Daedalian speaks with Jim Ervin, the host of the podcast "Time Signatures," which celebrates blues music and its rich history. Jim shares his journey into the world of blues, influenced by his mother's love for legendary artists like B.B. King and Muddy Waters, and how his passion has evolved over the years. The conversation delves into Jim's impressive collection of vinyl and CDs, which has grown significantly in a short time, illustrating his deep appreciation for various music genres. They also discuss Jim's impactful interviews with renowned musicians, including Walter Trout and Joe Bonamassa, highlighting the personal stories that resonate with audiences. Additionally, Jim reveals his involvement with the Michigan Blues Preservation Society and talks about Steven Salter's Killer Blues Headstone Project.

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Website: University of Mississippi Libraries Blues Archive

Website: Killer Blues Headstone Project

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This is Daedalian, general manager of LCC Connect, and on this episode of behind the connection, I'm happy to talk with one of those community activists. It's a conversation with Jim Ervin.

Hes the host of Time Signatures, a podcast presented by the Capitol Area Blues Society that focuses on, what else? Blues music. Jims enthusiastic attitude, grassroots promotion, and love of music has helped him to steadily grow his listener and viewer base.

Recently, time Signatures was also included in the University of Mississippi's Blues archive. That's an honor that any blues enthusiast can appreciate.

So I'll start off by asking you the question that you seem to ask a lot of other folks, and that is, what was your introduction to the blues man?

You know, going back to my younger years with my mom, she was very much into the blues. But of course, back then, it was all, you know, bb king, muddy Waters, buddy guy.

And I kind of hung around in that, that genre, that older school genre of the blues for a lot of years. And I think that's why I have such a deep appreciation.

If you look a lot at a lot of my vinyl, I have a lot of traditional blues that I've kind of clung to, and I think it's kind of an homage to my mom. But at the same time, it's because I have an appreciation of the older stuff.

It doesn't matter how I call it crunchy blues, the old gritty crunchy, the old stuff, you know, going back to Johnson and the rest of them. I mean, doesn't matter how old it is, I love it. And, you know, it's expanded through the years.

When I was introduced to Joe Bonamassa, my world just went boom and blew open. And so now I've kind of gone into the blues rock. I like a little bit of the roots music.

I mean, it's an eclectic blend for me, and I always describe the blues to people as a smorgasbord or a buffet, and you take what you want from the buffet. I mean, not everybody's gonna like Joe Bonamassa. Not everybody's gonna like buddy guy. I happen to like them all. I mean, there's.

There are some that I'm less inclined to enjoy, but I've really got a wide appreciation for the genre.

Yeah. And for whatever reason, you decided late in life to go ahead and start an album collection, what, April of this year?

And it's become a bit of an addiction, it looks like.

Yeah, I think Garrett's going to. How many gonna have an intervention here? How many up to since April 9? And this is November and or October. We're in October yet.

Yeah. Well, at this time. The time of the recording.

Yeah, the time of the recording, yeah, about 300. 300 and up to about 450 cds.

And have you stuck strictly to the blues or did you branch out a little bit?

No, I've got.

Because you and I are both the same on that. We like a lot of different styles of music.

Yeah, I've got classic rock is my jam. I've got some. Some older classic rock in, you know, mid to late 60 sixties. I've got some beatles.

I've got, of course, the Woodstock album, but I've got a lot of classic rock stuff that I grew up on in the seventies and eighties.

So with the show, you know, you branch out a little bit beyond the blues every once in a while. As you've gone further with time signatures, do you feel like it's evolved the way you expected, or has it gone a different direction?

It has evolved in a way I never expected.

When you and I talked way back at the beginning, and I tell this story to people that will listen, I remember you saying, do you want to do a radio show? Do you want to do a podcast or do you want to do both? And I said, you know, I've never done. I've done radio. Radio is.

Is fun, but the podcast for me started off because I'm inquisitive. I've always been inquisitive. Started off, for me, is primarily going to be.

Yeah, it's going to be, you know, local, maybe some statewide stuff, maybe. Maybe. Maybe a little bit of regional. Okay. But as I started taking this on, I started. I don't know if you. It's a good way to describe it is.

It's an addiction, much like the vinyl collection. I just want more, and I want bigger.

And so opportunities started presenting themselves via some of my connections through the Capitol area blues Society and elsewhere. And all of a sudden, I'm starting to get all these big opportunities. And for me, Joe Bonamassa was the pinnacle.

He and Buddy guy were the two biggest names that I had on my want list. And a year and a half in, I got Joe. I'm still waiting for buddy, you know.

But working on it.

Oh, absolutely.

So anybody that doesn't know Irv. He is one of the most tenacious people I have ever met. And I mean, that is a compliment for sure.

