By Khulan Erdenechimeg
As part of our exploration of Memphis and its cultural influences, Dredge Magazine had the great pleasure of sitting down with Vinny Martone, a young blues musician on Beale Street.
It’s weird to see someone in person for the first time after months of texts and emails. Especially if you’re an overthinker like me who likes to take any opportunity to second-guess people’s vibes, personalities, and looks. But Vinny Martone was almost what I imagined him to be, a young blues guitarist with sharp looks, dressed in button-up and jeans. He’s got distinct American goodness that reminded me of the old-time charmers in the music scene – this balance of seriousness and carelessness that makes anyone believe in their art. There’s a thing I did mis-imagine, though. He’s friendlier than I expected him to be. As someone who grew up watching interviews of rock stars wearing sunglasses-indoors and chain-smoking during the whole 15 minutes program just to mutter 5 sentences, I expected him to be “too cool” for me to handle. But no, he’s too genuine for that rock-n-roll pretension. A few minutes into our conversation, I find out that’s what the blues is about.
Vinny Martone grew up in the southern suburbs of Chicago. His earliest musical memories include him listening to the 70s and 80s Cool jazz with his dad. The love story between him and his guitar started pretty early on, around the time when his little brother started taking music classes. Vinny spent hours on Youtube learning his favorite tunes– that of Charley Patton, Muddy Waters, and other blues legends. He then went to college in Indianapolis, got a degree in civil engineering, worked for four months, quit, and came to Memphis to play the blues. Now he regularly plays at the Blues Hall with Vince Johnson & the Plantation All-Stars. (He also posts blues covers on his Instagram page @vinny_martone here and there if you want to check them out!)
But what is it about the blues that made him ditch his engineering career, I wonder. He says it was its honesty and simplicity. It’s hard to hide your mediocre skills with acts when playing the blues – it’s too stripped-down for that. It’s genuine - A trait I would use to describe him after our 45 minutes of conversation. There’s something so universal yet regional about the blues that brought many people around the world, including this writer from Mongolia, to the American South to learn more about it. It’s very much disciplined like Classical music, but it’s also unpretentious enough to survive social classes and layers. I ask if he thinks that the pain in the blues makes it so universal and authentic. He replies that blues isn’t just about pain. “There are many types of blues music, some are seductive and sexually charged, some are suitable for the dance floor. Its roots perhaps are bound to withstand the struggles of life, but it evolved into a genre just as diverse and versatile just as any other style of music is”. So there’s that as well. The thing is, though, he just really likes the blues.
Let’s be clear here. Whatever he’s doing is not something you would expect a 23-year-old guy from Chicago to do. My parents would agree with me. My friends would too. The music industry is not like what it used to be, you’ll probably make more money making videos on Tik Tok than playing in clubs during the weekend. Perhaps there was an unexplainable push, a “calling” of some sorts, to justify/realize this decision.
He agrees with me. “Even when I was making the move to come down here, I was like, ‘This just feels right’. I had only played with Vince a handful of times on Beale Street before I actually moved down here, but that was enough for me. Doing it a handful of times was just like, ‘That's it, I'm set’. I'm sure that everyone [coming here] else feels the same way.”
Speaking of genuineness as well as the mystical magical “callings” we music nerds like to go on and on about, I decide it’s time to ask my favorite question – what is his definition of an “artist”? Is he one?
He laughs and shakes his head. I ask if it’s because the title of “artist” is too heavy. He nods: “[Being an] ‘artist’ to me is like making a whole song from scratch. I mean, I write my own songs every now and then, but they're still kind of taken from something else, which everyone, I think, is guilty of, right?.. Everything comes from another idea, but most of my musical career has been playing guitar or harmonica with bands. I've written a bunch of songs, but a lot of them are kind of copied ideas twisted around into an original thing.”
Interesting. I ask if he feels the need to create something “new” and be the artist or if he’s just comfortable with being a musician. But to him, it’s a little more complicated than that. “I know a lot of really great artists that have really creative and fun songs. And I know some really talented musicians that know their instrument. The ideal is to be both -- is to know your instrument inside and out, and then also have a creative mind about it. I mean, that's the ultimate goal for me… If I had to pick, I'd rather be a musician.”
Vinny is the type of musician who loves to really dig deep into the world of music – his Instagram stories are all about Smithsonian Folkways, Dust-To-Digital, companies dedicated to preserving and documenting American music history. He says having music knowledge is important - both historical and theoretical. I wondered if music theory was something he was always drawn to or did he pick it up afterward? “The theory for me was like, ‘I have to work on this'. If I will be playing in bands, and if I'm gonna be called up on stage randomly to pick a song out of nowhere, I have to know that. That happens all the time on Beale Street. Say, there'll be a different piano player that we haven't played with, and he'll start a song I don't know. He'll say the key and that's it. Figure it out. And it's a little stressful, but you just got to pick up on it. You gotta get out and get it real quick. Which is part of the adventure.”
Speaking of Beale Street, I ask him about his experience performing there. Things change, and big musical and art hubs disappear over time. I wondered if he felt what I felt after my trip to the nearly closed-down and abandoned Chelsea Hotel in NYC. He says the change “bums me out a little bit”, but it’s not enough to stop him. “As easy as it would be to ‘sell my soul’ and play covers and make way more money, I just don't think I want to do that right now. I'm here to play traditional blues.”
How does he see himself in the ever-changing music industry, though? What are his plans for the future? He replies, “I'm constantly trying to play with new people and learn new things… It's not my priority to ‘make it’. If it were completely up to me, I would go around touring the country with one guitar, acoustic guitar, and playing folk songs. That'd be one of my goals in life… I like keeping the tradition of the music alive. Like I said, traditional blues and country, and jazz are the core of American music. I like to honor those people that really made strides for it.”
That’s such a great answer, I replied. Music is about evolution and transformations, but we also need some people who can keep history alive for us to base our new creations on. Vinny Martone is one of those musicians. A pretty cool one, too. We shake hands, talk a little more about music, the fascinating behaviors of middle-aged women in Beale Street clubs, and Rhodes College’s weird campus placements. He then heads back to the parking lot to find his Grand Marquis (which has a song dedicated to it, because, why not?), as I hurry to my room to start writing this article.