It hit Dave Gallaher for the first time as he was sitting on Tuscaloosa bluesman Johnny Shines' couch one day in 1976: To really get it right a musician can't just play the blues that person must actually inhabit the blues. Gallaher had sought out Shines, who was working as an upholsterer at the time, for some guitar lessons. Shines is known for "Black Spider Blues" and other songs he performed on the 1966 compilation album "Chicago/The Blues/Today!" and for being a travelling and musical companion of Robert Johnson, the author of such songs as "Crossroads" and the subject of one of music's darkest rumors: That Johnson sold his very soul to The Devil in exchange for virtuosic guitar skills.
Gallaher brought an acoustic guitar to Shines home. "I sat on the couch and asked him a technical question, I think about playing slide guitar," Gallaher recalls now, "and he cranked up and started singing and playing with full energy at the top of his lungs as if I were an entire audience of people. And Johnny Shines had a large, powerful voice. It didn't matter to him that it was only one person. He laid it all out there."
If you've ever seen "Microwave Dave " Gallaher, perform you know he always digs deep onstage. Whether it's local small-room solo shows, like Mondays at soul-food spot Mamma Annie's, or playing big stages with The Nukes, his early-ZZ Top-level-oomph trio, like at Bike Week Daytona Beach or Huntsville's Panoply Arts Festival.
Musically, Gallaher always "brings it." And not just on bandstands. For many years Gallaher and The Nukes, which also feature bassist Rick Godfrey and drummer James Irvin, have performed in local schools. "Anyone who has not played for an audience of children has missed out on one of the greatest experiences in life," Gallaher says. "When they see something they like their response is immediate and energetic and there's not the same kind of social holding back we have as adults. They're up dancing and singing along and being involved in the music. There's nothing like it."
It's this combination of powerful music and community contributions that led to Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle proclaiming June 28, 2015 as Microwave Dave Day here. The honor came about when Gallaher friends Allison Lewis, Dennis Keim, Amy McCarley and Neeve Weinberger took the idea to the mayor. "He's been such a community icon for us for years and years and is part of the musical and artistic history of Huntsville," Battle says. "Anybody who knows Dave knows how much he's given back on a constant basis, taking music to the schools. I call blues a soulful music because it does kind of touch your soul. Especially with Dave. When you hear his music it does touch your soul."
Microwave Dave Day is being celebrated with a concert to be held 3-9 p.m. at AM Booth's Lumberyard, address 108 Cleveland St. A $10 donation at the door is suggested. Donations will be used to cover operating expenses associated with Microwave Dave Day and to help establish a fund for The Microwave Dave Music Education Foundation. The foundation's mission will be to support the sort of thing Gallaher has been doing on his own for years: enhancing Huntsville quality of life through musical outreach. Gallaher won't receive any money from the foundation nor will he guide it.
Battle will present Gallaher a key to the city at the beginning of the Microwave Dave Day concert. Huntsville's version of a key to the city is metallic, six inches long and bronze colored. Recent recipients include Gloria Vanderbilt and Condoleezza Rice. "It doesn't open anything - that's the first thing people ask," Battle jokes about the key, "but it's a signature of someone who's given to this city or made a difference in the city or has been important to this city and Dave is all those."
The Microwave Dave Day concert will boast sets from some of Huntsville's top musicians, including classical guitarist Phil Weaver, Americana singer/songwriter Amy McCarley, rock guitarist Dave Anderson and, of course, Microwave Dave & The Nukes. A complete list of performers and schedule is below. Evan Billiter, who in the past booked shows for Lowe Mill's Concerts on the Dock music series, organized the Microwave Dave Day concert. "One of the many things that stand out in my mind about Dave and his expression of the blues is how he brings our cultures together in musical unity," Billiter says. "He confirms that the blues aren't a black or a white thing, it's about portraying human emotion and storytelling."
McCarley was tasked with pitching the Microwave Dave Day concept to Gallaher. "I just really want to see him have a nice day of celebration and getting the recognition he gets all the time but all at once," McCarley says. But the honoree was initially hesitant. "I told her I wanted some time to think about it," Gallaher says, "because my job requires a certain about of self-promotion but it's easy to overdo. I can think of a lot of people around here that have done a lot more things for this community than I have." The next time he talked to McCarley the idea of a foundation that would forward some of Gallaher's interests, like bringing live music to schools, was presented. While Gallaher sees his school performances as philanthropy he hopes the foundation will help other local artists to get paid for doing so. "So the schools, the students, the teachers and the musicians benefit," he says.
McCarley first met Gallaher in the '90s before she was a full-time musician and still a NASA contractor who occasionally performed at open-mic nights. "He's been my mentor," McCarley says. "I just had basic questions. How do you balance commerce and art? Things like that. He helped me with how to approach the performance itself and feel more confident onstage." After shows sometimes Gallaher and McCarley will grab a late-night bite at places like City Cafe Diner. "And he'll talk about (that night's performance) in terms of the joy you can bring to people," McCarley says. "And he's always focused on that: what it means to be a performer and how you can contribute to the audience."
