| FRIDAY November 29, 1996 | VALLEY 50 cents |
Central California’s leading newspaper
| A
dream really can come true The same week he played a gig at Wal-Mart, blues musician, Stan Ruffo of Visalia was invited to open for the legendary B.B. King. By Ken Robison The Bee VISALIA - Early 1980s: Cross-country truck driver passes the asphalt boredom by learning to play the harmonica from his big-rig cab. Mid-1990s: Ex-truck driver, now a professional blues musician, opens for the legendary B.B. King. The transformation of Stan Ruffo from trucker to blues play-er is one of those follow-your- dream tales. Ruffo can’t ever re-member not loving the blues, and now he’s making his presence felt in the California blues scene. |
But
carving a career playing the blues in Central California
means you take what you can get: Hosting a Sunday night
radio show; playing for a Wal-Mart late night sale;
nightclub gigs from Los Angeles to San Francisco and most
parts in between; interviews on Bay area radio stations;
recording demo cassettes; teaching harmonica to prison
inmates; filling in for a dying musician in a Fresno
nightclub; playing a free show in a Porterville
restaurant; organizing a blues cruise to Ensenada;
maintaining a blues site on the World Wide Web. And
opening for B.B. King, Feb. 9 at the Visalia Convention
Center. In the crazy world of show business, Ruffo
received that invitation the same week he played the
Wal-Mart gig in Visalia- drawing a big crowd that boutght
out all of his cassettes. The word "hustler"
comes to mind, not in the sleazy con-man context but in
the way some ball players hustle to keep up with their
more famous peers.
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And
hustling the blues from Visalia- several hours away from
the major music scenes - makes it very difficult. But
Ruffo is determined to stay. "People told me,
‘You’ll have to get away from here; this is not
a place to launch a blues career, ‘ "said the
45-year-old musicican the other day at Visalia’s
Main Street Diner. Yes, he once had an eight-month gig
there a few years ago. You name the place in Visalia,
Ruffo has probably performed in it. Naysayers told Stan
Ruffo other things: He’d have to play country to
survive. He couldn’t perform without a band. So far,
he’s proved them wrong. No country. And, for the
present, no band. Rather, Ruffo Please see Blues, page 22
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