Someone who has heard the phrase "good job" more than most is Tony Braunagel. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, to a guitar-playing father, he picked up sticks during his teenage years — and dove head first into the Texas blues and R&B club circuit.

"I started at 15, pretty much, in nightclubs," the now 52-year-old drummer reminisces. "In Texas growing up, there were probably only one or two places in town that you could take lessons. And going to school at that age, you probably had to take them after school or on the weekends. I lived on the other side of town, wherever those music stores were that did that. I just was thrown in the deep end. My best friend that I grew up with, Willie Ornelas, he got me started playing. Just by hanging out with him, I learned a lot, and then he just threw me into the deep end one day and said, 'Here's a gig for you, take it.' [long, desperate scream]"

Braunagel's formative years and "life lessons" in the '60s must seem like an eternity ago, as his resume will thump your desk as loudly as the most famous surgeon's curriculum vitae. Book-ended by living stints in New York, London, and his current home in Los Angeles, he's toured and recorded with B.B. King, Otis Rush, Bonnie Raitt, Rickie Lee Jones, and Eric Burdon, and has also worked with John Lee Hooker, Charles Brown, Etta James, Buddy Guy, Koko Taylor, Jimmie Reed, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Bette Midler. We haven't even mentioned the TV and movie work: Tin Cup, Scrapple, One Night Stand, Under Siege II, corporate gigs with Dan Akroyd and Jim Belushi as the Blues Brothers, and even a recurring role on Belushi's ABC comedy series According To Jim. The main gig right now is with Taj Mahal (they met in 1993) and the Phantom Blues band, with whom he has won a Grammy for the album Señor Blues, and performed on the Grammy-nominated Dancin' The Blues and Phantom Blues.

But really, how does somebody really make music work with all these different people? Certainly a lot of hard work, discipline, and natural talent are involved, but make no mistake — Tony's easygoing personality has paid immense dividends.

"I've got the personality that stays around," he laughs, "you know what I mean? I hang good. People are, I guess, attracted to work with certain people, and when you've got that personality where you bring something musical to the gig and people like to have you around — you work a lot. There are other guys who are better players than me, but they may not have thensylBF‘d admiirsonality to get those opportunities. It's sad, because some people might say, 'Well, you're not really getting the gig on your talent.' But hey, who knows if that's not why Sonny Payne or Al Jackson, Jr. didn't get their gigs? [laughs] I mean, Vinnie Colaiuta is a fabulous drummer. Vinnie's also got a great personality. Dave Weckl's got a great personality. Gregg Bissonette's the nicest guy in the world.

"I really think the people who sit around and say, 'Oh man, I can play as good as him, why can't I get the gig?' Already right there, they're counting themselves out because you've got to project yourself into something, and your personality will help you do that. Being fun to be around, being easy to get along with, and paying attention and concentrating, that's what will get you work. People ask me for advice, and I say: practice hard, stay clean, show up on time, smile, and do the best you can. Put this kind of a work ethic together, and you could stay employed. I've always been employed. I'm 52 and I'm still making a living doing just what I do, and I think it's a miracle."

And what he's doing is the blues, the whole blues, and nothing but the blues. Perusing the resume it's amazing to think who the drummer hasn't accompanied. We've asked a few younger folks about Old School prejudices, now we can ask someone who's lived a little. While Braunagel would never discourage anybody from pursuing their music, or having a passion for the blues, he understands where some of the elders' responses come from.

"In some cases," Braunagel muses, choosing his words carefully, "a lot of the young guys — and I wouldn't say it's Jonny Lang's fault or Kenny Wayne Shepherd's fault — but a lot of the guys that become players in this, didn't really grow up into the tradition of playing blues and R&B, like I did. I listened to the masters, learned from the masters, and always tried to authenticate what the masters were doing, before I tried to put my own style to it. Eventually my own style took over, but I really tried my best to sound like those guys when I played. When I was playing with B.B., I played like Tony, but I remembered Sonny Payne, Tony Coleman.

"The skepticism comes from, you're not really accepted until you can authenticate close to the original style of the music. A lot of kids grew up listening to rock and roll, and their first blues influences were Stevie Ray Vaughan, you know? And they go, 'Oh I dig blues, Stevie Ray Vaughan.' Now Stevie's an incredible talent, I hung out with him and jammed many times. But a lot of these guys, and I'm not saying it to a fault, but they haven't really tried to authenticate the styles as much. Whereas I still do, always did, and I came out of that era, where it was stylish to play like that. It wasn't stylish for some of these younger guys to all of the sudden start playing rhythm and blues. I'm in a youthful blues world, but I play from a real traditional standpoint. I try my best to authenticate it. With the little teaching I've done with people who want to study with me, I tell them that it's very important that you authenticate to what the masters are doing.

"It goes right into spirituality, and being in the moment. If you can really make yourself golden in that moment, and really be alive with what's going in the music, then you can really turn out something really good. I think some of that comes from knowledge. Studying other styles lets me bring other things into [different gigs], but I started out by listening to the masters. I, still to this day, go and pull out old stuff. I'll pull out a 12-CD Muddy Waters box set. I'll just drive around and listen to it. Somspacax/Volt, listen to Al Jackson, Howard Grimes, and listen to them pocket the hell out of this music. You've got to set the pocket up — if you don't, you're losing.

"Playing the blues is a great experience. A lot of people oversimplify it and say it's simplistic and that it's just 'slave music.' There are a lot of young African Americans who don't like the music because it's 'slave music,' or 'old, drunk, black man music.' It's oppressive. But it is about a culture, our American culture. It's got to be perpetuated, it's got to be played."

©2002, Don Zulaica, DRUM!™ Magazine