Gallaher started The Nukes in 1989. He'd been employed as a woodworker but when it looked like that day job would soon dry-up he stopped by Godfrey's stained-glass shop looking for work. "He came to work for me in 1987 or so," Godfrey remembers. "He was always playing (guitar) and wanted to start a blues band. He couldn't find a bass player so I said, 'Well, why don't you show me how?' So he loaned me a bass and showed me where to find the root notes for the different keys, and we started playing during lunch breaks and after hours. About the first five years of the band I would be the boss during the daytime and he would be the boss during the nighttime."
The Nukes' early sets were heavy on Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Little Walter. Their first performance was on local public radio station WLRH-89.3 FM and these days the band may play anywhere from 11 gigs a week to five gigs a month depending on the season. The group put more than 500,000 miles on their first touring vehicle, a 1984 Dodge van with a desert motif paint job. Despite all those miles, Godfrey says he can't remember having a single argument with Gallaher during their time together in The Nukes. "We don't always see eye to eye but we accept each other's viewpoints and he's like a brother to me pretty much," the bassist says. "He's a really gifted guitar player and a good person too. That's what's made it so easy working together all this time. The ego doesn't have much to do with it when you're playing from the heart. The things about Dave is he walks the walk. He pretty much lives to play and plays to live and he's a very spiritual man and he conducts himself along his own set of morals which are good and always front and center in his personality."
The Nukes went through four different drummers before connecting with a then-22-year-old James Irvin in 2004. Heavily influenced by Dave Grohl's drumming in Nirvana, Irvin brought youthful pow to The Nukes and Irvin was impressed with how wide The Nukes stretched the blues. The band's set veers off into things like '70s pop singer Leo Sayer's "Long Tall Glasses" and an instrumental version of "Bring on The Night" by '80s reggae-rockers The Police. "I've never heard another blues band do something like that," Irvin says. "But everything's blues, any rock 'n' roll or any subgenre. When people ask me what kind of music I almost hate to say blues. "
From Gallaher, Irvin says he learned to perform his best no matter the circumstances, whether they're background music at a wedding reception or rocking thousands at a festival, and deeply appreciating the fans that've come out to see them. The Nukes have hundreds of songs in their repertoire at this point but never use a setlist. That said, Irvin feels two of songs the band is doing best these days are the Gallaher original "Going Downtown" and R&B singer Percy Mayfield's "River's Invitation."
Jim Cavender, a respected Huntsville multi-instrumentalist and co-founder of local record label Startlingly Fresh Records, met Gallaher in the late-80s, when he sat in with The Nukes at the now-defunct Carriage Inn. In recent years, Cavender and Gallaher have done a handful of guitar duo performances, including improvising bumper music for a taping of Public Radio International's "Science Friday" at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center this spring. "To me he really pushes the envelope of blues guitar," Cavender says. "That's sort of the trick when you're playing blues - bring new ideas into it while still sounding like you're firmly entrenched in the genre." Weaver and Gallaher have been performing their Classical Blues Cabarets, woven from unlikely strands of George Gershwin and Robert Johnson, since about 10 years ago. They first met at the Fret Shop, where Weaver teaches lessons, back around 1989 when the Huntsville guitar retailer was still located on Pratt Avenue. "Dave puts a lot of study into the blues. He's a scholar about it," Weaver says. "There's a lot of technique that goes into playing blues and Dave's got some monster chops. I think the main thing I've learned from playing with Dave is learning to improvise. But blues and classical have more in common than you think. We're both trying to be expressive within a framework, be creative and communicate with the audience."
Sometimes that audience includes people you'd never expect. In late 2010, best-selling horror novelist Stephen King touted Microwave Dave & The Nukes in his final, long-running weekly column for Entertainment Weekly. "I want to beg you to go to YouTube and check out Microwave Dave & the Nukes blasting 'Highway 49' at St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Huntsville, Ala.," King wrote. "That electric slide guitar will change your way of life." Gallaher still doesn't know how King discovered The Nukes' music but suspects it's because the author is fond of creative band names. "It been a great thing," Gallaher says of King's shout-out, noting the instant credibility lent when a celebrity lifts up a lesser-known artists' work.
Gallaher typically brings six guitars to a gig, whether it be with The Nukes or one of his solo sets, which often find him layering multiple-guitars using a loop pedal to exciting and occasionally psychedelic results, as captured on his live album "American Peasant." He has at least six LPs to his credit, the last being 2011's "Last Time I Saw You." Gallaher's trusty Stratocaster is his most versatile axe, something he can play at anything from a barroom to a church and conjure appropriate tones. Flying Vs and funky cigar-box guitars are also part of his arsenal. "All my guitars have specific things they allow me to do," Gallaher says. "I think of them as tools, like clubs in a golf bag."
