Dennis Dullea
Gwitar Player
In your face Texas guitarslinger who takes no prisoners.
Fort Worth, Texas Les Paul/Marshall Blues guitarist. Known around North Texas as "The Reverend Marshall Gibson"
DENNIS DULLEA (pronounced Dull-lay) is a Texas Blues guitarslinger who has been playing guitar for over 40 years. Finding himself on the street & without parents at age 13 he turned to the guitar. He first heard the Blues in 1962 on radio station XERF in tiny Del Rio, Texas. Disc jockey Wolfman Jack was playing "Green Onions" by Booker T. and the MG's, and Dennis was hooked on the sound of the Blues forever.
In 1967 he took the bus from the North side of Ft. Worth to the old Leonard Bros. department store downtown and found an album in the import bin of the record department. It was John Mayals "Bluesbreakers" album with Eric Clapton reading a "Beano" comic book on the cover. He was hoping that this had the guitar sound that he had been looking for, but he wasn't sure & didn't have the $2.98 for the record. He decided he'd take a chance so, he hid the record way in the back behind the others and then slipped around the corner, lied about his age and sold his blood for $5.00.
After he got the record home he put it on his record player. He was not dissapointed! Clapton came screaming out of the speakers doing a blazing cover of Freddie Kings' "Hideaway"..THAT WAS IT! The sound of a Screaming Electric Guitar that he had been looking for! His jaw hit the floor...
He HAD to have an electric guitar! Until then he'd only had acoustic or gut string guitars, usually borrowed from other people at that. But pennyless and with a father who hated him and would only allow him to sleep on the back porch in a sleeping bag it seemed impossible to get an expensive electric guitar. Much less the amp he would need. But by working for day-labor places he got a second hand Fender Telecaster (Pink Paisly no less) in a Northside pawnshop for $120.00.
Using the mic input on an old tube radio for an amp, he glued himself to that record player for hours at a time...feverishly stealing from Clapton until his fingers bled.
Then late in 1967 he heard Jimi Hendrix for the first time. "He went right past me, It was too far out, and I couldn't figure out what he was doing" He didn't know Hendrix was tuned to E-flat and couldn't figure out why he couldn't play along with his records. Besides that..."Back then NOBODY could get sustain and feedback because they didn't have tube screamers available at the corner music store"
In 1968 at age 17, He started his professional guitar playing career in the late Pat Kirkwoods' notorious "Cellar" club in downtown Dallas, TX.
Dennis also played the "Cellar" clubs in Houston and Ft. Worth, TX., until they were all closed in 1974.
It was there that he shared the stage with, and soaked up chops from: BUGS HENDERSON (the Godfather of all Texas Blues guitarslingers), Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughan (who was known then as "Little Stevie Vaughan") and a host of other great Texas blues and rock guitarists of the late sixties and early seventies.
Bands playing in the Cellar club started at 6 PM and played untill 6 AM, five nights a week for $15.00 a night per man. The walls were all blacked out, and the ceilings were covered with blacklights and strobe lights, and the strobes blinded everybody (especially the guitar players) all night long. The teenage waitresses wore just skimpy bras and panties, and doubled as Go-Go/strip dancers between serving fake drinks. Two foot high letters on the wall proclaimed "Evil spelled backwards is Live." There were always at least 5 mean looking bouncers on the floor, and Dennis sometimes doubled as a bouncer when out of a band.
Some nights the musicians had to dodge fists or bottles, some nights it was blades or bullets. Dennis was on stage playing "Every day I have the Blues" the night Club Manager and Rock-A-Billy legend Johnny Carroll was shot in the Dallas Cellar in 1971..(Johnny lived..but the guy who shot him and his friend did not).
It was at the Dallas Cellar that Dennis first met 15 year old Stevie Vaughan, and spent many nights swapping guitar licks, chords and stories in the musicians break room upstairs. Stevie was the one who first turned Dennis on to E-flat tuning and showed him the chords to Hendrix's song "Little Wing".
