Piecing Together the Blues

When the Baton Rouge Blues Festival opens this month, the official poster will be a portrait of keyboard player Henry Gray, who at 93 is one of the oldest blues musicians still active.

The mixed-media piece is one of ten portraits of local musicians that artist John Lawson created in connection with the festival, which was first held on Southern University’s campus in 1981. Using his trademark collage technique, Lawson was inspired by the music of the bluesmen as he worked. 

Gray, who lives in Baton Rouge, will perform at the festival. He will also play at the April 5 opening reception for an exhibit of Lawson’s blues portraits at the Ann Connelly Fine Art gallery.

Lawson, a native of England, first came to Baton Rouge in 1983 to study landscape architecture at LSU. He soon discovered the iconic North Boulevard club Tabby’s Blues Box, where he became friends with owner/musician Tabby Thomas and soaked up music by Silas Hogan, Raful Neal, and Arthur “Guitar” Kelly, among others.

He left Louisiana in 2005 when his New Orleans studio flooded in Hurricane Katrina. After living in the northeast for years, Lawson returned to the state in 2017. He lives and works in a former doctor’s office in the town of Sunshine, fifteen miles south of Baton Rouge. 

Interviewed last month in his studio, the floor of which is covered with paper cutouts, he had ten 20x24” portraits in the works, some nearly complete,  others in the early stages. He described the intricate process of layering images until he arrives at the finished piece.

His wiry frame clad all in black, Lawson paced and smoked as he reflected on the scene he first encountered at Tabby’s Blues Box, where he often slept in the loft after a night of listening to the blues. 

“Tabby took me under his wing. I used to hang out with these guys. It’s been a real trip down Memory Lane.”

Starting with museum-quality substrates of treated wood, Lawson applies cutouts of salvaged architectural drawings, English survey maps (“They represent my own personal journey here from England”), and embellished reproductions of washed-out photos from his New Orleans studio that flooded in Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Next he makes a series of drawings of the artist while listening to his music. “I visualize the best way to portray him,” said Lawson. “Do I want the angle to be full frontal? What kind of composition do I want?”

He never works from a single photograph but instead looks at multiple photos of the musician online and in magazines. “I make sketches on tracing paper so I can lay them over the piece.”

Lawson then launches into what he calls “piecing it together. That’s where the fun starts. I have all these images spread out on the floor; I cut them up and place them on the surface.” Once all the elements are arranged to his liking, “I paste it all down with professional-quality pH adhesive. 

“I start inking in the portrait with a brush or marker, making thick black lines. Then I add the final touches—glitter, fluorescent paint.”

He is partial to certain motifs. “Butterflies represent rebirth. Planetry represents the universal flow of what these guys tapped into. There’s something universal about their music. It’s like they are floating through time.”

He feels collage is an apt medium for the artists’ portraits: “So many of them started out when they found a guitar or made one out of wire. Using found paper felt like the perfect medium.”

Lawson works as a program specialist at the newly opened Knock Knock Children’s Museum, helping kids create art. That job indirectly led him to design the festival poster.

[Read this: Two little girls give us their review of the new Knock Knock Children's Museum.]

Coworker Jaimée Brooks, event coordinator at the museum, bumped into Lawson one day as he was carrying his book Figures in Jazz, which features large-scale vibrant collage portraits of jazz legends, including Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Nina Simone.

Those works were exhibited in 2013 at the Honfleur Gallery in Washington, D.C. The gallery produced a book to accompany the exhibition, pairing each portrait with an original poem by Lawson. 

“Jaimée took one look at the book and said, ‘I want you to do the poster for the Blues Festival,’” said Lawson. “She told her husband Chris, who is executive producer of the festival.”

Brooks immediately recognized the quality of Lawson’s work.  

“I can’t believe we have an artist of John’s caliber working here in Baton Rouge,” he said. “We met for coffee and he showed me his jazz book, and I said, ‘Whoa! This is amazing!’ I thought he was a good fit for the festival. We wanted a commemorative poster created by an artist who could express what the music means to him. It ties in with the mission of the Blues Foundation, which is to preserve the legacy.” 

[Read this: John Lawson and his beaded piano have come home to Louisiana.]

From that idea came the notion to create a series of portraits of bluesmen. Together Brooks, Lawson, and Foundation president Clarke Gernon selected ten musicians: Gray, 93; Lazy Lester, 84; Buddy Guy, 81; Silas Hogan (1911-94), Lightnin’ Slim (1913-74), Arthur “Guitar” Kelly (1924-2001), Lonesome Sundown (1928-95), Tabby Thomas (1929-2014), Clarence Edwards (1933-93), and Raful Neal (1936-2004).

“We’re excited that Lazy Lester [a native of Torras, La., who now lives in California] will be here,” said Brooks of the harmonica and guitar player. “He’s playing tunes from his debut 45 on Excello Records, which came out sixty years ago. Ninety percent of the performers are originally from or currently reside within ninety miles of Baton Rouge.”

Lawson is pleased that Connelly will host a show of the portraits. “When I told Ann about this project, she instantly got it,” he said. “My portraits are, in essence, an attempt to capture the energy of each musician as he performs.”

“I love the authenticity of John’s work,” said Connelly, whose gallery represents national and local artists. “He’s a unique mix of poet and visual artist.”

From Lawson’s original, a press run of three hundred posters will be for sale at the festival. 

Gray spent twenty-two years in Chicago, where he worked with major blues acts on stage and in the recording studio. In 1956, he joined blues star Howlin’ Wolf’s band as pianist, a position he held for twelve years.

In the August 2016 floods, Gray’s Baton Rouge house was inundated. He lost everything, including the trademark keyboard ties he wears when performing. The Blues Foundation replaced the ties with custom-made versions and a GoFundMe campaign was started to help Gray find a new house. Despite recent health problems, Gray still shows up for his standing Tuesday-night gig at the TimeOut Lounge.

“I’ve heard Henry many times,” said Lawson. “He plays that honky-tonk style, like Professor Longhair and James Booker. It’s a unique sound. He’s really the last of those honky-tonk players.

“I’ve incorporated his keyboard tie into the portrait. I really think Henry will get a kick out of it.” 

Lawson’s collages will be on view at Ann Connelly Fine Art from April 1—19, with a reception on April 5. Read about this year’s Blues Festival on page 28. View more of Lawson’s artwork at lawsonworks.com.

This article originally appeared in our April 2018 issue. Subscribe to our print magazine today.