Posted 10:58 pm Saturday, January 28, 2012
Bugs Henderson, The Shuffle Kings Perform At Moore’s Store In Ben Wheeler Tonight
By STEWART SMITH
Entertainment Editor
ail to the king. Well, the Shuffle Kings, at least. East Texas blues guitarist Bugs Henderson and his band The Shuffle Kings will make a stop at Moore’s Store in Ben Wheeler tonight. He may tour all over the world now, but Henderson’s roots are planted firmly in East Texas. He discovered his love of guitar at the age of 6 while living in Tyler. He would foster his passion for music by working at a local record store and also sneaking out of the house against his father’s wishes just to go catch local bands playing gigs. His first band was The Sensors, but he would soon join his friend, Ronnie Weiss, to help launch Mouse and the Traps to regional acclaim.
To hear Henderson play is to bear witness to one of the best kept secrets the world of rock and blues has to offer. He may be knocking on 70, but Henderson can still get his trusty red guitar to wail and whine like few around him can.
Entertainment Editor
ail to the king. Well, the Shuffle Kings, at least. East Texas blues guitarist Bugs Henderson and his band The Shuffle Kings will make a stop at Moore’s Store in Ben Wheeler tonight. He may tour all over the world now, but Henderson’s roots are planted firmly in East Texas. He discovered his love of guitar at the age of 6 while living in Tyler. He would foster his passion for music by working at a local record store and also sneaking out of the house against his father’s wishes just to go catch local bands playing gigs. His first band was The Sensors, but he would soon join his friend, Ronnie Weiss, to help launch Mouse and the Traps to regional acclaim.
To hear Henderson play is to bear witness to one of the best kept secrets the world of rock and blues has to offer. He may be knocking on 70, but Henderson can still get his trusty red guitar to wail and whine like few around him can.
He's clearly learned much from playing with icons such as B.B. King, Eric Clapton and Ted Nugent, yet still carved for himself a musical legacy that is wholly his own. For Henderson, the Blues has always been his biggest influence.
"Blues was all that mattered to me; no other music was worth (anything)," Henderson said.
He began to refine his signature sound in the '70s when he moved from Tyler to Dallas and entrenched himself in the music scene, particularly at a bar called The Cellar.
""It's really hard to explain that place. It was this big, black room. It had a red light that came on when the cops were coming in and another light for fights," he said. "They ran three or four bands in a night and everybody played original music. We usually didn't leave until four in the morning, and there was no other place like it around. It was the best thing that happened to my music. I learned a lot."
Playing in those clubs only solidified Henderson's love of blues as he soon tired of the wide-open riff-oriented rock, and his friend Freddie King began pushing for Henderson to start his own band. Henderson proceeded to assemble his first record, "At Last," the first of 14 albums spanning over four decades.
However, success and its spoils began wreaking havoc on Henderson's life in the late '70s and he soon took time to take a good hard look at where his life was and where it was going.
"Most of the people I ran with are dead, in jail or just look terrible. With God's help and good friends, I came out of it," Henderson said.
He still goes on tours around the country and overseas (where he has, surprisingly, found his greatest bounty of lasting popularity and success), but still lives in East Texas with his wife Patty and daughter Zoey
"The order of importance in this life is simple: Family, music, career," Bugs explains, "I couldn't have the life I have now and be a major star. Couldn't go to my kids' ball games. I wouldn't give up that for anything."
Still, when he's up on stage Henderson can burn the fretboard like nobody's business, with a passion and panache that musicians decades his junior could only hope to match.
Bugs Henderson and The Shuffle Kings will perform at 8 p.m. at Moore's Store, 1551 Farm-to-Market Road 279 in Ben Wheeler. Admission is $15 per person.
For more information, call 903-833-5100 or visit benwheelertx.com.