From there it was another 30+ years of paying dues in the Redneck clubs up and down the infamous (and deadly) Jacksboro Highway on the North side of Fort Worth, and playing guitar in an incomprehensable number of Hillbilly beer joints, roadhouses, taverns, Swamp bars, picnics, parking lots, and Blues joints in Texas, Louisianna, Mississippi, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Ohio, and Florida. Many times playing just for free beer or only for tips.
By the mid eighties Dennis had become a full blown alcoholic, living in run down trailer parks, abandoned buildings, and even living and sleeping in a car for a while.
By October of 1988 the night life had taken it's toll. Dennis saw a detour sign in the fast lane, and he took it. The new road led to a more spiritual life that eliminated the use of any mind or mood altering substances. He has followed that road ever since October 24th 1988.
By 1994 accompanied by just a bass player and drummer, and with a song list composed of nothing but blues and Hendrix covers, he signed on with a professional booking agency in Dallas and was getting booked an average 20 nights a month in the then booming Dallas/Ft. Worth nightclub scene.
In October 1998 at the annual SRV birthday tribute show at Blue Cat Blues in Dallas he brought down the roof with his SRV/Hendrix guitar work and recieved 3 standing ovations from the enthusiastic crowd. Copy and Paste the URL below into your browser to watch one song "Pride and Joy" from that show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi5d8sQYu0U&NR=1
Although Dennis has been in over a hundred different bands of one kind or another...His first love has always been the blues and the guitar style of Jimi Hendrix.
Dennis has always been well known for his uncanny ability to perform note-for-note covers of many of Hendrix's songs and guitar solos (including playing with his teeth) and sometimes still does when prompted at his shows.
This album "Gwitar Player" (an ebonics nickname given to him by his customers in a Ft. Worth pawnshop he managed) is a "best of" compilation of two of Dennis' other CD's "The Blues is Holy" CD, (a July 2000 studio CD that was recorded at Eagle audio in Ft. Worth), and "Dennis Dullea LIVE!" recorded live at the 6th Street grill in Ft. Worth, TX. on 10/24/02. It contains the best cuts of both CD's.
If you like great electric blues guitar, good vocals, and gut wrenching solos backed up by stripped down, driving bass and drums then you will love this CD.
All guitars and vocals are by Dennis Dullea.
On the live tracks electric bass is performed by the legendary Texas Tornado Hall of Fame member TONY DUKES (Ted Nugent band, Cold Blue Steel Etc. Etc...who's pedigree is too long to list.)
Live track drums are performed by the inimitable STEVIE "The Kid" MARBUT. He plays plays the drums with satin gloves and like a freight train coming at you.
On the studio cuts it's Texas percussion virtuoso (and also a Texas Tornado member) "ROCKIN RON" THOMPSON on the drums (Bugs Hendersons' "Shuffle Kings" drummer for over 10 years.)
On electric bass, and yet another Texas Tornado member, the great Texas bass legend JIM MILAN (The Juke Jumpers, Alan Haynes Etc.)
Hammond B-3 organ is performed by the great Texas blues organist RONN COBB.
Dennis is now 58 and lives in his long time home town of Fort Worth, Texas. He is suffering from severe pereferral neuropathy (a very Painfull Burning) in his feet from degenerative diabetes, and can walk only with the help of a cane. He still teaches guitar for a living ($50.00 per one hour lesson) www.revmuddy@sbcglobal.net 817.602.9573
For updates and information on live performances go to his website:
WWW.DENNISDULLEA.COM
Note live versions of "Personal Mgr." "Chitlins' Con Carne" & "Red House" are from a "Voodudes" performance at Mogollon brewery in Flagstaff, AZ April 2004. Featuring RICHARD NEVILLE on electric bass, and EDDIE Barritini on the drums.
Text by Joe Mama. copyright 2004-05-06-07-08. dennisdullea.com No part of this text or video may be used or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of Dennis W. Dullea.
Many Thanks to the Honest, Hard Working people at CDBABY who get everything done almost INSTANTLY, and who are making it possible for me to share my music with the world......and THANK YOU for looking...Dennis
Blues: Texas Style