‘Little’ Bill Englehart will celebrate 60 years of music with a Blues Vespers

There aren’t too many 77-year-olds around who once formed a teen rock band and kept it going for 60 years. But that’s Bill Englehart, better known as “Little Bill.” He and his band the Bluenotes are getting the star billing Sunday at Immanuel Presbyterian’s Blues Vespers to honor those six decades of blues and rock.

Englehart’s secret? Doing what you love — and seeing others love it too.

“It’s what he does,” said the Rev. Dave Brown, who organizes the monthly blues event that combines music, poetry and a short reflection. “It’s essential to his identity. I have a hard time imagining him not playing music. Some people have a job, and some people have a vocation. For Bill it’s a gig, but it’s also the way he connects to the world, who he is.”

Englehart started playing guitar at 15, and in 1955 he formed the Bluenotes — one of Tacoma’s first rock ’n’ roll bands. With their brassy sax sound, they were bluesier than the twangy guitars of the Wailers and Ventures, who came later and eclipsed them nationally. But in 1959, Englehart scored a top-100 hit with “I Love an Angel,” and ever since then he’s been playing gigs, with occasional breaks at other jobs.

None of the other original band members are left. But that, says Brown, is part of why Englehart is such a local legend.

“Many musicians in the South Sound have come through the school of Little Bill and the Bluenotes,” Brown explains. “He taught them how to be band leaders, how to be professionals. He formed this whole generation of blues musicians who’ve learned their craft through him.”

Brown’s been featuring Englehart and his band twice a year since he began the Tacoma vespers in 2001, an honor he says he wouldn’t extend to any other musician.

“He’s a consummate professional, and he’s one of ours in Tacoma — that means a lot,” Brown says. “There’s a loyalty in Tacoma to that kind of skill.”

The News Tribune caught up with Englehart on the phone from his Seattle home to talk about 60 years of doing what you love.

Q: Sixty years is a long time to keep playing. What’s your secret?

A: I don’t know if there’s a secret. I knew early in life what I wanted to do: My dad’s cousin was a guitar player, and I idolized him. The guitar always interested me. I left the music business a few times, but I always came back.

Q: Why?

A: I like performing. Recording, to me, is long and tedious — I’d rather perform live. You get an immediate reaction: sometimes great, sometimes not! But it’s something you try for. For example, this Fourth of July my band did a two-hour set down at Freedom Fair on the Tacoma waterfront. This lady came up on stage and said she listened every day to “I Love an Angel,” and were we going to play it? So I did, and she started to cry, and thanked me so much. Later I wanted to ask her why it meant so much to her — did she love someone? But that’s the reaction I’m talking about.

Q: Have you changed much over the years, musically?

A: I’ve always wanted to learn. From playing three-chord rock ’n’ roll stuff to now, I think I’ve become a better musician over the years. And I always tried to surround myself with guys who are better than me. That way I learn.

Q: You’ve played twice a year for Blues Vespers since 2001 — what do you think of it?

A: I met Rev. Dave years ago in Seattle at a club I was playing at, and he asked me to be in the Blues Vespers he was doing then. I said to him, ‘You’re a Reverend, what are you doing in here?!’

But I like Blues Vespers because people come to hear the music — it’s a big crowd. That’s what I like, and probably all the groups that play there: People don’t come to have a drink or dance, just for the music. It’s as good as you can get.

Q: You actually recorded “Louie Louie” before the Wailers got famous with it — what’s the story there?

A: Here’s what happened. I formed the Bluenotes in 1955. We were the first rock band in Tacoma. By the early 1960s I had left town and was working solo in Seattle with other bands. Topaz, which was a local label, asked me what I wanted to record, and I thought of “Louie Louie,” because that’s the song that everyone asks for. So when the Wailers, who formed a couple of years after us, found out, they did what anyone would have done and put their (recording) out first. I actually got the chance once to work with Richard Berry, who wrote the song — he’s a nice man.

But you know, I’m glad the Wailers and the Kingsmen are remembered for that song, not me. I’d rather be remembered for all of my music. In fact, I worked with the Kingsmen once, and one of them said he was jealous of me. He said, “Every concert we play we have to do ‘Louie Louie,’ every time, over and over.”

This story was originally published July 12, 2016 at 4:46 AM with the headline "‘Little’ Bill Englehart will celebrate 60 years of music with a Blues Vespers."