrets and no looking back,” she confessed.

Cathy didn’t find it at all incongruous that she would now be singing the blues instead of Irish ballads. “You know both of these kinds of music have that inherent, underlying melancholy which springs from the innermost being of people who have been oppressed for generations,” said Cathy, no doubt referring to the Irish being treated like second-class citizens, especially at the hands of the British, for most of their existence.

Now having made a firm commitment to the blues, the next task for Cathy was to form a band. One of her connections led her to Pat Day, who played an exceptional harp back then, before he made a name for himself as a local booking agent. Another charter member of her first group, the Rhythm Masters, was guitarist Bill Thomas, whom Cathy and Pat “trained” to play blues riffs. But one continuous source of irritation was finding and keeping a good blues percussionist. Cathy, always the perfectionist, who even now prides herself by hiring musicians at the top of their craft, admitted frustration at this deficiency, but nonetheless, in spite of this handicap, managed to not only hold this ensemble together for over a half dozen years after its inception in 1979 but also make a living in music. “I have to say we began rather modestly. Our first gig was at Desperado’s. But soon Pat was finding us rooms in the Deep South. I’ll never forget that one Sunday night at some club in South Carolina when a guy in a satin jacket introduced himself - Delbert McClinton [who by the way first gained prominence as the harmonica player on Bruce Channel’s “Hey Baby” on Smash in 1962].” To Cathy, looking back upon this era, it all seemed a blur of bars and one-nighters, but overall it was “good times,” where often she would meet celebrated road warriors who crossed her path. There are snapshots galore in her scrapbook of a press ki - Cathy in Charlottesville, VA, sitting in with Muddy’s Legendary Blues Band, Cathy at a street festival in Winston-Salem, NC, with the late Memphis Slim, another with heralded bassist and composer, Willie Dixon, etc. Needless to say, during her Rhythm Masters period, she was receiving a lot of blues indoctrination through osmosis. “Rather than seeing me as an upstart who was taking their thunder or material, all of these artists instead appreciated me for remembering them. They even nurtured me. As for those people who believe I was appropriating a line or a melody, I always remember Dizzy Gillespie’s retort to those who were accusing him of copying Charlie Parker - ‘You can’t steal a gift’,” she added.

Even though she was making music by night, for a spell after graduation and before hitting the highway for good, Cathy worked briefly in a bank and as a public service director for the rock album-oriented radio station WLMD, being not only responsible for seven 90-second segments a day, commenting on topics such as women’s issues(by the way Cathy is very well read and a world-class chef, which could be a story in itself) but also a weekly 15-minute public service interview, which was in addition to a weekend assignment at Washington, D.C.’s ABC radio news division.

This interlude, before her finally embracing the life of a blues nomad, corresponded to her temporary residency(1979-81) with the Thackerys, Jimmy and then wife, Judi, who lived on Maple Avenue in Bethesda not far from the leader of the Nighthawks, Mark Wenner, on Chestnut. Suffice it to say that during that stretch, Jimmy opened his home to virtually every touring blues dignitary that visited the Nation’s Capital from Johnny Winter, to Ronnie Earl, to Gregg Allman, to Cark Perkins, to Muddy Waters, to Luther “Guitar Jr.” Johnson, and to J.B. Hutto and I’ll leave it to the reader to imagine just what kind of late night shenanigans may have unfolded around the awestruck, newly christened blues disciple, who will all too gladly recount to anyone within earshot about such “activities,” but, naturally, off the record. But the point is that Cathy was being both thoroughly versed and immersed in the blues not only through her peregrinations but also on the home front as well.

