Texassippi Soul Man Danny Brooks and Lil Miss Debi will add a vibrant musical note to the free Rotary anniversary barbecue to be held Saturday at Marine Peace Park.
“Music connects with the soul,” says the gravelly voiced singer/songwriter, who now calls Texas home. “Over the years, I have been in a hard rock band, an all-country band, an all-gospel band, a big-horn band and rhythm and blues bands.”
He has worked with the late Joe Dickinson, a producer for the likes of Aretha Franklin and the Rolling Stones, who told Brooks, “I hear the conflict and the resolution and I can work with you.”
Brooks dubs his music southern soul, which he describes as an amalgam of all those genres with a liberal dollop of rock and roll.
“Mom used to play Hank Williams, Reverend Jumpin’ Jim Jericho and Taj Mahal. I was four and five and I loved it,” he says, noting he was also influenced by rhythm and blues recordings his older brother introduced him to. “The church I went to, although it was all white, had a black attitude; it had that real up-tempo gospel sound. It was very infectious and it touched me at a really young age as well.”
Brooks says the power of that up-tempo gospel music was incorporated by such artists as the Rolling Stones, Sam Cook, Otis Redding and BB King.
“They all came from the church; even Springsteen recorded a lot of gospel, not just in sound but in message content as well,” he says. “You might be able to take the boy out of the church, but you can’t take church out of the boy.”
Brooks attributes the power of faith as the reason the 64-year-old artist is still alive.
Now clean for 29 years, Brooks danced with the devil till he almost died.
His drug habit included shooting up methamphetamines, a practice that landed him in jail at the age of 20.
“I was 85 pounds and my parents were horrified. They prayed for me, the whole church prayed for me,” he says. “When I got out of jail, I never touched a needle again, but I started drinking, snorting cocaine and taking downers to sleep.”
Redemption also appeared in the form of a woman. Brooks started dating his wife, Debi, in 1987 and says it didn’t take her long to realize he had problems.
“She’s not a shrinking violet and she said she was not going to enable me. She said ‘I love you but you need help, you’re gonna die and I don’t want that.’”
On April 8, 1987, Brooks entered a rehab facility in Toronto and has been clean ever since.
Adamant that if he could clean up, others could too, Brooks visits prisons and jails wherever he tours, sharing his message in his music.
“No matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done or how far down you’ve sunk, there’s absolutely nothing you and God can’t work out to get you back on a happy track,” he says. “I’m not a preachy kind of guy… I’m not always beating them over the head. I share from the point of what I went through.”
Clean and the survivor of a quintuple bypass, Brooks says he is one of the happiest people on the planet.
“Every moment is precious,” he says. “I don’t deserve it, but I’ve got a lot to be thankful for and that’s reflected in my life and my music.”
And it is his music that has a fan in Roots and Blues Festival artistic director Peter North.
“He’s a really soulful artist but also a very knowledgeable and talented blues-based artist,” North says, pointing out Brooks worked with late musician Richard Bell in Janis Joplin’s band. “Anybody who got the thumbs up from Richard, I pay attention to.”
Brooks and Lil Miss Debi will perform Saturday, July 23 at Marine Peace Park as part of Rotary’s 70th anniversary celebration, which takes place from 4 to 7 p.m. Everyone in the community is invited to this free celebration that is a “thank you” to the community that has supported the organization and its three Salmon Arm and once Chase club over the years.
Saturday’s celebration will include a barbecue hosted by the Chase club and a number of Rotary displays. Take a lawn chair.