Mills follows muse to new sounds

SANDPOINT — James Brown famously holds the title of being “the hardest-working man in show business.” B.B. King has to be a candidate for similar recognition, since he stills plays an average of 300 shows a year, even at age 88.

On the local level, one itinerate musician lays claim to being the gigingest guy around.

“I counted it up and I did 215 gigs last year,” said Truck Mills, who might be best known to Sandpointians as the host of the Monday Night Blues Jam at Eichardt’s Pub & Grill.

He started the jam when the Kamloops Klub was still in existence on First Avenue, later moved the event to the Donkey Jaw on Cedar Street and stayed on when that establishment changed owners — and names — to become Eichardt’s.

“Now I’ve been doing it for over 20 years,” Mills said.

Over the past couple years, the musician has been rediscovered by audiences in Coeur d’Alene and Spokane, where he now appears regularly in a variety of venues. After so many years as a staple of the Sandpoint arts community, Mills finds it refreshing to be an unknown commodity in untested surroundings.

“It’s nice to be the new kid on the block again,” he said. “It’s kind of funny, but I think a lot of people in Sandpoint who have never even heard me might have an impression of who I am.”

Who he is might best be described as a talented blues player whose ears led him first into explorations of jazz and, subsequently, on a worldwide tour of the music and instruments of other cultures. Time was that Mills would arrive at his shows with just some sound gear and a guitar — an instrument he still features with dazzling exhibitions of finger-style and slide work.

These days, however, he packs in a multi-cultural assortment of stringed instruments, including, but not limited to, examples that are indigenous to the Middle East, South America and the Hawaiian Islands.

“The nice thing about showing up to a three-hour gig with a guitar and an oud and a charango and a ronroco and a lap steel is that I can’t wait to pick up the next instrument,” Mills said.

No matter what he wraps his hands around, there is an innate sense of soul that comes out of each instrument, as if the blues had suddenly been transported to new lands and new modalities, but still managed to hold on to its basic character.

“I’m starting to get excited, because all of this is coming together,” the musician said.

To give an example, he pulled one of the instruments off a wall that is covered with them and played a natural minor scale. The first time through, he parsed it out in a very measured, precise way. Then the notes flowed out in a more exotic form — serpentine and slippery. Lastly, they burst forth in a flurry of sound, scattershot and rushing at the listener.

“That scale can be found in Middle Eastern music and in music from India,” the player explained, adding that it is also found in music of the Western hemisphere and Europe. “You know what the difference is? Phrasing. It’s all in the way they approach it.”

Mills hung one instrument up and grabbed another — a much-worn, mojo-infused old resonator guitar he calls Miss National — and began to pick a slow blues riff that transformed itself into a lively Indian raga.

“The notes are the same,” he said, looking up from the guitar. “It’s how you get to the note that changes things.”

After several years of playing saxophone in school band, the guitar bug bit Mills at age 18, when he became fascinated with the fingerpicking styles of artists such as James Taylor and Paul Simon.

While millions of 1960s-era youngsters list seeing The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show as the reason they chose a career in music, Truck Mills made that decision after being smitten by a bluesman he saw on television.

“When that happened to me was watching the comedian, David Steinberg, who had a musical guest on his show,” Mills said. “It was B.B. King.

“You talk about a defining moment — I remember thinking, ‘What in the heck was that?’ It was stamped, indelibly, on my mind.”

The next two decades took him deep into the rabbit hole of the blues, where he explored the Delta kings, along with the finger-style licks of English players such as John Renbourn and Bert Jansch. The slide work of Duane Allman grabbed his attention and started a journey to find the roots of that style, leading Mills through the newer catalogs of players such as John Fahey and Ry Cooder on the way back to Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Son House and Blind Willie Johnson.

“I spent most of the ’70s and ’80s in ‘Bluesland,’” Mills said. “To this day, if somebody brings up a band from the ’80s, I don’t know what the heck they’re talking about. I was listening to scratchy, old records from the ’20s and ’30s.”

The musician’s studies took on a more structured approach when he started playing the oud (rhymes with “food”) — a pear-shaped forerunner of the lute that dates back as far as 3,000 B.C., with roots in the Middle East and North Africa. Learning to play the 11-stringed, fretless instrument meant cracking down and immersing himself in a complex, new musical language.

“For the first time, I felt like I was a classical musician,” said Mills. “The discipline involved in getting to know the instrument itself and the technique had me playing four to five hours-a-day — I was obsessed.”

His obsession, though, led to shoulder problems associated with holding the sizable body of the oud. Over time, the pain started to affect his ability to play other instruments in his collection. And because making music is his full-time job, Mills was forced to set his obsession aside, at least temporarily, in order to heal. The break, he added, also gave him some much-needed objectivity.

“Music is all about the big picture and I’m still just coming around to getting the big picture,” he said with a grin. “I needed some distance. Mentally, I needed to get away from that thing. And, honestly, I think I’m a better oud player because of it.”

Weaving the musical strands of different cultures together has created a tapestry that now points the way for Mills as an artist. The next step, he explained, is to become “a fearless improviser.”

“The main thing is to be like a child and to be fearless,” he said. “That means not worrying about being clever, being hip or being impressive. What I’d like to do is get out of the way and let the music happen. To me, that’s the goal — that’s the ideal.”

Lord knows he gets ample opportunity to strive for that goal, what with playing more than 200 engagements a year. In many cases, Mills drives an hour or more each way to get to the venue. As he packs up all those instruments after yet another gig and pulls onto the highway for yet another long drive home, the musician doesn’t feel like it’s a grind. What he feels is grateful.

“I can’t imagine ever losing that,” he said. “I get home and think, ‘Wow! I just got paid for making music.’ How lucky is that?”

For more information about Truck Mills, to hear sound files and learn about upcoming shows, visit him online at: www.truckmills.com.