Posted: March 18, 2016 A conversation with Mac Arnold will likely veer in a lot of different directions. After all, Mac is a blues great. His music has a raw and real feel that's hard to find.
His voice is deep and throaty. Arnold is also a former producer on the television show 'Soul Train,' he worked in the early videotape industry, owns a restaurant and is an avid organic gardener.
'I started in 1953 on a gasoline-can guitar,' says Arnold in a call from his home in Pelzer, S.C., just south of Greenville. In 1946, Arnold's older brother built a three-string guitar with a gasoline can body for show. 'He took it to school and won first place for show and tell,' says Arnold.
But it was Mac who was the most impressed. 'This guitar hung around in the family for many years and then in about 1952 I started playing the guitar.
By the time I got to high school I had gotten pretty good and by 15 I started playing out.' At 16, he had begun playing professionally with J Floyd & the Shamrocks. 'About 1955 we were playing a gig in Greenville and the bass player didn't show up,' says Arnold. 'So I started playing bass that night and I've been playing ever since.' The group's piano player was a young man who would bus over on weekends named James Brown.
'He played off and on until 1956 and then came 'Please, Please, Please' and I didn't see James for about 30 years!' Arnold moved to Chicago when he was 24 and began playing bass with some of the giants of blues and R&B, including John Lee Hooker, Otis Spann, A.C.
Reed, Tyrone Davis and Albert King. His tenure with Muddy Waters, though, was one of Waters' classic line-ups: Arnold on bass, Luther Johnson and Sammy Lawhorn on guitar, Frances Clay on drums and Otis Spann on piano. Arnold also had a band called the Soul Invaders.
When an artist was coming through town who needed a backup group, local disc jockey and promoter Don Cornelius would give Arnold a call. When Cornelius decided to create a black answer to 'American Bandstand' called 'Soul Train,' Arnold jumped on board. In 1969, Arnold moved to Los Angeles to take college courses in the fundamentals of television and, from 1971 to '75, he acted as a producer for 'Soul Train.' He also contributed backup music for Laff Records, which released albums by the top comedians of the day, worked with Quincy Jones doing backup music and audio and video editing, performed on the theme song for 'Sanford and Son', worked for ABC television and 20th Century Fox. 'I'm the guy who transferred the first 'Star Wars' to videotape!,' says Arnold. 'I was busy!' Arnold regularly traveled home to South Carolina to visit his parents.
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His father died in 1982, and, in 1989, Arnold and his wife, Vonda, moved back to South Carolina permanently to spend more time with his mother. 'She died 10 years to the day after my father,' says Arnold.
Arnold initially decided to retire from music and work as a truck driver. However, one day while driving trucks for Belk stores, Arnold encountered a diesel mechanic and harmonica player named Max Hightower. 'We went round and round for 10 years with him trying to get me to play music when I was trying to retire,' says Arnold.
He said, 'You don't need to be driving that truck! You need to be playing blues, man!'
' After a decade, High-tower assembled some other musicians, including guitarist Austin Brashier, and convinced Arnold to give it a shot. 'We've been together 13 years and we're gaining speed,' says Arnold. 'We've got our fifth album out.' Arnold likes the old ways, but only when they work. 'I fooled around with farming all my life, but I counted on fertilizer to get me through. But now I only use compost and some lime-based fertilizer. When the bugs get bad on me, I use the compost to make a tea and spray my vegetables with it.
They (the bugs) don't like that too well.' Arnold has cut down from working three acres to one acre and he hires some help to take care of the plot.
'My gigging overshadowed my farming,' he says, before listing off how many vegetables he grows. 'I plant my collard greens in August and keep them through the winter to have for my annual Cornbread and Collard Greens Blues Festival in April.' This year's festival, which is held at Dr. Mac Arnold's Blues Restaurant in Greenville, S.C., will be April 28-30. Arnold is as serious about farming and food as he is music. He swears by following a Farmer's Almanac for guidance.
Plant on the wrong day, he says, and you'll get plenty of flowers but your plants won't fruit. 'I'm planting my corn next Thursday, but you're in Knoxville. You'd be in another zone.' Arnold grabs his almanac to find that Knoxville is in zone 7. While Arnold seems like an old sage, he's not quite as old as he's sometimes been reported to be. 'Wikipedia had me as 91 years old one time!
I'm old, but I'm not that old. I'll be 74 on June 4. I do wish I had 20 more years of knowledge.' Before hanging up, Arnold wants to make sure I have the correct almanac for my garden. A few minutes later, a photo of Harris' Almanac shows up on my phone with a message: 'Happy Farming.'