Bio Of Dennis Dullea

About

DENNIS DULLEA (Dullea is pronounced like "today") is a Texas Blues guitarslinger who has been playing electric Blues Guitar for over 44 years. Finding himself without Parents and on the street 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 had no idea who "John Mayal" was, but he had heard of Eric Clapton from the band "Cream" and he was hoping and Praying that this had the BLUES guitar sound that he had been looking for on it, but he wasn't sure & He had been Ripped Off so many times by buying terrible import records that had bad guitar playing on them and horrible Jug bands etc. etc. and on top of that, He didn't have the $2.98 for the record. He decided he'd take a chance so, (He had NO IDEA what was about to happen to him when he heard this record for the first time!) 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.

When he returned to Leonard Bros. Dept store, the record was still there hidden away in the back of the row, and after he got the record home he put it on his record player. The first song was "All your Lovin" and had a beautiful overdriven guitar solo on it...The Likes of which he had never heard before. Then Clapton came screaming out of the speakers with a 1960 Les Paul Standard and a JTM-45 Marshall combo amp on 10, doing a blazing & Original cover of Freddie Kings' "Hideaway" (He had no idea who Freddie King was and had never heard the song "Hideaway")

THAT WAS IT! The sound of a Gibson Les Paul Standard Screaming Full Blast through a Marshall Tube Amp! He had no idea that That's what he was hearing But, He knew the moment he heard it for the first time that that was the SOUND that he had been searching, for and Hearing in his Head and looking for Years! 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. The only Electric guitars He had ever played were in Music stores and that was only until some rude clerk told him that if he wasn't buying he would have to put it down and get out of the store. So, pennyless and with a father who didn't want him around, would only allow him to sleep on the back porch in a sleeping bag and the draft board hot on his heals, 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 Maple Neck Fender Telecaster (Pink Paisly no less) in a Northside Ft. Worth 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, and the little speaker in the old tube radio blew out!

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. His very first gig was playing Bass for Rocky Hill, the Brother of ZZ Top's Bass Player Dusty Hill. 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, 15 year old 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 October of 1988 alcohol and the night life had taken everything he ever had and there was no one left to leave him. He had lost his Wife, his kids, his house, his cars, his health and finally his Sanity. 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. That day was October 24th, 1988, and he is still clean and Sober as of today....August 2009.

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 soon 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 Original Versions of SRV/Hendrix songs and recieved 3 STANDING OVATIONS from the enthusiastic crowd. Click on the you Tube screen here to watch "Pride and Joy" from that show.

Although Dennis has been in over a hundred different bands of one kind or another...His first love has always been the Electric Blues as the sound was originated on the South Side of Chicago in the Early 50's By a man named McKinley Morganfield. Who later went on to become Muddy Waters the "Grandfather" of Electric Blues as we know it today. Dennis was also VERY HEAVILY influenced by the inimitable guitar pyrotechnics 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. Dennis also has incredible respect for the MASTER JAZZ GUITARIST WES MONTGOMERY, and believes that Austin, Texas Guitarist ERIC JOHNSON is far and away the very best guitar player alive today. But make no mistake about it...Dennis LOVES ALL OTHER GUITAR PLAYERS No matter how much or how little thet believe they can play, and believes that music is BY FAR TOO SUBJECTIVE TO LABLE AND JUDGE. His simple philosphy is that "MUSIC IS NOT A COMPETITION" BUT RATHER A GIFT FROM GOD TO BE ENJOYED BY ALL.

Dennis is now 59 and is residing in his longtime hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, Where he has spent most of his life since 1968. He stays busy with teaching Guitar and marketing his CD "Gwitar Player" and His New instructional DVD "Texas Electric Blues Guitar" with Dennis Dullea. He (as always) remains very aproachable, and can be easily contacted through his email: revmuddy (at) sbcglobal (dot) net or the main line customer service number for TBG.net which is 817.602.9573.

THANK ALL OF YOU FOR DROPPING BY AND PLEASE COME BY AGAIN ESPECIALLY ANY FRIEND OF BILL W.

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