Filmmaker Kevin Mukherji’s new documentary “Tail Dragger” tells the story of an 82-year-old blues singer who was a protégé of Howlin’ Wolf and whose career recalls the heyday of blues clubs on Chicago’s West and South sides.
“I first met Tail Dragger almost 30 years ago,” Mukherji told an audience Saturday after the film premiered at Classic Cinemas Lake Theatre in Oak Park. “I’ve been shooting his performances for the last 25 years.”
Tail Dragger, whose real name is James Yancy Jones, represents one of the last direct links to an era when liquor flowed freely and musicians fueled late-night reverie that helped Chicago lay claim to being among the blues capitals of the world.
“I’m still here above the ground,” Jones told fans during a Q&A session after the screening.
I asked Jones about how his music celebrates having fun when so many associate the blues with sadness.
“The blues make me feel good,” he replied. “Blues is happy music. You have up and down times. That’s the way life is. You take the bitter with the sweet.”
“Tail Dragger” chronicles how Jones visited relatives in Chicago from his native Arkansas as a teen during the 1950s. He settled in the Windy City for good in 1966 after a stint in the U.S. Army.
He worked days driving trucks and fixing cars and stayed out until the wee hours of the morning learning how to play and sing the blues. Live blues music was choice entertainment for folks after a long day or week of work.
At its peak, it must have seemed like there was a blues club on every corner in part of Chicago.
“I grew up on the South Side,” “Tail Dragger” producer John McNaughton told the audience Saturday. “Muddy (Waters) and Howlin’ Wolf, they lived not too terribly far from where I did.”
McNaughton directed, cowrote and coproduced his first feature film, “Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer,” which was released in 1986. His other films include “Mad Dog and Glory” (1993) and “Wild Things” (1998).
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McNaughton said he helped Mukherji make “Tail Dragger” because Jones has such a fascinating story to tell.
“He’s got massive personality,” McNaughton said. “Telling stories is what I do for a living, and this man is a story.”
Mukherji, 59, has appeared as an actor in numerous movies and TV shows and directed several films, including “We Are One,” a 2017 documentary featuring Harold Ramis, Jimmy Carter, Forest Whitaker and others.
Mukherji directed “Death and Taxis,” a 2007 film that featured Tail Dragger in an acting role. Nick Pullia, an Emmy nominee and longtime director of communications for the Ravinia Festival, wrote “Death and Taxis” and emceed Saturday’s premiere.
Mukherji said shooting that film in Tennessee and Arkansas 15 years ago strengthened his resolve to make a film about Tail Dragger’s life.
“We got to be good friends,” Mukherji said. “It’s a passion project, straight from the heart.”
I appear briefly in “Tail Dragger,” talking about Jones’ influence as a performer and the history of blues music in Chicago. Mukherji reached out after he read a column I wrote about how blues music could be used as an educational tool to help bridge America’s racial divide.
I met with Jones in 2020 during the early months of the pandemic at his home on Chicago’s North Side. COVID-19 had upended his life. Restrictions on group gatherings had robbed him of opportunities to perform in public. He has no scheduled performances in the Chicago area, he said Saturday, but is scheduled to play in Finland in January.
Jones has recorded six albums, including two for Chicago’s Delmark Records, but his legacy is more as a live performer than as a recording artist. He told the audience Saturday he never wrote lyrics before recording songs in the studio, he just made them up on the spot.
“You don’t have to write nothing down,” he said. “You don’t have to write life down. You live life every day. When I write a song it happened to somebody I know. That’s what I feel.”
Mukherji said he wanted “Tail Dragger” to be a biography, not a musical documentary.
“I didn’t want it just about the music,” he said. “His life is more that just the music. I had to find a balance between the music and his life story.”
The most dramatic part of the story occurred in 1993, when Jones shot and killed Boston Blackie, another Chicago blues artist. Jones claimed self-defense, was convicted of second-degree murder and served 17 months in prison.
The two were involved in a dispute over $70 in payment owed to musicians after the 1993 Chicago Blues Festival, Jones said. He avoided Blackie for weeks, he said, but Blackie confronted him one night in a club. He lunged at Jones with a knife, Jones pulled out a gun and shot Blackie in the eye.
“It wasn’t something I wanted to do,” Jones said Saturday. “I asked the man to please leave me alone. Everyone was laughing at me, ‘He’s scared, he’s running.’ I was running because I didn’t want to hurt him. I knew I didn’t have no other choice.”
The killing adds to the mystique about Jones. He got the name Tail Dragger from Howlin’ Wolf, whose real name was Chester Arthur Burnett (1910-1976). Jones met Wolf in the late 1960s in Chicago.
He got the name for two reasons. First, Jones was often late showing up for gigs because he worked days, he said, and second, he was slow to learn musical timing because he initially listened to what the guitarist was playing instead the band time keeper, the drummer.
Mukherji said he is working with streaming services to distribute “Tail Dragger” in early 2023. The 90-minute film is entertaining and well paced.
“What fascinated me most about Tail Dragger is his life journey,” Mukherji said. “He never gave up. No matter how tough things got he kept on going. That’s something we can all learn from.”
Ted Slowik is a columnist for the Daily Southtown.