The Rhythm Masters were well on the road to recognition, both literally and figuratively, when Cathy in the early 80s decided that a recording might not be a bad idea in order to act as a calling card, opening a few more doors to the aspiring band. And, again, Bob Margolin, played a key role in yet another fateful decision on Cathy’s part, as he suggested a studio in Fairfax, VA, run by Jeff King, not only a skilled sound engineer but also a prodigious composer. What happened next is not unusual in the annals of recording, wherein all the principals involved decide that the current band brought in is not adequate for the undertaking and they are invited to sit back and watch plan B in action or go home. Such famous examples of this in recorded history include Rod Bernard’s attempt at “This Should Go On Forever” in 1959, wherein notorious producer J.D. Miller of Crowley, LA, 86es the Twisters and brings in his A-team of Warren Storm on drums, Bobby McBride on bass, Lionel Torrence on sax, Katie Webster on piano, and Al Foreman on guitar. In like manner the same year, the renowned Cosimo Matassa, operating out of his facility on Gov. Nicholls St in the French Quarter of New Orleans fired John Fred’s (Gourrier, of ‘Judy In Disguise’ fame) backup band for “Shirley” and substituted his studio aggregate of that era (who had just concluded a taping for Fats Domino), including Dave Bartholomew on trumpet, Clarence Ford on tenor, Walter “Papoose” Nelson on guitar, Frank Fields on bass, and Charles “Hungry” Williams on drums. The result of Cathy’s own session, including Bob on guitar, was the oddly configured 45 rpm EP which featured “Tell Me What I Want To Hear”(later reprised on Lovin’ You Right) on the A-side and two songs on the flip. One must remember that in 1984 the single was still king as a promotional vehicle and might receive a lot of extra attention as well as mileage, especially if inserted in some strategically-placed jukeboxes.

But this recording séance was significant for two reasons. The first was that it prefigured Cathy as a songwriter on later projects and that it also led to an eventual marriage to the man behind the console two years later. “I knew right then and there that I had found my soulmate, but I just couldn’t drop everything and settle down just yet. But I was ready in 1986 and my daughter, Carianne[who, by the way, has followed in her mother’s footsteps and leads a rock band at 16], was born not long after. Something as momentous as a birth will dampen all aspirations about touring the country,” she said, and thereafter as the Cathy King Blues Band, she, for a span of time, limited her schedule to just executing local gigs.

Although Cathy had become dedicated to child rearing, it must have been a serious juggling act between motherhood and musicianship, because, at least by the early 90s, she managed to keep her calendar choc full of engagements including forays as far away as Frederick, MD(McDonald’s Raw Bar) and Baltimore, MD(Full Moon Saloon), as well as an occasion festival on the East Coast, such as the Jackson Beach, FL, blues jamboree with Snooky Pryor, Jimmy Thackery, and Robert Jr. Lockwood.

But by that time, both she and her husband, Jeff King, concluded that a CD was long overdue. And when Jimmy Thackery volunteered his services as guitarist and co-producer(with Jeff), it was full speed ahead for the undertaking.

Released in 1993, Lovin’ You Right, was a smash success. It contained no less than seven of Cathy’s own compositions and two of Jeff’s. In fact, the only non-original song, “You Got Me Singing,” was penned by one of bluesdom’s best kept secrets - Eddie Hinton. And Cathy, being a blues aficionado, was well acquainted with this guitar and vocal sensation who toiled for years in obscurity as an architect of the Muscle Shoals (Alabama) Sound. Cathy probably realizing that he was on his last legs at the time(he died in 1995) included his song as a tribute.

To the uninitiated, Sheffield, AL, had long since become a shrine to the phenomenon known as down home, Southern Soul, as opposed to the slick, cosmopolitan formula of say a Motown’s Berry Gordy or Philadelphia’s equally sophisticated productions of Gamble & Huff. It had not one but three successive studios that took up the torch, refining and expanding upon the former’s legacy. In the mid-60s, it was Quinvy, run by Quinn Ivy(now a parking lot), then Fame at 603 East Avalon Avenue, administered by Rick Hall, who first coined the expression, and by the early 70s, there was the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, a converted coffin factory, at 3614 Jackson Highway, which was operated by a consortium of musicians known as the Muscle Shoals rhythm section of which Eddie Hinton was a proud member.