Born in Chicago and raised in Amarillo, Dallas and Houston, Gallaher's life was forever changed in the fourth grade when Dixieland band Cell Block Seven performed at his school. "They were really together and really exciting and a lot of fun," Gallaher says. "And my mouth was open for the whole time they played and it's like, 'Here's what I want to do.'" His first instrument was a ukulele. But one morning the young Dave Gallaher got out of bed and stepped right through the uke, which had been on the floor, and broke it. His first guitar was an old Stella that had been in the attic after Gallaher's father hadn't had much luck with it. While dad wasn't a natural musician, mom could pick out Claude Debussy compositions on the piano by ear. Gallaher started off on guitar learning Buddy Holly tunes like "Peggy Sue." Later on, his adult musical life included stops in Atlanta playing R&B with his band The Majestics, who once shared a bill with a young Aretha Franklin. While living in Georgia, Gallaher saw a transformative 1963 James Brown performance. "That's when I realized I'd been doing this all wrong, the R&B and rock 'n' roll I was trying to do." Gallaher later served as an Air Force intelligence specialist and at night played for GIs in a soul band called The Rotations. "I had this fulcrum experience being in Vietnam where I suddenly realized I might not get out of here and if I do get out of here I'm going to play music the rest of my life," Gallaher says. "And I want to make people feel better." Post-Vietnam, Gallaher lived in Boston, studied at the Berklee College of Music and joined a rock band called Cameron, which later relocated to Florida and on one memorable mid-70s night jammed with Allman Brothers guitarist Dickey Betts and singer Gregg Allman. It was Gregg's brother Duane Allman's bottleneck licks on Aretha Franklin's 1970 gospel-soul cover of "The Weight" that had introduced Gallaher to slide guitar. Gallaher became a thrilling slide player in his own right and The Nukes would later record with producer Johnny Sandlin, known for his work with the Allmans.
After a Nashville stint, during which he performed with gospel group The Thrasher Brothers, Gallaher relocated to Huntsville. His now-familiar stage name, Microwave Dave, was born on one mid-'80s night at the Kaffeeklatsch. Gallaher was there to hear a harmonica player called "Chicago" Bob Nelson and eventually sat in. After singing three or four songs, Gallaher got a nice hand from the crowd and Nelson got on the microphone and said, "Thanks very much, that was Dave...Dave...' Unable to recall Gallaher's last name Nelson finally said, "That was Dave the Microwave." And Microwave Dave was born.
The Nukes' raucous 1995 cover of Bo Diddley's "Roadrunner" somehow ended up being a soccer stadium anthem in Paris and led to opportunities for the band to tour Europe. "The people who don't have blues in their backyard all the time are a lot more focused on it when they get it," Gallaher says. "They see it as an art form rather than an entertainer who's here to sell a few beers."
Each Tuesday 6-8 p.m., Gallaher hosts a live radio show "Talkin' the Blues" on WJAB 90.9 FM, in which he spins blues recordings and conducts interviews. He deejays a "magazine style" edition of "Talkin' the Blues" 8-9 p.m. Saturdays on WLRH 89.3 FM., exploring contemporary and archival releases with segments focusing on specific albums, artists or imprints.
Gallaher began wearing his now-trademark overalls intermittently in the 1970s with performing with Cameron. In The Nukes' early days the Huntsville blues band often dressed to the nines. Spiffy jackets. Expensive shoes. Gallaher brought the overalls back though, partly due to his woodworking day gigs. "They were comfortable and if you had to stop what you were doing and get under the truck it was not a big deal," Gallaher says. These days his look also includes a snow white beard, charcoal newsboy cap and mirrored aviator sunglasses. When Gallaher takes the shades off, it reveals his clear, blue-jay-blue eyes.
There's talk of Microwave Dave Day becoming a yearly thing. If that happens, Gallaher hopes the event blossoms into a music festival featuring local acts from various genres, from blues to classical to rap. "That would be a dream come true. There's all this world-class talent out there that's out there working our saloons at night," Gallaher says, citing Dave Anderson, Dawn Osborne and Karla Russell as examples. "And we take that for granted."
Now 69, Gallaher says he's way beyond the typical lifespan for males in his family - another reason he never phones-in a performance. "I don't want to check out after a bad one. I don't think about it all the time but you don't know which one of these shows could be the last one you do."
Microwave Dave Day concert schedule
3 p.m. Welcome and introduction
3:05 p.m. Mayor Tommy Battle presents key to the city to Microwave Dave Gallaher
3:15 p.m. Classical Blues Cabaret, featuring Phil Weaver, Ingrid Von Spakovsky, and Microwave Dave, with Rosa Richardson
4 p.m. Amy McCarley featuring Microwave Dave on electric guitar, bassist Freddy Faust and drummer Michael Kilpatrick
4:45 p.m. .45 Surprise
5:30 p.m. The Dawn Osborne Band
6:15 p.m. The "Big Jam" featuring Dave Anderson, Charlie Howell, Jim Cavender, Chris Simmons, Hugh Messenger and Microwave Dave
7:15 p.m. James Irvin solo set
7:30 p.m. Microwave Dave & the Nukes