It is one of those things where your drive to, like, try to get somebody on the show or do something, you're there for sure. So capital Area Blue society, of course, presents time signatures. How did you get involved with that originally?

Well, again, we had a discussion at a meeting, and that was when I reached out to you and, you know, expressed an interest. And that was when you offered me.

With the podcast, of course, yes. Well, you said you want area blues society. You were involved with that before we even started the podcast.

Oh, yeah, yeah, a couple, couple years. Because I was.

It all started a few years ago when I showed up at Bluesfest and started doing, I had my camera with me and they at that time, the photographer that you normally had there wasn't able to be there. And they asked me if I'd be willing to donate some photos. And I'm like, yeah, no problem.

Yeah.

And next thing you know, I'm a member. And then, you know, we signed up that day and I was asked if I wanted to serve on the board.

And, you know, here we are, what, four years later and I'm still, I'm still there, still working on the board.

And you fell right into my trap. That's exactly why I was asking you, because I knew why you got involved. It was the photography.

It really was, yeah.

So what is it when you're out doing photographs, when you're taking photographs, what is it that you're looking for?

The one thing that has evolved from my photography is I like to catch emotion. One of the biggest compliments I got was from Mike lynch because I shot the root doctor band when they were at the Blues fest.

Yeah, sounds about right.

And Mike came up to me and he goes, oh, man. He said, you're the guy that took those pictures. And I said, yeah. He said, man, he says, you really bring those pictures to life.

And I thought, you know, that's a hell of a compliment. And so I aim for that. And it's not something that I program and say, oh, I've got to look for this, I got to look for that.

It's just I catch myself in the moment and get swept along in the music, and I'm trying to catch the musician enjoying that same moment with me. And I've been very fortunate because I've captured some really cool photos of people enjoying their music.

You have. You've done a great job with it. And we'll share a little bit more on that.

Beyond that, do you actually have a dedicated website to some of the stuff you do?

I do not. I have a Facebook page. I have a Facebook photography page, and I'll be glad to provide that for you.

Yeah. So, yeah, check it out, because you do, you got some phenomenal pictures that I'm always, like, impressed by what you take.

And every time I'm putting together the newsletter for the capital area blue society, I'm like, man, this guy's got an eye for this. And I like to do it a little bit myself. I just have never dove into it as far as you have.

The irony of it is when, when I went to shoot that year, that was my first time getting into concert photography. I'd done other stuff. I was into shooting the moon. I was into shooting nature. I was into shooting. You name it, anything. Lighthouses.

I put out a calendar with lighthouses one year. And something about. I've always wanted to do concert photography. So I started studying on it.

I bought the lenses that I needed and went and started doing some. Some deeper studying.

And I was very, very fortunate because that is, of all of the things that I shoot, that is the one thing that I probably will never change. I'll probably stay on concert photography now from this point forward.

Yeah. Good, good. You do a great job with it.

Thank you.

I was one of the early ones.

Yeah, I know you were. And you were definitely one of the first community members. I think you were the second one.

Yeah.

So tell me, who have you interviewed and who were a couple of your favorites that you've done so far?

Wow. Well, there's 53 episodes up officially. You know, I've done everybody interview wise from, you know, Freddie Cunningham with the Root Doctor band.

I've interviewed almost every member of his band. I've interviewed the brother Earth band, who include three members from Rare Earth. They played and extensively traveled with rare earth.

Walter Trout, I would say, has to be one of my all time favorite interviews. I got him to talk about a lot of things that were difficult for him when he had his health crisis, when he almost died.

I mean, he was knocking on death's door.

Well, you know, and going beyond even that, because that itself was an emotionally charged story.

Oh, yeah.

But you go beyond that. He really had some great stories about. The one that always comes to mind is the one with big Mama Thornton, where he's talking about having, I want.

You to go out and play like.

BB King, because he's more of a rocking kind of a style when it comes to guitar. You know, BB's a little more smooth, does that vibe. And he got a big compliment from her, too, after he was finished. So that's an awesome one.

And honestly, if I was to recommend somebody, was to listen to just one of your time signature episodes, that would be the one now.

And the other episode that is worthy of note to me is the interview with Joe Bonamassa. A lot of people.

Now, is that because you're a fanboy?

No, I didn't fanboy with him at all. As a matter of fact, he was almost 15 minutes late. Okay. He was out in Oklahoma and was almost 15 minutes late.

But the PR guy said, you're gonna get the full 30. We just want you to be mindful. And I had my clock set when he came on and we started. I recorded on my deck so I could keep track.

And he was very impressed with the fact that I was mindful of his time.

Sure.