The late Hinton had apprenticed at Quinvy, been a hired gun at Fame, where he backed up nearly all of the Shreveport, LA-based, Stan Lewis’s Jewel/Ronn/Paula luminaries (Lowell Fulson, Charles Brown, and Ted Taylor), as well as Goldwax’s James Carr, who hit it big with “At The Dark End Of The Street.” Encouraged by Jerry Wexler, head honcho of Atlantic, this white session crew at Fame (Roger Hawkins, Jimmy Johnson, David Hood, Spooner Oldham, Donnie Fritts, and Eddie Hinton) moved over to Muscle Shoals Sound where they forged a name for themselves backing such notable Atlantic artists of the 70s as the Staple Singers, Aretha Franklin, R.B.Greaves, Mel and Tim, Solomon Burke, and John Hammond. Moreover, Eddie Hinton was a great soul singer himself in the Otis Redding mold, as well as a prolific composer, writing “Choo Choo Train” for the Alex Chilton-led Box Tops (a follow-up to “The Letter”) and “Breakfast in Bed” for the recently late Dusty Springfield, a song which later became a world-wide hit for UB 40 and Chrissie Hynde. What connected Cathy King to Eddie Hinton no doubt was that Hinton had served as mentor and songwriter for the Nighthawks ill-fated LP on Mercury (SRM-1-3833) and he contributed “Mainline” and “Brand New Man” for treatment by Wenner & company on the project. By the way, Peter Thompson of Reading, England, head of Zane records, has lovingly issued(some posthumously) for the first time most of Hinton’s material procured from the vaults. Hinton’s is a most fascinating life and can be explored further by contacting zanerecords.com via the Internet.

The highly acclaimed Lovin’ You Right (released on Long Gone Records) which was favorably reviewed by Mike Joyce of the Washington Post, proved to have a long shelf life. And, why not? Joining Cathy on vocals was local keyboard phenom, Tommy Lepson. And with superstar Thackery playing as usual in a higher league on guitar with a cameo by Jerry Portnoy (who replaced George “Mojo” Buford in Muddy Waters’s band in 1974) and much sought after bassist John Previti (of Danny Gatton lineage) providing the bottom (Andy Haley was the drummer), it could not help being a winner from its inception. That it was recorded and mixed at one of the best facilities in the area, Ambient Studios in Beltsville, MD, by Ray Tilkens was merely icing on the cake. Amazingly enough, foreign critics in Greece, France, Italy, Spain, and Norway were commenting upon this CD years after its release. I recently handed the album to a French talent scout of DixieFrog records, Guy Fay (who signed Popa Chubby, Tino Gonzales, and soon Kelly Bell to the label) and he was fooled into thinking that it was contemporary. He only balked at offering overseas distributorship because the CD was nearly ten-years-old. “I call it my message in a bottle. You never know upon what shore its going to wash up,” said Cathy, who is proceeding very carefully on her next, knowing all too well the daunting challenge the former presents. She has a lot to live up to.

Although her new CD is not quite ready, Cathy has been invited, maybe requested, to be included on many recent endeavors including The Blues You Hate To Lose II, on Right On Rhythm (ROR006), a tasty regional label run by Washingtonian Wayne Kahn and which is gaining respectability(he’s recorded Mark Wenner, Nap Turner, and Louisiana zydeco ace, Roy Carrier). Wayne, the Mid-Atlantic’s version of Alan Lomax, has attempted with his live “field” recordings to capture for posterity the efforts of area blues institutions and thinks that Cathy’s rendition of Duke Robillard’s (founder of Roomful Of Blues) “Tore Up,” taped at City Blues, is the centerpiece of that compilation. “I couldn’t wait to get back home to see if I had really captured her scintillating performance,” he said to me.

