“Cadillac” John Nolden and Bill Abel

The following interview took place on December 12, 2007 on the campus of Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. Bill Abel and John Nolden are Blues musicians and were the interviewees. Isah and Sarah are student participants of the Lighthouse After-School program and conducted the interview.

Hear audio clips from the interviews below.

Click here to download the entire transcript of the interview.

Bill Abel: John’s music is from the sound of the 40’s, mostly the 40’s and 50’s, and, which is called post-World War II Blues, after World War II. So, he had the privilege when he was young seeing the earliest Delta Blues guys, cause the Blues, the Delta Blues, is not that old, a hundred years old, when it really started. And John saw a lot of it when he was younger, and, he can answer any questions y’all have about the Blues.

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Student: What is the difference between a single and the other notes?
Bill Abel: Well, say like on here, see (plays chord on guitar), B.B. King might play (plays single notes on guitar) and the older guys, cause they didn’t have a whole band, they would, they’d put, like, bass in there (plays single notes and bass line on guitar). So it made, you know, more of a full sound.

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Student: Mr. Bill, I would like to know how did you two meet?
Bill Abel: We met through another Blues guy that lives here named Monroe Jones. John needed a guitar player, and uh, most everybody plays new Blues and the older blues, the guys that play it only play it the way they play it and so Monroe knew I could play different ways so he put us together. So I went around his house, picked him up, and we’ve been having fun ever since.

Student: Mr. John, how long have you been play—how long have you two been playing together?
John Nolden: Bill, how long we been playing together?
Bill Abel: Eight years.
John Nolden: Okay, eight years.

Student: What was your childhood like?
John Nolden: Well, I come up kinda … well, it was all right, but I had to work all the time, you know, something you ain’t never seen. I used to plow on mules, and you know I couldn’t go to school much so I didn’t get no good learning, sure didn’t. No, I had, got to try in that muddy water, lining up mules. … One time after we go to the woods and hauled wood, cut trees down … y’all might have heard (inaudible) tell something like that, but I know you don’t know nothing ‘bout that, but back in that time people would take a crosscut saw, two men, pulling, and you cut your own winter wood. I was on a farm, and it didn’t have this geared stuff like we got now, not out in the rural area. You had to take a hack saw or sledge hammer, go out and cut the wood, take away the mule, haul it back to the house. And, uh, you had your winter supply right there in your yard. That’s kind of a rough way but it work.

John Nolden: I was, used to, be around with B.B. King over in that area, over in Sunflower County. And, his name was Riley King, and we had gospel groups. He had the St. John’s Gospel Singers, I had my four brothers, called the Four Nolden brothers. We broadcast WGRM, oh about, in the same times. He would come on, we would come on a little earlier than he would. He would come on, he had the St. John Gospel Singers, he would come on, about, well, one o’clock and they, we come around 9:00, 9:30, back then, but we broadcast. I had four brothers and he had … I don’t know who he had. I know he had the St. John Gospel Singers.

Student: What inspired you to play music?
John Nolden: I wouldn’t have fooled with no Blues, but I got hurt one day. I had a, I should not go into this but I got to tell you. A lady I thought so much of, she went away and left, and I ain’t got straight yet. That’s a long time ago (laughs) and I don’t think I’ll never get it right … well, the lady caught me good, you know. I just went off into it, sittin’ there, you know. I couldn’t stay out of it. Well, when you get worried—now, let’s, let’s make a long story short. Some way, you’re gonna make a move one way or the other. Am I right? And so that’s what got me really started, kept on doing it. I used to be a church man, used to be going to church every Sunday. But I’m gonna tell you something. I don’t want to talk too much but you know, when you get hurt it don’t help you to go to church with it. It be, you be hurting and don’t care where you go. Folks say, “Oh, you’ll be all right.” I don’t know. You don’t get all right like that. It takes a little time … a long time (laughs).

Student: In your opinion, what is the Blues?
John Nolden: Well, I think Blues means you don’t got a word for it. You got someone you care about and they left you, them’s the Blues in my mind, you know, cause you can’t get at it hard enough. It’s so hard to get out. The first thing you … you go to sleep and it ain’t gonna help you none cause you, all you’re gonna do is lay there … thinking a long time. You hurt, and uh, you want to see somebody you can’t find, the Blues (laughs). I ain’t got the good long talk too properly but you know but I’m telling you the way I feel. Expressions, that’s the way I feel.

Bill Abel: I wanted to say something, that John can, he can express the Blues in the truth in what he experienced in his life. And, and in a real way. It’s real. I can’t do that. I didn’t experience that kind of life, and uh, the Delta Blues was born with that. It’s the only Blues—it has the most truth in it out of all the Blues genres. The Delta Blues, Bluesmen, when they sang they sang from what was really ins—what they felt inside, what was, felt good or bad … In twenty years there won’t be anybody that can do that that way, uh, with the music. So there’s gonna be,—could be thirty years. John could live to be a hundred and ten. But there’s gonna be something that doesn’t exist anymore, and there’s people that really understand that and respect that, and uh, it’s an educational process, educating people to that fact. And a lot of people haven’t heard the real Blues, cause there’s not many guys left that, that have the truth in them like that when they sing it. And uh, so this is a treasure here that we have with us in John, and that’s why they want to get him over to Italy, to sing.

Student: Do you both love Blues and any other type of music?
John Nolden: But now, let me say one word. I just like all music; I like a whole lot. I like, uh, I’m gonna tell you something. I’ve got some favorite pictures I like too. Roy Rogers and all that and, what’s that other’s name? That guy looking like (he does an impression of a cowboy) …
Bill Abel: John Wayne.
John Nolden: Yeah, he one too. … I like, I just, I like all music. As long as he’s playing and singing all right, I like him … cowboy music, I like all that. I used to wear my radio out (laughs) listening. I just like it all … there’s a man, Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass boy—ooh I used to wear the radio out. There’s another —Hank Williams that who he is. There’s another one, wait a minute. Roy Acuff Smoky Mountain—Oh I like all that music. I just can’t do it like that. I like it. I ain’t got no special music I like. I’m just doing it my way, you know. But if I could, I like that other way, too.

Student: Did you make one of those guitars (Bill Abel has brought several homemade guitars) when you were young?
Bill Abel: No I didn’t. I never … I never, but yeah, the old guys used to play with ‘em. And John saw guys do, do that, but they would just take the one string, and they would hammer two nails to the side of the house and stretch the string out tight and play it and it was called, it was called a diddley bow. And this is called a diddley bow cigar box analog. But I never saw anybody play a diddley bow but the guys that I knew, they said they played ‘em when they were young.