But the one thing that I wanted to do when I interviewed him, and I think I was successful at, is I didn't want to ask him, what was it like to open for BB King at age twelve? What was it like to be a guitar phenom when you were like eight years old?

And in the process of this, this video, he has Eric Clapton come out.

So the question that I wanted to ask him, and I did ask him, is when you looked over and you saw Eric coming out of the shadows to join you on stage, what was going through your mind? And it rocked him back a little bit. And he goes, I couldn't believe he was going on. I wrote him a letter, and there he was. He joined me on stage.

Surreal.

Yeah, but I got that. Watching the video, I felt that emotion from him when he saw him come out.

He's just see him kind of smile and lean back and start playing further on up the road. And that's the song they did together.

Would have been nice if you could have got some photographs of that, huh?

Oh, man. Oh, man. But, yeah, so I would say, you know, I've had a lot of really good. The interview that I did with Danielle Nicole was really good as well.

Yeah, I think your interview style kind of lends itself to that. You've got a very personable interview style. You do a great job with that.

Thank you.

And you know what I love is the fact that it gave you some recognition.

I feel like it was partly your interview style, but of course, the folks that you interview, too, Greg Johnson, professor at University of Michigan, or, excuse me, University of Mississippi. Recently, you and he did a collaboration. And what happened? Well, I say recently, but this has been a little bit. It's been some time in the world.

Yeah, it took us a few months to get this together, but I went to him and I asked him, I said, you know, here's my podcast. This is what it's about. And I said, would you be interested? Now, let me back up for a half step here.

Bonnie "Queen Bee" Stebbins, who actually started the Capitol area blues society 30 years ago.

Me, Bethe.

And she was the one that turned me on to Greg, and she said, I'm sending stuff down to the University of Mississippi. Maybe you ought to reach out to him, you know, and talk to him.

So I did, and I just said, hey, would you be interested in having copies of this podcast? I'd love to donate them. And he went, oh, absolutely. I mean, there was no hesitation when I explained to him what the show was about.

He was on board, like, immediately. So then we had to go to work and put together season one and get it all packaged up. And of course, they want notes.

They want, you know, the date that it aired first and everything about the episode, who was on it and whatnot. And then we had to come up with a way to do a transcription of the episodes.

And God bless my daughter, I've got a link that takes my podcast episodes from YouTube and transcribes them kind of halfway. You know, it's okay, but it's not perfect.

So then she has to go in there and put each person's speaking part and start it, you know, when they speak and stuff. So it's a. Again, it's a task, you know, process.

Yeah.

And I, like, we're working on season two right now, and I'm more than halfway through with season three, so, you know, but anyway, so it was really a cool moment when he sent me the link and he says, go check this out. And I popped it up and there's time signatures on the UMIs website.

What'd you feel about that?

Immensely honored. Kind of overwhelmed for a minute. Because it was a dream. I mean, it was.

You know, it sounds simple when I say that it was a phone call, but to see it come to fruition and see it on their website and understand that's going to be out there for a very, very long time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's the reason it started. So.

And to know that this is the only currently produced podcast that's housed on the UMIs website in the archive, it's like, wow, you know, you talk about a legacy project. This is. It has firmed up in my mind that for the rest of my life, as long as there's air in my lungs and ability to speak, I'll be doing this show.

So they've got other podcasts. It's just those are ones that have kind of done their thing and then they've shut or stopped.

There's a couple that have our podcast, but there's very few podcasts. There's a lot of, like, interview type things. We're just somebody sitting there with a recorder, talking to someone and getting their take on stuff.

Very cool. So, like, what blows my mind about you, and always has, ever since I've known you, is you seem to like to bite off more than you can chew.

I like a full plate.

You know, you're involved with the capital area blue society. You're doing time signatures, and then you decided, you know what? That's not enough for Irvin.

I want to go ahead and do the Michigan Blues Preservation Society as well. So what's the story there? What are you thinking of? And what do you envision it at this point to be?

So the dream for me is the ultimate goal would to have us. The Michigan Blues Preservation Society has already been registered as a. As a business entity.

We're working on getting the corporate structure in place. And then we're going to start working on the 501.

The goal is to have at least an annual, like a gala or a fundraiser to help generate funds to keep it going.

But my goal is to have a museum in the greater Lansing area that will cater to the entire state of Michigan, not just Lansing, but you know, you've got detroit, you got Grand Rapids, you got Flint, you got Saginaw, Bay City. They're all over the place. You know, wherever there's blues, we, I mean, look at, look at the, the upper peninsula.

They put, had that show up there for years. We want to make this a museum where every member of the blues community can have some of their stuff on display to have some history.