Cathy, with a reputation for always supplying requisite boogie rhythms, has always been in great demand on the swing dance circuit, which includes College Park and Glen Echo, and, as a result of this distinction, has been welcomed by Pompano Beach, FL, entrepreneur, Marc Fisher, to appear on two separate collections of these popular Shag-type numbers - Party Night Blues I & II on Beach Bag records. On the first is Cathy’s horn-driven “Soul Touch” and on the second, “Sweet, Sad, and Lonely,” both her original compositions.

However, Cathy’s most current undertaking is on a much more serious note. For the last several years, area activist, Jeff Campbell, has encouraged local artists to donate a song to his annual Christmas album, A Holiday Feast, on the Hungry For Music label, the proceeds of which will provide a fund for the purchase of musical instruments for deprived inner city children, as well as feed the homeless. Cathy when tapped for this Noel’s release, Volume VII, decided to offer a most moving composition dedicated to the late Michael Kirwan, longtime advocate for the neglected street people of the Nation’s Capital - “Christmas Every Day.” Cathy has a personal stake in the song, having gone to the same school as the Kirwans and intimately knowing the family and although it is not a blues song per se, she puts her heart and soul into it, demonstrating again, that latent social conscience aspect of her former folk side. It is indeed a fitting testimonial to a man who, shunning the limelight, quietly worked behind the scenes for the betterment of those disfranchised on society’s fringes.

Cathy, despite the closing of many a club, has managed to stay busy and her band, for the most part, parents with day jobs, has not only been good to go but exceedingly loyal as well, which is saying something these days. Jim Starks, her keyboardist, has been on board for fourteen years, Jim Roberson, bassist and head of Bias recording studio in Springfield, VA, for over a decade, guitarist Mike Lessin for six years, and former drummer for Nils Lofgren’s Grin, Bob Berberich, for four. When a tenor is needed, there is no one more respected in the vicinity than the redoubtable Ron Holloway, whom Cathy has helped on his own recordings and whose portfolio reads like a who’s who of blues and jazz stars that he has backed over his illustrious career. “I’ve always tried to treat my sidemen fairly and I guess that’s been the secret to my success,” said Cathy, who now laments the loss of many gigs that used to pay at least $100 apiece. “I just can’t accept any more work at 70s prices. I’d just rather not go out the door. And hope I never have to be that desperate,” she added, sticking to her high standards of musicianship. So now it’s catch as catch can, with a regular monthly call at Madams Organ in Adams Morgan or the State Theatre in Falls Church, VA, where she on November 23 teamed up with old acquaintance, Johnny Winter.

Backed by her superlative supporting cast, a typical set of Cathy’s reveals just how thorough a blues background she has received over the years. From the urban Chicago blues of Muddy Waters’s “That’s All Right” to the down home gut bucket variety of Elmore James’s “I Can’t Hold Out” to the uptown blues of Percy Mayfield’s “River’s Invitation” and Helen Humes’s “Jimmy’s Blues” to the rocking blues of Canadian Colin James’s “Breaking Up The House,” plus a little bit of Little Richard’s “The Girl Can’t Help It (penned by underrated Bobby Troupe who also wrote “Route 66”),” Cathy has done her blues homework. “And please don’t forget to mention two of my greatest influences, obscure local guitar wizards that fame for some reason had eluded - Danny Gatton and Roy Buchanan,” said Cathy. In short, she can cover all these blues bases with her repertoire.

“Just wait ‘til the new CD comes out. It’s going to be a killer,” she said, as if she still needed some assurances as a figure with which to be reckoned in the region, or as if perhaps she felt a little self-conscious about not having more to show, a more extensive catalogue of recordings to go along with a quarter century in the blues trenches.

And although I’m quite sure that the new production will be every bit worth the anticipation and every bit the genuine article as the last, I thought to myself - why is Cathy King always so anxious, when it’s so obvious that she has already arrived as a complete, mature artist. There is nothing more to prove. Larry Benicewicz.