And Bonnie has already said that when we get it going that she would be behind the newsletters and all the paperwork from Cab's formation housed at the museum.

Awesome.

Which I think would just be so cool to have it all in one place where people can go and look at it.

Yeah, we'll send a big up to Bonnie Stebbins, of course, because she's awesome.

Oh yeah. Big time, big time.

So circling back to the University of Mississippi and the blues preservation, more news to share that recently came up. Beyond the podcast is so, yes, we.

Are also in the process of getting.

And this is still in the early phases.

Oh God, yes.

Yeah.

Cause there's a lot to do here.

Cause time signatures, that's already a part of it. Known already.

That is on the University of Mississippi website right now.

Early phases of.

We are in the process of getting my blues concert photography ready to go and send to the University of Mississippi, to the Blues archive as well, which is hella cool. It's very cool. I mean it takes what we're doing with time signatures and just adds another 150 pounds of cool on it.

Yeah, it does.

You know.

Yeah.

It's like that piece of pumpkin pie with a big pile of whipped cream. Yeah, that's what this is.

Yeah. So stepping outside of the different bands that you've interviewed, we mentioned Greg Johnson. You've had a couple others here and there.

But the one that I definitely want to bring up is the one, and I'm forgetting the gentleman's name at this point, but hopefully you'll remember. Killer headstone blues project.

Steven Salter. Yeah, killer.

This is a phenomenal thing that he is doing. So talk a little bit about that because that is just another great cause that you've connected with. That is important.

So the one thing if anybody has seen my podcast, they notice on my backdrop, there are 501 c three s listed there. We have the Capitolir Blues Society. Of course we have LCC connect because they are the reason I'm here doing this.

And I was also directed to reach out to Steven Salter. And Steven was so cool. I messaged him and I said, hey, I'd love to have you come on and talk with me about your program.

And for those that don't know, I'll tell you what he does. He has a list of unmarked graves of blues musicians. And it doesn't matter where they're buried, no matter what state he goes, he gets permission.

He raises the money to have a headstone made, and he places it on that grave. So it's no longer unmarked. And I think he's up around 160, I believe, at my last check.

Awesome.

And in like 15 or 16 states, it's phenomenal.

Yeah.

And he said he's still got enough. I think he said he's got enough for another 30 or 35, a list of another 30 or 35. And he's not done. He's still looking for unmarked graves.

But the way he feels about it is this is his way of giving back. And it is a 501 C three. So if people donate, it goes directly to that. It goes nothing to him. It goes everything to getting the headstone made.

There's a little twist of irony because capital area blues society and many people in the blues world, we often say, keep the blues alive. It's an ironic way to keep the blues alive, but it is an awesome way because you are honoring those who have contributed. So, very cool.

Yeah.

Anything that you wanted to hit on.

Before we go, man, you know, I can't stress enough for people that, that have an interest in the blues and want to check it out. Give us a look on YouTube. Give us a look on, on the LCC Connect page.

I would love to see an ability for people to follow on LCC Connect, but I know you can on Spotify on Apple Podcasts.

It's out there.

You can definitely, you know, there's places that you can give us a follow on.

And if you do a search, I find the best way to do that is to throw your name in there, too, because there are other podcasts called time signatures.

Well, in time signatures is a musical reference, right?

So you get a lot of things up there.

You have to say time signatures with Jim Irvin. Yeah.

All right, very last question. First of all, I want to say thanks for being a part of what we do at LCC. Kanata.

Thank you.

Thanks for your ambition. You, like, floor me every time I think about it and just appreciate your enthusiasm and just being a part of doing what we're doing.

Well, before you ask your question, I want to say thank you to you for being my producer, being my listening ear, being my calming force, because there's times that I come at you 90 to nothing, and you're like, oh, hey, take a breath. You know?

Yeah. We definitely have two different approaches to life. I'm very much just. Yeah, we'll get to it. It'll work.

I'm like that bulldog on a chain that's stretching that chain out as far as you can. You know, it'd be that or the.

Kid waking up Christmas morning. Pretty much.

That's a good analogy, man.

All right, so very last question of the day. And what I do is I do a random question generator. We're going to take a look. What? Oh, this is perfect. What is your theme song?

Oh, that's up and down these Michigan roads by the root doctor band.

I knew you were gonna say that.

Well, yeah, I mean, Freddie allowed me to use it, man.

That's awesome.

I owe it to him.

Thanks, Jim, for coming in on behind.

The connection, and thanks for having me, man. This is a lot of fun. I appreciate it.

So your studio actually seems a lot bigger on the camera than it really is.

I've had three people in here with me.

Yeah, I know. I listened to that interview, obviously, and it's kind of interesting. This is LCC. Connect, voices, vibes, vision.